that if Sertorius had not been slaine of his own people he had sooner overcome Pompeius than he him Yet Sertorius was but a simple souldier who had neither silver nor treasure he had no authoritie to command neither did any obey him against their wils Spartacus also was but a poore slave which escaping from his master gathered together a great number of people and made strong warre upon the Romanes whom hee many times vanquished And but that Pompeius and Crassus with great armies were greatly busied to hinder his desseignes he had made himselfe master of Italie And was not Cleon another poore slave yet gathered under his conduction an armie of 70 thousand other slaves wherewith he had like to have gotten all Sicilie And Viriatus was but a shepheard on the mountaines of Spaine and gathering together a great number of shepheards and theeves he made infinit worke for the Romanes yet in the end certaine Romane captains sent against him not being able otherwise to overcome him caused him traiterously to be slaine This the Senat found not good but greatly blamed those captains which overcame by so villanous a meane After Viriatus was slaine his people disbanded not but still made warre upon the Romanes insomuch as the Romanes were constrained to give unto them to appease them the towne and territorie of Valence in Spaine to inhabite and so they were satisfied and gave over their armes Of late memorie Philibert de Chaton Prince of Orange Antonie de Leva Andrew Doria the Marquis of Mantua and many others whereof we have spoken in other places which revolted against king Francis the first and did him more hutt than all the forces of the emperour Charles the fift yet were they no great lords in comparison of the king Therefore he which is a wise prince will estimate no enemie to be pettie and little but will guard himselfe from justly offending any man fearing least by that meanes hee procure enemies For enmities will come too fast on a man before hee lookes for them As for that hee saith That the Romanes had colonies in countries which they Titus Livi. lib. 10. Dec. 1. lib 7. Dec. 3. lib. 8. Dec. 4. conquered they did it not to serve their turnes as fortresses in that countrey as Machiavell saith but to disburden the citie of Rome of their too great a multitude of people which were still stirring up rebellions and seditions in their towne as in the time of the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Quintus Apuleius The towne saith Titus Livius was brought to a great quiet and tranquilitie by discharging it of a great part of the common people by deduction of colonies which when they were sent into any countrey that the Romanes had conquered the publick and common fields were divided amongst them yet the old inhabitants were not chased away neither were their goods taken from them but only mingled with the Romans goods which dwelt with them in their townes in houses they themselves builded or els which were publicke and conquered to the Roman commonweale The Romans also set up colonies as a multiplication of their race but not to serve them for fortresses in conquered countries and that it was so appears because they erected not colonies in all the countries they conquered no not in the most strongest places but rather in the amplest fattest and fertilest places These said colonies also were no more faithfull unto them than the other subjects but often rebelled as well as others as was seene after the battaile that the Romanes lost at Cannas against Anniball for then twelve Roman colonies revolted from them and entred league with Anniball And it is commonly seene that citizens transported into other countreyes doe incontinent degenerate taking the manners and conditions of the countrie as came to passe in the townes of Alexandria in Aegipt Seleucia in Siria Babilon in Parthia which were colonies of the Macedonians and to the towne of Tarentum a colonie of the Lacedaemonians for all these foresaid townes were straight despoiled of the manners natures and the originall generositie of their nation and became soft effeminate and cowardly as they were into whose countries they were removed A great and memorable calamitie fell to Philip king of Macedonie by removing Titus Livi. lib. 10. Dec. 4. to other places the naturall inhabitants of the maritime and sea townes of his countrey This king fearing to enter into warre with the Romanes because many of his neighbours went to complaine of him to the Senat of Rome thought it good to stand upon his guard and something distrusting the inhabitants of such townes as were nigh the sea hee tooke away from thence the naturall inhabitants and gave them grounds in Emathia to dwell in and in their places planted the inhabitants of Thracia in whom he trusted This caused in all Macedonie a great discontentment for every one saw to their great griefe their ancient poore dislodged carrying their children on their shoulders weeping and lamenting their calamities and making exercations and imprecations against the king that it might so happen to the king and his race to bee driven from his kingdome and countrey The king being advertised of this universall murmuration began to enter into a distrust of every man and especially of the children of certaine gentlemen which hee had caused to die and hee feared that the saide children making use of the peoples discontentment should attempt some enterprise against him and therefore determined to have seased certaine young children of the slaine gentlemen for his better assurance Theoxena the widdow of a great lord which was slaine by the king called Herodicus resolved rather to make die the children of her and her dead husband than that they should come into the hands and power of the king So she resolved to save her-selfe and them at Athens and yet if the worst fell she provided good swords poisons after shee was embarked with her children to obtaine the towne of Athens shee was followed by another boate of the kings people which when shee saw that they rowed with great dilligence to the barke wherein shee was Loe said she my childen you have now no other meanes to shun the tyrannie of king Philip but death which you may see shewing the swords and the poison chuse which you had rather die on either on sharpe whetted swords or to swallow this poison on my children let the eldest shew themselves most hardy and couragious This exhortation persuaded so much that they slew themselves some with swords some with poyson then she caused them all to fall into the water even when they yet had breath and cast her-selfe after them Straight the kings people ioyned to the barke but they found it emptie of the persons they looked for The crueltie of this fact added a new flame of envie and evill will towards the king so that it seemed to every one they heard the infernall furies preparing themselves to bring
gave them all great summes of money for Severus had left great treasure and made them sweare they would be faithfull unto him So that when after they knew the deed done and found themselves all gained and corrupted with silver they obeyed him without contradiction as to one sole emperour And what came of all this Bassianus not ignorant that the Senate of Rome would find this murder very strange that he had committed of his brother desired that great lawyer Papinian who was his kinsman and had beene as the Chancellor or great maister under the Emperour Severus that he would goe to the Senate and make his excuses by an Oration well set out That he had done well to slay his brother and that he had reason and occasion to doe it Papinian who was a good man answered him That it was not so easie to excuse a parricide as it was to commit it Bassianus greeved at this refusall caused one of his attendants straight to cut off his head After this willing to shew to the Senate and to the people that he greeved because he had slaine his brother and that they might see it was done by evill counsell he caused also his Marmoset Laetus his head to be cut off who had counselled him to doe that murder he caused also to die all them which helped him in that businesse which were culpable thereof saying that they were cause thereof This notwithstanding to the end Geta his friends should enterprise nothing against him he made die as many as he could catch of them So that under that title of being a friend servant or favourer of Geta his brother he made die many great and noble persons yea he slew all such as caried themselves betwixt them two as neuter and reconciliators I pray you what was the cause of all this great and horrible butcherie was it not the mortall enmitie which these Marmosets had sowne betwixt the brethren In the time of the Emperour Commodus there happened a like thing and because Dion Lamprid. in Commod Herod lib. 1. the hystorie is memorable I would rehearse it a little at length Marcus Antonius the Emperour was surnamed the Philosopher because he was a prince wise and studious and a lover of good letters In his time there were great plentie of wise and learned men because commonly saith Herodian men doe imitate their prince and give themselves to such things as the Prince loveth There was alwaies about him a great number of good and learned people for his privie Counsell which hee called his faithfull friends as the king of Fraunce also at this day dooth call his privie Counsellors in his pattents This good emperour being in Hungarie at the warre with Commodus his sonne fell into a disease whereof he died But before his death hee caused his Counsell to assemble and to recommend his sonne unto them made a little remonstrance worthy of such a Prince in this manner I doubt not my good friends that you are not anguished and sorrowfull to see me of this disposition For humanitie causeth that easily wee have compassion of mens adversities but especially when we see them with our eyes But yet in my regard there is a more speciall reason for I doubt not but you beare mee alike good will to that which I have ever borne you But now is the time for me to thanke you that you have alwayes been unto me good and faithfull Friends and Counsellors And I pray you also not to forget the honour and amitie which I have borne you You see my son which you your selves have nourished who now entreth into the flower of his youth who as he that entreth into an high sea had need of good Patrones and Governours least by ignorance and evill conduction hee stray from the right way and so come into perill I pray you then my friends whereas he had no more fathers but one in me be you many fathers unto him that he may be alwaies made better by your good counsels For truly neither the force of silver and treasures nor the multitude of guarders can maintaine a prince and make him be obeyed unlesse the subjects which owe obedience doe beare him good affection and benevolence And assuredly they onely raigne long and assuredly which ingrave and instill in their subjects hearts not a feare by crueltie but a love by bountie For they ought not to bee any thing suspected to a prince in that they doe or suffer which are drawne to obedience by their owne will and not by constrained servitude And subjects will never refuse obedience unlesse they bee handled by violence and contumelie Very true it is That it cannot bee but hard for a soveraigne prince who is at his full libertie moderately to guide and bridle his affections But if you alwayes admonish him to doe well and to remember the words which hee heareth now of me that am his father I hope you shall find him a good prince towards you and all others And in thus doing you shall manifestly shew That you alwayes have mee in remembrance by which onely meanes you may make mee immortall Vpon this speech his heart and his word failed with languishment and then all his Counsellors which were there begun to weepe lament yea some could not containe from crying for great sadnesse and bitternesse of heart that they had to see so good a prince faile After his death Commodus his sonne and successor in the empire governed himselfe some little time by the good people and auncient Counsellors of his father but this continued not long for there were straight Marmosets which found subtill meanes and entries to get into him which when they saw their time begun to say unto him What meane you to tarie in this base and barraine countrey of Hungarie better it were for you to bee at Rome to have all the pleasures in the world you have no cause to beleeve these tutors which your father left you you are no child to bee governed by tutors Commodus who was a faire young prince and one that desired nothing but his pleasures and who yet had no great resolution although his father had taken great paines to instruct him wel begun to let himself to be led with Marmosets which never spoke anything unto him but of merry and pleasant things So made he a shamefull and dishonorable peace with the Barbarians against whom his father had commenced warre and retired to Rome being there he begun to become cruell especially against the good and auncient counsellors of his fathers which hee caused almost all to die at the instigation of his Marmosets which reported unto him that they bore him no good will that they blamed his actions and controuled his pleasures He caused also many Senatours to die which his reporters for the same reason disgraced Amongst other Marmosets he had one called Perennis which persuaded him to care for nothing to take his pleasures and to
Christ and understanding of his miracles he required of the Senat that they would cause him to be enrolled in the Letanie of their gods at Rome but the Senat would not Moreover credible it is that in the time of our Lord Iesus Christ when amongst the Paynims the fame was dispersed of Christs miracles as to raise to life the dead from their graves to make see such as were borne blind to heale Paralatike persons and such like that they beleeved that he was God for upon lesse reasons they beleeved others And because he called himselfe the true shepheard and the shepheard of shepheards it is very likely that the Paynims understanding this would divine and gather that it must needs bee the god Pan which they said to bee the god of shepheards and because also that hee said that hee was sent of god his father to preach to men his will they sometimes also gave him the name of Mercurie whom they said to be the messenger and deliverer of the will of the great god Iupiter This may be gathered by Dion the hystoriographer who saith That the emperour Antoninus making warre against the Marcommans obtained raine from heaven of the Dion Capitol in Marco Antonino god Mercurie And Capitolinus speaking of the same matter saith That the Emperour Antoninus to obtaine raine had recourse to a strange Religion but Mercurie was no strange god to those Paynims so that we must needs understand that saying of Dion of another Mercurie than they knew yet gave they him that name as it is likely because they had heard say he was sent from God to signifie and preach his will To come againe then to our purpose the aforesaid learned men that were about Tiberius the emperour hearing it spoken that so many miracles were done by Iesus Christ they easily resolved that he was a god understanding he called himself the great shepheard they concluded thereof that hee was Pan hearing also that he said he was sent to deliver out the will of God and that he was borne of a virgin they made this illation as is to be presumed that he must then needs bee the sonne of Mercurie messenger of the great Iupiter and of some chast woman such as was Penelope for as is likely they could never beleeve that hee was a virgins sonne because it repugned the order of nature that a virgin should bring forth a child And therefore of all those conjectures laid together those wise men or rather ignorant which were about the emperour gathered the aforesaid answere which they made him That the god Pan which died at that time was the sonne of Mercurie and of Penelope applying that to their gods which they had heard spoken of our Lord Iesus Christ Behold then how this hystorie drawne from the Paynims is a perfect witnesse that by the death of Christ came the defailancie and ceasing of Oracles and indeed wee find in no hystories that since his death Oracles have been of any account or fame as they were before True it is that the men and women priests of those gods which answered by Oracles seeing that their master abandoned and forsooke them yet delivered answeres themselves of their own devices but their trumperies deceits and fictions were soone discovered by the divulgement and dispersion of Christian Religion in such sort as the Oracles and the Oracle deliverers became greatly discredited Nero himselfe discovering the abuse overthrew one Dion in Nerone of the temples of Apollo wherein were delivered Oracles and slew all the priests belonging thereunto For a resolution then I hold That at the comming of our Saviour Iesus Christ Oracles failed as the comming of the Sunne causeth darkenesse to depart from the At the comming of Christ the world was amended earth at his comming hee preached the true and pure heavenly doctrine to men and after him his Apostles and Disciples preached it also so that by the doctrine of Iesus Christ and of his Apostles Disciples all Christians were instructed to feare love and honour God above all things and to serve him according to his commandements in puritie and simplicitie rejecting all idolatries superstitions and divine services invented by men Moreover they are in true doctrine taught good maners to love their neighbours as themselves and none to doe to another that which hee would not to be done to himselfe to use towards his the like same charitie that each one would should be used to him to obey superiors and magistrates to live contented every one in the vocation whereunto God hath called him yea generally Christians were taught in all true vertue whereas before the Paynims did teach nothing as I may say but the maske and resemblance of vertue For Christ his Apostles taught men to be just charitable temperant gentle obedient pitifull loving good shunning evill and they taught not so to be outwardly onely but inwardly also without feignednesse or any dissimulation of heart whereas the Paynims cared not to be inwardly vertuous and mannerly so that in outward appearance they shew so to The vertue of the Paynims in outward appearance be to obtaine honour glorie and advauncement unto greatnesse which was the marke and end for which commonly they desired vertue and not for conscience sake nor to please God The examples of Caesar of Pompey of Cicero and generally of all the old Romanes which have had any great reputation of vertue doe prove that this is true and that they never aspired to verrue but to obtaine honour and to encrease their greatnesse Cato likewise of Vtica which seemed in all his behaviors to despise honour wherefore slew he himselfe Was it to please God or to satisfie his conscience It is very certaine that no for he was not so ignorant but he knew well that murder displeased God and that no man should murder himselfe more than another Nothing could move his conscience to incite him to slay himselfe for he felt not himselfe culpable of any thing that deserved it How then Wherefore should he murder himselfe For this not to receive that dishonour to fall alive into the hands of Caesar although he knew well ynough that there needed no more but a little humiliation to have his life goods and dignities saved as hee himselfe confessed and declared to his son and to his friends a little before he slew himselfe but his heart was so sore swolne with glorie and honour that he loved better to slay himselfe than to humble himselfe to Caesar Here behold how those Paynims aspired not to have vertue but for honour and an outward shew whereas the doctrine of Christ teacheth us To desire and to lust after vertues not only to bring them unto outward appearance but also to adorne our hearts and our consciences inwardly therwith and so to please God Moreover also we have heretofore shewed That the Christian doctrine comprehendeth much more perfectly the vertues of good maners than the Paynims
