Nature The Christians followed them melting into tears calling them their Fathers and their Pastours and besought them not to abandon their Flock But they with countenances as clear as are the smiles of the fairest morning did comfort them and did promise not to forget them in the other life They did exhort them to shew themselves courageous in Persecutions assuring them that they were the places of Pleasure where even the Thorns should grow into Crowns They both looked back upon Rome and beheld it as the field of their dearest Conquest And God did discover to them the effects of their Bloud how that Infidelity was subdued the Church was established in the capitall City of the Universe the Crosse was planted on the root of the Capitoll where they died as amongst palms and the odour of their Sacrifice did ascend to heaven As long as there shall be Intelligences and Stars above as long as there shall be Ages and Men below these two Apostles shall be beheld as the two Eyes of the Christian world The Fathers and the Doctours of Mankind the Gates of Heaven and Triumphers over unbelieving Rome which they have now converted into Rome the Holy At their Palmes all the Laurels of the Conquerours shall fade and the instruments of their Punishments shall obscure their Trophies The tongues of men can pronounce nothing more pleasing then their Name The Church hath nothing more precious then their Virtues nor more powerfull then their Examples nor more honourable then the Veneration of them The detestable Nero the year after these Martyrs suffered finding himself tormented with Furies invested with infernall Shades torn in his conscience by Vultures and wounded with sharp Razors being abandoned both by God and men understanding that Vindex from France and Galba was marching against him from Spain to revenge his Sacriledges he did fly away and killed himself it being impossible for him to die by a more polluted or a more execrable hand Queens and Ladies MARY STUART The most excellent Princesse Mary Queene of Scotland and Dowager of France IN the last place I will produce the History of the incomparable Queen Mary Stuart where in the height of its lustre I will represent unto you Innocence persecuted as much by the jealousies of love as State and that by a general combat of all passions on which she hath raised a Trophey by the invincible constancy at her death I have taken delight to peruse many Authours on this Subject and to draw out the truth from a confused Chaos where the malice of many passionate Historians had extreamly perplexed the Story and I have done it the more willingly because it is a service which I render to the first Truth which I adore To France which nourished and advanced that great Spirit To the King of Great Brittain who is honoured for his Bloud and Royal Virtues To Scotland who brought her forth and to England it self the sounder part whereof have alwayes detested the attempt which was committed on her person I must intreat the Reader to believe that there was never History more disguised by a knot of Hereticks never wickedness did carry more artifice nor calumny more fables or fables more colours or impiety more strength to crie down a poor Princess And this hath made so bold a noise that some Catholicks either too ignorant or too negligent not taking the pains to read and examine the reasons alledged were betrayed themselves to an indifferent belief of the defaming Libels of the Enemies of our Religion as if they would believe the History of Jesus Christ compiled on the reports of the Scribes and Pharisees A Calvinist of late the Authour of a Spanish History hath thrust into his Book many outragious reports against the Memory of Mary Queen of Scotland by a Digression stale enough which doth eclipse the light of the History and the Day of her passion If that man had any modesty he would have acknowledged his small abilities to be seen in print If he had any reverence he would have spared the person of a Queen If his heart had been touched with any piety he would have pardoned the Dead If he had in his soul any sence of honour being in the service of the King of England he would never have printed such insolent things to the disadvantage of his Majesty he would never have barked at the ashes of so great a Ladie Reader to make you the better to understand with what equity I will proceed in this Narration I will not alledge unto you either Sanders or Bosy or Florimond of Raymen or Father Hilarius of the Order of the right reverend Fathers of the Minims who have all wrote very worthily concerning this Subject I will derive the principal truths I shall produce from Cambden a Hugenot Historiographer of the Queen of England who hath wrote this Story not in Pamphlets running without authority but in authentick Memorials It hath pleased God that this person having a generous ambition to speak the truth should search into the Records and produce papers that had been buried which sufficiently do make appear the artifices of Elizabeth the innocence of the Queen of Scotland Reader Behold whither the abundance and the force of Right and Truth doth carry us that we take even our enemies for our Judges and Witnesses in this cause MARY STUART the onely Daughter of The Birth Education of this Queen Mary Stuart James the Fifth King of Scotland and Mary de Lorain Grand-child to the thrice virtuous Antonietta of Bourbon was a Queen who in my judgement hath equalled the excess of her disasters with the height of her glory and it seems her whole life was no other than a Theater hung round with blacks and covered with bloud where the revolution of humane affairs did act unheard-of Tragedies Never did Nature produce more beauties nor Grace more wonders in a personage of that high condition Never did Fortune deal more rigorously with a head which Heaven had made to support three great Crowns She was born in Scotland she lost her Father eight In the year 1542. on the 〈◊〉 Deâ—ember on S. Lucies Day dayes after her birth she was brought into France at the age of five yeares and was nourished in the Court of Henrie the Second and Katharine de Medicis who did love her most entirely She was yet but as the Bud of a Rose which within her first infancy did preserve her Graces undisclosed But as she began to lay them more open by the increase of age we might then behold a Princess descended from the bloud of a hundred Kings who had a body formed and fashioned by the hand of Beauty a fine and a clear spirit a deep and a sound judgement a high Virtue and an incomparable Grace in her expressions All which made Henrie the Second resolve to give Her marriage and widowhood her in marriage to his son Francis to whom she was espoused about the
is as the Wise-man said as the rain-bowe that is bright in the fair clouds This is he whom after so many storms so many tempests and such a deluge of Christian bloud God seems to exhibit as a restorer of things a Peace-maker to the world an avenger of evils and a bestower of blessings And indeed this is not done by humane counsel but by the gubernative reason of God which is his Providence that he might demonstrate to the world by no vain auguries that to this man as to the Patriarch Noah the tops of the mountains should appear the waters of strife and the flouds of contention being dried up This I suppose is that dove with silver wings and whose hinder parts glittered as the purest gold whereof the Prophet spake Innocentius hath ever shined brighter then silver by the candour and uprightnesse of his mind but now the latter parts of his life promise a golden Age unto the world He doth not sit idle amidst the complaints and mournings of the Church he doth not revel in an uncircumspect and lazy greatnesse but with unwearied pains and a mind alwayes vigilant he is intent upon illustrious cares for Christ and aimeth at the consolation of mankind The amiable name of Pamphilius is delightfull unto all men and delightfull is the name of Innocentius so often consecrated to the salvation of men Innocentius the first extinguished Alaricus boasting himself in the prey of the Roman Empire with his prayers and by his splendour re-beautified the face of the eternall City when it was infuscated with the sooty vapours of a brutish Warre Innocentius the second dissipated the Schism of the counterfeit Anacletus and with the co-assistance of S. Bernard composed the Christian world when it was disunited with great discords A pure white dove fore-shewed the inauguration of Innocent the third by flying to his side without doubt designing the solicitous endeavours whereby he laboured to consociate all Christian Princes by firm Leagues one with another and to exasperate them against the common enemy of Religion Innocentius the fourth came to Lyons that he might reconcile the irregular tumults in the Church and that by his authority he might remove Frederick the Emperour that fomented many things and disturbed all things Innocentius the fifth was no sooner crowned but presently he addicteth his mind to pacifie the Cities of Italy and being by such pious determinations immortall in glory he spent his short Pontificate in a fatherly care of his people Innocentius the sixth when the flame of a destructive warre devoured France and England stood stoutly for the House of God and with a great spirit laboured for Peace with John and Edward at that time the Kings of the Nations Innocentius the seventh mounted not otherwise to this pitch of supreme Dignity but by a faithfull endeavour constantly transacted to reconcile the Princes and appease the cities of Italy which a malignant force of discord had precipitated into imminent destruction Innocentius the eighth was most desirous of Peace among Christian Princes and could not without some motions of impatience see any go to warre but upon the most important and importunate causes Innocentius the ninth when before his Pontificate he was the Aposticall Nuntio of Gregory the fourteenth staying six years among the Venetians conjoyned them both in Arms and Armies with the Pope and Philip the second King of Spain and irritated them against the Turk whereupon that most famous victory of Naupactus broke the boldnesse of the Sarazens and after a wonderfull manner improved the conduct of Christian Affairs Oh how is the name of the Innocents born and consecrated unto Peace Oh joyful appellation unto Christians The Tenth will accomplish what the nine have attempted so much the greater as this number is the more noble Go on thou dove of Innocence display thy silver wings flie over both earth and sea view the world shew forth in all places the celestiall olive give Peace so ambitiously desired and by such constant expectations wished give Peace I say so often called for and to be implored of thee the Anointed of the Lord or else at this time it must be despaired of What remaineth Greatest Princes but that you grant that to our Petitions which you have hitherto denied to our Reasons Whatsoever restraineth passion whatsoever can appease an armed man in fury doth now run towards you in one troop that so it may be honourable for you to be thus intreated and shamefull for you not to yield to these intreaties Behold the Pope the Pastour and Parent of the whole Church stretcheth out friendly hands unto you and when he might command intreats you almost forgetting that he is the Pope he becomes an humble suppliant A man dear to heaven and born for great enterprises Worthy in all places to bear the felicities of the world about him amidst all his exalted prosperities is your Petitioner that Divine wit equall to his heighth feels a colluctation with these burdens and in a vigorous and circumspect old age is grieved by you The bowels of a Father are urged who is as often fruitfull in the generation of children as he desires those children to be reconciled to Peace Be ashamed not to hear him whose predecessour Attila would hear He is full of dayes honour his grey hairs he is a Father acknowledge his Charity he is the Pope be observant of his Dignity God forbid that he like meek Jacob should be compelled to say Simeon and Levi are brethren in iniquity Let not my soul participate of their counsels and in their company let not my glory come Cursed be their fury because it is obstinate and their indignation because it is cruel The whole Church lamenteth with her Pope in times past triumphing now deformed full of filth now bedewed and almost drowned in tears and tired under cares and sorrows He beseecheth you that you would not suffer the Ammorites and the Moabites to insult in your destructions Prevent the petulancy of such an objection that even Barbarians did reverence him and yet he had Parricides to his sonnes How often have we seen the Priests at Jubilees prostrate in the Sanctuary with ejulations How often have we beheld Religious persons wearying the Altars with unwearied prayers How often have we seen the well-disposed Virgins imploring the aid of heaven by frequent sighs How often have we gladly beheld the Devout multitude crouding the Church to pour forth their wishes Of what quality and complexion is that rigour that which God a vert will not hear the whole world How is the metall of their souls compounded that would make heaven iron unto us and almost noxious whilst it either seemeth not to hear or what it heareth to contemne To be never free from Warres they think is either for the publick profit or for their own if for the publick let them hear S. Augustine crying out That felicity acquired by Martiall exploits is alwayes a brittle perishable beauty
promised themselves in their prophesies an everlasting Empire he grew moody even to rage employing all manner of engines to give counterpoize to their exaltations Besides he being ever desirous to appear exactly absolute in his commands and effectuall in his enterprizes thought he must never give over persecution till he had buried the memory of the Christian name and he voluntarily suffered himself so to be flatttered upon this subject that no man could do a thing more acceptable than to tell him he had extinguished the wicked Sect and established the honour of the Gods immortal Columes also and Monuments were dedicated to him with this inscription SUPERSTITIONE CHRISTI UBIQUE DELETA which witnessed these honours were yielded him for having throughly purged the world from the superstition of Christ but his conscience suggested the contrary wherewith his spirit fierce and cruel was horribly amazed O God! we may well say there is neither force nor counsel can oppose your designs your divine Providence shut up in a cloud roareth over crowned heads in a moment overthroweth the mountains of winds which the Tyrants raised one upon another and makes the silly wisdom of the greatest politicians appear like an owl unfeathered and ashamed at the rays of the mid-day Diocletian who was reputed the subâ—iâ—est and most He leaveth the Empire couragious man of the world upon a suddain resolved to forsake the Empire and to hide himself in some grot like a beast timorous and wretched He abandoneth the scepter and purple to retire himself into a little country-house and with his own hands to manure a garden This gave matter enough of surmise to all the Reasons world which could not penetrate his intentions It was believed by no man that he did it for humility for these apprehensions found no place in the heart of a man who caused himself to be adored and presented his shoes embroidered with precious stones to be kissed by them who came to salute him He notwithstanding publickly professed that he addicted himself to this life through a generous contempt of the vanities of the world being fully satiated with honours of the earth and having accomplished all the hopes of the most ambitious so that he knew what the fortune of the Caesars was and that Diadems were charged with more thorns than pearls that there was but one way to contentment of life which was to despise what others a doted and pursuing this he wrote a letter to a friend of his who perswaded him to re-assume the Empire If you saw the lettice which grow in my Garden planted with mine own hands you would think me too good a Gardener to become a miserable Emperour This man would needs play the Philosopher which he had never learned and endeavour to colour this change which he had made with apparences of virtue but the most understanding judged it was the disease of Timon and a melancholy enraged that had transported him into this retirement He was extreamly confounded to have drawn bloud out of all the veins of the earth to stifle a Religion which flourished in its proper ruins It seemed unto him that a million of spirits of the dead encompassed his bed to require from him an account of their lives he began to apprehend something divine in this Religion which he had so out ragiously persecuted and withall to fear a horrible punishment in the revolution of the affairs of his estate Behold the cause why despaire anxiety and eminent peril made him voluntarily to despoile himself as a man ready to be drowned believing still that be should have a better penny-worth of the punishments of Heaven in the person of a Gardener than in that of an Emperour He anticipated his punishment serving for executioner to himself and leaving an Empire which seemed as it were as fast tyed to him as his soul to make being yet alive an honourable recompence to the truth which he had so unworthily offended He persuaded Maximianus partaker of all his crimes to be also the companion of his fortune and both of them retired leaving in their places Galerius and Constantius the father of our Constantine ignorantly giving the Empire to him who had already brought forth a son who should ruin all that which these two had built Let us now behold his extraction and qualities beginning from the eminencies of his birth and let us find in his time the wicked Hermit in the bottom of his cave The second SECTION The Nobilitie of Constantine IT is said when nature made the wild lillie she also Plinius Campanilla Ruaimentum naturâ— lilia facere discentis taught how to make lillies and I may say when she created the grandfathers and parents of great Constantine she then began the work of a perfect Emperour which she afterward finished in the person of this Monarch whose life we write Nazarius observeth that he was descended from Nobilitie of Constantine the Emperour Flavius Claudius a Prince so renowned that it was said the moderation of Augustus Caesar the virtue of Trajan and pietie of Antonius were assembled together to harbour in his heart He sustained one of the most furious incursions of the Barbarians which ever was upon the Roman Empire for be in one sole battel defeated three hundred and twentie thousand and deserved a statue of gold which was erected for him in the Capitol having reigned onely two years Constantius Clorus the father of our great Constantine was as the rose amongst thorns for he lived among those Barbarous Emperours who made the world shed tears of bloud with so great sweetness temper and continencie that France and England where he ordinarily resided loved him as their father That which gained him the good will of people was that he rendered himself affable to all the world and thought no treasure greater than the love and affection of his subjects He was a capital enemie Notable moderation in Constantiâ—s of extortions and levies of unjust monies even to the lessening rather the train of his house than to overcharge those which other Governours had oft-times so ill entreated He being as yet but nominated for the Empire Eusebius Diocletian understanding his deportments whether he would teach him frugalitie or that he feared lest the bright lustre of the integritie of Constantius might eclipse him one day reproched him with his povertie and sent Embassadours to him expresly to see his husbandrie and exhort him to heap up treasures as well as other Caesars He desirous to appear Excellent passage magnificent at this meeting spake but one word which was to give the people notice he wanted money It was a pleasing spectacle to behold how all the world ran to him with full hands every one offering him what he had with a love so cordial and so prompt alacritie that nothing might be said to be more affectionate He in few hours amassed together A judicious experiment great treasures which he shewed
