well disposed. But it was to the disadvantage of shall possess quietly that, that we now strive for."
the painter, for it was best when he spake.

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.

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, 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 |

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.

THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

OF

KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.

AFTER the decease of that wise and fortunate | thing as any great and mighty subject, who might king, Henry the seventh, who died in the height of any way eclipse or overshade the imperial power. his prosperity, there followed, as useth to do, when And for the people and state in general, they were the sun setteth so exceeding clear, one of the fair- in such lowness of obedience, as subjects were like est mornings of a kingdom that hath been known to yield, who had lived almost four and twenty years in this land, or any where else. A young king, under so politic a king as his father; being also about eighteen years of age, for stature, strength, one who came partly in by the sword; and had so making, and beauty, one of the goodliest persons of high a courage in all points of regality; and was his time. And though he were given to pleasure, ever victorious in rebellions and seditions of the yet he was likewise desirous of glory; so that there people. The crown extremely rich and full of was a passage open in his mind, by glory, for virtue. treasure, and the kingdom like to be so in a short Neither was he unadorned with learning, though time. For there was no war, no dearth, no stop of therein he came short of his brother Arthur. He trade, or commerce; it was only the crown which had never any the least pique, difference, or jealousy had sucked too hard, and now being full, and upon with the king his father, which might give any the head of a young king, was like to draw less. occasion of altering court or council upon the Lastly, he was inheritor of his father's reputation, change; but all things passed in a still. He was which was great throughout the world. He had the first heir of the white and red rose; so that strait alliance with the two neighbour states, an there was no discontented party now left in the ancient enemy in former times, and an ancient friend, kingdom, but all men's hearts turned towards him: Scotland and Burgundy. He had peace and amity and not only their hearts, but their eyes also; for he with France, under the assurance, not only of treaty was the only son of the kingdom. He had no and league, but of necessity and inability in the brother; which though it be a comfortable thing | French to do him hurt, in respect that the French for kings to have, yet it draweth the subjects' eyes a king's designs where wholly bent upon Italy; so little aside. And yet being a married man in those that it may be truly said, there had scarcely been young years, it promised hope of speedy issue to seen, or known, in many ages, such a rare concursucceed in the crown. Neither was there any queen rence of signs and promises, and of a happy and mother, who might share any way in the govern- flourishing reign to ensue, as were now met in this ment, or clash with his counsellors for authority, young king, called after his father's name, Henry while the king intended his pleasure. No such the eighth.

THE BEGINNING

OF THE

HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Neither did there want a concurrence of divers rare external circumstances, besides the virtues and condition of the person, which gave great reputation to this succession. A king in the strength of his years, supported with great alliances abroad, established with royal issue at home, at peace with all the world, practised in the regiment of such a king

By the decease of Elizabeth, queen of England, the issues of king Henry the eighth failed, being spent in one generation, and three successions. For that king, though he were one of the goodliest persons of his time, yet he left only by his six wives three children; who reigning successively, and dying childless, made place to the line of Margaret, his eldest sister, married to James the fourth kingdom, as might rather enable a king by variety of of Scotland. There succeeded therefore to the king- accidents, than corrupt him with affluence or vaindom of England, James the sixth, then king of Scot- glory; and one that besides his universal capacity land, descended of the same Margaret both by father and judgment, was notably exercised and practised and mother so that by a rare event in the pedi- in matters of religion and the church: which in grees of kings, it seemed as if the Divine Providence, these times, by the confused use of both swords, are to extinguish and take away all envy and note of a become so intermixed with considerations of estate, stranger, had doubled upon his person, within the as most of the counsels of sovereign princes or recircle of one age, the royal blood of England, by publics depend upon them: but nothing did more fill both parents. This succession drew towards it the foreign nations with admiration and expectation of eyes of all men, being one of the most memorable his succession, than the wonderful and, by them, accidents that had happened a long time in the unexpected consent of all estates and subjects of christian world. For the kingdom of France having England, for the receiving of the king without the been reunited in the age before in all the provinces least scruple, pause, or question. For it had been thereof formerly dismembered; and the kingdom generally dispersed by the fugitives beyond the seas, of Spain being, of more fresh memory, united and who, partly to apply themselves to the ambition of made entire, by the annexing of Portugal in the foreigners, and partly to give estimation and value person of Philip the second; there remained but to their own employments, used to represent the this third and last union, for the counterpoising of state of England in a false light, that after queen the power of these three great monarchies; and the Elizabeth's decease there must follow in England disposing of the affairs of Europe thereby to a more nothing but confusions, interreigns, and perturbassured and universal peace and concord. And this ations of estate, likely far to exceed the ancient calaevent did hold men's observations and discourses mities of the civil wars between the houses of Lanthe more, because the island of Great Britain, divided caster and York, by how much more the dissensions from the rest of the world, was never before united were like to be more mortal and bloody, when in itself under one king, notwithstanding the people foreign competition should be added to domestical; be of one language, and not separate by mountains and divisions for religion to matter of title to the or great waters; and notwithstanding also that the crown. And in special, Parsons the Jesuit, under a uniting of them had been in former times industri- disguised name, had not long before published an ously attempted both by war and treaty. Therefore express treatise, wherein, whether his malice made it seemed a manifest work of Providence, and a case him believe his own fancies, or whether he thought of reservation for these times; insomuch that the it the fittest way to move sedition, like evil spirits, vulgar conceived that now there was an end given, which seem to foretell the tempest they mean to and a consummation to superstitious prophecies, the move; he laboured to display and give colour to all belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men, the vain pretences and dreams of succession which and to an ancient tacit expectation, which had by he could imagine; and thereby had possessed many tradition been infused and inveterated into men's abroad that knew not the affairs here with those minds. But as the best divinations and predictions his vanities. Neither wanted there here within this are the politic and probable foresight and conjectures realm, divers persons both wise and well affected, of wise men, so in this matter the providence of king who, though they doubted not of the undoubted right, Henry the seventh was in all men's mouths; who yet setting before themselves the waves of people's being one of the deepest and most prudent princes hearts, guided no less by sudden and temporary of the world, upon the deliberation concerning the winds, than by the natural course and motion of the marriage of his eldest daughter into Scotland, had, waters, were not without fear what might be the by some speech uttered by him, showed himself event. For queen Elizabeth being a princess of sensible and almost prescient of this event. extreme caution, and yet one that loved admiration

HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

797

| king's title, made account their cause was amended.
Again, such as might misdoubt they had given the
king any occasion of distaste, did contend by their for-
wardness and confidence to show, it was but their fast-

above safety; and knowing the declaration of a suc-
cessor might in point of safety be disputable, but in
point of admiration and respect assuredly to her
disadvantage; had from the beginning set it down
for a maxim of estate, to impose a silence touchingness to the former government, and that those affec-
succession. Neither was it only reserved as a secret tions ended with the time. The papists nourished
of estate, but restrained by severe laws, that no man their hopes, by collating the case of the papists in Eng-
should presume to give opinion, or maintain argu- land, and under queen Elizabeth, and the case of
ment touching the same: so, though the evidence the papists in Scotland under the king: interpreting
of right drew all the subjects of the land to think that the condition of them in Scotland was the less
one thing; yet the fear of danger of law made no grievous, and divining of the king's government
man privy to others' thought. And therefore it re- here accordingly; besides the comfort they minis-
joiced all men to see so fair a morning of a king- tered to themselves from the memory of the queen
dom, and to be thoroughly secured of former appre- his mother. The ministers, and those which stood
hensions; as a man that awaketh out of a fearful for the presbytery, thought their cause had more
dream. But so it was, that not only the consent, sympathy with the discipline of Scotland than the
but the applause and joy was infinite, and not to be hierarchy of England, and so took themselves to be
expressed, throughout the realm of England upon a degree nearer their desires. Thus had every
this succession: whereof the consent, no doubt, may condition of persons some contemplation of benefit,
be truly ascribed to the clearness of the right; but which they promised themselves; over-reaching
the general joy, alacrity, and gratulation, were the perhaps, according to the nature of hope, but yet
effects of differing causes. For queen Elizabeth, not without some probable ground of conjecture.
although she had the use of many both virtues and At which time also there came forth in print the
demonstrations, that might draw and knit unto her king's book, entitled, Baotikov Aupov: containing
the hearts of her people; yet nevertheless carrying matter of instruction to the prince his son touching
a hand restrained in gift, and strained in points of the office of a king: which book falling into every
prerogative, could not answer the votes either of man's hand, filled the whole realm, as with a good
servants, or subjects to a full contentment; especially perfume or incense, before the king's coming in;
in her latter days, when the continuance of her for being excellently written, and having nothing of
reign, which extended to five and forty years, might affectation, it did not only satisfy better than par-
discover in people their natural desire and inclin- ticular reports touching the king's disposition, but
ation towards change: so that a new court and a far exceeded any formal or curious edict or declara-
new reign were not to many unwelcome. Many tion, which could have been devised of that nature,
were glad, and especially those of settled estate and wherewith princes in the beginning of their reigns
fortune, that the fears and uncertainties were over- do use to grace themselves, or at least express them-
blown, and that the die was cast. Others, that had selves gracious in the eyes of their people. And
made their way with the king, or offered their ser- this was for the general the state and constitution
vice in the time of the former queen, thought now of men's minds upon this change: the actions
the time was come for which they had prepared: and themselves passed in this manner.
generally all such as had any dependence upon the
late earl of Essex, who had mingled the service of his
own ends with the popular pretence of advancing the

|

END OF VOL. I.

The rest is wanting.

BUNGAY: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN CHILDS AND SON.