there to remain with the Queen dowager her mother; which accordingly she soon after did, accompanied with many noblemen and ladies of honour. In the mean season the King set forwards by easy journeys to the City of London, receiving the acclamations and applauses of the people as he went, which indeed were true and unfeigned, as might well appear in the very demonstrations and fulness of the cry. For they thought generally that he was a Prince as ordained and sent down from heaven to unite and put to an end the long dissensions of the two houses; which although they had had, in the times of Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, and a part of Henry the Sixth on the one side, and the times of Edward the Fourth on the other, lucid intervals and happy pauses; yet they did ever hang over the kingdom, ready to break forth into new perturbations and calamities. And as his victory gave him the knee, so his purpose of marriage with the Lady Elizabeth gave him the heart; so that both knee and heart did truly bow before him.

He on the other side with great wisdom (not ignorant of the affections and fears of the people), to disperse the conceit and terror of a conquest, had given order that there should be nothing in his journey like unto a warlike march or manner; but rather like unto the progress of a King in full peace and assurance.1

He entered the City upon a Saturday, as he bad also obtained the victory upon a Saturday;2 which day of the week, first upon an observation, and after upon

1 Sed potius itineris pacifici, quali reges animi causa provincias suas peragrantes uti solent. "Progress" is used in its technical sense.

2 So Speed, translating Bernard André. The Battle of Bosworth, however, was really fought on a Monday.

memory and fancy, he accounted and chose as a day prosperous unto him.

The mayor and companies of the City received him at Shoreditch; whence with great and honourable attendance, and troops of noblemen and persons of quality, he entered the City; himself not being on horseback, or in any open chair or throne, but in a close chariot;2 as one that having been sometimes an enemy to the whole state, and a proscribed person, chose rather to keep state and strike a reverence into the people than to fawn upon them.

He went first into St. Paul's Church, where, not meaning that the people should forget too soon that he came in by battle, he made offertory of his standards, and had orizons and Te Deum again sung; and went to his lodging prepared in the Bishop of London's palace, where he stayed for a time.

During his abode there, he assembled his counsel a and other principal persons, in presence of whom he did renew again his promise to marry with the Lady

1 Major in original.

2 Speed; who infers the fact from André's expression latenter ingressus est. It appears however that the true reading is lætanter. See 'Memorials of Henry VII.,' Pref. p. xxvi.

3 In the edition of 1622 this word is in this place spelt counsell: in other places it is spelt councell; which is almost always the spelling of the MS. According to modern usage it would of course be spelt here council. But the modern distinction between council and counsel, councillor and counsellor, was not observed in Bacon's time; at least not marked in the spelling. Some wrote both words with an s; some both with a c; some either with either. But the rule by which the several forms of the word are appropriated to its several meanings, counsel being used for advice, counsellor for a person who gives advice, council for a board of counsellors, councillor for a member of such board, this rule was not yet established; and as it sometimes happens that the point or effect of the sentence depends upon the ambiguity, and is lost by marking the distinction, I have thought it better to retain the same form in all cases: and I have chosen that form which represents in modern orthography the original word.

Elizabeth. This he did the rather, because having at his coming out of Brittaine given artificially for serving of his own turn some hopes, in case he obtained the kingdom, to marry Anne, inheritress to the duchy of Brittaine, whom Charles the Eighth of France soon after married, it bred some doubt and suspicion amongst divers that he was not sincere, or at least not fixed, in going on with the match of England so much desired: which conceit also, though it were but talk and discourse, did much afflict the poor Lady Elizabeth herself. But howsoever he both truly intended it, and desired also it should be so believed (the better to extinguish envy and contradiction to his other purposes), yet was he resolved in himself not to proceed to the consummation thereof, till his coronation and a Parliament were past. The one, lest a joint coronation of himself and his Queen might give any countenance of participation of title; the other, lest in the entailing of the crown to himself, which he hoped to obtain by Parliament, the votes of the Parliament might any ways reflect upon her.

