such points of belief as had small relation to that competition for power But to return to our business the person whose Life we endeavour to describe soon found a difference between his old Master King Henry who already had gratified most of those which had shewed themselves active in his service and the Duke of Somerset newly made Protector of the King's person for this man that he may advance to places of honour and power those persons who have their dependance upon him must either find or force a way for the effecting of it with them who are in possession of those dignities And King Edward had not reigned two years before Richard Sackvill Esq had the Chancellourship of the Augmentations in his eye and with all so great an interest in the Protector as to engage him strongly in the pursuit For the Protector soon caused the business to be proposed to the person whom it chiefly concerned and he finding himself too weak to wrestle with a man that did little less than govern the whole Kingdom in those days thought fit so far to give way as to bring the matter to a treaty wherein he carried himself so like his arts Master though the Protector in person was witness to most of it as he parted with the place upon terms very considerable for honour security and profit and yet ordered the business in such a manner as the Protector could not but take himself to be obliged in it as may appear by the articles of agreement between Sackvill and him and by other writings under Seal belonging to that business where the expressions seem to lay all the weight upon the Lord Protector who is therein styled Mr. Sackvill's good Lord. Thus by his wisedom he not only prevented a mischief which might have befallen him in the opposition and preserved himself in the dignity of a Privy Counsellor but gained a fresh interest in the Duke of Somerset that might have made him great returns But it pleased God to dispose of matters otherwise for the Protector soon lost not only his power but his life being supplanted by the subtile practices of John afterwards Duke of Northumberland who though he assumed not the other's title of Protector yet bare no less sway in the government and demeaned himself with much greater insolence than Somerset About this time Sir Edward North finding way made upon him concerning his great office thought good to strengthen himself by alliance matching his eldest Son with the Lady Winifride Daughter to Richard Lord Rich then Lord Chancellor of England and Widow to Henry Dudley eldest Son to the said Duke of Northumberland but neither that alliance nor any of his other dependencies gave him encouragement to seek farther advancement during the reign of King Edward so as then he endeavoured as it seems only to make good his former station waiting for better opportunity In the mean time as appears by an account of his houshold expences he shewed himself worthy of greater honour by living in a way of more eminency than hath been usual with persons of his condition in those and the following times and then also his wisedom prompted him to have an eye to the Princess Mary next in succession to the Crown for he forgot not to put her in mind of him by presents This had been worthy of commendation if he had done it only as a testimony of gratitude to her Father but he may well be thought to have carried on a farther design in it for we find not any such thing done in relation to the Princess Elizabeth the other Sister and whether or no he did then discern some declination in the health of King Edward who is said to have died of a Consumption it is not easie to unfold Yet such was the iniquity of those times as his great foresight could not prevent his being involved together with the rest of the Privy-Council all the great officers and most of the eminent persons in and near the Court and City of London in a danger even by way of opposition to the said Princess Mary which in probability would have swallowed up any small number of them if they had been severed For the Duke of Northumberland foreseeing the certainty of the King's death had so wrought upon his tender age and weakness as to make him as far as in him lay to disinherit both his Sisters and to establish the Succession in the Lady Jane Grey his near kinswoman then joined in Matrimony to the Lord Guilford Dudley one of the Duke's Sons This was done by Testament and because there was an Act of Parliament to the contrary the Duke thought it not of sufficient validity without the concurrence and confirmation of all those who were then in power wherefore he caused a Subscription to be tendered to every one of them and so apprehensive were they of his displeasure with the consequences of it as there is no refusal recorded but that of Sergeant Hales one of the puney Judges for it seems that all the rest subscribed This action of his may seem to question both the Integrity and wisedom of our Progenitor and to vindicate him in it will require a digression of some length To plead infirmity as a defence is not worthy of a person so eminent for wisedom though Metus qui potest cadere in virum fortem doth very much excuse and though it may very well become a Statesman to prevent a present danger with the hazard of a much greater in the future for as the Italians say Chi ha tempo ha vita He who hath time hath life which consideration made the then chief Justice of the King's Bench upon this very occasion when his Brother of the Common Pleas told him that they might both of them be hanged twenty years after if they should subscribe the Testament to return this Answer That it was most true but yet as true that if they subscribed it not the Duke of Northumberland might chance to