Die. Death is a meer Surprize a very Snare To him that makes it his Life's Greatest care To be a Publick Pageant Known to All But unacquainted with Himself doth fall Persons Characterized OBservations on Queen Elizabeth and Her Times Page 159 On Leicester p. 179 On Sussex p. 184 On Lord Burleigh p. 186 On Sir Philip Sidney p. 192 On Sir Francis Walsingham p. 194 On Willoughby p. 197 On Sir Nic. Bacon p. 198 On Lord Norris p. 200 On Knowls p. 201 On Sir John Perrot p. 203 On Hatton p. 209 On Lord Effingham p. 210 On Sir John Packington p. 213 On Lord Hunsden p. 214 On Sir Walter Raleigh p. 215 On Grevil p. 220 On Essex p. 221 On Buckhurst p. 228 On Mountjoy p. 231 On Cecil p. 236 On Vere p. 242 On Worcester p. 244 Fragmenta Regalia OR OBSERVATIONS On the Late QUEEN ELIZABETH Her Times and Favourites WRITTEN By Sir Robert Naunton Master of the Court of Wards LONDON Printed for Matthew Gilliflower at the Spread-Eagle in Westminster-Hall M DC XCIV Fragmenta Regalia OR OBSERVATIONS On the Late Queen ELIZABETH Her Times and Favourites TO take Her in the Original She was Daughter to Henry the Eighth by Anne Bullen the second of six Wives which He had and one of the Maids of Honour to the Divorced Queen Katharine of Austria or as they stile it Infanta of Spain and from thence taken into the Royal Bed That She was 〈◊〉 of a most Noble and Royal Extract by Her Father will not fall into question for on that side there was Disimbogued into her veins by a confluence of Bloud the very Abstract of all the greatest Houses in Christendom and remarkable it is concerning that violent desertion of the Royal House of the Britains by the invasion of the Saxons and afterwards by the Conquest of the Normans that by the vicissitude of times and through a discontinuance almost a thousand years the Royal Scepter should fall back into the Current of the old British bloud in the person of her Renowned Grandfather Henry the Seventh together with whatsoever the German Norman Burgundian Castalian and Erench Atchievements with the Intermarriaages which Eight hundred years had acquired incorporated and brought back into the old Royal Line By her Mother She was of no Soveraign descent yet Noble and very Ancient in the Name and Family of Bullen though some Erroneously brand it with a Citizens rise or original which was yet but of a second Brother who as it were Divining the Greatness and Lustre to come to his House was sent into the City to acquire wealth ad aedificandum antiquam domum Unto whose atchievements for he was Lord Mayor of London fell in as it was averred both the bloud and inheritance of the eldest Brother for want of issue Male by which Accumulation the House within a few descents mounted in Culmen honoris and was suddenly Elated into the best Families of England and Ireland as Howard Ormund Sackvile and divers others Having thus Toucht and now leaving her Stirp I come to her Person and as she came to the Crown by the decease of her Brother and Sister Under Edward She was His and one of the Darlings of Fortune for besides the consideration of Bloud there was between these two Princes a Concurrency and Symphathy in their Natures and Affections together with the Celestial bond conformity in Religion which made them One and Friends for the King ever called her his Sweetest and Dearest Sister and was scarce his own man She being absent which was not so between him and the Lady Mary Under his Sister She found her condition much altered For it was resolved and her Destiny had Decreed to set her an Apprentice in the School of Affliction and to draw her through the Ordeal fire of tryal the better to Mould and Fashion her to Rule and Sovereignity which finished and Fortune calling to mind that the time of her servitude was expired gave up her Indentures and therewith delivered up into her custody a Scepter as a reward for her Patience which was about the twenty sixth year of her Age a time in which as for Externals she was full Blown so was she for her Internals grown Ripe and seasoned with Adversity and in the Exercise of her Vertue for it seems Fortune meant no more than to shew her a piece of her variety and Changeableness of her Nature and so to conduct her to her destined Felicity She was of Personage Tall of Hair and Complexion Fair and therewith well favoured but high nosed of limbs and feature neat and which added to the Lustre of those Exteriour Graces of Stately and Majestick Comportment participating in this more of her Father than Mother who was of an inferiour Allay Plausible or as the French hath it more debonaire and Affable vertues which might well suit with Majesty and which descending as Hereditary to the Daughter did render her of a more sweet Temper and Endeared her more to the love and liking of the people who gave her the name and fame of a most Gracious and Popular Princess the atrocity of her Father's nature being Rebated in hers by the Mother's sweeter Inclinations For to take and that no more than the Character out of his own mouth He never spared man in his anger nor woman in his lust If we search further into her Intellectuals and abilities the whole course of Government decyphers them to the Admiration of posterity for it was full of Magnanimity tempered with Justice and Piety and to speak truly noted but with one act or taint all her deprivations either of life or liberty being legal and necessitated She was learned her sex and the time considered beyond Common belief for letters about this time and somewhat before began to be of Esteem and in fashion the former ages being overcast with the Mists and Fogs of the Roman ignorance and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times That ignorance was the mother of devotion Her wars were a long time more in the Auxiliary part in Assistance of foreign Princes and States than by Invasion of any till common policie Advised it for a safer way to strike first abroad than at home to Expect the ware in all which she was happy victorious The Change and Alteration of Religion upon the Instant of her Accession the smoak and fire of her Sister's Matyrdomes scarcely quenched was none of her least remarkable Accounts But the support and establishment thereof with the means of her subsistence amidst so Powerfull Enemies abroad and those many Domestique Practices were methinks works of Inspiration and of no humane providence which on her Sister's departure she most religiously acknowledged ascribing the glory of her deliverance to God alone for she received the news both of the Queens death and her Proclamation by the general Consent of the House and the Publick suffrage of the people whereat falling on her knees after a good time of
having married the Sister none of the other side took any deep rooting in the Court though otherwise they made their ways to Honour by their swords And that which is of more note considering my Lord of Leicester's use of Men of Arms being shortly after sent Governour to the Revolted States and no Souldier himself is that he made no more accompt of Sir John Norris a Soldier then deservedly famoused and trained from a Page under the discipline of the great Captain of Christendom the Admiral Castilion and of Command in the French and Dutch wars almost twenty years It is of further observation that my Lord of Essex after Leicester's decease though initiated to Arms and houred by the General in the Portugal expedition whether out of instigation as it hath been thought or out of ambition and jealousie to be eclipsed and over-shadowed by the fame and splendour of this great Commander loved him not in sincerity Moreover certain it is he not onely crusht and upon all occasions quell'd the growth of this brave man and his famous Brethren but therewith drew on his own fatal end by undertaking the Irish Action in a time when he left the Court empty of friends and fâ—ll fraught with his profess'd enemies But I forbear to extend my self in any further relation upon this subject as having left some notes of truth in these two Noble Families which I would present and therewith toucht somewhat which I would not if the equity of the Narration would have admitted an intermission Sir John Perrot SIr John Perrot was a goodly Gentleman and of the Sword And as he was of a very ancient descent as an heir to many abstracts of Gentry especially from Guy de Bryan of Lawhern so was he of a vast Estate and came not to the Court for want And to these adjuncts he had the endowments of courage and height of spirit had it lighted on the allay of temper and discretion the defect whereof with a native freedom and boldness of speech drew him on to a clouded setting and laid him open to the spleen and advantage of his enemies amongst whom Sir Christopher Hatton was profest He was yet a wise man and a brave Courtier but rough and participating more of active than sedentary motions as being in his constellation destinated for Arms. There is a quaere of some denotations how he came to receive his foyl and that in the Catastrophe for he