ground of that; for no good advyse can be given if the estate of the matter be mistaken. Of the two, true information is the most necessair for the affaires of remote kingdoms; for those bissinesses which require deep advice are managed there where the person of the prince resydeth; seldom do great matters occur in remote places, and where they do, the nature of the thing alloweth tyme of deliberation, (for great bodyes have slow motions); there, if matters go in the ordinary way, all is well; but, without true information, a prince can nather order things, command, signe, nor direct anything aright.

7. A Kingdom in itself devyded.

This is good for the King, ill for the people, good for the people, ill for the King, and contrarily, are incongruities in speech, impossibities in nature, and cannot be instanced; they divyd things indivisible, and separat what God has conjoyned, and have wrought bad opinions in the minds of princes and their subjects in some parts of the world; they are fals though frequent, and are the eruptions and sallies from the minds of those ill spirits which walk betwix a King and his people. For a King and his people mak up one politik body, wherof the King is the head. In a politik as in a natural body, what is good or ill for one is so for both, neither can the one subsist without the other, but must go to ruin with the other.

8. Obscure Lawis and Letters.

Princes' letters and laws ought to be cleir and perspicuous, without equivocal or perplexed sense, admitting no construction but one. For an obscure law alledged in any caus, gives occasion of more proces, more dispute, and delay, than the caus itself; and an obscure letter makes the party, in whose favour it is conceaved, to come up, or require an explanation by a second, and his adversary to purches a contrary one; (which may be done, where there is double sens and obscuritie, without danger, the interpretation being allowed to the contriver, or at least may serve him for excuse, as being his error not his avarice,' which cannot be where words run in a clear and genuine sens ;) whereby the prince is * * * 2 and they extremely damnifyed.

1 See this illustrated in a passage of Lord Napier's Relation, ante p. 52. The value of the advice was verified in the sequel. In each fresh impulse given to the democratic movement, the Covenanting faction excused themselves, as a cer

tain class of writers yet attempt to excuse them, upon some double sense alleged to be detected in the King's concessions.

2 Manuscript destroyed.

9. Exactions.

1

Wyse princes love rich subjects; for seditious commotions, nor insurrections, do seldom, or never proceed from men who find themselves well in their private estates; but they who are pressed with necessity at home are glad of any occasion or pretext to trouble the public quiet, and to fish in troubled waters to better their fortunes. Pernicious, therefore, is that advice to keep subjects low and poor the better to govern them.

10. Protectioun of Evill Servants.

To protect fathfull servants is a generous and princely part; and [to protect] the guilty, too, against the pursute of another that is powerfull, may perchance seem to mayntayn a prince's prerogative; but then he ought to be punished by [the prince] himself. So shall justice be satisfyed, the honour of the King's service, and his prerogative, remayne inviolated.

Those counsells (with the lyk of that kynd,) wherein the prince's good is pretended, the private ends of these bad councillors only intended, hath been the efficient causes of the ruin of Kings, Kingdoms and Estates,—which Almighty God can only remead. And therfor, let all good subjects who love their prince and countrie, pray with Solomon, LORD REMOVE THE WICKED from the King, and his throne shall be established in righteousness."

1 The needy Rothes was the father of the Covenant. He was eventually bought off by the prospect of a place and a rich marriage at court, and actually died a courtier. The first great result of the Covenant was, as we shall find, the scramble among its leaders for offices torn from the King's prerogative in 1641; and its subsequent progress was simply the securing by Revolution, what had been so lawlessly acquired by insurrection.

2 These far-sighted reflections, on the prospects of King and country, were noted in the privacy of his closet, and ere the great Rebellion had com

menced, by a nobleman who may be said to have reared that 'bloody murtherer and excommunicated traitor' Montrose, and whom we shall presently discover sharing and approving every step of his calumniated pupil's career, from his early and mistaken support of the Covenant, to his raising the royal standard in Scotland. Had Napier, like Clarendon, lived to know the fate of Charles, and to trace his history back from its bloody close through all the mazes of faction and faithlessness that destroyed him, he would have needed not to depart from or alter a single sentence of his painful meditations.

i

K

III.

Privat ends ought not to be devyded from the Publik Good.

Our ends ar the centers of our mynd; they gif motion and forme to the whole circumference of our thoghts, and as within a large and wel framed circle there may be drawn many lesser, with there just proportions, and without disturbing one another, by fixing there several centers on that of the great circle,—so, in a wel governed state, all privat endevers, altho different in proportion of power and greatnes, do with facilitie move within there own spheares, without any disorderly interrupting of others, when the subjects privat ends ar concentrik with the public good. This is the beautifull ordour of the great Monarchie of the Univers, where the Heavens, Planets, and Elements have there distinct spheares, except those two heavie bodyis, Earth and Water, which hath one orbe, lyk a corporation in a state: For they have all one common center, or all there centers in one. But if the poynt of any inferior circle be never so little distant from the center of the greatest, it devydeth and cancelleth some part of thes circles that ar above and below and the subject who hath his ends never so little excentrik from the publik good, the sphear of his endeavoirs must neids cross other mens honest intentions, and in exchange be agayne crost be them, disturbing the natural ordour of societie, and compassing there own ends with difficultie and opposition: For if he be a great man that hath the compas of his power neir to that of the Prince or State, and the center of designs distant, his actions within the state are nothing els but cross and cancelling lynes of all privat and publik endevoirs: and his correspondences abrod (the part of his circle that extendeth itself without the great circumference of the state) are but wayes and opportunities to enter and oppress it on the other syd: Besyd, his own ends are in the middle of his thoghts, but the publik good is thrust to a corner or excluded the whole compas of them: And if he be a mean man, whose narrow circumference is neir his own ends, and far from retching the compas of the state, his different end shall mak him truble all that ar within the precint of his power, and exclude the common good: And with difficulty shall they compas there own ends, becaus there particular motion stryves againes the universall stream of affairs. It is therfoir the duty of a good subject, in regard of the good of common society, and of a wyse man in respect of his own, to fix his private ends on the center of the publik good, that without ather active or passive inter

