Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A01064
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A briefe discourse, touching the happie vnion of the kingdomes of England, and Scotland Dedicated in priuate to his Maiestie.
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Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626.
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1603
(1603)
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STC 1117; ESTC S104437
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7,254
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40
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A BRIEFE DISCOVRSE TOVCHING THE HAPPIE VNION OF THE KINGDOMES OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND DEDICATED IN PRIVATE TO HIS MAIESTIE AT LONDON Printed for Foelix Norton and are to be sold by William Aspley 1603. A BRIEFE DIScourse touching the happy vnion of the Kingdomes of England and Scotland DEDICATED IN PRIuate to his MAIESTIE I DOE not finde it straunge excellent King that when Heraclitus hee that was surnamed the obscure had set foorth a certaine booke which is not now extant many men tooke it for a discourse of Nature and many others tooke it for a Treatise of Policie and matter of estate For there is a great affinitie and consent betweene the rules of Nature and the true rules of Policie The one being nothing els but an order in the gouernement of the world and the other an order in the gouernment of an estate And therefore the education and erudition of the Kings of Persia was in a science which was termed by a name then of great reuerence but now degenerate and taken in ill part For the Persian Magicke which was the secret literature of their Kings was an obseruation of the contemplation of Nature and an application thereof to a sense politicke 〈◊〉 taking the fundamentall lawes of Nature with the branches and passages of them as an originall and first modell whence to take and describe a copie and imitation for gouernement After this manner the foresaid Instructors fet before their Kings the examples of the celestiall bodies the Sunne the Moone and the rest which haue great glorie and veneration but no rest or intermission beeing in a perpetuall office of motion for the cherishing in turne and in course of inferiour bodyes Expressing likewise the true manner of the motions of gouernement which though they ought to bee swifte and rapide in respect of occasion and dispatche yet are they to be constant and regular without wauering or confusion So did they represent vnto them how that the Heauens do not inritch themselues by the Earth and the Seas nor keepe no dead stocke or vntouched treasure of that they drawe to them from belowe but whatsoeuer moysture they doe leuie and take from both the elements in vapours they doe spend and turne backe againe in showers onely houlding and storing them vp for a time to the end to issue and distribute them in season But chiefely they did expresse and expound vnto them that fundamentall lawe of Nature whereby all things doe subsist and are preserued which is that euery thing in nature although it hath his priuate and particular affection and appetite and doth follow and pursue the same in small moments and when it is deliuered and freed from more generall and common respects yet neuerthelesse when there is question or cause for the sustaining of the more generall they forsake their owne particularities and proprieties and attend and conspire to vphold the publike So we see the Yron in small quantitie will ascend and approach to the Load-stone vpon a particular Sympathie But if it bee any quantitie of moment it leaues his appetite of amity with the Load-stone and like a good Patriott falleth to the earth which is the place and region of massy bodies So againe the water and other like bodies doe fall towardes the center of the earth which is as was saide their region or Country And yet we see nothing more vsuall in all water-workes and Ingens then that the water rather then to suffer any distraction or disunion in Nature will ascend forsaking the loue to his owne region or Country and applying it selfe to the body next adioyning But it were too large a digression to proceede to more examples of this kinde Your Maiesty your selfe did fall vppon a passage of this Nature in your gratious speech of thankes vnto your Councell When acknowledging Princely their vigilancye and well deseruinges it pleased you to note that it was a successe and euent aboue the course of Nature to haue so great a change with so great a quiet forasmuch as suddayne and great mutations as well in state as in Nature are rarely without violence and perturbation So as still I conclude there is as was saide a congruity betweene the principles of Nature and and of Pollicie And least that