by the great mortality by the hand of God, and the rather because it is known she did never much affect the holding of that town to her own use; it was left, and her forces withdrawn, yet did that nothing diminish her merit of the crown, and namely of that party who recovered by it such strength, as by that and no other thing they subsisted long after and lest that any should sinisterly and maliciously interpret that she did nourish those divisions; who knoweth not what faithful advice, continual and earnest solicitation she used by her ambassadors and ministers to the French kings successively, and to their mother, to move them to keep their edicts of pacification, to retain their own authority and greatness by the union of her subjects? Which counsel, if it had been as happily followed, as it was prudently and sincerely given, France at this day had been a most flourishing kingdom, which now is a theatre of misery. And now at last, when the said house of Guise, being one of the whips of God, whereof themselves are but the cords, and Spain the stock, had by their infinite aspiring practices wrought the miracles of states, to make a king in possession long established to play again for his crown, without any title of a competitor, without any invasion of a foreign enemy, yea, without any combination in substance of a blood-royal or nobility; but only by furring in audacious persons into sundry governments, and by making the populace of towns drunk with seditious preachers and that king Henry the Third, awaked by those pressing dangers, was compelled to execute

the duke of Guise without ceremony; and yet nevertheless found the despair of so many persons embarked and engaged in that conspiracy, so violent, as the flame thereby was little assuaged; so that he was inforced to implore her aids and succours. Consider how benign care and good correspondence she gave to the distressed requests of that king; and he soon after being, by the sacrilegious hand of a wretched Jacobin lifted up against the sacred person of his natural sovereign, taken away, not wherein the criminous blood of Guise, but the innocent blood which he hath often spilled by instigation of him and his house was revenged, and that this worthy gentleman who reigneth come to the crown; it will not be forgotten by so grateful a king, nor by so observing an age, how ready, how opportune and reasonable, how royal and sufficient her succours were, whereby she enlarged him at that time, and preferred him to his better fortune and ever since in those tedious wars, wherein he hath to do with a Hydra, or a monster with many heads, she hath supported him with treasure, with forces, and with employment of one that she favoureth most. What shall I speak of the offering of Don Anthony to his fortune; a devoted catholic, only commended unto her by his oppressed state? What shall I say of the great storm of a mighty invasion, not of preparation, but in act, by the Turk upon the king of Poland, lately dissipated only by the beams of her reputation: which with the Grand Signor is greater than that of all the states of Europe put together? But let me rest upon the

VOL. VII.

M

honourable and continual aid and relief she hath gotten to the distressed and desolate people of the Low Countries; a people recommended unto her by ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their cause so innocent, and their fortune so lamentable. And yet notwithstanding, to keep the conformity of her own proceeding never stained with the least note of ambition or malice, she refused the sovereignty of divers of those goodly provinces offered unto her with great instance, to have been accepted with great contentment both of her own people and others, and justly to be derived either in respect of the hostility of Spain, or in respect of the conditions, liberties and privileges of those subjects, and without charge, danger, and offence to the king of Spain and his partisans. She hath taken upon her their defence and protection without any further avail or profit unto herself, than the honour and merit of her benignity to the people that hath been pursued by their natural king only upon passion and wrath, in such sort that he doth consume his means upon revenge. And, having to verify that which I said, that her merits have extended to her greatest enemies; let it be remembered what hath passed in that matter between the king of Spain and her: how in the beginning of the troubles there, she gave and imparted to him faithful and friendly advice touching the course that was to be taken for quieting and appeasing of them. Then she interposed herself to most just and reasonable capitulations, wherein always should have been preserved unto him as ample interest, juris

diction, and superiority in those countries as he in right could claim, or a prince well-minded would seek to have and, which is the greatest point, she did by her advice, credit and policy, and all good means, interrupt and appeach, that the same people by despair should not utterly alien and distract themselves from the obedience of the king of Spain, and cast themselves into the arms of a stranger: insomuch, that it is most true, that she did ever persuade the duke of Anjou from that action, notwithstanding the affection she bare to that duke, and the obstinacy which she saw daily growing in the king of Spain. Lastly, to touch the mighty general merit of this queen, bear in mind, that her benignity and beneficence hath been as large as the oppression and ambition of Spain. For to begin with the church of Rome, that pretended apostolic see is become but a donative cell of the king of Spain; the vicar of Christ is become the king of Spain's chaplain; he parteth the coming in of the new pope, for the treasure of the old he was wont to exclude but some two or three cardinals, and to leave the election of the rest; but now he doth include, and present directly some small number, all incapable and incompatible with the conclave, put in only for colour, except one or two. The states of Italy, they be like little quillets of freehold being intermixed in the midst of a great honour or lordship: France is turned upside down, the subject against the king, cut and mangled infinitely, a country of Rodamonts and Roytelets, farmers of the ways: Portugal usurped by no other title than strength and vicinity: the Low Countries.

warred upon, because he seeketh, not to possess them, for they were possessed by him before, but to plant there an absolute and martial government, and to suppress their liberties: the like at this day attempted upon Arragon: the poor Indies, whereas the Christian religion generally brought infranchisement of slaves in all places where it came, in a contrary course are brought from freemen to be slaves, and slaves of most miserable condition: sundry trains and practices of this king's ambition in Germany, Denmark, Scotland, the east towns, are not unknown. Then it is her government, and her government alone, that hath been the sconce and fort of all Europe, which hath lett this proud nation from over-running all. If any state be yet free from his factions erected in the bowels thereof; if there be any state wherein this faction is erected, that is not yet fired with civil troubles; if there be any state under his protection upon whom he usurpeth not; if there be any subject to him that enjoyeth moderate liberty, upon whom he tyrannizeth not let them all know, it is by the mercy of this renowned queen, that standeth between them and their misfortunes. These be some of the beams of noble and radient magnanimity, in contempt of peril which so manifestly, in contempt of profit which so many admire, and in merit of the world which so many include in themselves; set forth in my simplicity of speech with much loss of lustre, but with near approach of truth; as the sun is seen in the water.

Now to pass to the excellencies of her person: