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were those which Petronius devoted himself unto | philosophy, and one from religion. The first after he had received his fatal sentence; and, means to shun these inordinate pleasures is, to having his foot as it were upon the threshold of withstand and resist them in their beginnings, death, sought to give himself all delightful con- and seriously to shun all occasions that are offertentments; insomuch, as when he had caused con-ed to debauch and entice the mind, which is signisolatory letters to be sent him, he would peruse | fied in that stopping of the ears; and that remedy none of them, as Tacitus reports, that should give him courage and constancy, but only read fantastical verses such as these are.

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum,
Omnes unius æstimemus assis."

My Lesbia, let us live and love:
Though wayward dotards us reprove,
Weigh their words light for our behove.

And this also:

"Jura senes norint, et quid sit fasque nefasque,
Inquirant tristes, legumque examina servent.
Let doting grandsires know the law,
And right and wrong observe with awe:
Let them in that strict circle draw.

is properly used by the meaner and baser sort of
people, as it were Ulysses's followers or mari-
ners, whereas more heroic and noble spirits may
boldly converse even in the midst of these seduc-
ing pleasures, if with a resolved constancy they
stand upon their guard and fortify their minds,
and so take greater contentment in the trial and
experience of this their approved virtue; learning
rather thoroughly to understand the follies and
vanities of those pleasures by contemplation than
by submission. Which Solomon avouched of
himself, when he reckoned up the multitude of
those solaces and pleasures wherein he swam,
doth conclude with this sentence:

"Sapientia quoque perseverabat mecum."
Wisdom also continued with me.

Therefore these heroes and spirits of this excellent temper, even in the midst of these enticing

This kind of doctrine would easily persuade to take these plumed coronets from the muses, and to restore the wings again to the Sirens. These Sirens are said to dwell in remote isles, for that pleasures love privacy and retired places, shun-pleasures, can show themselves constant and inning always too much company of people. The Sirens' songs are so vulgarly understood, together with the deceits and danger of them, as that they need no exposition. But that of the bones appearing like white cliffs, and decried afar off, hath more acuteness in it: for thereby is signified, that albeit the examples of afflictions be manifest and eminent, yet do they not sufficiently deter us from the wicked enticements of pleasures. As for the remainder of this parable, though it be not over-mystical, yet it is very grave and ex-tation of the Sirens; for divine meditations do not cellent: for in it are set out three remedies for this violent enticing mischief; to wit, two from

vincible, and are able to support their own virtuous inclination against all heady and forcible persuasions whatsoever; as by the example of Ulysses, that so peremptorily interdicted all pestilent counsels and flatteries of his companions, as the most dangerous and pernicious poisons to captivate the mind. But of all other remedies in this case that of Orpheus is most predominant; for they that chaunt and resound the praises of the gods confound and dissipate the voices and incan

only in power subdue all sensual pleasures, but also far exceed them in sweetness and delight.

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CIVIL HISTORY.

HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY VII.

To the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent PRINCE CHARLES, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, &c.

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS,

In part of my acknowledgment to your highness, I have endeavoured to do honour to the memory of the last King of England that was ancestor to the king your father and yourself: and was that king to whom both unions may in a sort refer, that of the roses being in him consummate, and that of the kingdoms by him begun: besides, his times deserve it. For he was a wise man and an excellent king and yet the times were rough, and full of mutations, and rare accidents. And it is with times as it is with ways; some are more up-hill and down-hill, and some are more flat and plain; and the one is better for the liver, and the other for the writer. I have not flattered him, but took him to life as well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light. It is true your highness hath a living pattern, incomparable, of the king your father: but it is not amiss for you also to see one of these ancient pieces. God preserve your highness. Your highness's most humble and devoted servant,

FRANCIS ST. ALBAN.

