very great Oversight to suffer themselves to be charmed by your Flatteries and Cozenages When as Queen Elizabeth redemanded Calais for just Reasons she then alleged the French resolved rather to endure a War wherewith she menac'd them than to surrender it Because saith the same Laboureur there was a double danger one to suffer our ancient Enemies to get footing in the Continent of France and then too because they are Hereticks who would always have a Faction in the State to revive their old Quarrels at pleasure and that it more concern'd us now than heretofore to shut them up with their new Religion on the other side the Sea This was done in the Sale of Dunkirk and if any other place offer it self to purchase France will be no Higler but purchase it at any rate supposing she be discharged of her Wars with Spain Again Queen Elizabeth insisting still upon the Restitution of Calais and speaking of it unto Sancy he after several shifts and excuses By God Madam quoth he can Tour Majesty be so simple as to imagine the King my Master would give you Calais again Which Answer touching her to the quick she demands Bouloigne in lieu of it The King who foresaw the Consequence of the English setting footing once more on French Ground commanded her to be told That he had rather the King of Spain should give him a Box on the ear than the Queen of England should give him a Filip And in troth she had not Calais when the term of Eight Years was expired although according to Treaty it was then to have been surrendred or Hostages and sufficient Security for payment of Five hundred thousand Crowns promised her in case of Non-performance But as usual they fail of their Words and the good Queen onely recovered Six score thousand Crowns at the Treaty of Troys Thus Calais is once again become French France loves her own Repose and Glory too much ever to part with it and the Subjects as well as their Prince are too much in love with it to suffer it slip out of their hands I speak but the very words of the Cardinal of Lorrain There is no Frenchman saith he but would rather hazard his Life than advise the King to surrender Calais and would not more willingly sacrifice his whole Estate than once give his consent thereunto This was spoken like a true Frenchman and their Neighbours should resent such daring Expressions as tenderly as they themselves do if there be any thing of credit in what S'aavedre reports That the Prince's Acquists enhaunce his Dread and Reverence but what he forgoes redounds to his contempt and scorn Francis I. would never engage himself with Charles V. against England fearing left in the Conquest of this Kingdom it should happen to him as it did in the Conquest of Naples between Ferdinand of Arragon and Lewis XII The Emperour being unable to brook an Equal and himself a Superiour Besides Francis should have drawn upon himself a more potent Enemy than him of whom he was rid the Leopards of England being no less terrible than the Eagles of the Empire or the Lions of Castile Yea the Spaniards stifly seconded the English in their demands of Calais confessing That they ought not to abandon them and that if they were not protected they very well knew Spain would be next ruin'd so that their own Losses would be greatest This is written by the Cardinal of Lorrain Spain then reason'd solidly and judiciously In prospect of this Henry VIII coined Medals of Gold on whose Reverse a Hand appeared out of a Cloud holding a Pair of Balances in equilibrio the two Scales whereof signified France and Spain with this Motto He wins on whose side I turn Queen Elizabeth governed her self by the same Maxim and assisted Henry IV. so long as he was weakest but seasonably forbore when once she saw him start up beyond his just and proper bounds and at that time told Sully That neither France nor England nor any others had any thing to do with the Low Countries and that she would never endure the French King should gain so much as one inch of ground there And when as Pope Clement VIII told Cardinal Ossat that England hated France implacably he replied At this time England hates Spain more and that they ought now to regard the present state of Affairs which had united both French and English against a common Enemy by one common Interest which was evermore the strongest and securest band among all States and Princes This Reason which once serv'd the turn of France shall at another opportunity do Spain a kindness Because Kingdoms are not to be reputed strong or weak as they be in themselves but as they hold comparison with their Neighbours and from proportion wherewith they are adjusted one unto another Du Plessis sent this Message to Walsingham in England not to abandon Henry IV. nor the German Protestants Let 's see whether we may not use those self-same words to evince the true Interest of England Charles I. was convinc'd of it and Charles II. hath been also and will be possibly yet more when like a great and deep Statesman he shall be pleased to penetrate into the future And it is not to be doubted by the way he