them The End of the first Part. THE English Princess OR THE Dutchess QUEEN The Second PART THE DUKE of Longueville with some other French being at London Prisoner at large under no other Confinement but his word lived at Court in Princely Magnificence and having occasion daily to see the beautiful Princess Mary though his arm which he carried in a scarf since his hurt still pained him had nevertheless but too many easie minutes to consider all the charms of her Beauty For nine or ten Months time he had endeavoured by all probable arguments to resist the vanity of such thoughts the Quality of Daughter and Sister to a King promised already in marriage to the heir of the Crown of Spain and the open War betwixt France and England allowed him no great hopes But he became at length passionately in love by frequent representing to himself the reasons that should have hindered it He thought it no error to take pleasure in beholding the fairest Princess in the world He looked upon the frequent occasions that he sought of entertaining her to be but the amusement of a Prisoner and thinking to secure his heart from love by the many impossibilities of enjoyment he fancied there was no great danger in desiring to please her In the mean time it befel him as he would have foretold to any other in the like disposition He came even to forget that he was a Prisoner and as love delights in mystery and intrigues entering into confidence with Mary of England he gave her a full discovery of the secret of his King and Masters Court The aversion that the late Queen of France had against the Duke of Valois and the fear that she was in lest the Dutchy of Bretannie should be for ever united to the Crown of France afforded him ample subjects of discourse He told her all the attempts which that implacable Queen had made to hinder that Union from taking effect by the marriage of her eldest Daughter to a Prince whom she could not endure She added that though the matter was accomplished yet the Duke of Valois seemed not much satisfied therewith and that having no Children by Madam and most people doubting whether ever he should have any he was already perhaps projecting to do with her as the King his Father-in-law had done with Jane of France so that the Daughter was very like to undergo the same fortune and usage which her Mothers beauty had occasioned to the Sister of CHARLES the Eight that the King was very infirm and gave no hopes of long life and by the instance of the Princess her self to whom he was speaking who had been ineffectually engaged to the heir of Spain making no account of the Marriage of Claudia of France with the presumptive heir of LOWIS the Twelfth he easily concluded that if she would accept of his service in that negotiation without any long expectation she might see it successfully brought to a period And thereupon giving way to his own thoughts he cryed That his greatest happiness would be to see her Queen of France and though to say the truth his intentions were neither the most sincere nor discreet that might be imagined yet it was not so easie for the young Princess to penetrate into the folly of them What vivacity and briskness so ever she had mischief and disorder were far from her thoughts Her tender and passionate air was sometimes injurious to her virtue and as she was every way obliging so it was most commonly imagined by all that had the honour to see her that the Conquest of her was not very difficult In this then the Duke of Longueville as well as many others found himself deceived who in stead of a lawful hope feeding his love with the vain expectations which his desires and appearances shaped for him by making Mary of England Queen of France he entertained hardly any thought for her which he expressed not under so fair a pretext Though the Princess was not affected by his Discourses in the manner that he could have wished she was nevertheless well-pleased to hear them His truely French humour and gallantry had so great a resemblance to her own that she still entertained the Duke of Suffolk with all that he said to her and he who had received no disquiet from his former Rivals was but at first slightly moved with this last He imputed this new correspondence to the natural freedom of the Princess and did not condemn her jollity But jealousie that began to work in him began likewise to shake his confidence and the disquiet of mind by little and little following the emotions of his heart he took the allarm at last and grew so jealous that he became uneasie to himself The care and means that the Princess essayed to reassure and compose him wrought no great effects and his grief encreased so much that he having refused all the gentle remedies which with greatest sincerity she offered to him she resolved without speaking a word at length to employ the strongest For that end she denied the Duke of Longueville any more access to her and because he continued obstinate to the contrary she was about to have spoken to the King that he might send him back into France upon his word or confine him to some of his houses in the Countrey The noise of that would have been great without doubt and the King who could not prevail on the mind of Suffolk by other means would not have spared that way of curing him had she but in the least proposed it The repose of that favorite was now become as dear to the King as his own and if the Princess had not been promised to the young Arch-Duke by a solemn treaty the breach whereof had not as yet been approved by the two Houses of Parliament it is certain that he would have bestowed her on him upon his return from France when he made him Duke of Suffolk But he had measures to observe in that affair by reason of the King of Spain who would not have failed to have complained of such a marriage to the contempt of his Grandson He had the like to observe with his Queen who was Aunt to that Prince and being divided betwixt so important considerations he found it one of those thorny affairs wherein Kings are in some manner afraid to make use of their absolute power And that was the reason that he spake no more of it which at first troubled all the Court and gave grounds of believing that he entertained other thoughts But the removal of the Duke of Longueville would have cost him nothing so that Suffolk no sooner understood that the Princess intended to propose it but he prevented her and resolving to over-come himself or to dye rather than to admit of such a remedy the interest of the person whom he loved wrought on his heart what he was unable to perform for his own repose Matters then reassumed almost
tears she shed did them The King between whose arms she had cast her self to bewail and to overcome the virtue of Suffolk knew no more how to govern sometime the one sometime the other As she had been accustomed to conceal from him nothing of her passion and as it may be said that he was the sole confident of her Love so neither had he been wanting to her in any comfort or remedy He made her the Mistris of her self and being ready to repass into France at the head of an Army under divers pretexts to renew the War there he desired no better than to trouble all Europe that he might re-establish Tranquillity in her heart But it was not enough for these great Remedies to produce their effect that they were prepared by the hand of the King and accepted by the Princess Suffolk must likewise approve and make use of them If they were good for her they seemed of no value to him He condemned them already and found fault with them every way He designed to arm against them protesting at what rate soever to oppose them and the Amorous Princess had to do with a Lover that desired nothing more than to triumph over himself that he might Crown her This violent state of affairs lasted two full Months and no body understood the secret The melancholy of the Princess was imputed to a dispute that she had had with the Queen concerning the Dutchess of Salisbury The Court was divided betwixt them upon that account and the King fomented their division that he might the better conceal the Amorous mystery whereof he was the Guardian when that the proposals of the Duke of Longueville were again renewed with such formalities as suffered them not to be rejected The Pope wrote to that purpose The Venetians concerned themselves therein John Duke of Albany Regent of Scotland during the Minority of the King his Nephew interested himself in the affair with all the earnestness that the concerns of his Pupil required and these so distant Potentates in this manner formed an Union in opinions to make a most cruel War against the Resolutions of the Princess Mary but what deference soever the King of England was obliged to have for so considerable solicitations though besides that the alliance of LOWIS the Twelfth was of such moment that it could not be rejected by a sober Prince nevertheless the compassion that he had for his Sister the high esteem that he made of Suffolk and his natural propensity to all intrigues of Love would have made him find out ways enough to elude the suit of the one and the importunities of the rest if the continual perfidies of the King of Spain his Father-in-law had not in a manner forced him to comply That cunning Prince having drawn the late Pope Julius into the League whereof the English were at all the charge and the Spaniards reaped all the profit began to deceive him in the first Pyrenean War He seized on the Kingdom of Navar not minding the English Forces which he had perswaded to Land at Bayonne and who finding themselves disappointed of their hopes of being able to gain the places which he promised them in Guyenne were constrained to return Since that he had broken his word to him at the Sieges of Therowenne and Tournay where he neither assisted him with men nor money and had of late again made a truce with LOWIS the Twelfth without his advice So that to all these