England and there was no place free from their Religious Butchery The Princess ELIZABETH in these doleful times seeing her self deprived of the Protection of a Kind Brother deserted by Her Friends and betrayed by Her Enemies had not the least hope of enjoying the Free Exercise of the True Religion Nor was this Calamity thought enough but Her Popish â—…nemies persecuted Her under the pretence She had Conspired with Sir â—…homas Wiat to Destroy Her Sister tho at his death he declared to all the world She had no hand in his Insurrection but however Her Sister was glad of this pretence to use Her ill and being spurr'd on by Her Popish Bishops who were highly cnraged against Her as the Head of the Reformed Religion She was sent close Prisoner to the Castle of WOODSTOCK in the year 1554. Thus She saw Her self deprived at once of all her Friends and Her Liberty too Her Servants and Friends abroad were many of them Attainted and others forced to seek their Safety in Foreign Countries And the Protestants in great Numbers became a Sacrifice to the Rage of the Popish Bishops So that no Orator is able truly and effectually to represent in words the Desolations and Calamities of those times Many however of the most Learned of the English Nation during this storm betook themselves to Germany as to their safest Harbour The rest who could not make a timely Escape were committed to Prisons tormented with various Arts of Cruelty and at last burnt alive The Publick places of our Cities were bathed with the Blood of Innocent and Holy men and our streets were filled with the dreadful shrieks and groans of the miserable men from their souls detesting the Cruelty of the Popish Clergy and the infamous Inhumanity of these Marian Times The Princess Elizabeth was a sorrowful Spectator of this Tragedy but for all the fear she lived in and the repeated Threats of Her Sister She stood her ground and would not be withdrawn from the Religion She had embraced and in Her Conscience approved but bore all with an undaunted and Heroick Courage The Chearfulness of Her Temper soon overcame the Greatness of the Calamity the Melancholy of a Prison and the Fear of Her Sister The Bitterness of Her Misfortunes was much allayed also by discovering to Her how tenderly the People loved her so that the Joy of this over balanced the Calamities of the Times and the Frowns of Fortune In the midst of such over-whelming Sorrows Suspicions and the Fears of an Ignominious Death no mortal ever saw her dejected or dispirited When the fears of Her Treacherous and Perfidious Enemies and that of Violence encompassed Her Good Reason encouraged Her a Sound Mind and a Quiet Conscience supported Her under Her Misfortunes and Her Hope and Trust in the Goodness and Mercy of God overcame all assaults of Despair It is not my Purpose to make the Reigns of Henry the VIII and Qeeen Mary odious and therefore I will not spend my time in representing the Cruelties that were then put in Practice the manifold Murthers extending to all Sexes and Ages or the Miseries that followed those that fled hence into Foraign Countries For tho the mischievous Example of the Popish Clergy who by their Authority Counsel and the specious pretences of Retrieving and Preserving the Ancient Piety and Worship raised and augmented these Persecutions and is for ever to be detested yet the Faults of Princes like those of our Parents are to be concealed as much as is possible and the Injuries they do us are patiently and silently to be suffered The Popish Clergy and especially some of the Bishops foreseeing what hazard their Religion was exposed to as long as the Princess Elizabeth lived and was the next Heir to the Crown of England because she had from her Infancy been bred up in the Protestant Religion made it their Great Design to hasten her Death with an implacable Malice that so they might at one blow cut off the Head of that Party which was here formed against their Church She in the mean while during all this calamitous time saw herself under Custody her faithful Servants in Prison and she had perpetually before her eyes the Images of a violent Death The People of England saw her Danger but could not so prudently conceal their Fears but upon all occasions openly and with great Anxiety said This Royal Off-spring was designed for Slaughter Truth and Innoccnce were not secure and the Ruin and Undoing of the Nation would be the effects of her Death Queen Mary in the mean time was distracted between the Shame of offending the whole Nation which generally believed the Princess Elizabeth to be innocent and the Fear of exposing her Religion which she loved above all things to the Hazard of another Protestant Reign She saw herself in danger of Conspiracies if her Sister lived and that on the other hand she could not take away her Life without being guilty of a great Wickedness Philip the II. a King of Spain the Husband of Queen Mary upon wise Reasons of State delivered the poor distressed and helpless Princess out of this horrid Danger out of pure Aversion to the Kingdom of France his most dreadful Rival For he wisely considered That Mary Qâ—…een of Scotland and Grandchild to Henry VII was married to Francis the Eldest Son of Henry II. King of France and that if the Princess Elizabeth were cut off she would be the undoubted Heiress of England Scotland and Ireland and would transfer and unite these Three Northern Crowns to that of France and make the House of â—…aloise dreadful to that of Austria This Thought put a stop to their Cruelty God by it procuring her Safety and with her preserving the English Nation to the universal joy of all who wished well to her or their Countrey Queen Mary her Sister died the 17th of November 1558 when she had Reigned Five Years Four Months and Eleven days being then in the XLIII Year of her Age concluding an unhappy Reign and an unfortunate Life She at her Death by her last Will left the afflicted and disconsolate Lady the Princess Elizabeth the Heir of the Crown of England rather out of an unavoidable Necessity than any thing of Choice There was then a Parliament sitting which began the 5th of that month in which she died and as the Government was then wholly in the hands of the Roman-Catholicks none of the other Party daring to appear or if they did not daring to own their Opinions the Death of Queen Mary was concealed for some hours for what purpose is not known but about Nine of the Clock the Lord Chancellor went to the House of Lords and first acquainted them with it This gave a great terror to the Bishops and those Counsellors who hadbeen severe against the Princess Elizabeth yet they all agreed to Proclaim her Queen so they sent for the House of Commons and the Chancellor told them also
of England and Sir William Cecil Prime Secretary of State all of them men of great Prudence and Courage who had with much difficulty escaped the Marian Tempest These were the Chief Managers of her Secret Councels and acquainted with her most private Thoughts and Designs for the good and safety of her People and were all of them Protestants The Popish Nobility and great Men were either contented with a Vote in the Privy Council in which many of them still sat and others of them refusing however to be any otherwise concerned or foreseeing the Change that was intended had withdrawn themselves altogether and deserted their former Stations Of these she relied mostly on the Council of Cecil and Bacon who were closely united each to other and both equally in her Favour and were besides men of great Judgment They were also her Chief Ministers and most trusted by her for their Integrity and Industry Having throughly consider'd the state of the Nation she resolved at first to promote a Peace abroad and that she might gain her point in this with the greater case she used some Dissimulation Philip the II d King of Spain had lost the possession of England by the death of Queen Mary and to recover it had begun a Treaty of Marriage with Queen Elizabeth which she declined with much civility and modesty so that he still insisted upon it for some time and she was not willing wholly to undeceive him till she saw an end of the Treaty of Cambray Francis the Eldest Son of Henry the II d King of France having married Mary Steward Queen of the Scots and the next Heir after her of the Crown of England the French were forming a Design against her and made a kind of Claim of the Crown for the Dauphiness The Queen feared the King of Spain the moâ—…t of the two as being a Prince of deep Designs and formidable to all his Neighbours on the score of his vast Dominions and was resolved as time and opportunity should serve to abate his Power and cross his Designs She was as much offended with the King of France for the ravishing Calais from us and for assuming the Arms of England to hers and the Nation 's Dishonour yet she resolved to make a Peace with him as soon as she could Thus this Heroick Lady which had tried both Adverse and Prosperous Fortune being by Nature endowed with a strange Sagacity and Prudence which is very rarely to be found in that Sex and which she had also much improved by the Afflictons she had suffered by her wise Counsels soon brought this almost Shipwrack'd Vessel to a sase Port and governed it all her days with much ease and Peace by which she gave the World a noble Specimen of her Virtue Justice and Prudence She discovered all the Inclinations Forces Leagues and Counsels of her Neighbouring States She laid aside all her Feminine Indignation and would not suffer her most intimate Affections to have any place or consideration with her when she was to consult the Peace and secure the safety of her People Of which this may serve for a clear Proof From the beginning of her Reign she had established this as a Maxim That the King of Spain was the most formidable Enemy the English then had but then because that Nation was strong rich and powerful she seemingly paid for some time a great respect to the King of Spain that he and the French King might not join against her and she also sent an Ambassador to renew the Amity between her and the House of Austria Yet considering that it was necessary that she should in a short time have a War with Spain and that part of his Dominions lay near her and that others were more remote and very rich and fruitful so that they would well pay her Subjects for the pains and danger of attacking them She upon the whole concluded That it was her Interest to enter into a Treaty of Peace and Amity with the King of France and accordingly she kindly received his Ambassadors who were sent hither to renew the Peace She put out a Proclamation to forbid all her Subjects the offering any violence or wrong to the French that were then in England that she might prevent their enraging the Foreign Nations against her or her Subjects And in the Castle of Cambray she by her Ambassadors concluded a League with France upon Condition That the Town of Calais and all that belonged to it should after eight years be restored to the English and if the same was not done that the French King should pay to her at the exâ—…iration of the said Term 50000 Crowns and give Hostages of the Children of Noble Families for the persormance of the said Condition in the mean time and the assurance of an Oath that they would punctually and truly keep the said Agreement When this Peace came to be discovered by a Proclamation in London and all the Sea-port Towns almost all the good men of England were inwardly offended at it and they whispered their Discontents in all places Yet I cannot but think the Queen in this League how much soever it was spoken against did rather consult her own Honour and Reputation and the safety and welfare of her People than trust to the Faith of the King of Francâ—… as to the restitution of Calais The Hostages indeed fled away and the French broke their Faith as it was to be thought they would when they were to restore Calais but then the Advantages which England then gained by that seasonable Peace abundantly overbalanced the Damages sustained by the disappointment When the time was expired for the restitution of Caâ—…ais the English Ambassadors in the Court of France endeavoured to make that Nation appear odious and detestable to all Mankind because they had fraudulently departed from the Terms of the League so solemnly made at Cambray and afterwards sworn to by that King But Monsieur de l'Hospital Sieur de Vitry Chancellor of France a Learned and a Cunning Lawyer replied That Calais was lost by a War and regained by another That the Promise of restoring it was a Necessity imposed upon the French by the Iniquity of the Times which had enforced tâ—…em to yield so far to the English for the safety of their State but that in truth the English had as much right to Paris as they had to Calais and might with as good justice demand the first as the last Yet after all this Wise man never endeavoured to clear his Nation from the Guilt and Infamy of Fraud and Perjury which was a Task above his strength In all Revolutions and Changes the Queen always in the first place took care to secure the True Worship of God and the safety of all her Subjects When therefore she had thus secured her Peace abroad or at least had gained a Cessation of War till she might take breath and recover her strength and was now
ways or in satisfying the Avarice and Knavery of her Ministers but for the Benefit and Welfare of the State and that the best thing which could possibly be done by any person was to do that which tended to the good of his Countrey Mary the Daughter of James V. King of Scotland was a young Lady of great Beauty and by the Arts of her Mother who was a French Lady and descended of the House of Lorain she was perswaded to marry Francis the Eldest Son of Henry II. then King of France by which he obtained the Title of King of Scotland in her Right After Mary Queen of England was dead the House of Guise in France perswaded this Prince and his Lady to assume and use the Royal Arms of England because she was of the Royal Family and accordingly it was Engraven on all their Plate and put upon all their other Furniture and they used it in their Seals to the great Injury and Exasperation of Queen Elizabeth She suffered also her self to be stiled Queen of England which highly incensed the English Nation against her and the French Court it being thought the greatest Contempt that could possibly be offered to us to assume that Title at a time when France was engaged in a War with Spain But however the Civil War which soon after broke out in France and lasted many years the defeating their Designs in Scotland the Deaths of Henry II. and Francis II. and all other the Calamities that followed this foolish Attempt sufficiently revenged the Injury offered to the Queen and the English Nation Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was an Industrious Wise and an Active Statesman but apt to be heat and of a fiery Temper He was at that time the English Leiger Ambassador in the Court of France and was highly exasperated to see this Affront put upon his Mistress and he made sharp and loud Complaints of it to the Council of France After a tedious Debate and many Hearings he at last by the means of Montmorancy Constable of France obtained an Order or Promise That the Queen of the Scots should no more use the Royal Arms of England nor the Title of Queen of England or Ireland during the Life of Queen Elizabeth or of any Children born of her The Envy and Hatred which was occasioned by this imprudent Contest between these two great Ladies who were equal in Authority and Beauty had an ill effect upon them in all the after-parts of their Lives and at last ended in the violent Death of Mary Queen of the Scots The French seemed then to desire nothing more than a pretence for a War with England Throgmorton the Ambassador was made the subject of their Court-Jesters and Comedians Raillery one of his Servants was contrary to the Laws of Nations taken violently and unjustly from him and sent to the Gallies by the Brother of the Duke of Guise the English which Traded in France were without any provocation or complaint made of them to their own Queen most unjustly Imprison'd and otherwise exposed to Contempt and Blows The Ambassador bore all things with an invincible Resolution and resolved whatever he suffered not to be frighted from his Post but to watch the first opportunity to revenge the Contempt was offered to his Character and their violations of the Laws of Nations He complained openly and freely to the Council of France of the Affronts offered to his Mistress of their Violence Injuries and Rapins committed upon her Subjects And as for the Duke of Guise he considered him only as a Subject of France and said many things of him with the utmost Freedom and Sharpness and the Duke of Guise answered him with some vehemence The Council on the other hand laid all the blame on the common people of France and offered a specious but unâ—…rue Excuse for what had been done The Ambassador thereupon calling God and man to bear witness how much they had violated the Law of Nations and the Liberty of an Ambassador which was Sacred by the Laws of God and man returned to his House and from thenceforward made it his business to imbroil France he exasperated by his Arts Anthony King of Navarre the Prince of Conde his Brother Montmorancy and the rest of the Peers of that Kingdom till he made all France the Scene of a Civil War and filled it with inexpressible Calamities which ended in the utter Ruin of the exorbitant Power and Greatness of the House of Guise Tho this Great man did all this yet upon his return into England he did not meet with a Recompence proportionable to his Integrity Courage and Industry because the Lord Burleigh was his Enemy and sought by all means to curb and conquer this lively free and haughty Spirit which too often appeared against him The French having obtained a Matrimonial Right to the Crown of Scotland thought it afforded them a fair pretence and an happy introduction into the Island and designed to employ these Advantages for the Conquest of England also They thereupon taking hold of the Disorders their own Cruelty and Perfidy had caused in Scotland raised a Potent Army under the Command of the Count de Martigues and Monsieur La Brosse two Expert Commanders and sent them into Scotland These French Gentlemen did all that was possible to Establish the Faction that favoured France in Scotland they wasted and destroyed all that durst oppose them and threatned the intire Destruction of all that any way opposed their designs Their Violence and Cruelty in the mean time highly exasperated the common people of that Kingdom and they began to whisper That the Destruction of all the Scotch Nobility and the Extirpation of their Government was intended Thereupon the Scots began in good earnest to think how they might preserve themselves and defend their Lands and Territories from the Incursions and Depredations of the French The French on the other side meeting with Repulses and seeing the whole Nation arm against them when they expected the most profound Submission retired to Leith which they had then Fortified for their security whither the Scotch Nobility sollowed them and there were frequent but small Skirmishes between them and the French But however still the storm fell heaviest on that part of the Scots which had embraced the Reformation for that was made the pretence for sending over these French Forces and they on the contrary saw that during the Marriage of their Queen with Francis II. King of France there was no hopes of Security against the Pride and Cruelty of their new Masters and that they were not able to defend themselves without Assistance from abroad Whereupon they sent their Agents with Letters to Queen Elizabeth laying before her Majesty the miserable Estate they were reduced to and imploring her Protection and Assistance for the prevention of their Ruin The Queen being before exasperated by the ill usages she had received from the Guifes and
Justification of Queen Elizabeth against the Reproaches of the Papists A plentiful Supply given to the Queen She dischargeth a part of it 158 A Digression concerning Parry 160 The Queen's Severity towards the Conspirators 163 The second Civil War in France 165 The third in which the Queen sends great Supplies of Men and Money 167 A Reflection concerning Passive Obedience 169 The King of France laboureth to divide the Protestants without success The true Causes of these Civil Wars 170 The Queen preserved the Protestants of France 171 The beginning of the Countrey-Wars 172 Liberty of Conscience treacherously granted and recalled 172 The King of Spain enraged at it 174 The Spaniards design to settle an Absolute and Arbitrary Government there 176 Valenciennes commanded to receive a Garison 177 The rest of the Cities petition for a General Assembly of the States 178 The Designs of Spain discovered to the rest of the Nobility 179 Which at first only terrified and divided them 181 A Bloody Persecution against the Protestants in the Netherlands 182 The Breakers of Images not put upon it by the Reformed The Character of the Duke of Alva He comes into Flanders The Council of Blood 185 Their Rules The Counts of Egmont and Hoorne the first they seized and after them vast Numbers of meaner people 187 The Protestants of France and the Queen of England alarmed at these Proceedings 188 The Subjects of the Low Countries fly into England 189 The Conduct of King Philip considered The Reasons why Queen Elizabeth opposed the Spaniards 191 The Inhabitants of the Netherlands follow the Example of England 193 The King of Spain complains of the Queen for harbouring the Netherland Pyrates 194 They seize the Sea-Ports of Holland and Zealand The Queen of England undertakes the Protection of this oppressed People 197 The French Affairs during her time 201 A Private League between France and Spain against the Protestants 203 The Duke of Guise made Head of this League against his Sovereign 204 An Account of the House of Guise 205 The Reasons why Henry III. was to be deposed and Henry IV. excluded 207 The Queen Mother of France dieth of Grief Queen Elizabeth assists Henry IV. with Men and Money 209 Spain invaded by the English 211 The Actions of Robert Earl of Essex 212 The Affairs of Ireland during her Reign 216 Ulster the first Province that rebelled 218 A Quarrel between Ormond and Desmond 219 The Pope and King of Spain Interested in the Wars of Ireland 221 The Difficulty of administring Justice and Mercy seasonably 224 Sr. Jo. Perrot Lord Deputy of Ireland New Colonies sent into Munster The Irish complain of the English 226 And they of the Deputy 227 William's Character 228 The College of Dublin finished The English Colonies keep Ireland quiet for some time Part of the Spanish Armado Shipwrackt on the Coast of Ireland 229 The Rise of Hugh Oneale Earl of Tyrone 232 He aspires to be King of Ulster Tyrone made a County which occasioned that Rebellion 233 Sir William Russell Lord Deputy of Ireland under whom it began 234 Sir John Norris sent into Ireland 235 The Irish made very Expert in the use of Arms. Tho. Lord Burroughs made Deputy The Council of Ireland represent the Irish War as an Universal Rebellion of the whole Nation 241 Tyrone beats the English 243 He treats with Spain and England at the same time 244 The Earl of Essex sent Deputy The Lord Montjoy sent Deputy 246 No Irish pardoned but what merited the favour by some Signal Service 247 The Spaniards land at Kingsale The Irish reduced to eat man's Flesh 248 Religion causlesly made the Pretence of this Irish War Liberty of Conscience considered 249 The great Reputation of England in Queen Elizabeth's time 250 Sir Drake's Original and Story 253 The Story of John Oxenham 256 Drake's two Voyages into America 258 The Story of Mr. Tho. Cavendish 263 Philip King of Spam highly inc◅nsed against the English 265 The Invincible Armado Charles Lord Howard Admiral of England The Condition of the Spanish Fleet when the English left it 273 The King of Spain bears his Loss with much patience and prudence 275 The English and Hollanders glorify God for the Victory over the Spaniards at Sea 277 The Queen declares a War against Spain 278 The English Expeditions against that Kingdom A rare Example of Martial Valour Complaints made of the Depredations of the English at Sea 285 The Hanse Towns very clamorous against the English 287 The Trade of England prohibited in Germany 288 The Queen seizes the Still-yard 289 Poland continues a Trade with England 291 The Queen ends a War between the Russ and Swedes ibid. Her Laws for the enriching her Subjects Her Severity to those she imployed when found faulty 292 The Liberty of the Theatre restrained 297 The Calamities that happened in her times 298 Her kindness to her good Magistrates 299 Her tender care of the Church 300 Her Stature and Personal Accomplishments 301 She was concerned in her old Age for the decay of her Beauty She loved Flattery because it raised a good opinion of her in her Subjects but Crafty men made ill uses of it 303 She loved good Preachers 307 She loved Religion but hated Faction 308 Her Devotion in publick She exposed her Life for the Safety of the Church 309 She humoured and caressed the body of the People 310 Parliaments frequently held 312 Her Maxims concerning Peace and War 314 She would never arm the meanest of the People All honours carefully and sparingly bestowed in her time 315 Her Justice and Severity towards Offenders which made her beloved 317 Her Justice in other Instances 322 She was sparing in her Personal Expences but magnificent in her Publick 323 She was too sparing in her Rewards She shewed a great respect to the memory of the meanest Soldier that perished in her Service 327 The Praises of Henry VII who was her Example 329 Her Bounty to some Great Men 330 The manner of her bestowing Honours 333 The choice of her Servants Officers and Ministers 335 Her kindness to the Bishops and Church-men 337 Her Principal Favourites and Statesmen 338 Her Habit 339 Her Furniture 341 Her Dyet in publick and private 342 The Splendor and Divertisements of her Court 344 Her private way of living 346 Her Summer Progresses and her Carriage towards the People 348 She spent the Winter in London 350 Her Diet in Summer and Winter 352 Her Diversions and Private Conversation 353 She was subject to violent Anger 's 355 Her Sevērity to the Queen of Scots To Leicester 358 To Hatton 360 The Provocations she met with many and great 361 The Character of Sanders and others who defamed her 363 Her last Sickness 367 he spent the last moments of her life in Devotion 371 Her last Words and Death 373 The Sorrow for her Death at Home and Abroad 374 LICENS'D November 10. 1692. THE CHARACTER OF Queen ELIZABETH ELIZABETH Queen of England was born
but to confirm the Inventions of men or rather of Satan not for the reforming the Lives and Manners of men but to defend the Pretended Dignity of the See of Rome and the vast and boundless Authority of the Pope That it was not intendâ—…d for the Purging the Christian Flock but for the Establishing and Confirming their inveterate Errors Tho the Pope had had these sharp Replies from the German Protestant Princes and the Guise's and Spanish Faction had represented to him That it would be an undervaluing of his Power and Person to send a Nuncio to England where he would certainly be rejected yet Pius IV. would not be discouraged but said He would humble himself even to Heresie it self in regard that whatsoever was done to gain Souls to Christ did beseem that See And accordingly he sent Abbot Martiningo to the Queen who came as far as Flanders and there he met with her Commands not to cross the Seas but at his Peril and altho the King of Spain and the Emperor of Germany did earnestly intreat he might be heard yet the Queen stood her ground and replied That she could not treat with the Bishop of Rome whose Authority was for ever excluded out of England by Act of Parliament Nay she would give the Pope's Nuncio no other Answer but a flat Denial tho she gave this reason to the French and Spaniards to give them some satisfaction For she well perceived this Remedy did not tend to the healing the Wounds of the Church but to the making them incurable and the Event justified her Conduct In the mean time the Queen clearly foresaw that the Restoring the Protestants to their Native Countrey and their former Stations would disoblige all the Popish Nobility of England who tho for the present they suppressed their Resentment yet when occasion was offered they would not fail to do her the utmost Mischief that was in their Power The only noise of the coming of a Nuncio from the Pope encouraged many to break the Laws made against the Pope and his Authority with great boldness and they spread false Reports abroad That the Queen was going to change her Religion and alter the Government of the Realm to dispose the Protestants to join with the Papists in a Rebellion to her Ruin She saw also that at length she should be involved in a Foreign War and that the Pope would fulminate against her all which Dangers the Greatness of her Soul despised She also changed her Privy-Council into which she chose Protestants of famed Prudence and Moderation and she openly and avowedly broke the Power and lessened the Authority of her Popish Nobility and Gentry The Pope having at this time sent a Legate into Ireland who had joined himself to some desperate Traytors then in Rebellion against her and endeavouring to deprive her of all Right and Title to that Kingdom Some others of that Persuasion were found also to have practised with the Devil by Conjurations Charms and casting Figures to be informed of the Length and Continuance of her 〈◊〉 but Heaven would not and Hell could not help them The Affairs of the Church being thus setled she applied her mind to restore the Civil State of England to its Ancient Strength and Happiness it having been strangely shaken by the Factions and Divisions in the Three Reigns that preceded hers To this purpose she passed many Acts of Parliament and other State-Orders for her own Security and the Welfare of her Subjects She made some new Additions to the old Laws for the better Administration of her Civil Government for the Promoting the common Interest of her Subjects or for the Regu lating her Parliaments She enriched her Kingdom also and whereas she found a great part of the current Money of England adulterared and mixed with Brass she reduced it all to the old Standard and made it good STERLING She furnished all her Havens Sea-Ports Cities and Frontier places with Garisons Forts Castles Cannon Ball Gun powder and Provisions She took care to have her own Gunpowder made in England which before had been fetch'd in from abroad She cast great quantities of Brass and Iron Ordnance after she had discovered a plentiful Mine of Brass at KESWICK in Cumberland She fortified BERWICK anew and caused all the Frontier places towards Scotland to be repaired and placed Garisons of good Soldiers in them Tho she was upon better terms with the Scots than any of her Ancestors for many Ages had been especially after they embraced the Reformed Religion yet she would not so wholly rely on their good affections as to neglect a timely provision for her own Security And when all these great Designs had brought a Debt upon the Crown she chose rather to sell a part of her Crown-Lands to pay it than be over-burthensome to her People She ordered also the Debts contracted by her Father and Brother but neglected by her Sister to be paid She provided a great Magazine and furnished her Kingdom with plentiful Stores of Arms and Ammunition and all sorts of Warlike Provisions that she might always have at hand whatever was needful to secure her against the sudden Insults of her Foreign Enemies or any Insurrections which might be raised at home She caused her Forces to be often drawn out viewed and mustered and with Honours and other Rewards she recompenced those that in this kind had deserved well of her by which she much encouraged her Soldiers and Sea-men She encreased her Fleet and built many large Men of War and furnished her Naval Stores with whatever was needful and she encreased the Wages of her Mariners and Seamen and appointed a Guard of Ships to ride always in the Downs for the Security of the British Seas and carefully scoured the Seas by her Men of War and purged them from Pyrates and Sea-Robbers so that in all her time the Seas were secure safe and open Dr. Heylin in his History of the Reformation acquaints us that she began these Preparations in the year 1560. Ahd that holding it a safer Maxim in the Schools of Policy not to Admit than to endeavour by strong hand to Expel an Enemy she entertained the fortunate thoughts of Walling her Kingdom round about with a puissant Navy for ouâ—… Merchants had already encreased their Shipping by managing some part of that Wealthy Trade which formerly had been Monopolized by the Hanse-Towns or Easterlings And thereupon she resolved not to be wanting to her self in Building Ships of such Burthen and so fit for Service as might enable her in a short time not only to Protect her Merchants but to Command the Ocean Of which the Spaniard found good proof to his great Loss and almost to his total Ruin in the last Twenty years of her Glorious Government At the same time by her Proclamation dated November 15. 1560. she commanded all the Easterling Flemish and Spanish Moneys to be brought into the Mint
