tourneys, and balls, and masks, which they then called disguises, he was rather a princely and gentle spectator, than seem much to be delighted.

No doubt, in him, as in all men, and most of all in kings, his fortune wrought upon his nature, and his nature upon his fortune. He attained to the crown, not only from a private fortune, which might endow him with moderation, but also from the fortune of an exiled man, which had quickened in him all seeds of observation and industry. And his times being rather prosperous than calm, had raised his confidence by success, but almost marred his nature by troubles. His wisdom, by often evading from perils, was turned rather into a dexterity to deliver himself from dangers, when they pressed him, than into a providence to prevent and remove them afar off. And even in nature, the sight of his mind was like some sights of eyes-rather strong at hand, than to carry afar off. For his wit increased upon the occasion; and so much the more, if the occasion were sharpened by danger. Again, whether it were the shortness of his foresight, or the strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what it was, certain it is, that the perpetual troubles of his fortunes, there being no more matter out of 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 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 Lewis the Twelfth for Louis 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 he minded he compassed.

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 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 him upon somewhat that may seem divine. When the Lady Margaret, his mother, had divers great suitors for marriage, 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 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 a happy warfare in both conflicts, both of sin and the cross.

He was born at Pembroke Castle, and lieth buried at Westminster, 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.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

BOTH nature and fortune conspired to render Queen Elizabeth the

ambition of her sex and an ornament to crowned heads. This is not a subject for the pen of a monk, nor any such cloistered writer. For such men, though keen in style, are attached to their party, and transmit things of this nature unfaithfully to posterity. Certainly, this is a province for men of the first rank, or such as have sate at the helm of states, and been acquainted with the depths and secrets of civil affairs.

All ages have esteemed a female government a rarity; if prosperous, a wonder; and if both long and prosperous, almost a miracle. But this lady reigned forty-four years complete, yet did not outlive her felicity. Of this felicity I purpose to say somewhat, without running into praises; for praise is the tribute of men, but felicity the gift of God.

And first, I account it a part of her felicity, that she was advanced to the throne from a private fortune. For it is implanted in the nature of men, to esteem unexpected success an additional felicity. But what I mean, is, that princes educated in courts, as the undoubted heirs of a crown, are corrupted by indulgence, and thence generally rendered less capable, and less moderate in the management of affairs. And, therefore, we find those the best rulers, who are discipliued by both fortunes. Such was, with us, King Henry the Seventh, and with the French, Louis the Twelfth, who both of them came to the crown almost at the same time, not only from a private, but also from an adverse and rugged fortune; and the former proved famous for his prudence, and the other for his justice. In the same manner this princess also had the dawn of her fortune chequered, but in her reign it proved unusually constant and steady. From her birth, she was entitled to the succession, but afterwards disinherited, and then postponed. In the reign of her brother, her fortune was more favourable and serene; but in the reign of her sister, more hazardous and tempestuous. Nor was she advanced on a sudden from a prison to the throne, which might have made her haughty and vindictive, but being restored to her liberty, and still growing in hopes, at last in a happy calm she obtained the crown without opposition or competitor. And this I mention to show that Divine Providence intending an excellent princess, prepared and advanced her by such degrees of discipline.

power in Castile. So that, as the felicity of Charles the Eighth was said to be a dream, so the adversity of Ferdinando was said likewise to be a dream, it passed over so soon.

About this time, the king was desirous to bring into the house of Lancaster celestial honour, and became suitor to Pope Julius to canonize King Henry the Sixth for a saint; the rather, in respect of that his famous prediction of the king's own assumption to the crown. Julius referred the matter, as the manner is, to certain cardinals, to take the verification of his holy acts and miracles; but it died under the reference. The general opinion was, that Pope Julius was too dear, and that the king would not come to his rates. But it is more probable, that that pope, who was extremely jealous of the dignity of the See of Rome, and of the acts thereof, knowing that King Henry the Sixth was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, was afraid it would but diminish the estimation of that kind of honour, if there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints.