injuries joyning the aversion that he had to Queen Catherine the daughter of that crafty Prince and projecting already the divorce which he made from her since he found that occasion so favourable that his proper interest prevailed with him more than the consideration of his Sister Some have said that it was only an effect of his inconstancy and it is certain that he was none of the firmest in his resolutions But it is no less true that the displeasure which he conceived against his Father-in-law and against his Queen had no small share in that change that broke the Ice at first and the alliance of France made his satisfaction appear afterwards more speedy and easie had it not been for these considerations he might have possibly persisted in his former design and a more steady mind than his by so many reasons could not but have too many temptations to change The proposals therefore of the King of France were accepted Suffolk was one of the first that assented to them and as at that time the Princess Mary abandoned her self wholly to grief so that generous Lover upon the refusal of the King who could not any longer comfort her but by false hopes undertook to do it That charge was without doubt the sum of his afflictions There is no violence like to that when a man inflamed with Love forces himself by an excess of affection to perswade the person whom he loves that she ought no more to love him But that same love which he strove to hide being the principle that set all the movements of his heart to work did hourly betray his design What garb soever he put on what shape soever he borrowed all was still love it would not be disguised and where it was most under constraint there it broke forth with greatest lustre So that the Princess who felt her self touched even with the hardest things that Suffolk durst tell her melting with compassion for the cruel tryals that he put himself to for her sake observed no measures on her part to make him lay aside that forced Mask But he having one day when they were by themselves urged her so far that she was at length pierced with that greatness of Soul that could not be made to stoop by the tenderness of hers and finding nothing to upbraid her inexorable Lover with but his secret Quality of Prince of York she told him that since he had been informed of that he entertained not the same sentiments for her as before And grief afterward transporting her with a vehemency beyond her nature she fell to exaggerate the hereditary hatred that the House of York bore against that of Lancaster Adding that she knew better what he was by his rigour than by the prophesie of Merlin and in fine terming the reasons which he had heretofore alledged for his withdrawing from London so soon as he had discovered his Birth but artifices She told him at length that it was not she alone that was become odious to him and that at that time he only desired a specious pretext to leave her that he might go seek in France an occasion to head a Party against the King her Brother This terrrible discourse was even somewhat longer than impetuous discourses use to be and the Duke of Suffolk who knew very well that love in anger has sudden eruptions to which nothing must be exposed did not so much as by the least gesture or look dream of interrupting her He suffered her therefore
that Suffolk had won at the Barier◠from the bravest Champions of the Court conspired together to slander the Queen and him The Duke of Valois already prepossessed by some and incited by others could suspect none but him to have put that inscription on the Shield Azure which bore That the modest blush of the Roses of England was as inviolable as the Candour of the Lillies of France He perceived very well that that was a mysterious answer to what he had said to him and not daring to dispute that truth though he much doubted it he contented himself to write underneath That it belonged not to Defendants to maintain that and that none but the Conquerours of the Fortress deserved such honour In the mean while being checked by his own conscience he began to fear that the King might come to understand the reason why they disputed such a matter though the proposition being mingled with the interest of the Lillies seemed not to bear any private meaning in a Tournoy only designed to solemnize their Union with the Roses of England So that some of his Confidents having taken upon them to free him from his trouble bethought themselves of a stratagem which was that at the end of the Ball which was danced every evening after the Carrousel at the same time that the Queen did find on her Toylet a Paper containing these words If within three days the Duke of Suffolk depart not out of France he is a dead man Suffolk undressing himself found such another in his pocket but the same cause produced not in both of them the same effects for though the Queen terrified and ready to go and awaken the King who lay alone two nights before passed the night in mortal trances yet Suffolk exasperated to see matters driven to such an excess resolved before his departure to tell the Duke of Valois manfully that murtherers were not able to daunt him He was fully resolved on this when an English Monk brought him a Billet from the Queen wherein was inclosed that threatning Paper which she had received in the evening She adjured him to be upon his Guard and above all things to forbear the defence of the Forts and all other Combats But Suffolk unwilling to confirm her disquiet and suppressing the Billet which he had received to the same purpose made her answer in two words That it was a false allarm whereof he prayed her not to be affraid nor take any notice He was about a minutes time with the King to tell him the same and afterward continued his exercises in coursing and fighting that day as he was accustomed before and behaved himself no worse against Chatillon Bayard and Crequy than he had done the days before against Moüy Bonneval and several others In the mean time the disturbed Queen at what rate soever desired to speak with him The bad weather which had put a stop to the Tournoy seemed favourable enough for her design And the atacking of the Fort being by the King delayed for two days that the Defendants and Assailants might have no cause to alledg precipitation and haste if they failed in their duties invited her besides thereto as a time too precious to be lost and though all these reasons had been wanting yet the extremity of her own desire was one so prevalent that she could no longer resist it So that as she went to the Ball which was hastened because their other pleasures had ended too soon having met him again in the Kings Chamber who was not very well she bid him not dance so long as he was accustomed but that he should withdraw into a place which she showed him from whence the faithful Kiffen should guide him into a private Chamber where the young Ann of Bolen who for some days had been sick was lodged It was a nice enterprize what circumspection soever might be used and the Duke of Suffolk having imparted it to the Marquess of Dorset who of a Rival was become his intimate friend Dorset found it to be so Nevertheless they concluded together that the Queen who without doubt had given all necessary orders Must not be refused and the rather that she had perhaps such important matters to speak of as she durst not commit to the uncertainty of a Billet So that notwithstanding of the reluctancy that Suffolk had against that Interview yet having taken his measures with the Marquess of Dorset who took upon him the charge of watching without he obeyed and the intrigueing Kiffen who stayed for him in the appointed place led him into the Chamber of Ann of Bolen without being observed by any Afterward the Queen wearied by so many shows but more by her own cares having left the company came to her appartment conducted by the Duke of Valois and Duke of Alencon She caused her head to be undressed before them as being very desirous of sleep which obliged them to withdraw and her Chamber-door being immediately shut Judith Kiffen who lay in her Wardrobe by a back-door dismissed the Maids that attended her Shortly after she went to bed more impatient than afraid to execute what she designed She kept her self close a-bed until an universal silence had assured her that all people had withdrawn and so soon as she heard no more noise she arose to go meet the Duke of Suffolk The passage was pretty long It behoved her first to enter a Closet pass a Gallery that adjoyned to a Chappel and from thence by an entry half ruined which heretofore served for a passage unto her appartment go to the private Chamber where the young Ann of Bolen was at that time attended only by one person in her sickness All things went at first as well as the Queen could desire She found Suffolk in the place appointed and whilst Judith Kiffen returned to watch her Chamber which was not so secure on the other side where the Maids of honour lodged they began their Conversation The Presence of Ann of Bolen laid no constraint on them for she was one of their Confidents So that giving full scope to their affections they fell immediately to complain to one another like Lovers who desired no more but the freedom of complaint and who could not when they would complain But after these common expressions of mutual love the Queen terrified at the Billet which she had sent him desired to know from whence it came and upon what ground he reckoned a threatning of that nature to be but a false alarm The answer of Suffolk though prepared before-hand did not at all satisfie her and they so perfectly understood one another that it was very hard for them to take it for good Coyn. So that the Queen making another use of that constrained assurance which he affected broke forth in rage against the Duke of Valois It was to no purpose for Suffolk to tell her that that Prince being vexed at the Cartel which he had affixed on the Shield Azure had no