hang them presently But in my opinion it is not much to be doubted but Sir Edward North had for his security a better reserve which is this a knowing that the Princess Mary had received assurances from him to be faithfull to her and to her interests in the way of allegiance next to her Brother's person and Posterity if any should be which made her notwithstanding this Subscription not only to continue him in his former dignity but to advance him a degree higher in the very first year of her reign And this course of his to hold himself in power with an intention to serve his lawfull Sovereign who knew that intention could not but be very serviceable to her and being so how could it give any great offence in a thing so generally done And as for his own concernments it cannot well be doubted but they would prompt him to his then compliance self preservation at that very time being conceived necessary by so many persons
their Judges giving to Copyholders a Tenure by custom as they grew altogether deaf at the call of their Landlords And so it was found by this our Edward and others who would have used their Tenants for service of the Crown in foreign wars under Henry the 8th This was some inconvenience to the Prince but little in comparison of that which hath shewed it self in these latter times wherein the Commonalty or third Estate hath assumed a power not only to subject their Sovereign to a jurisdiction established by the said Commons but to abolish the Regal power it self and as a consequent thereunto to bring the ancient Peerage to a level with themselves And this may be very much attributed to the former extirpation of power in great persons who stood as a wall of defence between Prince and People The other part of the ordinary Militia consisted in the arraying of all persons fit for War defensive and this was first managed by Commissioners of Array authorised from time to time by the Kings themselves which made them to countenance it much more than the other But in process of time this power residing in many who are more subject to find out dilatory scruples than a single person gave occasion to the Princes more to affect the placing of it in some one for one may more easily be commanded and is more subject to an account upon miscarriage But on the other side this gave more offence to the Commons in Parliament who bear the Purse for supply of their Princes extraordinary occasions which perhaps might be the cause of Queen Elizabeth's laying it down for that time though she resumed it afterwards After this it appeareth not that Edward Lord North ever desired other than an exemption from publick employments with a quiet enjoyment of himself and of the fruits of his past labours and in this it pleased God to bless him very far for he had little publick molestation yet was he not free from disquiet at home by reason of some apprehensions arising within his own family by the prodigality of his eldest Son for whom as is exprest in his Will he was constrained at the last to pay a great debt besides much of the same nature formerly In those days the sum which he paid was esteemed very great yet was not the debt so considerable in his thoughts as a disposition in his Son easily discernible as he esteemed to proceed in the same way of expence He feared that this would make the young man to exceed all bounds when he should become master of his Estate which made the impression so deep with him as he failed not to admonish his Son in the said Will with very great reflexions upon him as to his prudence and perhaps it wrought great effects after the Father's death And here may be noted that the ablest persons make their judgments as to the future with great incertainty for Roger Lord North proved a most industrious and provident man and a person of great honour for he was Ambassadour extraordinary from Queen Elizabeth to Charles the 9th of France and bare many other publick employments abroad and at home till at the last he became Treasurer of the houshold to the Queen and one of her Privy-Council dying with that Character upon him in which he exceeded his Father Neither had Edward Lord North any greater hopes of Sir Thomas North his other Son who though a man of courage a man learned as appears by divers translations of his and indued with very good parts otherwise yet never had a steadiness comparable to his Brother which made the Father to settle his Estate by way of Entail as strongly to prevent Alienations as the Law of those times would bear with a remainder to his Kindred of Walkeringam as hath been already touched And in the year 1563 he made the Will before-mentioned and constituted Sir William Cordall and Sir James Dyer Executors of the same both of them persons very eminent in those times Sir William being Master of the Rolls and Sir James Dyer Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In the year succeeding having crowned his wisedom by a discreet settlement of his private fortune he paid his last debt to Nature ending his life with the Julian year on the last day of December and so changed this for a better being then about the 68th year of his age as near as we can gather by conjecture Thus terminated the life of this noble and worthy person who hid not the talent wherewith his Maker entrusted him but improved it for the advantage of his Nation and Family which ought to be an eternal honour to him His marriages were two whereof the first was to Alice Squier Daughter to a Gentleman estated in Hamp-shire she then being Widow of Edward Myrfyn Son to an Alderman of London so named and having also had a former Husband called Brigantine or Brickenden and by each of these Husbands one Son By this Wife