which they grew, could not have been without some great defects and main errors in his nature, customs, and proceedings, which he had enough to do to save and help with a thousand little industries and watches. But those do best 5 appear in the story itself. Yet take him with all his defects, if a man should compare him with the Kings his concurrents in France and Spain, he shall find him more politic than Lewis the twelfth of France, and more entire and sincere than Ferdinando of Spain. But if you shall change 10 Lewis the twelfth for Lewis the eleventh, who lived a little before, then the consort is more perfect. For that Lewis the eleventh, Ferdinando, and Henry may be esteemed for the tres magi of Kings of those ages. To conclude, if this King did no greater matters, it was long of himself; for what 15 he minded he compassed.

1

He was a comely personage, a little above just stature, well and straight limbed, but slender. His countenance was reverend, and a little like a churchman: and as it was not strange or dark, so neither was it winning or pleasing, but 20 as the face of one well disposed. But it was to the disadvantage of the painter, for it was best when he spake.

His worth may bear a tale or two, that may put upon him somewhat that may seem divine. When the lady Margaret his mother had divers great suitors for marriage, 25 she dreamed one night, that one in the likeness of a bishop

in pontifical habit did tender her Edmund earl of Richmond, the King's father, for her husband, neither had she ever any child but the King, though she had three husbands. One day when King Henry the sixth, whose innocency gave him 30 holiness, was washing his hands at a great feast, and cast his eye upon King Henry, then a young youth, he said; "This "is the lad that shall possess quietly that, that we now strive for." But that, that was truly divine in him, was that he

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.

ΙΟ

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.