|

AFTER that Richard, the third of that name, king | ignominy or contumely unworthy of him that had in fact only, but tyrant both in title and regiment, and so commonly termed and reputed in all times since, was, by the divine revenge favouring the design of an exiled man, overthrown and slain at Bosworthfield; there succeeded in the kingdom the Earl of Richmond, thenceforth styled Henry the Seventh. The king, immediately after the victory, as one that had been bred under a devout mother, and was in his nature a great observer of religious forms, caused “Te Deum laudamus" to be solemnly sung in the presence of the whole army upon the place, and was himself, with general applause and great cries of joy, in a kind of military election or recognition, saluted king. Meanwhile the body of Richard, after many indignities and reproaches, the "diriges" and obsequies of the common people towards tyrants, was obscurely buried. For though the king of his nobleness gave charge unto the friars of Leicester to see an honourable interment to be given to it, yet the religious people themselves, being not free from the humours of the vulgar, neglected it; wherein nevertheless they did not then incur any man's blame or censure: no man thinking any 314

been the executioner of King Henry the Sixth, that innocent prince, with his own hands; the contriver of the death of the Duke of Clarence, his brother; the murderer of his two nephews, one of them his lawful king in the present, and the other in the future, failing of him; and vehemently suspected to have been the impoisoner of his wife, thereby to make vacant his bed, for a marriage within the degrees forbidden. And although he were a prince in military virtue approved, jealous of the honour of the English nation, and likewise a good law-maker, for the ease and solace of the common people; yet his cruelties and parricide, in the opinion of all men, weighed down his virtues and merits; and, in the opinion of wise men, even those virtues themselves were conceived to be rather feigned and affected things to serve his ambition, than true qualities ingenerate in his judgment or nature. And therefore it was noted by nien of great understanding, who seeing his afteracts looked back upon his former proceedings, that even in the time of King Edward his brother, he was not without secret trains and mines to turn envy and hatred upon his brother's govern

crown.

afterwards gathered strength and turned to great troubles, that the two young sons of King Edward the Fourth, or one of them, which were said to be destroyed in the Tower, were not indeed murdered, but conveyed secretly away, and were yet living : which, if it had been true, had prevented the title of the Lady Elizabeth. On the other side, if he stood upon his own title of the House of Lancaster, inherent in his person, he knew it was a title condemned by parliament, and generally prejudged in the common opinion of the realm, and that it tended directly to the disinherison of the line of York, held then the indubitate heirs of the crown. So that if he should have no issue by the Lady Elizabeth, which should be descendants of the double line, then the ancient flames of discord and intestine wars, upon the competition of both houses, would again return and revive.

As for conquest, notwithstanding Sir William Stanley, after some acclamations of the soldiers in the field, had put a crown of ornament, which Richard wore in the battle, and was found amongst the spoils, upon King Henry's head, as if there were his chief title; yet he remembered well upon what conditions and agreements he was brought in; and that to claim as conqueror was to put as well his own party, as the rest, into terror and fear; as that which gave him power of disannulling of laws, and disposing of men's fortunes and estates, and the like points of absolute power, being in themselves so harsh and odious, as that William himself, commonly called the Conqueror, howsoever he used and exercised the power of a conqueror to reward his Normans, yet he forbore to use that claim in the beginning,

