them The End of the first Part. THE English Princess OR THE Dutchess QUEEN The Second PART THE DUKE of Longueville with some other French being at London Prisoner at large under no other Confinement but his word lived at Court in Princely Magnificence and having occasion daily to see the beautiful Princess Mary though his arm which he carried in a scarf since his hurt still pained him had nevertheless but too many easie minutes to consider all the charms of her Beauty For nine or ten Months time he had endeavoured by all probable arguments to resist the vanity of such thoughts the Quality of Daughter and Sister to a King promised already in marriage to the heir of the Crown of Spain and the open War betwixt France and England allowed him no great hopes But he became at length passionately in love by frequent representing to himself the reasons that should have hindered it He thought it no error to take pleasure in beholding the fairest Princess in the world He looked upon the frequent occasions that he sought of entertaining her to be but the amusement of a Prisoner and thinking to secure his heart from love by the many impossibilities of enjoyment he fancied there was no great danger in desiring to please her In the mean time it befel him as he would have foretold to any other in the like disposition He came even to forget that he was a Prisoner and as love delights in mystery and intrigues entering into confidence with Mary of England he gave her a full discovery of the secret of his King and Masters Court The aversion that the late Queen of France had against the Duke of Valois and the fear that she was in lest the Dutchy of Bretannie should be for ever united to the Crown of France afforded him ample subjects of discourse He told her all the attempts which that implacable Queen had made to hinder that Union from taking effect by the marriage of her eldest Daughter to a Prince whom she could not endure She added that though the matter was accomplished yet the Duke of Valois seemed not much satisfied therewith and that having no Children by Madam and most people doubting whether ever he should have any he was already perhaps projecting to do with her as the King his Father-in-law had done with Jane of France so that the Daughter was very like to undergo the same fortune and usage which her Mothers beauty had occasioned to the Sister of CHARLES the Eight that the King was very infirm and gave no hopes of long life and by the instance of the Princess her self to whom he was speaking who had been ineffectually engaged to the heir of Spain making no account of the Marriage of Claudia of France with the presumptive heir of LOWIS the Twelfth he easily concluded that if she would accept of his service in that negotiation without any long expectation she might see it successfully brought to a period And thereupon giving way to his own thoughts he cryed That his greatest happiness would be to see her Queen of France and though to say the truth his intentions were neither the most sincere nor discreet that might be imagined yet it was not so easie for the young Princess to penetrate into the folly of them What vivacity and briskness so ever she had mischief and disorder were far from her thoughts Her tender and passionate air was sometimes injurious to her virtue and as she was every way obliging so it was most commonly imagined by all that had the honour to see her that the Conquest of her was not very difficult In this then the Duke of Longueville as well as many others found himself deceived who in stead of a lawful hope feeding his love with the vain expectations which his desires and appearances shaped for him by making Mary of England Queen of France he entertained hardly any thought for her which he expressed not under so fair a pretext Though the Princess was not affected by his Discourses in the manner that he could have wished she was nevertheless well-pleased to hear them His truely French humour and gallantry had so great a resemblance to her own that she still entertained the Duke of Suffolk with all that he said to her and he who had received no disquiet from his former Rivals was but at first slightly moved with this last He imputed this new correspondence to the natural freedom of the Princess and did not condemn her jollity But jealousie that began to work in him began likewise to shake his confidence and the disquiet of mind by little and little following the emotions of his heart he took the allarm at last and grew so jealous that he became uneasie to himself The care and means that the Princess essayed to reassure and compose him wrought no great effects and his grief encreased so much that he having refused all the gentle remedies which with greatest sincerity she offered to him she resolved without speaking a word at length to employ the strongest For that end she denied the Duke of Longueville any more access to her and because he continued obstinate to the contrary she was about to have spoken to the King that he might send him back into France upon his word or confine him to some of his houses in the Countrey The noise of that would have been great without doubt and the King who could not prevail on the mind of Suffolk by other means would not have spared that way of curing him had she but in the least proposed it The repose of that favorite was now become as dear to the King as his own and if the Princess had not been promised to the young Arch-Duke by a solemn treaty the breach whereof had not as yet been approved by the two Houses of Parliament it is certain that he would have bestowed her on him upon his return from France when he made him Duke of Suffolk But he had measures to observe in that affair by reason of the King of Spain who would not have failed to have complained of such a marriage to the contempt of his Grandson He had the like to observe with his Queen who was Aunt to that Prince and being divided betwixt so important considerations he found it one of those thorny affairs wherein Kings are in some manner afraid to make use of their absolute power And that was the reason that he spake no more of it which at first troubled all the Court and gave grounds of believing that he entertained other thoughts But the removal of the Duke of Longueville would have cost him nothing so that Suffolk no sooner understood that the Princess intended to propose it but he prevented her and resolving to over-come himself or to dye rather than to admit of such a remedy the interest of the person whom he loved wrought on his heart what he was unable to perform for his own repose Matters then reassumed almost