the Quality of their Fathers all chief Ministers of State immediately declared their pretensions with magnificence suitable to the Dignity of the fair Princess to whom they made love they were all alike well received and the courteous and obliging humour of the Lady Mary made every one of them easily believe in a short time to become her greatest favourite But love blinded their eyes for a sixth and more secret Rival gained the prize that all contended for and though his Quality did not seem to capacitate him to contest with them in any thing yet the Kings favour and his own worth largely supplied what otherways he wanted His name was Charles the pretended Son of Robert Brandon of a noble Family in Suffolk and an unblemished life Yet he had greater respect given him as being the Nephew of William Brandon and Edward Hastings the former of great Renown in the Battel of Bosworth where carrying the Standard of Henry the Seventh he was killed by Richard the Usurper himself as he endeavoured to stop his flight and the other still alive was no less famous in the Battel of Black-heath where the seditious Flammock with the Rebels of Kent and Cornhil were overthrown To this Uncle by the Mother it was that he owed the greatest part of his merit having had from him a most ingenious and liberal education for after the death of those that were believed to be his Parents who died in that fatal plague which made so great havock in England in the beginning of that Age he was always the sole object of his care His supposed Mother named Anne Hastings a woman of great Parts and sufficient Beauty to make her the subject of some slanderous and detracting Tongues had been pitched upon for Nurse to the King not only because of the noble blood of which she was descended but also of that to which she was allied but at first she made some difficulty of accepting the charge which was then only imputed to the haughtiness inspired into her either by the nobility of her extraction of which she seemed always a little vain or by the remains of some self-love which she still retained though she had other reasons for it Nor would she undertake that care till she had assurance that the child whom she called her Son should be bred with her at Court And Henry the Seventh having afterward entertained her at Court in consideration of the services that he had received of her Brother-in-law and did daily receive from her own Brother and finding the young Henry much more vigorous and healthy than Arthur Prince of Wales and the Princess Margaret his two first Children which gave him reason to congratulate his having so good a Nurse it happened luckily that six years after she having proved with child at the same time that the Queen was big of the Princess Mary he would have her employed again in the bringing up of that fourth child that was to be born to him notwithstanding that Robert Brandon her Husband being at that time troubled with some peevish fits of jealousie designed to carry her back into the Countrey By this means Charles having known the Princess Mary from the Cradle had always as being her Nurses Son freer access unto her than his Rivals with all their greatness could pretend to Besides this during the absence of Edward Hastings who alone remained alive to take the eare of him the Dutchess of Bedford chief Governess of the Children of the Royal Family having taken him into protection allowed him free liberty at all hours of the day to visit her appartment and the Lady Latimer Sub-governess who desired still to be thought young and fair and was not far beyond the bounds of either entertained for her part somewhat more than esteem for the lovely Brandon All put together gave him great Priviledges with the young Princess and Henry the Eighth by promoting daily the affairs of Old Hastings to whom he was to be sole heir seemed sufficiently to authorise all the ambition that the young Nephew was capable of He had already great intimacy with the Prince and was the Confident of his most secret Pleasures and as he daily heaped Favours and Honours upon him he was often heard say That he could not do too much for the handsomest Gentleman in his Kingdom besides he was beautiful like himself and of the same age and stature his Meen and Presence shewed even somewhat more accomplished and by the sweetness of his disposition and generosity in many rancounters he gained the very esteem of his envious competitours The too young age and immaturity of Princess Mary of England was the reason that during the Reign of the late King and until the project of her marriage with the Prince of Spain he had not discovered to her his love but by looks and sighs whereof in all probability she understood not as yet the secret language but in a conjuncture so troublesom to a lover as that was taking counsel only of his passion that he might bewail his destiny he spake to her in a more intelligible strain This happened at Windsor where Henry the Seventh drawing toward his end desired only to be attended with a small Train The satisfaction that the Princess might have to be one day Wife to a King of Spain served for pretext to Brandon who passionately told her That as it was most reasonable that she should rejoyce to marry a Prince who was to carry so many Crowns so it was no less that he should grieve to lose her for ever at length lifting his eyes and hands to Heaven he mournfully cryed That it was very terrible and cruel for such a wretch as he to love the Daughter of his King more than himself Neither the vehemency of this Action nor the boldness of the Discourse at least surprised the young Princess for being so little accustomed to keep her distances with Brandon she dreamt of no more but wonted familiarity and fancied as he might well wish that his expressions proceeded only from fear of being separated from her so that without diving farther into the mystery wherein as yet she was not very skilful and finding nothing in his discourse but what was obliging she had the goodness to answer him that it was possible the Propositions of Calais might not take effect and that he ought not to be afflicted before the time Some days after she started to him again the same discourse and soothed him by all the ways that her age could possibly imagine in so much as she vowed and protested against the marriage that he was in fear of and it must indeed be granted that she omitted nothing that might give content to his mind or fewel to his passion though it cannot be imagined that her innocent age at that time entertained any thoughts of love Henry the Seventh in the mean time returned to spend his Winter at London where dying in the spring he made place
for his Son who being Crowned by the name of Henry the Eighth began with many favours to testifie his esteem for Brandon The first instance of the confidence that he shewed him which he imparted to none but him alone during the Ceremonies of his marriage and which appeared the more satisfactory to this favorite that being then honoured with the office of chief Ranger of England he found himself in a condition of making his advantage of it was the design he had not to marry the Princess his Sister to any out of his Kingdom He told him that it was one of the ancientest maxims of State and possibly the best and to hint to him that he himself might have some interest in that design he added looking on him with a favourable air that he should endeavour to chuse a person whose Family was not so considerable as to become suspected so that the marriage projected between his young Sister and the young Arch-Duke should not take effect and that he having with much reluctancy married the Aunt of that Prince he desired him not for a Brother-in-law But the matter beginning to be divulged and the general applause wherewith it was received by all opening the eyes of the most part of the young Court-gallants BRANDON perceived not at length that facility in it which appeared to him at first Love is a great Master and there is no virtue wherein it instructs not true Lovers when it intends to render them acceptable to the person beloved He then so far from flattering himself with the pleasant thoughts that he had entertained and which so many others seemed to entertain as well as himself laying aside all consideration of self-love and not reflecting on his danger in speaking to the Princess contrary to the Sentiments of the KING told her that she should no more dream of the Crowns of CASTILE and ARRAGON and that the designs as to her were far different from that He immediately discovered all as a person really devoted to her Service he protested against that State-policy to which she was to be sacrificed told her that he had rather dye than see her a Subject in England when one of the greatest Princes of Europe desired her in marriage and with a Resentment equal to the favour received reflecting on the complaisance wherewith she was once pleased to conceal from him all her ambition he subjoyned that he was become ambitious for her and that desiring at what rate so ever to restore to her again what she had so liberally bestowed on him he disowned all that he had had the boldness to say at Windsor against her marriage with the Prince of Spain His sighs spake the rest with more passionateness than at that time he desired and although Mary of England was not full Twelve years old yet she so well understood the language of that passionate Lover and her heart was so disposed to admit a flame that having wiped away the Tears that trickled from her lovely eyes and done as much for BRANDON she prayed him not to torment himself for the future adding with glances that sparkled goodness that she had rather see him afflicted at Windsor for the project of her marriage than in London vexed at the rupture of it It may be thought strange that at such an age she was so sensible But it may be likewise said