Instance may seeme to appone to this assertion I may euen in that perticular with your Maiesties fauour offer vnto you a Type or Patern in Nature much resembling this present euēt in your state namely earthquakes which many of them bring euer much terror and wonder but no actuall hurt the earth trembling for a moment and sodainely stablishing in perfect quiet as it was before This knowledge then of making the gouernment of the world a mirror for the gouernement of a state beeing a wisedome almost lost whereof the reason I take to be because of the difficulty for one man to imbrace both Philosophies I haue thought good to make some proofe as farre as my weakenesse and the straights of time will suffer to reuiue in the handling of one particular wherewith now I most humbly present your Maiesty For surely as hath beene said it is a forme of discourse anciently vsed towardes Kings And to what King should it be more proper then to a King that is studious to conioyne contemplatiue virtue and actiue virtue together Your Maiesty is the first King which hath had the honour to be Lapis angularis to vnite these two mighty and warlike nations of England and Scotland vnder one Soueraignety and Monarchy It dooth not appeare by the recordes and memories of any true history nor scarcly by the fiction and pleasure of any fabulous narration or tradition that euer of any antiquity this Iland of great Brittaine was vnited vnder one King before this day And yet there be no Mountaines or races of hils there be no seas or great riuers there is no diuersity of toung or language that hath inuited or prouoked this ancient separation or diuorce The lot of Spaine was to haue the seuerall Kingdomes of that continent Portugal onely except to be vnited in an age not long past and now in our age that of Portugal also which was the last that held out to bee incorporate with the rest The lot of France hath beene much about the same time likewise to haue reannexed vnto that crowne the seuerall Duchies and portions that were in former times dismembred The lotte of this Iland is the last reserued for your Maiesties happye times by the speciall prouidence and fauour of God who hath brought your Maiesty to this happy coniunction with great consent of harts and in the strength of your yeares and in the maturity of your experience It resteth therefore but that as I promised I set before your Maiesties Princelye consideration the grounds of Nature touching the Vnion and commixture of bodies the correspondence which they haue with the groundes of Pollicie in the coniunction of states and kingdomes First therefore that Position vis
yet in another place Saint Paul professeth of himselfe that hee was a Iewe by tribe So as it is manifest that some of his Ancestors were naturallized to him and to his descendents So wee read that it was one of the first despights that was done to Iulius Caesar that whereas hee had obtayned Naturalization for a Cittye in Gaul one of the Cittizens of that Cittye was beaten with roddes by the commaundement of the Consul Marcellus So wee read in Cornelius Tacitus that in the Emperour Claudius time the nation of Gaul that part which was called Comata the wilder part were suters to bee made capable of the Honours of beeing Senators and Officers of Rome His wordes are Cùm de supplendo Senatu agitaretur Primoresque Galliae quae Commata appellatur foedera et Ciuitatem Romanam pridem assecuti ius adipiscendorum in vrbe honorum expeterent multus ea super re variusque rumor et studijs diuersis apud Principem certabatur and in the ende after long debate it was ruled they should be admitted So likewise the authoritie of Nicholas Machiauell seemeth not to bee contemned who inquiring of the causes of the growth of the Romaine Empire dooth giue iudgement there was not one greater then this that the state did so easily compound and incorporate with straungers It is most true that most Estates and Kingdomes haue taken the other course of which this effect hath followed that the addition of further Empire and territorie hath beene rather matter of burden then matter of strength vnto them yea and further it hath kepte aliue the seede and rootes of reuoltes and rebellions for many ages As wee may see in a freshe and notable example of the kingdome of Aragon which though it were vnited to Castile by mariadge and not by conquest and so descended inhereditarie vnion by the space of more then a hundreth years yet because it was continued in a diuided gouernement and not well incorporated and cemented with the other Crownes entred into a Rebellion vpon point of their Fueros or liberties now of very late yeares Now to speake briefely of the seuerall partes of that forme whereby states and kingdomes are perfectly vnited they are besides the soueraignety it selfe foure in number Vnion in Name Vnion in