was strengthened with honourable Alliances and the privy friendships of the Court My Lord of Leicester and Burleigh both his Contemporaries and Familiars but that there might be as the Adage hath it falsity in friendship and we may rest fatisfied that there is no disputing against fate They quote him for a person that loved to stand too much alone and on his own legs of too often recesses and discontinuance from the Queen's presence A fault which is incompatible with the ways of Court and favour He was sent Lord Deputy into Ireland as it was thought for a kind of haughtiness of spirit and repugnancy in Councels or as others have thought the fittest Person then to bridle the insolency of the Irish And probable it is that both these considering the sway that he would have at the Board and head in the Queen's favour concurred and did a little conspire his remove and his ruine But into Ireland he went where he did the Queen very great and many services if the surplussage of the measure did not abate the value of the merit as aftertimes found that to be no paradox For to save the Queen's purse which both her self and my Lord Treasurer Burleigh ever took for good services he imposed on the Irish the charge of bearing their own arms which both gave them the possession and taught them the use of weapons which proved in the end a most fatal work both in the profusion of blood and treasure But at his return and on some account sent home before touching the state of the Kingdom the assiduous testimonies of her grace were towards him till by his retreat to his Castle at Cary where he was then building and out of desire to be in command at home as he had been abroad together with the hatred and practice of Hatton then in high favour whom not long before he had too bitterly taunted for his Dancing He was accused of High Treason and for high Words and a forged Letter Condemned though the Queen on the News of his Condemnation Swore by her wonted Oath That they were all Knaves And they deliver with assurance That on his return to the Tower after his Trial he said in Oaths and in Fury to the Lieutenant Sir Owen Hopton What will the Queen suffer her Brother to be offered up as a Sacrifice to the Envy of my Frisking Adversaries Which being made known to the Queen and the Warrant for his Execution tendered and somewhat enforced she refused to Sign it and Swore he should not die for he was an honest a faithful Man And surely though not altogether to set up our rest and faith upon Tradition and upon old Reports as that Sir Thomas Perrot his Father was a Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber to Henry the Eighth and in the Court married a Lady of Great Honour of the King's Familiarity which are presumptions of some implication But if we go a little further and compare his Picture his Qualities Gesture and Voice with that of the King 's which memory retains yet amongst us they will plead strongly that he was a Subreptitious Child of the Blood Royal. Certain it is that he lived not long in the Tower and that after his decease Sir Thomas Perrot his Son then of no mean esteem with the Queen having before married my Lord of Essex's Sister since Countess of Northumberland had restitution of all his Lands though after his decease also which immediately followed the Crown resumed his Estate and took the advantage of the former Attainder And to say the truth the Priest's Forged Letter was at his Arraignment thought but a Fiction of Envy and was soon after exploded by the Priest's own confession But that which most exasperated the Queen and gave advantage to his Enemies was as Sir Walter Raleigh takes into his observation words of disdain For the Queen by sharp and reprehensive Letters had netled him and shortly after sending others of approbation commending his Service and intimating an Invasion from Spain which he no sooner perused but he said publickly in the Great Chamber at Dublin Lo now she is ready to Piss her self for fear of the Spaniard I am again one of her White-boys Words which are subject to a various construction and tended to some disreputation of his Soveraign and such as may serve for instruction to persons in place of honor and command to beware of the violences of nature but especially of the exorbitances of the tongue And so I conclude him with this double observation The one
he had very fine Attractions and being a good piece of a Schollar yet were they accompanied with the retractiveness of bashfulness and a natural Modesty which as the Tone of his House and the Ebbe of his Fortune then stood might have hindred his Progression had they not been re-inforced by the infusion of Soveraign Favour and the Queen 's Gracious Invitation And that it may appear how low he was and how much that Heretick Necessity will work in the dejection of good spirits I can deliver it with assurance that his exhibition was very scant until his Brother died which was shortly after his admission to the Court and then was was it no more than 1000 Marks per Annum wherewith he lived plentifully in a fine way and garb and without any great Sustentation during all her Times And as there was in his nature a kind of backwardness which did not befriend him nor suit with the motion of the Court so there was in him an inclinations to Armes and a humour of Travelling which had not some wise Men about him laboured to remove and the Queen her self laid in her commands he would out of his natural propension have marred his own market For as he was grown by reading whereunto he was much addicted to the Theory of a Souldier so was he strongly invited by his Genius to the acquaintance of the Practick of the War which were the causes of his excursions for he had a Company in the Low-Countries from whence he came over with a Noble acceptance of the Queen but somewhat restless in honourable thoughts he exposed himself again and again and would press the Queen with the pretences of visiting his Company so often that at length he had a flat denial and yet he stole over with Sir John Norris into the Action of Britain which was then a hot and active War whom he would always call his Father honouring him above all men and ever bewailing his end so contrary he was in his esteem and valuation of this great Commander to that of his Friend my Lord of Essex Till at last the Queen began to take his Decessions for Contempts and confined his residence to the Court and her own Presence And upon my Lord of Essex's fall so confident she was in her own Princely judgment and opinion she had conceived of his worth and conduct that she would have this Noble Gentleman and none other to finish and bring the Irish War to a propitious end For it was a prophetical Speech of her own That it would be his fortune and his honour to cut the thred of that fatal Rebellion and to bring her in peace to the Grave Where she was not deceived for he atchieved it but with much pains and carefulness and not without the fears and many jealousies of the Court and Times wherewith the Queen's age and the malignity of her setting times were replete And so I come to his dear Friend in Court Master Secretary Cecil whom in his long absence from Court he adored as his Saint and courted for his onely Maecenas both before and after his departure from Court and during all the time of his Command in Ireland well knowing that it lay in his power and by a word of his mouth to make or marr him Cecil SIR Robert Cecil since Earl of Salisbury was the Son of the Lord Burleigh and the Inheritor of his Wisdom and by degrees Successor of his Places and Favours though not of his Lands for he had Sir Thomas Cecil his Elder Brother since Created Earl of Exeter He was first Secretary of State then Master of the Wards and in the last of her Raign came to be Lord Treasurer all which were the steps of his Father's greatness and of the Honour he left to his House For his person he was not much beholding to Nature though somewhat for his Face which was the best part of his outside but for his inside it may be said and without soloecisme that he was his Father's own Son and a pregnant proficient in all Discipline of State He was a Courtier from his Cradle which might have made him betimes yet at the Age of Twenty and upwards he was much short of his after-proof but exposed and by change of Climate he soon made shew what he was and would be He lived in those times wherein the Queen had most need and use of Men of Weight and amongst able ones this was a Chief as having his sufficiency from his Instructions that Begat him the Tutorship of the Times and Court which were then the Academies of Art and Cunning for such was the Queen's condition from the Tenth or Twelfth of her Raign that she had the happiness to stand up whereof there is a former intimation though invironed with more Enemies and assaulted with more dangerous Practises than any Prince of her Times and of many Ages before Neither must we in this her Preservation attribute too much to Humane Policies for that God in his Omnipotent Providence had not onely ordained those Secondary Meanes as Instruments of the Work but by an Evident Manifestation that the same Work which she acted was a Well-pleasing Service of his own out of a peculiar care had decreed the Protection of the Work-Mistriss and thereunto added his abundant blessing upon all and whatsoever she undertook which is an observation of satisfaction to my self that she was in the right though to others now breathing under the same form and frame of her Government it may not seem an Animadversion of any worth but I leave them to the peril of their own folly And so again to this great Master of State and the Staff of the Queen's declining Age who though his little crooked Person could not promise any great supportation yet it carried thereon a Head and a Head-piece of a vast content and therein it seems Nature was so diligent to compleat one and the best part about him as that to the perfection of his Memory and Intellectuals she took care also of his Sences and to put him in Linceos Oculos or to pleasure him the more borrowed of Argus so to give unto him a prospective sight and for the rest of his sensitive vertues his Predecessor Walsingham had left him a Receit to smell out what was done in the Conclave and his good old Father was so well seen in the Mathermaticks as that he could tell you through all Spain every part every Ship with the Burthens whither bound with preparation what impediments for diversion of Enterprises Counsels and Resolutions And that we may see as in a little Map how docible this little man was I will present a taste of his Abilities My Lord of Devonshire upon the certainty the Spaniard would invade Ireland with a strong Army had written very earnestly to the Queen and the Council for such Supplies to be sent over that might enable him to march up to the Spaniard if he did Land and follow
Respiration she uttered this Verse of the Psalms A Domino factum est istud est mirabile in oculis nostris which we find to this day on the stamp of her gold with this on her silver Posui Deum adjutorem meum Her Ministers and Instruments of State such as were participes curarum and bore a great part of the burthen were Many and those Memorable but they were onely Favourites not Minions such as Acted more by her own Princely rules and judgments than by their own wills and appetites which she Observed to the last for we find no Gaveston Vere or Spencer to have swayed alone during forty four years which was a well settled and Advised Maxim for it valued her the more it Awed the most secure and it took best with the people and it starved all Emulations which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony even against the Prince where there is onely Amator Palatii The Principal note of her Reign will be that she ruled much by Faction and Parties which her self both made upheld and weakned as her own great judgment advised For I disassent from the common received opinion that my Lord of Leicester was Absolute and Above all in her Grace and though I come somewhat short of the knowledge of those times yet that I might not Rove and shoot at Random I know it from assured Intelligence that it was not so For proof whereof among many that I could present I will both relate a short and therein a known truth And it was thus Bowyer a Gentleman of the Black rod being charged by her Express Command to look Precisely to all Admissions into the Privy-Chamber one day stayed a very Gay Captain and a follower of my Lord of Leicester's from Entrance For that he was neither well known nor a Sworn Servant to the Queen at which Repulse the Gentleman bearing high on my Lord's favour told him he might perchance procure him a Discharge Leicester coming into the Contest said Publickly which was none of his wont that he was a Knave and should not continue long in his Office and so turning about to go in to the Queen Bowyer who was a bold Gentleman and well beloved stept before him and fell at her Majesties feet Related the story and humbly craves her Grace's Pleasure and whether my Lord of Leicester was King or her Majesty Queen Whereunto she replyed with her wonted Oath God's death my Lord I have wisht you well but my favour is not so lockt up for you that others shall not partake thereof for I have Many Servants unto whom I have and will at my Pleasure bequeath my Favour and likewise Resume the same and if you think to Rule here I will take a Course to see you forth Coming I will have here but one Mistress and no Master and look that no ill happen to Him lest it be severely Required at your hands Which so quelled my Lord of Leicester that his Feigned Humility was long after one of his best vertues Moreover the Earl of Sussex then Lord Chamberlain was his profest Antagonist to his dying day And for my Lord of Hunsdon and Sir Thomas Sackvile after Lord Treasurer who were all Contemporaties he was wont to say of them that they were of the Tribe of Dan and were Noli me tangere's Implying that they were not to be Contested with for they were indeed of the Queen 's near kindred From whence and in more instances I Conclude that she was Absolute and Soveraign Mistress of her Graces and that all those to whom she distributed her Favours were never more than Tenants at will and stood on no better ground than her Princely Pleasure and their own Good behaviour And this also I present as a known Observation that she was though very capable of Counsel absolute enough in her own Resolutions which was ever Apparent even to her last in that her Aversation to grant Tirone the least drop of her Mercy though Earnestly and Frequently Importuned by the whole Councel of State with very many Pressing Reasons and as the state of her Kingdom then stood I may speak it with Assurance Necessitated Arguments If we look into her Inclination as it is disposed either to Magnificence or Frugality we shall find in them many Notable Considerations for all her Dispensations were so poysed as though Discretion and Justice had both agreed to stand at the beam and see them weighed out in due Proportion the Maturity of her Years and Judgment meeting in a concurrency and at such an Age as seldom lapseth to Excess To consider them apart We have not many Precedents of her Liberality or of any large Donatives to particular men my Lord of Essex Book of Parks only Excepted which was a Princely gift and some few more of a lesser Size to my Lord of Leicester Hatton and others Her Rewards consisted chiefly in Grants of Leases of Offices Places of Judicature but for Ready Money and in any Great sums she was very sparing which we partly conceive was a Vertue rather drawn from Necessity than her Nature for she had many layings out and to her last Period And I am of opinion with S. Walter Raleigh that those many Brave Men of our Times and of the Militia Tasted little more of her Bounty than in her Grace and Good word with their due Entertainment for She ever paid the Souldiers well which was the Honour of her Times and more than her Great Adversary of Spain could Perform So that when we come to the consideration of her Frugality the observation will be little more than that her Bounty and it were so Inter-woven together that the one was suited by an honourable way of Spending the other limited by a Necessitated way of Sparing The Irish Action we may call a malady and a Consumption of her Times for it Accompanied her to her End and it was of so Profuse and vast an Expence that it drew near a distemperature of State and of Passion in her self For toward her last she grew Hard to Please her Arms being Accustomed to prosperity and the Irish prosecution not answering her Expectation and wonted success for a good while it was an Unthrifty and Inauspicious war which did much disturb and Mislead her judgment the more for that it was a Precedent which was taken out of her own pattern For as the Queen by way of diversion had at the coming to the Crown supported the revolted States of Holland so did the King of Spain turn the Trick on her self towards her going out by cherishing the Irish rebellion Where it falls into consideration what the State of the Kingdom and the Crown Revenues were then able to Embrace and Endure if we look into the Establishment of those times with the list of the Irish Army considering the defeatments of Blackwater with all precedent Expences as it stood from my Lord of Essex's undertaking to the surrender of Kingsale under the
