a number of other gifts disguised by other names,
but in effect as good as money given out of her
coffers, have been granted by her; and he will con-
clude, that her royal mind is far above her means.
The other benefits of her politic, clement, and gra-
cious government towards the subjects are without
number; the state of justice good, notwithstanding
the great subtilty and humorous affections of these
times; the security of peace greater than can be
described by that verse:

"Tutus bos etenim rura perambulat;
Nutrit rura Ceres, almaque Faustitas."

"Condit quisque diem collibus in suis."

The opulency of the peace such, as if you have respect, to take one sign for many, to the number of fair houses that have been built since her reign, as Augustus said, that he had received the city of brick, and left it of marble;" so she may say, she received it a realm of cottages, and hath made it a realm of palaces: the state of traffic great and rich: the customs, notwithstanding these wars and interruptions, not fallen: many profitable trades, many honourable discoveries: and lastly, to make an end | where no end is, the shipping of this realm so advanced and made so mighty and potent, as this island is become, as the natural site thereof deserved, the lady of the sea; a point of so high consequence, as it may be truly said, that the commandment of the sea is an abridgement or a quintessence of a universal monarchy.

sions were used, and the law never the nearer the
execution, the course was straight suppressed and
discontinued. Yea, there have been made laws more
than one in her time for the restraint of the vex-
ations of informers and promoters: nay, a course
taken by her own direction for the repealing of all
heavy and snared laws, if it had not been crossed
by those to whom the benefit should have redounded.
There shall you find no new taxes, impositions, nor
devices; but the benevolence of the subject freely
offered by assent of parliament, according to the
ancient rates, and with great moderation in assess-
ment; and not so only, but some new forms of con-
tribution offered likewise by the subject in parlia- Or that other,
ment; and the demonstration of their devotion only
accepted, but the thing never put in ure. There
shall you find loans, but honourably answered and
paid, as it were the contract of a private man. To
conclude, there shall you find monies levied upon
failts of land, alienation, though not of the ancient
patrimony, yet of the rich and commodious pur-
chases and perquisites of the crown only, because
she will not be grievous and burdensome to the
people. This treasure, so innocently levied, so
honourably gathered and raised, with such tender-
ness to the subject, without any baseness or dryness
at all; how hath it been expended and employed?
Where be the wasteful buildings, and the exorbitant
and prodigal donatives, the sumptuous dissipations
in pleasures, and vain ostentations, which we find
have exhausted the coffers of so many kings? It is
the honour of her house, the royal remunerating of
her servants, the preservation of her people and
state, the protection of her suppliants and allies, the
encounter, breaking, and defeating the enemies of
her realm, that hath been the only pores and pipes
whereby the treasure hath issued. Hath it been
the sinews of a blessed and prosperous peace? Hath
she bought her peace? Hath she lent the king of
Spain money upon some cavillation not to be re-
peated, and so bought his favour? And hath she
given large pensions to corrupt his council? No,
but she hath used the most honourable diversion of
troubles that can be in the world. She hath kept
the fire from her own walls by seeking to quench
it in her neighbours. That poor brand of the state
of Burgundy, and that other of the crown of France
that remaineth, had been in ashes but for the ready
fountain of her continual benignity. For the honour
of her house it is well known, that almost the uni- |
versal manners of the times doth incline to a certain
parsimony and dryness in that kind of expense; yet
she retaineth the ancient magnificence, the allowance
as full, the charge greater than in time of her father,
or any king before: the books appear, the compu-
tation will not flatter. And for the remunerating
and rewarding of her servants, and the attendance
of the court, let a man cast and sum up all the books
of gifts, fee-farms, leases, and custodies that have
passed her bountiful hands. Let him consider
again what a number of commodious and gainful
offices heretofore bestowed upon men of other edu-
cation and profession, have been withdrawn and
conferred upon her court. Let him remember, what

This and much more hath she merited of her subjects: now to set forth the merit of her neighbours and the states about her. It seemeth the things have made themselves purveyors of continual, new, and noble occasions for her to show them benignity, and that the fires of troubles abroad have been ordained to be as lights and tapers to make her virtue and magnanimity more apparent. For when that one, stranger born, the family of Guise, being as a hasty weed sprung up in a night, had spread itself to a greatness, not civil but seditious; a greatness, not of encounter of the ancient nobility, not of pre-eminency in the favour of kings, and not remiss of affairs from kings; but a greatness of innovation in state, of usurpations of authority, of affecting of crowns; and that accordingly, under colour of consanguinity and religion, they had brought French forces into Scotland, in the absence of their king and queen being within their usurped tutele; and that the ancient nobility of this realm, seeing the imminent danger of reducing that kingdom under the tyranny of foreigners and their faction, had, according to the good intelligence betwixt the two crowns, prayed her neighbourly succours: she undertook the action, expelled the strangers, restored the nobility to their degree. And lest any man should think her intent was to unnestle ill neighbours, and not to aid good neighbours, or that she was readier to restore what was invaded by others than to render what was in her own hands; see if the time provided not a new occasion afterwards, when through their own divi

:

by those pressing dangers, was compelled to execute the duke of Guise without ceremony; and yet nevertheless found the despair of so many persons embarked and engaged in that conspiracy, so violent, as the flame thereby was little assuaged; so that he was enforced to implore her aids and succours : consider how benign care and good correspondence she gave to the distressed requests of that king; and he soon after being, by the sacrilegious hand of a wretched Jacobin lifted up against the sacred person of his natural sovereign, taken away, not wherein the criminous blood of Guise, but the innocent blood which he hath often spilled by instigation of him and his house was revenged, and that this worthy gentleman who reigneth come to the crown; it will not be forgotten by so grateful a king, nor by so observing an age, how ready, how opportune and reasonable, how royal and sufficient her succours were, whereby she enlarged him at that time, and preferred him to his better fortune: and ever since in those tedious wars, wherein he hath to do with a hydra, or a monster with many heads, she hath supported him with treasure, with forces, and with employment of one that she favoureth most. What shall I speak of the offering of Don Anthony to his fortune; a devoted catholic, only commended unto her by his oppressed state? What shall I say of the great storm of a mighty invasion, not of preparation, but in act, by the Turk upon the king of Poland, lately dissipated only by the beams of her reputation; which with the Grand Signor is greater than that of all the states of Europe put together? But let me rest upon the honourable and continual aid and relief she hath gotten to the distressed and desolate people of the Low Countries; a people recommended unto her by ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their cause so innocent, and their fortune so lamentable. And yet notwithstanding, to keep the conformity of her own proceeding never stained with the least note of ambition or malice, she refused the sovereignty of divers of those goodly provinces offered unto her with great instance, to have been accepted with great contentment both of her own people and others, and justly to be derived either in respect of the hostility of Spain, or in respect of the conditions, liberties, and privileges of those subjects, and without charge, danger, and offence to the king of Spain and his partisans. She hath taken upon her their defence and protection without any farther avail or profit unto herself, than the honour and merit of her benignity to the people that hath been pursued by their natural king only upon passion and wrath, in such sort that he doth consume his means upon revenge. And, having to verify that which I said, that her merits have extended to her greatest enemies; let it be remember

sions, without the intermise of strangers, her forces were again sought and required; she forsook them not, prevailed so far as to be possessed of the castle of Edinburgh, the principal strength of that kingdom, with peace, incontinently, without cunctations or cavillations, the preambles of a wavering faith, she rendered with all honour and security; and his person to safe and faithful hands; and so ever after during his minority continued his principal guardian and protector. In the time and between the two occasions of Scotland, when the same faction of Guise, covered still with pretence of religion, and strengthened by the desire of retaining government in the queen-mother of France, had raised and moved civil wars in that kingdom, only to extirpate the ancient nobility, by shocking them one against another, and to waste that realm as a candle which is lighted at both ends: and that those of the religion, being near of the blood-royal, and otherwise of the greatest house in France, and great officers of the crown opposed themselves only against their insolency, and to their supports called in her aid, giving unto them Newhaven for a place of security see with what alacrity, in tender regard towards the fortune of that young king, whose name was used to the suppliants of his strength, she embraced the enterprise; and by their support and reputation the same party suddenly made great proceedings, and in conclusion made their peace as they would themselves and although they joined themselves against her, and performed the parts rather of good patriots than of good confederates, and that after great demonstration of valour in her subjects. For as the French will to this day report, specially by the great mortality by the hand of God, and the rather because it is known she did never much affect the holding of that town to her own use; it was left, and her forces withdrawn, yet did that nothing diminish her merit of the crown, and namely of that party who recovered by it such strength, as by that and no other thing they subsisted long after and lest that any should sinisterly and maliciously interpret that she did nourish those divisions; who knoweth not what faithful advice, continual and earnest solicitation she used by her ambassadors and ministers to the French kings successively, and to their mother, to move them to keep their edicts of pacification, to retain their own authority and greatness by the union of her subjects? Which counsel, if it had been as happily followed, as it was prudently and sincerely given, France at this day had been a most flourishing kingdom, which now is a theatre of misery. And now at last, when the said house of Guise being one of the whips of God, whereof themselves are but the cords, and Spain the stock, had by their infinite aspiring practices wrought the miracles of states, to make a king in possession long estab-ed what hath passed in that matter between the lished to play again for his crown, without any title of a competitor, without any invasion of a foreign enemy, yea, without any combination in substance of a blood-royal or nobility; but only by furring in audacious persons into sundry governments, and by making the populace of towns drunk with seditious preachers and that king Henry the third, awaked

king of Spain and her: how in the beginning of the troubles there, she gave and imparted to him faithful and friendly advice touching the course that was to be taken for quieting and appeasing of them. Then she interposed herself to most just and reasonable capitulations, wherein always should have been preserved unto him as ample interest, jurisdiction,

not severally, do make so sweet a wonder, as I fear to divide them. Again, nobility extracted out of the royal and victorious line of the kings of England; yea, both roses, white and red, do as well flourish in her nobility as in her beauty, as health, such as was like she should have that was brought forth by two of the most goodly princes of the world, in the strength of their years, in the heat of their love; that hath been injured neither with an over-liberal nor over-curious diet, that hath not been sustained by an umbratile life still under the roof, but strengthened by the use of the pure and open air, that still retaineth flower and vigour of youth. For the beauty and many graces of her presence, what colours are fine enough for such a portraiture? let no light poet be used for such a description, but the chastest and the royalest:

Of her gait;
Of her voice;
Of her eye;

Of her colour;

Of her neck;

Of her breast;

Of her hair;

Et vera incessu patuit Dea.

Nec vox hominem sonat.

Et lætos oculis afflavit honores.

Indum sanguineo veluti violaverit ostro
Si quis ebur.

Et rosea cervice refulsit.

Veste sinus collecta fluentes. Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem

Spiravere.

If this be presumption, let him bear the blame that owneth the verses. What shall I speak of her rare qualities of compliment; which as they be excellent in the things themselves, so they have always besides somewhat of a queen: and as queens use shadows and veils with their rich apparel; methinks in all her qualities there is somewhat that flieth from ostentation, and yet inviteth the mind to contemplate her more.

and superiority in those countries as he in right
could claim, or a prince well-minded would seek to
have and, which is the greatest point, she did by
her advice, credit, and policy, and all good means,
interrupt and appeach, that the same people by de-
spair should not utterly alien and distract themselves
from the obedience of the king of Spain, and cast
themselves into the arms of a stranger: insomuch,
that it is most true, that she did ever persuade the
duke of Anjou from that action, notwithstanding the
affection she bare to that duke, and the obstinacy
which she saw daily growing in the king of Spain.
Lastly, to touch the mighty general merit of this
queen, bear in mind, that her benignity and bene-
ficence hath been as large as the oppression and
ambition of Spain. For to begin with the church
of Rome, that pretended apostolic see is become
but a donative cell of the king of Spain; the
vicar of Christ is become the king of Spain's chap-
lain; he parteth the coming in of the new pope, for
the treasure of the old: he was wont to exclude but
some two or three cardinals, and to leave the election
of the rest; but now he doth include, and present
directly some small number, all incapable and in-
compatible with the conclave, put in only for colour,
except one or two. The states of Italy, they be like
little quillets of freehold being intermixed in the midst
of a great honour or lordship: France is turned
upside down, the subject against the king, cut and
mangled infinitely, a country of Rodamonts and Roy-
telets, farmers of the ways: Portugal usurped by
no other title than strength and vicinity: the Low
Countries warred upon, because he seeketh, not to
possess them, for they were possessed by him before,
but to plant there an absolute and martial govern-
ment, and to suppress their liberties: the like at
this day attempted upon Arragon: the poor Indies,
whereas the christian religion generally brought
enfranchisement of slaves in all places where it came,
in a contrary course are brought from freemen to
be slaves, and slaves of most miserable condition:
sundry trains and practices of this king's ambition
in Germany, Denmark, Scotland, the east towns, are
not unknown. Then it is her government, and her
government alone, that hath been the sconce and
fort of all Europe, which hath lett this proud nation
from overrunning all. If any state be yet free from
his factions erected in the bowels thereof; if there
be any state wherein this faction is erected, that is
not yet fired with civil troubles; if there be any state
under his protection upon whom he usurpeth not; ifceived?
there be any subject to him that enjoyeth moderate
liberty, upon whom he tyrannizeth not: let them all
know, it is by the mercy of this renowned queen, that
standeth between them and their misfortunes. These
be some of the beams of noble and radiant magnani-
mity, in contempt of peril which so manifestly, in
contempt of profit which so many admire, and in
merit of the world which so many include in them- |
selves; set forth in my simplicity of speech with
much loss of lustre, but with near approach of truth;
as the sun is seen in the water.

What should I speak of her excel- A sermone. lent gift of speech, being a character of the greatness of her conceit, the height of her degree, and the sweetness of her nature? What life, what edge is there in those words and glances wherewith at pleasure she can give a man long to think; be it that she mean to daunt him, to encourage him, or to amaze him! How admirable is her discourse, whether it be in learning, state, or love! what variety of knowledge; what rareness of conceit; what choice of words; what grace of utterance ! Doth it not appear, that though her wit be as the adamant of excellencies, which draweth out of any book ancient or new, out of any writing or speech, the best; yet she refineth it, she enricheth it far above the value wherein it is re

And is her speech only that language which the child learneth with pleasure, and not those which the studious learn with industry? Hath she not attained, besides her rare eloquence in her own language, infinitely polished since her happy times, changes of her languages both learned and modern? so that she is able to negotiate with divers ambassadors in their own languages; and that with no disadvantage unto them, who I think cannot but have a great part of their wits distracted from their matters in hand to the contemplation and admiration of such perfections. What should I wander on to speak of the excellencies of her nature, which cannot endure to be looked on with a discon

A fortuna.

:

