(no doubt) may be truly ascribed to the clearness of the right; but the general joy, alacrity, and gratulation were the effects of differing causes. For Queen Elizabeth, though she had the use of many both virtues and demonstrations that mought draw and knit unto her the heart of her people, yet nevertheless carrying a hand restrained in gift and strained in points of prerogative, could not answer the votes either of servants or subjects to a full contentment; especially in her latter days, when the continuance of her reign (which extended to five and forty years) mought discover in people their natural desire and inclination towards change; so that a new court and a new reign were not to many unwelcome. Many were glad, and especially those of settled estate and fortunes, that the fears and incertainties were overblown and that the dye was cast: others that had made their way with the King or offered their service in the time of the former Queen, thought now the time was come for which they had prepared: and generally all such as had any dependance upon the late Earl of Essex (who had mingled the secrecy of his own ends with the popular pretence of advancing the King's title) made account their cause was amended. Again such as mought misdoubt they had given the King any occasion of distaste, did continue1 by their forwardness and confidence to shew it was but their fastness to the former government, and that those affections ended with the time. The Papists nourished their hopes by collating the case of the Papists in England and under Queen Elizabeth and the case of the Papists in Scotland under the King; interpreting that the condition of them in 1 So in the original. Bacon probably wrote "contend." At Scotland was the less grievous, and divining of the King's government here accordingly; besides the comfort they ministered themselves from the memory of the Queen his mother. The ministers, and those which stood for the Presbytery, thought their cause had more sympathy with the discipline of Scotland than the hierarchy of England, and so took themselves to be a degree nearer their desires. Thus had every condition of persons some contemplation of benefit which they promised themselves; overreaching perhaps, according to the nature of hope, but yet not without some probable ground of conjecture. which time also there came forth in print the King's book, entitled Baciλikòv Aipov, containing matter of instruction to the Prince his son touching the office of a king; which book falling into every man's hand filled the whole realm as with a good perfume or incense before the King's coming in. For being excellently written, and having nothing of affectation, it did not only satisfy better than particular reports touching the King's disposition; but far exceeded any formal or curious edict or declaration which could have been devised of that nature, wherewith Princes at the beginning of their reigns do use to grace themselves, or at least express themselves gracious, in the eyes of their people. And this was, for the general, the state and constitution of men's minds upon this change. The actions themselves passed in this manner, etc. [The rest is wanting.] PREFACE. THE earliest notice of the following piece which I have met with is in a letter from Mr. John Chamberlain to Mr. Dudley Carleton, dated December 16, 1608. "I come even now," he says, "from reading a short discourse of Queen Elizabeth's life, written in Latin by Sir Francis Bacon. If you have not seen nor heard of it, it is worth your enquiry; and yet methinks he doth languescere towards the end, and falls from his first pitch : neither dare I warrant that his Latin will abide test or touch."1 About the same time, or not long after, Bacon himself sent a copy of it to Sir George Carew, then ambassador in France, with a letter which, though undated, enables us to fix the composition of it with tolerable certainty in the summer of 1608. "This last summer vacation (he says), by occasion of a factious book that endeavoured to verify Misera Fœmina (the addition of the Pope's Bull) upon Queen Elizabeth, I did write a few lines in her memorial; which I thought you would be well pleased to read, both for the argument and because you were wont to bear affection to my pen. Verum ut aliud ex alio, if it came handsomely to pass, I would be glad the President De Thou (who hath 1 Court and Times of James I., i. 83. |