he had four Children whereof Roger Lord North and Sir Thomas North have already been named and in some sort Characterized herein The other two were Daughters whereof Christian the elder was married to William Earl of Worcester and Mary the younger to Henry Lord Scroope of Bolton Of every one of these four there is Posterity left and now grown so numerous in the whole and it is become so far an honour to their common Progenitor as I my self who am the Grandchild of his Grandchild may in the year of our Lord 1658 affirm that I know not any of the Race that have as yet applied themselves to courses dishonest or dishonourable This Lady Alice as she brought him a considerable estate in Marriage so she was a great and constant assistant to him in the improvement of his fortunes always shewing her self a discreet and provident person in the government of his domestique affairs and she continued so till the time of her death which hapned some four or five years before that of her husband who failed not to yield a fair mention of her goodness in his Testament desiring also to be buried with her at Kirtling His second and last Wife was the Lady Margaret Widow to Sir David Brooke and surely she was a person worthy of his choice for he shewed much care of her in his last settlement by Will which is all that I shall need to say of her By his Picture whereof there is yet a copy remaining with us he appears to have been a person of moderate stature somewhat inclining to corpulency and of a reddish hair As for his inward abilities it were extravagant to question them in a man so versed in affairs of State as a Privy-Counsellour and that sate at the Stern so many years in an eminent place of Judicature Such persons seldom want elocution sufficient but if we may judge of his Oratory by his Letters he seemed rather to have affected the delivery of a full and clear sense
SOME NOTES Concerning the LIFE OF EDWARD LORD NORTH BARON of KIRTLING 1658. Inter bonos non obsolescit beneficiorum memoria By Sir DVDLEY NORTH Lord NORTH TO MY Eldest Son SINCE it hath pleased God to set you in a condition whereby you are likely to be entrusted with the honour of your House and of all which is most precious belonging to it I have judged you the person to whom I might most fitly recommend the ensuing discourse being an Historical Narration of the Life and Actings of the Raiser of your Family Whatsoever you may find this small Work to be in it self yet I know you will be carefull to preserve it in being in respect of its relation to the person who is the Subject of it and to whom we owe our eminency if any we have I doubt not but your own curiosity will exact at your hands the reading of it and the fault will not be great if you doe it more than once for besides that which relateth to your Family you shall there find some things concerning the History of those times which are not easie to be met with elsewhere but the best use that you can make of your reading is this the taking of your Ancestour as a precedent to direct the course of your life hereafter which custome was usual with the old Romans and very much stirred up their Patricii or young Nobles in the way of Vertue You are now in the prime of your age as to the active part of it and having the advantage of so much time before you it may please God to give you much more liberty to dispose of your self and of your courses than I have had Doe then as this Progenitor of yours did First gain abilities by study and observation in your youth and afterwards employ those abilities in the service of God and your Country As for your own person and private fortunes it will be imprudence not to seek their preservation and you may be instructed by this good Example to endeavour the advancement of them as far as it may be done without hindrance of a greater good for such an ambition is so far from being unlawfull as it gives wings or rather being to many designs tending to publick benefit For me it will be my part to assist you by my prayers and otherwise according to my ability and for such assistances you shall be sure to receive them at the hands of Your most truly affectionate Father SOME NOTES Concerning the LIFE OF EDWARD LORD NORTH BARON of KIRTLING SUCH was the piety of the ancient heathen Romans towards their deceased Parents as it became usual to sacrifice to the Gods for them Nay at last it grew to that height as many of the Roman Emperours thought not their duty sufficiently performed unless they ranked their Parents in the number of their Gods and so turned that which formerly had been received as commendable into a very high Impiety Among the ancient Christians and very near the times of primitive Purity the former was so far revived as it became a note of Piety to pray for their parents departed and the custom was so generally applauded as it grew to extend it self to Benefactours as well as to Parents and in this the Clergy men as being conceived to pray more effectually than others found so great an advantage as they have thought fit to give it continuance even unto this day in the Romish Church But the use of Prayer in that kind is now justly exploded by our reformed Divines as an errour and I shall leave the confutation of it to them as a thing most proper to their profession yet thus much may be delivered as a certainty that a reverend affection to Parents and Benefactours which was the ground of that custom is not only lawfull but praiseworthy And so natural it is to me as where I conceive my self to have received a great benefit from one who hath finished his course in this life it constantly possesseth my thoughts that something is to be done by way of gratitude towards him