tented eye of the constancy of her favours, which | putteth on a resolution not only to use the means of maketh service as a journey by land, whereas the those countries, but to spend and consume all his service of other princes is like an embarking by sea. other means, the treasure of his Indies, and the forces For her royal wisdom and policy of government, he of his ill-compacted dominions there and upon them. that shall note and observe the prudent temper she The Carles that rebelled in the North, before the useth in admitting access; of the one side maintain- duke of Norfolk's plot, which, indeed, was the ing the majesty of her degree, and on the other side strength and seal of that commotion, was fully ripe, not prejudicing herself by looking to her estate brake forth, and prevented their time. The king through too few windows: her exquisite judgment Sebastian of Portugal, whom the king of Spain in choosing and finding good servants, a point be- would fain have persuaded that it was a devouter yond the former: her profound discretion in assign- enterprise to purge christendom, than to enlarge it, ing and appropriating every of them to their aptest though I know some think that he did artificially employment: her penetrating sight in discovering nourish him in that voyage, is cut a-pieces with his every man's ends and drifts: her wonderful art in army in Africa: then hath the king of Spain work keeping servants in satisfaction, and yet in appetite: cut out to make all things in readiness during the her inventing wit in contriving plots and overturns: old cardinal's time for the conquest of Portugal; her exact caution in censuring the propositions of whereby his desire of invading of England was slackothers for her service: her foreseeing events: her ened and put off some years, and by that means was usage of occasions: he that shall consider of these, put in execution at a time for some respects much and other things that may not well be touched, as more to his disadvantage. And the same invasion, he shall never cease to wonder at such a queen, so like and as if it had been attempted before, it had he shall wonder the less, that in so dangerous times, the time much more proper and favourable; so likewhen wits are so cunning, humours extravagant, wise had it in true discourse a better season afterpassions so violent, the corruptions so great, the wards for, if it had been dissolved till time that the dissimulations so deep, factions so many; she hath League had been better confirmed in France; which notwithstanding done such great things, and reigned no doubt would have been, if the duke of Guise, in felicity. who was the only man of worth on that side, had lived; and the French king durst never have laid hand upon him, had he not been animated by the English victory against the Spaniards precedent. And then, if some maritime town had been gotten into the hands of the League, it had been a great surety and strength to the enterprise. The popes, to consider of them whose course and policy it had been, knowing her Majesty's natural clemency, to have temporized and dispensed with the papists coming to church, that through the mask of their hypocrisy they might have been brought into places of government in the state and in the country: these, contrariwise, by the instigation of some fugitive scholars that advised him, not that was best for the see of Rome, but what agreed best with their eager humours and desperate states; discover and declare themselves so far by sending most seminaries, and taking of reconcilements, as there is now severity of laws introduced for the repressing of that sort, and men of that religion are become the suspect. What should I speak of so many conspiracies miraculously detected? the records show the treasons: but it is yet hidden in many of them how they came to light. What should I speak of the opportune death of her enemies, and the wicked instruments towards her estate? Don Juan died not amiss: Darleigh, duke of Lenox, who was used as an instrument to divorce Scotland from the amity of England, died in no ill season: a man withdrawn indeed at that time to France; but not without great help. I may not mention the death of some that occur to mind: but still methinks, they live that should live, and they die that should die. I would not have the king of Spain die yet; he is seges gloriæ: but when he groweth dangerous, or any other besides him, I am persuaded they will die. What should I speak of the fortunes of her armies, which, notwithstanding

To speak of her fortune, that which I did reserve for a garland of her honour; and that is, that she liveth a virgin, and hath no children: so it is that which maketh all her other virtues and acts more sacred, more august, more divine. Let them leave children that leave no other memory in their times: "Brutorum æternitas, soboles." Revolve in histories the memories of happy men, and you shall not find any of rare felicity but either he died childless, or his line spent soon after his death; or else was unfortunate in his children. Should a man have them to be slain by his vassals, as the posthumus of Alexander the Great was? or to call them his imposthumes, as Augustus Cæsar called his? Peruse the catalogue: Cornelius Sylla, Julius Cæsar, Flavius Vespasianus, Severus, Constantinus the Great, and many more. "Generare et liberi, humana: creare et operari, divina." And therefore, this objection removed, let us proceed to take a view of her felicity.

A felicitate.

A mate of fortune she never took: only some adversity she passed at the first, to give her a quicker sense of the prosperity that should follow, and to make her more reposed in the Divine Providence. Well, she cometh to the crown it was no small fortune to find at her entrance some such servants and counsellors as she then found. The French king, who at this time, by reason of the peace concluded with Spain, and of the interest he had in Scotland, might have proved a dangerous neighbour: by how strange an accident was he taken away! The king of Spain, who, if he would have inclined to reduce the Low Countries by lenity, considering the goodly revenues which he drew from those countries, the great commodity to annoy her state from thence, might have made mighty and perilous matches against her repose;

CERTAIN OBSERVATIONS UPON A LIBEL

PUBLISHED THIS PRESENT YEAR, 1592,

ENTITLED,

A DECLARATION OF THE TRUE CAUSES OF THE GREAT TROUBLES, PRESUPPOSED TO BE INTENDED AGAINST THE REALM OF ENGLAND.