thousand Crowns to him who should bring him to him and having understood that the Pope had made him his delegate into France and Flanders he did importune the French King by all manner of Sollicitation to deliver him into his hands But the brave Prince although it was directly against his Interest would do nothing that was against his generous mind and received the Cardinal with all courtesie and fidelity because he would not offend the Pope howsoever he would not suffer him to continue long in France because he would not exasperate the King of England for he had great use of his assistance in the war which he made against the Emperour Pool was then constrained to repair to Flanders where he was charitably received by Cardinal Everard Bishop of Cambray and he continued there sometimes attending the disposition of the Pope But Henry understanding that he was retired into that Province did again kndle his choler and that in so violent a heat that he promised the Flemmings to entertain four thousand men in pay for ten Moneths in favour of the Emperour against the French if they would abandon the Cardinal to his discretion Howsoever he found none that would favour his violence which did so incense him that he caused the Countess of Salisburie to be arrested She was mother to the Cardinal and daughter to the Duke of Clarence brother to Edward the fourth She was accused for having received a letter from her Son and for having worn about her neck the figure of the five wounds of our Saviour on which he commanded that a Process should proceed against her which was performed accordingly and the perverse and abominable Judges who made all their proceedings to comply with the merciless sury of their Prince did condemn her to death and caused her head to be cut off upon a Scaffold where she gave incomparable demonstrations of her piety and constancy Her dear Son who did love and respect her with all the tenderness of affection was extreamly afflicted at it and could find no comfort but in the order of Gods providence and in the glory of her death which was pretious before God After this the Legate was called back to Rome and after he had informed Paul the third of the misery of the people of Christendom who incessantly groaned under the calamity of war kindled betwixt the two principal Crowns he did contribute the uttermost of his indeavour to provide a remedy for it This good Pope was courteous liberal magnificent well versed in letters and above all a great lover of Astrology It seemeth that the Harmony of celestial bodies with which his spirit was so delicately transported did touch his Soul with a desire to make a like harmony on earth He was passionate for the Peace of Christian Princes and as he well understood the great capacity of Cardinal Pool joyned with the Royal bloud which gave him a more full Authority he did not delay to send him with a most Authenticall Commission to mediate an accord betwixt the two Kings The holy Prelate undertook this busines with great courage being carried to it as well by his own inclination as by election He failed not to represent unto their puissances all reasons both Divine and humane which might move them to an accord for the glorie of God for the glory of their own Monarchies and for the safety of their people But as he found in the ear of Henry the Eighth a Devil of lust which obstructed all the force of reason which was presented to him to divert his passion so he found in the spirit of these two Monarchs a horrible jealousie of Estate which stopped all enterance to his saving Counsels The time was not yet come and it was to row against the wind and tide to press that business any further He was constrained to return to Rome where the Pope gave him Commission to go to Wittimbergh where he continued certain years delighting in the fruits of a sweet tranquillity In the end the Councel of Trent being already assembled to extirpate Heresies and remedy the disorders with which its venemous Contagion had infected the brest of Christendom he was chosen to be president thereof which place for some time he executed to the admiration of his knowledge and the universal approbation of his zeal But when Paul the third having exceeded the age He is considered on to be Pope of four-score years did pay the Tribute common to the condition of the living he was obliged to return to Rome where all the world did cast their eyes on him to make him the head of the Church All things seemed to conspire to his Election his age his bloud his virtue his knowledge his great experience in affairs the general affection of all which did pass almost to veneration It was onely himself that resisted his own Fortune because he would not assist himself and permitted nothing of a submiss softness to over-act his generosity neither in that nature would he be a suppliant although it were for the chiefest Miter in the world The Nephews of Paul the third who as yet possessed the most high Authority of affairs considering the faithfulness of the great services which he had rendered their uncle did perswade him with importunity to this chief Bishoprick of the world And as the Conclave was assembled and the Decision of the great business did approch unto maturity they came at night into his Chamber to speak with him concerning his promotion and to offer themselves to his service to prefer unto him that Sovereign dignity But he shewed so little complacence to their discourse that in stead of making indearments and submissions of which they who pretend to honour are always excessively prodigal he made answer to them That God was the God of light and that the affair which they came about ought not to be treated on in darkness That one word did rebate the edge of their spirits and on the morning following the good Fortune which for two moneths together did look directly on Cardinal Pool did slack its foot at the dismission of the Nephew Cardinals and Julius the Third was chosen Pope a person of much renown and a great Lawyer Pool his Competitor well understanding that it was He retireth again into solitude not expedient to reside under the eyes of a Potentate to whom the power over Christendom was secretly preferred retired to Mentz into a monastery of Saint Benets where he enjoyed the delights of rest to which his inclinations carried him exercising his devotion to the height and recreating himself with good letters which he always loved But God who by his means was pleased to bring about the greatest revolution of Estate as Europe ever saw did cause occasions to arise to draw him from that solitude to return again to his great imployments It is necessary in this place to make mention of the condition of the affairs in England to behold virtue in
THE HOLY COURT IN FIVE TOMES The FIRST Treating of MOTIVES Which should excite men of Qualitie to CHRISTIAN PERFECTION The SECOND Of the PRELATE SOULDIER STATES-MAN and LADIE The THIRD Of MAXIMS of CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST PROPHANESSE Divided into Three Parts viz. DIVINITIE GOVERNMENT OF THIS LIFE STATE OF THE OTHER WORLD The FOURTH Containing the Command of REASON over the PASSIONS The FIFTH Now first published in English and much augmented according to the last Edition of the AUTHOUR Containing the LIVES of the most Famous and Illustrious COURTIERS taken both out of the OLD and NEW TESTAMENT and other Modern Authours Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN S. J. Translated into English by Sr. T. H. and others LONDON Printed by WILLIAM BENTLEY and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS in Pauls Church-yard MDCL THE HOLY COURT DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM Caeca Cupido ruit caecusque Cupido Via Regia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HOLY COVRT dixi Dij estis et filij excelsi omnes 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Solomon ex ad perfectum Vsque perduxit Reg. 3. G. G. sculp To the MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY OF HENRIETTE-MARIA QUEEN OF GREAT BRITTAIN A COURT adorned with virtue and sanctified with pietie is here most EXCELLENT QUEEN to your view presented which having once already in pure and Native colours received light and life from the bright eye of your Royal BROTHER would gladly at this time in a harsher language and ruder garment adventure your gracious acceptance The subject is serious the discourse usefull and proper for those who in Court so serve Princes that they neglect not an humble acknowledgement to a more transcendent Greatness It hath pleased GOD as a singular favour to this Kingdom to affoard us in your MAjESTIE a pious Queen who exemplarly maketh good what diffusedly is here handled Let then lesser lights borrow beams of radiance from your greater Orbs and persist You Glorious Example of virtue to illuminate and heat our Northern Clime with celestiall ardours Adde to earthly Crowns heavenly Diadems of Piety Here shall a HOLY COURT be found fairly delineated nor can I see how it will be in the power of persons of best eminence to plead ignorance and pretend inability they having such a Book to direct them and such a Queen to follow Lead then with alacritie most Sacred MAJESTIE and may propitious Heaven so prosper your holy desires that the Greatest may have matter to imitate and the whole Nation to admire TO THE KING OF FRANCE SIR THis Treatise of the Holiness of Courts before it be published comes forth to behold the great and divine lights wherewith God hath environed your Majestie whom he hath chosen out to sanctifie the COURT by means of two reflections which are the Example of your virtues and the Authority of your Laws As for example You supply as much as in a Prince may be desired who hath brought innocency into the Throne of Majestie as an earnest-pennie of Royaltie and whitened the very Flower-de-luces by the puritie of your heart and hands This argument in my opinion should powerfully operate in the hearts of French-men For it would be a disorder in Nature to see bad subjects under a good Prince to plant vice in the Kingdom of Virtue and to have a bodie of morter and feet of clay affixed to a head of Gold It is fit impudence should be extreamly shameless not to blush when the sparkling lustre of a Crown casteth into the eyes the glimmering flashes of so great a Pietie Where example cannot reach Kings have Laws which are given them from Heaven as hands of gold and iron to recompence merits and chastise crimes And as your Majestie SIR from your most tender years hath shewed a singular propension to the detestation of Impietie and maintenance of Justice that causeth me to say Your Majestie hath great means to make the COURT essentially holy which the disabilitie of my pen cannot express but on paper It is a work worthy of a Christian King who standeth in the midst of Kings and Nations as heretofore the statue of the Sun in the midst of publick passages Royal hands cannot be better employed than to erect the Tropheys of Sanctity That is it which all the first have done CONSTANTINE in the Roman Empire CLODOVAEUS in France RICAREDUS in Spain ETHELBERT in England CANUTUS in Denmark WENCESLAUS in Poland All those who have taken that way have been glorious in the memory of men whilest others that have prepared Altars and Tables to Fortune as saith the Prophet Isaiah erecting Monarchie on humane Maxims have built on the quick-sands of imaginary greatness which hath served them to no other purpose but to measure their fall Vice and Voluptuousness cannot immortalize men since they have nothing lasting in them but the sorrow of their infancie and the infamie of their name All the greatness and happiness of a Prince is to make in his virtues a visible image of invisible Divinitie then to imprint the same on his subjects as the Sun doth his brightness on the Rain bowe SIR Your Majestie knoweth it by proper experience God hath made you to read the decrees of good success written as it were with the rayes of your pietie By how much the more you are affected to the service of the great Master so much the more the good success of affairs hath followed your desires You have seen your battels end in bays and the thorns of your travels to grow all up into Crowns And as we are ever in this world to merit so we ought to hope that so many worthy acts will also with time take their just increase and that you shall sow new virtues on earth to reap felicities in Heaven Lastly that he who hath given you the enterance of Solomon into the Kingdom will grant you the exit of David This is the vow which offereth to God SIR Of Your MAJESTY The most humble most faithfull and obedient Subject N. CAUSSIN TO THF NOBILITIE OF FRANCE SIRS THis Work as it is composed for your sakes offereth it self to your hands without bearing any other ornament on the brow but the reflection of Truth any other recommendation than the worth of the subject It is not the abundant store of sanctity in the Courts of our Age which maketh this stiled the HOLY COURT but this Frontis-piece onely carrieth the name because this Book beareth the model which verily with more ease is moulded on paper than printed on the manners of men Yet we may affirm that God who draweth the sons of Abraham from the midst of flints and rocks doth in all places reserve Saints for himself and he that will consider it well shall find that in all times the Courts of zealous Princes have had their Martyrs their Confessours their Virgins and Hermits I have a purpose when my leisure will permit to divulge the lives of Kings Princes Lords men of state and likewise also of
all other consideration This good husband who had so much affection for his dear spouse suffers himself to be won by the ambition and easiness of his nature which bowed much to the wills of those who seemed to wish him well and by the lustre of the purple presented to him Maximianus would needs play the Tyrant aswell over loves as men and plotting marriages placeth his daughter in the conjugal bed of Constantius to plant him in the Throne of Caesars S. Helena of more worth than an Empire understanding Virtue of S. Helena the news bare this alteration with great constancy not complayning either of the chance force or disloyalty of Constantius but accounted it an honour that to refuse her no other cause was found but the good fortune of her husband She more feared than envied Scepters and was hidden in her little solitude as the mother of pearl under the waves breeding up her young Constantine in such sort as God should direct her Constantius touched with this admirable virtue lived in body with Theodora and in heart with his Helena He gave contentment in the East to a man Imperious and served the times to have his will another day But he was in the West in the better part of himself Besides when he was absolute and that he must needs divide the Empire with Galerius his Colleague he voluntarily resigned the rest of the world unto him to have France Spain and his I le of England where the moity of his heart remained It is a very hard matter long to restrain an honest Love of Constantius and S. Helena and lawful love It is said when Sicily was torn from Italy by an arm of the Sea which interposed it-self a-thwart palm-trees were found by the violence of waters rent asunder which in sign of love still bowed the one to the other as protesting against the element which had separated their loves The like happened to Constantius and Helena the torrent of ambitions and affairs of the world having parted their bodies could not hinder the inclinations of their hearts Constantius returned into Great Britain there to live and make his tomb for he in the end died in the Citie of York And as he being on his death-bed was asked which of his children he would have succeed him since besides Constantine he had three sons by Theodora at that time forgetting his second wife and her off-spring he answered aloud CONSTANTINUM PIUM I will have no other successour but the PIOUS CONSTANTINE which was approved by all the Army Thus God the Master of Scepters and Empires willing to reward the modestie of the virtuous Helena laid hold of her bloud to give it the Empire of the world in the end leaving the sons of Theodora to whom Maximian promised all the greatness of the world The third SECTION His Education and Qualitie A Great Oratour hath heretofore said speaking Gregor epist 6. l. 5. ad Childebertum Quantò