that she being of a soft and sweet disposition and inclined naturally to mirth it was but an agreeable surprize that triumphed only on her gentle and cheerful humour The pleasure of being beloved was the only thing that made her love her views went no farther and love which is in that manner communicated betwixt young persons makes the delusions of sense sometimes so powerful over them that by that means alone it betrays them before they know what it is It is not then to be wondered at that if the Princess Mary being by a first Lover drawn into some pleasant mistake the other pretenders who made love to her after that the intention of the KING became known appeared not in her eyes to be so deserving as they were who with great assiduity having served her for the space of two years with all the gallantry and pomp that the Tranquillity of the Kingdom enabled them to employ at length discovered the root and fountain of their misfortune and seeing love sometimes breaks off upon a slight and is sometimes converted into fury the wiser desisted from their suit and the others united against their common Enemy Of the first sort were Howard and Talbot but Gray Bourchier and Sommerset vowed the death of BRANDON They considered not that such an attempt would expose the lovely Princess to publick Calumny and themselves to inevitable disgrace or perhaps to something worse Jealousie that reigned in them suffered them not to make any such reflections and they had never escaped the risk they ran had not fortune by forsaking them in their enterprise taken greater care of their lives than they themselves were able to do The love that the King had for Cecile Blunt Daughter to the Lord Latimer which began before his marriage and grew greater daily by enjoyment possessed the chief place in his heart notwithstanding of the distractions occasioned him by the League into which after many delays he entred at last against the KING of FRANCE yet whether it was for the sake of the QUEEN whom he would not put out of humour whilst the troublesom inconveniencies of an imaginary conception renewed her grief for the loss of her first Child or because that young Lady lived in the retinue of the Princess his Sister he gave but very few marks of it On the contrary he seemed to make Courtship to the young Countess of Derby and some other Beauties at Court thereby to divert the observation of the more curious and although the Lady Latimer more ambitious than prudent was accessary to her Daughters slips yet that afforded him not all the possible advantages he desired It behoved him often to steal his opportunities by night and to pass in disguise through a great part of his Palace in London and House of pleasure at Greenwich where the apartment of the Princess his Sister happened always to be cross to his designs in which he never trusted any but one domestick Servant two of his Guards and the faithful BRANDON He made even commonly use of that favorite to conceal himself under his name and without considering the wrong he might do to the Princess these Night-rambles passed for the feats of BRANDON that went to visit the Princess Mary However he would not that any should say so much when his company were surprised and could not avoid the eyes of some watchful spie and as it behoved him to colour these proceedings with some intrigue of love because it would have been hard to have perswaded men that any thing else was in play orders were given to insinuate that it was the lovely
to which he â—â—posed himself by discovering that secret began to gain ground upon him He made appear to him that he must either have been a fool or weary of life to have invented such a fable and more fully to convince him he recounted to him the whole story of the marriage of the Earl of Warwick his Father and that Anne Hemlock his real Mother dying in Child-bed of him the Lady Brandon substituted him in place of one of her Children which just then died having been born but a few days before him He put him in mind of what he had been told heretofore of the repugnance that the Lady made whom he believed to be his Mother when she was invited to be Nurse to the King And then perceiving him to be a little moved he had no great difficulty to convince him that he was the secret cause of that unwillingness which was so variously discoursed of amongst people and adding to this several other passages of his education which being all of the same strain and character gave evidence enough that there had always been some mystery in his fortune he past them but slightly over that at the same time he might insinuate that if he loved his life it behoved him not to remember them He only hinted to him that the secret of his birth should encourage him to resist his Rivals who believed themselves better descended than he and that if he could keep the secret as well as the Prince his Father had done who had seen him a hundred times out of his prison-Windows and who went to death accompanied with Frier Patrick without speaking a word of it heaven possibly had designed him for great matters That after all he was the only remaining bud of the White Rose whereof Merlin spake in his Prophesie and that his Mothers name so plainly expressed by the word Hemlock made it past all doubt seeing that in effect the Blood of York was fallen into that of Hemlock by his Birth But that these following words of the Astrologer Yet too much zeal doth oft annoy For an inn'cent maid shall it destroy put him in great perplexity That though the punishment of Simonel and death of Peter Warbeck who gave themselves out for Princes of the House of York were instances terrible enough to hinder him from bragging of his extraction yet as it was his opinion that he should continue his love to the Princess so that passion made him very apprehensive That he imagined already that he would discover to her all that had been told him and that though she might still love him yet it might too really happen that she should become the innocent maid that might destroy him if he concealed not from her as well as from every body else that important secret Hastings thus ending his discourse fell on his knees to Brandon that he might once in his life render him the respect which the interest of his safety suffered him not to pay in any other place and that he might beseech him never to entertain thoughts that any such honours were due to him But what difficulty soever this new Prince of York had at first to believe it yet he found at length all things that had been told him so well circumstantiated and so conform to the inclinations of his heart that he had no more power to doubt of the truth of what was told him He promised to be cautious and to conceal his birth and the Lord Hastings who was still his great Uncle by the Mother-side died shortly after either of old age or for fear lest the secret which he had revealed should be discovered In the mean time Brandon whom we must for some time still name so found his Courage by little and little raised by the knowledg of what he was He thereby grew more brisk and agreeable with the Princess more courteous and majestick with others and by the prudent management of the estate left him by Hastings became so considerable that the King himself took pleasure to see him imploy new measures one day to deserve all that he wished him the enjoyment of On the other hand his Rivals being returned from the Pyrenean hills where the designs of the King of Spain who had fallen upon Navar hindered them from atchieving any great exploits found him again of an humour less disposed to yield to them than formerly Sommerset after his return from Scotland could not regain that height upon him which he always pretended to before and Bourchier cured of his wound durst never on that account express to him the least discontent They all appeared to have submitted themselves to their fortunes and whilst Howard and Talbot the one made Admiral and the other Master of the Horse stifled their love by the satisfaction of their ambition Gray and the rest found it impossible for them to delight their eyes but by living in good correspondence with Brandon Their care therefore was only to out-do him in greatness of services and obsequiousness towards the Princess he was the man that was most assiduous that way who gave demonstration of greatest complaisance and there happened some days when it seemed that that Conduct might prove successful they obtained thereby at least more access to her and although through the favours which she was pleased sometimes to show them they perceived too well that they had no share in her affection yet at what rate soever they resolved to persist in rendering her their Services So true it is that with small pains and little care a lovely person is able to produce great effects in the minds of those who are captivated with its beauty Insomuch that all these Rivals began to live together with less contention and contributing severally to the publick pomp whilst the preparations for a War with France were vigorously carried on there was nothing to be seen at London but Plays Horse-races Balls and Dancing where the Ladys in rich dresses setting off the beauty which might procure them praise and esteem obliged likewise their Lovers to imploy their greatest advantages On these occasions the lovely Brandon gained signal honour and whether it was for his good meen or his dexterity in all the exercises of body there was no Gentleman in the Kingdom that seemed not his inferiour So that amongst so many competitors who contended with him for the favour of the Princess there was not any so fortunate as to gain the least of it to his prejudice and though Edward Strafford the young Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Kildare Son to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland both of them lovely and handsom Gentlemen had newly declared themselves his Rivals yet it was without either jealousie or disquiet to him Mary of Lancaster adored by all had no passion for any but him But amidst the pleasures by which the Court of England the most gallant and pompous of that age prepared so sumptuously for the War of France the death