walked about in that design with a wounded heart for the slight that the King had given him when the Earl of Keldare having had confused notice of what passed came towards him Though he saw him at a pretty distance yet he did not prepare to engage him but stopped to consider the fierce and threatning looks wherewith he advanced towards him Whereupon the Irish man drawing Brandon who was obliged to do the same encountered him And by a wound first in the shoulder made him see his own blood with a second pass he run him through the right arm and the third going quite through his body made him fall against the pales Never was there any quarrel sooner made and more quickly decided The noise of this Duel having called together those who in the delightful spring came to enjoy in that Park the first verdure of the fields and the servants of the wounded Earl being come in Brandon was instantly apprehended and the matter being afterward reported to Woolsey by the authority which that new Minister had already acquired he was made prisoner in a Tower of Richmont-house until that the Lord Mayor of London following the King on his way to Greenwich should receive his Orders concerning that affair The Princess Mary had no information of all this but from the Dutchess of Salisbury who in that confusion and in respect of the Prisoner who was to be carefully guarded was advised not to delay till next day the taking possession of her apartment with the Princess in whom it is not easie to be represented what Impression this news made The reflexions that she had made on the pretended resemblance betwixt Brandon and the two Ladies of Salisbury of the house of York and the secret apprehensions that she thereupon conceived which made her leave the Queen in her Walk pretending her self indisposed held her still in great perplexity She went to bed that she might not be obliged to see any body and there her mind being prepossessed with what she knew and imagining that it would suddenly come to the knowledg of others her thoughts presented to her nothing but dismal objects Insomuch that the disaster of Brandon surprising her in this condition all that she had before but confusedly thought on seemed to her manifest and clear With a great cry she let fall her head on the pillow and to compleat her sorrow she received a note from the King who had given orders to the Mayor of London to remove the Prisoner to the Tower acquainting her directly That he not doubting but that the punishment which Brandon deserved for killing the Earl of Kildare would put her in some disorder he prayed her to suspend the good opinion which she might have for that ungrateful person until that he should inform her of some strange things which he had learned Such general and ambiguous terms susceptible of any meaning that an affrightned mind could give them put the Princess Mary to the extremity of despair and that first night when Brandon went to the Tower of London was a sad and terrible night to her Judith Kiffen who thought it fit to watch with her alone that night and who being ignorant of the mysterious secret that caused her grief imputed to the love alone to which she was privy all the incoherent expressions that seemed to escape from her without judgment had more to do with her than she dreamt of The vexation of her mind was followed by an oppression of body She fell into a Fever but so dangerous as put every one in fear of her life and the Queen and Dutchess of Salisbury who could not be always denied access into her Chamber being next day the most solicitous about her to procure her ease her fortune was certainly good that at that time the violence of her distemper having deprived her of the use of speech put her out of condition of betraying her self The King in the mean-while whose thoughts were far different from hers and being ignorant of the secret causes of her fear proposing to himself in this conjuncture only his revenge both for the indifferency wherewith she entertained his Gallantry and the idle fear that her Lover thereupon conceived followed his game at Greenwich and continued it even longer than at first he intended that such as came from London to beg of him that he would change the orders given to the Lord Mayor against the Prisoner might not find him and that so he might have ground to say that he was ignorant of what had passed Insomuch that several messengers sent either by the Queen or the Dutchess of Salisbury to give him advice of the sickness of the Princess Mary sought him in the Fields and Woods in vain They were everywhere directed to find him in places where he was not but Gray Son to the Marquess of Dorset who of his own head had taken horse was more fortunate in his search The love that he had for the Princess Mary made him sufficiently understand what the best-informed could know of her distemper though it was given out that it had seized her before the business of Brandon happened and how