And thus it was with me in relation to Edward Lord North the common Parent and raiser of our Family till my perusal of the old and almost worn-out Papers remaining at Kirtling gave me a ground-work to leave something behind me which might preserve the memory of a person of so much Vertue and Eminency Yet some things have occurred to my thoughts by way of discouragement to divert me from such a purpose As first this That since he was Propriae Fortunae Faber and raised himself upon a small basis wanting the advantage of a high and noble extraction it would become a derogation to us of his Posterity to mention his beginnings In this I quickly satisfied my self for my intention relateth only to a person whose assertion was That they were only truly noble whose own Vertue rendred them so and these memorials are not designed for publick use but only to remain with us his Progeny who from the consideration of his advancement may take occasion to praise God the more highly for the great industry and prosperity of our Ancestor And yet we may justly affirm thus much concerning his Descent that he derived it from a family of ancient Gentry though perhaps not so remarkable for greatness of Estate as many others nor shall we blush to hear that even that moderate lustre of his was somewhat abated by his Father's application of himself to become a Citizen of London for that course of life in our later times is grown usual in very considerable families with younger Brothers in which rank his Father was in so much as many of them by that means have so outstript the chief branch of their house as now to be enrowled with the greater Nobility and to wear Coronets Another disswasive was this That as we have no light at all in that which he did during his youth so not in very many particulars after the time of his activity The former part of this argument must not prevail with any man who hath but so much Christianity as to esteem the Evangelical History and the latter part being but a proof of his modesty rendring it probable he conceived it a degree of vanity to leave any record of his actions in writing whereby he might have seemed to covet fame with after Ages it became rather an incentive than a weakning to me in my desire to continue the remembrance of that which either appeareth or may be recovered concerning him and I doubt not but I shall deliver that which is sufficient to satisfie any indifferent Reader concerning the great worth of the person whose Character I undertake To make therefore an entry upon the Relation Edward Lord North was the Son and for ought we know the only Son of Roger North and of Christian Warcop his Wife descended of a good Family of Gentry in Yorkshire of that name and he was born about the
year of our Lord 1496 as near as we can conjecture and during the reign of King Henry the 7th This Roger was of the Family of the Norths of Walkeringam in the County of Nottingham which Norths had preserved a small Fortune in that County and place for many Generations without any considerable encrease or diminution living always in the quality of private Gentlemen untill the days of the said Edward Lord North and many years after till the chief of that Race by a Shreivalty cast upon him with many chargeable suits in Law and by the prodigality of his eldest Son who unhappily had taken upon him the honour of Knighthood was enforced to part with so much Land as it caused his Heirs to fall out with the Mansion house and sell it to the Perpoints who at this time are owners of it The affection of Edward Lord North to his Kindred of Walkeringam was always very great and so was his care of them in their prime concernments and especially of Edward North their Chief in that age for in settling the greatest part of his estate by way of Entail he preferred this Edward and his Posterity before the House of Worcester and all other Descendents of his own Daughters whose Issue was sufficiently numerous This Roger as hath been intimated being a Citizen of London never attained to any eminency of Estate yet was he not so straitned in his fortune but that he could and did afford to his Son a costly way of breeding training him up at the Inns of Court in the study of the Law Like a good and wise Parent discerning in his Child a capacity too large to exercise it self in his own narrow course of Mercery he found out for him though not without some inconvenience to himself a way of greater extent and activity which it pleased God very highly to bless as shall appear in the sequel of this narration From the little that is known of what he did in the prime of his years we may conclude and not unfitly that being of an industrious nature he spent his time at first about the laying of a foundation in the way of his profession by Study and that afterwards having gained abilities he sought to render himself and his parts known by applying himself to a fair and moderate practice of the Law in a plausible way in which he made so fair a progress as it appears that he came to be of Council for the City of London and had a yearly Fee for that service though it be not known at what time of his age he came to be so The first publick employment of his that we have evidence for is this his having the Clerkship of Parliament by grant from King Henry the 8th in the year 1530 which it seems in those days was an office of much more respect than now it is for he had it first by Patent jointly with Sir Bryan Tuke and then wholly to himself and it was afterwards enjoyed by Sir William Pagett then Secretary of State and so it came to Sir John Mason and others But had the place been of meaner condition he had wisedom sufficient to instruct him that it is