of Cecile Blunt Daughter to the Lord Latimer occasioned there great alteration Her Mother seeming comfortless as women of her humour affect always to appear retired into the Countrey The Dutchess of Bedford falling deaf and oppressed with many other infirmities of old age took likewise the occasion to withdraw The Countess of Pembrock was put in her place until the Arrival of Princess Margaret of York Dutchess of Salisbury Daughter of the unfortunate Duke of Clarence and her self as unfortunate in the sequel as her Brother the Earl of Warwick The King sometime before for reasons of state had designed her for that charge and the Lady Dacres was ordered to supply the place of the Lady Latimer until she were recovered from her grief so that there remained of the ancient servants of the Princess hardly any but Judith Kiffen who being the most dexterous person in the world for that service and lying commonly at the foot of her bed she was become too useful to her to let her be removed and that revolution in the Family of the Princess Mary was a forerunner of the disorder which shortly appeared in the mind of the King What care soever he had had to conceal his love for his late Mistris he had not the power to dissemble his affliction for her death He began to condemn the intrigues of his Court with which he had always used to make himself merry He went so far as to defeat the measures of several Lovers by giving them new employments under pretext of the War of France and though Brandon met not with so great crosses yet he was one of the first that perceived the King to be out of humour when being no more the Confident of his affliction as he had been of his pleasures he saw a new favourite admitted into his place one Thomas Woolsey Bishop of Lincoln to whom Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester had left vast riches at his death This man of low Birth but sublime Parts as sometimes bad men are knew very well that HENRY the Eight notwithstanding the great Qualities which rendered him formidable to his neighbours was a restless Prince and that being unable after the hurry of business to remain idle and unactive he stood in need of some amusing toy that might refresh his mind by seizing his heart In a word he understood that repose being uneasie to him without pleasures and wantonness he must needs be provided of women and that possibly was the reason that it was said that to comfort him for the death of the Mistris whom he had just before lost he made no scruple to advise him to bestow his affection with all expedition on some other It was besides alledged that he himself being smitten with the lovely eyes of the Princess Mary and not so foolish as to expect any enjoyment of her had wrought him to fix his eyes upon her But I think that that is to be looked upon as a Calumny of those who reproached him with all kinds of crimes because he had pursued them with all sorts of evils Ambitious men such as Woolsey are either not very sensible of love or would not be so tame as to give to another what they love themselves However it be whether it was an effect of the counsel of that bad Minister or that the Beauty of Mary which daily encreased had awakened some desire in the mind of HENRY the Eight it is certain that that Prince after the death of Cecile Blunt did speak of love to the Princess his Sister She understood him not at first or to say better she would not understand him but the account that she gave of it to Brandon had almost killed him with grief And although he never dreamt of any such thing yet the indifferency wherewith the King for some time had used him gave sufficient evidence of the change of his fortune and as till then he had doubted what might be the cause of that disgrace imputing it sometime to some fault of his own and sometime to the natural inconstancy of the King so he believed that he had then found it out So that to remove himself from trouble and following no other counsel but that of his jealousie or fear he beg'd leave of the King to go to Calais with the first Troops that were then drawing out for the War of France Though the King had not altogether the Sentiments which Brandon suspected yet he well understood his thoughts and without any farther discovery he thought it enough to answer that it behoved him to moderate that impatience seeing he intended to have him by him the first time that he drew his sword But notwithstanding of this obliging answer Brandon's disturbance had no end insomuch that some days after finding occasion to speak again to the King he renewed to him the same suit adding that if he could a little train himself in the matters of War before he undertook it he would deserve better to follow His Majesty Upon this the King by a return of affection for a man whom he had so much loved being willing wholly to undeceive him told him smiling That he well perceived what he had in his thoughts but that sure he was not more dangerous than another and that he should not take the allarm so hot for a little gallantry which he used with his Sister only to divert him from thinking on poor Cecile Nothing certainly in that juncture of affairs could have been better said and it answered all objections Nevertheless diffidence which is natural to all true Lovers made Brandon think these words the more to be suspected the less that they appeared so He imagined that his dangerous Rival under an affected repugnancy cloaked a real desire to see him at a distance which he discoursed of with the Princess in so prepossessed a manner that she was constrained in reason to approve of what his weakness proposed But before he asked the third time permission from the King to depart and took his leave of her he resolved in an excessive fit of love to acquaint her with what he had learned concerning his Birth The Princess Mary was no less surprised at the relation which from his Uncle he had made to her of that matter than he himself was at first and though the whole story of the marriage of the Earl of Warwick with Ann Hemlock founded on the prediction of Merlin or the report of Old Hastings lately dead might appear suspicious in the mouth of a Lover yet she entertained not the least thought of that nature On the contrary notwithstanding the favourable opinion that she had of the truth of all her surprise appeared visibly in her eyes as he was speaking and so soon as he had made an end being desirous to have all things better cleared she told him with a tenderness which the novelty of the matter and the emotion of her mind rendered very extraordinary that she loved him no better for
asked him if it was true that he intended to cause him to be put to death So that this Prince who on such occasions was very sensible answering only with kisses and tears and her Caresses expressing her desire far more intelligibly than words gave him hardly liberty to speak that he might oppose himself to the impatience that she was in He left her that he might with his counsel contrive a way to relieve Brandon from the Tower with pretext of justice But for all the formality which he affected to observe in his affairs he had no great occasion to be so scrupulous in this matter The greatest part of the Court who perceived his design spake openly for Brandon against the Earl of Kildare And after a formal shew of examining the tumultuary depositions that they might give some favourable colour to their proceedings the Lords Poyning and Terell were immediately sent to the Prisoner He came with them without a guard and as he cast himself on his knees before the King there appearing in his cloaths some mark of the insolent usage that he had met with you see said the King to him how dangerous it is for you to remove from me and that I had reason not to consent to your departure seeing that in a moment that you have left me there is a world of enemies broken loose against you Whereupon Brandon offering to speak of the aggression of the Earl of Kildare the King stopped him at the first word and commanded him to rise promising to do justice in time and place to him that deserved it Then drawing him a little aside he told him that the Princess's health must be his chief endeavour and that for his better succeeding in that office he thought it not fit he should see her in the disorder that he was in No body heard this discourse nor somewhat else that passed betwixt them It was only seen that the King forced himself to appear grave in his discourse and whilst he himself went to change his cloaths as well as Brandon whom he had again ordered to do so all Brandons friends whom his ill fortune had not as yet much dispersed rallied together and brought him from his Lodgings where some met him and others accompanied him as in triumph to the Palace He payed his second visit to the Queen who had interceded for him and whilst he was with her Majesty the King that he might countenance his visit to his Sister came back to her apartment But he suffered none of his train to come farther in than the first Gallery under pretext that much company was incommodious to sick persons and so soon as he had notice that Brandon was coming leaving none with her but Judith Kiffen he himself withdrew to the Dutchess of Salisbury's apartment that in so delicate and much-desired an interview she might not be under any constraint It would be a great undertaking to endeavour to give a precise and full account of all that was done and said at that time betwixt Brandon and the English Princess besides at first their hearts and eyes made all the discourse the Princess wanting strength to speak otherways and Brandon having so much to say that he knew not well