Defamer of others to be drawn into Troubles by the means of one Somervil a mad Papist his Father-in-Law and one Hall a Popish Priest and being found guilty of Treason he his Wife Somervil and the Priest were all sentenced to die Somervil hanged himself in Prison Adern was executed and Hall the Author and Procurer of all this Mischief was preserved by the Intercession of Leicester This was by all men looked upon a Spectacle of great Compassion He laid Snares for many of the Nobility ruining the Reputation of some of them endangering the Lives of others and some Noble Families he utterly extinguished He impiously and sacrilegiously invaded the Revenues of the Church and brought some of the Bishops into Danger and Dis-favour He incensed the Queen against the Lord Archbishop Grindal a Prelate of great Integrity and Honesty by his Calumnies and Slanders This Grave and Religious Prelate was as Mr. Cambden saith first made Bishop of London then Archbishop of York and afterwards of Canterbury and for many years enjoyed the Favour of the Queen till by the crafty Insinuations of Leicester she was set against him upon a pretence and slanderous Report That he was a Favourer of the Conventicles of the turbulent Puritan Preachers and of their Preachments but in truth because he would not patiently dissemble the Disorders of one Julio an Italian Physician and a Favourite of Leicester's who had Married another man's Wife for which the good Prelate stoutly prosecuted him though Leicester appeared for the Criminal The best of Princes after all the Care and prudent Foresight that Mortality is capable of are yet sometimes deceived in the choice of their Servants Leicester having married the Countess Dowager of Essex who was a Widow when his first Lady died and having no Children of his own was easily perswaded by his Wife to recommend Robert Devereux the young Earl of Essex her Son to the Queen as one fit to serve her Majesty and by this he opened the way to that great man and brought him with good advantage into the Court and into Business Nor would this Nobleman afterwards refuse to acknowledge That all the Authority and Favour he had acquired with the Queen was owing in a great measure to the Assistance his Step-Father had at first given him When he had some time served as a Volunteer first under his own Father in Ireland and after in other places he was made General of the Horse and Field-Marshal under the Earl of Leicester when in the year 1585 he went General of the English Forces in the Low Countries In this Expedition this Noble Gentleman behaved himself with that Courage Bravery Moderation and Prudence that he won the Love and Esteem of the whole Army and by that Reputation he became very Popular which afterwards was the occasion of his Ruin The truth was he for Honesty Valour Liberality and Sincerity was equal to the best of the Nobility of his time but in Prudence and Discretion he was inferior to many He for a long time enjoyed the Favour of the Queen which his goodness prompted him freely to employ to the doing good and to the relief of the indigent and oppressed so that all his Greatness seemed only to be lodged in him as Water in a Cistern for the good of others He was not observed to be addicted to any Vice but that of Missing and Luxury but as to all his other Appetites he had them in a tolerable subjection to his Reason In the year 1587 he was made Master of the Horse In 1590 he was sent into France with an English Army to assist Henry the IVth In 1596 he was made Earl Marshal of England and after that Master of the Ordnance the same year In the year 1597 he was Admiral of the second Squadron of that Fleet which was sent against Cadiz In 1599 he was made Lord Deputy of Irelâ—…nd with more ample power than had been given to any of his Predecessors and a good Army This Expedition was the occasion of the Ruin of this Great Man his Army being wasted without any considerable Advantage Cambden attributes this to the Discontent of the Earl of Essex Because Sir Robert Cecil was made Master of the Wards which so netled him who desired to engross all hâ—…s Mistress's Favours that he left Ireland without leave and returned to England where he perished in his Discontent and Folly in the year 1600. The Queen was in her own Temper a Person of an extraordinary Piety and Goodness and without any exception yet her Virtue was scarce able to secure her from being made infamous and unhappy by the Wickedness of the Earl of Leicester she in the beginning of her Reign relying too much upon his Counsel and as it were committing her self and her Kingdoms to his Industry and Care to the neglect of the rest of the Nobility who hated this Minister Whilst the rest of the Peers withdrew from Danger or stood as it were at a gaze in a stupid amazement or servilely and patiently complied with him But Thomas Ratcliff Earl of Sussex and Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold to the Queen and President of the North agoodly Gentleman of a Brave and Noble Nature constant to his Friends and Servants and the best Soldier the Queen then had would not so tamely yield to Leicester there being in his Nature as well as Morals a perfect Antipathy to the other so that the Court for a long time stood divided between them and they kept Spies upon each other's actions The Queen did what she could to reconcile them but it was utterly impossible they were equal in Power and Estate but so differing from each other in their Designs and Interests and so unwilling on both sides to yield that nothing but Death could determine this mortal Feud between them This Noble Martial Earl died in the year 1583. He would often remonstrate That Leicester's Covetousness and his other Vices were intolerable that he had more Authority with the Queen than all the rest of the Nobility that he disposed of all the Rewards of Virtue and Industry and all the rest were forced to truckle under and serve him that his Pride Laziness Luxury and dissolute Manners were not to be born and there was hardly a good man in the Nation who was not in his heart convinced of the truth of all this and did not wish to see this ill man humbled The truth is Sussex was the honester man and the better Soldier Leicester the more accomplished Courtier and the deeper Politician not for the general Good but his own partitular Profit Sir William Cecil was a Person of great Learning singular Judgment and admirable Moderation and Prudence unto which is justly attributed very much of the Prosperity which England for so many years enjoyed under this most auspieious Government He was made Secretary of State the 5th of Edâ—… the 6th 1551. His opposition to the Exclusion of
could get down and get into a Posture of Assisting them he saw all their Army dispersed and they forced to flee into Scotland whereupon he formed a Design to Murder the Bishop of Carlisle and the Lord scrope Warden of the West Marshes which when he saw he could not effect he recommended the Two Earls to the Scots and seized Greistoke and Caworth Castles as his own which belonged to the Family of the Dacres and he got together about 3000 Borderers with some others who were the Friends of that Ancient and Splendid Family The Lord Hunsdon hearing of this Insurrection drew out a part of the Garison of Berwick of which he was Governour and marched against this Incendiary who met Hunsdon and fought stoutly at the Head of his Party which was yet at last over-powered and broken the Lord Hunsdon having no great reason to be overjoyed at the Victory by reason of the Number of men he lost Dacres fled into Scotland and was with the two Earls Attainted in the next Parliament Both these Rebellions were caused by Pope Pius his Bull tho they broke out before the Bull was Published here in England which was one great reason that they spread no further The Delivery of the Queen of Scots who was then in the Custody of George Earl of Shrewsbury the Restoring the Popish Religion and the suppressing the Protestant was the last thing they aimed at and the King of Spain was the Fomenter of these Troubles and had sent them Assurances that he would send them Assistance from Flanders and had his Agent at Court to promote it But all these Projects being disappointed England soon returned to her former state of Peace and the rest of the Popish Party seeing their Weakness and the Severity of the Government against these Ring-leaders soon found how much it was their Interest to be quiet The secret Head of all these Motions was Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk who was the Richest most Noble and Wisest Peer then in England and of the greatest Authority with the Queen and no less beloved by the People This Great Man having appeared a little over-inclined to favour the Interest of the Captive Queen of the Scots in the XIth year of the Queen's Reign he drew upon himself both the Suspicion of the Queen and the Practices of his Enemies at Home and Abroad The Pope the King of Spain and many of the Nobility of England for different and very contrary ends promoting a Marriage between the Queen of Scots and this Duke which being by the means of these Rebellions discovered in part to the Council of England in the latter end of the year 1669 he was first Committed he left the Court in Discontent and resolved to Marry the Queen of Sâ—…ots without the Queen of England's Leave tho he had promised the Queen he would proceed no further in this business Whereupon he was committed Prisoner to the Tower in the year 1571 and the 16th of January 1572. he was found Guilty of High-Treason and Beheaded the 15th of June following The Greatness of his Fortunes and Soul and the wonderful Affection the People of England on all occasions shewed to this Noble Gentleman added to his Compassion for the Queen of Scots who was a Lady of great Wit and Beauty first stirred in him the thought of Marrying her upon her first coming into England which coming to the Queen's ears he was a little before the Rebellion of the North put under Confinement yet he found means to send Money to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland but so privately that after this he had his Liberty again By the procurement of one Robert Ridolf Agent for Pope Pius Quintus here in England under the pretence of Merchandize he was again drawn into a secret Practice for the Marrying that Captive Queen which being discovered to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh by the Duke's Secretary out of mere Treachery he was again Imprisoned Tried and Convicted by one whom he most trusted and leaft suspected of Designing against him Thus wonderfully did God appear for this Religious Queen turning all the Crafty Imaginations of her Enemies and all their intended Violences upon their own heads for the Preservation of this Church and Nation Saith Mr. Cambden The Love that the People of England bore to the Duke of Norfolk is incredible which he had acquired by a Courtesie and Goodness which was worthy of so great a Prince The Wiser part of the Nation were very differently affected towards him some being affrighted at the Danger which was threatned to the Nation from his Numerous Party whilst he lived to Head them And others very heartily commiserating this Noble Gentleman who was of an excellent Temper of great Beauty and of a Manly Aspect and would have been the Ornament and Securer of his Countrey if the fraudulent Arts of his Enemies had not turned him out of his former course and way of living by the deceivable hopes of greater things and the specious pretences and shews of promoting the Publick Welfare His End renewed the Memory of his Father's most unhappy Fate who Twenty Five Years before was Beheaded in the same place only because he wore the Scutcheon of Edward the Confessor in his Arms which were granted to the. Mowbrays Dukes of Norfolk from whom he was descended Lineally by King Richard the IId This Bull of Pope Pius V. and his Practises against England produced a shoal of Traytors to plague that Generation for they were ever after it restlefly plotting and conspiring against their Sovereign their Countrey and their Kindred with an invincible perfidy and obstinacy which the Executions of many could not extinguish But yet the Calamity did not end there for from the same Exuberant Fountain of Mischief issued those refractory and stabborn Recusants who separating from the Communion and Service of the Church of England which till then they had frequented without the least scruple or difference they set up Popish Conventicles and the Latin Mass and called over a swarm of Jesuits Priests and Monks to infest the Nation and incense those that entertained them against the Religion and Government that was established and so perpetuated our Quarrels and kept open the bloody wounds of this Kingdom This is the thing we have most reason to complain of because it has brought upon all the succeeding Times great miseries and distresses and the Wisdom of our Forefathers has not been able to cure this Disease The Queen seeing in the mean time the mischief this would bring upon her Kingdoms and being roused by the Rebellions in the North and the intimations she had that there were Designs on foot against her Person and Life took up a resolution to put a stop to it and to that end passed an Act in the next Parliament for the levying 20 l. the Month upon all that should refuse to go to Church and attend at the Service of God or to take the Oath
sixty Years the Right of it fell to Henry King of Navarre of the House of Bourbon but he was suspected by all his Popish Subjects stoutly resisted by all that were in the League against his Predecessor and Excommunicated by the Pope and sorely laid at by the King of Spain who dreaded nothing so much as the seeing France in the hand of a Valiant Wise Protestant Prince now his Invincible Armado was returned back srom England with Shame Ignominy and Contempt and such a Loss as Spain was never able since to recover The Queen-Mother of France who had been the principal Incendiary when she saw the Duke of Guise fall in the Assembly of Bloise and her only Son in the utmost danger of being Murdered or Deposed she died with the mere apprehension of the Calamities she had brought upon her own head and Family before her Son was slain And as for Henry the IVth the new King of France he saw things in that Disorder and Confusion that he was forced to raise his Camp and retreat from Paris into Normandy from whence he sent to Queen Elizabeth for Succors of Men Money and Ammunition The Queen presently sent Peregrine Lord Willoughby who had signalized his Valour in the Netherlands with Four thousand Men and Two and twenty thousand Pounds of English Money in Gold which was a Sum which Henry the IVth owned he had never before seen together in Gold at once Henry had beat the Leaguers before these men arrived contrary to the expectation of all the World and being thus reinforced from England he pursued his Victory to the Gates of Paris and was in a fair way to have taken the City but that he did not think it possible and he was besides unwilling to run the hazard of seeing the Capital City of France plundered by his own Army This tenderness of his at length brought him under the necessity of changing his Religion to gain the Crown of France In the year 1590. the King of Spain sent Forces to take possession of Bretagne a Province of France pretending a Title to it for himself and some of the English Courtiers advised Queen Elizabeth not to concern her self any farther in the Affairs of that Kingdom to her great impoverishing and no advantage telling her Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy used to say It would be better for all the Neighbour Nations to have France under Twenty Kings than One To which she as stoutly replied The Evening of the last Day the Crown of France should see would be fatal to England And the next year she sent a Fleet and Three thousand Land-men to secure that Province out of the hands of the Spaniards This small Number of men being commanded by Sir John Norris a person of great Experience and Conduct preserved that Province not only from the Dominion but in a good degree also from the Rapines and Cruelties of the Spaniards She spent in Three years in these French Affairs besides the Gold she sent to Henry the IVth into Normandy 226058 Crowns of French Money yet she did not burthen her Subjects to pay it but got it together by her Thrifty Management This Queen was wholly intent upon the humbling the Pride of Spain and at the same time she opposed his Greatness and curb'd his Ambitious Designs in France and the Netherlands she sent a potent Fleet and an Army into Spain in the year 1589 to revenge the Invasion of the preceeding year and to settle Anthony a Bastard in the Kingdom of Portugal which was then in the Possession of Philip the IId King of Spain The Army consisted of Eleven thousand Men and there went in the Fleet Fifteen hundred Sea-men The Army was commanded by Sir John Norris and the Fleet by Sir Francis Drake They first landed at the Groyne in Galicia without any Opposition and the next day they took the Lower-Town by Scalado but not without the loss of a great many men And here they found a vast Magazine of Gunpowder and Maritime Stores which was brought hither for another Expedition against England In this Expedition Robert Earl of Essex gave proofs of his Martial Inclinations for he stole away from Court without the Queen's Leave she being unwilling to venture any of her principal Nobility in so dangerous an Undertaking as this seemed then to be but this brisk young Gentleman on the contrary despising the soft Pleasures of a Court greedily embraced this opportunity of Revenging the Wrongs of his Countrey and set Sail after the Fleet in a single Ship and he had the good fortune to fall into the English Fleet after they had left the Groyne and were going to attack Lisbon wherein they had not the same success by reason their Forces were too small and the Fleet was kept at too great a distance to relieve the Army which was forced to march about Sixty Miles by Land but however they took the Towns of Paniche and Chascais and brought out of Spain One hundred Great Guns and about Sixty Ships sent by the Hanse Towns in Germany loaded with Corn which went round about Scotland and Ireland by the Vergivian Ocean to avoid being intercepted by the English the Queen having before warned those Cities That if they sent any Provisions or Ammunition into Spain she would treat them as Enemies Besides all these they brought back with them a very rich Prey in Housholdstuff Money and Plate which they gathered in that Kingdom but the most considerable advantage was the intercepting all the Stores which had been gathered for a second Expedition against England the Design of which was after this laid aside and the discovering the Weakness of the Spaniards when they were set upon at their own doors so that after this time the English despised this before so formidable Enemy they having with so small an Army marched so many Miles and taken so many places in two of the best peopled Provinces of that Kingdom In the year 1591. Robert Earl of Essex was sent into Normandy with Four thousand English to Assist Henry the IVth in the Reduction of Roan where before that City he lost his Brother Walter who was â—…ain by a Musquet This was so far from terrifying this Noble Earl that it was with wonder observed by the French that he exposed his own person the more freely that he might take all opportunities to revenge his Death After this in the year 1596. the Queen sent him her General again into Spain the Fleet which consisted of One hundred and fifty Ships being partly English and partly Dutch was commanded by Charles Lord Howard Admiral of England and the Land-Forces which were about Seven thousand and three hundred men were to be commanded by Essex and Howard as Joynt-Generals Essex having the Precedence on Shore and Howard at Sea They came before Cadiz the 20th of June but did not attempt to Land while the 22d and then they took
this Great Man who was of a Regal Spirit and is supposed to have been a Bastard Son of Henry the VIIIth despised too much the Complaints of his Countrey-men and forced the greatest of the English to fly before his Authority and as for the Irish he made them better than they would otherwise have been both by his Threats and Severity and by his good Advices and by the strength of his Reason he made them understand how much it was for their good to continue firm in their Allegiance to the Queen This was an hard Task considering the Capacity and Temper both of the People he was to deal with and of the Times in which he governed Ireland In the year 1588. Sir William Fitz-Williams was made Lord Deputy of Ireland and continued till the 11th of August 1594. He was a Covetous Unjust man and laid the Foundations of a great many Troubles to the English in after times but in all his Ireland was tolerably quiet till towards the latter end of his Government only the Irish took up an Aversion for the English Government and Sheriffs by his means and Tyrone having Six Companies allowed him under the Queen's Pay he changed his men so often that the whole Countrey became Disciplined men and he got great quantities of Lead into his Possession under pretence of building a fine House In the year 1593 the College of Dublin was finished at the Queen's Charges and Burleigh was the first Chancellor and Usher the first Scholar in it That which made Ireland so quiet under Fitz-Williams was the Justice Prudence and Valour of his Predecessor Sir John Perrot which had broken the Power of the Heads of the Irish Clans and so well Civilized and Planted that Kingdom with English Colonies and Garisons that during these Six years there was but Eight hundred Foot and Three hundred Horse maintained to keep the Natives in quiet The Irish were also so well setled in their Lands Estates and Cattel that it was no mans Interest to make any Disturbance And there was no Foreign Prince that could be brought to join with them or lend them any Assistance The Spanish Armada in the latter end of the year 1588. lost Seventeen of its Ships upon the Northern and Western Shores of this Kingdom and 5394 of the men in it perished and tho some of the Popish Natives sheltered some of them yet they all robbed them of their Freasures and got what they had for it And King James of Scotland looked upon himself as the Presumptive Heir of this Kingdom after the Queen and kept a fair Correspondence with the English and restrained the Scots and Islanders from joining with the Irish. There was a Rumor in England That there was a vast Treasure found in the Spanish Ships which perished in Connaught and Ulster And Fitz-Williams the Lord Deputy made a severe search after it commanding by a Proclamation all the Spanish Treasures to be brought into the Exchequer for the Queen's use and he imprisoned Sir Owen O Toole and Sir John O Dogherty two of the greatest men in the North in the Castle of Dublin on this pretence tho they were the best affected to the English of any of the Inhabitants but he could discover nothing tho he kept the first Two years in Restraint and the latter all his time who was discharged by his Successor and died soon after being much decayed by the Hardships of a long Imprisonment and Old Age. But all these ill things done under Fitz Williams made work for them that followed him Upon the Death of Mac Mahon who was one of the Heads of an Irish Clan and had not long before taken a Patent from the Queen for the County of Monaghan to him and his Heirs Male for ever Hugh Roe his Brother and Heir Petitioned the Deputy to be setled in his Inheritance according to the Queen's Patent and the Laws of the Kingdom and the Irish say it coft him Six hundred Cows to have a Promise of it And then the Deputy only said he would go in person to do it But as soon as he came to Monaghan he Imprisoned Tried and Condemned Hugh Roe by Military Law and without any Legal Trial pretending he had Levied Forces two years before to distrain for Rent he pretended was due to him in the Ferny Hereupon he was hanged and the County was divided between Sir Henry Bagnal Marshal Captain Henslow and four of the Mac Mahons under a Yearly Rent each of these giving the Deputy considerable Bribes as they said in their Complaint to the Council of England The Deputy denied all this but it was observed That from thenceforward the Irish loathed Sheriffs and the Neighbourhood of the English fearing the same fate might at one time or other attend them that had befallen Hugh Roe The Report of this Villany Spread it self all over Ulster and the Heads of the Clans were greatly terrified and incensed at it and had close Cabals wherein they severely taxed the ill Management Covetousness and Cruelty of the Deputy There was then in Ulster a Great Man called Hugh O Neal the Son of one Mathew a Smith a Cunning and a Crafty man who from his youth had served the Queen in the Wars In Desmond's Rebellion he had done the Queen good Service and got much Reputation both for his Courage and Industry The Queen on the other side protected this poor obscure Gentleman against the Malice of the O Neals who hated him as the Enemy to their Nation and she advanced him from an abject and mean Condition to great Honour and made him Earl of Tyrone for his Merits and Deserts He became intoxicated with his too good fortune and ungratefully and madly design'd to ruin her that had made him what he was and now nothing would serve him but he would needs be King of Ulster and to that end he assumed the Title of O Neale and cast off all Respect and Allegiance for the Queen He disciplined the rude and ignorant Kerns after the English manner under the pretence I have before recited and in the mean time under hand instilled into them an invincible hatred of the English Religion and Government calling the first Heresy and the latter a shameful Slavery and Servitude by which he disposed them so well to a Rebellion that almost the whole Nation revolted at once from the Queen In July 1591. Tyrone was made a County and divided into Eight Baronies Dungannon being appointed for the Shire-Town which with the Authority of Marshal Bagnal so fretted Tyrone that it 's believed it occasioned his Confederating this Summer underhand with the rest of the Irish to defend their pretended Rights and not to admit Sheriffs into their Counties The effects of this first appeared in the year 1593. when O Connor became troublesome in Connaught and O Donnel and Mac Guire chief of Fermanagh rose in Ulster against the Sheriffs and would have
few days above a hundred Leagues to the South and here one of the Ships being separated returned back again through these Streights into England After this Drake took St. Jago in Chili and plundered it and here he got a Prize with 400 pound of pure Gold Arriving at Turapassa he found 13 Bars of Massy Silver of the value of CCCCM Ducats which was left on the ground by some Spaniards who were asleep by it he took the Silver and never waked the Keepers of it From thence he pass'd to the Port of Arica in which he found three Ships without one man in them but there was 57 Wedges of Silver each of 20 pound weight and some other Merchandize which he took Arriving at Lima he found twelve Ships but all the Mariners were on shore and yet in them he had a great quantity of Silk and a Chest of Minted Silver which shews how secure from Pyrates this Coast had to this time been Nor in truth till this time had any other than the Spaniards ever sailed upon this Sea except Oxenham In his journey to Panama he took a Barque without any resistance that afforded him 80 pound weight of Gold The first of March he took a Ship called the Cacofoga which had on board 80 pound weight of Gold and 13 Chests of Minted Money and as much Silver as balasted his own Ship the Master of this Ship told him That his Ship Drake's should henceforth be call'd the Cacofoga and the Spanish Ship the Cacoplata Being thus wonderfully enriched and as he thought sufficiently avenged on the Spaniards for the Loss he had sustained in his first Attempt upon Vera Crnz he began to consider of his return and not thinking the passage by the Streights of Magellan safe as in truth it was beset by the Orders of Francis Duke of Toledo then Viceroy of Peru he directed his Course Northward to the height of 42 Degrees of North Latitude to seek a paslage but finding nothing but snow and defolate shores he returned to 38 degrees and Wintered there calling the Countrey New Albion and here the naked people chofe him for their King and by their ignorance shewed him plainly the Spaniards had never been so far that way In the Month of November he set sail for the Molucca Islands the 9th of January his Ship stuck 27 hours upon a Rock but by the blessing of God came off it by a side-wind which seem'd to be sent of purpose to save this Hero From thence he passed to the Jsland of Java in the East Indies and so to the Cape of Good Hope which had never been seen before by any English-man and Watering at the Rio Grande in Africa he arrived in England the 3d. of November 1580. having in this time gone round the Globe of the Earth The People of England received him with great Triumph and a Publick Joy and the Queen as a Reward of the good Service he had done her against the Spaniards Knighted him and caused the Ship he had sailed in to be laid up at Deptford Mr. Gage our Countrey-man who lived some years in the Spanish Territories in America assures us his Memory is preserved there by the Spaniards who to this day saith he admire this Expedition and teach their Children to fear even his Name After this the Queen often made him one of her Admirals and he being grown exceeding rich took diligent care to put out a greater Fleet and openly assaulted the Island of St. Jago and took St. Domingo and Carthagena and some others in the West Indies being sent by the Queen with 21 Ships and 2300 men in the year 1585. The Towns they took in this Expedition were either so poor that there was nothing of Silver or Gold to be found in them or they had had such previous notice of the coming of the English that they had sent a way all that was valuable yet St. Domingo and Carthagena were forced to redeem themselves from Fire by Money the first gave Twenty five thousand Ducats and the latter One hundred and ten thousand which was presently divided amongst the Mariners and Seamen The Spaniards more regretted the loss of their ships great numbers being burnt and this hastned the Invasion designed upon England which was undertaken in the year 1588. which miscarrying the Spanish Greatness dwindled into nothing and after the Queen's Death they were glad to send to King James the First her Successor to beg a Peace in the first year of his Reign so the Honour of Reducing Spain was hers and that of setling Peace after a War that had lasted so long his The Riches and Fame Sir Francis Drake had acquired in these Maritime Expeditions encouraged Mr. Thomas Cavendish a Gentleman of Trimely in the County of Suffolk to pursue the same methods for the raising his Fortunes and with them the Reputation and Glory of the English Nation The 21st of July 1586. he set out from Plimouth with three ships the biggest of which was but 120 Tuns and 123 Seamen with Provisions for two years With this small Fleet he passed the Streights of Magellan and sailed up to the Coast of New Spain in the Mar del Zur and took 19 of the Spanish Merchant ships and burnt two or three of their Towns and then sailing to the Philippine Islands the Molucca's and the Cape of Good Hope he staid some time in St. Helens and the 9th of September 1588. he returned to Plymouth he having been the second man of this Nation that went round the Globe of the Earth with no less Honour tho he returned with less Spoils than the first Adventurer The Queen entertained him at Greenwich and bestowed upon him many Marks of her Favour and gave him some considerable Rewards Sir Martin Forbisher or Frobisher Sir John Hawkins Davis Jackman Jenkenson and Sir Walter Rawleigh and many others of the English employed their time in searching out the remotest parts of the world at the same time to very good effect there having been great Trades driven ever since by the Dutch and English by the means of their Discoveries Mr. Richard Hackluit who lived in these times took a particular care to collect and publish the Journals of all these Voyages by which he desâ—…rved very well of this Nation and it is a great pity that his Works are become so scarce and so little known and that no man has since pursued the same method these Discourses being of great use for all Mariners and serving very much for the enlarging and clearing the Geography of the World Philip King of Spain being highly incensed by the ruin of so many of his Towns and the losses he had sustained by Drake's Expeditions gave Order that all the English Sea-men that should after this be taken in America should be treated like Pyrates and the Enemies of mankind And all the Merchant Ships that fell into his hands were seized and the Merchants imprisoned tho there
Dyet of that Kingdom That the Hanse Towns of Germany might still have enjoyed their Ancient Privileges in England if they would have been contented to use them as Favours granted by our Princes and not have pretended they were their Right That as there was reason for the granting them when they were given so there was all the reason in the world they should be suspended restrained or quite taken away when the Reason ceased upon which they were granted that this had been done in Denmark Sweden and England in the Reigns of Edward the VIth and Queen Mary That the Hanse Towns had been made so rich by the Favour of Princes that they had been heretofore terrible even to their Benefactors that it became the King of Poland rather to favour her who was a Prince than to patronize the insatiable Avarice of the Merchants who when they were become very rich were too apt insolently to lift up themselves against Princes That the Queen was contented they should carry Corn and all other Merchandize to Spain except Ammunition and Warlike Stores for Sea or Land though it was lawful and the Practice of all Nations to intercept all those Provsions that were sent to an Enemy She had better success here than in Germany and setled her Subjects Trade in the Baltick so effectually that the Hanse Towns were never after in a condition to dispute the Trade of the English Thus the Queen by her Authority and Prudence mastered the Obstinacy of the Hanse Towns and forced them to sue for their Goods in her Court of Admiralty and to trade with her Subjects upon equal terms in all places and she so divided and broke their Power that they were never since able to contest with any Prince much less with her or her Successors Notwithstanding which the Kings of England have always religiously continued the same Privileges to the Hanse Towns though the tide of the Trade be long since wholly turn'd the English now carrying all that Trade to their own doors and much more than ever they received from them And I my self saith the late Earl of Carlisle was present in Council when Charles the IId after his Happy Restauration ratified the said Privileges She also by her Authority in the Year 1595. composed a War which had depended many years between the King of Sweden and the Emperor of Russia who had a greater respect for her than for any other Prince in Christendom her Subjects having opened a way by the White Sea and the Bay of Arch-angel to trade by Sea with him in the Year 1554. which was then and has ever since been of vast advantage to that remote barbarous and poor Kingdom The Subjects of which have not only been enriched but civilized and learned many mechanick Arts which they did not unsterstand before of us and those people we and the Hollanders have sent thither Her whole care was not imployed in defending her People from the violence of her foreign Enemies and the Frauds and Arts of the Neighbour Traders by Sea but she took effectual care at the same time in her Parliaments to promote excellent and useful Laws for the Restraint of excessive Dvmestick Expences and the regulating the Lives of her Subjects as will appear by the Printed Statutes of her time To this end she necessitated the meaner of her Subjects by sharp Laws as sharply executed to a modest and frugal way of living both as to their Diet and Habits She curbed and discountenanced the Luxury and expensive folly of the English Youth and Nobility both by her private Advices and her publick Laws and she prescribed them Rules for their Furniture Families and Retinues She had observed the Purveyers for her Court were a rapacious sort of men and under the colour and pretence of Law made great depredations on the Husbandmen and the Farmers in her Kingdom and therefore she kept a strict hand upon them and by her Severity when ever any Complaint was brought against them she kept them in awe There was another Generation of men called commonly the CONCEALERS of mean Extraction and worse Disposition who had obtained Commissions to enquire into the Frauds and Concealments of those that had got any Lands belonging to the Royal Demeans or Crown of England and they had under that pretence wrested from many of her Subjects their Inheritances and Estates but when she understood their Crimes she not only punished them for their Wrongs but revoked their Commissions which she had formerly granted out And by a Proclamation she forbad any further inquiry should be made into the Titles of her Subjects as to those Lands they possessed on the behalf of the Crown by which she put a stop to that sort os Miscreants and secured the Estates of her People from further wrong Whencver she found that her People had been afflicted or ruined in their Fortunes by the Judges and Governors she had set over them in any part of her Dominions she consolated them upon the first opportunity Before her time the Usurers of England had taken what they could get from all for usury and she to prevent the Frauds and rapacious Encroachments of these men first passed a Law that they should not take above ten in the hundred for one years interest which by the plenty of Money sunk after to Six and of late without any Act to five in the Hundred To prevent enhansement of the Market she made a severe Law against Forestallers Ingrossers and Regattors repelling their insatiable Avarice by imprisoning whipping and Pillory She called her Customs the Nerves of the Nation as they were the best branch of her Revenues and she made it her business to study them and well understand the value of them and the ways of raising them When her Exchequer was at the lowest ebb she detested all Monopolies and bitter Exactions upon her People which she thought to be utterly unlawful and tending more to the loading her with the hatred of her Subjects than the enriching of her Coffers She was very severe against all Informers or Promoters who having been for many Ages encouraged by her Predecessors as the Enrichers and Improvers of the Royal Revenues had contracted a vast envy from the whole Nation but she was the first Prince that would suffer their Crimes to be inquired into and finding they had been guilty of many ill Actions she put a stop to them and punished them for what they had done that they might no longer impoverish the better and richer part of her Subjects Thus she delivered her People from the grievous Oppressions of Usurers Ingrossers and Promoters She was no less careful to protect them against the Avarice of her Judges and Presidents and when any of them came to wait on her she would upon occasion speak very severely against their aspiring to those places the multitude of Suits and the over great variety of Causes