new Farmers So that we may take this also into observation that there were of the Queen's Council that were not in the Catalogue of Saints Now as we have taken a view of some particular Notions of her Times her Nature and Necessities It is not beside the text to give a short Touch on the Helps and Advantages of her Reign which were without Parallel for she had neither Husband Brother Sister nor Children to Provide for who as they are Dependants of the Crown so doe they Necessarily draw maintenance from thence and do oftentimes Exhaust and Draw deep especially when there is an ample fraternity of the bloud Royal and of the Princes of the Bloud as it was in the time of Edward the third and Henry the fourth for when the Crown cannot the Publick ought to give them Honourable Allowance for they are the Honour and Hopes of the Kingdom and the Publick which enjoys them hath a like interest in them with the Father that begot them and our Common-Law which is the Inheritance of the Kingdom did ever of old provide aids for the Primogenitures and the eldest Daughter So that the multiplicy of Courts and the Great Charge which necessarily follow a King and Queen a Prince and the Royal Issue was a thing which was not in rerum natura during the space of forty years and which by time was worn out of memory and without the consideration of the present times Insomuch that the aids given to the late and right noble Prince Henry and to his Sister the Lady Elizabeth were at first generally received for impositions of a new Coynage Yea the late impositions for Knighthood though an ancient Law fell also into the imputation of a Tax of novelty for that it lay long covered in the embers of division between the Houses of York and Lancaster and forgotten or connived at by the succeeding Princes So that the strangeness of the observation and difference of those later reigns is that the Queen took up beyond the power of the Law which fell not into the murmur of the people and her successors nothing but by warrant of the Law which nevertheless was conceived through disuse to be Injurious to the Liberty of the Kingdom Now before I come to any further mention of her Favourites for hitherto I have delivered but some Obvious Passages thereby to prepare and smooth a way for the rest that follows it is requisite that I Touch on the Relicks of the other Reign I mean the Body of her Sisters Council of State which she Retained intire neither Removing nor Discontenting any although she knew them averse to her Religion and in her Sisters time Perverse towards her Person and privy to her Troubles and Imprisonment A prudence which was incomparible with her Sisters nature for she both dissipated and Persecuted the major part of her Brother's Council But this will be of certainty that how Compliable soever and Obsequious she found them yet for a good space she made little use of their Counsels more than in the Ordinary course of the Board for she held a Dormant Table in her own Princely Breast yet she kept them together and their Places without any sudden Change so that we may say of them That they were of the Court not of the Council For whilest she Amused them with a kind of Promissive Disputation concerning the Points Controverted by both Churches she did set down her own Reservations without their Privity and made all her Progressions Gradations But so that the Tenents of her secrecy with intent of her establishment were Pitcht before it was known where the Court would sit down Neither do I find that any of her Sisters Council of State were either Repugnant to her Religion or Opposed her doings Englefield Master of the Horse excepted who withdrew himself from the Board and shortly after from out her Dominions so Plyable and Obedient they were to Change with the Times and their Princes And of this there will fall in here a Relation both of Recreation and of known Truth Paulet Marquess of Winchester and Lord Treasurer having served then four Princes in as Various and Changeable seasons that I may well say time nor any age hath yielded the like precedent This Man being noted to grow High in her Favour as his Place and Experience required was questioned by an Intimate friend of his how he stood up for Thirty years together amidst the Changes and Reigns of so many Chancellors and Great Personages Why quoth the Marquess Ortus sum ex salice non ex quercu I was made of the plyable Willow not of the stubborn Oak And truly the Old Man hath Taught them all especially William Earl of Pembroke for they two were ever of the King's Religion and over-zealous professors Of these it is said that being both younger Brothers yet of Noble Houses they spent what was left them and came on trust to the Court where upon the bare stock of their Wits they began to Traffick for themselves and prospered so well that they Got Spent and Left more than any Subjects from the Norman Conquest to their own Times whereunto it hath been prettily replyed that they lived in a Time of Dissolution To conclude then of any of the former reign it is said that these two lived and dyed chiefly in her favour The latter upon his son's marriage with the Lady Katharine Grey was like utterly to have lost himself But at the Instant of the consummation Apprehending the insafety and danger of an inter-marriage with the Bloud-Royal he fell at the Queen's feet where he both Acknowledged his Presumption with tears and projected the Cause and the Divorce together and so quick he was at his work for it stood him upon that upon Repudiation of the Lady he clapt up a marriage for his Son the Lord Herbert with Mary Sidney daughter to Sir Henry Sidney then Lord Deputy of Ireland the blow falling on Edward late Earl of Hereford who to his cost took up the Divorced Lady of whom the Lord Beauchamp was born and William Earl of Hereford is descended I come now to present Those of her own Election which she either admitted to her secrets of State or took into her Grace and Favour of whom in their order I crave leave to give unto posterity a cautious description with a short Character or Draught of the persons themselves For without offence to others I would be true to my self their memories and merits distinguishing them of the Militia from the Togati and of these she had as many and those as able Ministers as any of her Progenitors Leicester IT will be out of doubt that my Lord of Leicester was one of the first whom she made Master of the Horse he was the youngest Son then living of the Duke of Northumberland beheaded primo Mariae and his Father was that Dudley which our Histories couple with Epson and both so much Infamed for the Caterpillars of
honoured through many Descents by the Title of Viscounts Fitzwalters Moreover there was such an Antipathy in his nature to that of Leicester's that being together in Court and Both in high Imployments they grew to a direct Frowardness and were in continual Opposition the one setting the Watch the other the Sentinel Each on the Others Actions and Motions for my Lord of Sussex was of a great spirit which Backt with the queen's special favour and Supported by a Great and Ancient Inheritance could not brook the others Empire Insomuch as the Queen upon sundry occasions had somewhat to do to Appease them until death parted the competition and left the place to Leicester who was not long alone without his Rival in Grace and Command And to conclude this Favourite it is Confidently Affirmed that lying in his last sickness he gave this Caveat to his Friends I am now passing into another World and I must now leave you to your Fortunes and to the Queen's Grace and Goodness but beware of the Gipsie meaning Leicester for he will be too Hard for you all you know not the Beast so well as I do Lord Burleigh I Now come to the next which was Secretary William Cecil For on the death of the old Marquess of Winchester he came up in his room A Person of a most Subtile and Active spirit who though he stood not altogether by the way of Constellation and making up of a Party and Faction for he was wholly attentive to the service of his Mistriss and his Dexterity Experience and Merit Challenged a room in the Queen's favour which Eclipsed the others over-seeming Greatness and made it appear that there were others that Steered and Stood at the Helm besides Himself and more Stars in the Firmament of her Grace than Vrsa major or the Bear with the Ragged Staff He was born as they say in Lincolnshire but as some upon knowledge Averr of a younger Brother of the Cecils of Hartfordshire a Family of mine own knowledge though now private yet of no mean Antiquity Who being exposed and sent to the City as poor Gentlemen use to do their younger Sons he came to be a Rich man on London bridge and purchasing in Lincolnshire where this man was born he was sent to Cambridge then to the Inns of Court and so he came to serve the Duke of Somerset in the time of his Protectorship as Secretary and having a Pregnancy to Great Inclinations he came by degrees to a higher Conversation with the Chiefest Affairs of State and Councels but on the fall of the Duke he stood some years in umbrage and without Imployment till the State found and needed his Abilities and though we find not that he was taken into any place during Mary's Reign unless as some have said towards the last yet the Council on several occasions made use of him and at the Queen's entrance he was Admitted Secretary of State afterwards he was made Master of the Court of Wards then Lord Treasurer A person of most exquisite Abilities And indeed the Queen began then to need and