ment; as having an expectation and a kind of di- | that time secret rumours and whisperings, which vination, that the king, by reason of his many disorders, should not be of long life, but was like to leave his sons of tender years; and then he knew well how easy a step it was, from the place of a protector, and first prince of the blood, to the And that out of this deep root of ambition it sprang, that as well at the treaty of peace that passed between Edward the Fourth and Lewis the Eleventh of France, concluded by interview of both kings at Piqueny, as upon all other occasions, Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, stood ever upon the side of honour, raising his own reputation to the disadvantage of the king his brother, and drawing the eyes of all, especially of the nobles and soldiers, upon himself; as if the king, by his voluptuous life and mean marriage, were become effeminate and less sensible of honour and reason of state than was fit for a king. And as for the politic and wholesome laws which were enacted in his time, they were interpreted to be but the brocage of an usurper, thereby to woo and win the hearts of the people, as being conscious to himself, that the true obligations of sovereignty in him failed, and were wanting. But King Henry, in the very entrance of his reign, and the instant of time when the kingdom was cast into his arms, met with a point of great difficulty, and knotty to solve, able to trouble and confound the wisest king in the newness of his estate; and so much the more, because it could not endure a deliberation, but must be at once deliberated and determined. There were fallen to his lot, and concurrent in his person, three several titles to the imperial crown. The first, the title of the Lady Elizabeth, with whom, by precedent pact with the party that brought him in, he was to marry. | but mixed it with a titulary pretence, grounded The second, the ancient and long disputed title, both by plea and arms, of the house of Lancaster, to which he was inheritor in his own person. The third, the title of the sword or conquest, for that he came in by victory of battle, and that the king in possession was slain in the field. The first of these was fairest, and most like to give contentment to the people, who by two and twenty years reign of King Edward the Fourth had been fully made capable of the clearness of the title of the white rose, or house of York; and by the mild and plausible reign of the same king towards his latter time, were become affectionate to that line. But then it lay plain before his eyes, that if he relied upon that title, he could be but a king at courtesy, and have rather a matrimonial than a regal power: the right remaining in his queen, upon whose deeither with issue, or without issue, he was to give place and be removed. And though he should obtain by parliament to be continued, yet he knew there was a very great difference between a king that holdeth his crown by a civil act of estates, and one that holdeth it originally by the law of nature and descent of blood. Neither wanted there even at

cease,

upon the will and designation of Edward the Confessor. But the king, out of the greatness of his own mind, presently cast the die; and the inconveniences appearing unto him in all parts, and knowing there could not be any interreign, or suspension of title, and preferring his affection to his own line and blood, and liking that title best which made him independent; and being in his nature and constitution of mind not very apprehensive or forecasting of future events afar off, but an entertainer of fortune by the day; resolved to rest upon the title of Lancaster as the main, and to use the other two, that of marriage and that of battle, but as supporters, the one to appease secret discontents, and the other to beat down open murmur and dispute: not forgetting that the same title of Lancaster had formerly maintained a possession of three descents in the crown; and might have proved a perpetuity, had it not ended in the weakness and inability of the last prince. Whereupon the king presently that very day, being the two and twentieth of August, assumed the style of king in his own name, without men tion of the Lady Elizabeth at all, or any relation

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

thereunto. In which course he ever after persisted: which did spin him a thread of many seditions and troubles. The king, full of these The mayor and companies of the city received thoughts, before his departure from Leicester, him at Shoreditch; whence with great and hodespatched Sir Robert Willoughby to the castle nourable attendance, and troops of noblemen and of Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire, where were kept persons of quality, he entered the city; himself in safe custody, by King Richard's command- not being on horseback, or in any open chair or ment, both the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of King throne, but in a close chariot, as one that having Edward, and Edward Plantagenet, son and heir | been sometimes an enemy to the whole state, and to George, Duke of Clarence. This Edward a proscribed person, chose rather to keep state, was, by the king's warrant, delivered from the and strike a reverence into the people, than to constable of the castle to the hand of Sir Robert | fawn upon them. Willoughby: and by him, with all safety and diligence conveyed to the Tower of London, where he was shut up close prisoner. Which act of the king's, being an act merely of policy and power, proceeded not so much from any apprehension he had of Doctor Shaw's tale at Paul's cross for the bastarding of Edward the Fourth's issues, in which case this young gentle- During his abode there, he assembled his counman was to succeed, for that fable was ever ex-cil and other principal persons, in presence of ploded, but upon a settled disposition to depress all eminent persons of the line of York. Wherein still the king out of strength of will, or weakness of judgment, did use to show a little more of the party than of the king.