theft and they wicked men as they are although most subtillie they play the Foxes according to their masters doctrine yet in the end they wil be alwaies known Murder is alwaies murder to whatsoever end it bee done for Foxes And though they sometimes deceive before they bee knowne they are therefore after double punished in regard of the profit they get by deceiving when none will beleeve or trust them in any manner no not even then when they have an intention and will not to deceive at all For alwaies men presume of them as men ought to presume of deceivers and wicked men which are without faith and promise for men hold them for such and they can bee held for no other in regard of their actions and behaviours of their lives past This then is the first evill proceeding from Machiavells doctrine which is that they themselves which practise it bring evill to themselves and are discryed hated and evill beloved of all men The other inconvenience which followeth this Maxime is that if the prince permit Crueltie overthroweth justice men to commit murders under colour of a good intent and end hee shall breake the order of justice which hee ought to observe in the punishment of offenders and so shall turne all upside downe and bring his estate and countrey into confusion and perill for when justice goeth evill all goes evill when well all goes well as in another place shall bee shewed more at full Murders and massacres also never remaine long unpunished for God incontinent sendes them their reward as came to Romulus Machiavells owne example who was an unjust murtherer and in the end was murdered himselfe And in our time wee see examples enough and I beleeve wee shall see more in such as the hand of God hath not yet touched But amongst these evills and inconveniences which ordinarily lay hold of these murderers and follow them even to their graves with furies feares and torments which vexe their consciences I could heere alledge for a confirmation of this Maxime that which S. Paul saith That we must not doe evill that good may come thereof But I have alreadie said in another place thar I will not imploy the sacred armour of the holy scripture to fight against this profane and wicked Atheist but I will still give him this advantage to contend with his owne armes namely with profane authors which were not Christians and which heerein alone resemble him for in other things hee holds nothing of them and especially in the matter whereof wee speake they have beene most farre from his detestable doctrine When Tarquin the proude king of Rome saw that hee had so behaved himselfe Titus Livius lib. 1. 21. Dec. as he had utterly lost the amitie of his subjects then resolved to cause himselfe to be obeyed by feare and to bring it to passe hee tooke to himselfe the knowledge of capitall causes against great men which before appertained to the Senate to make himselfe the better feared and obeyed and so hee put to death such as he thought good under certaine pretextes and colours thinking thereby the better to assure his estate But how did hee assure it Thus hee so practised this doctrine of Machiavell that hee became extreamely hated of all men in such sort as his subjects not being able to beare his tyrannie did drive him out of his kingdome where hee miserably died And so much there wanteth that the ancient Romanes delighted in massacring and slaying that they hated even the too rigorous punishments of offenders as the punishment of Metius Suffetius Albanois who was with foure horses drawne to death for a strange and damnable treason by him entended For although he merited to bee so handled yet the Romanes had the crueltie of the punishment in so great disdaine and detestation that every body turned away their eyes saith Titus Livius seeing so villanous a spectable And it was the first and last time that ever they used that rigorous punishment Likewise it greatly displeased the Romanes that some thinking to doe well caused to bee slaine a Tribune of the people a very seditious man called Genutius who ceased not to trouble the commonwealth by divisions whereby hee stirred the common people to uproares If Genutius had had his lawfull tryall it is likely hee would have beene condemned but therein there was this mischiefe that none durst lay hold upon him for the reverence of his estate during that yeere but hee must needes have beene suffered either to doe what hee would or els to resist his dessignes by other meanes then by accusation and not at all to condemne him before hee were out of his office This seemed a goodly colour to dispatch him to shun seditions and troubles which this Tribune raised yet the execution which was made without course of law was found nought and of an evill example and consequence and was the cause of great mischiefes and broyles which followed after And as for that which Machiavell writeth that Romulus caused to slay Tatius Dioni Halic lib. 2. Titus Livi. lib. 1. Dec. 8. his companion in the kingdome the better to rule and governe the towne of Rome this is false for histories doe witnesse that after hee had caused this execution to be made hee became cruell and proud towards the Senators exercising tyrannie in many things insomuch as the Senators themselves slew him even in the senat house and cut him in little pieces whereof every man tooke one piece in his bosome so that the bodie of Romulus was not found for they hired one to say that hee did see the bodie flie into heaven and the said Senators helping this bruite and report Plutarch in Romulo placed him in the letanie of their Gods and persuaded the people that hee ascended into the heavens both in body and soule But they gave Romulus his reward for the murdering of his brother Remus and his companion Tatius and they murdered him as hee had done them For briefely it is a generall rule that murderers are alwaies murdered which rule hath seldome any exceptions But whereas Machiavell saith That well to rule and governe a common wealth there would bee but one person to medle therein there hath beene alwaies the contrarie Tituâ— Livi. lib. 3. Dec. 8. practised When the Romanes thought it good by good lawes and ordinances to governe the estate of their common weale they considered that the number of two Consuls which were their soveraigne magistrates were too few and therefore they abrogated and tooke them cleane away and elected ren men in their places Dionisius 14 Halic lib. 10 unto which they gave the same authoritie which the Consuls before had and especially gave them power and expresse charge to make lawes and ordinances for the pollicie government and justice of the common weale They made the lawes of the twelve tables which endured long after them yea at this day some of these are
tyrannie as contrary none can love tyrannie but hee must needes bee an enemie to the common weale For tyrannie draweth all to himselfe and dispoileth subjects of their goods and commodities to apropriate all to himselfe making his particular good of that which belongeth to all men and applying to his owne private profit and use that which should serve to all men in Tyrants draw all to themselves generall So that it followeth that whosoever loveth the profit of a tyrant by consequent hateth the profit of his subjects and hee that loveth the common good of subjects hateth also the particular profit of a tyrant But thus speaking I doe not meane of tributes which are lawfully levied upon subjects for the exaction of taxes may well bee the worke of a prince and of a just ruler but wee speake of the proper and particular actions of tyrants Surely indeede if there bee any proper and meete meane to maintaine a tyrannie it seemes well that that which Machiavell teacheth is one To maintaine subjects Titus Livius lib. 4. Dec. 4. in partialities and devisions For as Quintius saith when he exhorted the townes of Greece to accord amongst themselves Against a people which are in a good unitie amongst themselves tyrants can doe nothing but if there bee discord amongst them an overture is straight made for him to doe what hee will I freelie then confesse if I would deny it experience prooves it that in this point Machiavell is a true doctor who well understands the science of tyrannie no man can set downe more proper precepts for so wicked a thing than such as this Maxime containeth namely to sley all lovers of the commonwealth and amongst other subjects to maintaine partialities Surely if anything serve to maintaine a tyrannie these seeme most proper and covenable for they are made from the same mould that tyrannie it selfe is and drawne from one same spring of most execrable wickednesse and impietie But yet I will hold that neither these tyrannicall precepts nor any others can long maintaine a tyrant or a tyrannie For the ordinance of God being farre Tyrants are impious stronger than the detestable precepts of Machiavell repugneth them and never suffereth tyrannie to bee of any long endurance as wee have before shewed by the examples of Nero Caligula Caracalla and Domitian as Sophocles saith No man did ever see Sopho. in Aâ—ac Flagel A tyrant once to proove godlie And because tyrants are alwaies full of impietie God with whom they strive brings his justice upon them yea commonly he makes them passe the edge of the sword or else to die some other strange and violent death For as Iuvenall saith A tyrant seldome life doth end But by the sword which God doth send Corneli Taci Annales 5. And besides that God brings them to a tragicall and miserable end even during their lives are they continually tormented in their consciences with feares distrusts and furies which so trouble them day and night that they obtaine no rest To this purpose Tacitus rehearseth That when the emperour Tiberius was come to the highest degree of his tyrannie remaining in a place nigh to Rome called Cheurieres he writ a letter to the Senat which shewed that he felt himselfe every day more and more tormented and troubled in conscience because of the cruelties and injustices which he exercised This is then not without cause addeth Tacitus that an excellent wise man affirmeth meaning Plato That if tyrants soules might be seene uncovered a man should see them torne and wounded with blowes of crueltie riotousnesse and wicked counsell as we see bodies ulcerated with rods and cudgels What pleasure could Denis the tyrant of Sicilie have who trusted none Also when one day a certaine philosopher told him that he could not be but happie who was so rich so well served at his table and had so goodly a pallace to dwell in and so richly furnished he answered him Well I will shew thee how happie I am and withall hee led that philosopher into a chamber gallantly hanged with tapistrie and caused him to be laid on a guilded rich bed to repose himselfe there were also brought him exquisit and delicate viands and excellent wines but whilest certaine servants made these provisions for Monsieur the philosopher who was so desirous of a tyrannicall felicitie another varlet fastened by the hilts to the upper bed feeling a bright shining sharpe sword and this sword was hung only in a horse haire the point of it right over the philosophers face so newly happy who incontinent as he saw the sword hang by so small a thread and so right over his visage lost all his appetite to eat drinke or to muse at or contemplate the excessive riches of the tyrant but continually cast his sight upon that sword And in the end he prayed Denis to take him from the supposed beatitude wherin he was laid saying That he had rather be a poore philosopher than in that manner to bee happie Did not I then say well to thee answered the tyrant That we tyrants are not so happie as men thinke for our lives depend alwayes upon a small thread What repose could Nero also have who confessed that often the likenesse of his mother whome hee slew appeared to him which tormented and afflicted him Sueto in Nero cap. 34. and that furies beat him with rods and tormented him with burning torches What delicatenesse or sweetnesse of life could Caligula and Caracalla have which caused alwaies to be carried certaine coffers full of all manner of poysons as well to poyson Tyrants tormented of furies others as themselves in cases of necessitie for feare they should fall alive into the hands of their enemies Heliogabalus also what comfort had he in the world who provided alwayes cords of silke to hang himselfe in and brave poynards and golden swords exceeding sharpe in like manner at a need to sley him And indeed it is one of the greatest wisdomes that can be in a tyrant to take a good course for his death when it is necessarie and expedient for him for they are often troubled doe come short therein as we see of Nero who in his need could find no man that would sley him but he was forced to sley himselfe True it is that his secretarie held his hand that with more strength and lesse feare he might dash the dagger into his throat yet neither his secretarie nor any other person would of themselves attempt it If this secretarie had been one of Machiavels schollers it is likely he would have prooved more hardie But we have to note as well upon this Maxime as upon the former that as by his precepts here Machiavell tendeth and goeth about to forme a tyrant that also we ought to hold for a true tyrant every prince and ruler which useth these precepts Markes of tyrants and practiseth them that is hee which useth the cruelties before commended
happie memorie For during his raigne and before the kingdome was governed after the meere French manner that is to say following the traces and documents of our French auncestors But since it hath governed by the rules of Machiavell the Florentine as shall bee seene heereafter Insomuch that since that time untill this present the name of Machiavell hath beene celebrated and esteemed as of the wisest person of the world and most cunning in the affaires of Estate and his bookes held dearest and most precious by our Italian and Italionized courtiers as if they were the bookes of Sibilla whereunto the Paynims had their recourse when they would deliberate upon any great affaire concerning the common wealth or as the Turkes hould deare and precious their Mahumets Alcaron as wee have said above And wee neede not bee abashed if they of Machiavells nation which hould the principall estates in the government of France have forsaken the ancient manner of our French ancestors government to introduct and bring France in use with a new forme of managing ruling their countrie taught by Machiavell For on the one side every man esteemeth and priseth alwaies the manners fashions customes other things of his owne countrey more than them of an others On the other side Machiavell their great doctor Cap. 3. De Princ. Discourse lib. 2. cap. 30. lib. 3. cap. 43. Machiavells slanders against the kings and the people of France describes so well France and the goverment thereof in his time blaming and reprehending the Frenchmens conduction of affaires of Estate that it might easily persuade his disciples to change the manner of French government into the Italian For Machiavell vaunteth that being once at Nantes and talking with the Cardinall of Amboise which was a very wise man in the time of king Lewis the twelfth of publike State affaires hee plainly tould him that the Frenchmen had no knowledge in affaires of Estate And in many places speaking of French causes hee reprehendeth the government of our abovenamed kings Charles the eight and Lewis the twelfth yea hee hath beene so impudent speaking of that good king Lewis rebuking him for giving succours unto Pope Alexander the sixt that hee gives him the plaine lie saying hee belyes himselfe having passed Italie at the Venetians request yet succoured the Pope against his intention And in other places hee calls our kings Tributaries of the Suisses and of the English men And often when hee speaketh of the Frenchmen hee calleth them Barbarous and saith they are full of covetousnesse and disloyaltie So also hee taxeth the Almaignes of the same vices Now I beseech you is it not good reason to make so great account of Machiavell in France who so doth defame reproove the honour of our good kings of all our whole nation calling them Ignorant of the affaires of Estate Barbarous Covetous Disloyall But all this might bee borne withall and passed away in silence if there were not another evill But when we see that Machiavell by his doctrine and documents hath changed the good and ancient government of France into a kind of Florentine government whereupon we see with our eies the totall ruine of all France It infallibly followeth if God by his grace doe not remedie it soone that now it should be time if ever to lay hand to the work to remit and bring France againe unto the government of our ancestors Hereupon I humbly pray the Princes and great lords of France to consider what is their duties in this case Seemeth it most Ilustrious Lords seeing at this time poore France which is your countrey and mother so desolate and torne in sunder by strangers that you ought to suffer it to be lost and ruinated Ought you to permit them to sowe Atheisme and Impietie in your countrey and to set up schooles thereof Seeing your France hath alwaies been so Zealous in the Christian Religion as our ancient kings by their pietie and iustice have obtained that so honourable a title and name of Most Christian Thinke you that God hath caused you to be borne into this world to help to ruinate your countrie or coldly to stand still and suffer your mother to be contaminated and defiled with the contempt of God with perfidie with sodomie tyrannie crueltie thefts strange usuries and other detestable vices which strangers sowe heere But rather contrarie God hath given you life power and authoritie to take away such infamies and corruptions and if you do it not you must make account for it you can looke for but a greevous iust punishment If it be true as the Civilian lawiers say That he is a murderer and culpable of death which suffereth to die with hunger the person unto whom he oweth nourishment And shall not you be culpable before God of so many massacres murders and desolations of your poore France if you give it not succours seeing you have the meanes and that you are obliged thereunto by right of nature Shall you not be condemned and attainted of impietie Athisme and tyrannie if you drive not out of France Machiavell and his government Heere if any man will inquire how it appeareth that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell the resolution heereof is easie and cleere For the effects which France governed by the doctrine of Machiavell we see with our eies and the provisions and executions of the affaires which are put in practise may easily bring us to the causes and Maximes as we have abovesaid which is one way to know things by ascending from effects and consequences to the knowledge of causes Maximes And whosoever also shall reade the Maximes of Machiavell which we shall handle heereafter and discend from thence into the particularities of the French government hee shall see that the precepts and Maximes of Machiavell are for the most part at this day practised and put in effect and execution from point to point Insomuch that by both the two wayes from the Maximes to the effects and from the effects to the Maximes men may clearely know that France is at this day governed by the doctrine of Machiavell For are they not Machiavelists Italians or Italianized which doe handle and deale with the seales of the kindgome of France Is it not they also which draw out and stampe Edicts Which dispatch all things within and without the realme Which hould the goodliest governments and fermes belonging unto the Crowne Tea if a man will at this day obtaine or get any thing in the Court for to have a good and quicke dispatch thereof hee must learne to speake the Messereske language because these Messers will most willingly heare them in their owne tongue and they understand not the French no not the tearmes of iustice and Royall ordinances Whereupon every man may coniecture and imagine how they can well observe or cause to be observed the lawes of France the tearmes whereof they
shuld the imposition have continued But certaine it is that this consent delivered by the said Estates concerned only the English warres which ending the said consent finished yet afterward the said consent and accord of the Estates was drawne into a custome In the time of king Charles the eight the Estates generall at Tours were convocated as well to provide for the government of the king and of the kingdome for his majestie was under age as also for Aydes and Subsidies which were freely graunted by the said Estates although the people of Fraunce were then very poore and ruinated And the abovenamed Comines sheweth one thing that is very true That the holding of the said Estates is very good and profitable for a king of France whereby he is both stronger and better obeyed but he complaines That in his time there were men as there are at this day unworthie to possesse those offices which they held who all they could hindered the holding of the Estates least their evill behaviors and incapacities should be espied and knowne Such men are of like humors as the unworthie Emperours Caligula Maximinius Commodus others whereof we have spoken above which hated the Senat of Rome because they would not have such correctors and controulers Let us now come to Machiavell to proove his Maxime which we have aboue The counsell of many is better than the counsell of oâ—e alone confuted by good reasons and examples He alleadgeth two reasons The one is that if a Prince governe himselfe by one Counsell alone it would proove dangerous for feare that the Counsellor seeke to occupie the Estate Whereunto I answere that that were considerable if principalities were at this day given by tumultuarie elections of souldiers as in times past the Romane Empire was given for he that could obtaine the favour of the men of warre either by love or money carried it away But in our time principalities are hereditarie or are given by grave and deliberate election of more staid and discreet people than were the Praetorian souldiers of Rome Yet doe not I approove that a Prince should be governed by one alone when he may have a greater number of good Counsellors for they that have so done in times past have found it evill and have repented it as more fully shall be shewed in the next Maxime The reason also is evident because one alone cannot so well by his wisdome examine and search out a matter or cause nor so well can prevent difficulties occurrents consequents that may happen as many can do Therfore also the wise Salomon approveth the counsell which is compounded of many The other second reason of Machiavell is that he saith That in a Counsell compounded Discordant opinions comming to one end is not to be feared of many there are alwaies discordances and contrarieties of opinions that they cannot accord Whereunto I answer That if a Counsell be compounded of good and fit men they will alwaies sufficiently agree in their opinions as experience sheweth it in the Counsels of many Princes and in the body of Common-weales although they disagree in motives reasons allegations and in other circumstances These discordances are often very profitable and necessarie if so be they all looke to one end which is the good of the Commonwealth As happened in the Counsell of the Senate which was held at Rome about that horrible and straunge conspiration of Catiline who with his companions went about to destroy his countrey with fire and sword For in that Counsell Caesar reasoned so gently as it seemed he made small account of the matter and in respect of his authoritie others after him reasoned in like manner so mildly and gently as Catiline and his partakers were in a good way to have been absolved But when it came to Cato his ranke he reasoned in another sort yea even plainely to rebuke such as spoke before him Great pitie it is sayth he that we are in such a time when men attribute the name of wicked things to such as are good Now is it accounted liberalitie to give the goods of another man it is magnanimitie to use violence and boldnesse it is mercie and clemencie to plucke criminall and condemned persons out of a Iustices hands And I pray you is it so small a thing to have conspired our destruction and the effusion of our bloud Another crime might be punished after it should be committed but who should punish Catiline after the execution of his conspiration and that we shal be all dead They which before have delivered their opinions seeme to be very liberall of our blouds and of the bloud of so many good men within Rome to spare that of a sort of wicked conspirators If they be not afraid of this conspiration so much the more my masters have we cause to feare to watch hold us upon our guards without too much trusting them which are in such assurance For our auncestors have made themselves great by diligence justice by good counsell free from all covetousnesse and viciousnesse Vnto them which are vigilant take paines and use good counsell all things succeed well but sluggards and cowards had need implore aid of the gods for no doubt they are both contrarie and angry with them And therefore my advise is that they which have confessed the fault should die the death of their desert Cato in this manner reasoning against the advise of others which had been before him greatly to his commendation drew the rest at the last to his opinion yet not more to his honour than to the dishonour of Caesar So then it is not ever evill that in a Counsell there should be sometimes Catoes and Appius Caludius and such like persons which often hold strong against others for affaires and businesses are so much the better cleared and boulted out It also holds other better in order which otherwise by too great facilitie and fear to contradict suffer themselves to be carried after the first opinion without debate or due consideration And truly in all Counsels there are but too many such as were Valerius Publicola Maenenius Agrippa Servilius Pompeius Caesar and such like which alwaies reasoned gently and mildly in all things but too few Catons Appius Claudius Quintus Cincinnatus and such like which in Senates hold rigorous opinions For although for the most part such rigorous opinions ought not to be followed yet they being mingled and dispersed amongst others they r serve well to bring to passe a good resolution and so doe make a good and sweet harmonie in a Counsell or Senat as Titus Livius sheweth in many places And therefore contradictions of opinions whereof Machiavell speaketh are not so much to be feared in Princes Counsels Against whose Maxime I conclude That the Prince which governeth himselfe by the counsell of men that be wise honest and experienced shall prosper in all good he that ruleth himselfe by his own head shall ruinate himselfe
for Senators and Lawyers may as well be flatterers as others although they should shew better example because commonly they are wiser You must then vnderstand that in the time of the Emperour Tiberius many were accused for light matters said or done towards the Emperour because they knew he tooke pleasure in such accusations Amongst others one day there was accused Vitellio Sueton in Top. 5. in a full Senate of treason a Romane Knight called Lucius Ennius because he had melted a silver image of his owne which represented the Emperours image to make some other worke for his owne vse you may thinke what an huge crime this was and how men should find it evill for a man to do with his owne at his owne pleasure The Emperour Tiberius seeing that this accusation had no colour in it and that it was but a mockerie to call it a crime much lesse a crime of treason he forbad that the Knight should be criminalized for it Yet Atteius Capito a Senator and a great Lawyer but a very flatterer rose up and as upon a free libertie of speech he used these words to the Emperour Sir we are here assembled in the Senate where every one hath libertie freely to vtter his opinion for the good and utilitie of the common-wealth we beseech you not to take from us the power that we haue to punish such as commit crimes against the common-wealth and pardon not you alone that injurie which is done to all For what a despight and contempt is this for Ennius that he dare found and cast into the fire a Princes image ought not he rather to have kept it by him as an holy and sacred thing to have reverenced it for the honor of him whose representation it was this shews what heart and affection he beares towards his Prince and that if he could he would do as much vnto him as he doth to his Image For he that reverenceth the gods reverenceth also their images Had he not otherwise enough whereof to make his silver vessel but to melt for it this sacred Image hee would not do so much with the images of Brutus and Cassius for he honoureth them in his heart and would well at this day find the like which might enterprise the like disloyaltie against our good Prince as they did against Caesar Our Lawes will that in crimes of treason the least apparant suspition sufficeth to condemne the accused And it is the great interest and profit for the common-wealth rigorously to punish such as never so little attempt against the Prince vnlesse a man will say that the body hath not to do neither needeth to care when the head is wounded and offended And therfore I conclude that justice be executed vpon Ennius as a man attainted and culpable of treason The Emperour Tiberius although he was cruell in such matters knew well that this faire opinion of the Lawyer Capito was but a meere flatterie which he vnderstood better then he vttered therefore notwithstanding the said Capito his remonstrance and opinion he persisted in the Inhibitions before made that the knight Ennius should be no more vexed nor endangered about that matter And the abovesaid Tacitus saith that Capito by this his goodly opinion acquired a great infamy and evill reputation to himselfe greatly dishonouring both the knowledge of the civile Law humane and good letters wherewith he was excellently endowed Vpon this point I note that which master Philip de Comines well saith That Lawyers and great learned Comines lib. 1. cap. 24. men are very fit to be about a Prince and of his Counsell if they be good men but being otherwise they are very dangerous For they can so wel paint and set out their language alledging lawes and histories which every man understandeth not that often they take euill conclusions But when they be good men they may marueilously order and conduct matters which are handled in Counsell and bring them to a good resolution as may be proved by infinit examples out of Titus Livius and other Hystoriographers which I will not here accumulate because it is from our determined purpose In the ranke of janglers may well be placed the Poets of our time which by their Poesies full of flatteries and lies seeke to hooke in some abbotship or priorship or Poets janglers some other such gift in recompence of their adulations I confesse that a Poet may and should take more libertie to write the praises of some one man than an Oratour or an Hystoriographer but when praises are so hyperbolicall as they rather fall out to be the dishonour than the honour of him of whome they are written then are they not any thing tollerable I will take for example but the Epitaphes which were imprinted at Paris a little after the death of king Charles the ninth There those goodly Poets say That the king before he died overthrew more monsters than ever did Hercules in shedding so much bloud of his rebellious subjects That he died like Sampson who at his death pulled downe and overthrew the pillers which hee had in his armes and the house upon himselfe so in Fraunce justice pietie and religion died with him That France had been his stepmother That there was in him an exceeding great cunning in all arts and sciences and that he was also very expert in divers handicrafts That the king Henry his brother that now raignes succeeded him as Castor to Pollux as one god to another god That king Charles died a martyr of Iesus Christ and that from thenceforth he ought to be invocated as a Saint I pray you is there any man of sober judgement which doth not plainly see that such speeches become rather men void of wit and understanding by some extreame affection of flatterie than these gallant Poets which are drawne on and led with a generous and right Poeticall spirit for meaning unmeasurably to praise there escapes from them that they speake things redounding to their dispraise and if the dead king were alive he would not thanke them for such praises For a good Prince as Horace saith of Augustus ever rejecteth such foolish praises To purpose ill shall never goe my verse To Caesars eare for as his deeds appeare So would he I his praises should rehearse Too much his praise detesteth hâ— to heare And indeed it is common to all good and vertuous people not onely to reject excessive praises but also to hate as flatterers and liers all such as use them as Euripides witnesseth saying A good man praise too great cannot abide But hates that thing which puffes him so with pride If those goodly Poets before they had made their Epitaphs had well read Virgil and Horace they should have found that these two excellent Poets writ in many Aenead 6. Hora. lib. 4. Carm. Ode 5. 15. places the praises of Augustus But wherefore do they praise him For that he established a good peace in all the Romane Empire
Anno 140â— Monstre lib. 1 cap. 22. and Reporters a great enmitie arose betwixt Lewis duke of Orleans the kings brother and Iohn duke of Burgoigne conte of Flanders of Artois and lord of many other lands and territories Our hystories name not these Marmosets but simply say that their houshold servants incited them to band one against another the duke of Orleans his servants and favourits said and said truly That he was the chiefe prince of the blood the kings only brother also more aged and of riper and more staied wit than the duke of Burgoigne and that therefore he should not set his foot before him in the handling of the kings affairs For at this time the king having not perfect sences his affairs were handled with the princes of the blood and the privie Counsell but contrarie the duke of Burgoigne his Marmosets said That he was the chiefe peere of France and as they cal it le Doy en des Pairs that he was more mightie and more rich than the duke of Orleans and although he was not so neere of the blood Roiall as he yet was he more neere by alliance for the Dauphin who was yet very young had espoused his daughter and therefore he ought in nothing to give place unto the duke of Orleans but that hee ought to maintaine and hold the same ranke that Philip duke of Burgoigne his deceassed father did who whilest his father liued governed the king and the kingdome at his wil. Briefly these tatlers and reporters caused this duke of Burgoigne so to mount into ambition and covetousnesse to raigne that he enterprised to cause the duke of Orleans to bee slaine who hindered his deseignes and purposes and indeed he caused him to be most villanously massacred and slaine at Paris nie the gate Barbette by a sort of murthering theeves which he had hired as the duke of Orleans went to see the queene who had lately bene brought to rest of a child Great domage there was for that good prince for he was valiant and wise as possible one might be Of him descended king Henry the second now raigning both by father and mother For king Francis his father was sonne of Charles duke of Angolesme who was son also of Iohn duke of Angolesme who was sonne of the duke of that Orleance and Madame Claude queene of Fraunce mother of the said king Henry was daughter of king Lewis the twelfth who was son of Charles duke of Orleance who was the sonne of this duke Lewis whereof wee speake I would to God princes his descendants would well marke the example of this massacre most horrible which was committed upon the person of that good duke their great grandfather and the great evill haps and calamities which came thereof to shun the like miseries which ordinarily happen when such murders goe unpunished For because the duke Iohn of Burgoine was not punished for this fault but found people which sustained and maintained it to have been well done as we shall say more at the full in another place and that followed his part stirring up civile warres which endured two generations and caused the death of infinit persons in France and that the English got a great part of the kingdome and that the poore people of Fraunce fell into extreame miserie povertie and desolation there were many causes and meanes of so many evils for injustice ambition covetousnesse desire of vengeance and other like things might goe in the ranke of causes of so many mischeefes But the Marmosets of duke Iohn of Burgoigne were they which stroke the yron against the flint out of which came that sparke of fire a device fatally taken by the duke of Burgoigne which brought into combustion and into a burning fire all the kingdome for so long time and at last ruinated the house of Burgoigne Francis duke of Bretaigne a prince that was a good Frenchman and affectionate Monstre lib. 3. cap. 4 33. to the king of France his soveraigne had a brother called Gills who gave himselfe to the English in the time that they made warre in France and accepted of the king of England the order of the Garter and the office of high Constable of England The duke and his brother much greeved hereat found meanes to take him prisoner and put him in a strong castle whereunto he would never goe to heare or see him he so much disdained him But yet he sent men unto him which hee trusted which indeed proved very Marmosets and false reporters for after Giles of Bretaigne had remained within the castle a certaine time and that he had considered well his doings that he was borne the kings vassale of France and that he ought never to have disunited himselfe from his brother he then praied his brothers people that came to see him to tell him from him that he greatly repented what hee had done and that if it pleased him to pardon him that from thence forward he would follow with a good heart the part of the king of France and his and that if it pleased them hee would streight send to the king of England his Order and Constables sword What do his Marmosets then They report to the duke that Giles his brother was still obstinate and so perfect English that no reasons they could make could turne him unto that side The duke sent still many times the same men unto him but alwaies they made the like or worse report of him insomuch that this good duke fearing that his brother was invincible in his obstination fearing also that if hee should let him loose he would cause the English to come into Bretaigne to avenge himselfe commanded the same reporters to strangle him in prison which they did Afterward as God when he seeth his time brings the most hid things to light these murdering reporters could not hold but discover the truth of the matter and that Giles of Bretaigne would have done any thing that the duke his brother would have had him to doe which comming to the dukes eares he was nigh out of his wits for his brothers death and caused the reporters to be hanged and to die with great and rigorous paines and executions Behold the end of Giles of Bretaign and the reward which such Marmosets received which were cause of his death Hereof Princes may note a rule Not to beleeve too easily reports made of men without hearing them but especially when it toucheth life One day before the emperour Adrian there was one Alexander which accused I. 3. 9. idem Diu. D. de Testi 6. of certaine crimes one Aper and for proofe of those crimes he produced certaine informations in writing against Aper which he had caused to be taken in Macedon Adrian mocked at it and said to Alexander the accuser that these informations were but paper and inke and it might be made at pleasure but in criminall causes we must not beleeve witnesses in writing but witnesses themselves
lib. 15. cap. 9. li. 16. cap. 3 4 13. lib. 17. and Idumia for the favour of Marcus Antonine a Romane capitaine and by decree of the Romane Senate he espoused a noble Ladie who was of the kings race of that countrie called Mariamme by whom he had two children Alexander and Aristobulus but Herodes had a sister called Salome who was a very Tisiphone and served for nothing but to kindle and light fires in the kings court by false reports which she invented and this infernall furie did so much as she perswaded the king her brother that Mariamme sought to poison him by his cup-bearer and brought out certaine false witnesses to proue it so that the king beleeved it and put to death his wife one of the fairest princes of the world and of whose death there was after infinit griefes and repentances But as one sinne draweth after it another Salome fearing that those two aforesaid children would feele afterward the outragious death of their mother she machinated and resolved in hir spirit that they must also dye So began she straight to forge false reports false tokens and false accusations insomuch as she perswaded Herodes the father that these two children Alexander and Aristobulus spake alreadie of revenging the death of their mother and by the same meanes to vsurpe the kingdome Herodes suffering himselfe to be persuaded by the calumniations and slaunders of his sister Salomē tooke his iourney to Rome having his two children with him where he accused them to have fought his death before Augustus Caesar he began to descipher his accusatorie oration and to deduct set out the means whereby he pretended that his two children should go about his death When it came to their turne to speake for their defence they began to weepe and lament Caesar knew well thereby that the poore children were full of innocencie So he exhorted them from thence forward to carry themselues in such sort towards their father that not only they should not doe against him any thing vnworthy or greevous but also should doe so much as to bring themselves farre from all suspition He exhorted also Herodes to use his sonnes well and to keepe them in his favor Then fell the children on their knees before their father with great effusion of teares crying him mercy by which meanes they were reconciled unto their father But after the returne of Herodes and his children this furie Salome not contented with this reconciliation which Caesar had made began to lay new ambushes by false reports that she made to Herodes wherein she mixed some truth to give the better taste Herodes who was very credulous in such matters made Augustus understand that his children had againe conspired his death Augustus answered him That if his children had done against him the thing which merited punishment that he should chastice them as he thought good and that he himselfe gave him power and permission so to do The abovesaid Herodes joyful to have received this power being led with an irreconcileable rage by the meanes of Salome caused the two poore children Alexander and Aristobulus to be strangled Salome ayded her selfe in all this businesse with one other sonne of Herodes borne of another woman called Antipater God would that Herode should discover that the accusations against his two dead children were but slaunders and that Antipater who had aided to forge them had himselfe conspired to poison his father Whereupon he caused him to be called before Guintius Varius the governor of Syria for the emperour The cause being long pleaded and debated Antipater could not purge himselfe of the sayings and proofs against him and did no other thing but make great exclamations nothing appertaining to the matter holding on that God knew all unto whom he recommended his innocencie Varus seeing that he could not wel justifie himselfe wished Herodes to imprison him and so he did Certaine dayes after Herodes fell sicke which comming to the notice of Antipater in prison he rejoyced greatly Herodes advertised that Antipater wished his death and rejoyced at his sicknesse sent one of his guard into prison to slay him which he did Five daies after Herodes died like a mad man for the evill haps he had in his children and this rage lighted a fire in his entrailes which rotted him by little and little wherupon engendred worms which eat him alive with horrible languishments before his death And who was the cause that Herodes thus contaminated his hands and all his house with the bloud of his owne children Even that most wicked reporter Salome who devised false accusations and slaunders which she blew in the king her brothers eares Besides those kind of flatterers whereof we have spoken above which are janglers Coūsellors flatterers and Marmosets there is yet a third kind which under the name and title of principall Counsellors and under the pretext and colour of conducting the affaires by good counsel they abuse the princes authoritie who are greatly to be feared To shun the mischeefe that may come therupon there is nothing better than to follow the precept of Comines namely That the king have many Counsellors and that hee Comines lib. 1. cap. 27. lib. 2. cap. 44. never commit the conducting of his affaires to one alone and that he hold as nigh as he can well his Counsellors equall For if hee commit much more to one than to another he wil be master and the others dare not reason against him freely or els knowing his inclination dare not contradict him Therefore in a criminall cause handled before the Senate of Rome against a gentlewoman of a great house called Lepida accused of treason the emperour Tiberius although he were very rude in Cornel. Tacitus annal lib. 3. li. 5. such cases would not suffer his adoptive sonne Drusus to reason first least sayth Tacitus thereby had been laied and imposed a necessitie for others to have consented unto his opinion And in another cause of like matter where Granius Marcellus was accused in a certaine place to have set his owne image above the emperors When the cause came to handling Piso whose opinion the Emperour desired first began thus to say And you Sir in what place will you reason for if you reason last I feare that by imprudencie I shall not dissent from you For that cause Tiberius declared that he would not reason at all indeed the accuser was absolved although the Emperour had shewed a countenance to be angry against him as he heard the accusation rehearsed And there is no doubt but that the counsell of one alone is Counsell of one alone dangerous perillous to the prince because naturally men are divers waies passionate and that which shall be governed by one alone is often by passion guided Also the indisposition of mens persons causeth that every one hath not alwaies his head well made as they say nor are wise at all seasons and