not remember that I have read elsewhere this Order for burning the Popish Books The Complaints of the Popish Bishops The Reformation estabâ—ished The Miseries of Scotland in the Reformâ—…tion The Happinesâ—… of England Her Care to settle Pious and Learned Bishops and Clergymen And to curb the immoderate liberty of the Protestant Dissenters Anabaptists discovered Two of which were burnt The 〈◊〉 Conventicles suppressed The Behaviour of Pope Pius IV. The Council of Trent recalled The Plea of the Protestant Princes against it Martiningo sent Nuncio into England And rejected by theQueen The Popish Party well disposed to rebel The Settlement of the Civil State taken into consideration The Money reduced to the old Standard The Security of the Nation providently taken care for Magaâ—…ines and Naval Stores provided LargeShips of War built The means by which she improved and enriched her Kingdom Laws and Orders made for the publick good of her people The Bishops and Commons favoured as a Balance to the Nobility She fâ—…oured her Kindred and advanced them Her advice to the Nobility Her care to change or abolish evil Customs and Laws of former times 1559. The Parliament Address to the Queen to Marry Which she refused and in a set Speech told them she resolved to live in Celebacy Her wonderful Temperance and Chastity The Princes and Great men that Couâ—…ted her * In 1560. * In 1560. †In 1568. ⸫ In 1574. By degrees she became more averse to Marriage than the seemed at first to be The character of the the Earl of Leicester She Prefer'd him in Title and estate and advanced his Brother The ill effects of Luxury His designs in debauching the Nobility Anno 1583. Leicester recommends Robert Earl of Essex to the Queen The Actions of that Earl in Holland His Character The Queen very much oppressed by the Infâ—…my and Villanies of Leicester The Character of Thomas Ratcliff Earl of Sussex The Character of Sir William Cecil afterward Lord Burleigh The Earl of Sussex sent Ambassador to the Emperor The Ruin of Leicester HisDeath and Dishonour The Character of the Lord Willoughby The Character of Sir Francis Walsingham Burleigh made Lord Treasurer for his Virtue The Character and Story of Mary Queen of Scotland The Character of Sir N. Throgmorton The French desirous of a War with England Tâ—…rogmorton kindles the Civil Wars in France The French design to improve their Interest in Scotland to the Ruin of England The Scotch complain and arm against them The French retire to Leith The Scots send into England for assistance A Fleet sent into Scotland And an Army which besieged Leith Leith dismantled The first Civil War in France The Death of Francis II King of France Mary Queen of the Scoâ—…s Marrieth James 1. borr The beginniâ—…g of the Miâ—…ortunes of Mary Qu. of Scotland Her Impriâ—…onment at Carlâ—… The Queen of Scots Letter to Q. Elizabeth upon her first Landing in England The Thiâ—…d Letter The deploâ—…ble state of the Princes of the earth The Difficulties attending the keeping or dismissing the Queen os the Scots A Resolution taken to detain her as a Prisoner of War The Queen of England not acted by a spirit of Jealousie and Revenge Mildmay sent into Scotland to threaten the Regent Murray upon Q. Elizabeth's threats comes into England Q Elizabeth durst not restore the Qu. of the Scots to her Throne The Queen prevailed upon to put the Queen of Scots upon her Trial. The Trial of the Q. of the Scots Hatton's wheedling Speech The Speech censured Foreign Princes and the Popish Priests guilty of the Murther of the Q. of the Scots Pins V Excommunicates the Qu and absolves all her Subjects Thereupon followed Rebellions and Insurrections in England The E. of Northumberland leads the way And is followed by the E. of Westmorland Northumberland taken in Scotland Westmorland fled into Flanders The Causes of the Miscarriage of this Insurrection The Calamities of the Earl of Northumberland The Earl of Sussex prosecutes the Rebels with great Severity Another Rebellion springeth out of this The Duke of Norfolk the secret Head of these Rebellions The Character of the D. of Norfâ—… After these Rebellions followed a shoal of Treasons and Conspiracies Which occasioned the Acts of P. against the Recusants The Colleges of the Jesuits opene lin Eanders c. And called Seminaries Parson and Campian the two first Seminary Priests sent into England Parry's Conspiracy against the Queen Babington's Conspiracy His Character Savage sent to assassinate the Qâ—…en The Persons in Babington's Conspiracy Babington the great Actor in it This Conspiracy proved fatal to the Queen of the Scots A Justification of Queen Elizabeth against the Reproaches of the Papists The Queen has a plentiful Supply given her in Parliament She dischargeth a Part of what was granted by her Proclamation The Spaniards send Lopez and two others to murther the Queen Cullin York and Williams sent from Flanders on the same Errand And executed in 1595. She spared none of those who fell into her hands A Digression concerning William Parry Parry's Confession His Design discovered by one Nevil The Queen's Severity to these Conspirators made her terrible to the English Papists But it was God that preserved her There has been but one Protestant Prince Murthered since the Reformation by them The second Civil War in France The third Civil War of France She sends 100000 Crowns and great Stores of Arms and Ammunition into 〈◊〉 to the Protestants A Reflection concerning Passive Obedience The King of France laboureth to divide the Protestants without Success The true Causes of this and the other Civil Wars of France The Queen of England preserv'd the Protestants of France The beginning of the Low-Countrey War Liberty of Conscience treacherously granted and re-called The King of Spaâ—…n enraged at the Edict for Liberty of Conscience The Spaniards design to settle an Absolute and Arbitrary Government in the Nâ—…therlands The Regent grows severe against the Protestants on various pretences Valenciennes commanded to receive a Garison The rest of the 〈◊〉 petition for a General Assembly of the States The Designâ—… of Spain discovered to the Nobility of the Netherlands The Discovery at the first only terrified and divided them Valenciens besieged A bloody Persecution against the Pâ—…otestants of the Netherlands The Breakers of Images not put upon it by the Reformed The use Spain designed to make of this Disorder The Character of the Duke of Alva He comes into Flandâ—…rs The Council of Blood setled Their Rules The Counts of Egmont and Hoorne the first they seized And after them vast numbtrs of the meaner Inhabitants These Proceedings alarm all the Protestants in France and Queen Elizabeth They fly into England and set up many Manufactures The Conduct of this Prince considered The reasons which mov'd the Queen of England to oppose the Spaniards The Inhabitants of the Netherlands follow the Example of Q. Elizabeth He com-plains to Q. Elizabeth of her Harbouring the Netherland Pyrates
They seize the Sea-Ports of Holland and Zealand Which was the beginning of the United Provinces ☞ Q. Elizabeth undertakes the Protection of her oppressedNeighbours French Affairs A Private League between France and Spain against the Protestants Henry III. succeeds in France The D. of Guise designs against that Prince An Account of the House of Guise The Reasons why Hen. III. was to be Deposed and Henry IV. Excluded Henry III. slain The Queen Mother of France dieth of Grief Queen Elizabeth assists Henry IV. with Men and Money The Spaniards invade Britagne a Province of France Q. Elizabeth assists the French against these Spaniards Spain invaded by the English They take the Groyne Robert Earl of Essex stole away from the Court and served as a Volunteer in this Expedition The Actions of Robert Earl of Essex The second Expedition into Spain Cadiz taken by the English The loss the Spaniard sustained The Affairs of Ireland in her time Ulster the first Provencethat Rebelled against her A Quarrel between Ormond and Desmond The Pope and King of Spain interested in the Irish War Fitz-Morris and Sanders invade Ireland with Spaniards The Deputy for his good Service slandered in England The difficulty of Administring Justice and Mercy seasonably Sir John Perrot Lord Deputy of Ireland New Colonies of English sent into Munster The Irish complain of the English The English complain of the Lord Deputy Fitz-Williams Character The College of Dublin finished The English Colonies keep Ireland quiet a while Part of the Spanish Armada shipwracked on the Coast of Ireland Hugh Roe wrongfully murthered by the Deputy The Rise of Hugh O Neale Earl of Tyrone He aspires to be King of Ulster Tyrone made a County which occasioned Neal's Rebellion Sir William Russel made Lord Deputy of Ireland under whom O Neal broke into a Rebellion Sir John Norris sent into Ireland with 3000 men The Character of this Great Man The Irish become very expert in the use of Arms. Tyrone's Pretences to the Deputy The Deputy offended with Tyrone The Lord Burroughs made Deputy of Ireland The Council of Ireland represent the Irish War as an universal Rebellion of that whole Nation Tyrone beat the English And at the same time treats with England and Spain The Earl of Essex sent Deputy The Army under Essex 20000 men The Lord Montjoy sent Deputy The Methods by which he ruined the Irish and ended the War No Irish pardoned but what merited the Mercy by some signal Service The Spaniards land at Kingsale The Irish reduced to eat man's flesh Tyrone submits Religion causlesly made the pretence of the Irish Rebellion Liberty of Conscience considered The Greatness of the Reputation of the English Nation in Q. Elizabeth's time Her Carriage towards her Allies abroad Sir Drake's Original and Story The Story of John Oxenham Drake's second Voyage to America He takes St. Jago He sails for the Nolucca Islands The Story of Mr. Thomas Cavendish Hackluit records and publishes all the English Expeditions in these and former times Philip King of Spain highly incensed against the English Nation The Invincible Armado in 1588. prepared and sent to invade Enggland Charles Lord Howard Admiral of England The Condition of the Spanish Fleet when the English left it The King of Spain bears his Loss with much Patience and Prudence The English and Hollanders glorifie God for the Victory The Queen declares a War against the King of Spain The English Expeditions against that Kingdom The Earl of Cumberland put out a Fleet against Spain at his own Cost A rare Example of Martial Valour and Courage Complaints made to her of the Depredations of the English at Sea A Reflection concerning Proclamations The Hanse Towns very clamorous against the English The Trade of the English prohibited in Germany She takes away the Stillyard from the Easter lings or Germans Poland continues the Trade with the English The Embassy into Muscovy p. 213 She ends a War between the Russians and Swedes Her Laws for the Enriching of her Subjects at home The Purveyers reformed As also the Concealers Her Severity to her Judges and Governors Usury mitigated The Customs carefully looked after Monopoly suppress'd Informers and Promoters carefully inquired into She detested multitude of Suits Her Admonition to the Judges The licentious liberty of the Theatre restrained The Calamities and Misfortunes that hapned in her Times Her Care of and Kindness to her good Magistrates Her Care of the Poor Her affectionate and tender Care of the Church Her Stature and Personal Accomplishments In her Old Age she was offended at the Decay of her Beauty Adulation sometimes used to her The Flatteries of learned men noted She endeavoured at first to raise a good opinion of her self in her Subjects Which by degrees brought her to love Flattery Crafty men wrought upon this her Infirmity She understood Preacliing very well and loved Severe and Grave men But curbed the Fiery Turbulent Preachers She loved Religion but hated Factions Her Devotion in the Publick Service of God She exposed her Life for the Safety of the Church She humoured and caressed the Body of the People Parliaments frequently held and for the most part well tempered Her Maxim concerning War and Peace She would never arm the meanest of the People The Honours belonging to the Peerage carefully given Her care in chusing good Councellors Bishops Judges and Ministers Her Justice and Veracity and Severity to Offenders Sir John Perrot an Instance of her Severity Her very Severity to Offenders made her the more beloved by the People Her Justice She was sparing in her personal Expences but magnificant in her publick Actions She was too sparing in her Rewards especially to the Sword-men Sir Philip Sidney much lamented She shewed great respect to the memory of the meanest Soldier that perished in her Service But was not liberal to the Great men which had an ill effect The Praises of Henry VII Her Bounty to the Earl of Oxford and some few others of the Nobility And her Severity towards Luxurious Spend-thrifts Her Favours to Anthony King of Portugal †This Anthony is by all confessed to have been a Bastard of the former King's Ursino Duke of Bracciano She never Knighted any but men of Virtue and good Estate The Peerage well and sparingly given The Noble Order of the Garter prudently given The Choice of her Servants Officers and Min isters Her kindness to the Bishops and Church-men She loved Sir F. Walsingham herSecretary Sir Nicholas Bacon Egerton Popham but above all the Lord Burleigh and Howard Her Habit in Publick and in Private Her Furniture Her Diet in Publick and in Private Aligophore The Splendor and Divertisements of the Court. Her private way ofliving Her Studies Her Summer Progress and catriage towards her People in it The Winter she spent in London Her Diet in Summer and Winter Her Diversions and private Conversation She was subject to be violently angry Her Severity and especially to the Queen of Scots Her Severity to Leicester and Hatton Hatton's Death The Provocations she met with were many and great The Character of Sanders and others who defamed her Dydimus Veridicus Florimond Remond a French Writer George Conc a Scot. Her last Sickness Her last Words to her Council She nominated her Successor She spent the last Moments of her Life wholly in Devotion Her last Words to the Archbishop And her Death The Sorrow for her Death
THE CHARACTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH ELIZABETH MARY Queens of England UTERQUE QUATERQUE BEATI L Sturt sculp 〈…〉 THE CHARACTER OF Queen Elizabeth OR A Full and Clear ACCOUNT of Her Policies and the Methods of Her Government both in CHURCH and STATE Her VIRTUES and DEFECTS Together with The CHARACTERS of Her Principal Ministers of State And the greatest part of the Affairs and Events that Happened in Her Times Collected and Faithfully Represented By EDMUND BOHUN Esquire Semper eadem London Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCIII Academiae Cantabrigiensis Liber TO THE KING and QUEEN May it please Your Majesties I Here present you with the Noble Character and lively Representation of the Greatest Princess that ever sway'd this or any other Scepter A Princess whose Natural Endowments and Acquired Abilities made her the Envy or the Example of all the Crowned Heads about her whose Fame filled the World whilst she lived and the Histories of all Countries since she died In Persia they had heard of the Maiden Queen before they knew the Name of England And the Sophi asked our first Merchant that went thither if his Country was not governed by a Maid and upon his Reply It was so enquired no further Her Religion and her Morals her Publick and her Private Conversation with her Courtiers her Bed-chamber Women â—…er Maids of Honour her Friends and Relations are all accurately described in this small Piece and must needs yield great pleasure to Your MAJESTIES to read or hear them at convenient times The Great Things she did and the Ways Means and Instruments she employed under her to bring them into Act are very divertising and instructive Nor will it be any diminution of the Glory of Your Reigns that in some things you followed the Example of this Wise and Illustrious Queen I know Your Royal Cares are great and therefore I shall not presume to rob you of any more of Your precious Minutes than is requisite to beg Your favourable Acceptance of this bounden Duty of Your Majesties most Loyal Servant and Subject Edmund Bohun Feb. 6. 1692 3 THE PREFACE I Am bound in the first place to acquaint my Reader That the Learned Johnston a Scotch Physician is the Principal Author I have followed in this Piece for I would not translate him To what I found there I have added what I could light upon that was pertinent to my purpose in the Histories of those Times So that I am persuaded it cost me as much pains and time as it cost him at first to write it I took the liberty also to use my own Language and Thoughts as well as Judgment in the whole adding and diminishing as I thought fit though never without Reason or good Authority In such a Work as this things ought to be delivered without any order of time things of the same nature being laid together So that this is not intended so much for a regular Story of those Times as a Collection of Examples that others may thereby be instructed what to chuse or avoid what to commend or blame what had a good or an ill event Truth is as well the soul of a good Character as of an History to commend without cause or above measure is the part of a PANEGYRICK but it rendereth a Character or an History suspected and odious I love the Name and Memory of this Generous Queen as much as any man living but it could not bribe me to represent her otherwise than she was The mixing the Faults of great Persons with their Virtues abates the Envy of Mankind and purchaseth a kind and ready Acceptance of the whole A Lying Satyr is full as odious as a Flattering Panegyrick If I were worthy to have my Story written or my Picture drawn I should wish they might be equally true and represent both my Life and my Face just such as they were It is not impossible some may be offended with the Truth of this Little Piece but they must know I have no other share in it than the collecting things that lay dispersed before and the representing them as I found them I hope I have no-where Censured or Commended any thing above the truth but if I have upon admonition I shall endeavour to amend it As the Persons mentioned in it were all dead before I was born so I cannot be suspected to be guilty of Love or Hatred but what was the result of their Virtues or their Vices If I would not spare the Queen there was no reason I should spare any of her Courtiers and when any of our Nobility find any of their Ancestors did ill things and they are represented in Story let them remember the Princes of those times had their Faults too and they are as freely written Let them think also Thus it will be with us Infamy or Oblivion will cover our memories when we are dead if we do not live well It is only Virtue that can render a Name illustrious in the Annals of time though great Estates and swelling Titles may make a man seem great on this side the Grave And Posterity will be no more able to drown the Vices of this present Age than they are to prevent the knowledge of those that are past As a bad Face quarrels a true Looking-Glass so a bad Liver hates a true Historian and both equally without just cause There has nothing more Eclipsed the Glory of Queen Elizabeth than the want of a good History of her Reign in English Cambden is good in the Original but too short but the Version of that Author is intolerably bad would any good Pen do that by her Annals which I have done here by her Character it would be a grateful Tribute paid to Her Sacred Memory Would our Great Men live in the Memory of the World why let them promote the History of their Countrey and that will make their Names famous to Posterity Maecenas is oftener remembred for his bounties to Learning than for all his other Expences and Gallantry of which perhaps it was not the hundredth part No Nation in Europe hath exceeded the English in Martial Bravery but for want of good History much of the Honour of our Ancestors is lost both at home and abroad I would be contented to die when I had finished but one good Piece of our Story in such a manner as it should be worth the reading I would serve my Countrey in any honest and brave thing but History is my beloved Study with it I would if I had it in my power grow old and die It was the comfort of a Prince in all his Sufferings that his Name would one day like the Sun break through the Clouds of Reproach that the Iniquity of the Times had thrown about him and he should shine the more gloriously in History for the things he had suffered in his Life If he in the lowest Abyss of Misery in the melancholly Recesses of a
Confinement could thus comfort his drooping Spirits with the prospect of that Honour would be paid him in his Grave when his Name should be imbalmed in the grateful memory of his Subjects It is a wonder there is no more care taken by the Living to render this grateful Acknowledgment to their Ancestors for all that they have left them But if we are unmindsul of the Dead if their cold Bones can merit no corner in our Hearts or thoughts why are we so regardless of the Living a Prince can scarce deserve better of his Subjects instruct direct reform or amend them more effectually by any other method than by Good Histories The Precepts that are so delivered slide insensibly and pleasantly into the minds of the Reader and make lasting Impressions on his Memory Nor is this Benefit confined to the Subject and meaner Persons even Princes themselves do borrow from History those Counsels and Assistances they shall hardly gain from Courtiers and Ministers sometimes they will not sometimes they dare not Admonish their Master whilst a good History shews them by others what will be the effect of ill-concerted Designs and Counsels and at the same time is an Awe upon them suggesting this Thought frequently to them How will this look in History Thus Augustus Queen Elizabeth and Henry the Fourth of France became Famous to Posterity by observing carefully in History what Fate had attended the Princes that preceded them Posterity too are to be taken care of if the present Age is not such as a Good or a Wise Man would wish it let us try if we can make the next Generation better by shewing the Chain of Calamities have followed at the heels of the Vices of the last and of this Age. At her Death the Thrift the Probity the Piety and the Hospitality of the English Nation was much abated The Luxury that attended the Peaceable Reign of James the First and the Beginning of Charles the First brought on a War that threatned our Ruin What has hapned since the Restitution to the time in which Their Majesties began Their Reign is now fresh in Memory but will be lost if not written And I am persuaded nothing can possibly be invented to make us Wiser than we now are sooner or more easily than a good History of this Period of Time but then our Princes and Great Men must encourage it and skreen the Writer or it will never be done The Expence is too great for a Private Man and the Materials are most of them locked up from the view of all those who have not the Royal Authority consenting to their Inspection and the Royal Purse to support the Charge of Transcribing them Methinks every Prince that resolveth to do things worthy to be written should take care to have one good Historian about him to preserve the Memory of his Actions Those that live ill will find what they fear above all things a man to paint out those things to the Life which they would gladly have concealed Story will go on with or without their care but to their Damage if not discreetly encouraged But why do I write thus in all the Misfortunes that have so lately befallen me My Character has been written with the Poison of Asps instead of Ink so that one single Word in another man's Work otherwise interpreted than either he or I meant it as is plain by the words that follow and explain it has been enough to sink me after my Reputation had been sufficiently pierced by the Arrows of Envy and Detraction But all that I shall say in my own Defence is That I hate what I am supposed to be guilty of as much as any man in the Nation and never suffered said or thought the thing in all my Life THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK THE Birth and Parentage of Queen Elizabeth Page 1 Her Education 3 Her Tutors in the Greek and Latin Tongues and her Observations in Reading 4 5 Her Tutor in Theology 8 She spoke French and Italian and understood many other European Tongues 9 The Untimely Death of her beloved Brother Edward VI. 12 And the Succession of Q. Mary 13 She was a sorrowful Spectator of the Popish Cruelty 15 She was hated by the Popish Bishops for her Religion 16 Her Life was saved by King Philip 18 The Death of Queen Mary 19 The Nation then divided into Factions 22 Calais newly lost 23 She at first dissembled her Religion 24 Her Prime Counsellors 26 She dissembled with the K. of Spain 27 She makes a Peace with France and resolves on a War with Spain 29 The Treaty of Cambray 30 The French Plea against the Restitution of Calais 31 She resolves to reform the Religion of England 32 The contending Religions equally balanced 33 Her first Parliament The Complaints of the Popish Bishops 39 The Reformation established 40 The Miseries of Scotland in the Reformation 43 The Happiness of England 44 Her Care to settle Pious and Learned Bishops and Clergy-men 45 And to curb the immoderate Liberty of the Protestant Dissenters 47 The Behaviour of Pope Pius IV. 50 The Council of Trent restored The Plea of the Protestants against it The Popish Party inclined to Rebel 53 The Setâ—…lement of the Civil State considered 55 The Means by which she improved and enriched her Kingdom 59 Laws and Orders made for the Publick Good 60 The Bishops and Commons favoured as a Balance to the Nobility 61 She favoured her Kindred and advanced them 62 Her Care to abolish the evil Customs and bad Laws of former times 64 The Parliament Address to the Queen to Marry 67 Her Answer Her Temperanee and Chastity 71 The Princes and Great Men that courted her 73 The Character of the Earl of Leicester 75 Of Robert Earl of Essex 85 Of Thomas Earl of Sussex 89 Of Sir William Cecil afterward created Lord Burleigh 90 Of the Lord Willoughby 94 Of Sir Francis Walsingham Of Mary Queen of Scotland 97 And of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton 98 The French desirous of a War with England 99 They design to improve their Interest in Scotland to the Ruin of England 101 The Scots send to England for Assistance against the French The Scotch War The First Civil War in France 110 The Death of Francis II. The Beginnings of the Misfortunes of Mary Queen of Scotland The deplorable condition of Princes 113 118 Murray comes into England Queen Elizabeth durst not restore the Queen of the Scots to her Throne 124 The Trial of the Queen of the Scots 125 Foreign Princes and the Popish Priests guilty of the Murther of the Queen of the Scots Rebellions in England Northumberland taken in Scotland Westmorland fled into Flanders A second Rebellion The Duke of Norfolk the secret Head of them His Character 141 143 They are fâ—…llowed by many Treasous and Conspiracies 145 Which occasion Acts of Parliament against the Recusants 146 Colleges built for the English Papists beyond the Seas 147 Parry's Conspiracy Babington's 151 A
at Greenwich the 7th of September 1533. Her Father was Henry the VIIIth Her Mother was the Lady Anna Boleyn the Daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn a Knight of great Estate and Esteem After She came to wear the Royal Crown of England She had a particular Affection for Greenwich that Pleasant Seat upon the Thames as for the place of Her Nativity and upon that account amongst many others She preferr'd Her Palace there before all Her other Country Seats near London as in truth it enjoys one of the Noblest Prospects in the World and an healthful and a pleasing Air. From Her very Cradle She was exposed to the Hazards and Hardships of an unkind Fortune Anna Boleyn Her Mother upon the Death of Queen Catherine in the Year 1535. the 8th of January was Arraigned for Treason and in 1536. being Sentenced was freed by Death from a bloody Marriage the 19th of May. The Inveterate Malice of the Popish Clergy having ever since pursued this Match with their Reproaches as unlawful and void because Queen Catherine his first Wife was then still living and very much inraged at it tho' to no purpose Hereupon soon after a Parliament was summoned which began the 8th of June In which the Issue of both the King 's former Marriages was declared Illegitimate and for ever excluded from claiming the Inheritance of the Crown as the King 's Lawful Heirs by Lineal Descent and the Attainder of Queen Ann and her Complices was Confirmed So that by Authority of Parliament She stood wholly incapacitated as to the wearing the Crown of England Her only Support in the mean time under all these Injuries and Afflictions was the Goodness of God The King Her Father observing in Her a Noble Presence of Mind a good Memory great Apprehension an Excellent Nature and good Dispositions towards Piety and Vertue caused Her to be diligently educated and brought up in Learning and taught whatever was suitable to Her Birth and Age. Her Tutoress was the Lady Champernon a Person of great Worth who formed this great Wit from Her Infancy and improved Her Native Modesty with wise Counsels and a Liberal and Sage Advice Thus Her Natural Parts were in progress of time polished and improved by the knowledge of many of the best and most useful Arts That when She came to Reign which was even then supposed She might manage Her Affairs with a steady hand happily and regularly Administer Justice and shew Mercy cure Her Anger and govern prudently all Her other Passions and Affections The King Her Father the day after Her Mother was beheaded married the Lady Jane Seymour and this New Queen what from the sweetness of Her Disposition and out of compliance with the King who loved Her very much was as kind to Her as if She had been Her Mother There is still extant two Letters written by this Young Princess to Her the one in Italian and the other in English in a fair Hand the same She wrote all the rest of Her Life when She was not full Four years of Age. The English Letter is Page 209 printed in the First Part of Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation and bears date in July 1537. This Ripe and Flourishing Infancy was a good Omen that the next Stage of Her Life would be most Excellent and accordingly before She was 17 years of Age She had made a very great progress in all the Liberal Sciences so easily did She apprehend and firmly retain whatever She was taught The Learned Mr. Roger Ashcam a man born and bred for that Age which was to refine the Greek and Latin to a Politeness and raise them to an Eloquence was Her Tutor for the Latin Tongue and by his Industry and Diligence he directed Her so well that from Cicero Pliny and Livy She became the Mistress of an Even Beautiful pure unmixed and truly Princely Stile which She could speak with Elegance and Facility As She became thus Eloquent and was well furnished with Knowledge by the means of this Tongue so upon all Occasions She was ready afterwards to express Her Love and Esteem for the Latin Tongue She became so perfect in it that she spoke it with all the Advantages of Eloquence so that some of Her Extemporary Orations were deservedly approved by both the Universities and they too are consigned to Eternity and left a lasting Impression on the minds of them that heard them though few of them are now extant but however there is one preserved and published by Mr. Fuller in his History of Cambridge Page 138. In this Tongue She did not make it Her business whilst She was reading the best Latin Authors to furnish Her Memory with Grammatical Observations or a plenty of high sounding Words or Elegant Phrases which might help to exalt her Reputation for Learning or adorn Her Stile But She treasured up those Precepts very carefully which were useful for the government of Her Life or for the managing Her Private Affairs or those of the State well and wisely To this end She read Livy's History Tacitus his Annals the Acts of Tiberius the Emperor and all Seneca's Works By all which She at last furnished Her Judgment with the best Remedies against all the Attacks of Fortune With an equal Industry She read over all the best of the Greek Orators and Historians with the Assistance of Mr. Ashcam She read Isocrates Aeschinis and Demosthenes She was curious not only to understand the Propriety of the Greek Idiom and the Sense of the Author but pried into the Antiquities that occurr'd the Causes they managed the Decrees of the People the Customs of the Grâ—…cians and the Manners of that Famous City of Athens till She throughly understood them She caused Sir John Fortescue a great Master in the Greek and Latin Tongue to read to Her Thucidides Xenophon and Polybins and after them Euripides Aeschines and Sophocles And to reward him for this Service She afterwards made him Master of her Wardrove and Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer And She would afterwards say that Fortescue for Integrity and Walsingham for Subtilty out-did Her Expectation no wonder then that he was ever of Her Privy Council She had afterwards a great Love for Sir Henry Savil a Gentleman of various and great Learning who afterwards composed many noble Volumes and arose to Honout purely by his Learnning In Her reading She did not only aim to understand Her Author and observe the softness of the Attick and the sweetness of the Greek Tongue which may serve for Ostentation But She mado many Observations for the Tempering of Manners The Sanctity of Justice and the allaying Humane Passions that nothing might be done by Her Angrily Proudly Injuriously and beyond the Rules of Civility There was not one remarkable Story or Expression in all the Works of Thucidides and Xenophon pertaining to the Governmene of Life or Manners or to the ordering Publick Affairs but She had it by heart She
from the Queen and to dispose them to Sedition and Rebellion The Queen saw the Tendence of this and did not think it was fit to despise their Complaints That therefore she might prevent the ill effects of their Malice and withdraw the matter that fed their Fury and threatned her Kingdom with Schisms and Factions which would be the Causes of great Calamities she appointed a Conference or Disputation between the Roman Catholicks and the Protestants at London Concerning the Authority of the Church and the Supremacy of the Pope the Ceremonies in use in the Church of Rome and the Change of the Elements in the Holy Eucharist that she might by this means unite the disagreeing minds of her Subjects in one and the same opinion and mutual Love and Charity to each other In this Conference many of the most reverend Mysteries of the Christian Religion were on both sides debated with great Warmth and Heat and much Learning yet nothing was gained on either side by reason of the immoderate Opposition and the implacable Hatred they bore each to other So when the Popish Party saw that the Pope's Authority which was once reverenced as Divine was now become contemptible and infamous 2nd that all the Reasons they could pretend for the Justification of their Ceremonies were overwhelmed by the load of Infamy their Pride and Cruelty had brought upon them so that it was not possible for them to abate the Hatred or remove the Contempt the people were then possessd with against the Popish Clergy they sullenly pretended That in the Matters of Religion there was no need of Reason and Disputation and defended themselves with more Passion and Anger than Reason and Judgment After this Disputation there were Acts of Parliament passed for the Establishing the English Service and concerning the Ministers of the Church as also for Restoring the Queen's Supremacy with the unanimous Consent of the Peers and the Applause of the Commons But however the Popish Party refused still to comply and openly said These Laws were not to be submitted to and thereupon began a Dissention which is not yet ended The turbulent Bishops and Clergy who still adhered to the old Rites and Ceremonies being thereupon bereaved of their Sees made great Complaints of the Iniquity and Injustice of these Laws and concealing themselves as well as they could in corners and lurking-holes for fear of being prosecuted for their disobedience they said the Queen was guilty of Heresie and solicited that part of the Nobility and Commonalty which still stuck to the Church of Rome to renounce their Obedience to her and stoutly to maintain the Old Service They also sent their Agents to Rome to perswade the Pope to Excommunicate her by Name as one that had brought a New Heresie into the Church and had confined the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln and many of the inferior Clergy for sticking firmly to the Romish Ceremonies And lastly That she had assumed a Jurisdiction and Royal Authority as well in all Spiritual Causes as Secular The Queen on the other side had by this time found the Inclination of her People and being now well setled in her Throne did not think fit to act any longer with that Reservedness she did at first when she feared the Number and Authority of the Papists who had then the Law on their side but by her Proclamation she couragiously and openly commanded them That they should embrace the True Religion which was most acceptable to God and leave their Popish Rites or otherwise depart out of her Kingdoms Royal City and Dominions within so many months And upon this she removed all those Popish Noblemen which had in her Sister's time been advanced to any Publick Employments or Stations in the Court or Kingdom and she setled Protestants in all those Places and put the whole Management of Publick Affairs into their hands affirming very stoutly That she would sooner lay down her life than desist from that Zeal and Resolution she had taken up for the bringing down the Wickedness of the Papists This Bravery encouraged all her Friends and struck her Enemies dumb Thus was the Popish Religion abolished in England when it had flourished many Ages in great Wealth by the help of a profitable Ignorance and a fallacious and deceitful Interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures And the Protestant Religion being restored to that Liberty Esteem and Splendor it had had in the times of Edward the VIth it was soon after by the means of their common Language and Vicinity communicated to the Scots and spread it self not only in their Cities and great Towns but also in their Villages and Countrey Habitations It is impossible to the Life to describe the Calamities this Revolution brought upon the Scots Nation The most sacred and venerable Churches which seem'd to be secured from Violence by the Awe of Religion were burnt down the most sacred Chappels were first Rifled and then Demolished by the Rabble The Sepulchres of their Ancestors were pulled down their Statues beaten down and trodden under foot and the basest and most lewd Injuries done to the Altars as if the Papists had been mere Pagan Idolaters I am so enraged saith my Author a Learned Scot against these men on the account of the great Ruin they wrought in my Native Countrey that I cannot forbear expressing my Resentment For I am of opinion That these Popish Moâ—…ments ought indeed to have been shut up not to have been demolished because they were the Ornaments of our Countrey But to teturn to Queen Elizabeth she made it no part of her business to find out those peaceable Roâ—…ish Priests who had betaken themselves to private lurking holes and secret places more out of Fear than any Legal necessity And if any of them by chance happened to be taken they were committed to an honourable and easie restraint in the Cities or delivered up into the hands of their own Bishops to the end that by this her Moderation she might in the beginning of her Reign create an opinion of her Clemency in all her Subjects and at the same time deprive these Priests of the opportunity of doing Mischief There was not one of these men put to death till Pope Piâ—…s the Vth in the year 1570 excommunicated her by his Bull upon which there followed a Rebellion of the Papists in the Noâ—…th This was in the Twelfth Year of her Reign and in the next Ten Years that followed there was but Twelve men of that Religion executed who were all Convicted of very great Crimes by the most Legal Trials The name of Papist was not punished in any man that was not guilty of great Wickednesses because in the beginning of a Reign it is a dangerous thing to punish Offences with too much Rigor whereas Clemency is of good use And she accordingly took care by her Benefits to allure the minds of her Popish Subjects to her rathet than by Cruelties to fright them
to take the Stamp of her Royal Authority or otherwise not to pass for current Money in her Kingdom which had a strange effect and enriched both her and her People She invited all sorts of Artificers into England and by proposing to them good terms and great Privileges she repeopled the almost-desolate City of NORWICH and the Towns of COLCHESTER and MAIDSTON She encreased the Inhabitants of many of her other Ancient Towns and she by her Laws reduced the Inhabitants of the Countrey-Villages from Laziness and Beggary to Labour and Husbandry so that there was no part of her Kingdom but was cultivated and improved to the best advantage When she was to settle any thing relating to her Revenues her Treasury or the Administration of justice she admitted none to advise her but men of good Knowledge and Experience in those Affairs If she considered of any Military Concerns she always call'd to her Assistance the old Experienc'd Commanders which had spent much time in Camps She was as careful to give a good and a prudent Dispatch of Publick Transactions and the great Affairs of private men Ambassies the Petitions of her Subjects the Requests of her Allies and Confederates and all matters concerning Commerce and Trade with Foreigners She took the opportunity of the times and her Subjects Affections to her to curb the Luxury of Youth all immoderate Expences and waste in Cloathes and other Furniture and by severe Laws carefully put in Execution She reduced her People to the Ancient Thrift when they were declining towards Effeminacy and over-great Expences which are ever the fore-runners of Poverty and the Causes of great Calamities and Revolutions in all those States they have prevailed in She went on to consider and provide whatever was recommended to her as useful to any part of her State carefully viewing the Conveniencies and the Inconveniencies that were annexed to every Change And whatever was at last found useful and profitable to the Body of her People was setled by the Authority of her Council or Parliament as the case required She procured the Repeal of all those Laws which were either unprofitable or unjust and she brought others which were out of use into esteem again and amended the defects that were found in them It was a Maxim with her That Equitable Laws and Equal Justice are the two sure and lasting Foundations of a State She was as much reverenced and feared on the account of her Justice Tâ—…mperance and Continence as on that of her Royal Authority and Majesty She favoured the Protestant Bishops and the Commons of England as a means to curb the Insolence of the Nobility She would never gratifie any great Ambitious man with the grant of any thing which might inflame his Avarice or make him arrogant She had a true value and a good esteem for all men of illustrious Parts and of good Learning and she preferr'd such men to all Employments and rewarded their Virtue with Honours When the meaner people at any time crowded about her Coach with great desire to see and salute her with loud Shouts and fervent Prayers for her Prosperity and long and happy Reign over them she would ever return their Loyal Zeal with much Courtship and Civility so that some said she was too Theatrical in her Carriage towards them but as by her Meekness Clemency Lenity Justice and the setling good Laws and exact Justice she had won their hearts so by this Condescention and Flattery she fixed their Affections so that they would have willingly sacrificed all they had to her Service and Safety She exercised a moral Friendship and Familiarity with many private persons and ever reserved in her sole disposal all the Rewards of Virtue and good Service She would never suffer any Immunities or Privileges Benefices Church-Livings Governments or the Rights of her Kingdom to be openly sold. She advanced her Friends Kinsmen and Relations with great Kindness and Affection and no less Moderation and Prudence She made Sir Henry Cary Lord Hâ—…nsdon who was her Cousin-German and she gave him Riches Employments and Attendance suitable to that Station She advanced William Lord Howard of Effingham on the score of his being related to her and of his good Deserts to be Lord Chamberlain of England of her own free motion without any solicitation from themselves or others She preserved the Family of Seymour which was ruin'd by the Attainder of Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset Uncle and Lord Protector of King Edward VI in the year 1552. and in the first year of her Reign she restored Edward his Son to the degree of Earl of Hertford She restored also several of the Nobility whose Families had been ruined by her Sister and put them into the same condition they were before She Attainted no man in all her Reign by Act of Parliament No man ever could perceive that the least remainders of any Offence were left in her mind but when she could most easily have revenged her self she always chose rather to forget the Injury so that every man presently promised himself a better Fortune for the future If there was any Quarrel between any of the great Nobility she presently made it her business to reconcile them each to other and she would on such occasions exhort them not to suffer any Enmity to settle between their Families that they should not involve their Children and educate them in the Dissentions of their Families and a desire of Revenge That they should cut off those Feuds that had descended to them from the Contests of their Ancestors and with an invincible Courage repress the Foreign Fury of their Enemies abroad but with one heart and one mouth provide for the Safety and Security of their Native Countrey at home As she took this care to put an end to the Dissentions of her Nobilty so she was no less careful to root up those evil Customs which had crept into the Nation in the former Reigns and tended apparently to the Ruin of it some of these she corrected and others she totally abolished She rescinded all Sales that were made for the cheating Creditors she dealt very severely with all those that were found guilty of any Frauds or Cheats in the Management of the Publick Revenues or the purveyance for her Court which she was wont to call Harpies which fouled and ravaged all they could come at and she discouraged as much as was possible all the tricks and corruptions of the Courts of Justice She encreased the Wages and Salaries of the Judges and that they might the better be enabled and encouraged to go their Circuits and administer Justice to her people she allowed them Travelling-Money and Purveyance The effect of this prudent Administration was the enriching her and her Subjects attended with great Glory and a willing obedience from those under her happy Government The Countrey was rarely well Tilled and improved The Subject quiet and rich and her Councils
and Parliaments honoured and reverenced In short all those Perfections which separately have made so many Great Men admired met in this one Lady viz. Civil Prudence for the Government of a State the knowledge of Equity and Laws and an exact Skill of managing a Kingdom and the Publick Affairs of it Her Goverment was not like that of most other Women turbulent and insolent but was grateful to her Subjects pleasing to the People acceptable to the Nobility and Gentry equal and just to her Allies and admired by the Neighbour Nations She has been celebrated not only in her own times but in all that have since followed and will be to the end of the world on the account of these Divine Virtues and Deserts For she was truly accounted the Parent of her â—…eople a Prince by her Nobles and the Patroness of true Piety and Religion by the Protestant Nations about her Nor was there ever any Prince that was equally esteemed and loved by the Nobility and Commonalty too of his own Kingdom as Queen ELIZABETH was by hers If she happened at any time to be sick or ever so little disordered in her health her Nobility would be so alarmed at it that they would willingly never stir from her to eat or drink or take any care of themselves and all degrees of people would fly in vast Numbers to the Churches and with Tears and the most devout Prayers beg her Life and Health and the Continuance of her Government over them till God heard their Petitions and restored her to her Health Nor was this an enjoined and formal Devotion but it was as hearty and as earnest as that which is made for the nearest and dearest Relations And when they had obtained their desire the Joy and the Gratitude they expressed shewed they took her Preservation and Life for a Publick and an Universal Blessing When in the beginning of her Reign she had first taken care to reform and settle Religion and after that to redress and restore the Civil State or Government of England which had been brought by the Calamities of the foregoing Reigns not only into a deplorable but almost into a desperate condition but now were by her Authority Prudence and Moderation with the Assistance of her Council brought to the state of Tranquility Order and Equity she designed the Fears of England which before oppress'd the Nation in relation to Foreign Dangers as well as Domestick expired When her first Parliament had setled the Succession and Religion their next care was for the Marriage of the Queen and the providing for future times and accordingly the Commons by common consent resolved to Address to the Queen fearing though without just cause That she should Marry a Foreign Prince and thereby bring the English Liberties and the Protestant Religion into the same dangers they had been exposed to in the former Reign They therefore represented the Affections of the Nation to her and said If they could hope she might be Immortal they would rest satisfied but that being a vain Imagination they earnestly besought her to chuse such an Husband as might make her self and the Nation happy and by the Blessing of God bring such Issue as might Reign after her Death which they prayed God might be very late To this she replied That tho the Subject they came about was not acceptable to her yet it was a great satisfaction to her to see how zealous they and her other Subjects were for her Welfare and that she bâ—…lieved they desired it for her's and the Nation 's Good And as to the changing my present state said she and Marrying which you so earnestly desire I would do I have long since peâ—…suaded my self That I was brought into the world by the special Providence of God that I might in the first place think and do what tended most to his Glory Therefore I have chosen that state of Life which is the freest from human cares that so I might be at leisure only to attend the Service of God And if it had been possible for the Marriage of a Potent Prince to have allured me or the Fears of Death to have affrighted me from this Resolution I might have been long since engaged in the Honourable State of Matrimony and these were my thoughts when I was â—…et a Subject But now when all the Cares which attend the Governing of a Kingdom are come upon me it would appear a very inconsiderate and imprudent thing in me to add to them the Cares of a Married State In truth said she I am already married if 〈◊〉 else will satisfie you to the Kingdom of ENGLAND See what I wonder you could forget the Pledge of my Marriage and betrothing to the Nation And stretching out her hand she shewed them on one of the Fingers of her Right Hand the Gold Ring had been put upon it according to the Custom at her Coronation And after a short pause she thus went on And I desire you would not look upon me as Childless and on that account weak and defenceless for you and all other English-men are my Children and Kinsmen and if God doth not deprive me of you as I hope he will not there can be no reason why I should be thought Childless Yet I cannot but commend you for this That you have not prescribed or appointed who should be my Husband for this would have been a very great Affront to a Sovereign Prince as I am and very misbecoming you who are my Subjects born But if ever it should please the Divine Majesty to incline me to change my Condition I promise you I will never do any thing that shall tend to the Damage of the State but will to the utmost of my power take such an Husband as shall take as much Care of the Kingdom as I do But then if I should continue in my present State of Life I do not doubt but that God will so direct mine and your Counsels that there shall be no doubt of my Successor who may be more beneficial to the Kingdom than one born of me for it is often observed That the Children of the Best Princes do degenerate from the Virtues of their Parents And as for me it will be the best Memorial and the greatest Honour I can wish to leave behind me to have this Inscription after my Death upon my Tomb HERE LIES A QUEEN THAT REIGNED SO LONG AND LIVED AND DIED A VIRGIN And she concluded That she took their Address in good part and desired them to carry back her Thanks for the Care the Commons had of her By this means it came to pass that many Noblemen of great Estate and Power especially such as enjoyed the Blessings of Nature and Fortune Beauty and Wealth united together conceived an almost certain hopes that they should win their Maiden Queen and were by her Arts carried on in that expectation But on the contrary tho she lived in a Royal
Plenty and was attacked by the Blandishments of Nature and a multitude of external pleasing Objects yet she persisted in the Resolution she had taken and with a constant and unmoveable Soul preferred her Maiden State to any Marriage Though she was almost every night tempted to change her Resolution by the Luxury Chearfulness and Wantonness of a Court which shewed it self in Interludes Banquets and Balls and was surrounded on all sides with the Enticements of Pleasures and the things which might provoke the most cool and languid Lust yet she preserved her self from being Conquered or broken by them For the Fear of God and a true Sense of Piety extinguished in her all Feminine Intemperance and Lust. Though she was the Sovereign and Mistress of all she did nothing that was insolent tho she haâ—… an abundance of Wealth at her Command she was not dissolute but she governed her self by the severest Rules of Chastity and Continence Yet her Juvenile Age for she was then about Twenty five years old and the Intemperance which will ever attend a Court gave occasion to some injurious Reports but then she as casily washed off that slanderous Infamy which was one of the most raging Crimes of the Age by the incredible Continence and Chastity of her whole Life her Modesty and Prudence over-ruling and controuling the Natural Inclination and Disposition Her Maids of Honour who waited on her took a wonderful pleasure in her Manners her Discourses and Conversation and wholly applied themselves to imitate her borrowing from her examples of Modesty and Chastity so that they would never suffer any young Nobleman to have any familiar Acquaintance with any of them if he had not recommended himself to them by some Generous Manly Action in the Wars Amongst those who in the several parts of her Life aspired to the Honour of her Bed Edward Courtney Earl of Devonshire and Marquess of Exeter was the first who courted her in her youngest years And after him Christian III. King of Denmark for his Son Frederick after this â—…erdinand the Emperor desired her for his Son Charles Philip II. King of Spain Erix King of Sweden and Adolph Duke of Holstein the Dukes of Anjou and Alenzon both Princes of the House of France desired to have Married her but all this was to no purpose for when she had by these Treaties deluded them and secured her self she ever after pretended That at her Coronation she had obliged her self not to Marry a Foreign Prince Yet there were some at home who after this deceived themselves with these deluding hopes amongst whom was James Earl of Arran a Scotch Nobleman who was recommended to the Queen for an Husband by the Protestants of that Kingdom as the best means of Uniting England and Scotland but though she commended this Gentleman yet she rejected the Proposal There was also one Sir William Pickering a Gentleman who had improved himself by Ambassies and the French Breeding who aspired to it tho it was so much above his Fortunes And Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel asterwards Duke of Norfolk one descended of one of the Noblest and Richest Families in the English Nation and a person of great Interest and Authority though he was advanced in years yet he would also very fain have married the Queen but when he perceived his Old Age was ridicul'd and despised he left the Court and went abroad and never came back again into England She persisted in this Resolution of Celebacy with a Constancy that was admired then and ever since and at last she would grow angry when any of her Subjects spake to her of Marriage which they as passionately desired as she declined it The reason of this was wonderfully exagitated in the thoughts of men and some were very unmannerly to speak the best of it in their Conjectures whilst others ascribed it with much more probability to an habit of Chastity which put a Curb upon all irregular Desires or the fears of changing her Fortune and diminishing her Authority it being but reasonable she should â—…spect that whosoever had Married her would have taken upon him the principal Administration and so have abated her Power and Reputation others ascribed it to the Counsel of her Friends who yet prevailed with her to suffer Treaties of Marriage to be carried on to render Foreign Princes more favourable to her Interests by the hopes of attaining her at last But whatever was the true Cause of it which can be certainly known to none but God had this Queen been of the Communion of the Church of Rome this single Virtue would have gone a great way to the Canonizing of her as it has of many others and she certainly would have much more deserved it than any of the best that have been Sainted on that account only The common people of England for a long time most firmly believed That Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and Lord Steward of the House to her Majesty would be the man that would marry the Queen He was youngest Son to John Dudley Duke of Northumberland who with his Eldâ—…r Sons â—…ohn call'd Larl of Warwick Sir Amâ—…rose Sir Guilford and Sir Henry Dudley had been found Guilty of High â—…reason and the Father anâ—… Sir Guilford a younger Son was beheadâ—…d in the fiâ—…st year of Queen Mary s Reign when this Roâ—…ert who was the youngest Son his â—…ather had then living was spared merely on the account of his youth and never Tried or Dishonoured This Gentleman in his younger years was a very goodly Person of a Bâ—…autiful and Lovely Complexion and Features but high foreheaded which yet was not then thought any diminution of his Beauty he was a very great Politician but no great Soldier and tho he was not over-righteous in his Actions yet in his Letters there was not known a Stile more Religious and fuller of the strcams of Devotion This Favourite was then in the Verdure and most Flowering Spring of his Youth of a Stately Carriage a Modest and Grave Look a great Flatterer of a pleasant and easie nature in outward shew or appearance and being endowed with all those Accomplishments the City or Court could teach him in which he had had his Education he had insinuated himself into the Favour and Familiarity of the Queen by his specious shews of Loyalty Industry and Vigilance in her â—…ervice and for a long time managed the greatest Station in the Court and was reputed the First Minister of State though his Counsels were not over-fortunate His Brother Ambrose was Heir to the Estate and he to the Wisdom of that Family for he had all the Arts of the Publiâ—…an Dudley his Grandfather and the Policies of Northumberland his Father He was the most reserved man of that Age that saw all and was invisible carrying a depth not to be fathomed but by the Searcher of Heâ—…rts He became in his latter times sullen to his Superiors haughty towards his
Equals insolent to his Inferiors ungrateful to his Friends and pernicious to his Enemies and in a word intolerable to all but the Queen She made him first Master of her Horse and after Earl of Leicester for the Sufferings of his Ancestors both in her Father's and Sister's Reign But the common people who very rarely penetrate into the Thoughts of Princes ascribed all his Power and good Fortune to his Wit and Carriage which was formed by Nature and Art to the alluring of the softer Sex he being of a very taking Behaviour and an excellent Dancer so that one of the bâ—…st Dances of that Age was called by his Name The Leicester Dance When he found the Tide of Fortune flowing according to his Ambitious Wishes his heart was too much lifted up and being sometimes confounded by the Number of his Attendants and those that waited upon and visited him he would forget their Names and call them by that of other men He oftâ—…n changed his Cloathes and affected Gallantry to an Excess He put himsels forward and took up the distant Employments of Peace and War in exclusion of others who had more Experience especially in War and were Nobly born He was continually plodding to find the Studies Abilities Forces and Dispositions of other men and so great was his Application and Parts that he rarely miscarried in his Enquiries He would terrifie and sometimes destroy his Enemies and allure his Friends by the shews of Rewards He by his Interest advanced his Dependants Kindred and Relations to Honours and Employments And when he found his opportunity he as craftily sold his Mistress's Favours and the Employments he had taken from others He did the same by the Livings of the Church but then he took Bonds and other Securities to avoid the Penalties of Simony Yet there were few for a great while called to the Council-Table or admitted to Titles of Honour but by his Commendation and Procurement so that he seemed not so much to be the Queen 's particular Favourite as her Partner in the Royal Power and he was accordingly courted and revered by the rest of the Nobility The Queen made him Earl of Leicester in the year 1564. she gave him also a considerable Estate out of the Crown Lands and advanced him from Master of the Horse to Lord Steward of her Houshold She had made Ambrose Dudley his eldest Brother then living for John the eldest of them died a Prisoner in the Reign of Queen Mary without Issue about two years before Earl of Warwick and enriched him with the Grant of a plentiful Estate to bear the Charge of that Honour much of which being made up out of the Estates that had been forfeited to the Crown this and the sudden Rise of these two Brothers who had not done any considerable Service to the Nation that was known either in Peace or War made them envied and hated not only by the Nobility and Courtiers but by the Populace And Leicester encreased the Aversion of all men by his licentious and expensive way of living and by his Rapins which he craftily made upon many he in other Instances perverted the Laws and invaded the last Wills and Testaments of the Dead He ruined many of his Neighbours by cunning and tedious Law-Suits to get their Estates which lay convenient for him In the mean time he gave himself up intirely to the exercise of a most wicked and univerfal Luxury and brought into England from Foreign Countreys many new and unheard-of Pleasures and invented new kinds of Dishes to gratifie his Gluttony He would drink dissolved Pearls and Amber to excite his Lust and had so accustomed himself to the scents of Musk and Civet that when he went General into the Low-Countries he could not live without them so that in short he very much exceeded the Intemperance of all former times and made an accursed addition to the ruining-disorders of men His Example corrupted many of the younger Nobility also who being prone to Luxury very easily imitated his Vices and thought that the height of human Happiness was in Pleasures and therefore wholly neglecting the Care and Improvement of their Minds spent all their Time Money and Thoughts on the Dressing themselves after the French Fashion and pleasing their Senses Who can conceive the Poverty that followed these immense Expences And the bold Adventures these impoverished Gallants were forced upon to supply their Wants Desperation and Effeminacy making them outragious to the Ruin of the State Certainly there is nothing that is more destructive to a Nation and consequently more to be avoided than the Feasts and Riots of a prodigal Apicius or the Luxury and Banquets of a profuse 〈◊〉 Thus was Fitz-Alan the last â—…arl of Arundel and Edward de Vere Lord High Chamberlain of England and Earl of Oxford the Baron of Windfor and many rich Knights and Gentlemen who might have been the Ornaments of their Countrey by his ill Example and Conversation drawn into great Expences Chargeable Feasts Balls and Interludes and an excessive Gallantry the common Attendants of too much Ease and Plenty by which they much wasted their Estates and impoverished their Families and their Bodies also were much softned and unmann'd by their Excesses and Sloth and the generous Inclinations and Faculties of their Souls stifled and weakned by the Charms of Pleasures There are some who think that the crafty Earl of Leicester designed this debauching the Prime Nobility of England when he entred upon this way of living that he might by it render them weak and contemptible But however it is most certain the great influence he had upon the Queen and his being the Prime Minister of State and acquainted with all her Counsels and Intentions made him extremely hated by all the rest He had by his cunning and crafty Projects and Counsels engrossed all the Rewards of Virtue Riches Honours Attendants and the first Place of Minister of State and he managed them and lived without any Religion towards God or Fidelity to men making it his great design to cover all things with Luxury Cruelty and Rapines With whom did he continue in a constant Friendship What good man did not find him an Enemy He was to the utmost degree ungrateful to all his Friends and if any of his Enemies had at any time a little too freely expressed their Resentments against his Dishonesty Wickedness Injuries Power or Perfidy as he gave men too frequent occasions to reflect on them he seldom failed to cause them to be treacherously murdered Many fell in his time saith a Great Man of that Age who saw not the hand that pull'd them down and as many died that knew not their own disease He would not trust his Familiars above one year but either Transported them to Foreign Services or wafted them to another world In the year 1583 he caused one Mr. Edward Adern a Generous but Imprudent and Rash Gentleman a zealous Roman-Catholick and a great
Queen Mary preserved him in her fair Esteem tho he was of a differing Religion In the first of Queen Elizabeth he was again call'd to the Council-Table In the 3d. year of her Reign he was made Master of the Wards and in the 14th Anno 1572. he was made Lord Treasurer of England upon the Death of William Lord Paâ—…let havingthe 25th of February of the preceding year obtained his Patentof Baron Lord Burleigh so that he was the first Peer of this Illustrious House though his Father and Grandfather had enjoyed good Employments under Henry the 8th In all the Contests between Sussex and Leicester this Great Man stood Neuter and would engage in neither of the Parties which made him the Head of a Third and enabled him to serve himself of both the other in whose ways he laid many rubs Others were raised to balance Factions he to support a Kingdom as he was the best Statesman in that Age so he was constantly on the watch for the Safety of his Mistress and her Kingdoms Leicester was the Cunningest man of the Age but Cecil the Wisest the Stoutest and being without Guile or Pride made it his business to baffle all Leicester's Projects for thâ—… Marriage of the Queen and the enslaving the Nation He and Sussex threw themselves once at the Feet of the Queen and presumed to tell her That all her good subjects were concern'd to see the Danger and Dishonour Dudley had brought upon her That he had transgressed all the bounds of a Subject and very much exceeded the Crimes of Northumberland his Father That he had bragg'd of Marrying her That this was a Dishonour to her Majesty and would bring Mischief on her Kingdoms for her Subjects would never endure the Soveraignty of an unchaste and wicked man And they advised her to put a stop to the Jealousies of her People and to consult her own Honour and the Safety of her Friends They represented to her very warmly the Dignity Power and Wealth of a Foreign Match and recommended to her Charles Arch-Duke of Austria second Son of Ferdinand the Emperor and Brother of Maximilian II. as a Prince worthy of her Affections These Discourses of these Great Men made a very deep Impression on the mind of the Queen and thereupon this Noble Earl was sent in the year 1567 to carry the George to Maximilian II. Emperor of Germany and had Commission at the same time to treat of this Marriage which he endeavoured to effect with all his Power though the Earl of Leicester opposed it The Gallantry of his Behaviour and the Splendor of his Equipage and Retinue gain'd him a Familiarity from the Emperor and a Reverence from the Arch-Duke a Respect from the People and his Mistress a kindness in that Court which stood her in great stead against the Attempts of the King of Spain and Pope of Rome which perhaps was all that was designed by the Treaty for it is said the Lord North who went with him had Orders under hand to oppose all his Negotiations as he did and by a few fond Scruples disappointed and at last defeated the whole Design It is supposed by some this Obstruction was procured by Leicester to secure his own Greatness When this Great but Ill Man had struggled many years with the opposite Parties which arose one after another against him in the Court and found himself sinking in the Favour of the Queen by his private Marrying the Countess of Essex during the Life of his first Wife fearing the Divine Justice the Change of the Times and the great Numbers of men he had exasperated against him he in the year 1585 obtained a Commission of the Queen for Levying 500 men to be sent into Holland and Zealand and was after that by another constituted Lieutenant and Captain-General of the whole Army designed for the Service of the United Provinces against the Spaniard whither he went the same year he had no good Success in this Expedition and the next year the Hollanders made loud and dreadful Complaints against him for mis-spending their Money and ill-managing their Affairs whereupon he was re-called and the Complaint following him hither he told the Queen That she having sent him thither with Honour he hoped she would not receive him back with Disgrace and that whom she had raised from the Dust she would not bury alive Thereupon he left the Court and the 4th of Septembâ—…r 1588 he died at Cornbury-Park in Oxfordshire Thus died this Favourite having in one year in the Wars lost all that Reputation and Favour he had acquired in so many years in the Court. Peregrine Lord Willoughby a Noble Gentleman a good Soldier and a Virtuous Man who was one of the Commanders under the Earl of Leicester succeeded him as General of the English Forces in the Netherlands He had more Experience more Courage and also more Success than his Predecessor so that he was stiled the Queen's first Sword-man and a great Master of the Military Art by the Historians of those times He did the States of Holland great Service by his brave Defence of Bergen ap Zoom against the Prince of Parma in the year 1588 But for all that he had some of the Fate of his Predecessor which fell to his lot for he was complained of by the Hollanders as well tho not so justly as Leicester but his Innocence clear'd him In the year 1589 he was sent General of 4000 men in aid of the King of Navarre into France and he died in the year 1601. The Queen in all the time of her Reign took care to Establish her Government by the Counsel Virtue and Fidelity of many Wise and Learned Men who spent their whole time in promoting the Publick Welfare and Peace of her Kingdoms Sir Francis Walsingham Secretary of State was one of the greatest of these and an Ornament to her Court and Council He so sedulously attended the execution of the Office committed to him and took his Measures for the Safety of her Person and Kingdoms and the Security of the Protestant Religion with that Prudence and Caution that it was scarce possible any thing should happen which his Care and Industry had not foreseen or his Spies discovered to him before-hand His Maxim was Knowledge is never too dear and accordingly he spent his whole Income and Time in her Service and died in the year 1590 so poor that the Queen gave his Daughter her Portion The Queen has been heard to say That his Diligence and Sagacity exceeded her Expectation The Lord Burleigh was made Lord Treasurer of England by her because he was the Cato of his Time a man well versed in the Affairs of the Treasury and a Provident and Careful Manager of them He would insinuate to the Queen That the Treasury was not her own Money but committed to her Care for the Safety of her People and therefore it was not to be spent in useless
March with the English Army for England where he was rewarded for this Service with the Government of Berwick which he did not long enjoy for he died the 14th of December 1562. This War saith Mr. Cambden preserved all Britain from Ruin restored the Scots to their Ancient Liberty and setled the Peace and enlarged the Reputation of the English Nation so that from thenceforward during all her happy Reign she had no reason to apprehend any danger from Scotland the Protestants of that Nation esteeming the Queen their Patroness and Deliverer and the English acknowledging she had laid a sure foundation for their future Security Thus she delivered Scotland from those Foreigners who designed by Violence and Force to suppress not only the Protestant Religion but their Civil Rights and Liberties also and to bring upon that Free Nation an intolerable French Slavery Of this the Scots were then so extremely sensible saith my Author who was of that Nation That they being delivered by her means from Foreign Servitnde they thereupon subscribed to a League to maintain the Protestant Religion and to use the English Worship and Rites After this a Civil War arose in France and the Queen sent Supplies under the Earl of Warwick in 1562. to the Prince of Conde the Count de Rohan and Coligny the Defenders of the Protestant Religion and of the Liberties of that Kingdom To these Forces when the Protestants themselves opposed thâ—…m she sent afterwards Additional Forces and great Sums of Money At this time the French Protestants put Havre de Grace into her hands as a Cautionary Town and it was Garison'd with English Soldiers but so soon as their Fear of the Popish Party was a little abated by a Peace granted to them which yet waâ—… of no duration they joined with their Popish Countreymen to drive out their Benefactors and with equal Violence endeavoured to reduce the Town under the Crown of France again The Earl of Warwick seeing his men consumed by a War without and a Plaâ—…ue within the Town and no Relief to be expected in due time he thereupon began a Treaty with the Enemy and the 28th of July 1563. the Articles of Surrender were signed the next day there came a Fleet of 60 Sail of English Ships into the Haven on which the Garison was Transported into England And the Protestants of France had the chief hand in the driving them out as all sides acknowledge The Death of Francis II. King of France the 5th of December 1560. when he had Reigned but Seventeen Months put an end to all the French Ambitious Designs of Conquering England and Reducing Scotland and to the Fears of both these Kingdoms on that score Mary Queen of Scotland being thus deprived of her Beloved Husband soon grew weary of that Kingdom and getting a small Number of Ships together for that purpose she went on board at Calais the 14th of August and she landed at Leith the 20th of the same month in the year 1561 being attended by many of the Nobility and some great Ladies of both the French and Scots Nation Not long after the Queen of England having opposed this Princess's designs of Marrying Charles Archduke of Austria and rather recommending to her choice the Lord James Darnley Eldest Son to the Earl of Lenox and the next Heir after her of the Crowns of England and Scotland so that this Match would undoubtedly secure her Title to England too after the Death of Queen Elizabeth whereupon she married him at Edinburgh in the year 1565 and the next year after James their only Son was born to the great Joy of both the Nations for he was then thought one of the Pillars of Christendom the Ornament of his Native Countrey and Family and all men presaged That he would one day become the King of Great Britain as it came afterwards to pass by the wonderful good Providence of God This Marriage was attended with a Catastrophe and Tragick Event which is grievous to the thoughts and scarce possible to be enough lamented Mary Stewart the Relict of Francis II. King of France and the Immediate Heiress and Lawful Queen of Scotland and the Presumptive Heir of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland the Mother of James VI. soon after became a Lamentable Example of the Unsteadiness of Human Affairs The Lord Darnley her Husband having out of Jealousie ordered the Murther of one David Rixio the Queen's Secretary was afterwards himself Poisoned first and then Murdered at Edinburgh in the year 1567 The effect of which was the Deposing the Queen her self who was suspected to have an hand in it and the Imprisoning her in a Castle in the Lake of Locklevin where she was forced to subscribe a Resignation of the Crown and Government of Scotland in the year 1568. The Queen by the Providence of God escaped afterwards out of this Restraint the 2d of May and raised some Forces to recover her Crown again which were intirely routed and dispersed by the Forces of the Regent of Scotland So that having nothing more to trust to in that Kingdom she took shipping with intention to pass into France but being by stress of Weather or the Treachery of those that carried her brought into England she was landed at Warkinton in Cumberland the 17th of the same Month and not long after committed Prisoner to the Castle of Carlisle so that being driven from her Native Countrey by her own Subjects she found an uneasie and cruel Restraint where she expected a Refuge and a Sanctuary The Laws of Hospitality and that Kindness which Nature teacheth all men to use towards those that are of the same Lineage and Blood not being able to protect her against the Jealousie of a Rival Queen When Mary Queen of the Scots saw her self reduced to this Calamitous Condition forsaken of all her Subjects and Servants and forced to flee in one day about Sixty Miles and then not thinking her self secure till passing to Sea she was thrown upon the English shore She wrote a Letter to the Queen of England before she left Scotland and sent it by one Beton and she gave him a Diamond which the Queen had sent her before this as a Pledge of her Friendship she also ordered him to tell the Queen That she intended to leave Scotland and to come into England and did most earnestly beseech her to send her such Help and Assistance as was necessary in case the Scots should persist in the same Methods of Oppression Queen Elizabeth assured this Gentleman That she would shew the Queen of Scots all that Affection that she could possibly expect from a Sister Before this Gentleman could get back again she left Scotland contrary to the Advice of all her Friends and came into England and as soon as she was on shore she sent the Queen a Second Letter in French in the Conclusion of which she tells the Queen of England That she was come into her
Kingdom with an intire Reliance upon her Majesties most unquestionable good affections towards her not doubting but her Majesty would assist her and that by her Example and Encouragement others would be won over to her I do most earnestly therefore said she beseech you That I may presently be admitted to come to you because I am now in great Distress as I will more at large inform you when you shall please so far to have Compassion on me God grant your Majesty a long and an happy Life and me that Patience and Consolation which I â—…ope to obtain from him by your seasonable Assistance Queen Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Knolles and some others to the Queen of the Scots to comfort her and promised her all that Protection and Assistance which the Equity of her Cause would allow but she would not suffer her to come to her And she ordered her to be removed to Carlisle which was a place of greatâ—…r Safety to her than that she was at present in where the Scots might perhaps surprize her Upon this the Queen of the Scots wrote a Third Letter to the Queen and sent it by the Lord Herris desiring that she might be suffered to come before her Majesty to propose the Injuries which had been done to her by her Subjects and to answer the accusations they did pretend to bring against her That it was most equitable and just that Queen Elizabeth should admit her who was her Nearest Kinswoman and was now an Exile into her presence and hear what she had to say for her self and restore her to her Kingdom which she had most unjustly been deprived of by those who had been most justly banished for their Treasons against her and wâ—…re Pardoned and Restored upon your Majesty's Intercession with me to my own Râ—… as now it plainly appeareth said she if your Majesty d th not prevent it Wherefore I once more Conjure your Majesty either to Admit me into your Presence and to Assist me or otherwise to suffer me forthwith to go out of England to seek help elsewhere and that you would not detain me as a Captive and a Prisoner any longer in the Castle of Carlisle because I came freely into England trusting in your many kind Letters Messages and the Pledges of an Honourable Reception This Letter wrought very much upon the heart of the Queen and she could not but pity the desolate and deplorable Estate of so near a Relation who being by Force of Arms taken by her own Subjects had been thrust from a Throne into a Prison brought into the utmost danger of her Life Condemned without being heard and was deprived of a Kingdom and had now fled to her out of a Confidence of her Assistance and was now at last willing and desirous that the Queen of England should be her Judge and when she had heard both her and her Subjects pronounce what Sentence she thought fit and just Princes are certainly the most unhappy part of Mankind because they are frequently reduced to those straits that they can scarce tell which way to turn them Sin or Misery Ruin or Dishonour surround and encompass them so that there is no possibility of avoiding both at once Had Queen Elizabeth dismissed the Queen of Scots she would without doubt have found enough who would have entertained her as an Instrument and Pretence to ruin both England and Scotland too If she detained her in England it was feared that her Wheedling Humour Youth and Beauty and her stout Attachment to the Popish Religion would draw in many of the English to take her part as long as she was considered as the nexâ—… Heir of the Crown after the Queen then Reigning and this would very much endanger the Peace of England Foreign Ambassadors would have Orders from their Masters when her Case was once known to espouse her Interest and promote her Affairs and a part of the Scots would certainly endeavour to restore her and suppress the Opposite Party when they had so fair a Prospect of making their own Fortunes into the bargain The Faith of those that were trusted with the keeping this Precious Depositum was not to be relied on and if-she should happen to dye by a Natural Death the Queen must expect to be defamed and slandered as the Murtherer of her So that the Queen saw that every day new and unforeseen Difficulties grew upon her If she were suffered to go into France it was feared the House of Guise which was related to her by her Mother might renew their old Pretences in her Right to England and again set on foot her former Claim of this Throne and might win many over to assist her either on the score of her Religion or the Probability of her Right or lastly merely out of a mad desire of changing the present Government which is never so easie or sweet as to please all That the parting with her would put an end to the League and Friendship between England and Scotland which was then considered as a thing of the greatest use that could possibly be conceived to England and it was to be feared if by her means the Popish part of Scotland prevailed against the Protestant the League with France would be renewed and this would be so much the more mischievous to England now because heretofore we had the Friendship of the House of Burgundy to balance that of Scotland but the Estates of that Family being all at this time united in the Person of Philip II. King of Spain England had not one Ally near it which could be relied on but the Scots If she were resetled in Scotland it was to be feared that those of the English Faction would be ruined and those of the French would be alone intrusted with all the Power The young Prince would be exposed to Dangers the Religion which was now well Established there would be changed the French and other Foreigners would be invited thither and entertained and Ireland would be more infested by the Highland-Scots than heretofore and Queen Mary her self would be in danger of losing her Life amongst her own Subjects Hereupon the far greatest part of the Council of England were of an Opinion That she ought to be detained here as a Prisoner of War till she had given sufficient satisfaction for her assuming the Title of the Crown of England and answered for the Death of the Lord Darnly who was a Subject of England For this the Countess of Lenox had furnished them with a Pretence by her coming to the Queen and with Tears in her eyes demanding Justice in her own and her Husbands name and had also besought the Queen That Mary Queen of the Scots might be Arraigned for the Death of her Son To whom the Queen had calmly and wisely answered That the Countess ought not to bring so grievous an Accusation or charge so black a Crime as this was upon a Princess so nearly related to
the Crown which yet could not be proved by certain Evidence That the times were unjust and wicked and Malice was blinded with Prejudice and made no scruple to charge the most Innocent with horrid Crimes â—…hat however there was an All-seeing Justice which attended at the Throne of God which was the best Avenger of all secret Villanies It will appear by all this what Difficulties there were on all hands in this great Affair and that the Queen was not acted only by a spirit of Jealousie and Revenge for what was past or out of a Personal and Selfish Humour oppressed this Banished Queen without considering all things with great application of mind The Lord Herris who attended the Court for the Queen of Scots was not idle in the mean time but earnestly sollicited Queen Elizabeth That she would not rashly believe any Accusation which should be brought against a Sovereign Queen till she had been heard and that the Meeting of the States of Scotland should not be precipitated by the Earl of Murray the Prime Regent to the Prejudice of the Deposed Queen and the Ruin of all her Loyal and Good Subjects The Queen of England accordingly did interpose her Authority with Murray as to the lattter of these but the Regent went on for all that Assembled the States of Scotland and attainted several of those that had taken Arms for the Queen and seized their Estates and Houses The Queen of England being highly incensed upon this sent Sir Walter Mildmay to the Regent to tell him from her That she could not sit still and see the Sacred Power of Princes be brought into Contempt amongst their Subjects and be trodden under foot at the Will and Pleasure of Factious men That altho they had forgot all that Duty and Respect which they owed to their Queen yet she for her part could not forger the Affection and Compassion her Piety obliged her to shew to a Sister and a Neighbour Queen That therefore Murray should either come to her himself or send some able men who might answer the Complaints of the Queen of Scots against the Regent and his Partakers and shew the Causes for which they had Abdicated Deposed the Queen which if they did not forthwith do she would dismiss the Queen of Scots and lend her all her Forces in order to the resettling her in her Kingdom And at the same time she admonished them not to sell the Queen's Jewels and Wardrobe tho the States had given him leave to do it The Earl of Murray accordingly and some other of the Nobility came into England and the case of the Queen of Scots was heard at York by several of the Lords of the English Council but could be brought to no Issue by reason of the cross Interests and the mutual Fears on all sides Tho the Queen of England to the last declared That she detested the Insolence of the Scots in her soul who had presumed to Abdicate their Queen But then when the Duke of Norfolk thought it reasonable that Murray should be stayed in England and be prosecuted for the Death of the Lord Darnley which the Queen of Scots said she would prove against him tho this was approved by the Earls of Arundel Sussex Leicester and Clinton afterwards Earl of Lincoâ—…n yet the Queen was very angry at the Motion and openly said The Queen of Scots would never want an Advocate as long as the Duke of Norfolk lived So that upon the whole it is strongly probable she durst not dismiss or restore the Queen of Scots for fear it should involve both England and Scotland in Wars and Calamities which would have very much endangered the utter Ruin of both the Nations but then she was desirous as much as was possible to keep the Example from spreading to the Damage of other Princes and the Endangering other States in other Circumstances as much as it tended now to their Preservation Many have endeavoured to blacken this Act of the Queen's and others to defend and excuse it but for my part I think the Character God gave of King David may be applied to Queen Elizabeth here David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite And what if upon the whole the Queen of the Scots is to be excepted only in our Instance This Reflection will appear so much the more reasonable if we take into Consideration her Death too The Queen of Scots had been now a Prisoner in England almost XVIII Years when the Queen of England was prevailed upon by the earnest Solicitation of many of the Peers and Commons of England who fell down upon their Knees humbly requesting her Majesty as Melvil expresseth it to have Compassion upon their unsure Estate albeit she should slight her own Alledging That her Life was in hazard by the Practices of the Queen of Scotland and their Lives and Fortunes also Now as it was possible for the English to have kept all those ill men from her which might put the Queen of Scotland upon such Practices so it was utterly unreasonable that Queen Elizabeth should expect the Queen of Scots would desist from endeavouring by all the ways that were possible to recover her Liberty and her Kingdom tho with the Death of her Oppressor But by this time the King of Scotland her Son was become a man and he would have secured the Peace and Possession of that Kingdom and the Queen of Scots was now XLIV Years of Age and so not so likely if she had escaped to have been Courted or to have wrought her any great Mischief in the world as she might have done in her Younger years besides by this time the States of Holland had pretty well establishtd themselves to balance the Spaniards but then the House of Guise was then in its greatest Pride and the King of Spain was preparing his Invincible Armado which came two years after and these two may seem to have been the real Motives to it But whatever they were the thing cannot be justified neither ought it and Queen Elizabeth seems to own as much by her ruining Davison the Secretary to conceal her own fault tho in truth it made it much worse When the Queen of Scots was brought before the Lords that were to Try her for her Life she declined their Jurisdiction as well she might and alledged she was a Sovereign Queen to which the Chancellor the Lord Hatton replied You are accused but not condemned You say you are a Queen be it so if you are innocent you wrong your Reputation in avoiding Tryal You protest your self Innocent the Queen feareth the contrary not without grief and shame To examine your Innocence are these Honourable Prudent and upright Commissioners sent Glad will they be with all their hearts if they may return and
report you guiltless believe me the Queen her self will be much affected with Joy who affirmed to me at my coming from her That never any thing befel her more grievous to her than that you were Charged with such a Crime Wherefore lay aside the bootless Privilege of a Royal Dignity which here can be of no use to you appear in Judgment and shew your Innocence lest by avoiding Tryal you draw upon your self suspicion and lay upon your Reputation an Eternal Blot and Aspersion This short Speech is highly commended for the Ingenuity and Softness of it but it was a detestable piece of Wickedness to wheedle a poor Captive Queen who was ignorant of the Laws of Nations and destitute of all Advice and Counsel out of her Reputation Majesty Innocence and Life and under the false Pretences of the Queen's Tenderness for her her Judges Uprightness and her own alledg'd Innocence to bring her by a Pretended Shew of Justice to a Scaffold as a Subject who was an Equal an Enemy and a Sovereign The Queen of Scots Innocence did not consist in her having never contrived any thing against Queen Elizabeth but in her Right to contrive all that was possible to recover her Liberty and her Kingdom and therefore when they had proved her in their Notion Guilty they had done nothing she was no Subject to Queen Elizabeth and so ought her no Allegiance and consequently could commit no Treason against her and the Queen of England ought to have set her at Liberty and commanded her out of her Kingdom before she could justly treat her as an Enemy So that this was all of it Pretence Injustice and Oppression and had Nathan the Prophet been sent to the Queen of England he would certainly have told her as he did David Thou hast slain her with the sword of the children of Ammon And the Complaint that she made to the Lord Hatton and all that she did after to excuse her self shew that she had a reluctance within and acted against the Dictates of her own Conscience so that this can be no Example for the future to any Prince or Subject but ought to be looked upon as the Dishonour and Shame of that otherwise most Excellent Princess Yet after all the Queen is not to be charged with the whole Guilt of this Royal and Innocent Blood but those Foreign Princes and the Priests and Jesuits are justly chargable with the greatest part of the blame because when they saw the Queen of Scots in so much danger of her Life they would never suffer her to be quiet but were eternally Plotting and Contriving Bribing and Conspiring how to murder Queen Elizabeth and to set up the Queen of Scots in her stead to restore their Beloved Popery here in England To demonstrate the Truth of this Assertion I must in the next place give an account of the Troubles and Conspiracies of the Popish Party against this Princess which to the shame of their Religion were all began and carried on under the pretence of a mighty Zeal for their Faith and in Obedience to its Principles Pope Pius Quintus in the year 1570 thought it became his Piety and would be an excellent Argument of his deserving that name to Arm all the Queen's Subjects against God and their Prince and Countrey and foolishly presumed the Avenger of Perjury would permit him to free them from the obligations of their Natural and sworn Allegiance to their Lawful Sovereign and his Vicegerent Thereupon he sent out his BULL to declare the Queen an Heretick and that she had forfeited all her Right to Reign and Govern And he excited all the Neighbour Catholick Princes to take Arms against her and put this Bull in Execution And one Dr. Morton the Pope's Legate à Latere here then lay lurking amongst the Papists in the North of England and with impatience expected the Roaring of this Bull as the Signal to Treason and Rebellion and in the mean time made it his business to excite their Madness and Rage and inflame their Hatred by vain hopes and promises that so he might engage them in a miserable destructive War The Popish Subjects of England being thus debauched from their Allegiance by the Pope's Authority and Approbation there presently followed a great many Seditions and Insurrections and some of the Nobility and Gentry of that Persuasion in compliance with their Religion began to be very ill affected towards their Prince Thus Religion became a Pretence for and a Promoter of Rebellion and Treason The first of the Nobility that entred into Action against the Queen was Thomas Piercy Earl of Northumberland who in the year 1569 had been privy to the Intended Marriage of Mary Queen of the Scots with Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk and being discovered thereupon he submitted himself to the Earl of Sussex at that time President of the North yet after this he joined with Charles Nevil Earl of Westmorland and great Multitudes of people began to resort to them and they began to be suspected again by the Government as designing some Mischief The President of the North sent for them both at one time and freely told them what he had heard and they both stoutly disclaimed the having a Conspiracy in hand against the Queen and promised to adventure their Lives very zealously against any Traytor whatsoever that should take Arms against their Sovereign Yet after all Piercy began to raise what Forces he could in the year 1569 which being discovered to the Queen she sent her Letters to them requiring them to come both to Court The Earl of Northumberland was so easie a man and so far from that fiery Activity that is requisite in the Head of a Faction that upon the receit and reading of the Queen's Letter he was almost resolved to go to Court and cast himself at the Queen's Feet as in all probability he had done if his Servants and Followers who were more bent upon Mischief than he had not allarm'd him in the dead of the night and frighted him into a Rebellion by their crafty arts persuading him at the same time That all the Catholicks in England were ready prepared to assert that Religion and that if they neglected it any longer Foreign Princes would take this work in hand to the great Damage of the Nation Whereupon he fled to Branspeth in the Bishoprick of Durham to the Earl of Westmorland and they joining in a Rebellion summoned their Confederates and issued out a Proclamation in the Queen's Name commanding the people to put themselves in Arms for the Defence of her Majesty's Person In their Banner was a Cross Painted with the Five Wounds of Christ yet after all they never could assemble more than 2000 Horse and 5000 Foot so that tho they designed to have marched to York they durst not do it and upon the first News that the Earl of Sussex was advancing towards them they disbanded these Tumultuous Forces
before he came up to them and both the Farls fled into Scotland The Earl of Northumberland was not long there before he was discovered by the Regent of Scotland and was sent a Prisoner to the Castle of Loâ—…klevin and in 1572 delivered into the Queen's hands and the 22d of August in that year he was Beheaded at York The Earl of Westmorland fled into Flanders and was received into the Protection of the Spaniards where he lived to a great Old Age and died in the year 1584 having lived all that while he was there in great Penury and Want This was the last Earl of that Noble Family which had enjoyed that Earldom Six Descents from the year 1398 and was now wholly extinct he being Attainted in Parliament and leaving none but Daughters behind him As their Forces were small they did but very little mischief to any besides themselves First they marched to Durham which they entred without Resistance in a kind of silly Triumph and entring the Churches they cast to the ground the Bibles and trod upon them because they were English and then they plundered all the Church-Treasures threatning great Calamities to all those they called Hereticks Then they went Northward and Besieged Bernard-Castle which Sir George Bowes defended against them Eleven days and by that time they had taken it Sussex was upon them and they were forced to disband and fly for it so little did the Popish Religion gain by this Abortive Insurrection When the Queen heard of this sudden Insurrection she forthwith by the Advice of her Privy Council issued out a sharp Proclamation against the two Earls and all the rest of the Commanders and Abettors of this Rebellion and exhorted all her Subjects to join heartily with her to revenge the Injury which was hereby offered both to her and them The Popish Religion which in the beginning of her Reign was not able to preserve it self tho Established by Law when she came to the Crown in the Thirteen years which she had now Reigned was become so much less in Numbers than it was at her coming to the Crown and her Throne was now so well established that many of the Roman-Catholicks which were desirous enough of Innovation durst not be too forward to appear for fear the Event should prove ruinous to them So that many of them sent the Earls Letters to them to the Queen and promised to assist her towards the suppressing this Rebellion And the two Earls being by their Servants and a company of hot-headed Priests trick'd into a Rebellion had made so little Preparations that they seemed only to rise that they might fall the lower and rise no more But that which hastned the Reduction of them mostly was the Reputation and Valour of Thomas Ratcliff Farl of Sussex then President of the North He was a Gentleman of great Industry and Experience and having now the supreme Command in the North he would not give them time to fill up their Numbers but getting what Forces he could on a sudden together he marched against them with an Army of 7000 men and by his bold and quick approach struck Terror into the Rebels and extinguished this dangerous Fire in its beginning The two Earls were by this time sensible that a great part of the Popish Faction would not Rise and that they had neither Numbers nor Officers nor Ammunition nor Money to carry on a War and besides they heard that the Earl of Warwick and Clinton were Raising Forces in the South and had got together 12000 men and were marching towards them So that if they had beaten Sussex they had been sure of another Army in a few days that would have ruined the Remains of their small Forces So that they had no other course to take than to disband their men and skulk away as well as they could Whilst the Earl of Northumberland continued at Liberty in Scotland he was forced to lurk in a small Cottage destitute of Meat and Drink and all other Necessaries of human life suitable to a Person of his Birth and Quality as living amongst the bordering Thieves and it was not long before they grew weary of him and discovered him to the Regent of Scotland Morton the next Regent of Scotland sold him after this tho he had formerly been very kindly entertained by this Earl when he was forced to flec out of Scotland So that as he had broke his Faith to his Mistress he found no Faith nor Pity or Gratitude amongst others but was pursued to the Block by a Divine Vengeance which turned every thing against him But it was however the happiness of this Family that by his Attainder the Estate descended with the Title to Sir Henry Piercy his younger Brother upon whom it was by Name entailed by Queen Mary when she re-granted this Earldom to this Thomas in 1556 whereas the Family of the Nevils was intirely ruined and never got up again The Earl of Sussex prosecuted the Rebels with great Severity tho he had obtained so easie a Victory and without any Bloodshed hanging many of them who had the misfortune to fall into his hands plundering their Houses of all they had and confiscating and seizing their Estates And not contented with this he led his Army into Scotland in hopes to catch the Fugitive Earls and wasted Tivedale with Fire and Sword and then returned into England without gaining what he sought The Queen was so incensed against them too that she Attainted all that she could find were concerned in it that were men of Estate but shewed more Mercy to the Poorer people whose Ignorance might bespeak her Compassion She ordered also her Thanks to be given to those Noblemen and Gentlemen who in the heat of this Affair had taken Arms and come into her Assistance commanding competent Rewards to be given to all that deserved them and that they should spare the Lives of all those miserable men who should beg her Pardon and acknowledge their Fault Out of the Ashes of this Rebellion there arose another at Naworth in the North part of Cumberland upon Severus's Wall which was headed by Leonard the second Son of William Lord Dacres of Gillesland This Gentleman was discontented because the Estate of his Family was by Law so vested in the Daughters of Thomas Lord Dacres his Elder Brother that it would pass into other Families with them and this was the first spring of this Motion He was in the Conspiracy of the Two Earls and was then at Court managing an Intrigue with some Foreign Ambassadors for some Assistance to be sent to them but finding the War began unseasonably he went to the Queen and tendred her his Assistance against the Earls and she granted him her Commission for the Raising men to that purpose He thereupon sent some to encourage the Earls to persist and to assure them That he would join them with what Forces he could raise but before he
of Supremacy And finding that the Iesuits and Secular Priests were under the Mask and Pretence of Religion the Spies and Partisans of Philip II. King of Spain and the Emissaries and Promoters of the Papal Tyranny and Disorder and that their greatest business was to pervert her Subjects and to entice them to commit the most unnatural and horrid Crimes she banished them for ever from her Kingdoms and Territories and made it Treason for them to return and Felony for any of her Subjects knowing them to be such to entertain conceal or harbor them This which was designed by the Queen and the Government to cure or rather to prevent their Treachery and Malice by keeping them at a distance inflamed their rage against her so that concealing themselves under the Habits and Dresses of Lay men and sometimes under the Disguise of Mechanick and mean Trades and Employments they lay as it were in ambush expecting and ready to catch at any opportunity that offered it self to murther her In the year 1578. which was the 12th year of her Reign and the very year when the Popish Schism began several of the Popish Priests fled over into Flanders where Philip II. had already prepared for them a College at Doway and here they put themselves under the Government of one William Alan a Divine of Oxford who having obtained a large Pension from the Pope opened here a School for Rebellion and Treason To the end say they that as the Papal Priests in England are by time extinguished there might always be a new Race to supply their Places and sow the Seeds of the Roman Religion in England and therefore they called these Places Seminaries and those that were educated in them Seminary Priests The first of these Seminary Priests sent over were Robert Parson and Edmund Campion in the year 1580. Parson was a Somersetfhire man of a furious and hot Temper and of an ungenteel behaviour Campian was a Londoner well bred sweet and elegant and both of them had been bred up in the University of Oxford and had profess'd the Protestant Religion These men upon their coming over into England appeared sometimes in a Military Habit sometimes in the Dress of a Gentleman and at others in the Habits of the Clergy and sometimes like Paritors and frequented the Country Houses and Seats of the Popish Nobility and Gentry Parson was so hot with them for the deposing of the Queen that some of them were strongly inclined to deliver him up into the Hands of the Magistrates Campian made it more his business to pervert the People by his Writings to the Popish Religion but his Reign was not long for in the year 1581. he was taken and executed for High-Treason The Queen had before this put out a Proclamation to give these men a caution before-hand That seeing they had put off all that Love which they owed to their Countrey and the Allegiance which was due to her they should yet behave themselves prudently and modestly and not irritate her Justice any farther against them for she was now resolved not to be cruel to her self and her good Subjects any longer by sparing such Miscreants as she had found them to be So that how severely soever they were used they had the lessâ—…ason to complain because she had fairly before-hand told them what she meant to do and what usage they might expect at her hands In the year 1583. Francis Throgmorton the eldest Son of John Throgmorton Chief Justice of Chester Thomas Lord Paget and Charles Arundel and others of the Popish Religion conspired to deliver the Queen of Scots out of her Confinement Henry Earl of Northumberland and Philip his Son Earl of Arundel were suspected and confined to their own Houses and some others were suspected and difficultly delivered themselves For about this time the outragious Malice of the Popish Party against the Queen broke out to that degree that they printed Books to exhorâ—… the Queens Servants to serve her as Judith did Holofernes The Author of which was never fully discovered but iâ—… was suspected that it was written by Gregory Martin of Oxford but Carter a Printer that printed it was hanged Throgmâ—… had the same Fate but Paget and Charles Arundel left the Nation and went into France Stafford the Queen's Ambassador desired they might be sent out of France which was denied because the Queen had at the same time entertained the Count de Montgomery and had then with her Sagner an Advocate of Berne an Ambassador for the King of Navar who was endeavouring to promote a War in France In the year 1585. William Parry a Welshman by Birth and of a very mean Extraction meanly learned in the Civil Law but proud and gallant beyond his Means being chosen a Member of the Lower-House declaimed very furiously against a Bill then proposed in Parliament against the Jesuits averring tâ—…at it was a cruel bloody desperate Bill and would be destructive to the Kingdom of England Being desired to shew his Reasons for what he said he refused to answer before any other than the Privy Council whereupon he was commitâ—…ed and afterwards upon his submission readmitted into the House but was afterwards accused by Edmund Nevil the Heir Male of the House of Westmorland to have a Design against the Life of the Queen which he confessed afterwards in the Tower upon which he was tryed and executed In the year 1586. J. Ballard a Ruffling Priest of the College of Reims came over to embroil the Nation and made his visit to most of the Popish Nobility and Gentry in England and Scotland being every where accompanied by one Mand who was a Spy employed by Sir F. Walsingham This Silken Priest came into England about Easter and contracted a great acquaintance and friendship with Mr. Anth. Babington of Dethick in Derbyshire a young Gentleman of good Birth and Estate of great Wit and Learned above his years but being a great Zealot for the Romish Religion he about a year before this without the Queen's leave went into France and there was first debauched as to his Loyalty by Morgan an Agent for the Scotchmen in that Court Ballard informed this Gentleman that the Queen of England would not live long because there was one Savage come over to assassinate her This Project did not please Babington so he formed a new Design in which were Edward Brother to the Lord Windsor Thomas Sarisbury of the County of Denbigh Charles Tilney one of the Gentlemen Pensioners that waited upon the Queen and the only hope of his Family but reconciled to the Church of Rome under-hand by this Ballard Chidick Tichburn of the County of Southampton Edward Abington Son of the Queen's Cosserer Robert Grage of Surry John Traverse John Charnock of Lancaster John Jones whose Father had been Master of the Wardrobe to Queen Mary Savaâ—…e and one Barnwell of a Noble 〈◊〉 Family Henry Dun a Clerk in
low as to employ one Roderâ—…ck Lopez a Jew and a Physician by Profession to Poyson the Queen Stephen Ferreira Gama and Emanuel Loisio two Portuges to stabher but all this was so seasonably discovered to the Queen by the Letters that were sent to them and intercepted by her Subjects that they were all three taken up and they all confessed their several Treasons and had Sentence of Death sor it and they were all three executed for it together with one Cullin an Irish Fencing-Master who was hired by the Fugitives in Flanders and sent over to Murther the Queen which he also confessed And not long after Edmund York and Richard Williams were hired by D. Ybarra a Spaniard and these Fugitives and sent into England on the same Errand and here taken up When the Queen was told of all the base Conspiracies against her Life she was no way terrified at the danger tho she saw Henry the III. fall by their Hands in the Year 1589. in France but repeated that Passage in the Psalms Thou art my God my time is in thy hand Psalm 31. And with a Maseuline Courage despising all their Rage and Baseness she took great care of her self and put her whole trust in God For the rest persisting to her dying day in her first Resolution not to spare one of these Traytors that fell into her hands as she at first told them in a Proclamation she would not And this is the true way of dealing with these Implacable Monsters who are neither worthy of Mercy nor capable of Repentance This Censure may possibly seem too severe to those that are not perfectly acquainted with the Principles and Tempers of these Men and therefore it will not be amiss to confirm it with an Example William Parry mention'd above was employed by the Jesuits to murther the Queen and they had thoroughly pèrswaded him That there was nothing more Glorious than to die for the service of the Church and that he would be reputed a Martyr if he could extirpate her who was the Favourer of Heresie and the Enemy of the Church To this End he came into England in the Year 1583. And to insinuate himself into the Queen's Favour whose Servant he had formerly been and to obtain her belief he freely and openly told her that he had been solicited to Murther her by Morgan and other Fugitive Priests beyond the Seas Pretending that he had entred into a Familiarity with them to no other end than to discover their secret Designs against her and to take care of her Safety to whom he owed his Life she having pardoned him when he had forfeited it to Justice in the year 1580. The Queen heard all this Story with an unconcerned Courage and told him That none of the Catholicks should be called in question on account of his Religion or of the Pope's pretended Supremacy if they behaved themselves in all other things like good Subjects Which words he afterwards confessed made such an impression on his mind that he could not forget them And after this he was so much in her good opinion that he solicited for an Employment but receiving a Letter from the Cardinal of Coma wherein he commended the Design he was engaged in saith he and sending him an Absolution in the Pope's Name tho he shewed the Letter to the Queen yet he persisted in his Resolution to Assassinate her and from thenceforward had no scruple in his mind concerning the Lawfulness of the Fact But then he pretended he was resolved first to try if he could perswade her by fair means to use the Catholicks more favourably And when at any time he went to the Queen he would lay by his Dagger for fear the Opportunity should be too strong a Temptation to him When he looked upon her and considered her Royal Virtues he confessed he was staggered in his mind But his Vows were in Heaven and his Letters and Promises on Earth that he would do it and this perpetually disquieted him and put him on At last he fell upon a Book written by Alan a Jesuit to prove That Princes that were Excommunicated might be Deposed or Slain and this Book was a strong Motive to him to go on with the Treason And he communicated it to Nevil who afterwards Accused him and they two having taken an Oath of Secrefse each to other formed a Design to set upon her with Ten Horsemen when she was in the Countrey and so Murther her They could however never find the opportunity and about six months after this the Earl of Westmorland dying and Nevil being his next Heir he discovered to Secretary Walsingham this Conspiracy By the Queen's Order he sent for Parry and asked him If he had had any Treaty with any Dissatisfied or Suspected person opening him a door for his Escape but he plainly denied he ever had for if he had confessed it and said he did it to try Nevil he had without doubt escaped but the Crime he had resolved upon had blinded his eyes so that he could not see it Nay he had the Impudence to say That tho the Queen had twice spared his Life yet he was not beholden to her for it because it had been unjust to have taken it The greatest part of this Narrative is extracted from his own Confession before the Lord Chancellor Hatton and others so that there can be no doubt of the Truth of it This her Severity to them struck a great Terror into the minds of the English Papists when they every where saw the Heads and Quarters of their Party exposed to the publick view but nothing could cure or appease their festered Malice Her Majesty and Presence we see was able to excite the Admiration and her undaunted Valour to terrifie this Cut-throat as he confessed but tho she charmed his hands yet neither was her Mercy or Goodness able to melt his hardned heart nor was her Severity towards him and other such Miscreants sufficient to mitigate the enraged Malice of the rest of the Jesuits and Popish Villains but they still went on with their Hellish Designs to destroy her But when all was done the Goodness of God watched over her to preserve her and frustrated all the Designs of wicked men against her and without this all the wise Counsel of Burleigh and Walsingham and the rest of her Servants would have signified nothing We may see Henry the IIId of France and Henry the IVth his Successor tho they both professed the Roman-Catholick Religion were Assassinated in the day time in the midst of their Servants and Friends by these Religious Villains when it was not possible they that did it could escape and yet this Queen who was more hated than either of them and less able to defend her self in the spite of all their Malice Reigned above Forty four years and died in Peace And it is worth the observing That in all the times since the
Reformation began which is now One hundred seventy five years though they have been engaged in endless Plots against the Protestant Princes yet they have been so far disappointed by the special Providence of God that I do not know of any Prince they have been able to Assassinate but Willian the First Prince of Orange and him they attempted twice before it succeeded In the year 1567. there broke out a second Civil War in France on the score of Religion which filled that once most flourishing Kingdom with Factions and Seditions and strangely exagitated the Towns and great Cities of that Kingdom so that the people of France ran upon each other as if they had been divided and set on by a Divine Judgment Catherine de Medicis the Queen Dowager of France had then assumed the Supreme Government as Guardian to CharlesIX herSon who was then a Minor She and her Council were contriving by all the ways that were possible to suppress the Protestants of France which grew numerous during the Minority of the King and under the Favour and Protection of the last Treaty to this end they had ordered some men to be Levied in Champagne and had sent for Six thousand Swiss The Prince of Conde and Coligny observing these Preparations concluded they were made against them and resolved to begin first and they formed a Design to surprize the King and the Queen-Mother at Meaux but she being informed of it withdrew in the night time towards Paris the Prince of Conde being thus disappointed followed them to Paris and Besieged that City which being reduced to some streights there followed a Fight at St. Dennis in which Montmorancy was slain but the Protestants were driven out of the Field and they fell next upon Chartres which they besieged Queen Elizabeth thereupon ordered her Ambassador Norris to interpose between the Parties and bring them to a Peace as he did but it was short and full of Insincerity and Treachery The Queen-Mother of France was now so afraid of Queen Elizabeth that to prevent her sending Succours to the Protestants she caused a Marriage to be proposed between her and the Duke of Anjou her Second Son who was afterwards King of France by the name of Henry III. and was now about Seventeen years of Age but this Treaty ended with the Peace for the procuring of which it was began In the year 1568. the War broke out again by the Perfidy of the Popish Party who had now joined with the Spaniards by a Treaty made in a clandestine manner at Baionne in the year 1565. for the Extirpating the Protestant Religion in France and Flanders and the mutual assisting each other to that purpose And the Duke de Alva the Spanish Governor of the Low-Countries had Orders to join with the Guises in this Religious work and tho the King of France had in the beginning of this year promised them of that Persuasion Liberty of Conscience yet he soon after put out an Edict to forbid all publick Exercise of any other Religion in France but the Roman-Catholick and commanding all the Protestant Ministers to depart out of France within a certain time This was followed by a severe Prosecution and in many places they were Assassinated or Robbed and all France was thereupon in Arms Queen Elizabeth ordered her Ambassador to use all his Endeavours to procure a solid and a sincere Peace shewing the King the Methods propâ—…sed would only serve to exasperate the minds of his People and deprive him of the Service of his most faithful Subjects so that the Forces of France being diminished with his People his Kingdom would be exposed to the Violence of its Enemies A Consideration which Lewis the XIVth may have reason one day to think more seriously of But now it was rejected and the young King of France sent into Spain to borrow Money and into Germany and Italy to raise Auxiliary Forces to carry on the War Whereupon the Queen resolved not to be wanting to the common Protestant Interest which was now plainly struck at and upon the French Protestants assuring her That they had not taken up Arms against the King's Authority but for their own sale Defence she sent them One hundred thousand Crowns in Money and great Stores of Ammunition and entertained all the French that fled into England with great Humanity It is worth the observing here the Wild Notions of Passive Obedience which have been since set on foot were not in being in these times the Queen desiring no other Security or Justification than this Protestation which being joined with her own knowledg of the Designs of the Guises was then thought sufficient to warrant a Defensive War when nothing less than the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion was intended She did not think these Subjects of France were obliged to submit to an Extirpation because it was the Will of their Monarch to have it so nor that she Assisted Rebels and Traytors against their Lawful Prince when she undertook the Defence of those of her own Religion against a Tyrant who contrary to all Faith and Humanity had designed the Destruction of those he was bound and had promised to protect The King of France seeing by this time a destructive War would follow to distract the â—…inds and divide the Forces of the Protestants promised that all those that continued quiet at home should be tolerated but this Facility as a Jesuit calls it when it was a mere Treachery had no effect the Perfidy of it was palpable If he was in good earnest why had he Revoked the former Edict and began the War Who could reconcile these two contrary Edicts That they should and should not be tolerated at one and the same time The Pope to promote this War gave the King leave to sell Church-Lands to the Value of 50000 Crowns by the year and saith the same Jesuit Never were Church Revenues better employed or granted away upon a better reason The destruction of Hereticks with Fire and Sword contrary to the Publick Faith is certainly a most Holy Work and an Excellent Subject to spend the Revenues of the Church on The next year the Armies drew into the Field and in March there followed a Fight at Jarnac in which the Prince of Condé was slain and Coligni became General of the Protestants and after this another at Moncontour in which the Protestants lost 20000 men They renewed their Forces however with that Alacrity that in the year 1570 they forced the King after a vast Expence of Blood and Treasure when he saw he could not any longer continue the War without apparent Ruin to make a Peace on the same terms with the former The Queen-Mother was the Firebrand of France and by her Dissimulation and Hypocrisy raised all these Combustions there She was jealous of the Princes of the Blood of the House of Bourbon who were become the Heads of the Protestants in that Kingdom and she
upon it which in a few years will destroy it Thus also fell the Roman and all the other Empires when the fatal time was come Not that Religion was then the pretence of the oppressing their Subjects but Oppression is the same thing and will eternally have the same effect be the Pretence or Motive what it will Emanuel Van Meteren in his Third Book of the History of these times deploring the Loss his Countrey sustained by being deprived at once of all its Trades and so many of its useful and industrious Subjects saith That there was not less than an Hundred thousand people that then fled into strange Countries to earn their bread and tho some of these afterwards returned yet the main body of them never did and their Trades were lost to the English and other Nations who learned them of these people and exercise them to this day The Queen of England seeing the King of Spain was deaf to all her and her Neighbour Princes Entreaties and Intercessions with him for the mitigating his Sanguinary and Cruel Edicts concerning Religion and that he had set up in the Netherlands a Spanish Inquisition for the more grievous Torturing the Consciences of his Subjects That he had denied an Assembly of the States of the Netherlands which was the only and the usual way of composing their Affairs when they were in any disorder That he governed them rather by Arbitrary Orders sent from Spain than by the Laws of the Countrey or Counsels of the Natives That he made use of the Tumults which the meanest of the people had fallen into upon the account of the Images tho they were presently suppress'd and that by the Natives to bring one of the Freest Nations of Europe under the intolerable yoke of an Arbitrary Government turning unjustly the rash Folly and Madness of a few mean people to the great Damage of this whole Nation by pretending All that people had rebelled against him and thereby Forfeited their Ancient Liberties She saw also that he had sent Ferdinand Alavares Duke of Alva a Bloody man to usurp this Arbitrary Government who being no way related to the Royal Family was now constituted the Supreme Governor of these Provinces contrary to their Laws and that he had abolished and suspended the Jurisdiction and Authority of all their Legal Courts and brought in amongst them a new unheard of Tribunal which had proceeded illegally against several of the Nobility of that Countrey and condemned them to death and they had been thereupon executed That Spanish Garisons were quartered and Citadels built in the great Towns and Cities and the Twentieth Penny of all their Real Estates and the Tenth of their Personal had been illegally assess'd and by force levied She saw also that the Duke d' Alva the 29th of December 1568. had furiously and impatiently seized the Goods and Persons of her own Subjects and put them into the Custody of his Soldiers on the pretence of some Moneys stopped in England which belonged to the Merchants of Genoua who had consented to the Embargo and she concluded this enraged man was not content to oppress the Netherlands but would needs make himself a Terror to her and her people too whereupon this Heroick Lady commanded all the Ships and Goods of the Netherlands which were in her Ports to be stopp'd which were of greater value than those the Duke had been able to find in the Low-Countries whereby she humbled that proud hasty man and made him see how little she could fear either him or his Master This Action of the Queen 's opened the eyes of the poor oppressed people of these Countries and shewed them the way to deal with their Oppressors was to attack them by Water and not by Land They had made several attempts on the side of Germany under the Command of some of their banished Nobility in the year 1568 and they had been unfortunate in all of them Lewis Van Nassau Brother of William Prince of Orange tho he had 7000 men Horse and Foot and was a good and a prudent Commander and had taken all the care that was possible to prevent Misfortunes yet he was defeated near Emden The Prince of Orange who followed after was in a short time forced to retire into France tho he had 11000 men under him The two next years he served the Prince of Conde in France and in the year 1569. he took up the Resolution to grant Letters of Mart to all that would put out Ships to Cruise against the Spaniards in the Low Countries the Heer Van Dolhain being Admiral who in that year took and spoiled and ransomed many Ships This good success encouraged more in the year 1570. to take this course and as they grew stronger and more numerous so they had better success In 1571. they set upon the Fleet that was going to Spain and took and plundered a great part of it in the Texel The Duke of Alva sent out some Men of War against these Privateers but to small purpose because they were small and too nimble for his great Ships and Germany and England protected victuall'd and harboured them Whereupon in the year 1571. he sent to the Queen of England to complain of the Harbouring these Pyrates as he called them The Queen was in no haste to do his business after he had so far provoked her but in the year 1572. when they were become Rich and very Numerous she put out a severe Proclamation against them commanding them to be gone by a limited time or to be feized in her Harbours whereupon in March this year they put themselves under the Command of William Van Marck Lord Lumey to the number of about Thirty Ships or Fly-Boats well mann'd and victuall'd and these had the good fortune to find the Briel without any Garison and so they took Possession of it without any opposition the first of April The eighth of the same month Flushing joined with them and cast out the few Spaniards were there And after this in a short time the whole Provinces of South and North Holland as fast as they could by any means get rid of the Spanish Garisons revolted from them and took up Arms against the Duke of Alva declaring at first for the Prince of Orange as Stadtholder to the King of Spain in these Provinces Thus were the Foundations of the Liberties of the United Provinces in the Low Countries laid in the blood of its Inhabitants and as heartily at first promoted by the Roman-Catholick Subjects to preserve their Civil Privileges as by the Protestants to secure their Lives and Fortunes from the Arbitrary Violence of the Spaniards So that if either of them were Rebels it was because Philip the IId would not be contented with the same degree of Power the former Princes his Predecessors had enjoyed but made use of a Ferment the Providence of God and his own Cruelty and Imprudenee had raised in the
the Town on the first Assault by the Cowardise of the Spaniards which paid Five hundred and twenty thousand Ducats for its Ransom There was Two Millions more offered for the Redemption of the Ships in Port Real but it was refused by the Admiral he saying He was sent to Burn and not to Ransom the Spanish Navies The Spaniards confess they lost in the Sack of this Town in Ships Taken and Burnt in Canon Taken and Sunk and in Stores and Ammunition and Victuals above Twenty Millions of Ducats The Magnanimous Earl of Essex was for keeping the Town and Island and he offered to do it with Three hundred men and Three Months Provision for them but the rest of the Commanders who had enriched themselves were for returning and so he was forced to return much against his will the 5th of July when he had got little but a Noble Library which he chose out of that Rich Spoil The Spaniards observed The English in this Sack shewed themselves to be Hereticks by their Contempt of their Religious Houses and Places but in all other things they behaved themselves with great Valour Prudence and Generosity The Noble Earl would fain in his return have attempted the Groyne St. Andreo and St. Sebastian but the rest of the Commanders were against making any other Trial of their Fortune believing they had done enough for the Glory and Safety of their Countrey This Expedition secured England for the Remainder of her Reign against all the Attempts and Fears of Spain In the year 1599. this Earl was made Deputy of Ireland which proved his Ruin Sir Robert Cecil in his Absence being made Master of the Wards tho the Queen had promised him that Office and he depended upon it as that which was to repair his Estate shattered in her Service whereupon he came back without her Leave and the next year after was beheaded for Attempting to Raise an Insurrection in London against the Court. To pass from these Foreign Affairs to others that were of nearer concern to England there was in all her days a Destructive and most Chargeable War continued against her in Ireland The Irish Nation have ever since it was subdued by the English born an implacable hatred to the Conquerors which neither Marriages nor Benefits nor Losses nor Time it self has been able to extinguish But when in her time the Religion of England was changed and the general Body of the Irish and a great part of the old English Families persisted in the Popish Religion there was by that means a new Ferment added to their restless and unquiet spirits so that there was nothing to be heard of from thence but frequent and perfidious Rebellions which were the more dangerous and lasting because they were excited by the Pope's Bulls whom the Irish reverence above all other Nations and supported and carried on by Spanish Counsels Money and Forces Yet however the Queen did never think it her Interest to make a sharp and a concluding War upon them because this was not possible to be done without being grievous to her People of England whilst she was forced to spend such prodigious Sums of Money in the Netherlands and France as would have made an effectual War in Ireland insupportable She took care in the mean time to send over thither the Best and Wisest of her States men and Sword-men as her Deputy-Lieutenants and she sent them such Supplies of Men and Moneys as enabled them from time to time to keep the English Pale in good order and to hinder the Spanish Party from growing more Potent in the North than was convenient to consume his Forces and divert him from nearer and more dangerous Attempts and by her Generals and the Forces she sent over she wasted and consumed the Forces of the CLANS and great Irish Lords and by degrees brought the Wild and Barbarous Irish from the former way of living more like Beasts than Men in Woods and Mountains to the living in Populous and well-govern'd Towns and Villages She taught them to leave off their barbarous cruel Customs and to live soberly and according to Law to forsake their wild ways of Diet and Cloathing and live more Civilly and like the English The Northern Province of Ulster was the first that Rebelled the Scots and the Islanders in great Numbers pouring into that Province whereupon Shan O Neale in the year 1563. took up Arms against his Sovereign instead of sending to her for Assistance to drive out these Foreign Enemies He was first Reduced by the Earl of Sussex and forced to come into England to beg Pardon of the Queen The next year he broke out again and was reduced by Sir Henry Sidney Lord Deputy and in 1565. he perished in a drunken Fray by the Macdonnels to whom he fled for Succour and Refuge This Shan O Neale was so wicked and debauched a Villain in all his Actions that all men approved of the Revenge Macdonnel took of so false and perfidious a man that had done many Wrongs to them and their Families as well as to the English The Macdonnels were Scots and of the number of the Islanders that had setled in this Province of Ulster This Execution hapned the 2d of June 1567. Mr. Cox writes their Names MACCONEL In the year 1564. there hapned a Quarrel between the Earls of Ormond and Desmond which came to a Battel between them at Affane in the County of Waterford The next year they went over into England together to implead each other before the Queen who of the two was most inclined to favour Desmond In 1566. they returned and Desmond took the Field with Two thousand men to join Shan O Neale as was pretended but in truth to Revenge his Quarrels on the Earl of Ormond who defeated him and all his Forces near Drumelin and in the close of that year the Lord Deputy Sidney took Desmond Prisoner and at Limerick tried him for High-Treason and he was found Guilty and committed to Prison and his Brother John was Knighted and made Earl of Desmond This Quarrel was at first a personal private Feud between these Two Potent Families but in the year 1568. some Laws having passed in a Parliament which displeased the Great Men they took up the pretence of Religion to draw in the People and the Pope entred into it and the King of Spain was solicited to send Forces by the Earl of Desmond's younger Brother Titular Bishop of Cashil Thereupon the Lord Deputy began the War this very year and defeated Two thousand of their men near Kilkenny with the loss of one single man The Earl of Ormond was then in England and went into Ireland to reclaim his own Brothers who joined with Desmond in this Revolt which was designed to subvert the Government and clear the Countrey of all English Men and English Laws In the year 1569. Pope Pius Quintus Excommunicated the Queen and deprived her of all her Dominions and
this had such effect upon Ireland that there was no quiet to be looked for in that Kingdom to the end of her days But yet by the year 1571. Sir John Perrot Governor of Munster brought that Province into Peace The King of Spain was slow in meddling with the Irish Affairs and sent them little or no Supplies till the year 1578. which was Ten years after they began to treat with him for his Assistance This year one Stukely an English-man was sent by Gregory XIII Pope of Rome and the King of Spain with Eight hundred Italian Soldiers but he went with Sebastian King of Portugal into Africa where he and his men perished with that King In 1578. Sir William Drury was sworn Lord Deputy of Ireland the 14th of September The same year James Fitz Morris after he had Sworn Allegiance to the Queen before Sir John Perrot went into France and failing of any Supplies from thence he went into Spain where he obtained a few Men and some Money and in July 1579. he landed Eighty Spaniards at Semerwick in Kerry where he built a Fort and Sanders the Pope's Legate Consecrated the ground but the English took the three Ships for all that and put the Spaniards into a wonderful fright The Desmonds joined with these Rebels and soon after a great many of the old English who persisted in the Roman-Catholick Religion which was in a great degree owing to the smalness of the English Forces in Ireland the Army being then but about Six hundred men Sir William Drury sickned and died and Sir William Pelham was chosen in his Place by the Council and Sworn the 11th of October 1579. who was succeeded by Arthur Lord Grey Baron of Wilton Sworn the 14th of September 1580. He took the Fort above-mentioned and put all the Spaniards to the Sword which much displeased the Queen tho the Deputy alledged That he could not keep them his Prisoners the Army was so small and the Numbers of his Enemies were so great The Deputy went on with small Forces and an Invincible Resolution and Industry defeating and reducing them so often and so strangely that at last they got him represented to the Queen as a Bloody man that regarded not the Lives of the Subjects any more than the lives of Dogs but had Tyrannized with that Barbarity that there was little left for the Queen to reign over but Carcasses and Ashes The Necessity of the Times had indeed made him severe but he had shewed much more Mercy to the Irish than either they deserved or was consistent with the Queen's Interest or the Safety of the English that were in Ireland however in the midst of his Victories he was re-called in August 1582. The next year the miserable Earl of Desmond was taken in a Cabin in a Wood and slain unknown by an Irish man and his Head sent over into England and set on London-Bridge His Name was Girald and he was the Fifteenth Earl of that Family and with his Life ended this Rebellion in Munster The Queen was however a Lady of that Generous Mercy and Compassion that she was heartily concerned for the Bloods of these miserable Wretches who sought hers and her Protestant Subjects Ruin with an Hellish and Implacable â—…ury The distributing Mercy and Justice with Prudence is the hardest Task a Prince has and in truth there is none but God that can pretend to do it always well because he alone knows both the truth of all mens actions the ends and designs of them and the tempers of the Agents as to the present and the future But Princes are often deceived in one or more of these and so spare or punish when they should not Besides they are subject to the same Passions other men are and by them they are mis-led when the thing is plain It is better generally speaking to be too Merciful than too severe But when it is known once that a man will be so it ruins more than it can save and too much exposeth the Innocent Mercy to Multitudes and mean people is always seasonable and the contrary destructive but to pardon Great men for two three or four Rebellions one after another is to proclaim a liberty of doing it impunedly She was never guilty of this in England but in Ireland it was frequently done and therefore it was her own fault that she met with so much trouble and all her Mercy almost was thrown away and proved Cruelty to the English Pardon a barbarous Enemy and you make him insolent and therefore inexorable Justice especially upon a relapse is absolutely necessary but then this is to be understood only of great Men and of great Crimes such as Murder and Rebellion In the year 1584. June 26. Sir John Perrot was made Lord Deputy of Ireland He was sent thither in unquiet and dangerous times and he managed Affairs with so much Industry and Courage that he saved Ireland tho he himself fell a Sacrifice to the Malice of Hatton the Lord Chancellor of England In his time the Queen gave to several Adventurers of the Lands forfeited by Desmond and his Accomplices 574628 Acres The Proprietors were to People the same and to pay the Queen over and besides 1976 l. 7 s. 5 d. the year Quit-Rent To this end she invited the younger Brothers of the English Nation to settle in Ireland promising them great Privileges and Land at reasonable Rents The Burks in Connaught hereupon rebelled but were overthrown Seven of Three thousand scaping Thus things were again reduced into a tolerable good order and the dispeopled Province of Munster was at once Peopled and Civilized by the English but the Deputy had no share in it but it was managed by a Committee for he was on ill terms with the Queen upon the account of some indiscreet passionate words he had dropped and which were by the Malice of his Enemies told the Queen with many invidious Additions The Queen had ordered That if any unforfeited Lands were intermixed with those that were forfeited that the Proprietor should be compounded with to his content and be bought out that so the Undertakers might have his Mannor intire But when this came to be put in practice there was great and loud Complaints brought to the Deputy That the Adventurers had unjustly outed many innocent men of their Inheritances out of covetousness to get their Estates Whereupon a Proclamation was issued out Commanding the Proprietors to restore what they had unjustly taken which with the favour the Deputy shewed to the Ejected Irish by the Queen's Order put a stop to the Wrong and the Complaints As he had had no hand in the distribution of these Lands so he soon made the Adventurers sensible they were to expect no favour from him which turned to the advantage of the Irish but occasioned bitter Complaints from the English against the Deputy as a Favourer of the Irish rather than of the English But
there were those in Ireland who had conferred with the Rebels and had sent into England the Rebels Defamations against him and others of her Governors By which passage the Deputy slily taxed Sir John Norris as one that had done nothing worthy of his former Military Reputation but thought to work upon the good nature of the Ulster Clowns by his Courtship and Flattery which tended rather to the making them more insolent This carriage of the General 's was the occasion of fierce Contests and Quarrels between him and the Deputy and the effect of it was that not only the Heads of the Clans in Ulster but those also in Connanght and Leinster took Arms and revolted from the Crown of England The Deputy seeing things by their Divisions brought to so desperate an estate resolved to get rid of the Government and by his Letters humbly besought the Queen a good General might be sent in his place In this doubtful time Sir John Norris as earnestly desired to be Deputy and that his Brother who was fitter for the Labours of the War might be made President of Munster But he obtained neither of his Requests The Council of England was divided for some time between the Lord Burroughs and the Earl of Essex but the latter joining with the former it was carried for him and he had both the Supreme Civil and Military Power put into his hands The 15th of May 1597. Thomas Lord Burroughs arrived at Dublin with a Commission to be Lord Deputy of Ireland With the Supreme Authority he presently commanded Norris to his Presidency of Munster which with the disappointment of the Deputy's Place broke his heart Johnstonius saith The reason of this was because Norris was a person of more Experience in the War and of greater Fame than Burroughs So that when he came to Dublin Norris was no way pleased with the change for that he dreaded the fiery Temper of that Lord with whom he had formerly had some quarrels which he would now have willingly sacrificed to the Welfare of his Countrey But the Deputy was of an Implacable Temper and commanded him into Munster upon the peril of his life not permitting Norris to see him This Great and Stout Man could not bear the Affront but he that had run through so many Perils in the Field in the Netherlands France and Portugal he that had despised the Rages of the Duke d' Alva in Holland and put a stop to the Victories of the Duke of Parma fell under this and expired in the Arms of his Brother Thus he became a wonderful Instance of humane frailty as well as of Martial Courage being rather pitied than approved because his Management in Ireland was much inferior to what he had done elsewhere and short of what was expected from him The Lord Lieutenant died in November following yet in that short time he beat the Irish in Ulster and recovered the Fort of Blackwater and Garison'd it with English Sir Thomas Norris was nominated for his Successor but he was melancholy and would not accept it his Brother the General being just then dead also Thereupon the Archbishop of Dublin and Sir Robert Gardiner Lord Chief Justice were sworn the 15th of November when the Council concluded their Account of the State of the Kingdom That it was an universal Irish Rebellion to shake off all English Government In August this year Tyrone had the good fortune to rout Marshal Bagnal his mortal Enemy in a Wood half a mile beyond Armagh where the Marshal 13 Captains and 1500 English Soldiers were slain The Irish by this Defeat got Arms Victual Ammunition and Reputation and the Fort of Blackwater so that the English were reduced from an Offensive to a Defensive War This nettled the Queen and she sent to Ormond who was Lieutenant-General to clear the Army of all the Irish and she sent 2000 Foot and 100 Horse to recruit the Army Tyrone sent after this 4000 Kerns into Munster and the President not being able to resist them by reason his Forces were small that whole Province rebelled also in October 1598. and began to Kill Rob and Ravage the English without Measure or Mercy Thus the Rebellion grew to that height that it became terrible to the Queen Tyrone in the mean time sent submissive Letters to the Earl of Ormond and promised the Spaniards that he would accept no Conditions from the English magnifying his Victories beyond all reason and truth So that now the Courtiers in England began to consider as Mr. Cambden observes That by long use it was grown to a destructive custom in Ireland That Rebels and Traytors might with the Money they had gotten from the spoiled English by Pillage and Villany procure for themselves Protection and Pardon The Queen was well inclined to have sent the Lord Montjoy into Ireland but the Earl of Essex pretended to it and he was chosen Others say the Council put him upon it that he might put an end to the Troubles of Ireland which had been encreased by the Contentions between the Commanders that were employed before and also by the deaths of Sir John Norris and that of the Lord Deputy as well as by the Defeat of Marshal Bagnal That the Lords cried up the Valour of the Earl of Essex to the skies and affirmed that there was not in England any General who could undertake the Reduction of so far-spread a Rebellion with that Prudence Diligence and Courage they might expect from him Thus he was sent thither by the perfidious Commendations of his Enemies against the opinion of his real and true Friends that they that put him upon it might when he was there find an opportunity to ruin him The Earl on the other side was anxious and unresolved what to do for as he feared the Fate of his Father who perished in that Kingdom so he could not tell how to oppose his own Destiny and accepted of an Employment which no other durst pretend to purely to comply with the good opinion of the whole Privy Council which loaded him with Praises on this occasion tho in his heart he misdoubted the Event The Queen also sent him away thither with great Testimonies of her Affection to him commending him excessively for preferring her Service before his own Safety but then this was the last good day that unfortunate Earl ever saw He landed there the 15th of April 1599. with 13000 Horse and 16000 Foot which were made up 20000. there being more than that number in Arms against the Queen But with all these Forces he did nothing worthy of his former Reputation or of his Army And that Winter he went out of Ireland in a Discontent without the Queen's Leave and returned unexpectedly to the Court which proved his Ruin Tyrone grew insolent hereupon and profess'd publickly he would recover the Liberty of Religion and his Countrey Charles Lord Montjoy was thereupon sent Lord Deputy who landed the
24th of February 1599 600 The English Army was then 1200 Horse and 14000 Foot and the General finding the Irish Strength was in their Fastnesses he resolved to ruin them by small flying Parties placed in Garisons and this way accordingly destroyed them without redress and they began to talk of submitting which was not regarded because all the world saw there was no Truth Faith or Honour in this barbarous and false Enemy From thenceforward many that begged for Pardon were denied it if they did not bring in the Heads of their Fellow-Traytors or do some other considerable service to purchase it which they seldom failed of attempting and were very often taken by their own Party in the Fact and hanged The War went vigorously on and the Rebels were generally beaten in all places till the 23d of September 1601. when the Spaniards landed at Kingsale and the English immediately sat down before it yet the Spaniards tho beaten in every Sally defended the Town to the 24th of December when there was a general Battel between Tyrone and all the Rebels on the one side and so many of the English as could be spared out of the Trenches Tyrone was beaten out of the Field and he lost 1200 of his men 800 wounded and the English lost only one Cornet and six Soldiers The Spaniards knew nothing of the Battel and made no Sally till it was over tho the Fight was within one Mile of Kingsale but then they sallied twice to no purpose whereupon the 31st of December the Spaniards capitulated and delivered up the Town After this the War went on so successfully against these Rebels and they were reduced to such Necessities that the Parents eat their Children and three Children roasted the flesh of their dead Mother and lived upon it twenty days so that this exceeded the Famine of Jerusalem The 30th of March 1602. Tyrone submitted to Mercy at Melifont begging to be received upon his Knees Thus ended this most dangerous Rebellion that ever was made in Ireland before that time about a week after the Death of the Queen and before it was known It had never risen to that height but for the over-great penuriousness of the Queen for which she afterwards paid very dear and had not the happiness to see the Traytor Tyrone at her foot before her Death but however she was sufficiently revenged of all her Enemies by the Ruin Famine Deaths and Plagues that fell upon them Heaven favouring her Cause and blasting all their Undertakings against her It is very observable that the main pretence of this Rebellion was the Preservation of the Roman-Catholick Religion yet there was then never any Law passed in this Kingdom against it nor any Prosecution made of those that professed it but they had a perfect Liberty of Conscience to embrace which of the Religions they pleased only the Church-Preferments and Revenues were put into the hands of the Protestant Clergy and the Tythes paid to them and the Government was generally put into the hands of the Protestant Nobility and Gentry but so that they were mixed and they of the other Religion being more in number were commonly returned on all Juries So that Liberty of Conscience will not keep a divided Kingdom always quiet but there have ever been men to be found who are as uneasie when they cannot persecute others as when they themselves are persecuted The Charge of this War from the first of October 1598. to the first of April 1603. amounted to Eleven hundred ninety eight thousand seven hundred and seventeen Pounds Nineteen Shillings and One Peny as Mr. Cox assures us from whence he inferreth how justly the Irish had for feited the Estates were taken from them and how reasonable it will ever be for the English in Ireland to contribute freely to the maintaining of a good Army for the preserving that Kingdom in Peace In her time the English Nation was at its highest pitch of Honour Wealth and Reputation The Queen was also in the greatest esteem that was possible with all the Neighbour Nations because she had delivered Scotland from the hated Dominion of the French and she had after this succoured and supported the Netherlands when their Affairs were most desperate she had sent vast Treasures into France to support Henry the IVth against the Holy League and the King of Spain and when after all Ireland had been stirr'd up against her and had made almost a general Revolt under the Command of a false and treacherous Traytor she had the good fortune to reduce that Kingdom by the Prosperity of her Arms and the Valour of her Subjects Spain was in her time terrible to all the other Nations in Europe till her Navies afflicted and ruined that Kingdom by burning their Fleets and Naval Stores at the Groyne and Cadiz Her Fame spread it self to the most distant parts of Europe and the Muscovites and Turks who were only known by report to the English before her happy times sent Ambassies to her to beg her Friendship and settle Commerce and Trade with her The King of Morocco and Fez in Barbary in Africa sent also an Ambassy to her so that her Subjects had the pleasure of smiling at the half-naked Moors and the Russ who were loaded with Furs after the manner of their Countrey The Hollander French Poles Germans Danes and Swedes and all the other Nations about her begged her Friendship in times of Peace her Assistance and Protection in times of War and on every occasion testified their sense of her Favours and their Gratitude for the good offices she had done them She laboured always to unite those Princes who were her Friends and Allies by Marriages and other such methods if any Controversie or Difference at any time arose between them she sent her Letters and her Ambassadors to both the Parties to compose them and they on the other side did for the most part acquiesce in her Judgment and yield to her Authority If in any part of her Dominions the Countrey hapned to become desolate and ill peopl'd she took particular care to send Colonies thither to supply that defect She brought her meanest Subjects from an idle poor and beggarly way of living to the practice of good and useful Trades many of which were brought into England in her time by the banished and persecuted Netherlanders to the great benefit and advantage of this Kingdom She made the Naval Glory of England equal to its Military or Land-Service and Reputation The Bounds of her Fame were not confined to England but extended to the utmost parts of the earth and the farthest Recesses of the Ocean for her Subjects in her time passed the Liâ—…e and filled all the corners of the habitable world with the fame of this most Celebrated Queen There was no place in the wide and remotest Ocean but her Subjects sailed thither with their Merchandize to enrich their Countrey The English Fleets
She encreased the Wages of her Judges that she might deliver them at once from the temptation and suspition of Bribery She passed an excellent and a most equitable Law for the more speedy determining the Cases depending in her Courts She admonished her Judges That they should consider the Judgment or Jurisdiction they exercised was God's and therefore they should hear with patience and give judgment with equity and justice truly and without any corruption That they should diligently study the Law and consider it well and with relation to the profit of the State and not shew the sharpness of their Wits by a falacious interpretation of a doubtful Law to the injury of her People but that without partiality they should administer equal Justice to all and severely punish those they found guilty If therefore there were any just cause os complaint in her times it was only owing to the Judges who had a full liberty to have satisfied the Nation by their Fidelity and Integrity and the Religious Observation of their Oaths and so were not necessitated to become a Grievance to her People by Illegal Prooâ—…edings But then all these cares shew the Corruption of the Times and that many of the Law-Proceedings had been corrupted by the Lawyers which made these Laws for the correction of them necessary When she had thus restored her Law-Courts her next care was to restrain the License of the Theatre and she prohibited all Exercises and Plays but what were Manly and tended to the fitting her Subjects for War by making their bodies more hardy and active and their Souls more valiant Her Divine Virtues are not to be Recompenced by Statues of Brass or Marble which have more of Ostentation than true and solid Honour nor are they to be Equall'd by any Commendations or Magnificent Titles for they deserved more Lasting Monuments to be erected in the Minds and Judgments of men for an Everlasting Remembrance And certainly Posterity will stand amazed to read and consider a State so firmly established by the Greatness of her Soul and Counsels so many Victories obtained and such incredible things done in her Times Tho her Reign was the most glorious and happy period or space of time that had ever hapned to this Island from the Norman Conquest to her days yet there were some Misfortunes and Calamities that clouded the Brightness of it In the fifth year of her Reign there was a Plague brought out of France by her Soldiers from Newhaven which destroyed more people in England than any that had happened before it The Earthquakes that happened frequently in those times frighted the English more than any other thing they being very unusual and attended with horrible Noises in the earth and some Damage The Queen was always ready to relieve any of her Subjects that had suffered by these Earthquakes Inundations or Fire her Coffers were ever open to redress the Calamities of her Subjects and to enable them to repair their Losses When the people of London fell into an outragious Tumult on the account of a Famine and a great want of Corn she first by her Royal Proclamation appeased their enraged minds and then commanded the Lord Mayor to undertake the Care of supplying the Wants of the City and she sent many Ships into the Baltick Sea and to Poland for Corn which upon their return put an end to these Complaints She would punish the Iniquities of her Magistrates whenever she found them guilty but then she would defend their Lawful Power and assert their Just Authority against ill men with the hazard of her Life Thus she put a stop to the Insolence of the Londoners when they were in the greatest Rage that was possible by the sole Authority of her Proclamation without any Forces She frequently issued considerable Sums of Money out of her Treasury for the Relief of the Poor She took a particular care that all Religious Foundations and places built for the benefit of the Poor should be employed to the right uses and that the Lands and Houses belonging to them should for ever be preserved intire to them As she took effectual and wise Care to heal the Wounds of the State or Civil Government so she well understood the Diseases of the Church were to be taken into consideration too and to be prevented with the utmost hazard of a Prince's Personal Safety To this end she made severe Laws against the selling Livings the Avarice of Patrons and the Simony of Clergy-men She detested the giving Curacies and Preferments to those that had no Learning She preferred honest stout men who were well read in Divine and Humane Literature and well acquainted with Men and Books and the Times to the Dignities of the Church and the greatest and best endowed Livings But on the other hand she despised all those that had neither Virtue nor Parts nor Learning but above all the dishonest slanderous and crasty Knaves who were at a catch to injure others She compelled all that were inducted into any Benefice to swear That they had not given nor promised any thing to any person whatsoever directly or indirectly on the account of that Preferment She would not suffer any Benefice to be bought or sold but she detested the Buyer and the Seller as the worst of Plagues and took care to exclude them from that and all other Preferments She was never silent or unconcerned when unworthy and unfit men were recommended to the Dignities of the Church The most earnest solicitations of the greatest of her Courtiers and Favourites could in this case have no effect upon her and in all other things which concerned the Safety and Welfare of the Church she took a Pious and Religious Care to place her Favours to the best advantage She was a Lady of Great Beauty of a Decent Stature and of an Excellent Shape In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual Maiden Modesty her Skin was of pure white and her hair of a yellow colour her Eyes were beautiful and lively In short her whole Body was well made and her Face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet Beauty and Majesty This Beauty lasted till her Middle Age tho it declined In her Old Age she became deformed with Wrinkles Leanness and fallen Lips so that it was hard to believe she had ever had that Excellent Composure and Lovely Beauty But then Time was able to make no change in her as to her Majesty her Princely Speech and Carriage her Mind was as high her Manners as regular and the Course of her Life the same it had ever been She was however so displeased to see her Beauty wear off and her Body decline from its former Lustre that she made her self a little ridiculous by her taking too much notice of it If she hapned by accident to cast her eye upon a true Looking-glass she would be strangely transported and offended because it did not
appear before her Judges to answer for it But the two Brothers made their escape and fled first into France there they heard of the Insurrections in Ireland into which Kingdom they passed and served the Queen against her Rebel-Subjects in hopes by some signal Acts of Valour to blot out their said Crime and regain her Favour And in truth they served her many years with extraordinary Fidelity and Courage against those Barbarous Rebels yet after all the Earl of Essex could not obtain their Pardon without very great difficuly and many and repeated Solicitations The Eldest of these two Brothers afterwards lost his Life in the Service of the Queen and under the Command of the Earl of Essex In all private Suits she was observed to be a religious Observer of Justice and Equity and to keep the Ballance even between the greatest and the meanest of her Subjects She preserved the poorest from wrongs and made it her care that every man might enjoy what was his own and serve the Publick with it by the impartiality of Justice and the equity of all Law-proceedings providing carefully for the preservation of Human Society for the good of the whole Community When any Case happened to be wrongfully determin'd by reason of Perjury or Interest Partiality or mistake in any of her Courts she would upon complaint hear it her self taking to her assistance men of the greatest Authority and much celebrated for their exact knowledge of the Laws of England And when she had thus sifted it to the bottom she would ever give a most just and wise Sentence by which she made her Judges the more careful to keep within the bounds of Equity and Justice and shewed her Subjects that no part of her People should want the benign influence of her care and assistance in time of need She always took care that her inferior Magistrates should be reverenced and the Authority of her Council and Laws kept up But then whatever had been injuriously transacted by Bribery or Error in any of her Courts she as willingly corrected that Errors might not encrease and multiply by her carelesness or the ignorance of her Judges and that Mistakes might not get strength by time and plead custom She would sometimes also cause Cases to be heard by her other ordinary Judges after they had been determined that she might keep the ordinary Judges in awe and make them the more circumspect when they were liable to have their Actions scanned over again In her Personal Expences she was â—…hrifty and sparing that she might not exhaust her Exchequer and at the same time to teach her Subjects by her own Example to live thriftily and soberly after the manner of their Ancestors In her Government and all her Publick Actions she carried all things in such manner as might best befit her Honour and represent her to the World as a great and a splendid Prince Nor would she at any time make any considerable expence till she had first consulted with her Treasurer Burleigh concerning the state of her Exchequer and what Monies she had to defray the same It ws then thought his Advices to her made her more sparing than was fit toward the Sword-men and Commanders in the War It is certain however that she never called Grey Willoughby Norris or Sir Francis Vere to the Council-Table though they were excellent Commanders and had done her good service in Holland Spain France and Ireland by the gaining of many signal Victories and the spreading the Fame and exalting the Reputation of the English Nation When some of them had wasted the Estates left them by their Ancestors and complained to her of their Poverty beseeching her to give them wherewith to pay off the Debts they had contracted in her Service it is certain she never contributed any thing to that purpose from her Treasure nor in the least assisted or favoured them in any thing She sought rather to encourage and win her Generals and Nobility over to Acts of Valour by her Commendations than by the gift of Money Lands or Offices In her conversation with them she would shew them much patience and affability and would frequently acknowledge how much they had obliged her by their Actions But as to those that had lost their Lives in her Service or done any great Action for the Safety Liberty and Glory of her Kingdom she would often take occasion to speak of them with much affection and honour which was the best Reward they often met with for having served her with great Iudustry and Courage When Sir Philip Sidney a Gentleman of noble Birth and honest Disposition of great Parts Learning Virtue and Fame had lost his life before Zutphen in the Netherlands in the Year 1586. he was not only lamented by the whole Army in the Camp and Elegies made to his Honour by the Universities of England but he was commended also by the Court and the Queen commanded his Body to be publickly interred in St. Paul's Church in London which was performed with much solemnity and a vast concourse of the Nobility Gentry and Citizens And it was fit all this respect should be shewed to his Memory on the score of his Virtue Learning and Merits which have made him so famous in those and all the succeeding times This is an Honour that is more lasting and more noble than any Statues or Funeral Monuments which are often destroyed by Fire Wars Earthquakes or Time and without any of these are sometimes lost to the knowledge of men and themselves buried in forgetfulness but his Books and Actions will make him admired in all times The Magnificent Funeral of this Noble Knight was an honour to the Queen and to the Age and even to Learning it self The Earl of Leicester who was his Unkle was chief Mourner at his Funeral and extoll'd the Virtue of his Nephew to Heaven in hopes the lustre of his Pupil's Name would reflect upon himself an equal commendation and glory but in truth Sir Philip Sidney was his own Tutor and gained all the glory he met with by his natural Endowments and his Studies and perhaps it was owing too in great part to the scarcity of Learning at that time which made those that enjoyed it then more conspicuous and regardable than they have been since when it became more common but then this latter neglect has made it less desired and less aspired to and almost wheeled us about to the same point of the Circle he was in Nor was the Queen's Favours confined only to her Generals and Great Men but she would condescend to celebrate the Memory of the meanest common Soldier that had had the honour to spend his life in the service of his Countrey to excess She redeemed out of Captivity those that were taken of the meaner People and she willingly gave to their Parents Wives and Children that Money and those Rewards they might justly have expected from her if they
had lived So that she kindled in the minds of all her Subjects by her bounty kindness and beneficence an ardent desire of Military Virtue and in this she exceeded the most of her Predecessors Burleigh though a man of great virtue and honour too stubbornly prosecuted the Cause of the Exchequer against the Commanders of those times and kept the Queen from shewing them that Favour and from giving them those Rewards they had by their Virtue and Industry so well deserved by which means he alienated from the Queen the hearts of many of the Nobility who were men of great knowledge valour industry and fidelity and had with the hazard of their Lives and Limbs procured hers and the Nation 's safety and after all in their old Age were left in poverty to struggle with the Debts and Diseases they had contracted in her Service To this man's sordid and sparing Humour was owing the failing of all Military Virtue in the following Reigns when men saw how rich he and the rest of the States men could leave their Families and Descendents whilst those of the greatest Generals and Commanders in the Wars were forced to be satisfied with the gilded glory of their Ancestors but ought in Reason and Justice to have been at least equally rewarded and I may say in point of Interest too Yet she was not over-liberal to the Gown-men and States-men in general nor did she take any extraordinary care of them or theirs She had learned this Lesson of her Grandfather Henry the VIIth Not to exhaust in any case the Fountain of her Bounty I mean the Exchequer which was again to be recruited by the Spoils of the People and unusual Taxes That Prince by his Virtue Labour Solicitude Thrifti ness and Provident Administration had re-established and improved the English Monarchy and the Revenues of the Crown and was for it much esteemed by the People of England of all degrees his Covetous Humour having been more beneficial to the Crown than damageable to the Body of the People because he gave few or none of the Crown-Lands to his Followers or Servants except when they were extorted from him by mere importunity or he was cheated with the pretence of an advantageous exchange but then he was also wont to give more freely the Estates of Convicted Criminals so that there are many Examples in the Rolls of his Times of men that rose by the Falls and grew rich by the Calamities and Ruins of others The small Gifts and inconsiderable Largesses this Prince gave when he was possessed of so much Wealth was a means that preserved England from Ruin after it had been so terribly exhausted by the Civil Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster The Earl of Oxford was one of the most Ancient Houses amongst the Nobility but by the excessive Bounty and Splendor of the former Earl was reduced to a very low and mean condition so that the Family was no longer able to maintain its Dignity and Grandeur And the Queen allowed that House One thousand Pound the year out of her Exchequer that one of the most Illustrious Houses in her Kingdom might not suffer that Want which was intolerable to those of meaner Extraction She also upheld Sir Edward Dyer an old Courtier who was become very poor and would not suffer him to want But as for those Spendthrifts and Wasters that had foolishly wasted their Patrimonies in Luxury and base Expences to gratifie their Intemperance and afterwards solicited her to bestow Pensions on them she sent some of them to her Privy Council who rejected their Petitions and gave those Reasons for it which the Queen was not willing to give her self and others who sought by way of Reward what they had never deserved she neglected That her Bounty might not encourage others to Luxury and imprudent Expences whilst they relied upon the Crown for the Repair of what they had wastfully consumed She for some time entertained and out of her Treasury supported An thony King of Portugal who was deprived of his Dominions by the Iniquity of Philip the IId King of Spain and fled to her with a few Servants for her Protection and Assistance She severely punished Sir Richard Bingham President of Connaught in Ireland tho he were an excellent Soldier because he was found guilty of a sordid and injurious Covetousness She entertained all Strangers that came to her Court with great Pleasantness Munificence and Decency and when they went from her she gave them Princely Presents Ursino Duke de Bracciano in Italy hearing of the Fame of this Queen came over into England to see her and he being a person of great Virtue and descended of one of the best Families in Italy the Queen gave him a splendid Reception and gave order he should be shewn her Fleets her Stores and Magazines her Veterane Soldiers and Garisons her Treasures and Wardrobes her Retinue and Princely Palaces and extorted from him a Confession That there was no where in the world a more Potent and Happy Prince than she She entertained several of the best and greatest Noblemen of Italy France Germany and Poland who all said of her That they never saw a more Magnificent Honourable Loving Courteous Prince than Queen Elizabeth and that her Virtue and Prudence was great and admirable above all the Examples they had ever seen read or heard In truth she was Mistress of all the Virtues that belonged to both Sexes and had none of the Faults belonging to her own but a little Unsteadiness in her Will Knighthood in her Times was rarely given and to none but men of Virtue and real Worth Soldiers and Gentlemen of good Families and Estates so that she scarce ever admitted any man into that degree of a mean Fortune or Extraction as was too frequently done in after times There were not many Enobled or raised from the lower degrees of Peerage to higher as Clinton and Howard her Admirals at Sea Lei cester and Warwick She made few Barons and amongst them Burleigh after he had served her many years with admirable Prudence Fidelity and Industry in many of the principal Offices at Court This lowest degree of Peerage was sparingly and with great Care and Consideration bestowed upon Worthy Men as a Reward of some signal Services and an Encouragement to others and not out of a Personal Affection or Respect It was not then sold by men that had easily obtained the Grant of a Blank Patent instead of ready Money and took no other care but who should give most for the Mercenary Creation which could only dishonour the person that gave it as well as he that bought it In her time none but the most Worthy the most Valiant the most Faithful to his Countrey and the most Loyal to his Prince could hope to obtain this Favour and raise his Name and Family Thus she charily and prudently kept the Rewards of Virtue and Industry