About this time in autumn, towards the end of September, there began and reigned in the city and other parts of the kingdom a disease then new;1 which by the accidents and manner thereof they called the sweating-sickness. This disease had a swift course, both in the sick body and in the time and period of the lasting thereof. For they that were taken with it, upon four-and-twenty hours, escaping were thought alınost assured. And as to the time of the malice and reign of the disease ere it ceased, it

1 Morbus quidam epidemicus, tunc temporis novus; cui ex naturâ et symptomatibus ejus, &c.

2 Tam in morbi ipsius crisi, quam in tempore durationis ipsius.

began about the one and twentieth of September, and cleared up before the end of October; insomuch as it was no hinderance to the King's coronation, which was the last of October; nor (which was more) to the holding of the Parliament, which began but seven days after. It was a pestilent fever, but as it seemeth not seated in the veins or humours; for that there followed no carbuncle, no purple or livid spots, or the like, the mass of the body being not tainted; only a malign vapour flew to the heart, and seized the vital spirits; which stirred nature to strive to send it forth by an extreme sweat. And it appeared by experience that this disease was rather a surprise of nature, than obstinate to remedies, if it were in time looked unto. For if the patient were kept in an equal temper, both for clothes, fire, and drink moderately warm, with temperate cordials, whereby nature's work were neither irritated by heat nor turned back by cold, he commonly recovered. But infinite persons died suddenly of it, before the manner of the cure and attendance was known. It was conceived not to be an epidemic disease, but to proceed from a malignity in the constitution of the air, gathered by the predispositions of seasons; and the speedy cessation declared as much.

3

1 The Latin translation adds non pustula.

2 The word epidemic is mentioned by Sir T. Meautys as one of the verbal corrections made by the King in the original MS. This part of the MS. is unluckily lost; we cannot therefore ascertain whether this be the place where that word was introduced, or what the word was for which it was substituted. Bacon's meaning however is fully explained in the Latin translation, in which it has already been described as an epidemic disease. Opinio erat morbum istum neutiquam ex epidemicis illis qui simui contagiosi sunt et de corpore in corpus fluunt fuisse: sed a malignitate quadam in ipso aere, &c. Using the words in their modern sense, we should say that it was thought not to be a contagious but an epidemic disease. * The translation adds "and frequent and unhealthy changes of weather."

On Simon and Jude's Even the King dined with Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal and from Lambeth went by land over the bridge to the Tower, where the morrow after he made twelve knights-bannerets. But for creations, he dispensed them with a sparing hand. For notwithstanding a field so lately fought and a coronation so near at hand, he only created three: Jasper Earl of Pembroke (the King's uncle) was created Duke of Bedford; Thomas the Lord Stanley (the King's father-in-law) Earl of Derby; and Edward Courtney Earl of Devon; though the king had then nevertheless a purpose in himself to make more in time of Parliament; bearing a wise and decent respect to distribute his creations, some to honour his coronation, and some his Parliament.

The coronation followed two days after, upon the thirtieth day of October in the year of our Lord 1485. At which time Innocent the Eighth was Pope of Rome; Frederick the Third Emperor of Almain; and Maximilian his son newly chosen King of the Romans; Charles the Eighth King of France; Ferdinando and Isabella Kings of Spain; and James the Third King of Scotland: with all of which kings and states the King was at that time in good peace and amity. At which day also (as if the crown upon his head had put perils into his thoughts) he did institute for the better security of his person a band of fifty archers under a captain to attend him, by the name

1 There seems to have been a doubt at first how he stood with regard to Scotland; for on the 25th of September, 1485, commissions were issued to the Sheriffs of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Yorkshire, and Nottingham, "to hold in array the men of those counties in readiness for an anticipated invasion of the Scots," &c. See Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1 Hen. VII. Rolls Chapel.