to seek out for Men of both Garbs and so I conclude and rank this great Instrument of State amongst the Togati for he had not to do with the Sword more than as the great Pay-master and Contriver of War which shortly followed wherein he Accomplished much through his Theorical knowledge at home and Intelligence abroad by unlocking the Councels of the Queens Enemies We must now take and that of truth into observation That until the 10th of her Reign her Times were Calm and Serene though sometimes a little over-cast as the most Glorious Sun-risings are subject to shadowings and droppings For the Clouds of Spain and Vapours of the Holy League began then to Disperse and Threaten her Serenity Moreover she was then to provide against some Intestine Storms which began to gather in the very heart of her Kingdom all which had a Relation and Correspondency each with other to Dethrone her and to Disturb the publick Tranquility and therewithal as a principal work the Established Religion for the name of Recusant began then and first to be known to the World and till then the Catholicks were no more than Church-Papists but were commanded by the Pope's Express Letters to Appear and Forbear Church-going as they tender their Holy Father and the Holy Catholick Church their Mother so that it seems the Pope had then his Times to take a true Muster of his Children but the Queen had the greater Advantage for she likewise took Tale of her Apostate Subjects their Strength and how many they were that had given up their Names unto Baal He then by the Hands of some of his Proselytes fixed his Bulls on the Gates of Paul's which Discharged her Subjects of all fidelity and laid siege to the received Faith and so under the veil of the next Successor to Replant the Catholick Religion so that the Queen had then a new Task and Work in hand that might well awake her best Providence and required a Mester of Men and Arms as well as Courtships and Councels for the Times began to be Quick and Active and fitter for stronger Motions than those of the Carpet and it will be a true note of her Magnanimity that she loved a Souldier and had a Propension in her nature to Regard and always to Grace them which the Courtiers taking into observation took it as an invitation to win Honour together with her Majesties Favour by exposing themselves to the Wars especially when the Queens and the Affairs of the Kingdom stood in some Necessity of a Souldier For we have many instances of the Sallies of the Nobility and Gentry yea and out of the Court and her Privy Favourites that had any touch or tincture of Mars in their inclinations and to steal away without License and the Queen's privity which had like to have cost some of them dear so predominant were their Thoughts and Hopes of Honour growing in them as we may truly observe in the dispositions of Sir Philip Sidney my Lord of Essex Mountjoy and divers others whose Absence and the Manner of their Eruptions was very Distastful to her whereof I can here add a True and no Impertinent Story and that of the last Mountjoy who having twice or thrice stoln away into Britain where under Sir John Norris he had then a Company without the Queen's leave and privity she sent a Messenger unto him with a strict charge to the General to see him sent home when he came into the Queen's Presence she fell into a kind of Reviling Demanding how he durst go over without her leave Serve me so quoth she once more and I will lay you Fast enough for Running You will never leave it until you are knockt on the head as that inconsiderate Fellow Sidney was You shall Go when I send you in the mean Time see that you lodge in the Court which was then at White-Hall
my Lord of Leicester and Burleigh out of France containing many fine passages and secrets yet if I might have been beholding to his Cyphers whereof they are full they would have told Pretty Tales of the times But I must now close up and rank him amongst the Togati yet chief of those that laid the foundation of the Dutch and French Wars which was another piece of his fineness and of the times with one observation more That he was one of the Great Allies of the Austrian Embracements For both himself and Stafford that preceded him might well have been compared to the Fiend in the Gospel that sowed his tares in the night so did they their seeds of division in the dark And it is a likely report that they father on him at his return That he said unto the Queen with some sensibility of the Spanish designs on France Madam 〈◊〉 beseech you be content not to fear The Spaniard hath a great Appetite and an Excellent Digestion but I have fitted him with a bone for this Twenty years that your Majesty shall have no cause to doubt him provided that if the fire chance to slack which I have kindled you will be ruled by me and now and then cast in some English fewel which will revive the flame Willoughby MY Lord Willoughby was one of the Queen's first Sword-men He was of the Ancient Extract of the Bartues but more ennobled by his Mother who was Dutchess of Suffolk He was a great Master of the Art Military and was sent General into France and commanded the Second of Five Armies that the Queen sent thither in aid of the French I have heard it spoken that had he not slighted the Court but Applyed himself to the Queen he might have enjoyed a plentiful portion of her Grace And it was his saying and it did him no good That he was none of the Reptilia intimating that he could not creep on the ground and that the Court was not in his Element for indeed as he was a Great Souldier so was he of a Suitable Magnanimity and could not brook the Obsequiousness and Assiduity of the Court and as he then was somewhat descending from youth happily he had an animam revertendi and to make a safe Retreat Sir Nicholas Bacon I Come to another of the Togati Sir Nicholas Bacon An arch-piece of Wit and Wisdom He was a Gentleman and a man of Law and of great knowledge therein whereby together with his other parts of Learning and Dexterity he was promoted to be Keeper of the Great Seal and being of kin to the Treasurer Burleigh had also the help of his hand to bring him into the Queen's favour for he was abundantly factious which took much with the Queen when it was suited with the season as he was well able to judge of his times He had a very quaint saying and he used it often to good purpose That he loved the jest well but not the loss of his Friend He would say That though he knew Vnusquisque suae fortunae faber was a true and good principle yet the most in number were those that marred themselves But I will never forgive that man that loseth himself to be rid of his jest He was Father to that Refined Wit which since hath acted a disastrous part on the publick stage and of late sat in his Father's room as Lord Chancellour Those that lived in his age and from whence I have taken this little Model of him gives him a lively Character and they decypher him for another Solon and the Synon of those times such a one as Oedipus was in dissolving of Riddles Doubtless he was as able an Instrument and it was his commendation that his head was the Mawl for it was a great one and therein he kept the Wedge that entred the knotty pieces that came to the Table And now I must again fall back to smooth and plain a way to the rest that is behind but not from the purpose There were about these times two Rivals in the Queen's favour Old Sir Francis Knowls Comptroller of the House and Sir Henry Norris whom she called up at a Parliament to sit with the Peers in the higher House as Lord Norris of Ricot who had married the daughter and heir of the old Lord Williams of Tame a Noble person and to whom in the Queen's adversity she had been committed to safe custody and from him had received more than ordinary observances Now such was the goodness of the Queen's Nature that she neither forgot good turns received from the Lord Williams neither was she unmindfull of this Lord Norris whose Father in her Father's time and in the business of her Mother died in a Noble cause and in the justification of her innocency Lord Norris MY Lord Norris had by this Lady an ample Issue which the Queen highly respected for he had Six Sons and all Martial brave men The first was William his eldest and Father to the late Earl of Berkshire Sir John vulgarly called General Norris Sir Edward Sir Thomas Sir Henry and Maximilian Men of an haughty courage and of great experience in the conduct of Military affairs And to speak in the Character of their merit they were persons of such renown and worth as future times must out of duty owe them the debt of an honourable memory Knowls SIr Francis Knowls was somewhat of the Queen's affinity and had likwise no incompetent Issue for he had also William his eldest and since Earl of Banbury Sir Thomas Sir Robert and Sir Francis if I be not a little mistaken in their names and martialling and there was also the Lady Lettice a Sister of these who was first Countess of Essex and after of Leicester And these were also brave men in their times and places but they were of the Court and Carpet not led by the genius of the Camp Between these two Families there was as it falleth out amongst Great ones and Competitors for favour no great correspondency and there were some seeds either of emulation or distrust cast between them which had they not been disjoyned in the residence of their persons as it was the fortune of their imployments the one side attending the Court the other the Pavilion surely they would have broken out into some kind of hostility or at least they would have wrestled one in the other like Trees incircled with Ivy For there was a time when both these Fraternities being met at Court there passed a challenge between them at certain exercises the Queen and the old men being spectators which ended in a flat quarrel amongst them all And I am perswaded though I ought not to judge that there were some reliques of this feud that were long after the causes of the one Families almost utter extirpation and of the others improsperity For it was a known truth that so long as my Lord of Leicester lived who was the main pillar of the one side as
