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XIX

Of Empire

T is a miserable State of Minde, to have few

And yet that commonly is the Case of Kings; Who being at the highest, want Matter of desire, which makes their Mindes more Languishing; And have many Representations of Perills and Shadowes, which makes their Mindes the lesse cleare. And this is one Reason also of that Effect, which the Scripture speaketh of; That the Kings Heart is inscrutable. For Multitude of lealousies, and Lack of some predominant desire, that should marshall and put in order all the rest, maketh any Mans Heart, hard to finde, or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that Princes, many times, make themselves Desires, and set their Hearts upon toyes: Sometimes upon a Building; Sometimes upon Erecting of an Order; Sometimes upon the Advancing of a Person; Sometimes upon obtaining Excellency in some Art, or Feat of the Hand; As Nero for playing on the Harpe, Domitian for Certainty of the Hand with the Arrow, Commodus for

playing at Fence, Caracalla for driving Chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those, that know not the Principle; That the Minde of Man is more cheared, and refreshed, by profiting in small things, then by standing at a stay in great. We see also that Kings, that have been fortunate Conquerours in their first yeares; it being not possible for them to goe forward infinitely, but that they must have some Checke or Arrest in their Fortunes; turne in their latter yeares, to be Superstitious and Melancholy: As did Alexander the Great; Dioclesian; And in our memory, Charles the fift; And others: For he that is used to goe forward, and findeth a Stop, falleth out of his owne favour, and is not the Thing he was.

To speake now of the true Temper of Empire: It is a Thing rare, & hard to keep: For both Temper & Distemper consist of Contraries. But it is one thing to mingle Contraries, another to enterchange them. The Answer of Apollonius to Vespasian, is full of Excellent Instruction; Vespasian asked him; What was Neroes overthrow? He answered; Nero could touch and tune the Harpe well; But in Government, sometimes he used to winde the pins too high, sometimes to let them downe too low. And certaine it is, that Nothing destroieth Authority so much, as the unequall and untimely Enterchange of Power Pressed too farre, and Relaxed too much.

This is true; that the wisdome of all these latter Times in Princes Affaires, is rather fine Deliveries, and Shiftings of Dangers and Mis

chiefes, when they are neare; then solid and grounded Courses to keepe them aloofe. But this is but to try Masteries with Fortune: And let men beware, how they neglect, and suffer Matter of Trouble, to be prepared: For no Man can forbid the Sparke, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in Princes Businesse, are many and great; But the greatest difficulty, is often in their owne Minde. For it is common with Princes, (saith Tacitus) to will Contradictories. Sunt plerumque Regum voluntates vehementes, & inter se contraria. For it is the Solecisme of Power, to thinke to Command the End, and yet not to endure the Meane.

Kings have to deale with their Neighbours; their Wives; their Children; their Prelates or Clergie; their Nobles; their Second-Nobles or Gentlemen; their Merchants; their Commons; and their Men of Warre; And from all these arise Dangers, if Care and Circumspection be not used.

First for their Neighbours; There can no generall Rule be given, (The Occasions are so variable,) save one; which ever holdeth; which is, That Princes doe keepe due Centinell, that none of their Neighbours doe overgrow so, (by Encrease of Territory, by Embracing of Trade, by Approaches, or the like) as they become more able to annoy them, then they were. And this is, generally, the work of Standing Counsels to foresee, and to hinder it. During that Triumvirate of Kings, King Henry the 8. of England, Francis the 1. King of France, and Charles the 5. Emperour, there was such a watch kept,

that none of the Three, could win a Palme of Ground, but the other two, would straightwaies ballance it, either by Confederation, or, if need were, by a Warre: And would not, in any wise, take up Peace at Interest. And the like was done by that League (which, Guicciardine saith, was the Security of Italy) made betwene Ferdinando King of Naples; Lorenzius Medices, and Ludovicus Sforza, Potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Millaine. Neither is the Opinion, of some of the Schoole-Men, to be received; That a warre cannot iustly be made, but upon a precedent Iniury, or Provocation. For there is no Question, but a iust Feare, of an Imminent danger, though there be no Blow given, is a lawfull Cause of a Warre.

For their Wives; There are Cruell Examples of them. Livia is infamed for the poysoning of her husband: Roxolana, Solymans Wife, was the destruction, of that renowned Prince, Sultan Mustapha; And otherwise troubled his House, and Succession: Edward the Second of England, his Queen, had the principall hand, in the Deposing and Murther of her Husband. This kinde of danger, is then to be feared, chiefly, when the Wives have Plots, for the Raising of their owne Children; Or else that they be Ad

voutresses.

For their Children: The Tragedies, likewise, of dangers from them, have been many. And generally, the Entring of Fathers, into Suspicion of their Children, hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction of Mustapha, (that we named before) was so fatall to Solymans Line, as the

Succession of the Turks, from Solyman, untill this day, is suspected to be untrue, and of strange Bloud; For that Selymus the Second was thought to be Supposititious. The destruction of Crispus, a young Prince, of rare Towardnesse, by Constantinus the Great, his Father, was in like manner fatall to his House; For both Constantinus, and Constance, his Sonnes, died violent deaths; And Constantius his other Sonne, did little better; who died, indeed, of Sicknesse, but after that Iulianus had taken Armes against him. The destruction of Demetrius, Sonne to Philip the Second, of Macedon, turned upon the Father, who died of RepentAnd many like Examples there are: But few, or none, where the Fathers had good by such distrust; Except it were, where the Sonnes were up, in open Armes against them; As was Selymus the first against Baiazet: And the three Sonnes of Henry the Second, King of England.

ance.

For their Prelates; when they are proud and great, there is also danger from them: As it was, in the times of Anselmus, and Thomas Becket, Archbishops of Canterbury; who with their Crosiars, did almost try it, with the Kings Sword; And yet they had to deale with Stout and Haughty Kings; William Rufus, Henry the first, and Henry the second. The danger is not from that State, but where it hath a dependance of forraine Authority; Or where the Churchmen come in, and are elected, not by the Collation of the King, or particular Patrons, but by the People.

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