begins to take and by what he had done formerly in Person at the Head of his Army that he will not suffer himself to be over-reach'd by false Reasonings nor give his Slanderers occasion to say of him as of his Grandfather King Iames That he knew not how nor ever cared to manage businesses nor would once put his hands to dispatch them till such time as both means and opportunities had quite forsook him I don't doubt but that Charles our gracious King who now reigneth will recollect what happen'd how and by whom unto his Father and what manner of Treatment he met withall in France even with no less than Banishment And for all possible Allurements from the French he may be fully confident of receiving the same measure from them again if the same occasion were which God forbid or if he quit Spain with his own true Interest and that of his Kingdom which subsists by Commerce to imbrace the Humours and Private Interest of half-sighted and corrupt Ministers France debitting none other Commodities than her Brandies and Apish Gewgaws in lieu of those substantial Merchandizes England hath of her own and importeth for all Quarters of the habitable World And when Realities are forsaken and Deceits and Cheats taken immoderate and restless Spirits do ordinarily take hold of such sensible Arguments to alienate and imbitter the Hearts of the People which though frequently too too querimonious yet gracious Princes without humouring them in all their childish Cravings will nevertheless comply with all that shall be manifestly for their solid Good It were a pleasant story to relate the Civilities of France to Edward IV. who being at a pinch and driven out of
is to send out Sinons or pretended Fugitives which are forsooth banished from their Court yet these are in a secret Intelligence with them to send to 'em all Foreign Intelligences by seeming to betray France to that Nation whereunto they fly Thus have we known and seen Monsieur Gourville to be banisht as it were upon the account of Foucquet to Brussells Madrid and the Hague There to screw himself into favour he communicated to 'em some empty Secrets to hide from them the true State of Affairs of France His Couriers did seemingly go from Paris to Flanders and Holland and backward again and in this Hurry Course and Intercourse he fed the Spaniards but with Chymera's and sent an Accompt of their real Designs into France But after all when this Impostor was found out by the Spaniard he was as heartily wellcommed at Paris as if no grudge had ever been and from Intendant of the Prince of Conde's he was received into an inner favour I could mention the Guizes in former times who were banisht to gull the Protestants and some of late sent into England and perhaps the Earl of S. who in their Language makes sixteen is this last month fled hither into England upon no other occasion 4. What should I run over the particulars I above promised to demonstrate when all observing persons may prove them to themselves When his late breaches of the Treaties of the Pyrenees of Breda of Westphalia and of Nimeguen do shew that France values no otherwise such Ties than Lisander did the solemnest Oaths that is to deceive men thereby and to get a fit opportunity of breaking them to his advantage But we intend to set forth shortly an Abstract of the Treaties of France with the House of Austria in this last Century and the Reasons of the Alternative Growth and Decline of each of these and therein it will from the words of the Treaties and Impartial Historians appear how far the French are to be trusted to in this point of Transactions and Covenants 5. Now as to the use they may make of Emissaries and Pensioners abroad to make Factions in the Neighbouring Courts the clear-sighted know that Monsieur Vaubrun was sent into Germany but for to stir Serin and Ragotzi against the House of Austria Each one may perceive that the Prince Furstemburg who is in Bavaria does act in consort with the other Furstemberg that resides in France And that Monsieur Gremonville was the occasion of the Revolt in Hungary for which and several other Divisions he wrought in Vienna he was expell'd more civilly than he deserved The Archbishop of Gnesne and the Mareschal Sobieski were the Pensioners that France bragg'd of in the Court of Poland and of some also in ours which could be named but that a respectful tenderness for my Countrymen makes me more reserved and shall shut them up in my own Breast hoping they have since repented of such base and unnatural Treacheries toward their generous and gracious King and dear Countrey especially knowing some of 'em to be dead and others almost dying which were mentioned in Parliament 6. Now touching French Princesses they match out to have occasion thereby to divide their Neighbours God forbid that I should think that all the Ladies of that Rank were Fredegonde Brunehaut or Helena like but that as this later was the occasion of the subtle Grecians getting foot into the Trojan Territories and of imbroyling and ravaging it by long Wars so I observed that most commonly those French Princesses are Engines of State to carry along with 'em abroad Corresponding Colonies of that restless ambitious and intriguing Nation to make the interest of that Court where they go to bend to that of their Native Countrey which they ever love best I 'll but glance at Examples The very memory of Mary of Nevers is odious in Poland by whose occasion that Country was brought into such inward Disturbances and Factions that not long ago King Cazimir himself at last was fain to quit the Crown for a quiet Coole in the Abbey of St. Germain at Paris But the observant in Publick Affairs may find fresh Presidents hereof in Tuscany Portugal and perhaps England not long since and I am affraid that Lady they of late sent to Spain will be the pretence in time to come of making more Demands than that of Mastrick which they would now go about 7. Hitherto we have toucht of the Causes or Instruments the French do make use of now of the Effect which is Divisions in Foreign Courts either to cut out work for such at home that they may be no Obstacle to the Carier of the French Conquests or to make a Breach among us at which they may creep in more easily For the proof hereof for brevities sake I 'll refer you to what I hinted above touching the Divisions the French Emissaries wrought in Poland in and before the year 71 and likewise about and before that time in Germany when their Agents swarmed there to sow those Seeds of War which we have since seen sprung up to such a height as cannot be yet cut down nor extirpated possibly by all the hands in Europe Colbert the Junior as I mention'd before not long since carried away Corn and Coin viz. Thirty thousand Crowns into Portugal by way of Loan as it were to raise the Countrey against the Spaniard and so make a Diversion from Flanders But the Instructions and Covenants whereby the French required some Sea-port Towns on the Coast of Spain to be given to themselves as I warrant you they 'll serve no Friend for nothing these I say were seized in another Ship that straggled into the Spaniards Nett where all the Mine was discovered Such was the Disturbances they wrought in Lorrain that the late Duke somewhat guilty thereof himself dolefully cried out That the Neighbourhood of France was a smoke that would drive him out of his own Countrey and Estate What should I mention the Jealousies Dissentions and Divisions which we with tears behold here to be wrought by them in our England and its Dependants when any unbyass'd considering person may perceive that they strive to repeat the Scenes of the late Intestine Tragedy wherein that Wicked French Embassadour Monsieur de Thou by his Agents confessed and repented too late to have acted here the Prologue by traducing blasting and heightning in that moderate Royal Martyr a propensity to Popery forsooth by mis-representing the King to the People the People and Parliament to the King by unsuspected Instruments by contriving means to divide the unwary Protestants about Formalities and petit Differences about Indifferent Things wherein it is impossible to unite 'em in no otherwise than by Charity Meekness and Patience for Persecution is observed to increase Proselites and make 'em more zealous and vertuous which otherwise without opposition would languish and decay but if the work be of God as Gamaliel said that cannot be destroyed by Men by all
matter to dispossess the English where once they had got footing yet was it easie enough to disseise and unroost others either by Force or Treaty as they did justly enough by that of Vervins yet now the Tables are turn'd for they once understanding that Spain is brought upon her knees the Conquest of that and England will not cost much time nor pains The Balance being now removed their Forces augment daily and like a violent Inundation carry all before them It 's true this is yet impossible if England do not stand neuter while other Nations are entering into more than a Triple League which to effect the one and hinder the other they turn every stone they embarrass all Affairs they support the Intrigue with a thousand hopes and those hopes with a profuse expence of Treasure which forceth a passage through those fordid Souls whose sole Interest is their private Gain and Advantage And that which is most surprizing is this they engage the Favourites who are Lords of th' Ascendant at Court or elsewhere and at this rate believe themselves potent enough to give what Laws they please to all politick Transactions if so be the true Interest give ground unto the false which is cheating changeable and infallibly destructive to them that do embrace it And by these means they of late cut the Gordian Knot of that Triple League as if they were cock-sure beforehand of their designs and their business were already done unto their hands Pomponne was dispatch'd into Swedeland to disengage that Crown from the League by the golden promises of Conquests Pensions and Presents which will go very far in a poor Countrey and remove whatever Obstacle stands in his way to the Empire of all Europe