of the innocency of his intentions exempt and clear from the guilt of treason and disloyalty The other of the greatness of his heart For at his arraignment he was so little dejected by what might be alledged and proved against him that he rather grew troubled with choler and in a kind of exasperation despised his Jury though of the Order of Knighthood and of the special Gentry claiming the privilege of trial by the Peers and Baronage of the Realm so prevalent was that of his native Genius and the hautiness of his spirit which accompanied him to his last and till without any diminution of courage it brake in pieces the cords of his magnanimity for he died suddenly in the Tower and when it was thought the Queen did intend his enlargment with the restitution of his possessions which were then very great and comparable to most of the Nobility Hatton SIR Christopher Hatton came into the Court as his opposite Sir John Perrot was wont to say by the Galliard for he came thither as a private Gentleman of the Inns of Court in a Mask and for his activity and Person which was tall and proportionable taken into Favour he was first made Vice-Chamberlain and shortly afterward advanced to the place of Lord Chancellor a Gentleman that besides the graces of his Person and Dancing had also the adjectaments of a strong and subtil capacity one that could soon learn the discipline and garb both of the times and Court the truth is he had a large proportion of gifts and endowments but too much of the season of Envy and he was a meer vegetable of the Court that sprung up at night and sunk again at his noon Lord Effingham MY Lord of Effingham though a Courtier betimes yet I find not that the Sun-shine of her Favour broke out upon him until she took him into the Ship and made him High-Admiral of England For his extract it may suffice that he was the Son of a Howard and of a Duke of Norfolk And as for his Person as goodly a Gentleman as the Times had any if Nature had not been more intentive to compleat his Person than Fortune to make him rich For the times considered which were then active and a long time after lucrative he died not wealthy yet the honester man though it seems the Queen's purpose was to tender the occasion of his advancement and to make him capable of more Honour which at his return from Cardize-Accounts she conferred on him creating him Earl of Nottingham to the great discontent of his Colleague my Lord of Essex who then grew excessive in the appetite of her favour and in truth was so exorbitant in the limitation of the Soveraign aspect that it much alienated the Queen's grace from him and drew others together with the Admiral to a combination and to conspire his ruine And though I have heard it from that party I mean of the Admirals faction that it lay not in his proper power to hurt my Lord of Essex yet he had more Followers and such as were well skilled in setting of the Gyn. But I leave this to those of another Age. It is out of doubt that the Admiral was a good honest and a brave Man and a faithful servant to his Mistriss and such a one as the Queen out of her own Princely Judgment knew to be a fit Instrument for that service for she was no ill Proficient in the Reading of Men as well as Books and his sundry expeditions as that aforementioned and 88. doth both express his worth and manifest the Queen's Trust and the opinion she had of his Fidelity and Conduct Moreover the Howards were of the Queen's Alliance and Consanguinity by her Mother which swayed her Affection and bent it toward this Great House and it was a part of her Natural Propension to Grace and Support Ancient Nobility where it did not intrench neither invade her Interest for on such trespasses she was quick and tender and would not spare any whatsoever as we may observe in the case of the Duke and my Lord of Hereford whom she much favoured and countenanced till they attempted the Forbidden Fruit The fault of the last being in the severest interpretation but a trespass of incroachment But in the first it was taken for a Riot against the Crown and her own Soveraign power and as I have ever thought the cause of her aversion against the rest of the House and the Duke 's great Father-in-law Fitz Allen Earl of Arundel a person of the first rank in her affections before these and some other jealousies made a separation between them this Noble Lord and the Lord Thomas Howard since Earl of Suffolk standing alone in her Grace the rest in Umbrage Sir John Packington SIr John Packington was a Gentleman of no mean family and of form and feature no way despisable for he was a brave Gentleman and a very fine Courtier and for the time he stayed there which was not lasting very high in her grace but he came in and went out and through disassiduity drew the Curtain between himself and the light of her grace and then death overwhelmed the remnant and utterly deprived him of recovery And they say of him that had he brought less to the Court than he did he might have carried away more than he brought for he had a time on it but an ill husband of opportunity Lord Hunsdon MY Lord of Hunsdon was of the Queen's nearest Kindred and on the decease of Sussex both he and his Son took the place of Lord Chamberlain he was a fast Man to his Prince and firm to his Friends and Servants and though he might speak big and therein would be born out yet was he not the more dreadful but less harmful and far from the practice of my Lord of Leicester's Instructions for he was downright and I have heard those that both knew him well and had interest in him say merrily of him that his Latin and his Dissimulation were both alike and that his custom of Swearing and obscenity in Speaking made him seem a worse Christian than he was and a better Knight of the Carpet than he should be As he lived in a ruffling time so he loved Sword and Buckler Men and such as our Fathers were wont to call Men of their hands of which sort he had many brave Gentlemen that followed him yet not taken for a popular and dangerous Person And this is one that stood amongst the Togati of an honest stout heart and such a one as upon occasion would have fought for his Prince and his Country for he had the charge of the Queen's Person both in the Court and the Camp at Tilbury Raleigh SIR Walter Raleigh was one that it seems Fortune had pickt out of purpose of whom to make an Example or to use as her Tennis-Ball thereby to shew what she could doe for she tost him up of nothing and too and fro to Greatness
and from thence down to little more than to that wherein she found him a bare Gentleman Not that he was less for he was well-descended and of good alliance but poor in his beginnings and for my Lord of Oxford's Jest of him the Jack and an Upstart we all know it savours more of Emulation and his Humour than of Truth and it is a certain Note of the Times that the Queen in her Choice never took into her Favour a meer New Man or a Mechanick as Comines observes of Lewis the Eleventh of France who did serve himself with Persons of unknown Parents such as was Oliver the Barber whom he created Earl of Dunoyes and made him ex secretis consiliis and alone in his favour and familiarity His approaches to the University and Inns of Court were the grounds of his improvement but they were rather excursions than sieges or settings down for he stayed not long in a place and being the youngest Brother and the House diminished in Patrimony he foresaw his own destiny that he was first to rowl through want and disability to subsist otherways before he could come to a repose and as the Stone doth by long lying gather Moss He first exposed himself to the Land service of Ireland a Militia which then did not yield him food and rayment for it was ever very poor nor had he patience to stay there though shortly after he came thither again under the Command of my Lord Gray but