the restraint of the vexation of informers and promoters: nay, a course taken by her own direction for the repealing of all heavy and snared laws, if it had not been crossed by those to whom the benefit should have redounded. There shall you find, no new taxes, impositions, nor devices; but the benevolence of the subject freely offered by assent of parliament, according to the ancient rates, and with great moderation in assessment; and not so only, but some new forms of contribution offered likewise by the subject in parliament; and the demonstration of their devotion only accepted, but the thing never put in ure. There shall you find loans, but honourably answered and paid, as it were the contract of a private man. To conclude, there shall you find moneys levied upon failts of lands, alienation, though not of the ancient patrimony, yet of the rich and commodious purchases and perquisites of the crown only, because she will not be grievous and burthensome to the people. This treasure, so innocently levied, so honourably gathered and raised, with such tenderness to the subject, without any baseness or dryness at all, how. hath it been expended and employed? Where be the wasteful buildings, and the exorbitant and prodigal donatives, the sumptuous dissipations in pleasures, and vain ostentations which we find have exhausted the coffers of so many kings? It is the honour of her house, the royal remunerating of her servants, the preservation of her people and state, the protection of her suppliants and allies, the encounter, breaking, and defeating the

enemies of her realm, that hath been the only pores and pipes whereby the treasure hath issued. Hath it been the sinews of a blessed and prosperous peace? Hath she bought her peace? Hath she lent the king of Spain money upon some cavillation not to be repeated, and so bought his favour? And hath she given large pensions to corrupt his council? No, but she hath used the most honourable diversion of troubles that can be in the world. She hath kept the fire from her own walls by seeking to quench it in her neighbours. That poor brand of the state of Burgundy, and that other of the crown of France that remaineth, had been in ashes but for the ready fountain of her continual benignity. For the honour of her house it is well known, that almost the universal manners of the times doth incline to a certain parsimony and dryness in that kind of expence; yet she retaineth the ancient magnificence, the allowance as full, the charge greater than in time of her father, or any king before; the books appear, the computation will not flatter. And for the remunerating and rewarding of her servants, and the attendance of the court, let a man cast and sum up all the books of gifts, fee-farms, leases and custodies that have passed her bountiful hands. Let him consider again what a number of commodious and gainful offices heretofore bestowed upon men of other education and profession, have been withdrawn and conferred upon her court. Let him remember, what a number of other gifts disguised by other names, but in effect as good as money given out of her coffers, have been granted

by her; and he will conclude, that her royal mind is far above her means. The other benefits of her politic, clement, and gracious government towards the subjects are without number; the state of justice good, notwithstanding the great subtilty and humourous affections of these times; the security of peace greater than can be described by that verse; "Tutus bos etenim rura perambulat :

"Nutrit rura Ceres, almaque Faustitas."

Or that other,

"Condit quisque diem collibus in suis."

The opulency of the peace such, as if you have respect, to take one sign for many, to the number of fair houses that have been built since her reign, as Augustus said, "that he had received the city of brick, and left it of marble;" so she may say, she received it a realm of cottages, and hath made it a realm of palaces: the state of traffic great and rich : the customs, notwithstanding these wars and interruptions, not fallen: many profitable trades, many honourable discoveries and lastly, to make an end where no end is, the shipping of this realm so advanced and made so mighty and potent, as this island is become, as the natural site thereof deserved, the lady of the sea; a point of so high consequence, as it may be truly said, that the commandment of the sea is an abridgement or a quintessence of an universal monarchy.

This and much more hath she merited of her subjects: now to set forth the merit of her neighbours and the states about her. It seemeth the

things have made themselves purveyors of continual, new, and noble occasions for her to shew them benignity, and that the fires of troubles abroad have been ordained to be as lights and tapers to make her virtue and magnanimity more apparent. For when that one, stranger born, the family of Guise, being as a hasty weed sprung up in a night, had spread itself to a greatness, not civil but seditious; a greatness, not of encounter of the ancient nobility, not of preeminency in the favour of kings, and not remiss of affairs from kings; but a greatness of innovation in state, of usurpations of authority, of affecting of crowns; and that accordingly, under colour of consanguinity and religion, they had brought French forces into Scotland, in the absence of their king and queen being within their usurped tutele; and that the ancient nobility of this realm, seeing the imminent danger of reducing that kingdom under the tyranny of foreigners and their faction, had, according to the good intelligence betwixt the two crowns, prayed her neighbourly succours: she undertook the action, expelled the strangers, restored the nobility to their degree. And lest any man should think her intent was to unnestle ill neighbours, and not to aid good neighbours, or that she was readier to restore what was invaded by others than to render what was in her own hands; see if the time provided not a new occasion afterwards, when through their own divisions, without the intermise of strangers, her forces were again sought and required; she forsook them not, prevailed so far as to be possessed of the

castle of Edinburgh, the principal strength of that kingdom, with peace, incontinently, without cunctations or cavillations, the preambles of a wavering faith, she rendered with all honour and security; and his person to safe and faithful hands; and so ever after during his minority continued his principal guardian and protector. In the time and between the two occasions of Scotland, when the same faction of Guise, covered still with pretence of religion, and strengthened by the desire of retaining government in the queen-mother of France, had raised and moved civil wars in that kingdom, only to extirpate the ancient nobility, by shocking them one against another, and to waste that realm as a candle which is lighted at both ends: and that those of the religion, being near of the blood-royal, and otherwise of the greatest house in France, and great officers of the crown opposed themselves only against their insolency, and to their supports called in her aid, giving unto them Newhaven for a place of security: see with what alacrity, in tender regard towards the fortune of that young king, whose name was used to the suppliants of his strength, she embraced the enterprise; and by their support and reputation the same party suddenly made great proceedings, and in conclusion made their peace as they would themselves and although they joined themselves against her, and performed the parts rather of good patriots than of good confederates, and that after great demonstration of valour in her subjects. For as the French will to this day report, specially

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