The worst is that in France at those times they did publish this Negotiation branding England with the goodly Names of Unconstant and Perfidious Which brings to my mind a story of the Viscount of Narbonne who told an Englishman That six hundred Tun of Wine and a Pension had quickly sent them back again to England The other answering It was a Tribute and no Pension This was in the Reign of Lewis XI who disengaged England from succouring the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretaigne The Jest was biting but 't is the usual Coyn wherewith France pays such whom it openly flatters that so she may if possible ruin and strangle them the more cunningly A League with England blocks up the Spanish Havens so faith du Plessis and the French are hot and intent upon it Truth is the Daughter of Time and Time must discover the events of this Maxim Onely let me add by the way that if France cannot prevail with England to do this Jobb for her she will tack about and treat with Spain upon other terms that relinquishing the Spanish Netherlands she shall be recompenced more abundantly with the Spoils of some other parts of Europe which France will conquer for her We will unriddle this Mystery and let England seribusly consider Castillon in his Embassie for Francis I. writing from London adviseth his Master to a League with Spain against England For saith he I would ever counsel your Majesty to quit other designs and accord with Spain and to give this Kingdom in preys which may be with more facility and less expence effected than to take Calais for the expence cannot last above one moneth or six weeks at the most Divide England between you and let each take those parts of it which lie most commodious and convenient for him And in the close he subjoyns Your Majesty may keep Wales and Cornwall and Scotland for yourself and leave be sorry remainders unto the Emperour There be three things worthy our observation from this Embassadorâ—s advice The one is that France believed she might cheat Spain into this treacherous Conquest provided Spain would but sacrifice to her Covetousness and Ambition the Low Countries The second is that Spain keeps fast and faithful to the Publick and prefers it before her own private Interest And then lastly because of this Phantastick League England must immediately and infallibly be conquer'd as soon as invaded especially let her be once abandon'd of her Allies and that France have brought Spain and Holland upon their knees and hath united their scattered disjoynted Naval Forces with her own I trust my Sentiments are plain so plain that the meanest Capacity can comprehend me Alliances betwixt Crowns bring little profit to the People This is visible in the Matches between the two Royal Houses of Prance and England for no sooner was Henrietta Maria wedded unto King Charles but State Interest and the Capricious Humours of the Favourites interrupted that Peace which a long time before had continued between both Kingdoms and by the Marriage was sworn to be perpetuated Experience also of what had past might have render'd Spain more advised and to have avoided that snare into which she ran through false Maxims with a great deal of Joy The onely quote one passage out of the Memoirs of the Duke of Sully he then writing to Henry IV. about his Intrigues with spain tells him That the growth of one Prince is the diminution of another that no Parentage Affinities Leagues Peace Treaties Agreements Oaths or reciprocal Promises could ever yield sufficient Precautions for time to come against Interest of State I could wish this Memoir affixed on the Cabinet of Madrid for their future Reformation and that in time to come they would take other Measures sith Lewis XIV adheres most pertinaciously to the Maxims of Sully and that after a Treaty sworn with the greatest seriousness and solemnity and a Cession of all Rights made and verified in due form of Law For instead of observing it they are now debating other Rights and demand an hundred things which being refused they take up Arms and proceed to the worst Acts of Hostility leaving us without hopes of any Calm to follow upon this Storm which menaceth with an universal Deluge all the Netherlands Give me leave to subjoyn one important Advice unto England The Right of Edward III. saith Laboureur is not worth the mentioning were it not to tell the world how unrighteous the English are in their pretentions to it and to manifest what necessity lieth on us to keep that Nation at a bay at a distance from us which is naturally quarrelsom born our Enemy and that will borrow Assistance whereever she can get it and take up any the least pretext in the world to subdue and ruine us Robert Abbot of La Celle reproach'd an English Prelate with this that his Countrymen in their Inclinations resembled that Element which did encompass them that is to say they were cruel proud unconstant and seditious These are noble Elogies indeed conferr'd upon your Friends Monsieur in a time of perfect peace nay upon your best and most potent Friends to whom you have in this present Juncture of Affairs your Recourse and who are guilty of this