florishing I know well that every one layeth the fault upon his adversary that every one saith that hee it is which fighteth for his countrey which they of the contrary part will needes ruinate but easie it is to judge for him whose judgement is free of passion who is in the wrong for they who seekes not another mans who demands but their owne and that the kingdome bee reformed by their owne lawes and brought into her auncient splendour and renowne can they bee called enemies of the countrey Is there any thing in the world that is more ours than our soule our conscience and our lives That is true will some Messier say you may have assurance of your lives every one also may have libertie of his conscience but to speake of reformation is treason Yea but what assurance of life will be given us even an assurance that shall be under the safegard and protection of the first wicked man which will conspire a massacre who shall be invited to enterprise it by the impunitie of former massacres What libertie of conscience can we have unlesse it be of Machiavels religion that is to say to be without religion without pietie without the power of a franke and free conscience to serve God Call you it libertie of conscience to be without religion or without exercise of religion nay it is rather a very slavish servitude But if it be treason to speake of reforming abuses and corruptions which are in the kingdome it followeth that they are guiltie of treason which procure and purchase the commonwealth against which both reason and all lawes do pronounce If therefore the world at this day esteeme enemies of their country such as seeke nothing but the good thereof and that they may have left them their soules consciences and lives God and his veritie shall have the victorie and cause them that come after us to judge otherwise Although the horrors and calamities of civile warres are sufficiently knowne in this time yet will I breefely rehearse two most notable examples The civile warre which was in the Romane empire betwixt Marius and Silla was an horrible and fearefull butcherie which filled Rome and all Italie with blood For both of them were masters of Rome and all Italie one after another and so being they did not cease all they could to kill and massacre one anothers friends and partakers insomuch that in a manner all men of qualitie and all good people were slain for there was no notable man but he held of the one or the other Amongst other memorable things happening in this warre this especially concerneth our cause in hand which fell in the battaile that Pompeius the lieutenant of Silla obtained against Florus lib. 79 Cinna the partener of Marius for one of Pompeius souldiers having stroken dead to the ground one of Cinna his souldiers hee disarmed him thinking to spoile him of all he had but then finding him to be his own brother this poore soldier fell in a great rage and almost to a madnesse that he had so slaine his owne brother yet straight he caused a great fire of wood to bee made to turne his brothers bodie into ashes after the manner of the Paynims then and making great lamentations and sorrowfull exclamations he laid his brothers bodie upon the wood then he put fire unto it and as soone as it was well kindled he cast himselfe into the fire also and was burned with his brothers bodie insomuch as death united the ashes of those two brethren which the civile warres had disunited But yet a farre worse and greater civile warre happened soone after betwixt Pompeius and Caesar and it endured and continued all the time of the Triumvirate of Octavius Antonius and Lepidus against Cassius and Brutus and ended betwixt Antonius Flor. lib. 120. and Octavius This warre endured two and thirtie yeares and spread it selfe almost through all the world which then was in subjection to the Romane Plutarch in Caesar empire yea even the people of the East West North and South felt their greevous part of this civile warre It was verefied That in this unnaturall civile warre from the beginning till the fourth Consulship of Caesar only there died of the citizens of Rome the number of one hundred and seventie thousand And you may very well beleeve that many were after slaine also that tenne times as many died in so many provinces as belonged to the Romane empire insomuch as these detestable warres swallowed up many millions of men But the Triumvirate of Octavius Antonius and Lepidus was a most detestable union which accorded to take unto them all the governement of the commonweale and to slay all their enemies But because it often came to passe that he which was friend of one of the three was the others enemie when one would have him slaine as an enemie the other would lay hold of him to defend him as his friend yet the abovesaid crueltie so surmounted all humanitie and the desire of vengeance so vanquished all amitie that these aforesaid captains entred into this detestable complot that they sold their friends one to another to have an enemie in exchange as that wicked Anthonius to have Cicero his enemie whom Octavius favoured as his friend was content in exchange to deliver his owne uncle by the mothers side called Lucius Caesar to Octavius his enemie so that the one was exchanged for the other and they both died Can there possibly in the world bee conspired a more barbarous disloyaltie Is it not a strange thing to heare that a friend should be betraied to death to have that cruell pleasure to slay his enemie Yet by this course and complot died an hundred and thirtie Senators besides many other persons of other qualitie Antonius also the deviser of this barbarous exchange received his due reward even by Octavius himselfe whom hee had induced to commit such cruelties For in the end they were enemies and Antonius being vanquished in the navall battaile at Actium slew himselfe so turning upon and against himselfe that barbarous crueltie which hee had exercised against Cicero and others And it needs not seeme strange if these civile warres of Rome endured so long time as two and thirtie yeares for the civile warres betwixt the houses of Burgoigne Monstr lib. 1. ca. 79. 80 81 159 191 198. and Orleance in France endured threescore yeares being continued from father to sonne for two generatious And as for cruelties me thinkes greater cannot be imagined than them which the Parisians the duke of Bourgoignes parteners committed within the towne of Paris For they massacred the Constable and Chancellor of France whom they drew and trayled through the towne most filthily and murdered also many other great Lords Archbishops Bishops Prelates and more than three thousand other persons as well gentlemen as other notable people which by force they drew out of prisons to murder and massacre them as they did The captaine
playing upon the desperado they might gather double courage and make themselves possessors of the kingdome For necessitie and dispaire make men hardie and valiant but what was the issue thereof even this that Achitophell the author of this counsell hanged and strangled himselfe either with dispaire or feare that hee had that David would have punished him Absalon also soone after miserably perished as a reward for his adherence and cleaving to so bad counsell The like happened to Tolumnius king of the Veians which had caused the Fidenates to revolt from the Romanes for as the Romanes had sent embassadors to the Titus Livi. lib. 4. Dec. 1. Fidenates to know the reason of their revoltment Tolumnius counselled them to slay as indeed they did the embassadors to the end saith Titus Livius that the Fidenates might bee to him the more faithfull and out of hope to bee reconciled with the Romanes perceiving themselves guiltie of so strange a crime So the Romanes made warre upon the Fidenates unto whose succour came Tolumnius and as hee was in the battaile Cornelius Cossus a Romane espying him said Behold the breaker of humane leagues the violator of peoples right now shalt thou be sacrificed for the death of our embassadors and couching his speare against Tolumnius ranne at him and carried him to the earth where hee slew him cut of his head and shewed it in the front of a number of the enemies who as soone as they saw the kings head turned their backes and fled The Capuans after they had received many good turnes and succours of the Romanes against their enemies even when they yet had in their towne a Romane Titus Livi. lib. 3. and 6. Dec. 3. garrison enterprised to make their profit of the Romanes calamitie received in the journey of Cannes for they seeing that by that journey Anniball had much enfebled the Romane forces revolted from them and ioyned to Anniball they also sent embassadors to Rome to make the Senat understand That if they would receive the Capuans in the same degrees of equalitie with the Romanes in matters of goverment of the commonweale by according that from thence forward one of the consuls of Rome should be a Capuan and the other a Romane that should be a good and an assured meane for the towne of Rome to bee succoured by the Capuans against Anniball The Romane Senators perceiving the foolish and proude demand of these effeminate Capuans which were no better warriors than common strumpets yea so delicate and cowardly with luxurie and lubricitie vouchsafed not to make them any answer but caused them to be chased out of the Senat. These embassadours seeing themselves repulsed from their demaund returned to Capua and made report to the Senators of Capua how they had sped in their embassage Then these divellish Capuans according to the guise and nature of all effeminate cowards which are alwaies cruell for their owne advantage enterprised in a conspiration to Anniball to have massacred all the Romane garrison which they had in their towne of Capua and as they enterprised so they executed it The Romane garrison beeing thus massacred the Romanes incontinent sent to besiege Capua Anniball not beeing able without his great perill to leave the siege of Capua besieged Rome hoping thereby to draw their siege from Capua but he was no sooner removed but the Romans approched more nigh delivered an assault to the towne and to enter in Quintus Fulvius lieutenant generall of the Romane armie caused a proclamation to bee made in the hearing of the Capuans whereby they made knowne to all the inhabitants of Capua That all such of the towne as would resort to his campe within certaine daies should bee held inculpable and not consenting to the revolt and massacre made by the Capuans but none durst enterprise to trust this proclamation not that they knew not well saith Titus Livius that the Romanes would hold their words but because they had left no hope to obtaine any pardon yet the most part of the Senators of Capua concluded to send embassadors to Rome to obtaine grace and pardon having some hope in the clemencie and placabilitie so many times proved in the Romane Senat and indeede their embassadors obtained letters of grace But one Virius the principall author of the said revoltment and massacre was not of that opinion to have recourse nor any hope in the Senat judging his crime to be so great as it was impossible to obtain pardon and therfore he and 27 other Senatours of Capua of his opinion resolved thus to sley themselves They caused a great banket to be prepared furnished with viands and wine the most exquisit that could be gotten and there at their last banket they thought it good to drinke till their sences were taken from them and for their last farwell they drunke every man a glasse of poyson then embracing one another they begun all to weepe and lament the ruine of them and their countrey and to detest the wicked counsell they had taken to use so outragious a part against the Romans to take away all hope of peace and reconciliation so having long wept and lamented they fell dead upon the earth one after another Is not this a notable example to detest that wicked counsell of Machiavell to seeke meanes to be irreconcilable Is there any prince in the world unto whom a necessitie may not somtimes come to be reconciled with his inferior adversarie And if reconciliation may alwayes come in good time and for good purpose how durst this wicked Atheist lay downe this Maxime Reconciliation may alwais come in good time Lucius Catilina a man devoid of all vertue and a bundle of all vice resolving in his brain to practise a conspiration against his countrey to assay either to be an exceeding great man or altogether nothing drew to his league many Roman gentlemen such like as himself and considering that he could not bring to effect his conjuration without declaring and communicating it to the cheefetaines of his aid and yet fearing that some of them would discover it he thought good to make them all take a most execrable oth that thereby might be foreclosed from them all hope Salust in Catilin of retiring from his side So he caused wine to be mixed with humane blood in pots and made all his companions drinke of it and withall procured them to sweare with an execration that they would never disclose the enterprise he would tell them but employ themselves with al their power to execute it After which oth made his parteners as already culpable of humane blood which they had already drunke were so secret that there had nothing ever ben discovered if God had not permitted an harlot called Fulvia being greeved that Curius her ruffian who was one of the conspirators came not so often to lie with her as hee accustomed to draw certaine words out of his mouth as she demanded of him where he
ordinarily vvhen corrupted nations frequent amongst others for they infect them vvith evill manners And therefore it is that the Almaigne nation remaines so entire and constant in his manners because the Almaignes vvere never curious to trafficke vvith their neighbours nor to dwell in other countries nor to receive strangers into their countrey but alwayes have contented themselves vvith their owne goods nouriture manners and fashion of apparrell insomuch as shunning the frequentation of Spaniards French and Italians vvhich are the three nations of the vvorld most vicious they have not yet learned their customes and corruptions I Have not here set downe this Maxime to say it is not very true For besides the examples we reade in hystories we know it by experience and sight of eye seeing wee see at this day all Fraunce fashioned after the manners conditions and vices of strangers that governe it and have the principall charges and Estates and not onely many Frenchmen are such beasts to conforme themselves to strangers complections but also to gaggle their language and doe disdaine the French tongue as a thing too common and vulgar But if wee well consider this manner of vengeance taught by Machiavell in this Maxime we shall find it is a most detestable doctrine as well for them which practise it as for them against whom it is practised The example even of Capua which Machiavell alledgeth prooveth it For the Capuans in receiving into their towne Annibals armie corrupted Tit. Livius lib. 3. Dec. 3. rupted and infected the souldiers of Anniball with all excesse and effeminate wantonnesse also by the same meanes they procured their owne ruine and entire destruction which soone after happened unto them The Persian lords which with their manners corrupted king Alexander the Great did nothing to their owne advauntage Plu. in Alex. For Alexander becomming vicious they got the evill will of the Macedonians which tooke displeasure to see their king corrupted and finally after the death of Alexander which came unto him by his dissolutenesse learned of the Persians these lords had part of the evill lucke whereof they were cause And generally we may see that the corrupters of princes and people take part alwayes in the evill whereof they are cause as in other places we have shewed by many examples of flatterers which have corrupted their princes We Frenchmen may yeeld good witnesse of what account the Italian and Neapolitane nation is by the frequentation wee had with them in the voyage which was made to Naples in the time of king Charles the eight for from thence brought they this disease which at this day is now called the French poxe and that we have ever since kept but yet so as the Italians and Neopolitanes are not exempt therefrom but both the one and the other have part of that corruption Breefely we ought to detest and hate this wicked doctrine of Machiavell and reject all vengeance and follow S. Paules lesson who commands us to converse with good people and of good manners because the conversation of the wicked not onely corrupteth good manners but also soweth those that are wicked And as for that which Machiavell saith of the Almaignes wee know and see the frequentation of the Almaignes in France and yet till this present we have not seene that they have yet gathered corruption of manners And whereas he sets downe the French nation amongst such as are most corrupted we cannot denie it but we may well say That the doctrine of Machiavell the frequentation of them of his nation are cause of the greatest and most detestable corruption which is at this day in Fraunce For of whome have the Frenchmen learned and knowne atheisme sodomie trecherie crueltie usurie and such other like vices but of Machiavell and of them of his nation So that they may brag that they are well revenged of the warres which our auncestors have made in Italie 6. Maxime It is folly to thinke that with princes and great lords new pleasures will cause them to forget old offences CAEsar Borgia saith Machiavel during the life of Pope Alexander Cap. 7. Of Princes Discourse lib. 3. cap. 4. the sixt his father usurped the domination of Romania which is a land belonging to the Church and vvas called duke de Valentinois In making those usurpations in favour of the Pope his father he offended many Cardinals and amongst others the Cardinall of Saint Peter ad vincula yet after he consented that hee should bee elected Pope after the death of Alexander his father vvhereof hee soone repented For this new Pope called Iulius the eleventh straight be took himselfe to armes to recover that vvhich Borgia had usurped although he had favoured him in his election vvhich hee should never have done nor suffered any election of a Pope vvhich vvas his enemie For saith he new pleasures never makes men forget old iniuries and offences and therefore Borgia which in all other things had governed vvell committed a foule fault in the creation of Iulius and himselfe delivered the mean of his finall destruction The same fault cōmitted Servius Tullius king of the Romanes in giving his two daughters in marriage to two Tarquins vvhich quarrelled for the crowne and vvhich thought that Tullius vvould usurpe it upon them For not only this alliance extinguished the envie and rancour vvhich they had to Servius but that which is more it caused one of the daughters to enterprise to sley her owne father IF seemeth that this which Machiavell telleth of Borgia boweth something from the truth of the hystorie For Sabellicus writeth That during the election of Pope Iulius the eleventh Borgia was shut up in the Popes tower to be safe and guarded by his enemies So there was no likelyhood that a man brought into such an extremitie as to hide himselfe and be shut up in prison for the great multitude of enemies which hee had procured should have such great credit in the Popes election But suppose it was true that Borgia helped Pope Iulius to the Popedome and that Pope Iulius was unthankfull for that benefit for the remembrance that he had of the old and ancient injuries that Borgia had sometimes done him what followes hereof That all great lords will alwayes doe the like will some Machiavelist answer and that therefore they ought not to bee trusted Is not here a goodly doctrine for a prince Breefely it is Machiavels mind to teach a prince to trust in no lord which hee hath once offended and againe that none which hath made a fault or offended him shall any more trust him whatsoever reconciliation peace concord amitie pleasure and good offices may happen since the offence Here behold a most wicked and detestable doctrine to say That an offence ought to take so deepe root in the heart of the offended that by no pleasures services or other meanes it can be rased out But Machiavell seemeth something excusable to maintaine this Maxime for according to
such people I know men had neede take heede for although for a time they dissemble their choller and their appetite to vengeance yet will they not faile to discover it as soone as they see a commodious time to bee revenged with advantage But all Princes resemble little the Tarquines or Pope Iulius whereof Machiavell speaketh For Tarquin who enterprised to sley king Servius Tullius his father in law to obtaine the kingdome of Rome shewed well by that act and many other that hee was a very tyrant His end was also such as commonly tyrants have for he was driven from his kingdome which hee had unduly and unjustly usurped and was compelled to passe the rest of his daies in great povertie as a private person banished from Rome with all his children And as for Pope Iulius hee was knowne for a true and disloyall tyrant who greatlie abused the bountie of king Lewis the twelfth For that good king tooke from the Bentivolians Boloigne and many other townes from such pettie lords as occupied them and delivered them into the popes hands because they were lands belonging to the Romane church Yet in recompence this good Pope by published bulls exposed the whole kingdome of Fraunce for a prey to whomsoever would take it together with all the countries and lands of the allies of Fraunce and so Iohn de Albert king of Navarre lost his kingdome and king Lewis lost Millaine and almost all that hee held beyond the mountaines as wee have said in another place And this was the recompence the king received for all his benefits of this disloyall and wicked Pope of whom in his time was made a Pasquil at Rome and registred in our annales which in this sort speakes to his holinesse Of Gennua thy father was from Greece thy mother came A child then borne upon the sea what good in thee can bee Genuais deceivers are Greekes huge lyers are by fame No faith in sea thou hold'st these points most fully all in thee 7. Maxime A Prince ought to propound unto himselfe to imitate Caesar Borgia the sonne of Pope Alexander the sixt IT is not possible for me saith M. Nicholas to give better Cap. 14. Of the Prince precepts to a new prince than to lay before his eyes for an example the acts of Caesar Borgia duke de Valentinois sonne of Pope Alexander the sixt And although his affaires little prospered yet it vvas not vvholly his fault but rather the malignitie of an extraordinarie Fortune First then by the meanes of the Pope his father he troubled all the Estates of Italie that he might the more assuredly seize upon part of them A thing he easily effected For at the instigation of the Pope his father and of the Venetians the king of Fraunce Lewis the twelfth passed into Italie and so soone as he arrived at Millaine hee gave succours to the Pope to subiugate Romania vvhich straight vvas reduced under the hands of Borgia for the reputation of the French puissance Secondly because at Rome there were two mightie factions the Colonoise and the Vrsine against whose enterprises he feared they would oppose themselves hee got on his side the Vrsine faction by faire vvords and promises by the meanes wherof hee beat downe the French forces and overthrew the Colonois This being done he gained the gentlemen as vvell of the one faction as of the other honestly according them retaining them in his house giving them governments of townes and other honorable charges after their merites and qualities insomuch as in a little time the Vrsine and Colonois faction remained vvithout cheefetaines After this by faire and sweet vvords accompanied vvith good presents he caused the Vrsines to come to him unto Synagyllia vvhich being once together in his hands he slew them all Having thus suppressed those two factions and seeing himselfe peaceable and all Romania and in the dutchie of Vrbin to make himselfe feared to represse the insolencies of the pettie lords of that countrey hee sent thither for governour Messiere Remiro Dorco a severe and cruell man unto vvhom he gave full power Who exercising his crueltie committed many executions by meanes vvhereof he vvith feare made all the countrey tremble and so as peaceable and obedient as might be What then did Borgia To make the vvorld beleeve that such cruell executions vvere not done by his command nor by his consent suddainly he caused publickely the head of Messier Romiro to be cut off after this being afraid of the Frenchmen he refused any more to be served with the French forces so he put them away and to assure himselfe against them he sought alliance vvith the Spaniards vvhich then made vvarre in the kingdome of Naples and so were farther off to hurt him than the French which abode at Millaine Besides all this he put to death all the lords which hee had wronged and all their generation and very few escaped least a new Pope after his father should take occasion to warre upon him to reestablish those lords or their posteritie in their heritage as for the Lords which hee had not offended hee drew them almost all on his side to help him to bridle a new Pope that hee might not enterprise any thing against him his purpose was to make himselfe lord of all Tuscane and after lord of all Italie And already hee had under his protection Pise and Sienna and Luca inclined unto him But Pope Alexander his father dyed and failed him at his neede so that his domination beeing yet as a thing hanging in the ayre which was nothing solide Pope Julius the eleventh easily dispoyled him Borgia seeing that fortune which before had shewed him so good a countenance turned her backe and prooved so maligne and contrary unto him fell sicke and dyed and upon his death bed hee said He had prevented and thought upon all inconveniences that might happen unto him but death which hee never supposed would so soone have come IS not heere a gallant life and a goodly hystorie to propose for princes to imitate or rather a marke of Gods just judgement Caesar Borgia an example of Gods judgement which wee see hee ordinarily exerciseth against such detestable tyrants which by all manner of cruelties and disloyalties seeke to dominier For God in the end brings all their desseignes and goodly enterprises into smoke and makes them die in languishment and confusion and in displeasure that they have ever lived to see themselves falne into a mockerie and reproch with all the world by their wicked enterprises Yet this is not all for dying full of all vices not grieved for the evils they have done but rather for that they had no meanes nor leisure to doe more mischiefe they depart from this languishing life to goe suffer eternall paines by the just judgement of God who yeeldeth to the wicked persevering in their vices the reward of their merit Is not this wicked Borgia a faire example to us who at his
so ruled in him that as soone as any spoke unto him any word that displeased him he changed colour voice and gate and could not commaund himselfe nor keepe from committing many cruelties and injustices his judgement was so with choller oppressed Finally it was the cause of his death For one day the Quadians demanded peace of him and by their embassadors excusing themselves of a rebellion he began to speak to those embassadors in so great anger rehearsing his kindnesse humanitie before used unto them that at once his voice and words failed him as if he had been strucken with a deadly blow and withall begun to send out a mortall sweat he was incontinent carried to a chamber and laid upon a bed and by the advice of one of his physicians a veine was opened but it was not possible to draw a drop of blood out the said choller had so burned and dried his inward parts so he died A notable example for princes to take that consideration of their health that they never suffer choller nor crueltie to abide in them for such passions once taking an habit in them they burne rost their entrailes and so will not suffer them to live long But they ought further to consider that such vices also doe soile and defile the reputation of that generositie and magnanimitie that ought to be in a prince For we have seene and doe ordinarily see that chollericke and cruell men have almost alwayes been and are cowards and fearefull but generous and valiant men are gentle and full of humanitie Princes ought further to consider that if they be once spotted with crueltie they never make good end and God will have it so because he that committeth crueltie violateth the divine law which forbiddeth to shed mans bloud and to sley but by forme of justice He also violateth the law of nature for he destroyeth his like which nature hath produced and which hath given that instinct even to brute beasts not to destroy beasts of their own kind there is also a precept of the law of nature not to offend another Hee likewise violateth the civile law whereby is forbidden all murder and homicide upon paine of death Is it then any marveile if sanguinarie and bloodie princes have commonly evill ends seeing they violate the divine naturall and civile lawes approved of all people and nations There was never a more cruell nor a more cowardly man than Caligula the emperour for he quaked and trembled as he went to warre to heare speake onely of his Sueton in Calig cap. 45. 46. 47. â—2 58 59. enemies without seeing them Making warre in Almaigne in a forrest nigh unto him he caused certaine Apostata Almaignes to lie in ambush and commaunded one of them when hee was at dinner to declare unto him that the enemie was discovered in the said forrest As soone as he heard this hee incontinent sounded the trumpet and placing his battaile in array he caused them to assault that poore forrest which he made to be cut all downe and having so obtained this goodly victorie against this forrest he came backe againe with great vaunt and fiercenesse taxing and reproching the cowardise of such as remained behind and were not present at this great overthrow Was not this an act of a generous a valiant prince Another time he caused to ordaine and place his battaile strong and in good order to fight and commanded that every one should march in his ranke and that al their artillerie and all other furniture for an assault should be prepared for a ready fight yet no man knew his intent what hee would doe When his armie had marched in order of battaile to the shore of the great Ocean sea which was nigh hee then commanded al his souldiers and men of warre to fish gather into their hose bosomes and murrions as many oysters as they could carrie saying it was the spoile and bootie conquered from the Ocean which hee would have to bee carried to the Capitoll of Rome in signe of that notable victorie obtained against that great Ocean Also he caused to be builded upon this shore an high tower for a memoriall of this happie journey After hee sent to Rome to prepare against his comming a goodly triumph as could be to triumph upon the great Ocean which he had so valiantly vanquished and the spoiles thereof did bring to the Capitoll Are not these heroicall acts to overthrow a forrest and fish for oysters For crueltie whereof this monster was full I will say no other thing but that he had alwayes a servant expert in cutting off of heads which ordinarily at his dinners and suppers beheaded poore prisoners in his presence and for his pleasure I leave to speake of so many good people as he brought to their deaths for I should never have done to rehearse all his cruelties His end was that his people conspired against him taking for their watchword Redoubles when they all fell upon him and massacred him with thirtie blows in his age of 29 yeares after he had raigned three yeares and ten months The crueltie of Nero which caused to be slaine Agrippine his mother Britannicus his brother Octavia his wife Seneca his master and all the most vertuous and good people of Rome even of the Senate are notorious ynough and should bee too long to recite And never man was more feminine and cowardly than he for he was never found in any warre But he had good and valiant lieutenants which acquited themselves well whilest he played upon the citheron amongst singers and common players of enterludes His death was strange For being abandoned of all the world but of some four or five servants he sought to hide himselfe in a litle house of pleasure in the fields which appertained to Phaon one whom he had enfranchised being there his men pressed him to slay himselfe quickly least he fell alive into the hands of his enemies for none of them would doe him the pleasure as to slay him Then he commanded them to make for him a grave and laid him downe upon the earth for a measure thereof but whilest they were making of the grave behold a lacquey of Phaons came who brought a decree from the Senat whereby Nero was declared an enemie of the Commonwealth with commandement to seeke him out to punish him as a publick enemie After he had read this decree he took his two daggers and proved whether they both were sharpe ynough after hee put them in the sheath saying his houre was not yet come yet straight hee prayed his men that they would begin a little to weep lament Soon after he desired that some of them would shew him by example how hee should sley himselfe But perceiving knights arriving and doubting they came to take him hee gave himselfe a stroke with his dagger in the throat with the help of Secretarie Epaphroditus he being yet alive there entred a centenier which
fained that he came to succour him unto whom hee answered that it was too late the last word that he spake was Voila la foy See what faith He died at the age of 30 yeares And it was an admirable thing that he which had caused so many others to be slaine in his time could never find a person that in a need would sley him but was forced to doe it himselfe A thing also worthie it is to be marked that at his last sigh hee complained that none kept faith with him with him I say that was full of all disloyaltie And wherfore should they do tyrants think that men will keepe faith with them seeing they themselves breake it with every one If they so thinke they are deceived For to abandon a tyrant and not any way to support him is to observe faith to his countrey and to the Commonweale We have before in another place discovered the cruelties and unhappie ends of Commodus of Bassianus Caracalla both which were faint-hearted cowardly princes never performing any warlike act or which tasted of any generositie or courage Wee may number with them Didius Iulianus Heliogabalus Gallienus Maxentius Philippus Phocas Carinus Zeno and many other sluggish and faint-hearted princes that never did any good thing which also by their crueltie have brought themselves to miserable ends for they died violent deaths and raigned not long We may also adde to those examples of princes or rather tyrants which were very cruell of litle generositie the example of Herodes crueltie towards his children whereof wee have spoken before The example also of the emperor Tiberius who constrained men to die by languishing in prison by no means willing to accelerate their deaths though Sueto in Tib. cap. 6. they praied him he tooke from them their sollace to studie reade or to talke with any person The examples also of the emperours Otho Vitellius Domitianus Macrinus and other like all which were very cruell and little generositie in them they all in small time finished their lives and by the sword But for as much as the death of Domitian is worthy the noting to shew That tyrants cannot shun the divine justice I will here recite how he was massacred First wee must understand that this cruell tyrant Sueto in Domitian cap. 10 13 14 15 16 17 c. caused many great lords to die which were the principall senators of Rome and even some which had had the consularie dignitie yet had they done nothing that merited so much as a reprehension as Cerecalis Salvidienus Glabrio which he caused to die saying that they were enterprisers of novelties without either proofe or vailable conjecture He made also to die Aelius Lamia whose wife Domitia Longina he had taken from him only because he spoke these words Alas I say not a word Salvius Cocceanus because he celebrated the day of the nativitie of the emperour Otho his uncle Metius Pomposianus because there was a brute that he was born in a royall constellation and going to a certaine place he caried with him a figure of the world and the orations of kings and captaines which he found in Titus Livius and because he imposed those names Mago and Anniball to certain his slaves He also caused to die Salustius Lucullus because he had invented a new forme of halberds which hee called Lucullienes and Iunin Rusticus because he had written the praises of two very good men deceased called Taetus Trasea and Elvidius Priscus whom Rusticus had called most holy persons and therefore were all philosophers banished both Rome and Italie He caused his cosin Flavius Sabinus to die because the trumpeter or common criet had according to custome openly proclaimed That he was chosen new emperour he should have said new consull he put to death also Flavius Clemens another cousin for a light matter of suspition many other great cruelties towards good people and men of qualitie which for prolixitie I rehearse not yet will I say that to make himselfe be the more feared and reverenced and to heape up his execrable wickednesse when his officers made any publicke crie or sent any command to the people the subscription was alwayes thus Your Lord and God commands it so to be done In the end seeing himselfe evill beloved of all the world he would needs Admirable meanes of Domitians death know of the divines and astrologers what should be his end hee sent for a very famous astrologer called Ascletarion of whom hee demaunded when and how hee should die Ascletarion answered him Sir not to hide any thing I know by art and I find that you shall be soone slaine And thou said Domitian of what death shalt thou die Sir answered he I find by art I shall be eaten with dogs Well replied Domitian I will keepe thee well from that adventure and straight to convince him of a lie he commanded him to be slain to be buried after his body to be burnt into ashes according as the Romanes used to burie their dead But it happened after hee was slaine as they thought to have burnt his bodie into ashes in a publicke place the fire being lighted to burne the body there suddenly arose a great tempest which ejected the bodie halfe burnt out of the fire which incontinent was torne in pieces and eaten of dogs This beeing reported to Domitian hee was much afraid of this hap So that as well for that Ascletarion had said unto him as for that other diviners had told him the day and houre he should be slaine he thought it good to stand upon his guard and the better to see them which came behind him he caused to floore all his gallerie where he most often walked with a kind of shining stone from which as in a glasse there proceeded such a brightnesse as hee might easily see whatsoever was behind him The foretold-day being come and the houre approching which was five he asked what of the clocke it was one expressely answered him that it was six of the clocke to assure him that the danger was past but about that houre of five there knocked at his chamber dore one Stephanus his chamberlaine who was one of the conspirators against him his left arme hanging in a scarfe as if it had been hurt signifying to him that he would declare the conjuration entended against him This was the cause that Domitian suffered him to enter who straight after his entry after reverence presented unto him a request containing the discourse of the conjuration whereof he let him reade a good part at which seeing him astonished he stabbed a poinard in his bellie wounded as he was he would faine have revenged himselfe but his other houshold servants entered to massacre him giving him seven mortall wounds Behold an admirable example to shew that there is no prudence nor humane foresight that can hinder that the judgements of God be not executed upon tyrants
But if any demand how diviners and astrologers could so justly foretell the death of the emperour Domitian I answere that we must beleeve that this said prediction was not by art or science but the evill spirit would give boldnesse of enterprising unto Domitians enemies in making them know by frivolous divinations his fatall houre that they might beleeve the starres and heaven to aid their enterprise And God above who serves himselfe with such meanes as pleaseth him to exercise his justice gives efficacie to the spirit of error The same effect came of the divination of Caracalla for it was the cause that Macrinus enterprised to sley him although he never before thought of it till the astrologers declared their divination nay he would never have done that enterprise if that divination had not constrained and drawne him unto it Master Philip de Comines reciteth to this purpose a very memorable hystorie that happened in his time He saith there was at Naples a king called Alphonsus a bastard of the house of Arragon who was marvellous cruell a traitour and dangerous for none could know when he was angry he could so well manage his countenance yea and often betray men as he made them good cheare and he was a man wherein there was neither grace nor mercie neither had hee any compassion of the poore people This king Alphonsus had a sonne also as wicked as he called Ferrand who had found means to bring before him under his fathers assurance many princes and barons of the countrey to the number of foure and twentie and amongst them the prince de Rosane his brother in law having married his sister all which hee caused to be imprisoned notwithstanding the faith and assurance which he had given them insomuch as some remained foure or five and twentie yeares prisoners As soone as the king Alphonsus was dead and Ferrand his sonne was king the first thing hee did at his comming to the crowne was to massacre all those said great princes and barons which he himselfe had imprisoned during his fathers life by a Moorean slave of Affrica which he rewarded and straight after the execution sent him into his countrey This king Ferrand or Ferdinand having newes of the said murder as the king of Fraunce Charles the eight enterprised the conquest of Naples judging himselfe unworthie to be king because of his great and abhominable cruelties sent embassadors to the king to agree and to be at an accord with him offering to yeeld himselfe tributarie to the crowne of Fraunce to hold the kingdome of Naples of him and to pay him 50000 crownes yearely But the king who knew there was no fidelitie in the Arragonian race of Naples would enter into no treatie with the king Ferdinand who being in dispaire to be ever able to hold that kingdome against the king of Fraunce having his owne subjects his enemies died for sorrow and dispaire and left his sonne Alphonsus his successor This Alphonsus the new king was as wicked as his father and had alwayes shewed himselfe pittilesse and cruell without faith without religion and without all humanitie insomuch as perceiving that king Charles approched Rome his conscience also judging himselfe to be an unworthy king he resolved to flie into Spain and to professe himselfe a monke in some monasterie But before hee fled hee caused to be crowned king at Naples a young sonne of his called Ferdinand who was not yet hated in the countrey his nailes beeing not yet either strong or long ynough to doe evill This done hee fled into Sicilie and from thence to Valence in Spaine where he tooke the habite of a monke and in a little time after died of an excoriation of gravell But it was marvellous that this cruel tyrant should be so seized of feare as he should go in no good order away but left all his moveable goods and almost all his gold and silver in his castle at Naples And this feare proceeded to him from a faintnesse of heart for as Comines saith never cruell man was hardie And when one desired him onely to stay three dayes to packe up his goods No no said he let us quickly depart from hence heare you not all the world crie Fraunce Fraunce Men may see how an evill conscience leaves a man never in quiet This wicked man knowing that by his crueltie hee had procured the hatred of his subjects the wrath of God and the enmitie of all the world was tormented in his conscience as of an infernall furie which ever after fretted his languishing soule in the poore infected and wasted bodie And to end this tragoedie straight after he had saved himselfe the king of Fraunce obtained the kingdome of Naples And a little while after the said young Ferdinand sonne of the said Alphonsus died of a feaver and a flux So that within the space of two yeares God did justice on foure kings of Naples two Alfonses and two Ferdinands because of their strange cruelties which were accompained with disloyall impietie and oppression of subjects for alwaies those keepe company together A like punishment happened by the conduction and judgement of God to that Comines lib. 1 cap. 132. 133. and Bellay lib. 1. of his memories cruell king Richard of England king Edward the fourth his brother This king Edward deceasing left two sonnes and two daughters all yong and in the tutelage and goverment of Richard duke of Glocester his brother This duke desiring for himselfe the crowne of England caused his two nephewes cruelly to be slaine and made a report to goe that by chance they fell of a bridge and so were slaine His two nieces he put into a religion of Nunnes saying they were bastards because saith hee the dead king Edvard their father could not lawfullie espouse their mother for that before hee had promised to espouse a gentlewoman which hee named and the bishop of Bath beeing present protested it was so and the promises of marriage were made betwixt his hands The duke of Glocester having thus dispatched both his nephewes and nieces caused himselfe to be crowned king of England and because many great lords of England murmured at this crueltie this new tyrant king which named himselfe king Richard the third made to die of sundrie deaths all such as hee knew had murmured against him or his tyrannie After all this when hee thought hee had a sure estate in the kingdome it was not long before God raised him up for enemie the earle of Richmond of the house of Lancaster who was but a pettie lord in power without silver and without force who but a little before was detained prisoner in Bretaigne To whom certaine lords of England sent secretly that if he could come into England but with two or three thousand men all the people would come to him make him king of England The earle of Richmond hasted to king Charles the eight then raigning in France by whose permission hee levied people in
forsakers of knighthood but who can more forsake knighthood than he which forsakes his king who is the chiefe of all knighthood The second authoritie is That it is lawfull to kill theeves and robbers by high wayes It is lawfull then to kill a tyrant which continually watcheth and intendeth the death of his soveraigne lord I come now to three authorities of the holy Scripture The first is that of Moses who without authoritie slew the Aegyptian who tyrannized over the people of Irael For at that time Moses had not the authoritie of a judge over the people of Israel which was delivered unto him nigh fortie yeares after that he had slaine the Aegyptian The second authoritie is the example of Phineas who without any commandement slew the duke Zambry because he allied him selfe by carnall love with a Sarracene woman whereupon Phineas was commended and reverenced in three things in love honour and riches The third authoritie is that of S. Michael the archangell who without the commandement of God or any other fought against the tyrant Lucifer so disloyall to God his soveraigne who went about to usurpe the seignorie of God The said S. Michael was favourably rewarded in three things that is in honour love and riches in love because God loved him more than any other Angell in honour because God made him a perpetuall prince of the heavenly hoast in riches because God gave him riches as much as he desired or could carrie away so it appeareth that my third Veritie is well proved by twelve reasons in the name of the twelve Apostles of which reasons three are taken from the holy Theologians three from Moralists and three from Legists and the three last from the holy Scripture and they goe alwaies from three to three My fourth Veritie is this It is more meritorious and honourable that a tyrant be slaine by the kings parents than by a stranger and by a duke than by a countie and by a barron than by a simple vassale because therein shineth more the love obedience of the sleyer and is more honourable to the king to be revenged of a great man than a base and meane man My fift Veritie is That alliances promises othes or confederations ought not to be kept if for keeping them there come any prejudice to the prince or to the commonweale but to keep them is to do against the morall naturall and divine lawes I proove this Veritie by thus arguing Whensoever two contrarie obligations are concurrent a man must keepe and observe the greatest and breake the least But in this case the bond unto the prince and commonwealth is greater than any other promise or consideration Ergo then wee must observe the obligation towards the prince and commonwealth and breake all other obligations othes and confederations Also in arguing thus Whensoever a man doth a thing better than that which he sweares to do he is not perjured in doing that better thing omitting that thing which he swore to doe as expressely the master saith of Sentences in the last of the third but in this propounded case it is better to kill a tyrant although a man have sworne not to kill him than to let him live as hath been above shewed Ergo then it is no perjurie nor evill done to sley a tyrant against his sworne promise alliance or confederation that he hath with him Also Isiodorus in his booke of soveraigne good sayth That wee must not observe an oth whereby a man shall bee forced rashly to commit an evill but in our case a man shall bee forced to an evill by such a promise and oth Ergo he must then not observe it The sixt Veritie is That if so it happen that the alliances othes or confederations turne to the prejudice of one of the promisers hee is in nothing bound to keep them This veritie is prooved in thus arguing The end of every commaundement is charitie as the Apostle saith but the cheefe charitie beginneth at our selves Ergo the commandement to observe the faith and promise ought not to bee observed if it be contrarie to the charitie which we ought to have towards our selves according to that which is said of the Cannonists Frangenti fidem fides frangatur eidem Hee that breakes faith faith ought to be broken to him againe Also in all promises that are made every man must include If it please God But certaine it is it pleaseth not God that we should do any thing against the law and order of charitie Ergo c. The seventh Veritie is That to every subject it is lawfull honourable and meritorious to kill a tyrant by deceits speculations and dissimulations I proove it first by the authoritie of the morall philosopher Boccace above alledged Also by the example of king Iehu who dissembled to approve the service of Baal to trap the sacrificers for which he was praised Also by the example of Ioiada who by treason caused Athalia to be slaine for which he was praised Also of Iudith who slew Holofernes by dissimulation whereupon she is praised And this is the fittest death for tyrants to die on that is to be slaine villanously by watchings and espiements The eight Truth is That every subject which enterpriseth and worketh against his soveraigne lord by Necromancie and invocation of devils for covetousnesse to have the crowne is a violator of the Catholicke faith and worthie of double death the first and the second For S. Bonaventure in his second book Distinction the sixt saith That the divell never pleaseth the will of such men but first idolatrie and infidelitie are mingled together For as faith serveth much to the operation of the miracles of God so infidelitie is as requisit in the operation of divellish things The divell also will doe nothing for such men unlesse they agree to yeeld him the domination over them whereof he is very desirous Also that great doctor in the ninth article in Secunda Secundae saith and affirmeth That invocations of devils never come to effect without a fore-going of a corruption of faith idolatrie and an expresse compact with divels And this opinion doe the venerable doctors Alexander de Hales Richard de Mivile and Astensis hold and commonly all the other doctours which have writ of this matter Here you see my eight Verities well proved I come now to eight Correlatives The first is If it come to passe that in the case aforesaid these invocators of devils and traitoâ—â—â—o the king be imprisoned and some of their partakers deliver or cause to deliver them hee ought to bee punished with the same punishment as they are themselves namely with the first and second death Secondly every subject that maketh a bargaine with any man to empoyson his soveraigne lord although the enterprise come not to effect is also well worthie of death Thirdly every subject that by dissimulation of pastime causeth apparrell to be made to put on his soveraigne lord and to put
fire therein thinking to burne him is also worthie of double death Fourthly every subject making alliance with the mortall enemies of the king the kingdome is also worthie of death Fiftly every subject which fraudulently setteth dissention betwixt the king and the queene making the queene understand that the king hateth her and counselling her to goe out of the realme she and her children offering safely to conduct her out is worthie of the like death as above Sixtly every subject that giveth the Pope to understand false things as to make him understand that his king and lord is not worthie to hold the crowne nor his children after him is worthy of like death Seventhly the tyrant that hindereth the union of the church and the deliberations of the Cleargie for the utilitie of the holy mother Church ought to be punished as an hereticke and schismaticke and meriteth that the earth should open and swallowe him as Dathan Core and Abiron Eightly the subject which by empoysonments and viands seekes to cause the king or his children to die is worthie of the aforesaid death The last is that every subject which with souldiers causeth the people and countrey of his soveraigne to bee eaten up and exiled and which taketh and distributeth his money at his pleasure and makes it serve his turne to procure alliances with his lords enemies ought to be punished as a very tyrant with the first and second death And here I make an end of my Maior of the justification of Monsieur the duke of Bourgoigne But I come now to declare my Minor wherin I have shewed That Lewis late duke of Orleance was so much embraced with ladie Covetousnesse of the honours and riches of this world that hee would have taken away the seignorie and crowne of Fraunce from the king his brother and his children by temptation of the enemie of hell using the aforesaid meanes for he found an Apostata monke expert in the divellish art unto whom he gave a ring and a sword to consecrate them to the divell This monke went into a solitarie place behind a bush where he put off all his garments to his shirt and fell on his knees so invocating devils Straight there appeared two devils apparelled in darke greene whereof the one was called Hernias and the other Estramain Then this monke did unto them as great reverence honour as he could doe to God our Saviour and one of the devils tooke the ring and the other the sword and after vanished away the monke went away also Hee returned into that place againe and there found the ring having a red colour and the sword wherewith he thought to have slaine the king but by the helpe of God and of the most excellent ladies of Berry and Bourgoigne the king escaped Also the said duke of Orleance made an alliance and confederation with the duke of Lancaster who in like manner warred against king Richard of England his lord as is abovesaid Item He went about to have carried away the queene and her children which hee meant to have carried into the countie of Luxembrough to take his will of her which the queene would not agree to Item Hee practised to make Monseignior le Daulphin eat an impoysoned apple which was given to a child who was charged to give it to none but to the said Daulphin but it so happened that the child gave it to one of the sonnes of the said duke of Orleance who diâ—d thereof Item The said duke hath alwayes favoured the Pope in the extraction of money out of the kingdome to obtaine of him a declaration against the king and his generation of inhabilitie to hold the kingdome and to give it unto him Item He hath held armed men in the fields by the space of 14 or 15 yeares which did nothing but pill exile rob ransack and sley the poore people and force women and maids Item He laid tallages upon the kings subjects and emploied the silver in making alliances with our enemies to come to the crowne and besides hee hath committed many great crimes which my said Monseignior le Bourgoigne reserveth to declare in time and place It followeth then by good consequence that my said lord of Bourgoigne Conclusion ought not to be blamed for sleying the said duke of Orleance and that the king should like that deed well and to authorize the same as much as were needfull And besides he ought to be rewarded in three especiall things that is in Love Honour and Riches as were S. Michaell the archangell and the most valiant Phineas that is to say as I thinke in my grosse and rude understanding That the king our lord ought more than before to beare amitie loyaltie and good reputation to my said lord of Bourgoigne and to cause to be published letters patents through all the realme God graunt it may bee so who bee blessed world without end Amen Here is in substance the Oration of that venerable doctor in Theologie unto which I have not added one word onely I have shortened certaine long and reiterated allegations whereby might be seene the beastlinesse of this our master a man hired to justifie one of the most execrable murders that ever was committed Very notable is the rhethoricke and art of this venerable doctors Oration which in the Exordium or beginning to obtaine benevolence confesseth that he is an ignorant man without sence or memorie And to make a reason why hee hath enterprised to be in these causes advocate he saith it is for a pension which the duke of Burgoigne gave him towards his living After for proofe of his Maior he alleadgeth places of Scripture so evill applied as children at this day will discover his follie And for notable authors he alledgeth a sort of sottish scholasticall sophisters of Theologie as Alexander de Hales Salceber Mivile and other like His Correlatives and his Minor are the false imputations wherewith the duke of Bourgoigne charged the duke of Orleance Moreover this Oration was reviewed by the masters of the facultie of Sorbonne with the bishop of Paris and the Inquisitor of faith and there were condemned for heresies these propositions following Every tyrant may be slaine by his vassale and subject without commandement of justice Secondly S. Michael slew Lucifer without Gods commandement Thirdly Phineas killed Zambry without the commandement of God Fourthly Moses slew the Egyptian without the commandement of God Fifthly Iudith sinned not in flattering Holofernes nor Iohn in lying that he would honour Baal Sixtly it is not alwaies perjurie when a man dooth that which he hath sworne not to doe Which articles having been declared hereticall they were condemned to be burnt publickely as also M. Iohn Petits bones who had maintained them for he was at this judgement dead and buried at Hesdin and the said articles were executed and put into the fire but not the doctors bones for they could not be gotten because the duke of Bourgoigne then
from that which is good And heere that manner of electing friends which Augustus Caesar observed is worthie observation for hee did not easily retaine every man in his friendship and familiaritie but ever tooke time to proove and finde their Sueton. in Aug. lib. 66. vertues fidelitie and loyaltie Such as hee knew to bee vertuous people and which would freely tell him the truth of all things as did that good and wise Maecenas and which would not flatter him but would employ their good wills sincerely in the charges he gave them after he had well prooved them then would he acknowledge them his friends but as hee was long and difficile to receive men into familiar amitie so they which hee had once retained for friends hee would never forsake them but alwaies continued constantly his friendship towards them Adversitie also is a true touchstone to proove who are fained or true friends For when a man feeleth laborinthes of troubles fall on him dissembling friends depart from him and such as are good abide with him as saith Euripides Adversitie the best and certain'st friends doth get Prosperitie both good and evill alike doth fit 11. Maxime A prince which would have any man to dye hee must seeke out some apparent colour thereof and then hee shall not bee blamed if so bee that hee leave his inheritance and goods to his children WHen a prince saith master Nicholas will pursue the death Cap. 17. Of the prince of any man he ought to colour it with some iust colour and when hee puts him to death hee must abstaine from the confiscation of his goods for his children which abide behinde will sooner forget the death of their father than the losse of their patrimonie And withall let him know That nothing makes a prince so much hated as when hee comes to touch the goods and wives of his subiects THis is also another tyrannicall precept like to the former For it Corne. Taci Annales lib. 1 and 4. is a custome with tyrants to impose false accusations and blames against such as they will cause to die sometime before the execution sometimes after Wee have shewed before an example of Domitian who for light and no causes tooke occasion to make many great Romane lords to dye which were of him suspected as to tyrants all good and vertuous men are ordinarily which are better than themselves The emperour Tiberius saith Tacitus at the beginning of his raigne hated men of eminent vertue and such also as were extreamely vicious suspecting the vertue of some and fearing to be dishonoured and despised by the vicious But after he came to the fulnesse of all vices and loved most such as were most vicious hee practised too much this principle of Machiavell against many vertuous and honourable men for hee caused to dye a learned and most excellent man called Cremutius Cordus because hee writ an hystorie wherein hee praised Cassius and Brutus He slew also Aemylius Scaurus for writing a tragoedie which pleased him not and many other like railors whereby hee sought to cover his tyrannie Nero likewise after hee had slaine his mother writ lies to the Senat to bee published all over how he had discovered a great conspiration that his mother had intended against him to cause his death and that hee was constrained to sley her to prevent her In like sort Caracalla after hee had slaine Geta his brother caused a fame to bee spred all over that hee himselfe escaped faire for his brorher would have slaine him Briefely all tyrants use to doe so practising their cruelties and vengeances ever under some pretext or false coulour as Machiavell teacheth And there are none at this day which cannot examplifie this position with many late and fresh examples in our time For the massacres of Paris executed on S. Bartholomewes day and the execution after made of captaine Briquemand of Maistre Arnand of Carignes of contie Mongomery and of the lord of Monbrum and other like were all coloured with false imputations by these Messers Machiavellists and by wicked judges their slaves as every one knoweth And as for that which Machiavell saith That the children of such as are unjustly caused to die take no care if so bee their goods bee not taken from them Dion in Neroue and in Aâ—to Carac I beleeve few men will accord with him in this point for every one which hath a good mans hart will sooner make account of honour and life than of goods But certaine it is if the successor his sonne or other kinsman despise and make no account to pursue by lawfull meanes that justice bee done for the unjust death of the slaine men whom hee succeedeth that he leeseth his honour and by the civile lawes is culpable and unworthie of the succession Moreover the injurie done in the person of the father is reputed done to the sonne himselfe and the contrarie As also every man esteemes himselfe to suffer injurie when any of his parents or friends doe suffer it Insomuch as such violent executions are without doubt more intollerable than the losse of goods and do much more stronglie wound the hearts of men which are not destitute of naturall love towards their bloud and such as have their honour in any recommendation than all other losses and damages that they can suffer and although the Machiavellists hold for a Maxime That a dead man biteth not or makes no warre yet the death of a man oftentimes is the cause of many deaths and of great effusion of blood as more at large shall be said in another place 12. Maxime A prince ought to follow the nature of the Lyon and of the Fox not of the one without the other YOu must understand saith this Florentine that men fight in two manners the one with lawes when matters Cap. 18. 19. Of the prince are handled by reason the other with force The first is proper to men which have the use of reason The second appertaineth to beasts which have neither reason nor intelligence But because the first is not sufficient to keepe men and to maintaine them in inioying of things belonging unto them they must needes oftentimes have recourse to the second which is force Wherefore it is needefull that a prince can well play the beast and the man together as our elders have taught when they writ that Chiron the Centaure halfe a man and halfe a beast was given as an instructor for the prince Achilles For heereby hee gave to understand that a prince ought to shew himselfe a man and a beast together A prince then beeing constrained well to know hovv to counterfet the beast hee ought amongst all beasts to chuse the complexion of the Fox and of the Lyon together and not of the one without the other for the Fox is subtill to keepe himselfe from snares yet he is too weake to guard himselfe from vvolves and the Lyon is strong enough to guard himselfe from vvolves
in good use and observance Naturall reason also sheweth us that a law and rule made and examined by many braines must needes bee better than when it is made by one alone but because I have touched this point more at large in another place I will wade no further therein As touching that which Machiavell saith of Agis Plutarch in his life speaketh otherwise thereof for hee saith that hee was the most meeke and quiet man in Plut. in Agid the world who sought to reforme the estate of Sparta by all good and honest meanes and to bring into force and use the ancient lawes of Licurgus and because the Ephori opposed themselves against his desseignes and purposes hee practised that Lysander and Agesilaus should bee advanced to the estate of Ephori as they were But Agesilaus overtaken with auarice refused to sticke to the effecting of this good purpose of king Agis so that he could not any way bring to passe that good reformation which hee intended Heere is all which Plutarch saith he speakes no word that Agis should cause the Ephori to bee slaine but contrary that the Ephori brought Agis to his death neither speakes hee of any enterprise of the Macedonians And I know not where Machiavell hath fished for that hee heere writeth unles hee take it out of his owne braine and then oweth hee nothing to any man seeing it is his owne But howsoever it bee hee can learne it of no author which shall not bee alwaies convinced of a lie by that learned Plutarch who speaketh as I have set it downe 14. Maxime A prince ought to exercise crueltie all at once and to doe pleasures by little and little HE vvhich vvill invade a principalitie saith our Florentine Cap. 17. Of the prince vvhatsoever is to bee sharpely and cruelly practised vvould at the first entrie bee dispatched vvith all expedition that there may be no occasion to returne often to one businesse to the end that afterward by gracious and good dealing he may the sooner bring under and tame his subiects for iniuries and offences ought to be committed all at once that beeing the lesse time felt by subiects they may stirre and anger them the lesse And contrarie pleasures must be done by little and little that by often iteration thereof they upon vvhom such benefites are bestowed may the more desirously and pleasantly drinke them up and imprint them in their hearts It is true indeed that many there have been vvhich because they vvere cruell could not long time continue their principallitie in peace but that happened unto them because their cruelties vvere not handsomely and vvell exercised But they may bee accounted vvell exercised vvhen they are committed but once as it vvere upon a necessitie to assure himselfe and to avoid and shun a greater inconvenience for augmentation of the Commonweale Agathocles the Sicilian by the practise of this Maxime became king of Siracuse This gallant vvas but a potters sonne and all his life vvicked and full of vices yet those his vices vvere accompanied vvith a great bravenesse of courage he followed armes By little and little he did so much by his iournies that he became Praetor of Siracuse and being in that estate desirous to make himselfe king and to usurpe the tyrannie he caused the people and the Senat of Siracuse to bee assembled making them understand that he vvould execute some great matters of importance before them The people and the Senate being assembled at a vvatch word he had given unto his soldiers they put to death all the Senators and the most noble of the people and so made himselfe soveraigne lord of the towne without any empeachment Whosoever then considereth the prudence of Agathocles and the greatnes of his courage to enterprise and to execute so great a thing mē would not iudge him inferiour to any other captaine before him In our time during the raign of Pope Alexander the sixt Oliver de Ferme was educated and brought up young by one that vvas his mothers brother called Iohn Foglian vvho sent him to learne the militarie art under captaine Paulus Vitellius thereby to come unto some honourable estate This Oliver being a gallant and personable man and of a quicke vvit after a good space he had followed the vvarre a la Solde for vvages he scorned this base manner of life and determined vvith the helpe of certaine citizens of the towne of Ferme to get possession to make himselfe master and lord of the towne To obtaine this he vvrit a letter to his uncle Iohn Foglian whereby he signified That wheras he having been long time out of his countrey had not all the time seene his parents and friends and now comming to visit them that they of the towne might thinke he had been honorably employed in his pursute of vvarre desired his said uncle to find meanes that he might as honorably enter with an hundred horse of his friends and servants and that he would doe so much as in some good order also to meet him vvhich should be not only to his honour but also to his uncles that had nourished him Messier Iohn greatly reioyced at these newes and failed in nothing to prepare all that vvas possible to honour his nephew insomuch as the vvhole towne every vvay celebrated and reioiced at his comming thither conducting him vvith all honour agreeable to his discent unto the Towne-house vvhere he abode certain daies whilest he made all things readie for the execution of his enterprise At the last he prepared a great banket unto which hee invited his uncle and all other most noble persons of the towne of Ferme At the bankets end he begun to fall into talke of weightie matters concerning Pope Alexander and his son the duke de Valentinois and their enterprises wherunto his uncle making a certaine answere Oliver began to smile and vvithall told him that such an answere vvould have been made more private as also all their vvhole talke of that matter Therefore giving them to understand that he vvould discover unto them certain secrets of that matter he drevv them apart into a chamber and as soon as his uncle and the noblest greatest of the cōpanie vvere there set down suddainly entred a great company of souldiors vvhich he had hired and hid in some place nigh vvho massacred and put to death in a moment his owne uncle and all the others in his companie This murder being executed Oliver being followed of his soldiors overran straight all the towne besieged the soveraigne magistrate in his pallace and did so much as finally every one vvas constrained to yeeld him obedience This done he made himselfe soveraigne lord of the town and he there established a certaine polliticke government but yet caused all such to be slain as might be malecōtent vvith that change or could any vvay hurt him And vvithin a little vvhile after by good civile and militarie ordinances he not only made himselfe
by Machiavell which maintaineth his subjects in division and partialitie and which seekes to sley all them which love the commonweale and which desire a good reformation a good policie in the commonweale There are also other tokens and markes whereby to know a tyrant as them which wee have before alledged out of doctor Bartolus and them also which hystoriographers have marked to have been in Tarquin the proud For they say when he changed his just and royall domination Dioni Halic lib. 4. into a tyrannicall government he became a contemner and a despiser of al his subjects as well the meane people as the nobilitie and Patritians he brought a confusion and a corruption into justice he tooke a greater number of waiting servants into his guard than his predecessors had he tooke away the authoritie from the assembly of the Senate which it alwaies before had moreover hee dispatched criminall and civile causes after his fancie and not according to right hee cruelly punished such as complained of that change of estate as conspirators against him he caused many great and notable persons to die secretly without any forme of justice hee imposed tributes upon the people against the auncient forme and regalitie to the impoverishing and oppression of some more than of others hee had also spies to discover what was said of him and afterward punished rigorously such as had blamed either him or his government These be the colours wherewith the hystories do paint Tarquin when of a king he became a tyrant and these are ordinarily the colours and liverie of all tyrants banners whereby they may be knowne It seemeth that Tarquin forgot nothing of all that a tyrant could doe but that he slew not Brutus which was a fault in the art of tyrannie as learnedly Machiavell noteth it which fell to bee his ruin But the cause hereof was that Brutus in the court counterfeted the foole wherby Tarquin had no suspition of him For none but wise men and good people are suspect and greevous to tyrants but as for counterfeting fooles unthrifts flatterers bauds murderers inventors of imposts and such like dregs and vermine of the people they are best welcome into tyrants courts yet even amongst them are not tyrants alwaies without danger for amongst such fooles sometimes happeneth a Brutus who at last will plat out their ends so that ever their lives hangs by a small thred as Denis the tyrant sayth But the example of Hieronimus another tyrant of Sicilie is to this purpose well to be noted This Hieronimus was the sonne of a good and wise king called Hiero whom also they well called tyrant because he came not to that estate by a legitimate title although he exercised it sincerely and in good justice who when he died left this Hieronimus his sonne very young and under age For the government therefore of him and of his affaires he gave him fifteene tutors and amongst them Andronodorus and Zoilus his sonnes in law and one Thraso which he charged to maintaine the countrey of Sicilie in peace as he himselfe had done by the space of fiftie yeares of his raigne but especially that they should maintaine the treatie and confederation which he had all the length of his time duly observed with the Romanes The said tutors promised to performe his request and to change nothing in the estate but altogether to follow his footsteps Straight after Hiero was dead Andronodorus being angry because of so many tutors caused the king who was then but 15 yeares old to be proclaimed of sufficient age to bee dismissed of tutors and so dispatched himselfe as well as others of that dutifull care they ought to have had of their king and countrey After he got to himselfe alone the government of the kingdome and to make himselfe to bee feared under the kings authoritie hee tooke to him a great number of waiters for his guard and to weare purple garments and a diademe upon his head and to goe in a coach drawne with white horses altogether after the manner of Denis the tyrant and contrary to the use of Hieronimus yet was not this the worst for besides all this Adronodorus caused the yong king his brother in law to bee instructed in pride and arrogancie to contemne every man to give audience to no man to bee quarelous and to take advantage at words of hard accesse given to all new fashions of effeminacie and riotousnesse and to bee unmeasurable cruell thirstie after bloud After Andronodorus had thus framed to his minde this yong king a conspiration was made against him unto which Andronodorus was consenting to dispatch and sley him but it was discovered but yet executed which A conjuration discovered yet executed was strange For one Theodorus was accused and confessed himselfe to bee one of the conspiracie but being tortured and racked to confesse his complices and parteners in that conspiracie knowing he must needs die and by that meanes desiring to be revenged of that yong tyrant he accused the most faithfull and trustiest servants of the king This young tyrant rash inconsiderat straight put to death his friends and principal servants by the counsell of Andronodorus who desired nothing more because they hindered his deseignes This execution performed incontinent this yong tyrant was massacred and slain upon a straight way by the conspirators themselves which before had made the conjuration the execution whereof was the more easie by the discoverie thereof because as is said the tyrants most faithfull friends and servants were slaine Soone after the tyrants death Andronodorus obtained the fortresse of Siracuse a towne of Sicilie but the tumults and stirres which he raised in the countrey as he thought for his owne profit fell out so contrarie to his expectation that finally he his wife and all their race and the race of Hieronimus were extermined as well such as were innocent as they that were culpable And so doth it ordinarily happen to all young princes which by corruption are degenerated into tyrants So fals it out also to all them which are corrupters of princes to draw them into habits of all wickednesse Lastly here would not bee omitted altogether this wickednesse of Machiavell who confounding good and evill together yeeldeth the title of Vertuous unto a tyrant Is not this as much as to call darkenesse full lightsome and bright vice good and honourable and ignorance learned But it pleaseth this wicked man thus to say to plucke out of the hearts of men all hatred horror and indignation which they might have against tyrannie and to cause princes to esteeme tyrannie good honorable and desirable 16. Maxime A Prince may as well be hated for his vertue as for his vice THe emperour Pertinax saith Machiavell vvas elected emperor Cap. 19. Of the prince against the vvils of his men of vvarre vvhich before had customably lived licentiously in all vices and dissolutenesse under the emperour Commodus his predecessor
that which Machiavell prescribeth for by oppressing and causing to die al the conjurators and enemies and all their friends and allies he made himselfe so feared and redoubted that there was not in Rome great or little but he trembled for feare only to heare the name of Nero Such great men whose friends and parents were put to death came and fell downe on their knees before him and thanked him for the good and honour he had done them to have purged and cleansed their parentage and alliance from so wicked men as those he had slaine Others in signe of joy for the death of their friends and parents caused their houses to be hung with lawrell and made sacrifices to the gods to give them thankes for so great a good as was happened unto them They celebrated also great feasts of joy as they had been mariages The Senate also for their part being also in a great terrour ordained there should be processions and publicke sacrifices to yeeld thankes to the gods that this conjuration was discovered yea they caused to be builded and consecrated a chappell to the Sunne in the house where the conjuration was made because it shined to the discoverie therof They builded also a temple to the goddesse Health Nero thinking that all these joyes were true and unfained yet were they but simulations exercised still more and more his butcherie and in the end made himselfe so assured by reason he was feared and redoubted of all the world that he was of opinion that he had obtained the upperhand of all his enemies but it was cleane contrarie For by this strange slaughter with so many other wickednesses whereof hee was full hee brought himselfe into a deadly hatred of all the world insomuch as the provinces of the empire revolted from his obedience one after another and in the end he was abandoned of every man unlesse it were of some foure or five of his meanest servants which kept him companie in his flight untill he had slaine himselfe as is said in another place therfore Nero needed to take no thought how to nourish enemies against himselfe as Machiavell teacheth in this Maxime for hee never wanted a great number as all tyrants have ordinarily And how should not tyrants have good store of enemies seeing even good De Com. lib. 1. cap. 107 108 109 100 111. and wise princes doe not want them To this purpose master Phillip de Comines makes a very good discourse saying That it pleased God to give to all princes kingdomes and common weales an opposit and contrary unto them that both the one and the other might the rather bee held in their duties as England hath Fraunce Scotland hath England Portugall hath Castile Grenado hath Portugall the princes and common weales of Italie are contrarie one to another and so it is of all God hath giveÌ„ to every seignorie his opposit countries and seignories of the earth For if there bee any prince or common-weale which wants his opposite to hould him in feare straight one shall see him fall to a tyrannie and luxuriousnesse Therefore God by his wise providence hath given to every seignorie and to every prince his opposit that one by the feare of an other might be stirred up to a modest and temperate carriage And there is indeed nothing saith hee that better holdeth a prince in his duetie nor which causeth him to walke more upright than the feare of his opposit and contrary For the feare of God nor the love of his neighbour nor reason whereof commonly hee hath no care nor justice for there is none above himselfe nor any other like thing can hold him in his duetie but onely the feare of his contrary After that Comines had dispatched this question hee entreth into another which dependeth heereof What is the cause saith hee that commonly princes and great lords have Princes have not the feare of God nor of charitie for want of Faith not the feare of God nor love to their neighbours He answereth the want of Faith for if a prince beleeved verely the paines of hell to bee such as indeed they are hee would doe no wrong to noe man nor retaine an others goods unjustly For if they beleeved assuredly as it is true and certaine that they are damned in hell and are never like to enter into paradise which retaine other mens goods without making satisfaction or that doe any wrong to any without amends unto him It is not likely there would bee found a prince or princesse in the world or any other person which would with-hold anothers goods were it of his subjects vassailes or neighbour in good earnest or would put any to death wrongfully no not to hold them in prison nor take from one to give to another nor procure any dishonest thing against any person If then they had a firme faith and beleeved the paines of hell to bee horrible and great without other end or remission for the damned knowing againe the shortnesse of this life they would not doe that they doe And for example saith hee when a king or a prince is a prisoner and that hee feareth to die in prison is there any thing so deere in the world which hee would not give to come out Certainely hee would give both his owne and his subjects goods altogether As wee have seene king Iohn of France being taken prisoner by the prince of Wales at the battaile of Poitiers who paied 3000000 of franks for his ransome and acquited to the English all Aquitane or at least as much as they then held and many other cities townes and places all which came to the third part of the kingdome which was thereby brought into great povertie that no coine was there currant but it was made of leather with a little naile of silver in the middest of it And all this gave king Iohn and Charles the sage his sonne for the said kings deliverance out of prison And if they would have given nothing yet the English would not have put him to death but at the worst have kept him in prison And yet if they had caused him to die the paine that hee had suffered had not beene comparable to the thousand part of the least paine in hell Why then did king Iohn give all that hath beene said and so overthrew his children and the subjects of his kingdome because hee beleeved that which hee saw and knew well that otherwise hee could hot bee delivered But you shall not finde a prince or else very few that if hee had a towne of his neighâ—ours would yeeld it for the feare of God or the paines of hell It is then the want of faith because princes beleeve not that God will punish the wrongs they doe to another and that they doe not also beleeve that the paines of hell are horrible and eternall as they are Yet is this certaine that god will punish them as well as other men though not
After that the emperour Nerva was chosen emperour hee entred into the Senate Dion in Nerva when it was assembled and after hee made them understand how kindlie and temperatelie hee meant to behave himselfe in the government of the empire hee added for a conclusion an oath and promise That never by his ordinance and command hee would put to death any Senator A thing which greatlie pleased all the companie and especiallie because that cruell emperour Domitian his predecessor whom hee succeeded had caused a great number to die yea for frivolous and trifling causes What followed It happened that certaine Senators conspired against that good emperour and that the conspiration was discovered but that good prince seeing that the conspirators were Senators and that hee had given to them all his Faith and oath that hee would cause none of them to dye loved better to observe his Faith and oath than to punish with death those Senators which had well merited it What will our Machiavellists say heere which most cruelly put to death massacre against publik Faith even such as no way have deserved any punishment But it is time to leave those ancient Romane examples for wee should never Beliay lib 1. Of his memories have done to rehearse them all now let us come to domesticall examples In the yeere 1508 king Lewis the twelfth who then held the dutchie of Millan made a league at Cambray with the emperour Maximilian and pope Iulius the eleventh to expulse at their common charge and expences the Venetians out of the firme land as usurpers of that they held upon the empire upon the Church and upon the dutchie of Millan And it was accorded that in the yeere following at a convenient and good time every one of the said three princes shoule appeare upon the place with his army and every man should have that yeelded unto him that was his owne after they had conquered the said countries which the Venetians held The king according to this accord came himselfe in person with his army and many great princes and French lords but the emperour and the pope failed Yet the king feeling himselfe strong enough alone gave battaile to the Venetians and got the victorie insomuch as their chiefetaines were taken and 2000 slaine and almost all the townes which the Venetians had on firme land yeelded to him What then did this good king although the other two held not their Faiths unto him and that having then the dutchie of Millan hee alone might easily have kept all that he had conquered yet notwithstanding hee voluntarilie yeelded to the emperour Verone Vicence Padua and otherplaces belonging to the empire and to the Pope Rimini Faence Cervia Ravenna and other church townes Heereby this good king shewing in what great recommendation hee had the observation of his Faith and to maintaine whole and perfect his promise For if with excuses hee would have dealt deceitfully to have broken his Faith as Machiavell saith hee ought to have done had hee not a faire pretext to say that others had not held promise with him might hee not have the said that hee was nor bound to reconquer theirs at his owne charges by the traict of their league Might hee not well have beaten the Pope with his owne Cannons alledging as before Frangenti fidem fides frangatur eidem But he was a plaine man without guile and sincere hee sought no evasions or refuges but an upright observer of his Faith and promise yet Machiavell reprehends him because hee used not deceits and tromperyes as the popes Alexander Iulius did The memorie is yet fresh of the great warres which the emperour Charles the fifth and Francis the first king of France had together as also how they objected Bellay lib. 8. Of his memories one to another the observation of Faith in their publike escripts and writings yet whatsoever imputations were laid by one to another experience manifested the truth in the yeere 5539 when the emperour under the word of the king passed through France to goe from Spaine into Flanders where the people of Gant were risen up against him for in that passage the emperour shewed well that hee beleeved the king was a prince who would keep his Faith unviolated when he trusted his owne person under it notwithstanding all the warres enmities hostilities and other differences which had so often happened betwixt them two and were not yet extinguished And certaine it is that if the emperour who was a wise prince had had the least doubt in the world of the kings Faith and loyaltie hee would never have put himselfe in his hands and especially for so small an occasion as in hast to goe build a citadell in the towne of Gant insomuch as his fact contradicteth his mouth and word For before hee had many times given an intimation to the king not to hold and observe sincerely his Faith but as by his own fact he shewed that he beleeved the contrary of that hee had said so found hee by experience that the king was the part hee plaied with the king of Armenia succeeded not alike unto him which king he sent for to come unto him being then nigh his country making him to understand that hee would agree him with his children with which then the king had some dissention For as soone as hee came to him hee caused him to be taken prisoner and to bee bound and to bee cast into a straight prison as hee had done with Augarus But the Armenians having discovered this perfidie and disloyaltie rose up in armes and would not submit themselves under the obedience of that perfidious Caracalla Hee also played another part of treacherie under the pretext and shew of marriage with the king of the Parthians Artabanus For hee writ letters unto him whereby hee signified unto him that the empire of the Romanes and that of the Parthians were the two greatest empires of the world and that hee beeing the sonne of a Romane emperour could not find a partie more sociable unto him for a wife than the daughter of Artabanus king of the Parthians he therefore praied him to give her to him in marriage to the end to allie and joyne together the greatest empires of the earth as thereby also to impose an end to their warres This king at the first denyed him his daughter saying that such a marriage was very unfit because of the diversitie of their tongues manners and habits as also for that the Romanes never heeretofore allied or married with the Parthians But upon this refuse Caracalla insisted and pressed him more strongly than before and sent to Artabanus great gifts so that in the end hee gave to him his daughter Whereupon Caracalla assuring himselfe that hee should finde noe hostilitie in the Parthian countrie entred bouldly farre into the countrie with his armie making men understand wheresoever hee passed that hee went but for to see and make love to the kings daughter
On the other side Artabanus prepared himselfe and his retinue in as good order as was possible without any armie to goe meet his new sonne in law What did this perfidious Caracalla As soone as the two parties were joyned and that king Artabanus came nigh him to saluâ—e and embrace him he commanded his souldiers earnestly to charge upon the Parthians Then straight the Romanes embraced and entertained the unarmed Parthians with great blowes of swords and other armes as enemies and as if there had been an assigned battaile in so much as there was a great slaughter made of the Parthians but the king Artabanus with the help of a good horse escaped with great difficultie and danger So that this simuled and disguised marriage although pleasant to Caracalla and his friends yet were they sorrowfull to many poore Parthians Artabanus beeing saved determined well to revenge himselfe of that villanie and trecherie but Macrinus releeved him of that paine who within a little time after slew that monster Caracalla who was already descryed through all the world because of his perfidie Besides that perfidie and violation of Faith is the cause that none wil beleeve nor Perfidie is the cause of the ruine of the perfidous trust them which once have used it yet proceeds there another upon it which is That breach of Faith is ordinarily cause of the totall destruction ruine of the perfidious and disloyall person The example above alleadged of Anniball may well serve to prove it for his trecherie was first a cause that none would trust him secondly it was the cause that another perfidious person seeing him without friends or meanes enterprised to play another part of perfidie which forced him to poyson himselfe We have also in another place before recited the example of Virius and other Capuans to the number of seven and twentie which desperately slew themselves because they had broken their Faith with the Romanes But amongst other examples that of king Syphax of Numidia is most illustrious and memorable This king promised Scipio that he would aid and give him succours against the Carthaginians The Carthaginians knowing this found meanes to lay a bait for this king by Titus Livius lib. 9. 10. Dec. 3. a faire Carthaginian damosell called Sophonisba one of a great house who by her enticements so drew him into her nets that she caused him to breake his Faith with Scipio and made an alliance and confederation with the Carthaginians by the marriage of Sophonisba whereby they accorded that they would have alike friends and enemies Scipio beeing hereof advertised was much both astonished and greeved yet hee thought it good resolution not to attend whilest the two powers of king Syphax and of the Carthaginians were joined together Hee then so hasted that hee placed his armie before king Syphax who was going with thirtie thousand for the helpe of the Carthaginians and overcame all those succours insomuch as Syphax himselfe was taken prisoner his horse having been slaine under him was brought alive to Scipio who demaunded of him wherefore he had broken his Faith with the Romancs which he had so solemnely sworne betwixt his hands This poore captive king confessed that an enraged follie had drawne him unto it by the meanes of the Carthaginians which gave him that pestilent furie Sophonisba who by her flatteries and enticements had bereaved him of his understanding After this miserable king was in a triumph by Scipio led to Rome died miserably his kingdome brought under the obedience of the Romanes which gave a good part of it to Massinissa another king of Numidia who had ever been loyall and faithfull unto them in the observation of their Faith So that Syphax lost himself and his kingdome by his perfidie and breach of Faith and Massinissa acquired great reputation and honour and greatly amplified and enlarged his kingdome for rightly observing his Faith and loyaltie Charles the simple king of Fraunce in his time made strong warre upon Robert Annal. upon the year 916. duke of Aquitaine and vanquished him in a battaile nigh Soissons where duke Robert was slaine Heber countie de Vermandois brother in law of that Robert was so greeved and displeased at that overthrow that he enterprised a part of perfidie and villanie to catch the king his soveraigne lord therefore with a countenance of amitie he invited the king to a great feast in the town of Perone whither the king came with many other great princes and lords but the said countie caused them all to be taken prisoners and shut them within the castle of Perone Afterward hee enlarged all the said princes and lords upon condition of their promises never to bear armes against him but still retained the king prisoner in the said castle where he died within two yeares after Lewis the third of that name his sonne succeeded him in the crowne who at his first entry revenged not the death of his father upon countie Heber fearing some insurrection in his kingdome because of his great kindred and friends yet at the last he also made a great and solemne feast unto which he entreated the great lords and barons of his kingdome and even countie Heber and his friends and kinsfolkes As they were all assembled at that feast behold there arrived out of England a currier a thing fained by king Lewis who booted and spurred fell upon his knees before the king and presented letters unto him on the king of Englands part The king tooke those letters and caused them to be read low by his Chancellor the rather to deceive As soone as he had read them the king began to smile and say on high to the companie Truly men say true that the English are not wise My cousin of England sends me word that in his countrey a rusticall clownish man had summoned his lord whose subject hee is to a dinner at his house and as soone as he came there he tooke and detained him prisoner and after strangled him and villanously caused him to die Therfore he sends me word to have the opion of the princes barons and lords of Fraunce to know what justice should bee done upon that subject I must make him an answere and therefore my masters I pray you tell me your advices What thinke you said he to the countie de Blois the most auncient to this matter my good cousin The countie de Blois answered that his opinion was That the said rusticall fellow should die ignominiously and that according to his desert All the other princes and lords were of the same opinion yea even Heber countie de Vermandois Then tooke the king the word and said Countie de Vermandois I judge thee and condemne thee to death by thine owne word for thou knowest that in the shew of friendship and under the shaddow of a feast in thy house thou diddest invite my dead father and being come thou retainedst him and brought him most
Lacedaemonians insomuch as the Corcyrians feeling themselves weake practised to enter into league and societie with the Athenians shewing them that they might receive them into their societie The Corinthians on the contrary demonstrated to the Athenians That if they received the Corcyrians into their societie to aid them in this warre against them it were to doe against the said article the which was to bee understood in the wholesomest and best sence and not to the detriment and ruine of the confederates and that such as would so interprete it That it were lawfull for the Athenians to receive the Corcyrians into their societie for them to warre upon the Lacedaemonians Corinthians and other confederates comprehended in the said treatie should be an interpretation to an evill sence too easily making an overture to breake the said treatie of peace after the appetite of a third which was no confederate And that therefore the said article must of necessitie bee understood in such manner as the reception of new associates might bee without the domage and prejudice of such as were comprehended in that confederation The Corcyrians replied That although in the said article be not expressed that it should be lawfull to receive associates to make warre against confederates or others yet must it be so understood especially when new associates make warre for a good right and just quarrell as ours is said they against the Corinthians and that the treatie could not be violated neither is the interpretation contrary to equitie whensoever men will maintaine right and reason The Athenians made no account of the interpretation of the said treatie which the Corinthians set before them although it was conformable and agreeing to the sence and equitie of that confederation but rather held it better to sticke unto the Corcyrians On the other side the Lacedaemonians banded themselves for the Corinthians their associates as reason required and by that meanes those two great commonweales were brought to the skirmish of warre one against another by meanes of the Corcyrians and Corinthians which set them together by the eares After the Athenians and Lacedaemonians entred warres together they drew after them all the rest of Greece or the most part into the same skirmish some of the one part some of the other but this Peloponnesiack warre was great cruell long and such as had almost utterly overthrowne the estate of Greece upside downe and all this came upon the captious interpretation contrarie to all equitie and reason which the Corcyrians made of the foresaid article of the treatie of confederation In like manner was the subtill disputation of such as caused Pompeius that famous Plutarch in Pomp. captaine to die After Pompeius had lost the battaile of Pharsalia against Caesar he embarked on the sea with his wife certain of his friends hoovering about Aegypt hoping there to be welcome and entertained by the young king Ptolomaeus in consideration of the pleasures which hee had sometimes done to his father At his approching the land of Aegypt he sent a messenger in a boat to that young king who was in the towne of Pelusium to know if he would receive him in assurance But indeed the kings affaires were then managed by three base persons which understood nothing lesse than well to governe affaires of State whereof the first was a meane chamberlaine of his and the other two Theodotus the Rhetorician his schoolemaster and Achillas his domesticall servant These three venerable persons fel to counsell to deliberate what answere the king their master should make to Pompeius At the beginning they differed in opinion one saying that it were good to receive him and the other not But in the end al three accorded in the worst opinion they could have taken which was to receive Pompey and to slay him Which opinion this goodly Rhetorician Theodotus persuaded to the other two by his subtile reasons If we receive Pompeius saith he certaine it is wee shall have Caesar for an enemie and Pompeius for a master If we receive him not they will be both our enemies Pompey for rejecting him and Caesar because we have not stayed him But if we receive him and put him to death Caesar will thanke us and Pompeius cannot revenge himselfe upon us nor endammage us for a dead man is no warrior Vpon these goodly reasons of that subtile rhetorician the conclusion was taken by these three bad people to put to death this great person Pompeius who had had so many triumphs and victories in his life who had seene to wait on him sometimes five or six great kings at once to entreat him as an arbitror of their contentions and differencies If these bad Counsellors had considered the greatnesse of Pompeius who had so many parents and friends vertuous and great lords as also the magnanimitie of Caesar which would vanquish by true force and not by perfidies and treasons they would never have staied upon the cold and foolish subtilties of this gentle Rhetorician and they would not have concluded the death of so great a man But yet they concluded it and executed their conclusion causing Pompey to die as soone as he had taken port in Aegypt But it was not long ere they received the reward of their perfidie founded upon that subtiltie for Caesar soone after arrived in Aegypt unto whom Pothinus and Achillas presented the head of Pompeius thinking greatly to pleasure him Caesar turned his face backward because he would not see him and begun to weepe and withall commanded to put Pothinus and Achillas to death which had profered him that present which was presently done And that subtile reason of Theodotus who persuaded them that Caesar would thanke them for their murder was not found true Theodotus seeing this execution and finding himselfe very culpable fled and yet lived certaine yeares miserably wandring and begging here and there fearing being known to be massacred of the world which every where had him in execration But in the end after the death of Caesar Brutus by chaunce light upon him and caused him to die miserably after he had made him endure infinit torments Behold the end of those three Counsellors of that young king Ptolomaeus who also by their evill conduction made but a poore end for he was slaine in a battell nigh Nile and none could ever find his bodie Would to God such as resemble at this day these three Counsellors might receive semblable guerdon and reward as they did to learne them to conclude the committing of massacres and the use of perfidies and treasons which will not faile them in the end for God is just But the skoffe which Theodotus alledged in the fore-mentioned counsell That a dead man makes no warre is at this day ordinarily in the mouthes of our Italianized courtiers thereupon they ground their counsels to sley and massacre all such as they hate We must say they sley this and that man it is good to dispatch them for a
was no great warriour But the cause why the Romanes delivered so great and honourable a charge unto him was because the great Scipio the Affrican his brother had declared that if Lucius his brother were chosen generall captaine to goe against Antiochus he should be there as his lieutenant As then they both were in Greece with the Romane armie making warre upon that king it so happened that the only sonne of Scipio the Affrican was taken prisoner by Antiochus souldiers Antiochus having this young lord in his hands entertained and used him very honourably knowing that that great Scipio was of such Clemencie that he would never forget that the pleasure and that the amitie of so great a personage might stand him in good stead in some great necessities as losse of a battaile or of a captivitie or such like Not long after Scipio fell sicke whereof Antiochus hearing he sent him his sonne without ransome fearing Scipio would die with greefe and melancholie by whose death he doubted to leese a good refuge For that king saith Titus Livius trusted more in the Clemencie and authoritie of Scipio alone for the uncertaine and doubtfull haps of warre than in his armie of 60000 footmen and 12000 horsemen Is not here thinke you an admirable effect of Clemencie that an enemie dooth better assure his estate upon his enemies Clemencie than upon his owne forces But what need we any more to amplifie by examples or authorities this point doth not ordinarie experience shew and ever hath done that all good and clement princes have alwaies been very assured in their estates as Augustus Vespasian Traian Adrian the Antonines and many other Romane emperours and the most part of our kings of Fraunce which were clement and debonaire doe fully proove this which I say for they raigned very peaceably died of naturall deaths and after their deaths were greatly lamented of the people Here I may not forget a notable sentence of the emperour Antonius Pius which hee received from Scipio the Affrican Capit. in Pio. Sueâ— in August cap. 35. which was this That hee loved better to preserve one of his subjects than to sley a thousand of his enemies Assuredly a sentence of a good and clement prince who delighted not in shedding of blood as our Machiavelists doe at this day which are so covetous of such blood as they account their enemies that whensoever any of marke fals into their hands they will not give him for an hundred pounds They may well say contrary to Scipio and the emperor Pius that they had rather slay an enemie than save an hundred friends Are not these people worthie to commaund Neither make they any account more of their princes subjects than of slaves which men may beat scourge or sley at their pleasure as beasts as indeed there hath been lately a burne-paper-fellow a writer for wages one of these Machiavelists who durst publish by writing That the authority of a prince over his subjects is like that which a lord hath over his villaine and slave having power over death and life to sley and massacre them at their pleasure without forme of justice and so to despoile them of their goods And how comes this Thinkes this sot that the office of a king is like to the office of a gally captaine to hold his subjects in chaines and every day to whip them with scourges Surely they which hold that opinion doe merit to be so handled yea that some good gally captaine would twice or thrice a day practise that goodly doctrine upon their shoulders but how much more notable and humane is the doctrine wee learne of the life of Augustus Caesar who so much feared that men had such an opinion of him that he would not take away but onely diminish the libertie of the people that he could never abide and suffer to be called Dominus that is to say Lord but abhorred it as an injurious name full of opprobry because it hath some relation to Servus which is to say servant or slave he being farre from the affectation of such great and magnificall names as many great men have since well liked of without shewing the effect of them The third point now remaineth which is to shew That the Clemencie of a prince A prince by Clemencie encreaseth his domination Dionis Halic lib. 2. Plutarke in Caesar Alexand is cause of the encreasement of his domination Hereupon we reade a memorable hystorie of Romulus who was so clement soft and gentle towards his people which he vanquished and subjugated that not only many particulars but the whole multitude of people submitted themselves voluntarily and unconstrainedly under his obedience The same vertue was also cause that Iulius Caesar vanquished the Gaulois for he was so soft and gracious unto them and so easie to pardon and used them every way so well farre from all oppression that many of that nation voluntarily joyned themselves unto him and by them he vanquished the others When Alexander the Great made great conquests in Asia most commonly the citizens of all great cities met him to present unto him the keyes of the townes for he dealt with them in such Clemencie and kindnesse without in any thing altering their estates that they liked better to be his than their owne Anniball having taken the towne of Saguntum in Spaine was so feared and redoubted Titus Livius lib. 2. Dec. 3. that the most part of Spaine submitted themselves under his obedience and abandoned the Romane societie because they had not aided Saguntum against Anniball The Romanes to repaire their fault whereat they tooke much greefe sent great forces into Spaine under the conduction of Publius Scipio father of the African and of Cneius his uncle Anniball to containe in obedience the Spaniards tooke in hostage their children their brethren or parents of all the nobilitie of the countrey and the notablest citizens of the good townes and set them under guard at Saguntum under the charge of some small number of souldiers God would that those hostages should find meanes to escape from their prison yet it was their haps to fall into the hands of the Scipioes The Scipioes having possession of them in place to revenge themselves upon them as they feared for the fault they and their parents had made by their revoltment from the Romanes they welcommed and dealt with them very graciously and sent them all to their parents and houses This Clemencie and kindnesse of the Scipioes was cause that soone after all Spaine forsook the obedience of Anniball and the Carthaginians and fell under the government of the Romans which they would never have done if these hostages had been dealt with after the counsels and precepts of Machiavell Yet the example of Clemencie in Scipio the Affrican is more notable than this Titus Livius lib. 3. Dec. 3. of his father and uncle After the deaths of his said father and uncle this young lord full of all