with his own Colours flying in the field having in the interim cast a new chance both in the Low-Countries and in a Voyage to Sea and if ever Man drew Vertue out of Necessity it was he therewith was he the great example of Industry and though he might then have taken that of the Merchant to himself Per mare per terras currit mercator ad Indos He might also have said and truly with the Philosopher Omnia mea mecum porte for it was a long time before he could brag of more than he carried at his back and when he got on the winning side it was his commendations that he took pains for it and underwent many various adventures for his after-perfection and before he came into the publick note of the World And that it may appear how he came up Per ardua Per variot causus per tot discrimina rerum not pulled up by chance or by any gentle admittance of Fortune I will briefly describe his native parts and those of his own acquiring which was the hopes of his rising He had in the outward man a good presence in a handsome and well compacted person a strong natural wit and a better judgment with a bold and plausible tongue whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage and to these he had the adjuncts of some generall Learning which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and perfection for he was an indefatigable Reader whether by Sea or Land and none of the least observers both of men and the times and I am confident that among the second causes of his growth that variance between him and my Lord Grey in his descent into Ireland was a principal for it drew them both over the Council Table there to plead â—heir cause where what advantage he had in the cause I know not but he had much better in the telling of his tale and so much that the Queen and the Lord 's took no slight mark of the man and his parts for from thence he came to be known and to have access to the Queen and the Lords and then we are not to doubt how such a man would comply and learn the way of progression And whether Leicester had then cast in a good word for him to the Queen which would have done no harm I do not determine But true it is He had gotten the Queen's ear at a trice and she began to be taken with his elocution and loved to hear his reasons to her demands and the truth is she took him for a kind of Oracle which netled them all yea those that he relied on began to take his sudden favour for an Alarm and to be sensible of their own supplantation and to project his which made him shortly after sing Fortune my foe c. So that finding his favour declining and falling into a recess he undertook a new peregrination to leave that Terra infirma of the Court for that of the Wars and by declining himself and by absence to expel his and the passion of his enemies which in Court was a strange device of ecovery but that he knew there was some ill office done him that he durst not attempt to mind any other ways than by going aside thereby to teach envy a new way of forgetfulness and not so much as to think of him howsoever he had it always in mind never to forget himself and his device took so well that at his return he came in as Rams do by going backward with the greater strength and so continued to her last great in her grace and Captain of the Guard where I must leave him but with this observation That though he gained much at the Court yet he took it not out of the Exchequer or meerly out of the Queen's purse but by his wit and the help of the Prerogative for the Queen was never profuse in the delivering out of her treasure but payed many and most of her servants part in money and the rest with grace which as the case stood was taken for good payment leaving the Arrear of recompence due to their merit to her great Successor who payed them all with advantage Grevil SIR Foulk Grevil since Lord Brook had no mean place in her favour neither did he hold it for any short term for if I be not deceived he had the longest lease and the smoothest time without rub of any of her Favourites He came to the Court in his youth and prime for that is the time or never He was a brave Gentleman and honourably descended from William Lord Brook and Admiral to Henry the seventh Neither illiterate for he was as he would often profess a friend to Sir Philip Sidney and there are of his now extant some fragments of his Poem and of those times which do interest him in the Muses and which shews the Queen's election had ever a noble conduct and its motions more of verture and judgment than of fancy I find that he neither sought for or obtained any great place or preferment in Court during all the time of his attendance neither did he need it for he came thither backt with a plentiful Fortune which as himself was wont to say was the better held together by a single life wherein he lived and dyed a constant Courtier of the Ladies Essex MY Lord of Essex as Sir Henry Wotton a Gentleman of great parts and parly of his time and retinue observes had is introduction by
my Lord of Leicester who had married his Mother a tie of affinity which besides a more urgent obligation might have invited his care to advance him his Fortune being then and through his Fathers infelicity grown low But that the son of a Lord Ferrers of Chartley Viscount Hartford and Earl of Essex who was of the ancient Nobility and formerly in the Queen 's good grace could not have room in her favour without the assistance of Leicester was beyond the rule of her nature which as I have elsewhere taken into observation was ever inclinable to favour the Nobility Sure it is That he no sooner appeared in Court but he took with the Queen and Courtiers and I believe they all could not choose but look through the Sacrifice of the Father on his living Son whose image by the remembrance of former passages was afresh like the bleeding of men murdered represented to the Court and offered up as a subject of compassion to all the Kingdom There was in this young Lord together with a most goodly Person a kind of urbanity or innate courtesie which both won the Queen and too much took upon the people to gaze upon the new adopted Son of her favour And as I go along it were not amiss to take into observation two notable quotations The first was a violent indulgency of the Queen which is incident to old age where it encounters with a pleasing and suitable object towards this Lord all which argued a non-perpetuity The second was a fault in the Object of her grace my Lord himself who drew in too fast like a child sucking an over uberous Nurse and had there been a more decent decorum observed in both or either of those without doubt the unity of their affections had been more permanent and not so in and out as they were like an Instrument ill tuned and lapsing to discord The greater errour of the two though unwillingly I am constrained to impose on my Lord of Essex or rather on his youth and none of the least of his blame on those that stood Sentinels about him who might have advised him better but that like men intoxicated with hopes they likewise had suckt in with the most and of their Lords receipt and so like Caesar's would have all or none A rule quite contrary to nature and the most indulgent Parents who though they may express more affection to one in the abundance of bequests yet cannot forget some Legacies just distributives and divideâ—ds to others of their begetting And how hateful partiality proves every days experience tells us out of which common consideration might have framed to their hands a maxim of more discretion for the conduct and management of their now graced Lord and Master But to omit that of Infusion and to doe right to truth My Lord of Essex even of those that truly loved and honoured him was noted for too bold an Ingrosser both of fame and favour And of this without offence to the living or treading on the Sacred Urne of the Dead I shall present a Truth and a passage yet in memory My Lord Mounjoy who was another Child of her favour being newly come to Court and then but Sir Charles Blunt for my Lord William his elder brother was then living had the good fortune one day to run very well a Tilt and the Queen therewith was so well pleased that she sent him in Token of her Favour a Queen at Chesse of Gold Richly Enamelled which his Servants had the next day fastned on his Arme with a Crimson Ribband which my Lord of Essex as he passed through the Privy Chamber espying with his Cloak cast under his Arme the better to commend it to the view enquired what it was and for what cause there fixed Sir Foulk Grevil told him That it was the Queen's Favour which the day before and after the Tilting she had sent him whereat my Lord of Essex in a kind of Emulation and as though he would have limitted her Favour said Now I perceive every Fool must have a Favour This bitter and Publick Affront came to Sir Charles Blunt's eare who sent him a Challenge which was accepted by my Lord and they met near Mary-bone-Park where my Lord was hurt in the Thigh and Disarmed the Queen