For the Lady Elizabeth, she received also a direction to repair with all convenient speed to London, and there to remain with the queendowager, 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.

He entered the city upon a Saturday, as he had a'so obtained the victory upon a Saturday; which day of the week, first upon an observation, and

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 orisons and "Te Deum" again sung; and went to his lodging prepared in the Bishop of London's palace, where he stayed for a time.

whom, he did renew again his promise to marry with the Lady Elizabeth. This he did the rather, because having at his coming out of Britain given artificially, for serving of his own turn, some hopes, in case he obtained the kingdom, to marry Anne, inheritress to the Duchy of Britain, 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: 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 almost assured. And as to the time of the malice and reign of the disease ere it ceased; it 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

moned immediately after his coming to London.
His ends in calling a parliament, and that so
speedily, were chiefly three: first to procure the
crown to be entailed upon himself. Next, to
have the attainders of all of his party, which
were in no small number, reversed, and all acts
of hostility by them done in his quarrel remitted
and discharged; and on the other side, to attaint
by parliament the heads and principals of his
enemies. The third, to calm and quiet the fears
of the rest of that party by a general pardon; not
being ignorant in how great danger a king stands
from his subjects, when most of his subjects are
conscious in themselves that they stand in his
danger. Unto these three special motives of a
parliament was added, that he, as a prudent and
moderate prince, made this judgment, that it was
fit for him to hasten to let his people see, that he
meant to govern by law, howsoever he came in
by the sword; and fit also to reclaim them to
know him for their king, whom they had so lately
talked of as an enemy or banished man.
that which concerned the entailing of the crown,
more than that he was true to his own will, that
he would not endure any mention of the Lady
Elizabeth, no not in the nature of special entail,
he carried it otherwise with great wisdom and
measure: for he did not press to have the act
penned by way of declaration or recognition of

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 was 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. 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 un-right; as, on the other side, he avoided to have it cle, 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" that the inheritance of the crown should rest, 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.

For

by new law or ordinance, but chose, rather, a kind of middle way, by way of establishment, and that under covert and indifferent words :

remain, and abide in the king," &c., which words might equally be applied, that the crown shall continue to him; but whether as having former right to it, which was doubtful, or having it then The coronation followed two days after, upon in fact and possession, which no man denied, was the thirtieth day of October, in the year of our left fair to interpretation either way. And again, Lord, 1485; at which time, Innocent the Eighth for the limitation of the entail, he did not press was Pope of Rome; Frederick the Third, Empe-it to go farther than to himself and to the heirs ror of Almain; and Maximilian, his son, newly of his body, not speaking of his right heirs, but chosen King of the Romans; Charles the Eighth, leaving that to the law to decide; so as the entail King of France; Ferdinando and Isabella, Kings might seem rather a personal favour to him and of Spain; and James the Third, King of Scot- his children, than a total disinherison to the land: with all which kings and states the king house of York; and in this form was the law was at that time in good peace and amity. At drawn and passed. Which statute he procured which day, also, as if the crown upon his head to be confirmed by the pope's bull the year folhad put perils into his thoughts, he did institute, lowing, with mention, nevertheless, by way of for the better security of his person, a band of recital, of his other titles, both of descent and fifty archers, under a captain, to attend him, by conquest: so as now the wreath of three was the name of yeomen of his guard and yet that it made a wreath of five; for to the three first titles might be thought to be rather a matter of dignity, of the two houses, or lines, and conquest, were after the imitation of that he had known abroad, added two more, the authorities parliamentary and than any matter of diffidence appropriate to his papal. own case, he made it to be understood for an ordinance not temporary, but to hold in succession forever after.

:

The seventh of November, the king held his parliament at Westminster, which he had sum

The king likewise, in the reversal of the attainders of his partakers, and discharging them of all offences incident to his service and succour, had his will; and acts did pass accordingly. In the passage whereof, exception was taken to di2D 2

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