better for those who have their fortunes to make to play at small game than to sit out About this time as by all other fair ways so in that of Marriage he sought his advancement and espoused himself to his first Wife who being a Widow and having had two Husbands brought him such an increase as not long after he purchased his Manor of Kirtling This was about the 33d year of his age which sheweth that he was not hasty in parting with his liberty for he well knew the want of that to be one of the chief remoras to young men as to their applications in the way of preferment otherwise and therefore when he came to sell himself he suffered not his affections to over-rule his judgment but made such a choice as to be sure in some measure that the advantages of his Wifes estate should not be overballanced by any natural indispositions or ill dispositions adhering to or inherent in her person And not many years after this his Sun began to ascend very fast towards its Zenith for the King having taken a resolution to shake off the Papal yoke he drew to his service from all parts the most able and active spirits and among others this worthy person so as in the year 1536 he became one of the King's Sergeants at Law for so we find him styled by the King himself in a grant then made to him And now the dissolution of Monasteries being enacted by Parliament and the Court of Augmentations being erected for the ordering of that new accession to the Crown it pleased the King about the year 1540 to confer upon him the office of Treasurership of that Court which he enjoyed about four years and during that time in the year 1542 by the name of Sir Edward North for he had received the honour of Knighthood he was High Sheriff of the Counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon and also elected to serve in Parliament as Knight of the Shire for Cambridge-shire which two employments did rarely concur in one and the same person And afterwards in the year 1544 he first became Chancellour of the Augmentations joyntly with Sir Richard Rich afterwards Lord Rich and Chancellour of England and within a few months following sole Chancellour of that Court by resignation of the said Sir Richard Rich unto him and so he enjoyed that great office alone about four years in which time as we suppose he might well have raised his fortunes double to the proportion he left to his Family if he had not been a person of very great integrity But though his particular actions in the managing of that great trust were sincere and so not much obnoxious to detraction yet his acting in an affair so highly offensive to the Roman Catholick party exposed him to the censure of some of his own posterity of that profession for upon some declinations in the house which he had raised they have not forborn to impute the diminutions to that only cause as a crime that had been the destruction of many Families so raised and would be the Catastrophe of his I conceive this to savour too much of temerity if it be not injurious but I intend not to undertake the vindication of this and other States in their power of setting out at the first or giving continuance to a fit proportion for the maintenance of those either single persons or Fraternities which are set apart for external service in the way of Religion which power was not a thing altogether new in those times as may appear by the Statute of Mortmayne whereby dedications in the way of Piety were much prevented and why may not a State finding the excess very prejudicial to the whole Nation who may challenge a higher charity than any part whatsoever as
of known wisedom for though not impossible as in nature where A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus yet it is very difficult for persons once outed to obtain a restitution of Dignities and Possessions and sometimes it cannot be had at all even by those who seem to be very much advantaged with the present Governours as may appear in the Posterity of the Duke of Norfolk and of the Lord Dacre of the North whose Predecessours suffered for correspondence with Mary Queen of Scots and yet when the Son and Grandson of the same Queen came to wear the Crown successively they could not recover their former rights For ingenuity or open sincerity it is a most Christian vertue yet since the wisedom of the Serpent is an allowed companion to the innocency of the Dove that vertue cannot be so strictly required in a Statesman as in other persons for else it had been a very horrid thing in David a man according to God's own heart to suborn his friend Hushai to profess himself a Servant to his Son Absalom with an intention to supplant him and to subvert his Counsels for that action of David's is not at all disapproved of in Scripture as others were But to return to our business In the year of our Lord 1553 King Edward came to the period of his life and reign which though glorious for a great progress in the Churches reformation yet otherwise was but turbulent by reason of a presuming upon the King's minority both by the Commons who in several parts of the Kingdome arose in Rebellion and did it so dangerously as the State thought good to use Foreigners in the suppression of them a thing very unusual in this Nation and by the greater Nobles who divided themselves into Factions which some of them nearest in relation to the King himself paid for with the loss of their Heads even in his days and others upon grounds then laid very shortly after Upon King Edward's death this Kingdom fell from a condition of instability which it had often felt during the nonage of its Princes to an estate which was then altogether unexperienced by us to wit the government of a Queen regnant a thing which the French Nation professeth utterly to abhor and is called by them Tomber en quinoüille or to fall under the Distaff It is true that this Crown had frequently passed to the Progeny of our Sovereigns Daughters but before this time it was never set much less settled upon the head of any Woman This might have raised great storms but it pleased the Divine Providence so to dispose of things by way of preparation as the Pill was swallowed down with great quietness for first there was not then in being with us any male Prince of the bloud as Philip de Valois had been in France who there assumed the Crown to the disherison of our Edward the Third then this Nation had given its consent in Parliament to an Entail of the Crown upon Mary and Elizabeth Daughters to King Henry And last of all the Duke of Northumberland's ambition not being able to make way otherwise had endeavoured to fix the Crown upon another Lady of Royal bloud his Daughter in Law so as by reason of this competition all the active spirits of the Nation having no other adherence became quickly engaged with one of the Competitresses and so the other novelty was wholly put out of thought The affection of this People was then so great to a right Succession in the race of their Princes as notwithstanding hazard of the Churches late reformation which a great part of the Nation had then set their hearts upon and the interest of the most eminent persons become possessours of Church-lands by way of exchange and otherwise yet the Duke of Northumberland soon found the weakness of his designs which he thought so strongly laid and being forsaken by his party became an assistant in the proclaiming of Queen Mary but it was too late to prevent the loss of his Head which had shewed it self so dangerous Thus Queen Mary having her Sovereignty generally acknowledged began her Reign and being desirous to give some testimony of a gracious disposition she gave free pardon to all saving the Duke of Northumberland the Lady Jane and some few others The Lords of the Council who had subscribed against her and for some time had seemed to act in the same way were included in the Pardon and some of them continued in that great honour and trust which may seem strange considering that the designs of Queen Mary were so diametrally opposite to those of King Edward in point of Religion but the same opposition was between the Ecclesiastical policy and religion of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth yet many of the old Counsellours were also held on by the latter and it seems fit if not necessary that it should be so for great changes in a State cannot be wrought suddenly without great danger and the doing of it maturely and judiciously requireth not only an exact knowledge of matters formerly transacted but also of their grounds and causes Of the Counsellours retained Sir Edward North easily obtained to be one and not only so but in the first year of this Queens reign he received an encrease of Dignity being called to sit in Parliament as a Baron which is a character of the Queens favour not then extended to any other of the old Counsellours though many of them held themselves in favour with her even to the time of her death And this sheweth that she intended a special reward to him and presupposeth a merit contracted by the performance of some former service of eminence It cost her nothing yet was it of very high value for the dignity of Peerage was rarely conferred upon any but persons of great worth and merit during the reigns of these two Sisters though under the succeeding Princes it became not only more common but a kind of merchandize for the benefit of Courtiers And now it appears how seasonably he parted with his office of Chancellour of the Augmentations for he did it upon valuable consideration whereas his successour Sir Richard Sackvill who held himself in grace all Queen Mary's days yet lost it without any recompence at all One of the most remarkable occurrents during this Queens Reign was her marriage with King Philip the Second of Spain and considering that Edward Lord North is by our Historians specified in the catalogue of those Lords who were employed in his reception and therefore likely as a Counsellour to have concurred all the way in the negotiating of that affair perhaps it may not be thought improper to touch somewhat upon it It might well be apprehended as a great danger to this People for their Queen to match with a more potent Prince of another Nation in respect that this Kingdom might by such means become a Province being deprived of the presence of their Sovereign But the transactours well
knew that this great King whose vertues were so many as they cannot find sufficient room in this small Treatise was before his marriage here provided of a Son to inherit his great Kingdom in case there had been issue by Queen Mary which issue nevertheless of hers should have enjoyed the Burgundian Provinces a great accession to his Crown and free from the inconvenience before mentioned And all other particulars were so well provided for in that business as there appeared little intermixture of the Nations in the government during the Queens life and no inconvenience at all upon her death For Edward Lord North he continued in good favour all the time of Philip and Mary for he held his Counsellourship and was powerfull with the Queen to obtain grace for others as may appear by the restitution in bloud of a person very highly descended and wrought by his mediation which also could not but be a matter of good profit to him And now this Queens reign not affording more matter relating to the subject of this discourse I must not leave untouched