how to express any thing At length the Princess spake first who seeing him more afflicted at her distemper than could be imagined strained her self to tell him that it was nothing and that seeing he was free from the danger wherein she believed him to be she should shortly be cured of the sickness wherein he saw her She declared to him moreover as well as she could that the hurt or death of the Earl of Kildare was not that which had dismayed her but that she feared he had been discovered He answered but very little to that though no body could hear what they said Nor could the Kings note which she gave him to read for the confirmation of her belief and fear engage him to enter on that discourse He knew that the safest way was never to speak more of it and having heard nothing to that purpose in his Prison and the manner how the King received him having no relation at all to that he was well enough acquainted with his character and stile to guess at the truth of the matter So that he thought it sufficient by his looks to free her from the apprehension that she had conceived and discoursing to her only concerning her health with mutual expressions of tender affection they began to renew the testimonies of their real loves when the King fearing that too long a conversation might be hurtful to a sick person returned and separated them with as much kindness as he had brought them together Brandon followed him that he might render him thanks for his favours and inform himself what was to be the issue of the Rancounter he had had with the Earl of Kildare whose wounds were not mortal But their discourse on that subject was not long The King who naturally concerned himself in the amours of every one wishing him only joy for the good opinion that a fair Princess was pleased to have of him took thereby occasion to rally with him because he had taken him for his Rival upon some words of Gallantry which escaped from him as he said whil'st he intended only to bewail the death of Cecile Then he upbraided him with the small trust he gave to his word and friendship that carried him so far as to resolve to leave him and confessing at length frankly that he had not caused him to be sent to the Tower but to revenge himself of that private affront and at the same time to discover what love could do in the heart of a young Princess it might seem that he had no more to say for his satisfaction But yet he stopped not there for finding in himself some secret joy which added somewhat to his natural debonairity and that it concerned the health of his Sister that Brandon should re-assume his former jollities that with more success he might employ himself in her Service he thought it not fit to dismiss him before he had dissipated the smallest mists which great affairs how well soever concluded leave commonly behind them No forrain nor remote matters disturbed him at that time and he had just then received good news from the Emperour who to begin the War against France promised to act on the Frontiers of Picardy which the wary King of Spain deferred to do on the side of Guyenne So that finding his mind in great liberty he gave Brandon a review of the life they had led together and laying before him almost all the Testimonies of Friendship that he had shewed him he forgot not amongst the rest to take special notice of the merit of that obliging manner whereby he had countenanced his love With that desiring a suitable return of Justice he cryed that it was his part to render it him adding that he knew not
their former face and the Duke of Longueville who knew nothing of the disorder which he caused nor of the evil wherewith he had been threatned continued his Gallantries but with this difference that the Princess concerned at the troubles of Suffolk seemed not to him to have the same freedom of humour as formerly He judged of that sometimes in her favour and sometimes to her prejudice according to the freakishness of Lovers who for one and the same thing are many times both glad and sorrowful and as he had a good conceit of himself so he enclined rather to the one side than the other But hardly was that disorder appeased when it broke out again more cruelly than before for some Letters by a strange fatality being come to London which gave advice that the King of France designed a new marriage with an Italian Princess that bad rumour which seemed not in the least to have any relation to the fortune of Suffolk was the utter overthrow of all his hopes The Duke of Longueville who found no fairer pretext to Colour his Love for the English Princess but that of seeing her Queen of France and considering that all that he had said in respect of the Duke of Valois heir of the Crown was but a dull notion wherewith he was not himself much flattered seeing that he knew several things of the marriage of that Prince with the Princess Claudia that were far different from what the pleasure of discourse and his passion had made him say on that subject so soon as he was informed of the news from Paris without examining whether it was false or true he conceived a more sensible and specious notion and the interest of the Kingdom joyned to that pretended desire of a new marriage which was published of his King perfected in his mind that Image The age of LOWIS the Twelfth afforded him new delights whensoever he reflected thereon and if it be free once to declare what he had always in his thoughts he imagined that the lovely Princess in the embraces of an old Husband oppressed with the Gout and many other infirmities might be very well allowed some liberty This idle fancy then made his flame sparkle so that having rendered her a visit upon occasion of the report that went of the King of France with eyes glanceing with the joy that he desired to raise in her having premised such circumstances as he judged proper for his design he expressed himself with so prepossessed and contented an air that he left her hardly the liberty to say any thing against his overture The Princess only seemed not at all surprised and as if she had thought on nothing less giving him a cold answer that he designed her for every body she allowed him no opportunity of insisting in his discourse The jealousie of Suffolk created her too much trouble to entertain him on such a subject and she was so far from giving the least check to the hopes which she desired him to continue in by so vain a consideration that for all the Crowns of the World she would not have disturbed the quiet of his heart So that the Duke of Longueville finding her not so easie to be perswaded in respect of LOWIS the Twelfth as he believed she might have been in favour of the Duke of Valois and imagining that the old age of the former caused in her that aversion and as he was not much concerned whether she was satisfied or not to be Queen of France provided she were so he thought it best in that conjuncture to make a matter of state of it But the King with whom he was to negotiate being prepossessed to the contrary as well as the Princess gave him no more satisfaction than she had done and when he was pressed to speak his mind he answered him That a proposition wherein all Europe was concerned sounded not well from the mouth of a Prisoner Yet for all this the Duke was not discouraged He wrote to the King his Master and with his Letter sent the Picture of Mary of England and being a more successful negotiator at distance than in presence the affairs of Italy being now somewhat composed by the death of Pope Julius to whom LEO the Tenth succeeded and the Ministers of France finding their advantages in an alliance with England he received an answer according to his desire Then it was that poor Suffolk perceived his ruin manifest The Duke of Longueville was the first that drew his blood at the Battel of Spurs he was the first that infected his mind with the sullen poyson of jealousie which troubled all his delights at London and as a fatal enemy was now to disquiet the rest of his days And indeed he strove no more to resist the matter nor did he so much as seek ease by complaining lest that by flattering so his grief it might break out against his will and that his virtue whereof he then stood so much in need should be weakened thereby It was to no purpose for the Princess to discourse him about that subject It was to no purpose for her to employ all her Charms with him and to upbraid him with the sharpest cuts of Love that she found he loved her no more since that he yielded her to another for he had not only the power to be silent before her but he maintained to the last that rigorous conflict wherein nothing but the love oâ— her made him resist and the King his Master with all his dexterity and goodness produced but still less effects on him Never was there so much constancy in so tender and afflicted a soul He entertained the Princess Mary no more but with the Grandure and Beauties of France He urged to her by solid reasons that the most glorious passion was the desire to reign over the most illustrious people of the Universe He went farther to encourage her by pretending that his own interest was therein concerned and as if he had been the most covetous of all men who was indeed the most liberal he seemed only then possessed with the hopes of the great riches that he expected from her Crown The soul must without doubt be great which can love in that strain and ordinary passions are unable to renounce themselves in that manner But the fair Princess to whom he rendered so rare an instance of a perfect love repayed it by another no less wonderful on her part The Crown of France seemed nothing to her in respect of Suffolks heart and being sensible to the utmost of the unspeakable pleasure that is found in being loved as one loves that was to her so Soveraign a blessing that no other earthly advantage could equal it She disputed therefore with him the possession of his heart which she desired still to enjoy as he contended for the loss of hers which he was willing she should deprive him of and her lovely eyes bore already the marks of the wrong which the
to speak as long as she pleased and even affected to put her in some kind of impatience for an answer and when he thought that she had expected it long enough he gently replyed That not having foreseen the reproach she made to him it was not in his power to justifie himself on the sudden and that seeing his Crime was discovered she had no more to do but to punish him And then beholding her with so much the more calmness that she had spoken in passion but Madam continued he let mo be delivered into the hands of the executioner and let me dye you shall be Queen of France and it shall be to me a delightful comfort when I mount the scaffold to know that I am no more an hinderance to you to mount the Throne About a year ago you knew not what reason might make you become mine enemy now you have found it out I am desirous you should be a Queen Ah! Madam cryed he I cannot be guilty of a lovelier Crime With these words he would have departed but the Princess stopped him and being more out of countenance and more afflicted for the unjust reproach that she had cast upon him than for that she had drawn from him bursting forth in Tears at the door of the Closet she gave but too evident signs of her trouble and repentance Suffolk on the other hand being deeply smitten with that new expression of grief which compleated his own had no thoughts of insulting over it He stood with his eyes fixed on the floor directing thither his sighs as well as looks and very far from telling her that she should let him go to the death to which she had condemned him which another perhaps might have done in a profound silence he considered how he might mollifie the deplorable condition which he saw her in though he did not endeavour it for fear of reducing her to another as bad He well perceived that his love disguised it self under all kinds of shapes and that when it should glance forth under the colour of respect and pity that would but revive in her the flames which he desired to smother by making it appear But as he clearly saw into the heart of the Princess so she likewise penetrated into his So that retracting of a sudden the unjust reproach which vexation had made her charge him with Why do ye force me said she to speak what I do not think And why must I be constrained seeing I cannot bend you by a real tenderness which you know so well to be rooted in my heart to attempt to terrifie you by an imaginary hatred which I affect as well as I can What is become of us Suffolk continued she that your virtue makes me despair and my affection oppresses you At these words animated by throbs sighs and tears which love being reduced to the utmost extremity forced from the loveliest mouth and fairest eyes in the world it was not in the power of poor Suffolk any longer to resist his strength failed him and he fell down upon a Couch The Princess affrighted to see him look pale and faint began to be in the same fears for him that he was daily in for her And as he had omitted nothing that might perswade and overcome her so then it fell to her turn to spare no means that could satisfie and bring him again to himself She told him that she yielded promised to do whatsoever he would have her and what could she indeed deny him in that sad condition And what was she not obliged to do to relieve him However their conversation could last no longer the Duke of Suffolk must withdraw and having with much ado crawled out of the apartment of the Princess the Marquess of Dorset who met him was obliged to Conduct him home The disorder nevertheless that appeared in his countenance was neither so considerable nor dangerous as that which no body saw But the one suspended the other The oppression of the mind hindered the distemper of body and though he had had a Fever all night long yet the Earl of Shrewsbury who went next morning in the Kings name to visit him found him up He went himself likewise to Court the better to cloak all appearances and having discoursed on several things with the King Suffolk finding his virtue supported by secret advantages which his master promised himself from the marriage of his Sister with the King of France they agreed between themselves on the means to bring her to comply But it was now no more necessary to come to extremities She began of her self to resolve on it and the death or flight of the Duke of Suffolk which she found to be otherways unavoidable won by little and little from her fears a condescension to the negotiation of the Duke of Longueville to which her Love could never have consented So that that worthy Lover but the most unfortunate of all Lovers seeing he was too well beloved being come to her apartment after that the King and he had agreed what could not be in any other way concluded found her still in the same disquiet for his health that he had left her in the day before But she spake no more to him of any thing which she knew might put him in trouble She fell rather into a kind of Lethargy and whilst she used violence with her self to conceal it for fear of stirring up his compassion he fell softly to entertain her with those wild and chimerical hopes which the worst of fortunes cannot take from the unfortunate when they have a mind to imagine them She made a shew of being flattered therewith as well as he She began to spare him as he spared her and whilst with a hard curb she checked her more tender passions giving the reins to the most violent that she was capable of the Duke of Longueville became the object of them She did nothing but detest the day of his Captivity and with so much the more violence that he revenged himself so cruelly on him that had taken him In a word she could not look on him but as a mortal enemy whose sight she protested she could never endure and it may be said of that French Prince that desiring by indirect ways to gain all he lost all and that as there was never any Lover whose notions were more foolish so likewise was there never any who took falser measures However his negotiation succeeded according to the orders which he had received and the General of Normandy extraordinary Ambassadour of France came to London to conclude the marriage and peace in the treaty of which the young King of Scotland was comprehended with excommunication against the breakers because it was authorised by the Pope After this the King of England and Duke of Suffolk made it all their care to recover the cheerful humour of the Princess which seemed to be banished from her soul for the rest of her days The Marquess
of his But that was a day that produced strange adventures for the fury of the Earl of Kildare ceased of a sudden and that fiery man was so affected with Suffolks action that throwing his sword into the same place of the Wood as he had done he came running towards him with open arms crying with tears That he would never be any more his enemy After which there was no kind of friendship which they showed not to one another and this days adventure having interrupted the design which Suffolk had to wander over the world he yielded to go to Calais with the Earl of Kildare saying sometimes within himself by a tenderness of heart which makes true Lovers know the force of their love that he went only to London to endeavour the re-establishment of his defender And in effect the procedure of that generous enemy was the first thing he told the King his Master and that Prince who loved rare and singular adventures the more admired that action of the Irish Earl that he thought him not capable of such generosity So that he gave him a very favourable reception and restoring him again into favour by that means united these two Rivals into so strict a bond of friendship that nothing could afterward dissolve it In the mean while as the return of the Duke of Suffolk was in agitation and that upon the complaints which the Queen made by her Letters the King of England intended to stand on his points with the Court of France hardly had he projected the measures he was to take in that conjuncture when the Marquess of Dorset wrote an account of the Death of LOWIS the Twelfth It would be hard to give an exact relation of what the Duke of Suffolk conceived upon this great news It wrought a new change in him not to be expressed only after he had done all that could be done for Mary of England after that he had sacrificed her to her self by an excess of Virtue by sacrificing himself for her in an excess of Love nothing else can be said but that the reward which so high and extraordinary an action deserved began to shine in his eyes There was nothing able to moderate his joy but a false report that was spread abroad of the Queens being with Child For besides that this would have left him no hopes it being unlikely that the Mother of a Dolphin of France could leave her Sons Kingdom or enter into a second marriage with a person such as he was taken to be he dreaded likewise that the Duke of Valois whom she would thereby disappoint of a Crown might not revolt against her He likewise feared the Calumnies which the Favourites of that Prince would not fail to publish after that they had already slandered her and that fatal conception at length seemed to rob him of all that he thought was left him by the Death of LOWIS the Twelfth But it happened to be a mistake And the Queen having her self declared the contrary that the Proclamation of the Duke of Valois might not be held in suspense it was quickly perceived that she was the first who acknowledg'd him King of France by the name of FRANCIS the First and the Marquess de Sanferre who in the name of that Prince arrived shortly at London to renew the Treaty of Peace which the King his Father-in-law had concluded the year before put an end to the troubles of the Duke of Suffolk So that his heart being