ruptions, the circle of his travels may compas the publik good, and easilie in it his

own.

Of Faction.

Just grevances, if they be of severall kynds, seeketh redres singlie, by ordinarie justice, or soverane equitie, seldome or never by way of confederacie. But the exhalations of envy, hate, avarice, and ambition, compact themselves togidder in a cloud of faction, going about to distemper the air of quyet tymes, and to eclypse the bright beames of the prince's favour, tho they cannot stop the influence of the same from descending on a wel deserving servant. But as they ar terrible in show to the apprehension, they ar contemptible to the judgment, for there weakness and short continuation. It is the subtle practizes and secreat aspersions of supposed frends that ar the noysum vapours which breede a perpetual plague and mortalitie to our fortunes and reputation. The oppin factions, for the most part, ar ather prevented or provyded for, and when they ar most fearfull, threatning death and destruction, they do but consume themselves, shooting there thunderbolt againes some remote place of the sensles earth. For a faction, lyk a meteor, is a body imperfytlie mixed, consisting of partes disproportionable in there qualities, dyvers in there ends and designments, different and sometymes contrary in there causes, proceedings, judgments, and affections, and as interchangeablie affected as air and water: Besyds, those partes ar badlie united, becaus they want that soverane and constrayning power which is the band of all lawfull societies, to direct and enforce there private endevoirs to publik ends; They contayne therfoir within themselves the seedis and causes of weaknas and dissolution, to wit, contradiction and diversitie; and wanting a transcendent and controlling power, there addition in number is but a diminishing of force, for the greater number the greater diversitie; so that, spending there force in mutuall contradiction, they ar weak against any thrid. But lawfull societies ar lyk naturel bodyis, whose partes being of one kynd are inclyned to unitie; yet ar they devydit to be the moir fit for variety of action and motion; their unitie is devydit and there division united, for the good of the whole, by a soule of soverane power, which animates and strenthens the whole and every parte. Factions therfoir ar easilie dissolved by the sun of Majestie, or dissipat and banished the horizon of the State by the strong windes of princely power. But if they ayme at any eminent person, but yet a subject, he shall hardly oppress them by mayne force and opposition; for that confirmes there resolutions, and binds them togider with common fear and desperation; a dangerous enemie, which, lyk Anteus, cast down to the ground doth even

from thence recover new strength and fresh courage. It wes wel advysed by one, 'mak your enymies a bridge of gold;' and wysly practized by another, whose forces having entered a town, while the inhabitants seeing no means of escaping gathered themselves togider resolving to dye and revenge there deaths valiantlie, opened a port giffing way to there desperation, whereupon they all fled and were cut to pieces without resistance. The ancient advice is this best cours, divide et impera, gently and wyslye to mix threats with promises, to practize on the hopes and feares of men, gayning them at any rate except by dishonor or demonstration of fear; of which, some are publikly to return to there duty, to lead the way to others, and to discourage the rest; othersome, to remane with the factious to gif intelligence of there courses, a mater however dishonest to them yet excusable aneughe in lawfull defence; others that are not to be purchased ar to be sent away under cullour of other employments; discretion and the present bissiness will furnish other remedes wherof no reule can be giffin. Thes be notions arysing from a generall knoledge, and therfoir must be imperfyt in particularities; nather do I presume to gif precepts to wyse men; but becaus greatest judgments ar ordinarly defective in the inventive faculties, which in them heth some tymes been awaked and stirred up by a word of a foole or ignorant to tak wys and sound courses, I do not dispair but the lyk effect these words may work; which if they do I have my wish.

Of Lawes.

Lawes ar the commandes of the Soverane, agreable to reason, enacted for the comoun good. There be four branches of this tree: the law of God, of Nature, of Nations, and the Civil law. The law of God is that immutable ordinance wretin in our hartes with the finger of God, and published in the Decalogue. The law of Nature is the comoun law of all living creatures, tending to the preservation of them and there kyndes. The law of Nations is the comoun consent of all people for the commodious use of all sorts of traffik and negotiations amang them. The Civil is the particular law of one State, preserving society by giffing every one his due. The first three ar confounded and promiscuously used by authors. There bounds and jurisdictions ar best known by four conditions in man subject to those lawes. His reason is the jurisdiction of the law of God and natural equity: His sense is the circuite of the law of Nature: As he is an inhabitant of the world, he is subject to the law of all nations: And as he is a citizen of a State, he is subject to the lawes of the same. Under the law of God and Nature the first men wer born;