caeteros homines regia dignitas antecellit tantò caeterarum gentium regna regni profectò vestri culmen excellit of Constantine that he appeared as much above Kings as Kings above all other men It is the Elogie which afterward S. Gregorie gave to our Kings Verily he was accomplished with a spirit and bodie in so high a degree of perfection that there needed no more but to see him to judge him worthy of an Empire Nature sometimes encloseth great souls in little bodies ill composed as fortune hath likewise placed Kings in Shepherds Cottages It is an unhappiness deserving some compassion when a great Captain is of so ill a presence as to be taken for one of his servants and be made to cleave wood and set the pot over the fire to prepare his own dinner as it heretofore happened to Philopaemen Constantine took no care for falling into such accidents Beautie of Constantine It seemed as Eumenius saith that nature from above had been dispatched as a brave harbinger to score out a lodging for this great soul and to give him a bodie suteable to the vigour of his spirit so well was it composed He was of a stature streight as a palm of an aspect such that the Oratours of that time called it divine of a port full of Majestie his eyes sparkled like two little stars and his speech was naturally pithie sweet and eloquent his bodie so able for militarie exercises that he amazed the strongest and so sound that he had no disease In these members so well proportioned reigned a vigorous spirit very capable of learning if the glorie of Arms had not wholly transported him into actions of his profession His father well enformed of his fair qualities caused him to come into the East where he took a tincture of good letters at the least so much as was needfull for a warlick Emperour and applied himself seriously to the exercise of Arms wherein he appeared with so much admiration that he was alreadie beheld with the same eye one would an Achilles or an Alexander were they alive again Diocletian who had not as yet forsaken the Empire would have him at his Court to work him from apprehension of Christianitie to which he might be alreadie much disposed and draw him to the hatred of our Religion It was a most dangerous school He was bred in the Court of Diocletian for this young Prince for education ordinarily createth manners and we are all as it were that which we have learned to be in our younger dayes Constantine notwithstanding gathered flowers in this garden-bed not taking the breath of the serpent which was hidden there-under He soon learned from Diocletian militarie virtue prudence to govern souldiers good husbandrie in revenews authoritie to become awfull but he took nothing either of his impietie or malice This Barbarous man in the beginning passionately loved him and would perpetually have him by his sides but when he saw that passing through Palestine and other parts of his Kingdom the young Constantine was more respected than himself so much his carriage especially compared to the harsh countenance of the Emperour had eminence in it he began to grow into suspicion and as it is said desired secretly to be rid of him But Constantine prevented the blow retiring under an honourable pretext to the Court of Galerius the associate of his father Constantius who most willingly left this son with him in pledge thereby to hold some good correspondence with him This Galerius was a creature of Diocletians who Constantine at Court of Galerius had heretofore declared him Caesar yet still retained such power over him that when he had displeased him he made him run on foot after his coach not deigning so much as to look upon him He in the beginning very courteously entertained the son of his faithfull friend affording him all manner of favours but in process of time he conceived a strong jealousie beholding in this young Mars more excellent parts than
suitable to the greatness of this Mysterie Another having lived free from the bands of marriage caused to be set on his tomb Vixit sine impedimento Brisson for He lived without hinderance which was a phrase very obscure to express what he would say Notwithstanding it was found this hinderance whereof he spake was a woman This may well happen through the vice and misery wherein the state of this present life hath confined us but to speak generally we must affirm had it been the best way to frame the world without a woman God had done it never expecting the advise of these brave Cato's S. Zeno homil de continent Aut hostis publicus aut insanus and whosoever endeavoureth to condemn marriage as a thing not approved by God sheweth that he is either out of his wits or a publick enemy to mankind The great S. Peter in whose heart God locked up 1 Pet. 3. Vi qui non credunt Verbo per conversationem mulierum sine verbo lucriâ—iâ—nt the Maxims of the best policie of the world was of another opinion when he judged the good and laudable conversation of women rendered it self so necessary for Christianity that it was a singular mean to gain those to God who would not submit themselves to the Gospel Whereupon he affordeth an incomparable honour to the virtue of holy women disposing it in some sort into a much higher degree of force and utility than the preaching of the word of God and in effect it seemeth this glorious Apostle by a spirit of prophesie foresaw an admirable thing which afterward appeared in the revolution of many Ages which is that God hath made such use of the piety of Ladies for the advancement of Christianity that in all the most flourishing Kingdoms of Christendom there are observed still some Queens or Princesses who have the very first of all advanced the Standard of the Cross upon the ruins of Infidelity Helena planted true Religion in the Roman Empire Caesarea in Persia Theodelinda in Italie Clotilda in France Indegundis in Spain Margerite in England Gysellis in Hungarie Dambruca in Poland Olga in Russia Ethelberga in Germanie not speaking of an infinite number of others who have happily maintained and encreased that which was couragiously established Reason also favoureth my proposition for we must necessarily confess there is nothing so powerfull to perswade what ever it be as complacence and flattery since it was the smoothest attractiveâ— which the evil spirit made use of in the terrestrial Paradise to overthrow the first man setting before him the alluring pleasures of an Eve very newly issued out of the hands of God Now every one knows nature hath imparted to woman a very good portion of these innocent charms and it many by these priviled ges are also powerfull in actions so wicked why should not so many virtuous souls generoully employed in the service of the great God bear as much sway since he accustometh to communicate a grace wholly new to the good qualities that are aimed to his honour I conjure all Women and Ladies who shall read this Treatise to take from hence a generous spirit and never permit vice and curiosity may derive tribute from such ornaments as God hath conferred on them it being unfit to stuff Babylon with the gold and marbles of Sion The second SECTION That women are capable of good lights and solid instruments SInce I see my self obliged by my design to make a brief model of principal perfections which may be desired for the complishment of an excellent Ladie and that this discourse cannot be throughly perfected without observing vicious qualities which are blemishes opposite to the virtues we endeavour to establish I will make use of the clew of some notable invention in so great a labyrinth of thoughts the better to facilitate the way I remember to have heretofore read a very rare manuscript of Theodosius of Malta a Greek Authour touching the nuptials of Theophilus Emperour of Constantinople and his wife Theodora which will furnish us with a singular enterance into that which we now seek for so that we adde the embelishment of so many Oracles of wisdom to the foundations which this Historian hath layed He recounteth that this Theophilus being on the Anno 830. Zonoras saith that she was onely step-mother and relateth it somewhat otherwise but let us follow our Authour point to dispose himself for marriage the Empress his mother named Euphrosina who passionately desired the contentment of her son in an affair of so great importance dispatched her Embassadours through all the Provinces of the Empire to draw together the most accomplished maidens which might be found in the whole circuit of his Kingdom And for that purpose she shut up within the walls of Constantinople the rarest beauties of the whole world assembling a great number of Virgins into a chamber of his Palace called for curiositie The Pearl The day being come wherein the Emperour was to make choice of her to whom he would give his heart with the Crown of the Empire the Empress his mother spake to him in these terms MY LORD AND SON Needs must I confess that since the day nature bound me so streightly to your person next after God I neither have love fear care hope nor contentment but for you The day yieldeth up all my thoughts to you and the night which seemeth made to arrest the agitations of our spirit never razeth the rememberance of you from my heart I acknowledge my self doubly obliged to procure with all my endeavours what ere concerneth your good because I am your mother and that I see you charged with an Empire which is no small burden to them who have the discretion to understand what they undertake It seems to me since the death of the Emperour your father my most honoured Lord I have so many times newly been delivered of you as I have seen thorny affairs in the mannage of your State And at this time when I behold you upon terms to take a wife and that I know by experience to meet with one who is accomplished with all perfections necessary for your State is no less rare than the acquisition of a large Empire the care I have ever used in all concerns your glory and contentment is therefore now more sensible with me than at any other time heretofore It is true O most dear Son that the praise-worthy inclinations which I have observed in your Mujestie give me as much hope as may reasonably by conceived in the course of humane things yet notwithstanding the accidents we see to happen so contrary to their proceedings do also entertain my mind in some uncertaintie That you may take some resolution upon this matter behold in the Pearl of Constantinople I have made choice of the most exquisite maidens of your Empire to the end your Majestie may elect her whom you shall judge most worthie of your chaste affections I beseech God
books of the Trinity S. Thomas of Canterbury rested between the arms of France whilest Henry of England thundered sentences and proscriptions of death against him If one countrey become a step-mother another proves a Mother and the Divine Providence the worlds great Harbinger ever findeth some petty work to entertain its elected But if there be no means to escape and that servitudes must be undergone prisons and chains and that scaffolds must be bloudied to satisfie the revenge of an enemy Then is the time when a spirit well habituated in the continuall exercises of virtue entreth into the centre of the soul and beholdeth as from a high fortresse the vicissitude of humane things which here below have in them nothing immovable but their proper unstedfastnesse Then it is when despising these veils of body composed of our inferiour elements it now entereth in thought into the region of Intelligencies then it is when it accosteth the legions of so many Martyrs who on their bodies have received as many wounds as they had members and have moistned the sacred palms of their victories in the effusion of their bloud All which is humane yieldeth to the Tyranny of persecutours but the immortall spirit makes it self a large way all bordered with lawrels in the Temple of glory and reputation and like to the dove of the Prophet whose wings were of silver taketh a high and exalted flight to declare to all ages the innocency of a great courage and to make its relicks survive in Cabinets and in the memory of all good men How many have we seen die on Scaffolds who with the sweetnesse of their countenances terrified the most terrible aspects of executioners They spake they did they suffered they ordered their deaths as matter of Triumph they comforted others in their suffering at a time when they had much to do not to complain themselves They acted together all the parts of wisdome and came off so well in every one as if they onely had undertaken this one It was a great thing for them to do but to do it so exactly is that which for ever makes them the more admirable and it was a matter incredible that speaking so well they yet suffered better in an occasion where words have no credit works no time violence no relaxation nor enmity Compassion The third Treatise Of DESIRE § 1. Whether we should desire any thing in the world The Nature the Diversity and description of Desire THe Sages make a question whether it be a thing to be wished to have no Desire And there are of them who Whether it be good to have no desire think that to live happy and contented we must banish all desires For they are amusements which perpetually entertain us with the time to come which put us on the Rack and burn us by our proper thoughts Desires are the Echoes of our loves which mock us and counterfeit certain voices essences and personages which ordinarily are made of nought else but wind But now say others to have no desires is to have no soul no sense no reason it is to be a fly not a man The Seraphins in Isaiah stand by Gods side yet cease not to clap their wings to signifie unto us there is no soul so perfect and contented which hath not the heart still excited with some generous desire Trees are purified by the winds agitation rivers are cleansed and purged in their perpetuall currents and the heart by desires If we would have no desires we must not talk any more of eating and drinking we must no longer have this young lover sigh after his beloved we must not then admit learned men to make love to wisdome That wrastlers burn with affection of prizes due to their valour and that the souldier covers himself with his wounds to embellish his garlands all ought to be indifferent to us and that is the way quickly to runne into the nature of rocks and stones We must here make a notable distinction of desires insomuch some are naturall given by God to man for the preservation of himself Others are artificiall which arising out of an exorbitant will are nothing but floud and ebb but agitations and tempests Desires are like number one cannot name any so great but that it is capable of addition Hence it proceedeth that the world is replenished The world replenished with desiring souls Psal 50 v. 12. Tabescere fecisti animam meam alia versio liquescere fecisti ut timeam desiderium ejus Eos felicitas ingrata subterfluit ut semper pleni spei vacui commodorum praesentibus caâ—eant dum furura prospectant In Psal 92. Richardâ—â— de S. Victore in Psal 80. An excellent picture of desire with desiring and suffering souls and that there is not almost any one who is not in expectation and breathes not the air of the Region of desires The most part of men resemble the moth which gnaws a garment and in gnawing eateth its own house For by the eagernesse of desiring the future they lose all the pleasure of the present and demolish their fortune by their greedinesse to raise it That is it which the Panegyrick wittily expressed pronounced before Constantine the sonne Felicity glideth by us as the water which streameth along under bridges when still full of hope we rest unfurnished of contentments Desiring hearts saith S Augustine are as those great-bellied women to whom the eternall word hath denounced a Curse in the Gospel All the world would be but a morsell in the mouth of mans heart saith Richardus de sancto Victore since its wishes are infinite and that it is evident that in Infinity what part soever you assigne you are still at the beginning If you desire that I make you a picture of the nature and perquisits of Desire I will tell you it is a strange countrey whereunto the prodigall Child sailed when he forsook his fathers house to undertake a banishment a Country where corn is still in grasse vines in the bud trees perpetually in blossome and birds alwayes in the shell You neither see corn fruit nor any thing fully shaped all is there onely in expectation It is a Countrey full of figures phantasmes illusions and hopes which are dreames without sleep a Countrey where the inhabitants are never without feavers one is no sooner gone but another cometh into its place There dwelleth Covetousnesse a great woman meagre lean starven having round about her a huge swarm of winged boyes of which some are altogether languishing others cast her a thousand smiles as she passeth along upon her self she hath an infinite number of horsleeches which suck upon her to the marrow Time looketh on her afarre off and never cometh near her shewing her an enchanted looking-glasse wherein she seeth a thousand and a thousand false colours which amuse her and when she hath sported enough she hath nothing to dinner but smoke Behold the table of Covetousnesse grounded upon The