Drunkenness Filthiness Immodesty and the very fame and saspicion of Wantonness Whoredoms Rapes Adulteries and Incests were Crimes she detested and if she found any of her Retinue how great soever they were guilty of them they must never more come before her She banished Burgess one of her Maids of Honour because she had entred into an Intriegue with the Earl of Essex who loved her very passionately because the Queen suspected she had had an hand in his Ruin And the Lady Fitton another of these Maids was sent away too for yielding to the Inticements of a young Gentleman of Noble Birth The Noblemen found no more favour than the Ladies if once they were found guilty in the same kind She sent the Earl of Oxford to the Tower for attempting to Ravish one of her Maids of Honour that was a Tall and Lovely Lady If she knew any of her Nobility given to frequent Houses of ill fame she treated them with as little Respect as she did meaner men To conclude she shewed her self the Irreconcilable Enemy of all that had been found guilty of any base or immodest and unchaste Action She would frequently admonish her Servants and Attendants That they should take heed not to do any thing that might be dishonourable to her destructive to themselves and of ill Example to the Publick That they should take care not to bring an Ill Report upon the Chaste a Blot upon the Upright or an Infamy and Dishonour upon the Good In the Furniture of her Royal Palaces she ever affected Magnificence and an extraordinary Splendor she adorned the Galeties with excellent Pictures done by the best Artists the Walls she covered with Rich Tapistries She was a true Lover of Jewels and Pearls all sorts of Precious Stones Plate plain Bossed of Gold and Silver and Gilt Rich Beds Fine Coaches and Chariots Persian and Indian Carpets Statues Medals c. which she would purchase at great Prices The Specimen of her Rich Furniture was to be seen a long time after her Death at Hampton Court which was Moveabled above any of the other Royal Houses in her Times and here she had caused her Naval Victories obtained against the Spaniards to be represented in excellent Tapistries and laid up amongst the Richest Pieces of her Wardrobe These things did not only please the eyes of the Spectators and renew the Memory of the great things atchieved in her Times but they helped to raise in the minds of her Subjects and of Strangers too a Venerable Idea of the Majesty Wisdom Riches and Power of this Heroick Lady In her Meat Drink and other Nourishments and Refreshments she was very Temperate in private especially She was not subject to the love of Sleep or any of the other Pleasures of Human Life She eat very little but then she chose what was pleasant and easie of digestion and in her declining Age she became more Temperate than before but then she eat whensoever she was hungry She seldom drank above Three times at a Meal and that was common Beer and she very rarely drank again till Supper She would seldom drink any Wine for fear it should cloud her Faculties She loved Alicant Wine above any other She always Religiously observed the Fasting-Days When she made any Publick Feast or Dinners for her Honour or her Pleasure she would then order her Table to be served with all the Magnificence that was possible and many Side-Tables to be adorned with all sorts of Plate She had many of the Nobility which waited upon her at the Table at those times and served her with great Care and Attention In these things she took the greatest Pride to shew her Royal Treasures and made her greatest Feasts when Foreign Ambassadors were present who were highly pleased with these Shews At these times she would also have all sorts of Musick Vocal and Instrumental and after Dinner Dancing and she took care thus to entertain the most Illustrious Persons of other Nations that came into England Nor was she less careful that her great Ministers of State should keep up the Tables she allowed them and she would order her Nobility to keep good Hospitable Houses according to their Qualities and Degrees All which tended more to her Honour and the Reputation of the Nation than the Courses were afterwards taken up with a greater Expence The Splendor and Magnificence of the Publick Feasts in her times and the Ceremonies that were used when the several Courses were serv'd up to the Table would be troublesome to relate and perhaps a little ridiculous now they are antiquated The Cup-bearer never presented the Cup to the Queen but with much ceremony and kneeled always when he gave or took it and during the whole Refreshment Musick and Songs were heard and the Queen her self would frequently dance to humour the younger Persons in her Court for all these Solemnities were in her Royal Palace and were designed to adorn and sweeten her Government The coming of the Duke of Alenzon into England opened a way to a more free way of living and relaxed very much the old severe form of Discipline The Queen danced often then and omitted no sort of Recreation pleasant Conversation or variety of Delights for his satisfaction At the same time the plenty of good Dishes pleasant Wines fragrant Ointments and Perfumes Dances Masques and variety of rich Attires were all taken up and used to shew him how much he was honoured There were then acted Comedies and Tragedies with much cost and splendor From whence proceeded in after-times an unrestrainable desire of frequenting these Divertisements so that there was afterwards a greater concourse at the Theatre than at the Sermon When these things had once been entertained the Courtiers were never more to be reclaimed from them and they could not be satiated or wearied with them But when Alenzon was once dismissed and gone the Queen her self left off these Divertisements and betook her self as before to the care of her Kingdom And by her own Example and severe Corrections she as heartily endeavoured to reduce her Nobility to their old severe way of living and the former provident way of cloathing In her private way of living she always preferr'd her necessary Affairs and the dispatch of what concerned the Government before and above any Pleasures Recreations and Conversation and serious things before what was pleasing In the morning she spent the first fruits of her time in her Closet at her Devotions and then she betook her self to the dispatch of her Civil Affairs and to the reading of Letters and the ordering what Answers should be returned then she considered what was fit to be brought before the Lords of the Council she ever kept a vigilant eye upon the Motions of Philip II. King of Spain who was all her days plotting and contriving the Conquest of Europe and the reducing all his Neighbours and the Free-States and Cities of it under his obedience
a Lesson or two plaid upon the Lute but she would be much offended if there was any rudeness to any Person any reproach or licentious Reflection used Tarleton who was then the best Comedian in England had made a pleasant Play and when it was acting before the Queen he pointed at Sir Walter Rawleigh and said See the Knave commands the Queen for which he was corrected by a Frown from the Queen yet he had the confidence to add that he was of too much and too intolerable a power and going on with the same liberty he reflected on the over-great Power and Riches of the Earl of Leicester which was so universally applauded by all that were present that she thought fit for the present to bear these Reflections with a seeming unconcernedness But yet she was so offended that she forbad Tarleton and all her Jesters from coming near her Table being inwardly displeased with this impudent and unreasonable Liberty She would talk with Learned Men that had travelled in the presence of many and ask them many Questions concerning the Government Customs and Discipline used abroad She loved a natural Jester that would tell a Story pleasantly and humour it with his Countenance and Gesture and Voice but she hated all those Praters that made bold with other mens Reputation or defamed them She detested as ominous and unfortunate all Dwarfs and Monstrous Births She loved Little Dogs Singing Birds Parrots and Apes And when she was in private she would recreate her self with various Discourses a game at Chess Dancing or Singing Then she would retire into her Bed-chamber where she was attended by married Ladies of the Nobility the Marchioness of Winchester then a Widow the Countess of Warwick and the Lord Scroop's Lady whose Husband was Governor of the West Marshes She would seldom suffer any to wait upon her there except Leicester Hatton Essex Nottingham and Sir Walter Rawleigh who were more intimately conversant with her than anyother of theCourtiers She frequently mixed serious things with her Jests and her Mirth and upon Festival Days and especially in Christmas-time she would play at Cards and Tables which was one of her usual Pastimes and if at any time she happened to win she would be sure to demand the Money When she found her self sleepy she would take her leave of them that were present with much kindness and gravity and so betake her to her rest some Lady of good quality and of her intimate acquaintance always lying in the same Chamber And besides her Guards that were always upon Duty there was a Gentleman of Good Quality and some others up in the next Chamber who were to wake her in case any thing extraordinary happened Though she was endowed with all the Goods of Nature and Fortune and adorned with all those things which are valuable and to be desired yet there were some things in her that were capable of amendment nor was there ever any Mortal whose Virtues were not eclipsed by the neigbourhood of some Vices or Imperfections She was subject to be vehemently transported with Anger and when she was so she would shew it by her Voice her Countenance and her Hand She would chide her familiar Servants so loud that they that stood afar off might sometimes hear her Voice And it was reported that for small Offences she would strike her Maids of Honour with her hand but then her Anger was short and very innocent and she learned from Zenophon's Book Of the Institution of Cyrus the method of curbing and correcting this unruly and uneasie Passion And when her Friends acknowledged their Offences and humbly begged her pardon she with an appeased mind easily forgave them many things She was also of an Opinion That Severity was safe and too much Clemency was destructive and therefore in her Punishments and Justice she was the more severe The worst thing that she did in all her Reign was her treatment of the Queen of Scots who being by her own Subjects driven into Exile and not only deprived of her Regal Authority but of her Liberty her Estate and her Treasures and coming poor and distressed into England upon the Queen's promise and faith given she at first kindly and hospitably received and entertained her but afterwards confined her and at last upon pretence that the Queen of the Scots was plotting against her put her upon her trial condemned and at last executed her making her a sad and unheard-of Example of her cruel and unjust Severity Thus she polluted her happy Reign with the Innocent Blood not of an Enemy but of a Guest The memory of old Disgusts and Injuries prevailing more upon the mind of Queen Elizabeth than the dignity of a Sovereign Queen the Intercession of the Neighbour Princes the Laws of Hospitality the Tears of a Captive and a Kinswoman so that no Intercession no Supplications could take any place in a mind inexorably bent upon Revenge They that would excuse this mournful Action pretend the Queen of Scots was only confined to prevent mischief but she entering into a Conspiracy against the Queen of England in her own Kingdom and her Designs against the Life and Throne of Queen Elizabeth being thus detected there was no other way left to preserve the Life and consult the safety of Queen Elizabeth but by the punishment of the Queen of Scots and others who had conspired to destroy her That all Precautions were in vain and therefore it was absolutely necessary to cut off this Guest though her Cousin and the next Heir after her of the Crown of England and one that by her deprivation of her Kingdom and her Imprisonment in England was deprived of all means to hurt her If she would have taken the right method to secure her self she should have released her Captive and have sent her away which would have cut off the Causes and the Pretences of these Conspiracies and have tended more to her honour and peace than the way she took This Execution of the Queen of the Scots raised in the minds of the Neighbour Princes an enraged Indignation And she her self when she knew the Fact was done and could not be recalled deplored the united and common Indignation of all the Foreign Princes with many tears and gave many signs of her inward grief laying the blame of this wicked action wholly upon the Actors and upon every mention of the death of the Queen of Scots she would to her dying day weep bitterly and lament her misfortune in it So great was the force of her Repentance tho it came too late and was altogether useless It was thought she brought Leicester and Hatton two of her greatest Favourites to their Graves by her hard usages and the many Indignities she put upon them Leicester had offended her by attempting to imbroil the Affairs of the United Provinces in the Netherlands to that end he had suffered his Soldiers to live very irregular and without almost any
Military Discipline and this in a State the most closely united to her and he had ambitiously affected the Power of a Lieutenant·General in England and Ireland which Burleigh represented to the Queen as intolerable and thereupon she became so incensed against him that she brought him to a Despondence of Mind which ended in his Death the Queen declining all Reconciliation that he might be an Example to all others to consult their own and the Publick Interest better than he had done and not aspire like him to too great and dangerous Honours Upon this Repulse he resolved to retire into the Countrey and to live remote from the Court at Killingnorth but on the Road he fell into a violent Feavet which brought him to his Grave He left a Brother behind him who was Earl of Warwick and had the Character of a good man from his Enemies and he succeeded him in the Estate but did not long enjoy it He left also a Son who laid Claim afterwards to the Earldom of Leicester but he was then very young and not owned as Legitimate When the Queen heard of the Death of Leicester she could not forbear grieving at it She ordered however his Personal Estate to be seized for Money due to the Exchequer from the deceased Earl but she got little by it the Creditors and others by various Stratagems and on various Pretences drawing it out again Hatton was a very good Dancer and that was his best Qualification and was the means of promoting him to be Lord Chancellor of England Being in that high and undeserved Station he became proud and arrogant and at last began to favour the Popish Party more than the Queen thought well of The Queen thereupon told him That he was too much exalted by the Indulgence of his Fortune which had placed him in a Station for which he was unfit he being ignorant of the Chancery-Law and needing the Assistance of others to enable him to do his Duty This Reproach struck him to the heart and he resolved to admit no Consolation When he was almost half-dead the Queen repented of her Severity and went her self in Person to comfort the Dying Chancellor and did what was possible to retrieve him but it was all to no purpose for he was obstinately resolved to dye His Brother's Son succeeded him in his Estates and Goods he dying a Batchellor and raised a Family upon this Foundation and the Queen did not exact from him the Debts due to the Exchequer whether out of Respect to the Deceased or Favour to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh whose Niece this Gentleman had Married As the Queen was by Nature severe so she did not want the utmost Provocations to exert her Natural Temper For there was in all her Reign a Chain of Conspiracies detected which were so outragious and wicked that they exceeded by their Cruelty and bruitish Ferity all measures and seemed to deserve and call for Severity in her punishing of them she was also exasperated by Rebellions and Insurrections in both her Kingdoms and by most infamous Libels published without any Author's Name against the Cruelty of this Prince with the Infamy of them that writ these Books The Reproach of Cruelty would not fix upon her tho they did what was possible to defame her because all men thought the Actors and Leaders in these horrible Treasons and Rebellions deserved all the Punishments and Severities she inflicted on them for their Crimes However it is apparent That in her Reign many of the Nobility were put to Death some of the most Noble Families were ruined and that the Roman-Catholicks were punished banished or forced to flye into Foreign Countries to escape those Punishments they had drawn upon themselves by their restless endeavours to undermine her Throne and subvert her Government or to destroy her Person After all some of these Papists out of a spirit of Slander and Detraction and a desire to gratifie the Pope and his Party laboured by all ways that they could invent to have her thought a Cruel and a Bloody Princess and with the utmost Impudence represented her as such in their Pamphlets tho she was forced to this Severity by their great and repeated Villanies There were some that with an unsusserable Rashness charged her with Unchastity The principal of which was Nicholas Sanders one of the basest and wickedest Slanderers and of the most hellish and incurable Malice that ever was born This Fellow forgot all Modesty and not content with the defaming her Mother and the reviving all those Slanders against her which had before his time been sufficiently detected and disproved or were forgotten he went on to slander and defame the Queen too and to that end invented very many lewd Stories and most infamous Satyrs against her and her Ministers endeavouring to have the World believe she was guilty of Rapine villanous Lusts and intolerable Frauds for the Subversion of the English Nation But the Modesty and the incredible Chastity of her Life easily dispelled all these black and noisom Slanders and Reproaches her worst Enemies having never been able to discover the least shadow of Luxury or Unchastity in all her Life which was so pure and so spotless and unblamable that it is very hard to believe she was a Mortal This her rare Temperance and Continence put a stop to the Lyes and Defamations of this abominable Slanderer and made all men despise him and his Writings Nor did he so escape the Justice of God which pursued him for this and his other Crimes and before his Death deprived him of his Reason and Understanding and banishing him from the Conversation of men he perished in a desolate place in Ireland after he had a long time struggled with Hunger and Cold and endeavoured to preserve himself alive with the Roots of the Herbs that naturally grew in those Woods he lurked in nor was there one Friend to cover his Carkass with a little earth after he was dead but it was found by the English in the Woods and left a Prey to the Wild Beasts all men rejoicing that the Justice of God had thus fhewn it self in the Punishment of this infamous Slanderer and Impenitent Rebel Another virulent Slanderer printed a Book under the Title of Dydimus Veridicus being infected with the same contagious distemper of Lying and presumed to pollute the ears of men with most wicked Difcourses and to attempt the Ruin of the Fame of a most Noble Princess which was supported by the united Approbation and Praises of Mankind He invented many absurd false and incredible things that were like the fained Representations of Poets and Painters so that they appear false at first sight and only serve to shew the liberty he took of Lying notoriously so that he may be left without any answer to receive his Confutation from the Prudence of the Reader Florimond Remond another indiscreet Writer transcribes the Defamations and Lyes which Sanders had invented
and sets down without any Truth the Imprisonments Tortures Punishments and Ignominies of the Papists He impudently writes That the Publick Places and Streets were washed with their Innocent Blood that the Priests were tormented the Matrons slain the Layicks hurried away to Death and Tortures forgetting or dissembling that in the short Five years Reign of Queen Mary there were more innocent Protestants burnt alive without Mercy than suffered in all the Forty four Years of that of Queen Elizabeth tho convicted of the greatest Crimes and executed upon the most Just and Legal Prosecutions viz. For disturbing the Peace of the Nation by Insurrections Tumults and Rebellions for entring into Conspiracies joining with Foreign Enemies or abetting and concealing Domestick Treasons and Traitors or for endeavouring to Murder the Queen The Moderation and Justice of the Queen has covered these passionate and false Scriblers with Infamy and Contempt and it were lost labour to endeavour to refute them Nor ought George Cone a Scot to be passed over in silence who in his History of the Life of Mary Queen of the Scots has persecuted the Memory of Queen Elizabeth with a rapid Fury He faith impudently That she was born in an Incestuous Marriage and got the Possession of England by Force which Expressions were the effects of a Flattering Affection to the Interest of the Popish Party and of Aversion for that of the Protestants These Treatments induced the Queen to be very severe against all Libels and Verses penned to the end to blacken the Reputation of any man which she forbad any to read or divulge and she ordered them to be burnt And she extended this her Severity to all Rumors and Reports that were spread abroad underhand for fear her People should by these means be excited to Rebellions or Seditions Whilst her Forces in Ireland under the Command of the Lord Montjoy were struggling hard with Tyrone for the Reduction of Ulster and Tyrone was reduced to a necessity of submitting himself to her which would have ended in the quieting of that Kingdom the Queen was involved in an uncurable and grievous Disease arising from the Greatness of her Age She spent many Nights sadly and restlesly without any sleep in much Anxiety and troublesome Cares her Stomach being wholly weakned and decayed loathed all sorts of Diet till at last the Anguish of her Troubled and Afflicted mind made her despair of a Recovery so that she despised the Counsels of her Physicians and became exasperated and stubbornly resolved against all Medecines The most powerful and considerable of her Friends who waited upon her night and day and did all they could to consolate and please her when they saw the muttering Discontents of her Physicians and considered seriously the uncertainty of the Event which might follow this Sickness of Body and Mind and the Imbecility of human Nature they became anxious and most earnestly besought her That she would curb this Disturbance and Grief of her mind that she would for the present not fill her mind with the Arguments of Learned men against the Fears of Death tho they had the shew of Wisdom that she would consult her own Reason and endeavour the Preservation of her Life and the Recovery of her former Health That she would not encrease her Danger by Despondency or her Distemper by her Obstinacy against all Medicines but that she would be pleased to yield to the Perswasions of her Physicians and follow their Advices Eat and endeavour to overcome her inward grief with Patience Lastly That she would be pleased to value and endeavour to preserve her own Life and deliver her Loyal and Faithful Servants Nobility and Subjects from that Anxiety and Sorrow that now oppressed them She made no other Answer to all this Wise and Loyal Advice but That she was full satiated with this present Life and now desired nothing more than to be translated to a state of Immortality and to make her escape out of this dark and disordered state of human Affairs That Death which many so much abhorred was only the payment of a Debt due to Nature and that our Spirits were of right to be restored to God from whom they came Thus her Body by slow degrees consumed away and she became very Lean Weak and Faint Yet after all her Mind was more afflicted than her Body She was night and day troubled with a sorrowful Remembrance of the late executed Earl of Essex The Grief of her Mind was encreased by the Necessity of her Affairs which compell'd her to yield to Tyrone not only his Life and Liberty and the Pardon of his Rebellions and Perfidy but a great part of his Estate which she esteemed a kind of rewarding him for his Treasons and Perjuries Her Sorrows were every day increased and made more insupportable by the Melancholy Humour which then abounded in her Blood and the restlessness of her Mind so that all her Strength being exhausted and her Mind which was filled with Indignation contributing more and more to the Disease she seemed to decline apace by the Weakness which augmented every day yet she bore this her last Sickness with a wonderful Constancy and Patience which alone deserved very great Commendation When some of the principal Nobility of England the Lord Admiral the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and one of the Secretaries of State in the Name and by the Order of the Privy Council told her Majesty That it was their humble Request That she would if not for her own sake yet for the good of her People throw off that load of Grief which oppressed her and lay aside the Resolution of dying That if she should happen to dye by the course of Nature in the present Circumstances of Affairs it would bring Ruin upon England That they had no hopes of any Prosperity after her Death unless the Certainty of the Succession were fixed by her If she should leave this to be determined after her Death in that flagrant desire men had of obtaining the Sovereignty there might many ill things be done and suffered which would augment the Sorrows of her People for the loss of so good a Prince Therefore they most earnestly and with one Voice and united Tears and Sighs intreated her That in her present Circumstances she would take care of the Common Safety of her People after her Death and that she would be pleased to remember That so many of the Lives of her Subjects would be exposed to the utmost hazard if she died without Naming her Successor To which she lovingly and modestly replied That if she died of this sickness the Kingdom would not want a Defender but would be in the same state of quiet Nottingham the Lord Admiral replied Whom do your Majesty mean She looking thereupon steadily on all that were then present said I mean James King Of Scotland my Dearest Kinsman and the Right Heir to Henry the VIIth This cheared all that were
present and she persisted constantly in this to her last Breath That he was her undoubted Heir When she had said this and recommended her Name and Memory to her Nobility she cast off all the Cares of this Life and betook her self wholly to the acts of Piety and Devotion she sent also for the Archbishop of Canterbury a Learned Pious and Moderate Prelate who was then the Guide of her Conscience and whose Salutary Advices she always much esteemed and gladly embraced When this great and good man came to her he admonished her to consider the Imperfection of the Human Nature and therefore advised her to place all her Hopes in the Merits of Christ. She replied with some difficulty of breathing or speaking That she was weary of this miserable Life which was subject to so many Calamities and Dangers That from her Soul she desired to pass to that Eternal Light which overflowed with all manner of Felicity and was hastning to her Heavenly Countrey to the Presence of her good Saviour and into his holy Arms. When the Bishop had ended his prudent and holy Exhortation she turned her a little and laying her Head upon her Right Arm she composed her self as it were to her Last Long Sleep with a Quiet Mind and a Composed Countenance nor were her Last Moments unlike the rest of her Life but it appeared by the motions of her Hand and Eyes that they were spent in the acts of Devotion and Mental Prayer Thus being at last wholly spent she quietly yielded up her Soul to God the 24th of March about Midnight in the year of our Lord 1602. in her Palace of Richmond and in the same Chamber Henry the VIIth her Grandfather died in She called this Royal Palace the Warm Box to which she could best trust her sickly Old Age and she was now come hither to avoid the over-sharp Winter She was a little less than Seventy years of Age and she had Reigned Forty four Years Four Months and Seven Days Thus died this Illustrious Queen which was not only the Greatest and the Best Woman of the times in which she lived but equal if not superior to any of her Predecessors in the Majesty of her Name or the Reverence that was paid to her by her Subjects and Neighbours in the Art of Governing in all the commendable Qualities of a Prince such as Council Policy Magnanimity in Misfortunes Moderation and Temperance in Prosperity Constancy in her Behaviour Maxims Friendship and Resolutions and accordingly the Glory that followed her and the Actions of her Reign was Incomparable She was lamented by them that then lived with an unfeigned and an unexpressible Grief and the Memory of her Virtue Learning and Piety has remained fresh and flourishing in all the following Times and shall do so for ever Her Words and Actions are in truth such as will render her Immortally Honourable be the Abilities of the Historians that shall truly represent the same what they will So soon as it was known that she was dead the Court was filled with the Lamentations and sorrowful Sighs and Tears of her Courtiers and Subjects as for the greatest Loss that ever befel any men There was never any where a greater a sincerer a more inconsolable Grief than that which then took possession of this Royal Palace nothing could stop the torrent of their Tears nothing could appease or soften their bitter Complaints The Noble Ladies which by the Order of the Privy-Council were appointed to take Care of her Body were scarce able to bear the load of their Sorrows which oppressed them but lifted up their Hands and Eyes to Heaven and implored the Mercy of God in this their Desolations and Affliction concluding without his powerful Assistance and favourable Interposition This Night would prove fatal to the English Nation and that nothing less than the Ruin of the Kingdom could be the consequence of so great and so deplorable a Loss as this The Countess of Warwick a Lady of great Honour Virtue Piety Sanctity and intirely beloved by the Queen testified her sorrow for the loss of her Mistress in all the effects of an inconsolable Affliction and would never be induced to put off that mourning Habit she had put on upon this occasion She performed all the Offices belonging to the Sepulture of the Queen with the utmost care piery and fidelity and by her Example taught all the rest of the Queen's Servants how they ought to behave themselves in this Mournful Affair Those of the Noblemen who were present at the time of her death expressed their Sorrows in silent tears and a deep but grave sorrow The meanest of her Servants were more noisy in their Lamentations and that Court became in a few hours a desolate place very few induring to stay in that place in which they had lost their good Mistress beneficent Sovereign and their great Benefactor When Report had once spread the News of her Death in the City of London an incredible Sorrow and Lamentation both of the Citizens and Strangers was observed which spread it self to all the Neighbour Nations as the fame of her Death was communicated to them But none more heartily deplored this loss than the HOLLANDERS who were thereby deprived of the Author of their Fortunes the Defender of their Liberty and the Preserver of their Peace and Safety A Prince she was that would refuse no Labour no Expence no Hazard how great soever it were that the Protestants might live in peace and enjoy their Liberty and this and the many good Offices she had done to them and all the Neighbour Nations had made her Name so venerable that it was no easie Task for the Magistrates at home or abroad to keep the common People in any bounds in this their outragious Sorrows for almost all that heard it were of Opinion That worse Times would follow and that many and great Calamities would ensue in England and all the Neighbour Nations THE END The Birth and Parenrage of Queen Elizabeth Her Education Her Tutors in the Greek and Latin Tongâ—…e Her Observations in Reading G Grindal Her Tutor in Theology She spoke French and Italian and understood many other European Tongues Her Progress and Improvement under the Reign of Edward VI. The Untimely Dâ—…th of Her Bâ—…loved Brother 〈◊〉 VI. And the Succession of Q. Mary The Princess Elizabeth a sorrowful Spectator of the Popish Cruelty She was hated by the P. Bishopâ—… for Her Religion Her Life was saved by King Philip. The Death of Queen Mary The Nation divided into Factions Calais newly lost Sâ—…e at first dissembled bâ—…r Religion 〈◊〉 Pâ—…ime Counsellors Câ—…cil and Bacon her Prime Ministers She dissembled with the King of Spain She makes a Peace with France and resolves on a War with Spain The Treaty of Cambray The French Plea against the Restitution of Calais She resolved to resorm the Religion The contending Religions equally ballanced Her first Parliament * I do