jealous sover he was of the pretious testimony of affection which at that time she gave to his happy Rival yet his jealousie served only to prompt him with greater earnestness to attempt her relief Insomuch that he surmounted all the difficulties that had hindered the rest from finding the King and having passionately given him an account of the dangerous condition that the Princess was in he moved him instantly to return to Greenwich from whence next morning by the break of day he departed for London The insolence of Woolsey was at first sufficiently repressed by the dislike which the King testified of his procedure Having waved the discourses that they would have made to him concerning the wounds of the Earl of Kildare and having nothing in his mind but the sickness of his Sister and knowing better than Gray that her cure consisted in the safety of Brandon he asked presently how he was used and gave order to the Lord Terell to send him such of his servants as he might stand in need of So that fame which commonly is swifter than the Marches of Kings having carried this good news into the apartment of the Princess was without doubt the most acceptable harbinger that she could have of his Arrival But fear having wrought great disorders in her mind and after a new paroxysm of her Fever which did but begin to abate her mind being weakened as well as her body she could not show her self to him as she desired to appear The trembling tone of her voice proceeding rather from the tenderness of her heart than the force of her distemper gave but too sensible a proof of the hard tryal she had been put to and there was nothing more easie than for him to perceive that the life of Brandon was her sole care though she had not
the Duke of Suffolk This bereft him of all comfort for the rest of his days and being unable to abide longer at Court as well because of that loss as of the disorders of his King which encreased with age he choose rather to command the Army against the Rebels in Yorkshire where he fully crowned his Glory He had five Children by the Queen whereof the two Males dyed both in one day of the distemper which is called the English Sweating-sickness and of his three Daughters who were all married to the greatest Lords of the Kingdom the eldest named Frances married to Henry Gray Son to the Marquess of Dorset his intimate friend was the cause of his death She falling sick in one of her country-Countrey-houses and he loving that dear Daughter the more because she perfectly resembled his deceased Queen used so great diligence to come to her that he thereby dyed Thus the Prophesie of Merlin may be seen fulfilled in his person supposing that he had been the Grand-child of the Duke of Clarence Since that how innocent soever that daughter was of his Death yet the too great zeal that he had for her was that which destroyed him At least to judg by the event the words of that Astrologer seem pretty just The only thing that can make me doubt of it is the little care that I see in him during his life to make known his secret Quality of a Prince of York What tyranny soever may oblige a Prince to conceal himself for a time yet if he have a great and generous soul as Suffolk had it is hard for him to continue always obscure and truely royal blood soon or late becomes conspicuous in Heroes Vnless it may be said of him that the possession of what he loved having fulfilled all his desires he feared either to disturb his own felicity by discovering himself or to wrong his Children who according to the custom of England would have certainly been put to death upon the least suspicion of the truth FINIS Some Books Printed and are to be Sold by W. Cademan at the Popes-head in the New-Exchange PHaramond or the History of France a fam'd Romance in 12 Parts the whole work never before in English written by the Author of Cassandra and Cleopatra Fol. Parthanissa that most fam'd Romance in 6 Parts written by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery in Fol. Books 4 to Protestant Religion is a sure Foundation and Principle of a true Christian written by Charles Earl of Derby Historical Relations of the first discovery of the Island of Madera A Warning to the Unruly in two Visitation-Sermons Preached before the Arch-Bishop of York by Seth Bushell D. D. The great Efficacy of the Clergy a Visitation-Sermon by Tho. Duncomb D. D. Mr. Barn's Sermon Preached before the King Mr. Pigol's Sermon Preached before the Judges at Lancaster Books 8 vo Philosophical Essays or the History of Petrificatio by Thomas Sherley Dr. in Physick The History of Scurvey-Grass being an exact and careful description of the Nature and Medicinal vertues of that Plant teaching how to prepare out of it plain and approved Remedies for the Scurvey and most other Diseases as well Galenical as Chymical which are to be had of Scurvey-grass-Ale confirmed by Reason Experience and Authority The Spanish History or a Relation of the Differences that happened in the Court of Spain between Don John of Austria and Cardinal Nitard with other Transactions of that Kingdom together with all the Letters that past between Persons of the highest Quality relating to those affairs PLAYS Rival a Comedy Island-Princes Comedy Flora's Vagaries Comedy Town-shifts a Comedy Citizen turn'd Gentleman Comedy Morning-Ramble Comedy Careless Lovers Comedy Reformation Comedy Mall or Modish Lovers Comedy Rehersal a Comedy Mock-Tempest a Comedy Dumb Lady a Comedy Dutch-Lovers a Comedy Setle against Dryden Herod and Mariamne Love and Revenge Conquest of China Constant Nimph. Pastor Fide Tom Essence a Comedy Wandring Lovers Catalius Conspiracy Tragedy Fatal Jealousie Mackbeth English-Princess Marcelia Spanish-Rogue Piso's Conspiracy Alcibiades Siege of Memphis Cambyâ—â—â— Empress of Morocco