Language Vnion in Lawes and Vnion in Employmentes For Name though it seeme but a superficiall and outward matter yet it carrieth much impression and inchantment The generall and common name of Grecia made the Greekes alwayes apt to vnite though otherwise full of diuisions amongst themselues against other nations who they called Barbarous The Heâ—â—â—tian name is no small band to knit together their leagues and confederacies the faster The common name of Spaine no doubt hath beene a speciall meane of the better Vnion and conglutination of the seuerall kindomes of Castile Aragon Granada Nauarra Valencia Catalonia and the rest comprehending also now lately Portugall For Language it is not needfull to insist vpon it because both your Maiesties kingdoms are of one language though of seuerall Dialects and the difference so small betweene them as promiseth rather an inriching of one Language then a continuance of two For lawes which are the principall Synewes of gouernment they be of three natures Iura which I will terme Freedomes or abilities Leges and Mores For abilities and Freedoms they were amongst the Romans of foure kindes or rather degrees Ius Connubij Ius Ciuitatis Ius suffragij and Ius Petitionis or Ius honorum Ius Connubij is a thing in these times out of vse For marriage is open betweene all diuersity of Nations Ius Ciuitatis answereth to that we call Denization or Naturalization Ius suffragij answereth to voyce in Parliament or voice in election of such as haue voyce in Parliament Ius petitionis aunswereth to place in Councell and office And the Romanes did many times seuer these freedoms granting Ius connubij sine Ciuitate and Ciuitatem sine suffragio Suffragium sine Iure petitionis which was commonly with them the last For lawes it is a matter of curiosity and inconuenience to seeke eyther to extripate all particular customes or to draw all subiectes to one place or resort of Iudicature and Session It sufficeth there be an vniformity in the Principall and fundamentall Lawes both Ecclesiasticall and ciuill For in this point the rule houldes which was pronounced by an ancient Father touching the diuersity of rites in the church For finding the vesture of the Queene in the Psalme which did prefigure the church was of diuerse colours and finding againe that Christes Coate was without a seame hee concludes well In veste varietas sit scissura non fit For Manners a consent in them is to be sought industriously but not to bee inforced For nothing amongst people breedes so much pertinacie in houlding their customes as suddaine and violent offer to remooue them And as for Employments it is no more but an indifferent hand and execution of that verse Tros Tyriusué mihi nulle discrimine agetur There remaineth onely to remember out of the grounds of Nature the two conditions of perfect mixture whereof the former is Time For the naturall Philosophers say well that compositio is opus homines and Mistio is opus Naturae For it is the dutie of man to make a fitte application of bodies together But the perfect fermentation and incorporation of them must bee left to Nature and Time and vnnaturall hasting thereof dooth disturbe the worke and not dispatche it So wee see after the grift is put into the stock and bound it must bee left to Nature and Time to make that continuum which was at first but contiguum And it is not any continuall pressing or thrusting together that will preuent Natures season but rather hinder it And so in liquors those mixtures which are at the first troubled growe after cleere and setled by the benefit of rest and time The second condition is that the greater drawe the lesse So wee see when two lights doe meete the greater dooth darken and drowne the lesse And when a smaller riuer runs into a greater it leeseth both his name and streame And hereof to conclude we see an excellent example in the Kingdomes of Iuda and Israel The Kingdome of Iuda contained two Tribes the Kingdome of Israel contained ten King Dauid raigned first ouer Iuda for certaine yeeres after the death of Isbosheth the sonne of Saul obtayned likewise the Kingdome of Israel This vnion continued in him and likewise in his sonne Salomon by the space of seuentie yeares at least betweene them both But yet because the seate of the kingdome was kept still in Iuda and so the lesse sought to drawe the greater vppon the first occasion offered the kingdomes brake againe and so continued diuided for euer after Thus hauing in all humblenesse made oblation vnto your Maiestie of these simple fruites of my deuotion and studies I do wish and I do wish it not in the nature of an impossibilitie to my thinking that this happye vnion of your Maiesties two Kingdomes of England and Scotland may bee in as good an houre and vnder the like diuine prouidence as that was betweene the Romaines and the Sabines FINIS