had the fortune of a true Christian, as well as of a great King, in living exercised, and dying repentant: So as he had an happy warfare in both conflicts, both of sin, and the

cross.

He was born at Pembroke castle, and lieth buried at West- 5 minster, in one of the stateliest and daintiest monuments of Europe, both for the chapel, and for the sepulchre. So that he dwelleth more richly dead, in the monument of his tomb, than he did alive in Richmond, or any of his palaces. I could wish he did the like in this monument of his fame.

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NOTES.

Dedication, p. 3. Prince Charles, son of James I, and afterwards King Charles I. The History of Henry VII was written in 1622, three years before the death of James I. Prince Henry the eldest son of James I died in 1612, whereupon Charles became Prince of Wales, &c.

Prince of Wales. This title was first bestowed on the heir to the English throne by Edward I, who created his son Edward, born at Caernarvon, Prince of Wales in 1284.

Duke of Cornwall. This title was first given to the Prince of Wales when Edward III created the Black Prince duke of Cornwall in 1335.

Earl of Chester. This title existed in early times, and was not at first a title of the royal house, but was made such by Henry III, who bestowed it on his son Prince Edward in 1245. On an attempt which was made during this reign to obtain it for other than the royal family see p. 125, 1. 4.

Line 1. It may please, &c. The more usual order in modern times is, May it please. In the older form some expression, as I hope, is to be mentally supplied. For an example of a similar character see p. 136,

line 27.

4. last King of England, that was ancestor, &c. father of Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland. James V, the father of Mary, Queen of Scots, who James VI of Scotland and I of England.

Henry VII was Their son was was mother of

6. both unions, i. e. first, the union of the two families of York and Lancaster by the marriage of Henry VII, the representative of the Lancastrian house, with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, of the Yorkist line; and secondly, in later times, the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland under the same monarch, which was brought about by the succession of James I to the English throne on the death of Queen Elizabeth. Both these events may be referred to Henry VII.

P. 4, line 1. better for the liver, i. e. more comfortable for those who live in them. Uneventful times may be said to be such, while stirring times supply more details for the writer of history. The Latin text is : alterum genus temporum viventibus commodius, alterum scribentibus gratius. The noun liver is not of frequent occurrence. It is found in

Shakespeare, Cymb. III. 4. 15: "Prithee, think there's livers out of Britain."

2. took. In modern English we should write taken. But this confused use as a participle of the form which has since been confined to the past tense was not uncommon in Bacon's time. Cf. Shakespeare, M. for M. II. 2. 74: “and he that might the vantage best have took.”

5. incomparable. It must be remembered that Bacon wrote this in the year after his condemnation by the House of Lords. King James had remitted both parts of the sentence, the fine and the imprisonment, and so the strength of this epithet may be due in some measure to that circumstance, but compare the dedication of the Advancement of Learning, written in 1605, where even stronger language than that in our text appears. Cf. p. 3 (Clarendon Press Series), "I am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is that there hath not been since Christ's time any king or temporal prince which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition divine and human, &c." The dedication of the Authorized Version of the Bible to this same King is in a like laudatory and flattering style, which was, as it seems, the common mode of addressing this pedantic monarch.

7. pieces, i. e. pictures, keeping up the metaphor from painting which he had employed in the previous sentence. The Latin text has exemplar. For the English word in this sense cf. Shaks. Timon, I. 1. 28: "Let's see your piece; 'Tis a good piece...what a mental power this eye shoots forth.

10. Francis St Alban. Bacon was created Viscount St Alban January 27th, 1620-1.

Text, p. 5. Henry the Seventh. The connection of the King with the house of Lancaster will be seen from the following table:

John Beaufort (earl of Somerset) was one of several natural children of John of Gaunt by Catharine Swynford, who subsequently became his third wife. The children were called Beaufort from the name of the castle in France where they were born. These illegitimate children were legitimated by an Act of Parliament in 1397, and no restriction was then put upon their claim to the throne.

Line I. in fact. An English representation of the Latin phrase de facto, as opposed to de jure. See below, p. 15, 1. II.

2. regiment rule, government. Cf. the title of John Knox's work, "The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women," a work in which he assails the rule of the three Marys, Mary of Guise, queen-dowager and regent of Scotland; Mary queen of Scots and queen Mary of England. The Latin has regimen.

8. a devout mother. The name of Lady Margaret, the mother of Henry VII, still survives in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in the titles bestowed upon the readers in divinity, the chairs for which she endowed. Christ's College and St John's in Cambridge are also monuments, of her devotion. She was likewise a benefactress to the monasteries of Thorney, Peterborough, Croyland, Bourn and Spalding. See Cooper's Lady Margaret, lately edited by Professor Mayor. Her parentage is seen from the pedigree on the previous page. She was first given in marriage, at the age of nine, by her guardian William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, to his son John who afterwards became duke of Suffolk. But when her guardian was attainted in 1450, this marriage was regarded as a nullity, and she afterwards married Edmund Tudor the father of Henry VII. Her husband dying before their son was born, she afterwards married lord Henry Stafford, a younger son of Humphrey Stafford first duke of Buckingham. This second husband died in 1482, and she soon after was married to Thomas, second lord Stanley. Lady Margaret was born in 1441 and died in 1509.

13. the body of Richard. The body of the late king was stripped, laid across a horse behind a pursuivant-at-arms, and conveyed to Leicester, where, after it had been exposed for two days, it was buried with little ceremony in the church of the Grey Friars. Ten years later Henry VII caused a tomb to be erected over the grave.

14. diriges, funeral-hymns. The name is said to be derived from the Latin word dirige which occurs in the first line of a solemn Latin hymn of the Romish Church: Dirige gressus meos. Hence the modern word dirge. This etymology has been disputed but no better has been suggested in its place. The word occurs in Spenser, Mother Hubbard's Tale, line 454: "Their diriges, their trentals and their shrifts."

18. religious people. Monks and nuns are frequently thus spoken of, as being more devoted to a life of religion than others. Cf. Roy's "Read me and be not wroth" (Arber's Reprints), p. 152: "The apostles had all thynges in comone, lyke as soche clarkes and religyous saye they have nowe. In tokenynge whereof no man sayd...thys ys myne, so our clarkes and namely [i. e. especially] relygyous people when they will speak in terms of their religyon.'

P. 6, line 2. unworthy of inappropriate to, unmeet for, undeserved, in the sense of being too bad for. Latin, injuriosus. Cf. Shakespeare, Richard III, 1. 2. 88:

doing worthy vengeance on thyself Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others.

executioner of King Henry VI. Edward IV had the report cir

B. H.

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