The same year, likewise, there proceeded a treaty of marriage between the king and the Lady Margaret, duchess dowager of Savoy, only daughter to Maximilian, and sister to the king of Castile; a lady wise, and of great good fame. This matter had been in speech between the two kings at their meeting, but was soon after resumed ; and therein was employed, for his first piece, the king's then chaplain, and after the great prelate, Thomas Wolsey. It was in the end concluded, with great and ample conditions for the king, but with promise de futuro only. It may be the king was the rather induced unto it, for that he had heard more and more of the marriage to go on between his great friend and ally, Ferdinando of Aragon, and Madame de Fois, whereby that king began to piece with the French king, from whom he had been always before severed. So fatal a thing it is, for the greatest and straitest amities of kings at one time or other, to have a little of the wheel; nay, there is a farther tradition in Spain, though not with us, that the king of Aragon, after he knew that the marriage between Charles, the young prince of Castile, and Mary, the king's second daughter, went roundly on, which, though it was first moved by the king of Aragon, yet it was afterwards wholly advanced and brought to perfection by Maximilian, and the friends on that side entered into a jealousy, that the king did aspire to the government of Castilia, as administrator during the minority of his son-in-law; as if there should have been a competition of three for that government : Ferdinando, grandfather on the mother's side; Maximilian, grandfather on the father's side; and King Henry, father-in-law to the young prince. Certainly, it is not unlike; but the king's government, carrying the young prince with him, would have been, perhaps, more welcome to the Spaniards, than that of the other two. For the nobility of Castilia, that so lately put out the king of Aragon in favour of king Philip, and has discovered themselves so far, could not be but in a secret distrust and distaste of that king; and as for Maximilian, upon twenty respects, he could not have been the man. But this purpose of the king's seemeth to me, considering the king's safe

courses, never found to be enterprising or adventurous, not greatly probable, except he should have had a desire to breathe warmer, because he had ill lungs. This marriage with Margaret was protracted from time to time, in respect of the infirmity of the king, who now, in the two-and-twentieth of his reign, began to be troubled with the gout; but the defluxion taking also into his breast, wasted his lungs, so that thrice in a year, in a kind of return, and especially in the spring, he had great fits and labours of the phthisic; nevertheless, he continued to intend business with as great diligence, as before in his health; yet so, as upon this warning, he did likewise now more seriously think of the world to come, and of making himself a saint, as well as King Henry the Sixth, by treasure better employed than to be given to Pope Julius; for, this year, he gave greater alms than accustomed, and discharged all prisoners about the city, that lay for fees or debts under forty shillings. He did also make haste with religious foundations; and in the year following, which was the three-and-twentieth, finished that of the Savoy. And hearing also of the bitter cries of his people against the oppressions of Dudley and Empson, and their complices, partly by devout persons about him, and partly by public sermons, the preachers doing their duty therein, he was touched with great remorse for the same. Nevertheless, Empson and Dudley, though they could not but hear of these scruples in the king's conscience, yet, as if the king's soul and his money were in several offices, that the one was not to intermeddle with the other, went on with as great rage as ever; for the same three-and-twentieth year was there a sharp prosecution against Sir William Capel, now the second time, and this was for matters of misgovernment in his mayoralty; the great matter being, that in some payments he had taken knowledge of false moneys, and did not his diligence to examine and beat it out, who were the offenders. For this, and some other things laid to his charge, he was condemned to pay two thousand pounds; and being a man of stomach, and hardened by his former troubles, refused to pay a mite; and, belike, used some untoward speeches of the proceedings, for which he was sent to the Tower, and there remained till the king's death. Knesworth likewise, that had been lately mayor of London, and both his sheriffs, were for abuses in their offices questioned, and imprisoned, and delivered upon one thousand four hundred pounds paid. Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish, before his business came to an end. Sir Lawrence Ailmer, who had likewise been mayor of London, and his two sheriffs, were put to the fine of one thousand pounds. And Sir Lawrence, for refusing to make payment, was committed to prison, where he stayed till Empson himself was committed in his place.

It is no marvel, if the faults were so light, and the rates so heavy, that the king's treasure of store, that he left at his death, most of it in secret places, under his own key and keeping, at Richmond, amounted, as by tradition it is reported to have done, unto the sum of near eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterling; a huge mass of monev even for these times.