of Nevers Barbarous Anger of Bajazet caused almost two thousand Falconers to be killed for a hawk which had not flown well He well deserved to be shut up in a cage as he was afterward for sporting with such prodigality with humane blood It is much more intolerable when Christian Princes flie out as did Lewis the young who being offended by Theobald Count of Champaigne entred into his territory and made strange spoil even to the setting of the great Church of Vitry a fire and therein burning fifteen hundred men who fled into it as into a Sanctuary But this enraged passion knew no distinction between sacred and profane and the confusion of this fancy confounded heaven and earth Good French men abhorred an act so barbarous and S. Bernard who then flourished made the thunders of Gods Lewis the Young admonished by S. Bernard chastiseth himself for hiâ— aâ—ger by sadnesse and penance judgements to roar in the Kings ear wherewith he was so terrified that re-entring into himselfe he fell into a deep melancholy which caused his mind to make a divorce from all worldly joyes wherewith he became so dejected that he was like to die had not S. Bernard sought to cure the wound he gave shewing that the true penitent ought to be sad without discomfort humble without sottishnesse timorous without despair and that the grief of his fall should not exclude the hope of his rising again But they are more tolerable who punish themselves with their own choler as Henry King of England that bit his lips gnashed his teeth pulled off his hair threw his bed and clothes on the ground eat straw and hay to expresse his impetuous passion 5. They who are arrogant and given to contemne Danger of scoffing Polydor. Virg. l. 9. and flout others draw fire and poison on their heads when they assail impatient natures which have not learnt to feed themselves with affronts and injuries A word flying like a spark of fire raiseth flames William the Conquerour of England very suspicious which are not quenched but with great effusion of bloud Philip the first hearing that VVilliam the Conquerour who was very grosse would not suffer any man to see him by reason of a corporall infirmity It is no wonder saith he if this big man be in the end brought a bed This being told to the other who was of a capricious spirit he protested he would rise from his child-bed but with so many torches and lights that he would carry fire into the bosome of France And verily he failed not therein and in this fury so heated himselfe that he died in proper flames A man hath little to do to enkindle a War at the charge of so many lives for a jest a cold countenance a letter not written obsequiously enough for a word inconsiderate 6. The Flemings were to blame when revolted against History of Froissard Philip of Valois they out of derision called him The found King and advanced a great Cock on their principall standard the device whereof was that The scoffs of certain rebellious Flemings severely punished by the generosity of Philip of Valois when he should crow the found King should enter into their city This so exasperated his great Courage that he waged them a battel and with such fury defeated them that Froissard assureth that of a huge army of Rebels there was not one left who became not a victime of his vengeance Lewis Outre-mer was detained prisoner at Roan for having in his anger spoken injuriously against Richard the young Duke of Normandy And Francis the First ruined all his affairs for having handled Charles Duke of Bourbon with some manner of indignity therein complying with the humour of the Queen his Mother 7. The Anger of potent women is above all dreadfull when they are not with-held by considerations of Anger of women conscience because they have a certain appetite of revenge which exceedeth all may be imagined Queen Eleonor wife of Lewis the Young who had as violent Queen Eleonor an enemy of France a spirit as ever animated the body of a woman seeing her self repudiated by her husband albeit upon most just reason conceived such rage fury against France that being afterward remarried to Henry of England she incestantly stirred up all the powers of that Kingdome to our ruine and sowed the first seeds of Warre Dupleix which the continuance of three hundred years which an infinite number of fights and battels which the reverence due to Religion the knot of mutuall Alliances and Oath interposed in sixscore Treaties could not wholly extinguish 8. There are other anger 's free and simple which Annals of France proceed from an indiscreet goodnesse but which fail not to occasion much evil to themselves when they assail eminent and vindicative people It was the misery of poore Enguerrand of Marigny who having governed Anger our of simplicity many timâ—s cause hurt for a word too free witnesse that of Enguerrand the Finances under Philip the Pair and afterward seeing himself persecuted by Charles of Valois unkle of Lewis Hutin Heir of a Crown was transported with so much heat that it cost him his life For this Prince sharply asking an account of him of the treasures of the deceased King he freely answered It is to you Sir I have given a good part of them and the rest hath been employed in the Kings affaires Whereupon Charles giving him the lie the other transported with passion had the boldnesse to say unto him By God It is you your self Sir This reply being of it self very insolent and spoken at a time when all conspired to his ruine sent him to the Gallows of Montfaucon which he had caused to be built in his greatest authority Men cold and well acquainted with affairs who commonly think much never speak ill of them that can hurt them 9. All these extravagancies which we have produced have proceeded from fervour but there are others cold and malign as are Aversions and Hatred which are no other then inveterate and hardened angers so much the more dangerous as they proceed from a spirit more deep and are plotted with more time and preparation So did Lewis the Eleventh who had many Labyrinths in his heart wherein he kep his revenges and oftentimes took delight to send them abroad with ceremony and pomp to take the more pleasure in them So soon as he was King he set himself to revenge his injuries as if power given from heaven ought to be an instrument of passion He persecuted a good subject which was the Count of Dammartin for no other crime but for having obeyed and executed the order of Charls the Seventh who had sent him into Daulphine to stop Lewis who then turmoiled and perplexed the King his father He prevented this plot and fled into Flanders yet ceased he not afterward to hate this good servant and albeit he prostrated himself at his
fifteenth year of her age being himself not much more indebted unto yeares than she was All things laughed at the beams of this bright Morning and it seemed that Felicity her self had with full hands poured down her favours upon a Marriage which had been made in Heaven to carry along with it the approbation of all the earth But who can dive into the secrets which Providence The inconstancy of humane affairs hath in her own breast concealed from us Or who is he that hath tears enough to deplore the condition of great Fortunes when they are abandoned to the pillage and plunder of destruction This young French King having in his way but saluted Royalty after his reign but of six moneths was taken out of the world by an Impostume in his ear All France did groan under this loss by reason of the excellent inclination of that Prince but she was more touched with the impressions which in her heart her most dear Spouse received who desired to sacrifice the rest of her dayes unto the ashes of her husband Nevertheless as the tenderness of the Kings age who was troubled besides with divers indispositions of body and the short time they were married together did not permit that any issue should be left behind him there did arise upon it a report that the young Her return into Scotland Queen should return into her own Countrey where two Crowns did attend her the one in England the other in Scotland she being the true Inheritress of them both of one of which she took possession and was deprived of her rights in the other by the injustice of Usurpation 3. Elizabeth of England now began to torment The first fire of the jealousie of Estate her self with a furious jealousie against her and had already laid the Design to stop her in her return to Scotland but God was pleased that she was gallantly accompanied with a great part of the most generous of the Nobility of France and did pass the seas very fortunately and arrived so suddenly in Scotland as if she did flie in the Air there she was received of all the good Catholicks with wonderfull entertainments of applause and joy Elizabeth who did swell with despite that she failed in her design covering her artifice with the vail of friendship did send a solemn Embassage with Presents to congratulate her arrival and to give her the assurances of an eternal Alliance The good Princess who had a heart as credulous as generous was passionately taken with this friendship and disputed with her self how she should overcome her in honour and in courtesie She took from her Treasurie a Diamond of which she made a Present to her It was cut in the manner of a heart and enriched with a verse of Buchanans who had not as yet his spirit infected with Treason In the mean time Elizabeth not unlike those Sorcerers which from the fairest mornings do produce the foulest weather did not cease under-hand to sow troubles and divisions in the Realm of Scotland endeavouring to destroy her Cousin by the fines of policy whom she durst not attach by the force of Arms. On the first arrival of Queen Mary into Scotland she found the Kingdom overspread with the factions of the Calvinists which at that time troubled all the Estates in Christendom And seeing that the youth and inexperience of her widow-hood was not compatible with the great underminings which her Enemies did daily form against her State she began after the space of five years to think of a second Marriage The small success in her first marriage made Her second marriage her suspect an alliance with strangers and those who were most near unto her did disswade her from it She did cast her eyes on her Cousin Henry Stuart the young Earl of Lenox who for the comeliness of his person was one of the most remarkable in the Kingdom of Scotland and having procured a Dispensation from the Pope she married him This affection The seed of the jealousie of love although most innocent in it self being not mannaged with all the considerations of State did bring upon her the jealousie of other Princes and was in the end attended with great disasters But to speak the truth the Earl of Murray natural brother to the Queen a pernicious and luxurious man who under-hand was the Instrument of Elizabeth of England did sow the first seeds of all these Tragedies In the beginning of these troubles he was called The Prior of S. Andrew as being ordained by James the Fifth to Ecclesiastical dignity but having drunk the air of a turbulent and furious Ambition which Knox the Patriarch of the Hereticks in Scotland had inspired in him he did not cease to affect the Quality of Regent and of King nor sparing any wickednesses to arrive to the butt of his desires As he observed that the Queen his sister being yet Ambition the beginning of all evils very young and very beautifull was sought for in marriage by the King of Spain to be married to his Son and by the Emperour to be maraied to his Brother he used the utmost of his power to divert that Design politickly fore-seeing that such alliances would tend to the diminution of his power and he failed not with most violent perswasions to represent unto her that she should enjoy neither peace nor honour in her Kingdom if she were espoused to a forreign Prince and the better to divert her from it he ceased not to advance the perfections of young Lenox which he did rather to amuse her and to possess her with thoughts of love than in earnest to bring the marriage to accomplishment The generous Princess who understood not yet what Dissimulation meant gave car unto him and overcome by his counsel she proceeded to the effects of the marriage with the Earl of Lenox who was indeed accomplished with all excellent endowments both of body and of mind but being very young had not the qualities requisite to serve him to secure himself This Murray who thought he should reign in him and by him and that having advanced him to the Royal Dignity the King should be but as the instrument of his will did find himself much deceived when he observed the King to grow cold in his behalf and to reign with an Authority more absolute than he intended His fury did proceed to that height that he drew into the field to make war against the King but having bad success therein he was constrained to retire himself into England where he began his designs to destroy his Sister He had in the Scotch Court the Earl of Morton who was unto him as his other-self to whom he gave Commission to throw the apple of Discord on this marriage of the King and Queen This he performed with incredible The effects of Envy and Ambition cunning and finding some disposition by the cooling of his affection he perswaded Lenox That he was
by a writing signed under their own hands have authentically protested to the Queen of England that the Earls of Murray Morton and Lidington were the Counsellers and Authours of the horrible Parricide committed against the King the good Queen always professing that she did forbid them to do any thing whatsoever that might any way reflect upon her honour or offend her conscience Also this unfortunate Earl of Morton who was afterward Cambden part 3. pag. 336. convicted and executed for this murder did totally discharge the Queen from having any hand in the Kings death and named the Conspiratours who by writing had obliged themselves one to another to defend the murder of his Royal Majesty John Hebron Cambden pag. 128. an 1567. Paris and Daglis who prepared the Myne being put to the Rack to accuse the Innocent Queen did absolutely discharge her protesting before God and his Angels that she was free from all fault and that Murray and Morton did give them commandment to perform it Buchanan a Pensionar of Murrays who Cambden pag. 105. cried down this Queen by his venemous pen being touched at last with the remorse of conscience with tears demanded pardon of her Son King James And being sick to death desired that his life might be prolonged either to clear the integrity of Queen Mary by the light of Truth or by his own bloud to wash away the stains of his reproches Some Protestants being amazed to hear him speak in this manner in the apprehension he had of Gods judgements to fall upon him did give forth that his old age had made him to doat This which I now write was afterwards acknowledged as we shall see anon by a publick and solemn sentence of the principal Nobility of England who although Lutherans and enemies being chosen to examine the business did highly publish the Innocence of this Queen And now Detractours what have you to say Do you not behold wherewith to make your shame to blush and the despite of so many infamous Historians to increase who have made black her whiteness Nay some of the Catholicks themselves being but little versed in the discerning of History having suffered themselves to be surprized concerning this subject not considering that all this calumnie is derived from the Book of Buchanan being corrupted to it by the bastard Murray who promised to make him Patriarch of Scotland if ever he should come unto the Crown And this is it which made this Apostate to write a detestable libel against the honour of this Queen which was condemned afterwards by the Estates of Scotland and retracted by the Authour himself But some Hugenots of the Consistory who are the most pestilent slanderers that ever the earth brought forth have not ceased to give some countenance to this fable and illusion of mankind although it was legally condemned of falshood by the most apparent of all their party It is an unhappiness of most men that they are wilfully given to believe the worst whether by an inclination they have unto it or whether by a difficulty to forsake and to put off that which first they entertained in their belief The most virtuous Queen Dido doth pass perpetually through the world for a woman lost in love although indeed she died in the defence of her chastity chusing rather to be devoured by the flames of fire than to be given in marriage as Tertullian doth affirm 6. But to take into my hand again the thread of The rash love of the Earl of Bothuel my discourse Some time after the Kings death Bothuel who was one of the most powerfull Earls of Scotland did prevent to court this Queen in the way of marriage and the rather because the Earl of Murray had promised her unto him for the recompence of this treason This motion came directly cross to her heart although as yet she did not know that this pernicious man had imbrued his hands in her Husbands bloud having always found him most faithfull in his service But as the report thereof increased she grew very angry with all those who offered to renew the motion to her alledging that there was no apparance that he should be propounded for a husband to her who is suspected for so detestable an act no although he indeed were innocent Besides that she urged that he was already tied in marriage to another woman But Murray the Bastard and other of the conspiratours who with an obstinate resolution had undertaken this business did justifie this Crime by the Judges of their faction and gave the Queen to understand that his first wife was not lawfully contracted to him and therefore she was removed from him All this was not able to perswade her who was wonderfully troubled with the dismalness of these late events which was the occasion that Bothuel being transported with love and assured of the high reputation which he had in the Kingdom did draw forth into the fields with five hundred horse where corvetting before them a wild presumption did invade him to take away the Queen as she returned from Sterlin to which place she was gone to see her Son and to bring him with her to her Castle at Dunbar At which place having with strange submissions demanded pardon for his boldness He represented to her the contract of his marriage signed by the Earl of Murray and the principal of the Nobility of the Kingdom who thought very well of it by that means to remedy the publick calamities of the Kingdom Moreover he protested to her that he would never over-value himself for the Honour he should receive from her Majesty nor for the greatness of his unexpected fortune with which the greatest Monarch on the earth might proudly content himself but that he would always continue her most humble and most obedient servant In this manner did this Philistine adore the Ark in its captivity But she moderating her passion did represent unto him that to proceed in this nature was to overthrow the whole business before it was established that she would be absolutely brought to Edinborough the chiefest Citie of her Kingdom where she would take a resolution to do that which should seem good unto Her On this occasion it came about that the Earl of Murray who had removed himself a little to be the less suspected of the murder did return to Court and brought with him the Suite of the Assassinate rewarding him for it with the obtainment of the bravest Lady in the world as the recompence of his murder He ceased not to importune her to take Bothuel Cambden part 1. pag. 3. doth shew that this marriage was brought about by the fraud and the pressing solicitations of the Earl of Murray for her husband declaring his innocence publickly avouched the splendour of his house the exploits of his courage the proofs of his fidelity which did render him most worthy of her love He added that being alone and without assistance she was no