missing the Men was very curious to learn the truth and when at last it was whispered out she Swore by God's Death it was fit that some one or other should take him down and teach him better Manners otherwise there would be no rule with him And here I note the inition of my Lord's Friendship with Mountjoy which the Queen her self did conjure Now for fame we need not goe far for my Lord of Essex having born a grudge to General Norris who had unwittingly offered to unpertake the Action of Britain with fewer men than my Lord had before demaned on his return with Victory and a glorious report of his valour he was then thought the onely man for the Irish War wherein my Lord of Essex so wrought by despising the number and quality of Rebels that Norris was sent over with a scanted force joyned with the relicks of the veterance Troops of Britain of set purpose as it fell out to ruine Norris and the Lord Burrowes by my Lord's procurement sent at his heels and to command in chief and to confine Norris only to his Goverment at Munster which brake the great heart of the General to see himself undervalued and underminded by my Lord and Burrowes which was as the Proverb speaks it Imberbes docere senes My Lord Burrowes in the beginning of his prosecution died whereupon the Queen was fully bent to have sent over Mountjoy which my Lord of Essex utterly disliked and opposed with many reasons and by arguments of contempt against Mountjoy his then professed friend and familiar so predominant were his words to reap the honour of closing up that War and all other Now the way being opened and plained by his own workmanship and so handled that none durst appear to stand for the place at last with much adoe he obtained his own ends and with all his fatal destruction leaving the Queen and the Court where he stood firm and impregnable in her grace to men that long had sought and watcht their times to give him the trip and could never find any opportunity but this of his absence and of his own Creation And these are the true observations of his appetite and inclinations which were not of any true proportion but carried and transported with an over-desire and thirstiness after fame and that deceitfull fame of popularity And to help on his Catastrophe I observe likewise two sorts of people that had a hand in his fall the first was the Souldiery which all flockt unto him as foretelling a mortality and are commonly of blunt and too rough Counsels and many times dissonant from the time of the Court and the State The other sort were of his
family his servants and his own creatures such as were bound by the rules of safety and obligations of fidelity to have looked better to the steering of that Boat wherein they themselves were carried and not have suffered it to float and run on ground with those empty Sails of Fame and Tumour of popular applause Me thinks one honest man or other that had but the office of brushing his clothes might have whispered in his ear My Lord look to it this multitude that follows you will either devour you or undoe you strive not to rule and over rule all for it will cost hot water and it will procure envy and if needs your Genius must have it so let the Court and the Queens presence be your station But as I have said they had suckt too much of their Lord's milk and instead of withdrawing they blew the coals of his ambition and infused into him too much of the spirit of glory yea and mixed the goodness of his nature with a touch of revenge which is ever accompanied with a destiny of the same fate And of this number there were some insufferable Natures about him that towards his last gave desperate advice such as his integrity abhorred and his fidelity forbade Amongst whom Sir Henry Wotton notes without injury his Secretary Cuffe a vile man and of a perverse nature I could also name others that when he was in the right course of recovery and setling to moderation would not suffer a recess in him but stirred up the dregs of those rude humours which by time and his affliction out of his own judgment he sought to repose or to give them all a vomit And thus I conclude this Noble Lord as a mixture between prosperity and adversity once the Child of his great Mistresses favour but the Son of Bellona Buckhurst MY Lord of Buckhurst was of the Noble House of the Sackvils and of the Queens consanguinity his Father was Sir Richard Sackvil or as the people then called him Fill sack by reason of his gaeat wealth and the vast patrimony which he left to his Son whereof he spent in his youth the best part untill the Queen by her frequent admonitions diverted the torrent of his profusion He was a very fine Gentleman of person and endowments both of art and nature but without measure magnificent till on the turn of his humour and the allay that his years and good counsels had wrought upon those immoderate courses of his youth and that height of spirit inherent to his House And then did the Queen as a most judicious and indulgent Prince when she saw the man grow stayed and setled give him her assistance and advanced him to the Treasurship where he made amends to his House for his mis-spent time both in the increasement of Estate and Honour which the Queen conferred on him together with the opportunity to remake himself and thereby to shew that this was a Child that should have a share in her grace and a taste of her bounty They much commend his Elocution but more the excellency of his Pen for he was a Schollar and a person of a quick dispatch Faculties that yet run in the bloud And they say of him that his Secretaries did little for him by the way of Inditement wherein they could seldom please him he was so facete and choice in his Phrase and Stile And for his Dispatches and the content he gave to Suiters he had a Decorum seldom since put in practise for he had of his Attendants that took into Roll the names of all Suiters which the Date of their first Addresses and these in their Order had hearing so that a fresh man could not leap over his head that was of a more ancient edition except in the urgent affairs of State I find not that he was any ways inshared in the factions of the Court which were all his times strong and in every mans note The Howards and the Cecils on the one part My Lord of Essex c. on the other part For he held the staff of the Treasury fast in his hand which once in the year made them all beholding to him And the truth is as he was a wise man and a stout he had no reason to be a partaker for he stood sure in bloud and in grace and was wholly intentive to the Queens service and such were his abilities that she received assiduous proofs of his sufficiency and it hath been thought that she might have had more cunning instruments but none of a more strong judgment and confidence in his ways which are symptoms of magnanimity and fidelity whereunto me thinks this Motto hath some kind of reference Aut nunquam tentes aut perfice As though he would have charactered in a word the Genius of his House or exprest somewhat of an higher inclination than lay within his compass That he was a Courtier is apparent for he stood always in her eye and favour Lord Mountjoy MY Lord Mountjoy was of the ancient Nobility but utterly deceived in the support thereof Patrimony through his Grandfather's excess in the Action of Bullen his Father's vanity in the search of the Philosophers stone and his Brother 's untimely prodigalities all which seemed by a joynt conspiracy to ruine the House and altogether to annihilate it As he came from Oxford he took the Inner-Temple in his way to Court whither he no sooner came but without asking he had a pretty strange kind of admission which I have heard from a discreet man of his own and much more of the secrets of those times He was then much about twenty years of age of a brown hair a sweet face a most neat Composure and tall in his person The Queen was then at White-Hall and at dinner whither he came to see the fashion of the Court the Queen had soon found him out and with a kind of an affected frown asked the Lady-Carver What he was she answered She knew him not Insomuch as enquiry was made from one to another who he might be till at length it was told the Queen he was Brother to the Lord William Mountjoy This inquisition with the eye of Majesty fixed upon him as she was wont to doe and to daunt men she knew not stirred the bloud of this young Gentleman insomuch as his colour came and went which the Queen observing called him unto her and gave him her hand to kiss encouraging him with gravious words and new looks and so diverting her speech to the Lords and Ladies she said That she no sooner observed him but that she knew there was in him some Noble bloud with some other expressions of pitty towards his house And then again demanding his name she said Fail you not to come to the Court and I will bethink my self how to doe you good And this was his inlet and the beginnings of his grace Where it falls into consideration That though he wanted not Wit and Courage for