filled with joy HENRY the Eighth whose care it was also to render him happy would no longer delay his bliss He condescended to all that was proposed to him for the continuation of the Treaty and because with the interests of the two Crowns it behoved him likewise to regulate the concerns of the Queen his Sister in Quality of Dowager he took that pretext to send Suffolk into France with the title of Ambassadour Plenipotentiary which he discharged with so great splendour that Prince Henry Count of Nassaw who came to Paris at the same time in name of the Arch-Duke about the affairs of the Low-Countries was somewhat troubled to see a subject of England so highly out-do him But as there was nothing in France that could equal the Magnificence of the English and all the Court of FRANCIS the First were envious at it as well as the Flemings so there was nothing in the same Kingdom at that time comparable to the Beauty of the Queen The air wherewith she received the Duke of Suffolk at the Palace des Tournelles made the wits at Court say That she needed not too much virtue to comfort her for the death of a husband and it must be acknowledged that under her mourning Veil and Peak which by the light of a vast number of Torches set more advantageously off the delicate whiteness of her skin nothing was to be seen in her that day which might occasion melancholy or grief That raillery was carried as far as possibly it could be whilst the necessity of the affairs which they had to regulate with the King of France and his Ministers obliged them often to speak together and to be by themselves But whatever hath been said of them and whatsoever reports have been raised of their mutual complaisances or the joy that they had to meet again yet it is still true that they never gave any ground for Calumny and Reproach If they were so near to make a slip as men imagined yet they were cautious and in dangerous occasions when they might have done otherways they virtuously resisted temptation The new King of France was not of that temper for that Prince naturally very free with women would have made no Ceremony to have perswaded the Queen had she been in the least inclined to hear him He had many times much ado to leave her when the affairs of his Kingdom required it and for all the Grandure and Magnanimity which hath appeared in the course of his life yet being at that time too weak for his passion he appeared sometimes so peevish and out of humour that the same detracting tongues which have endeavoured to sully the reputation of Mary of England have given it out that his amorous fever made him so light-headed as to detest his marriage with the Daughter of LOWIS the Twelfth and to protest more than once that he had rather have enjoyed his Widow than his Kingdom Whether it was an effect of the Queens sweet disposition or that she was pleased to revenge her self for the troubles that he caused her before he was King she appeared not altogether inexorable Yet she was still the same at the heart and never what he took her to be So that one day when her beauty so surprised him that he forgot some of his measures thinking to take her on the right side he told her That since he himself could not expect to be happy it behoved him at least to endeavour to make her so that therefore he
would marry her to the Duke of Suffolk whensoever she pleased that he feared no consequences of that marriage that he would be Guarrantee of it to all men and that he would take upon him to perswade the King her Brother to consent thereto To this proposition he added many marks of affection and dextrously insinuated how much it had cost him before he could bring himself to that resolution so that the fair Queen perceiving him in appearance exceedingly moved and suffering him to speak all that he pleased by gestures and looks affected several times not to be altogether insensible But having done so and judging that he thought her sufficiently touched she rose from the chair and looking on him with an air which might at first falsifie all the applause that she had given to his discourse she answered That he had never well known her and that he knew her not as yet That in France she was taken for a strange person but that the French themselves were a strange-humoured people and that she well perceived that amongst them a young Queen who would be thought virtuous and discreet though she were naturally affable and courteous must not show her self to be so That as to the Duke of Suffolk she saw very well that it was known that she had an esteem for so worthy a Gentleman and that she was willing he should be so far in her secrets as to tell him somewhat more particular that she had sometimes wished he had been born a King But that that being but a vain wish Suffolk must be satisfied with her esteem and for the rest that there were Soverains that demanded her and Kings who having demanded her from her Child-hood might still demand her This brisk answer not being understood did the more vex the King that he thought he had found a sure way to render the Queen pliable Yet for all that he gave not over He believed her to have been surprised or that she made it strange to be free with him and from time to time renewing the discourse of the marriage with the Duke of Suffolk though it was uneasie to him to speak good of a Rival yet as at that time he showed himself a moft passionate Lover so he had at least the advantage of a favourable hearing In the mean while he got no ground upon her and the affairs of the Queen being now concluded she made it her business to prepare for her return into England Then was the time that the Love of FRANCIS the First which before was always but a gentle heat in his heart became a furious passion Many hours he restlesly spent a thousand violent thoughts he hatched and if he had not had as tractable and pliable a mind as he had a high and generous Courage probably he had run upon strange extremities But at length he took counsel of the wise in whom he confided and his love and despair changeing into pure Gallantry all his intentions were to give signal proofs of the command he had over himself But all the advances that he had already made in that laudable design and all the pomp and magnificence wherewith he had ordered the lovely Queen whom he was so loth to quit to be conducted out of his Territories were nothing so obliging to her nor so great for himself as the Letter which after the signing of all the Treaties that had been concluded by the Ministers on either side he wrote with his own hand to the King of England to this effect That there being few Kings who in personal worth excelled the Duke of Suffolk he ought to bestow on him so much of the Grandure of his Kingdom as might put him in a capacity to marry the Queen his Sister That if there were nothing on his part that might hinder such a lovely union for his own part he freely consented to it and that having besides proposed to the Arch-Duke the marriage of the Count of Nassaw with the Princess of Orange he should much rejoyce to hear that the two Ambassadours who had procured him the friendship of his illustrious neighbours had received in recompense the one the most beautiful Queen in the world and the other the richest Princess of the Low-Countries Thus did FRANCIS the First Crown his Love by a truely heroical action whereof another King slighted in his Love as he was would hardly have been capable It was the first action but not the least laudable of his Reign though that might afford matter for a continued Elogy There is nothing so great as for a man to conquer his own passions There are few that desire much less atchieve it And Kings especially when they are amorous and young are not accustomed to put their virtue to such a tryal The Queen found her self infinitely obliged to the sincere procedure which followed so generous an effort but durst not profess so much for fear of exposing her self to new troubles She thought it enough to correspond with it by all the civilities which might evidence her acknowledgment without reviving smothered flames and that Conduct of the most charming Princess of the world gaining intirely the esteem of a King who craved no more from her but friendship so fully re-placed her in the respect of all the Court notwithstanding of envy and detraction that there was not so much as one that belonged to it who seemed not troubled at her approaching departure The less polished Gallants lamented it and the others having understood the merit of the Duke of Suffolk during the time of his Embassie were almost all of opinion following the example of the King that the Queen had reason to love him All the discourse therefore at Court of their mutual affection was with respect and even with some kind of admiration and in fine every one conforming their Sentiments to theirs their true joy became the greater by approbation The lovely Queen was conducted by all the Court as far as Compiegne from whence the King still transported with Love resolved in person to convey her to Boulogne where he had first received her The Duke of Suffolk who kept purposely by the Queens Consort all the way from Paris to Compiegne where she lived that he might give the King the greater liberty did the same from Compiegne till they arrived at Boulogne and was always in company with the Dukes of Alencon and Bourbon from whom he received all sorts of civility The Duke of Longueville frustrated of his idle thoughts and reflecting on the ransom which he owed in England used all his endeavours but in vain to procure his protection The Queen had often declared against him and Suffolk durst promise nothing without her Approbation Though there be great antipathy betwixt the two Nations yet in all appearance their Adieus were friendly and that of FRANCIS the First to the Queen was so tender and passionate that she could not forbear to condole the affliction that he lamented That