of a licentious King and of a wanton mother whose head the King did cause to be cut off for her unchastness The one from five years of age was brought up in France with so much piety gravity and honour that nothing more could be added or desired The other had a licentious Education under the bad Example of her licentious parents The one had an excellent an active and a clear spirit resembling the quality of the Sun The other was of a crafty malignant and a sullen Nature resembling the condition of a Cornet The one was experienced in the knowledge of tongues and sciences as much as was necessary for an honest Lady who ought not to appear too learned The other gave her self to such a vanity of study that oftentimes she committed some extravagances as when she undertook to translate the five books of the Consolation of Boetius to comfort her self on the Conversion of Henrie the Fourth The one did speak and write with an extraordinary clearness and an accurate smoothness The other in her expressions was harsh and did much perplex her thoughts as may appear in a subscription of a Letter written with her own hand and directed to Henrie the Fourth after his Conversion Vostre saeur sice soit a la virille avec novelle Je n'ay que faire Elizabeth R. which is in English Your Sister if it be after the old fashion with the new I have nothing but to do Elizabeth R I leave to the most liberal Interpreter to divine what she meaneth by it The one had a generous free and a credulous heart The other was malicious obstinate and deceitfull The one loved honour to which her condition had obliged her The other had a furious and bloudy Ambition and spared none to improve the interest of her Greatness The one retained an admirable constancy in her ancient Religion by reason whereof though she was outragiously persecuted yet she omitted nothing in her devotion The other did put on Religion as she did her mask making her self a Heretick amongst Hereticks and a Catholick amongst Catholicks for when in the reign of her sister Mary she made a high and solemn profession of the Roman Faith she afterwards counterfeited her belief and betrayed that character to authorize heresie and rebellion against the Church The one feared God and finding her self the Relict of Francis the Second at seventeen years of age she had rather stoop to the marriage yoke to give life unto a King than to live inordinately and under the veil of widow-hood to conceal her secret wantonness The other who had not so strict a conscience did find a way to reconcile Ambition and Love and lived not married and not a maid and though I am unwilling to believe that she lived so salt and melting a life as some have affirmed yet I cannot deny but that she had her Favourites and her Minyons which Cambden her own Historiographer doth not conceal The one studied for the advancement of Virtue The other for the advancement onely of vain Reputation The one held forth a generous liberty in all her actions The other painted her life and covered her vices with great pretences she extreamly feared the censure of Posterity which made her with so much artifice to indeer unto her the ablest men of forreign Countreys and entertained mercenary quills to increase her glory thinking by that means to conceal her Defects and blind the eyes of mankind Wherefore we ought not to give too much belief to some Historians though otherwise men of esteem who deliver many and great praises having received many and great Presents Men of that quality are always credulous enough and are not accustomed to bark at those who do feed them with bread The one was very religious in her promises the other was captious and inconstant and this most visibly she made apparent to the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henrie the Third of France who was come into England to espouse her and though the Contract of the Marriage was confirmed both on the one side and the other and though the Marriage-Ring was given yet she broke all for the Caprichiousness of one night and to obey the cries of some Maids of Honour who besought her that she would not marry The one was full of bounty to her poor Subjects to whom she could not do all the good she desired by reason of the Rebellions that were stirred up in her Kingdom The other was carefull enough not to tax her Subjects with Imposts or with Subsidies which caused her to be beloved of her people who in all the virtues of a Prince do cherish nothing more than a moderation in their Subsidies The one was indued with an extream sweetness of disposition which sometimes did seem to lie too open and defenceless as when with out seeing justice done she pardoned great Crimes which tended to the diminution of her Authority The other was naturally cruel a lover of bloud and one who horribly tormented the Catholicks and too easily would bring the Heads of her Great-ones upon the Scaffold to obtain the honour and title of being just among popular Spirits To conclude one reigned like a Dove and the other like a Bird of prey It is a horrible thing to read the History of her Reign written by her Admirers where in stead of the Contemplation of Virtues and of Beauties you shall observe in every page the Rages of Accusers bloudy Judgements Proscriptions Massacres which I alledge not in any disparagement to the Nation which I love with a true Christian charity but to the ignominie and the shame of Heresie It seems to me when I read the Life of Elizabeth that I enter into the Countrey of the Anthropophagi where I behold nothing but men drawn upon Sledges Hang-men tearing out of bowels and dividing carkases into quarters which are still dropping bloud and hanging in the most remarkable places of the Citie as the tapestry of the ancient cruelty of the Puritans I assure my self that those who are now in authority under so gracious a Prince do reflect upon it with as much horrour as my self and by their moderation will endeavour to wipe away the stains of so bloudy a Time Who is he then that is not amazed to see Virtue so forsaken and the best Queen in the world to lead so tempestuous a life persecuted in her estate in her body in her honour in her own person in the person of her friends despoiled outraged dishonoured torn by bloudy calumines drawn to unjust Tribunals locked up in so many prisons abandoned by those most near unto her and sacrificed by her kinred to the vengeance of her enemies and that in so tragical a manner and by so barbarous a hand And how comes it to pass that the other being laden with crimes did mount on the Throne by ways unexpected and did continue there by uncontrouled power and reigned as if she had all good Fortune at her own
commandment Wealth and Honour were always on her side Delight and Joy seemed onely to be ordained for her Whatsoever she undertook did thrive all her thoughts were prosperous the earth and the sea did obey her the winds and the tempests did follow her Standards Some would affirm that this is no marvel at all but onely the effect of a cunning and politick Councel composed of the sons of darkness who are more proper to inherit the felicities of this world than the children of the light But we must consider that this is the common condition both of the good and the evil to find out the cause in which the Understanding of man doth lose it self David curiously endeavouring to discover the reason in the beginning did conceive himself to be a Philosopher but in the end acknowledged that the consideration thereof did make him to become a Beast The Astrologers do affirm that Elizabeth came into the world under the Sign of Virgo which doth promise Empires and Honours and that the Queen of Scotland was born under Sagitarius which doth threaten women with affliction and a bloudy Death The Machivilians do maintain that she should accommodate her self to the Religion of her Countrey and that in the opposing of that torrent she ruined her affairs The Politicians do impute it to the easiness of her gentle Nature Others do blame the counsel which she entertained to marry her own Subjects And some have looked upon her as Jobs false friends did look on him and reported him to lye on the dung-hill for his sions But having thoroughly considered on it I do observe that in these two Queens God would represent the two Cities of Sion and Babylon the two wayes of the just and the unjust and the estate of this present world and of the world to come He hath given to Elizabeth the bread of dogs to reserve for Mary the Manna of Angels In one he hath recompensed some moral virtues with temporal blessings to make the other to enter into the possession of eternal happiness Elizabeth did reign why so did Athalia Elizabeth did presecute the Prophets why so did Jezabel Elizabeth hath obtained Victories why so did Thomyris the Queen of the Scythians She hath lived in honour and delight and so did Semiramis She died a natural death being full of years so died the Herods and Tyberius but following the track that she did walk in what shall we collect of her end but as of that which Job speaketh concerning the Tomb of the wicked They pass away their life in delights and descend in a moment unto hell Now God being pleased to raise Marie above all the greatness of this earth and to renew in her the fruits of his Cross did permit that in the Age wherein she lived there should be the most outragious and bloudy persecution that was ever raised against the Church He was pleased by the secret counsel of his The great secret of the Divine Providence Providence that there should be persons of all sorts which should extol the Effects of his Passion And there being already entered so many Prelates Doctours Confessours Judges Merchants Labourers and Artisans he would now have Kings and Queens to enter also Her Husband Francis the Second although a most just and innocent Prince had already took part in this conflict of suffering Souls His life being shortened as it is thought by the fury of the Hugonots who did not cease to persecute him It was now requisite that his dear Spouse should undertake the mystery of the Cross also And as she had a most couragious soul so God did put her in the front of the most violent persecutions to suffer the greatest torments and to obtain the richest Crowns The Prophet saith That man is made as a piece of Elizabeth's hatred to the Queen of Scotland Imbroidery which doth not manifest it self in the lives of the just for God doth use them as the Imbroiderer doth his stuffs of Velvet and of Satin he takes them in pieces to make habilements for the beautifiing of his Temple 12. Elizabeth being now transported into Vengeance and carried away by violent Counsels is resolved to put Mary to death It is most certain that she passionately desired the death of this Queen well understanding that her life was most apposite to her most delicate interests She could not be ignorant that Mary Stuart had right to the Crown of England and that she usurped it she could not be ignorant that in a General Assembly of the States of England she was declared to be a Bastard as being derived from a marriage made consummated against all laws both Divine and humane She observed that her Throne did not subsit but by the Faction of Heresie and as her Crown was first established by disorder so according to her policie it must be cemented by bloud She could not deny but that the Queen of Scotland had a Title to the Crown which insensibly might fall on the head of the Prisoner and then that in a moment she might change the whole face of the State She observed her to be a Queen of a vast spirit of an unshaken faith and of an excellent virtue who had received the Unction of the Realm of Scotland and who was Queen Dowager of the Kingdom of France supported by the Pope reverenced throughout all Christendom and regarded by the Catholicks as a sacred stock from which new branches of Religion should spring which no Ax of persecution could cut down The Hereticks in England who feared her as one that would punish their offences and destroy their Fortunes which they had builded on the ruins of Religion had not a more earnest desire than to see her out of the world All things conspired to overthrow this poor Princess and nothing remained but to give a colour to so bold a murder It so fell out that in the last years of her afflicting imprisonment a conspiracy was plotted against the Estate and the life of Elizabeth as Cambden doth recite it Ballard an English Priest who had more zeal to his Religion than discretion to mannage his enterprize considered with himself how this woman had usurped a Scepter which did not appertain unto her How she had overthrown all the principles of the ancient Religion How she had kept in prison an innocent Queen for the space of twenty years using her with all manner of indignity how she continually practised new butcheries by the effusion of the bloud of the Catholicks he conceived it would be a work of Justice to procure her death who held our purses in her hand and our liberty in a chain But I will not approve of those bloudy Counsels which do provide a Remedy far worse than the disease and infinitely do trouble the Estate of Christendom Nevertheless he drew unto him many that were of his opinion who did offer and devote themselves to give this fatal blow The chiefest amongst them was
Commission with their own Names On which she demanded by what Law they would proceed against her the Canon Law or the civil Law and because she knew very well that they were no great Lawyers she conceived it would be requisite that some should be sent for from the Universities in Europe They replied That she should be tried by the civil Law of England in which they were sufficiently experienced But she who well observed that they would intangle her with a new Law on purpose against her made answer you are gallant Gentlemen and can make what Laws you please but I am not bound to submit unto them since you your selves in another case refuse to be subjected to the Salick Law of France Your Law hath no more of Example than your proceeding hath of Justice On this Hatton Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen of England advanced himself and said unto her you are accused for conspiring the ruin of our Mistress who is an anointed Queen Your degree is not exempted to answer for such a Crime neither by the Law of Nations nor of nature If you are innocent you are unjust to your Reputation to indeavour to evade the judgement The Queen will be very glad that you can justifie your self for she hath assured me that she never in the world received more discontent than to find you charged with this accusation Forbear this vain consideration of Royalty which at this present serves for nothing Cause the suspitions to cease and wipe away the stain which otherwise will cleave for ever to your reputation She replied I refuse not to answer before the States of the Realm being lawfully called because I have been acknowledged to be a presumed Heir of the Kingdom Then will I speak not as a subject but in another nature without submitting my self to the new Ordinance of your Commission which is known to be nothing else but a Malicious net made to inwrap my innocence The Treasurer on this did interrupt her and said we will then proceed to the contempt to which she made answer Examine your own consciences and provide for your Honours and so God render to you and your children as you shall do in the judgement The next morning she called one of the Commissioners and demanded if her Protestation were committed to writing And if it were she would justify her self without any prejudice to the Royal dignity Whereupon the Commissioners did presently assemble themselves in the Chamber of presence where they prepared a Scaffold on the upper end whereof was the seat Royal under a Cloath of State to represent the Majesty of Queen Elizabeth and on the one side of it a Chair of Crimson Velvet prepared for her The courageous Queen did enter with a modest and an assured countenance amongst the stern Lords thirsting after her bloud and took her place Bromley the Chancellour turning towards her did speak in these words The most Illustrius Queen of England being assured not without an extream Anguish of spirit that you have conspired the destruction of her of the Realm of England and of Religion to quit herself of her duty and not to be found wanting to God herself and her people hath without any malice of heart established those Commissioners to hear the things of which you are accused how you will resolve them and shew your innocency This Man who had spoken ill enough had the discretion to speak but little And immediately as he had given the signal the perverse Officers who were more than fourty in number did throw themselves upon her like so many mastives on a prey propounding a thousand captious questions to surprize her but the generous AMAZA did shake them off with an incredible vivacity In the end all things were reduced to the letter of Babington in which he gave her notice of the conspiracy and to the answer which she made to it exhorting him to pursue his design but most of all to the depositions of her own Secretaries who gave assurances that she did dictate the said letter as also other letters to forreign Princes to invade England with arms They did press her on these falsities which seemed to carrie some probability with them but she did answer invincibly to them as most clearly may appear by those terms which I have drawn from her several answers and tied them together to give more light to her Apology wherein the clearnes of her understanding and her judgement is most remarkable IF the Queen my Sister hath given you a Commission The invincible Apology of the Queen to see Justice done it is reasonable that you should begin it rather by the easing of my sufferings than by the oppressing of my innocence I came into England to implore succour against the Rebellion of my Subjects My bloud alliance Sex Neighbourhood and the Title which I bear of a Queen did promise me all satisfaction and here I have met with my greatest affliction This is the twentieth year that I have been detained Prisoner without cause without reason without mercy and which is more without hope I am no Subject of your Mistresses but a free and an absolute Queen and ought not to make answer but to God alone the Sovereign Judge of my Actions or bring any prejudice to the Character of Royal Majesty either in my Son the King of Scotland or his Successours nor other Sovereign Princes of the earth This is the Protestation which I have made and which I repeat again in your presence before I make any answer to the Crimes which are imposed on me The blackest of all the Calumnies do charge me for having conspired the Death of my most dear Cousin and after many circumventions all the proofs are reduced to the Letter of Babington the Deposition of my Secretaries and my sollicitations made to forreign Princes to invade England with Arms. I will answer effectually to all these Articles and make the justice of my Cause most clearly appear to those who shall without passion look upon it And in the first place I swear and protest that I never saw this Babington who is made the principal in this Charge I never received any letter from him neither had he any letter from me I have always abhorred these violent and black counsels which tended to the ruin of Queen Elizabeth and I am ready to produce letters from those who having had some evil enterprize have excused themselves that they have discovered nothing to me because they were assured that my spirit was opposite to such Designs I could not know what Babington or his accomplices have done being a Prisoner he might write what he pleased but I am certain that I never saw nor heard of any letter to me And if there be found any Answer written by me to those things which never so much as came into my imagination it is an abominable forgery We live not in an Age nor a Realm that is to learn the trade to deceive I am
informed that Walsingham one amongst you who hath conspired my death and the death of my Son doth make use of such artifices and hath counterfeited a letter from me in answer to that of Babingtons which he intercepted The other innocently believed it and took his oath that it came from me but all this is no more than one simple conjecture There should be a million of witnesses more clear than the rays of the Sun to impeach a Sovereign Queen who comprehends within her Authority so many millions of lives And a man unknown a man half dead is believed against me who spake all that he knew and that he knew not to deliver himself from the horrible cruelties of his Examiners Let them produce but one letter of my hand one shadow of the crime and I will yield my self convinced I speak it in the sincerity of my heart and of the tears of my eyes I would not conquer a Kingdom with the bloud of the vilest person picked out of the scum of the people much less with the bloud of a Queen I will never make a shipwrack of my soul in conspiring the ruin of a person to whom I have vowed so much honour and friendship For my Secretaries I did alwayes take them for honest men if they do charge me and accuse me in their Depositions to have dictated an Answer to Babington's letter they have committed two great faults the first in violating the Oath which they have made to be secret and faithfull to their Mistress the second in inventing so detestable a Calumny against her to whom they ow all Reverence and Fidelity In a manner all the belief that you draw from them doth amount to more than that it comes form perfidious men O good God In what a desperate condition is the Majesty and the safety of Princes if they depend upon the writings and the witnesses of their Secretaries in affairs of so high a consequence How many are of them who prostitute themselves to the uncertainty of riches How many of them for fear onely do comply with the menaces of the great-ones They are men of Fortune who follow the ebb and flow of Inconstancy If those poor men have taken their Oaths as you say it was onely to deliver themselves from the horrour of your torments and put all upon the crowned head of a Queen which they thought was inaccessible to your Commissions But what Lawyers are you to put Babington to death without bringing him before me face to face To open his mouth by torments to tell a lie and then to shut it up for ever against the Truth If my Secretaries are yet alive let them come into my presence and I assure my self that they will not persist in that Deposition which you object against me Doth it not easily appear that you proceed here on a bad belief and that you borrow these poor Formalities to give some slight tincture to your prejudgings I never did dictate any thing to my servants but what Nature did suggest unto me for the recovering of my liberty This is the third Objection of your Proces And I demand of you if I have not committed a great crime to desire a benefit which every common voice doth teach us which the laws do approve which all men do practise which Nature prompts the Nightingales and every little Bird unto that are imprisoned in their Cages what can he do less that sees himself in irons but implore the assistances of his friends and desire that some strong hand of mercy might open the prison for him I confess I have had the desire of liberty but I deny that I sought the effect thereof by that means which you alledge It is a strange thing that a Prisoner all whose action are spied into and every step she treads is counted should do the affair which great Sovereigns though of a free and most absolute power could not remove So many years are now passed since I have been as it were in the chains of miserable captivity yet neither the offers which I have made nor the assurances which I have given nor the increase of my sickness nor the declining of my age could move my Sister to my inlargement Have I not offered to contract a strict Friendship with her to cherish her to respect her above all the Princes in Christendom to forget all offences to acknowledge her the true and legitimate Queen of England submitting all my Rights to the benefit of her peace neither to pretend to nor take any part of the Crown during her life and to remove both the Title and the Arms of the Kingdom of England which I did attribute to my self by the commandment of Henrie the Second King of France And yet all these submissions have prevailed nothing for my Deliverance Am I so much to be blamed if I have desired forreign Princes my Friends and my Allies to draw me out from the depth of these miseries And yet I neither have nor was ever willing to confirm into the hands of the King of Spain the Right which he pretended to the Crown of England although he hath been angry with me concerning it but I have given respect unto my Sister so far that I have neglected both my life and liberty to satisfie her interests and have delighted my self with the prayers of Esther and not with the sword of Judith But I now speak and declare that since England is inequitable and so unkind unto me that I neither ought nor will misprise the aid of other Kings I have here sincerely declared my thoughts and my counsels to you on this Accusation and if Right and Equity must give way to Power and Force must oppress the Truth amongst men I do appeal to the living God who hath an absolute Empire of command over Elizabeth and my self I swear unto you by God and protest unto you on my honour that for this long time I have had my thoughts on no Kingdom but onely that of Heaven which I look on as the haven after my long sufferings I believe I have now satisfied all your Objections And you know indeed in your own conscience that nothing doth charge me but my birth nor render me guilty but my Religion But I will not deny that to which by Gods goodness I am born nor remove the character which I received in the day of my Baptism I have lived and I will die a Catholick It is the crime alone for which I need no Advocate to defend me in which I desire all the world to be my witness and fear not the severest Judges The poor Princess did mingle these words with her tears fore-seeing the persecution of her friends and considering how barbarously her Royal Dignity was exposed to the Advocates of the Palace who did all seem to have sworn her death Howsoever in their consciences they were touched to the quick because that what she represented was most true even by the
report of the Hereticks themselves as it appeareth in the Book of Cambden who hath wrote the Life of Cambden pag. 493. Elizabeth and who doth not deny but that Walsingham did open and make up the letters again which Gifford brought him counterfeiting in them what he thought good And he himself confesseth that it was the judgement of the most rational men that the Secretaries of the Queen of Scotland were seduced and corrupted with money And it is certain that Amanuensium absentium qui pretio corrupti videbantur testintonio oppressa est they demanded a Recompence of Walsingham who told them that they ought to content themselves with their lives And added that in condemning their Mistress without producing the Witnesses they had not proceeded according to the Rules of Justice Observe here the judgement of the Hugenots themselves her most cruel Enemies I speak of those who have some sparks of a good conscience and not of those Incendiaries who write Rapsodies full of ignorance and folly All this may serve for an invincible proof of her innocence but her evil Judges The unjust Judgement who had sold themselves to iniquity did not cease to proceed further even to the Sentence of Condemnation which they carried to the Queen of England and was presented to the Parliament for the publication of it Thither Elizabeth did come in person with a studied Speech where she gave thanks to God for the Deliverance from this danger and thanks to her Subjects for the affection to their Queen Afterwards coming to the work in hand she shewed her self to be extreamly afflicted for the Queen of Scotland that a Person of her Sex Estate and Bloud should be convicted to have conspired against her Adding that she was most willing to pardon her and to abandon her own life if it would render the affairs of England more flourishing but in this effect she would neither prejudice her self nor the good of her Kingdom In this action she came with a heart full of vengeance however she would put upon it the reputation of Sweetness and of Clemency imitating the Herods and Tyberius Caesar who never did worse than when they spake best and laughed in their hearts when they distilled the tears of Crocodiles from their eyes With joyned hands she desired that her Parliament would but demand that thing of her which most willingly she would not grant Sometimes she would flatter them with the Respects and cordial Affections they did bear her on purpose to incite them to pursue this business Sometimes she seemed to be weary of their too much zeal Sometimes she said she would preserve her self And sometimes she said she would abandon her own preservation to exercise her clemency Her spirit which was greatly given to dissimulation made never more leaps nor daunced more Rounds than in this business And to speak the truth she perplexed her self in her own labyrinth and endeavouring too much to hide her self she laid her self more open saying unto those who demanded the death of the Queen of Scotland I pray and conjure you to content your self with an Answer without an Answer I approve your judgement and comprehend the reasons but I pray you excuse the carefull and the doubtfull thought which doth torment me and take in good part the gracious affection which I bear you and this Answer if it be of that worth as you esteem it for an Answer If I say I will not do what you demand peradventure I shall say more than I think If that I will do it I shall precipitate my self to my ruin whom you are willing to preserve In the end the Sentence of Death was confirmed by the Authority of Parliament and Beal was sent to the Queen of Scotland to carry her the news of her mournfull Condemnation and to acquaint her that the Estates demanded the Execution to be dispatched for Justice Security and Necessity Her great heart was no way dejected at this so violent a Rigour and damnable Injustice but listing up her eyes and her hands to Heaven she gave thanks to God demanding immediately a Priest to administer to her the Sacrament and to dispose her to die Paulet Execrable indignity who had the guard of her did use her after this most barbarously commanding the Officers of her house to beat down the cloth of State that was in her chamber but when he observed that no man would touch it and that they onely answered him by tears and lamentations which would have softened the heart of any man he performed the Execution by the Guard and took from the poor Prisoner all the marks of Royalty to make her behold her Funeral alive and to make her heart to bleed with a mortal wound before the bloud were drawn from the veins of her body by the hands of the Hang-man But Elizabeth did yet deferre the Execution whether it were for the fear of sorreign Princes being not able to see clear enough into their power and protection or whether it were to gain the imaginary Reputation of Mercy or whether by degrees she would consume this poor sacrifice by a small fire prolonging the languors of her imprisonment The other was resolved to write unto her not in a base and begging stile to crave her life but to demand an honest Burial Behold her letters to that effect MADAM I Give thanks to God with all my heart who by the Sentence of Death hath been pleased to put an end to the tedious pilgrimage of my life I desire not that it may be prolonged having had too long a time to trie the bitterness of it I onely beseech your Majestie that since I am to expect no favour from some Zealous Ministers of State who hold the first place in your Councels I may receive from You onely and from no other these following favours In the first place I desire that since it is not allowed me to hope for a Burial in England according to the Solemnities of the Roman Church practised by the ancient Kings your Ancestours and mine and that in Scotland they have forced and violated the Ashes of my Grand-fathers that my Bodie when my Adversaries shall be satiated with my innocent bloud may be carried by my own servants into some holy Land and above all if it may be into France to be there interred where the Bones of the Queen my most honoured Mother are lodged to the end my poor Bodie which knew no rest whiles joyned to my soul might now find rest being separated from it Secondly I beseech Your Majestie in the apprehension which I have of the tyrannie of those to whose power You abandon me that I may not suffer in any private place but in the view of my servants and other people who may give a testimonie of my faith and of my obedience to the true Church and defend the remnant of my life and my last sighâ— against the false Reports which my Adversaries may contrive
against me In the third place I require that my servants who have attended on me with great fidelitie during so many afflictions may have free leave to retire where they please and enjoy those small Legacies which in my last Will my povertie hath bequeathed to them I conjure You Madam by the Bloud of Jesus Christ by the nearness of our consanguinitie by the Memorie of Henrie the Seventh our common Father and by the title of a Queen which I carrie to my Grave not to denie me these reasonable Demands but by one word under Your hand to grant me an assurance of them and I shall die as I have lived Your most affectionate Sister and Prisoner QUEEN MARY It is uncertain whether this Letter came to the hands of Elizabeth because no Answer can be found unto it whether it were that those next unto her did conceal it from her or whether through the hardness of her heart she did dissemble it In the mean time King James employed himself for The vain endeavour to delay her death the Deliverance of his Mother the Ambassadours from France Monsieur de la Mote Aigron and Monsieur del Aubispene were commanded thither upon that and other occasions and Monsieur de Belieurs did there also carry himself with great wisdom courage and fidelity as may appear by his grave Remonstrance which is to be read in the History of France Howsoever the Arrest of Death was suspended for there moneths until such time that the clamours of the Lutherans and Puritans did cause the Thunder to fall down upon that hand which desired nothing more than to strike home the blow The more advised did remonstrate unto her That it was without example to commit a Ladie the Queen of France and Scotland and the nearest Kinswoman she had in the world into the hands of a Hang-man A Queen which was not her prisoner of War but her Guest whom she had called and invited into her Kingdom and sent unto her assurances of her fidelitie That she ought to consider that what was done proceeded from her Secretaries and not from her And if that after twenty years imprisonment she should have consented to be taken from it by force it did not deserve to be punished with Death That if she should cause her to die it would open a wound from whence there would issue such abundance of bloud that many Ages could not stanch it That Italie France and Spain and all the Christian Kingdoms of the world would be offended at it and that she should bring upon her Kingdom the Arms of Christendom who would be glad of that pretence to invade her Kingdom That it would be a most remarkable affront to her Son James and all his Race who could not but be mindfull of it That it would incense the Spirits of her Kingdom and render them unreconcileable to her And in the end that it was to be feared that Heaven would arm it self against so bloudy a Design That she should use the miserable and especially a Queen who came into her Countrey for protection with more Reverence That she should hazard much in her death but could lose nothing by her life seeing she had so many Guards Prisons Bars and Walls to secure her if she had an intent to enterprize against the State But the