THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. AFTER the decease of that wise and fortunate King, King Henry the Seventh, who died in the height of his prosperity, there followed (as useth to do when the sun setteth so exceeding clear) one of the fairest mornings of a kingdom that hath been known in this land or anywhere else. A young King about eighteen years of age, for stature, strength, making, and beauty, one of the goodliest persons of his time. And although he were given to pleasure, yet he was likewise desirous of glory; so that there was a passage open in his mind by glory for virtue. Neither was he unadorned with learning, though therein he came short of his brother Arthur. He had never any the least pique, difference, or jealousy, with the King his father, which might give any occasion of altering court or counsel upon the change; but all things passed in a still. He was the first heir of the White and of the Red Rose; so that there was no discontented party now left in the kingdom, but all men's hearts turned towards him; and not only their hearts, but their eyes also; for he was the only son of the kingdom. He had no brother; which though it be a comfort' for Kings to have, yet it draweth the subjects' eyes a little aside. And yet being a married man in those young years, it promised hope of speedy issue to succeed in the Crown. Neither was there any Queen Mother, who might share any way in the government or clash with the counsellors for authority, while the King intended his 2 5 pleasure. No such thing as any great or mighty subject who might eclipse or overshade the imperial power. And for the people and state in general, they were in such lowness of obedience, as subjects were like to yield who had lived almost four and twenty years under so politic a King as his father; being also one who came partly in by the sword, and had so high a courage in all points of regality, and was ever victorious in rebellions and seditions of the people. The Crown extremely rich and full of treasure; and the kingdom like to be so in short time. For there was no war, no dearth, no stop of trade or commerce; it was only the Crown which sucked 3 too hard; but now being full, and upon the head of a young King, it was like to draw the less. Lastly, he was inheritor of his father's reputation, which was great throughout the world. He had strait alliance with the two neighbour states, an ancient enemy in former times, and an ancient friend, Scotland and Burgundy. He had peace and amity with France, under the assurance not only of treaty and league, but of necessity and inability in the French to do him hurt, in respect the French King's designs were wholly bent upon Italy. So that it may be truly said, there had been scarcely seen or known in many ages such a rare concurrence of signs and promises of a happy and flourishing reign to ensue, as were now met in this young King, called after his father's name, Henry the Eighth. PREFACE. "THE Beginning of the History of Great Britain" was first published in Rawley's Resuscitatio (1657). At what period it was composed we have no certain means of knowing. But there is a letter in the same volume described as a letter "to the King upon sending him a beginning of the history of his Majesty's times;" and we may presume that this was the paper which accompanied it. The letter is not dated. It is placed however in all the collections among those which belong to the early part of James's reign; and from a passage in another letter to the King, also undated but certainly written while Bacon was solicitor-general and apparently about the beginning of 1610, I should conjecture that it was composed a little before that time. His object in the last-mentioned letter was to obtain from the King a promise of the attorney's place, whenever it should be vacant; for "perceiving how at this time preferments of law flew about his ears, to some above him and to some below him',' he had begun to think that, unless he had some better assurance of advancement in his present course, it would be better for him to give it over," and to make proof (he proceeds) to do you some honour by my pen, either by writing some faithful narrative of your happy though not untraduced times, or by recompiling your laws, which I perceive your Majesty laboureth with and hath in your head', than to spend my wits and time in this laborious place," and so on. 1 Alluding perhaps to the preferment of "one Bromley, an obscure lawyer," to a Barony of the Exchequer; of Sir Edward Philips to the Mastership of the Rolls, and of Sir Julius Cæsar to the reversion of that office: which was the news of January, 1609-10. See Chamberlain to Carleton; Court and Times of James I., vol. i. p. 103-4. 2 Alluding perhaps to the King's Speech in the Banqueting Hall, 21 March, 1609-10. State Paper Office, vol. liii. (domestic) no. 31. See also Winwood's Memorials, iii. p. 136, |