his Kingdom by a Competitor and applying himself to one of their Kings for Assistance could get none other Answer than this That the League was made with the King of England and his State but he being no longer King of England France could not without violating the Articles of that League imploy their Arms against him who was then actually possessed of the Crown They discharged themselves of him very handsomly and 't was a fine piece of Raillery God forbid we should be misinterpreted to give these as sawcy Omens that which we give as plain and sincere Items not to rely upon the French Amity which will prove a broken reed in case of need as former and later Examples convince us Yet this Fear is groundless in our days thanks be to God for Charles is a Prince so August of so much Justice and withall so well acquainted with the World as to that point that he will not neglect the Glory redounding to him from those Victories he may atchieve with a wet Finger by treading in the Footsteps of his renowned Ancestours Above all it 's then most needful to use such means when as a Sovereign Prince is grown so puissant by his Arms that the progress of his Victories do make him terrible to his Neighbours The Duke of Roan gives the same Advice in his Interest of Princes Thus I have endeavoured to lay open Monsiuer and his Policies if our Eyes will be but open to see ' em And though we have proposed such ways and measures of attacquing the French in part of their own Dominions which may not be deemed to be at this Juncture so practicable as if we should rather go about to weaken 'em by helping their Enemies and our Allies yet that is an Executive part and fitter for other persons to direct and prescribe Our Design here being onely to make such an Answer as we thought the fittest to brow-beat that domineering Nation we judged that the aptest and shortest way to refute their Contumelies and shallow Pretensions on England was plainly to raise a Counter-battery of other Pretensions on France which are more grounded to speak to them like Britains or old Englishmen to borrow some strong Arguments ad hominem from both the Edwards Quiver to manifest that we are not so weak as to stand a scanning it with 'em Scholar-like with a weak Pen but rather Man-like to shew that we are more ready to make an Answer with our Swords and with the point of it to prick this Bladder of Ambition which so vainly puffs 'em up in conceit above their Neighbours whom they so presumptuously despise slander and would trample under as if they forgot that the English are the same when e're put to it that they felt 'em to be at Poictiers at Guyenne and many other places in France in the days of old But if they or any of them in England will take offence at any thing that 's said here we say 't is but a Retaliation to their Writers If they say that their Writers spoke but their private sense then let this pass for such another piece For I protest no publick or private person ever moved me to it but the meer disinterested Affection I bear to my Countrey and I am so far from having any particular grudge against the French on any account such as the Common People usually have they know not why that I declare they have been far more just and grateful to me than England it self But let that pass and if the French will or must own that the French Politician and these other Defamatory Memoirs came from the Closet of publick persons and were spirited and are followed by such in their present courses we Englishmen do likewise for our parts whatever has been here said by way of Argument and to shew Frenchmen that we want neither Eyes Feeling nor Courage submissively and wholly leave it to our Sovereign and his Counsellors to return a more fit and publick Answer to France in this point in their own due time For we are not unsensible that those that sit in eminent places have a larger and clearer prospect of things than others so that the word of Command and Motion is to be always expected from them as from the head but sometimes persons that stand on a far lower ground may have a more particular knowledge of some Gaps and Precipices which are just within their own reach and precinct And even a Courrier or Scout may without reflexion to his Generals make a report touching the matters of fact he has observed in his course on the borders of the Enemy and also what he thinks of their next Motions by what he hath heard or seen among themselves FINIS ☞ The Jesuit's Catechism according to St. Ignatius Loyola for the instructing and strengthening of all those which are weak in that Faith wherein the impiety of their Principles perniciousness of their Doctrines and iniquity of their Practices are declared Printed for Robert Harford at the Angel in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange in Quarto Price 1 s. ☞ Humane Prudence Or the Art by which a Man may raise Himself and Fortune to Grandeur By A. B. sold by Robert Harford at the Angel in Cornhil price 1 s.