insolent Ministers did incessantly crie out That she must put an end to her Imprisonment by putting an end unto her Life That the Queen ought to remember that she had usurped her Titles and her Name and sometimes caused her self to be proclaimed Queen of England and of Scotland and that Sovereigns never pardoned those who did so far intrench upon their Authority That the life of Elizabeth and Mary were incompatible That the onely means to take away all pretences from the Catholicks was to cut off this Root which would make all their hopes to perish That King James was instructed in their Religion and would rather look after the advancement of his own State than take vengeance for the Death of his Mother That forreign Princes were too much perplexed with the difficulties of their own Affairs and took care rather to defend their own than to invade her Kingdom That her Cousin the Duke of Guise was in a bad condition in France and that Henrie the Third would be very carefull how he did espouse her quarrels And if other Princes were so hardy to undertake it they were to understand that England had a deep ditch about it That Queen Elizabeth was mortal and if she should die there was not that calamitie to be conceived which both Religion and the State would not suffer under the reign of Marie in the revenge of her Imprisonment and other injuries she had received That she could not but remember that great personages did write things well done on the sand but did engrave their Discontents in brass The Preachers made it to be a work of Religion with their absurd Allegations out of the Bible which they did corrupt to their bloudy meaning And the Lawyers as ignorant as the Ministers were absurd did produce some Histories for the punishment of Kings which were altogether impertinent But there needed not so much labour to perswade a Woman who had in her so much vanity as once in her life to make a Princess head to fly upon a Scaffold and who did not remember that in the Reign of Queen Mary being her self accused of offending the Estate and expecting her sentence of death she did so much fear the Axes of the Hang-men in England that she was resolved to petition to her Sister to send for an Executioner to France to cut off her head Now was the Commandment given for her death and it was signified to the poor Victim who for a long time was prepared for this Sacrifice Some passionate writers do indeavour to divert this Crime from the reputation of Elizabeth taking their ground on a Letter which she wrote to the Queen of Scotland in which by a shamefull perfidiousness she doth write That her spirit was tormented with an incomparable Sorrow by reason of the lamentable Event which was arrived against her will and that she had not a soul so base as either by terrour to fear to do what was just or by cowardice to denie it after it was done But who doth not see that this is to mock and to Elizabeth entirely culpable of the death of Queen Mary traduce the Story and the belief of mankind Davison her Secretary who mannaged this sad affair as the true instrument of her malice doth express in his Attestation reported in the most faithfull Memorials of England by Cambden that after the departure of the French Ambassadour sent to prevent the Execution she commanded him to shew the Instrument for putting the Queen of Scotland to death which being done she most readily signed it with her own hand and commanded him to see it sealed with the Great Seal and
Right which my Birth doth give me to the Realm of England and the Catholick Religion are the causes of my condemnation although they disguise them as much as they are able by their calumnies They have taken from me my Almoner and deprived me of the consolation of the Sacrament which I intended at my death pressing me with all violence of importunity to receive the assistance and the Doctrine of their Ministers but I will never do any thing that shall be unworthy of my Birth or my Religion These who shall conveigh unto you the last sighs of my life shall assure you of my constancy It remains that I beseech you since you have always protested to have loved me to render to me the proofs of your charity to pray to God for a most Christian Queen who dieth a Catholick as she hath lived and to command that some reward may be given to my dear Servants for I depart this world deprived of all worldly goods As for my Son I recommend him to you as far as he shall deserve for I can not answer for him I have assumed the boldness to send you two stones which are very rare for health which I wish you may find perfect and happy in a long life you shall receive them from your most affectionate Sister in Law who dieth in giving you the last testimonies of her heart I recommend again my desolate Servants to you and if your Majesty shall bestow on me wherewith to found a little Covent and Alms requisite to it for some who shall pray for me you shall send my Soul unto God enriched with more merits This I beseech you for the honour of Jesus Christ whom near unto my death I pray unto for you in the quality SIR Of your most affectionate Sister in Law QUEEN MARY I am of opinion that the letter which made its address to the Duke of Guise was of the same substance The letter to her Confessor did import the Combats she had suffered for Religion and the zeal which did transport her to die in the Catholick faith and that most cruelly she had been denied to make her last will or to have her body transported or to have permission to confess her self In defect whereof she doth confess her sins in General as she had intended to rehearse them to him in particular She desired him to pray and to watch that night in spirit with her and to send her his absolution and to prescribe unto her the prayers which he thought most proper for her for that night and for the morning following adding that if she could see him at the hour of her suffering she would kneel down and take her leave of him with a desire of his Benediction This being done she took a Review of her Testament and caused the Inventory of her goods to be read and wrote down the Names of those to whom she had bestowed her wardrope she also distributed money to some with her own hand afterwards being retired she spent the rest of the night in watching and prayer Others affirm that having said her prayers she threw her self upon the bed and slept some hours very quietly to make her self more strong for the next days conflict Afterwards awaking she began to enter into an agony and her naked knees being humbled on the ground she did read the Passion to incourage her self to her last combat mingling almost already her tears and her bloud with the tears and the bloud of her best beloved she passed many hours in meditations untill she had wearied two of her servants whom she commanded to take their rest Her last day which was on the twenty eighth of February in the year 1587 and on the eighteenth of February according to the English account the sun beginning to rise she did put on those habiliments which she did usually wear on Festival dayes and having again assembled her Servants she caused her Testament to be read unto them and desired them to take in good part the small Legacies which she had given them because the condition of her Estate did not permit her to bequeath them greater She gave them all her last Farewell exhorting them to the fear and love of their Creatour to the preservation of their Religion and of concords amongst themselves and desired them to pray for the safety of her poor Soul In the end she kissed all the women and permitted the men to kiss her hand The Hall was filled with cries and lamentations and sighs and sobs and followed almost with an inundation of tears which they could not wipe away But as she had all her thoughts advanced to Heaven she retired her self again into her Oratory where she continued a long time imploring the Grace of God with sighs and with the groanings of a Dove until that Thomas Andrews Lieutenant of that County did signify unto her that it was time to come forth She suddenly obeyed him and came forth in a posture full of Majesty and with a joyfull Countenance Her habit was most modest her head was covered with a veyl which hung down beneath her shoulders She had a Chaplet at her Girdle and an Ivory Crucifix in her hand The Commissioners received her in the Gallery where they did attend her And Melvin her Steward did present himself before her and weeping fell on his knees to understand her last commands Weep not she said but rather rejoyce for this day you shall see Mary Stuart delivered from all her sorrows I conjure you to acquaint my Son that I have always lived and do die in the Catholick Religion and that I do exhort him with all my heart to preserve the faith of his Ancestors to love Justice and to maintain his people in peace and to enterprize nothing against the Queen of England I have committed nothing against the Realm of Scotland and I have always loved the Kingdom of France God pardon those who do thirst after my bloud as the Hart panteth after the fountain of waters Thou O Lord who art truth it self and soundest the deepest secrets of my heart thou dost know how much I have desired peace and the Union of the two Realms of England and Scotland Her Royal heart growing tender on her Son on the consideration of the cruelties and the persecutions of the Catholick Church and on the Indignities which most innocently she suffered her eyes poured down some tears of compassion which she suddenly wiped away Then turning to the Lords she desired that her poor Servants might after her death be used with humanity that they might be suffered to enjoy those poor Legacies which she had given them in her Testament that they might be suffered to assist her at her death and afterwards be sent safe into their Countreys upon the publick faith The Inhumanity of the Earl of Kent would not permit that her own Servants should assist her and said They would but serve to increase Superstition but she replied Fear
it not these poor miserable creatures desire nothing more than to give me my last Farewel and I am confident my Sister Elizabeth would not have refused me so small a courtesie seeing the Honour of my Sex demandeth that my Servants should be present I am her near kinswoman Grandchild to Henry the eight and Queen Dowager of France besides I have received the Unction of Queen of Scotland if you will not grant this courtesie to one of my quality let me have it at least for the tenderness of the heart of men On this consideration five or six of her ordinary Servants were permitted to accompany her to the place of Execution to which she now was going This Divine Queen whom France had seen to walk in such state and Triumph at the pomp of her marriage when she was followed with all the glory of that Kingdom doth now alas go with this poor train to render her neck unto the Hangman She came into the Hall hung round about with blacks and ascended the Scaffold which was covered with the same livery to accomplish this last Act of her long Tragedy What eyes of furies were not struck blind at the aspect of this face in which the dying Graces did shoot for the last light of their shining Glories As soon as she was sate in a chair prepared for that purpose one Beal did read the Command and the outragious Sentence of her death which she heard very peaceably suppressing all the strugglings of Nature to abandon her self to Grace in the imitation of her Saviour At last Fletcher the Dean of Peterborough one of her evil Counsellours did present himself before her and made a Pedantical Discourse on the condition of the life passed the life present and the life to come undertaking according to his power to pervert her in this her last conflict This was the most sensible to her of all her afflictions at the last minute of her life to hear the studied speech of an impertinent and audacious Minister wherefore she oftentimes interrupted him and besought him not to importune her assuring him that she was confirmed in the saith of the ancient Catholick and Roman Church and was ready to shed her last bloud for it Nevertheless this infamous Doctour did not cease to persecute her with his Remonstrances unto the shades of Death She looked round about the Hall if she could discover her Confessor to demand of him the absolution of her sins but he was so busie that he could not be found A poor Maid belonging to her having thrust her self with all her force into the Croud as soon as she was got through them and beheld her Mistress between two Hang-men did break forth into a loud crie which troubled those who were about the Queen to assist her But the Queen who had a spirit present on all occasions made a sign unto her with her hand that she should hold her peace if she had not a mind to be forced thence The Lords then made a semblance as if they would pray for her but she thanked them heartily for their good will saying that it would be taken as a crime to communicate in prayers with them Then turning to the multitude who were about three hundred persons she thus expressed her self It is a new spectacle to behold a Queen brought to die upon a Scaffold I have not learned to undress to unveil my self and to put off the Royal Ornaments in so great a Companie and to have two Hang-men in the place of the Grooms of my Chamber But we must submit to what Heaven is pleased to have done and obey the Decrees of the Divine Providence I protest before the face of the living God that I never attempted against the Life or Estate of my Cousin neither have I committed any thing worthie of this usage If it be imputed to my Religion I esteem my self most happie to shed even the last drop of my life for it I put all my confidence in him whom I see represented in this Cross which I hold in my hand and I promise and assure my self that this temporal Death suffered for his Name shall be a beginning to me of eternal Life with the Angels and most happie Souls who shall receive my bloud and represent it before the face of God in the Remission of all my Offences There was now a floud in every eye and amongst all her Enemies there were not above four who were able to contain their tears The Hang-man clothed in black velvet fell down on his knees and did demand her pardon which she most willingly granted and not to him onely but to all her persecutours After these words she kneeled down her self praying aloud in Latin and invoked the most holy Mother of God and the triumphant Company of Saints to assist her She repeated her most servent prayers for the Church for her Kingdom for France for her Son for her cruel murtherers for England for her Judges and for her Executioner recommending into the hands of the Saviour of the world her spirit purified as well by love as by affliction The last words of her Pravers were these As thy arms Lord Jesus were stretched forth on the Cross so receive me into the stretched forth arms of thy mercie She uncessantly kissed a Crucifix which she had in her hand whereat one that stood by being offended at the honour which she gave unto the Cross told her That she should carry it in her heart to whom she suddenly made answer Both in my heart and in my hand After this she disposed her self to the Block The Executioner would have taken off her Gown but she repelled him and desired that that office might be performed for her by her own maids who approched to her to prepare her for the stroke of Death And she her self did accommodate them in it as diligently as she could and laid open her neck and throat more white than Alabaster and too much alas discovered for so lamentable a Subject This being done she signed her own Attendants with the sign of the Cross kissing them and with a short smile did bid them farewel to shew that she died as comfortably as constantly making no more resistance than the flower doth against the hand that doth gather it Those poor creatures did weep most bitterly and with their sighs and sobs could have cleaved the rocks when the Queen reproved them saying Nay What do you mean Have I answered for your constancie and that your grief should not be importunate and do you suffer your selves to be thus transported with lamentation when I am going to exchange a temporal Kingdom full of miserie for an everlasting Empire filled with fellcitie It was discovered that she had a Cross about her of great value which she intended to have bestowed on one of her nearest friends promising the Executioner to recompence him some other way but this enemy of the Cross did force it from her to satisfie