a reflexion indiscreetly cast upon this noble person by Mr. Fox in his Acts and Monuments which is this He saith that he himself spake with a Woman who told him that near the expected time of Queen Mary's delivery for she conceived her self to be with Child and the whole Kingdom was possessed with such an expectation the Lord North and another Lord came to her and would have prevailed with her to part with a child of hers newly born but that she utterly refused it and this Mr. Fox conceiveth to have been desired as a supposititious Child for the Queen The design it self is so unprobable either to have been truly such or to have been carried on by a person of so much honour and wisedom as it needeth little answer for the Queen her self was too vertuous and religious in her way to admit of such a thought Neither if there had been such an intention could it possibly have been concealed being the concernment of so great Princes and Nations And questionless the succeeding Queen would never have cast the least honour or placed any trust upon this Lord or his Son Roger Lord North whom she made a Privy-Counsellour and near officer about her if she had given the least credit to that Calumny It is therefore a wonder that Mr. Fox should insert in his History so trivial a thing and casting so great a Scandal having received it from a mean person in an extrajudicial way who perhaps might be hired to the affirmation for certainly he could not have found a more ready way to abate the credit of his other Narrations But however it was concerning Queen Mary's conception whether it were only fancied by her or in it self real with an abortion following it is certain that she lived not long after for she fell presently into a deep sadness of spirit and ended her days in the year 1558 having reigned but a short time and very unhappily even in her own opinion for she thought the loss of Calais which was the last footing of our Nation in France to be an irreparable blemish to her government yet was there much bloud shed at home for Religion which better might have deserved her sorrow but she according to the Prophecy of our blessed Saviour thought she did God good service in it She was a Princess very eminent for Vertue and Piety but too flexible a weakness incident to her sex which is not so fit to govern in publick matters referring almost all to others but especially in matters of Religion to her Prelates These she should have considered as too much interested and over-violent in things tending to their own power and greatness The subjects of a Tyrant who manageth his own affairs prove for the most part not so unhappy as of those of a mild Prince who putteth the whole care of Government upon some choice instruments for they become many Tyrants in stead of one and being of a more servile condition are usually steered by more sordid ends Yet is the Prince himself answerable for their faults and so certainly was this Queen and the rather because in respect of her engagement to uphold the Papal power she may be thought not to have given an unwilling consent to those horrid cruelties but Sanguis martyrum est semen Ecclesiae which saying it pleased God to verifie most strangely at that time as may appear in the Reformation perfected and settled immediately after Queen Mary's days Queen Elizabeth's entry upon her Reign was embraced with a general applause by the Protestants cordially for they concluded her well affected to their principles and by the Papists seemingly because she was yet theirs in outward profession as appeared by the Popish Ceremonies used at her Coronation yet these could not but be very distrustfull knowing her interest to be directly opposite to that of her Sister for if the Pope had power to Legitimate the marriage with Katharine of Arragon Mother to Queen Mary then that with Ann of Bullen Mother to Queen Elizabeth being solemnized living the other must of necessity be invalide This Queen presently made an alteration at the Council-Table retaining some and dismissing others Of the latter sort was Edward Lord North and whether or no it was his own desire by reason of age and infirmity we know not but certain it is that he was not under any great displeasure for the Queen finding it requisite to erect a Lieutenancy for command of the Militia and ordering of Musters in each County made choice of him for that trust in Cambridge-shire and the Isle of Ely This she did in the first year of her reign and by another Patent in her second year she confirmed it unto him But this power was soon resumed and as I conceive laid down generally for the present which giveth occasion to say something Historically of the Militia of this Kingdom Anciently the Martial forces were of two kinds extraordinary or ordinary The extraordinary consisted of Mercenaries serving for Pay and taken into service upon the occasion The ordinary were partly such as lay under an obligation by the tenure of their Lands to serve their Prince and this comprized all the Nobility and Gentry of the Land with their Tenants and these were they by whose help our Kings made so great Conquests and became so formidable abroad for if the Tenants answered not the expectation of their Landlord it was in the Landlord's power to turn them out of the Estates which they held but especially such as were Copyholders This power of great men as it was extremely usefull against Foreigners so it grew dangerous at home for that means there was great and frequent oppositions made against the Princes by Civil War managed by the Nobles whose Tenants were necessitated to serve them and this made the Kings so far to diminish this power upon Tenants at Will by frequent decisions of