he particularly recommended to all holy minds who breathed after the restoring of the ancient Religion In the second place he entered into the heart and possessed himself with the inclinations of Queen Marie whom he found throughly disposed and animated by a generous spur for the glory of God and the felicity of her Kingdom which kept her alwayes exercised on that high thought and comprehended in it the safety of all that Nation In the last he more and more encouraged all the Catholicks by the desires of their repose of conscience and by the liberty of their functions in the exercise of spiritual things In the third place he treated with those who were in an errour with the Spirit of Compassion of Sweetness and of Bounty complying with them in what he could in civil affairs and endeavouring to take from them the apprehension which they had conceived to themselves that the Change of Religion would ruin their fortunes and the establishment of their houses He caused a report to be spread by many remarkeable and grave Personages that he came not to take away their temporal goods but to give them spiritual blessings And as concerning the Goods of the Church which many Great men had usurped in that general Confusion of Affairs he said he would compose it in the best way that Love and Candor could prescribe him Fourthly He did wisely fore-see that with sweetness he should also bring in Authority which might ruin the resistences of those men if any should appear to oppose so saving a work On which he had recourse to the greatest Potentates in Europe whom he secretly affected to this Enterprize He had been before employed on the Peace between Francis the First and Charls the Fifth He did apprehend and attract the spirits of them both with wonderfull dexterity for having dived into the heart of the Emperour and finding the seeds of the Design which afterwards did discover themselves having been dismissed of the Empire and embraced a solitary life he wrought upon him with the recital of his great actions and the Conquests he had obtained and told him That all those strong agitations of his spirit were but as so many lines which ought to tend to the center of Rest that he ought not to weary and torment his good fortune That it was a great gift of God to confine his thoughts on true glory without attending the tide of the Affairs of the world That it was the duty of an Emperour to endeavour the Peace of Christendom and an incomparable honour to accomplish it He touched his heart so directly with these Demonstrations that he opened it and the Emperour declared to him That he had a great desire to that divine Peace and would embrace all reasonable Conditions that should conduce unto it After that he had effected this he made no delay to address himself to the Most Christian King and knowing that he was puissantly generous he wrought upon him by the glory of the great Wars he had sustained and the immortal actions of valour which he produced that by his invincible courage he had at the last wearied the most puissant Potentate in Europe who had him in admiration and desired nothing more than to hold a fair correspondence with him That a fair Peace should be an inestimable benefit to them both which should give rest unto their Consciences and pull down a blessing from on high upon their persons and be a great comfort to their Subjects who were overcharged with the continuation of the war In the end he did demonstrate to him how extraordâ—narily he was beloved of his people who did attend this Effect of his goodness by which he should crown his Valour with all happiness and abundance in his Kingdom The King took fire at this Discourse and the Cardinal most vigorously did blow it up and did remonstrate That two so great Monarchs who were made for Heaven ought not so greedily to hold unto their interests on earth and that they had nothing now to wish but to part their affairs and to save their honour And this indeed they afterwards performed restoring willingly on both sides all that they had conquered since the ordinance of Reconciliation made by Paul the third who some years before did transport himself to Marseilles although he was of a very great age to pacifie the Affairs of Christendom This Accord being so happily atchieved by Cardinal Pool he gained by it the approbation and applause of all Princes who favoured the Catholick cause He observed that the Emperour had his son Philip to marry and that there was nothing more expedient for the advancement of Religion than to allie him to Queen Marie He carried this affair with such secresie and dexterity that the King of Spain was in England and the Marriage published before the plot was discovered By the counsel of Charls Cardinal Pool did deferre his entery into the Realm until the Marriage was concluded and then he entered with all assurances The King himself came to meet him and Queen Marie with all her people received him with extasies of joy He incontinently did draw unto him the affection of all the principal Lords and not long after he counselled the King and Queen to call an Assembly of the most remarkable persons in the Kingdom to whom he spake thus in presence of their Majesties MADAM SInce it hath pleased God after the Confusions of the His speech to the States late times to shine upon us with his eyes of Mercie and at last to place upon the Throne the true and faithfull Inheritress of the Crown who is so worthily espoused to one of the greatest Princes in all Christendom we have a great subject to satisfie our Discontents and advance our hopes This Realm at this day doth imitate the Creation of the world coming forth from its Chaos and dark Abyss to receive the favourable influences of the light The day which by all good men hath been so passionately desired so suspected by the wicked so unlookt for by the incredulous and so attended by the afflicted is at length arrived to destroy our death and to make us new born in the life of the children of God Behold the true Religion which entereth with triumph into all the Cities of this Kingdom from which Impietie and Furie had dispossessed her she holds out her arms unto you adorned with the Palms and the Crowns with which your Ancestours have honoured her she demands again the place which from the first conversion until the furie of these later times she hold with so much honour and satisfaction Will you yet banish her Will you yet continue to persecute her Can you endure that she should present before God her torn and her bloudie Robe and complain again of the outrages of her children My Brethren There is neither life nor salvation but in this Faith which shineth and speaketh in S. Peters Chair It is that which God hath given us
wherewith God hath entrusted them and abuse it to outward pomp rather then exercise it to the advantage of good men Let the fear of misdemeanours and obliquities banish all fiercenesse from them and let them esteem it the greatest impotence to boast a Priviledge of Injustice or a Power to hurt The cause of the Warre must first be balanced by an accurate examination lest the affections obtain precedence over Equity and Reason lest iniquity be predominant in the better part and force and fury comply to cheat the world under the specious title of Injustice I am both sad and ashamed to consider with my self what frivolous occasions have prevailed with many whereon to ground a Warre The Trojan Warre that common Sepulchre of Asia and Europe flamed out from the impetuous flagrancies of a noble Whore By a thousand ships she was re-demanded and for her that had lost all modesty vast numbers of gallant Hero's lost their neglected lives So many chaste lay open to the lust of the enemies that an unchaste might be restored Alexander being yet a child was reprehended by his Tutour for his profusion of Frankincense in his Sacrifices to the Gods but being arrived to mans estate that he might wash away this admonition of his master he invadeth Arabia and there the second time offereth up Sacrifice for the conquest of the Countrey The Egyptians for a slain Cat rose up in arms against the Romans and fourty destroyed many thousand men Caligula with a mighty noise of armed men and a great preparation of all Military ornaments hasteneth to the Ocean there to gather cockles The Romans being contumeliously upbraided with this ridiculous Expedition conspired and almost effected the utter ruine of the scoffing Tarentians The people of Alexandria rebelled against Galienus because of a sottish contention between the Master and the Servant concerning the elegancy and neatnesse of a pair of shoes And to omit many examples which I could commemorate William of England sirnamed the Conquerour who was victorious over all men but himself revenged a pleasant conceit of Maximus the Prince with innumerable destructions The Conquerour was of a corpulent habit and his belly was somewhat prominent thorow a plenty of Hydropick humours wherefore when Philip the King of France heard of the nature of his disease We will allow him time saith he to provide for his lying in which by the bulk of his belly appeareth to be near at hand The Conquerour being mad with fury replyed That he would rise up after his delivery and kindle five hundred fires in France to adorn his up-sitting Nor was he unmindfull of his resolution for presently upon his recovery he entred France with a stupendious army wholly addicting himself by fire famine and horrible slaughters to the satisfaction of his revenge Shall we suppose that he playes and trifles with the bloud of men who upon such slight provocations can enterprize such mournfull Tragedies May we suppose those people miserable with whom the scoffs of furious men must be expiated with such a direfull destruction No man ought to believe himself or another concerning the cause of a Warre but let him weigh it with the exquisite prudence of the principall men whose advices are the more fruitfull of truth the lesse they are espoused to affection A right intention must necessarily be coveted to a just Cause and all these things are estimated by a sober and moderate conclusion or a justifiable end Be such a thought eternally banished from the head and heart of a Christian Prince that he should array himself in a Military posture to oblige some light affections of a luxuriant mind that he should run on slaughters command the burning of towns prosecute and seem to rejoyce in devastations that he should destroy he should extinguish and bury his own glory in the overthrow of others This is the indelible ignominy of Centaures and the Lapathae who in warring seek nothing but Warre The wisest Kings thorow tumults and intestine jarres have made a progresse unto Justice Equity and Concord and being themselves in Arms have sacrificed undefeigning vows to Peace They think of an Enemy as a Physician sometimes of his Patient that he must be recovered by corrosives and sharp remedies Oh that he would have been cured with a diet or asswaged with fomentations But when against the Law and Right of Nations he hath persisted in his obstinacy and contemned the reiterated offers of composing the present differences then you must bind then you must cut then you must burn him yet all this to restore not to exterminate him And all things composed behold like the scourge of a deadly and destructive Warre a Northern tempest rageth in the miseries of Germany there they wallow in bloud and in their night-marches they are conducted by the hideous light of burning Cities some few making a resistance and all men being astonished at the ferall prodigy The Altars are polluted with sacrifice Virgins with rapes the chains of Church-men are heard louder and further then the drums of their persecutours holy things are profaned and the abomination of desolation is consummated their very King who had appointed them thither being either ignorant of those outrages or unconsenting Now can any man conceive that this was devised by a Christian mind Can it be imagined that he who hath any reverence unto or sense of Religion can give such directions It is not credible such a monster could not have been brought forth had not hell conceived the bottomelesse-pit exhaling the fuliginous vapours and the devils themselves torturing mens minds into such uncouth diversities All things cannot properly have a reflected reference unto men The Privado's and Ministers of Princes are not at all times to be accused as though they had cast off all humaniry and covered themselves with brutish cruelty There are certain vagabond and deceitfull spirits destinated to revenge who being themselves lost in misery cease not to comfort their malice by driving others into a participation of those miseries which reason greatest Princes ought so much the more to invite yea to admonish you to leagues of Peace because our Omnipotent God in his secret counsel hath determined to subdue Satan by your hands and to cast him under your feet The highest circumspection and vigilancy are therefore requisite least matter be suppeditated to the Devil who altogether watcheth for destruction from the affections and vices of men Jealousie that tinder of Kingdomes and Nations easily taketh fire if it be fomented onely with an animal wisdome and be not mixed with the prudence of the Saints They who are addicted to one part say that the Spaniards do too much expose their power to Envy that it is hatefull unto equalls terrible to inferiours and if not prevented destructive unto all There is amongst them say they such an epidemicall itch after domination such intentive and indefatigable cares of their ambition such a luxurious wit to enlarge their Empire so vast a
upon as a man slâ—d down from Heaven whose excellent Qualities did promise him the fullness of glory But he suddenly observed the Affairs of the Kingdom His return to England to be greatly perplexed by reason of the horrible divorce which Henry the Eight resolved on who indeavoured at once to separate himself from his wife and from the Church of God He much desired that Pool who was Famous for knowledge and integrity should approve his intention to the end that finding no assistance from Truth he might beg some apparence from the opinions of men This was no small temptation to this young Prelate The Combat in his spirit who was not altogether so austere as to distast all honour of preferment nor so little versed in Court as not to look on the King as the Original from whence it flowed He a long time consulted with himself to find a mean which might make his conscience to accord with the will of the King His integrity which was to him as another Birth did dispute in his heart with the Interest of his Fortune and he sought after the means to temper them into one One day he thought he had found it and addressed himself to the Court to expose his advise unto the King which was an advise more pleasing than just and he had then a care that the liberty of his words should not hinder the pretences to his dignity O who is he that is able to Counsel a King in his passion If you alledge unto him too much of Justice you hazard your Fortune If you comply unto him with too much Gentleness you do betray your heart The words of a Prince are the surnace which doth prove you where you may behold some to burn and consume away like straw and others to come forth purified like Gold The spirit of God did seize on the heart and the tongue of this wise Councellour he forgot all the worldly and flattering reasons he had prepared to open onely his eyes unto the Truth How Sir said be unto the â—â—ng to labour a divorce He took part with God from Queen Katharine after so many years of your marriage who hath brought you issue to succeed you in the Crown It is true that she was given a spouse to your elder Brother but he died in his youth before his marriage was consummated And you have espoused the Queen in the face of the Church with a dispensation as authentical as the Pope could give and which he granted with your consent at the request of the King your Father of glorious memory And since your Majesty hath had a secret Repugnance caused by a respect to him to whom you ow your Birth that can bring no prejudice to the publick Faith nor to the consummation of a marriage followed by such fruits and Benedictions as ordinarily do attend that mutual commerce Alas Sir your Majesty hath consecrated its Reign by so many Royal virtues and excellent Examples which have acquired you the love and admiration of Christendom will it now eclipse so pure a life and so Triumphant a reputation by a stain which cannot be washed away but by the effusion of the bloud of all your Realm Your Majesty hath sacrificed both its Scepter and its pen by the obedience which it hath rendered to the holy Sea and by the book which it hath made in the defence of the Church Cannot it honestly cast off those Laws which it hath authorized by a publick Testimony What will your people say who have so just an apprehension of Religion What will forreign Princes say who have conceived so high an opinion of your Merit Those who do Counsel you to that divorce are the most capital Enemies of your glorie who do draw upon you the indignation of God the censure of the Sovereign Priest the arms of a great estate who being offended at this affront will conjure your ruin That which hath droven you to it is onely a passion of youth which ought to be moderated it is had Counsel from which you should retire your self it is a mischief which you should labour to avoid In this case the advice which doth least please you will be the best The precipitation of so hazardous an Act can bring nothing but repentance This I speak unto your Majesty being driven to it by the fervent zeal which I have unto the safety of its Soul and by the tender respect which I have always born to your Royal Person I must beseech it that I may not be surprized in so important an affair as this marriage is which had his Ordinance in heaven and its happiness on earth This was boldly spoken by a Man who saw that in accommodating his humour to the King he incontinently entered into the possession of the richest benefits of the Kingdom and that crossing his design he exposed his liberty his Estate his life to most apparent danger Nevertheless he had the constancy to make him this grave Remonstrance without following the Example of those which flatter all evil actions and make Divinity to speak that which the interest of their Fortunes doth suggest unto them Henry the Eighth grown more hardened Henry the Eighth was no way softened at this so grave an Oration but on the contrary he had a most earnest desire to arrest his Cosin Pool and to put him to death which had been put in Execution if the hand of God had not withheld the blow He very well observed that the heart of the King was impoysoned with lust and choler even to the despair of all remedy Wherefore not long after finding his opportunity he asked leave of the King under some pretence to go out of the Kingdom and did abandon himself to a willing banishment because he would not offend his conscience He came Pool banished himself into France and stayed sometime in Avignon from thence he traveled to Padua and from Padua to Venice where he was acknowledged and esteemed for one of the chiefest men of Christendom and renowned Pool made Cardinal for excellent quallities In the end God being pleased to demonstrate that there is nothing lost in serving him and that honours are not onely for them who by a politick suppleness do accommodate themselves unto the Times and the lusts of great men he stirred up the spirit of Paul the third a great lover of learned men who made him Cardinal with approbation of all the world So that forsaking a Bishoprick in England for the satisfying of his conscience and the defence of the truth he obtained by his merit so high a place of Eminence in the Church which all the Crimes of a conscience prostituted to evil could never procure unto them Henry who had already declared war against God and all his Saints by his divorce was inflamed with choler by reason of the retreat and the promotion of this holy man causing him to be proscribed over all England and promising fifty