discovery dies with him The Mother of the Maccabees brings up her Children to Martyrdom and dies her self bravely after them Others are as famous in the Monuments of Antiquity for Piety Clotilda converts France to Christianity Indegondis her Grandchild recovers her Husband and part of Spain from the Arrian Heresie Helena plants Christianity in the Roman Empire Cesaria in Persia Theolinda in Italy Margaret in England Gisellis in Hungary Dambruca in Poland Olga in Russia Ethelbirga in Germany And for private Vertues Abigail Susanna S. Agnes S. Cicely S. Monica S. Felicitas Zenobia Pulcheria Theodora Marcella Paula Eustochium and ten Thousand more are the noblest Images They were Women that in the Infant Church led on the Men to Martyrdom and thronged themselves in little Armies to Martyrs Fires that brought up their Infants to the most glorious sufferings who smiled the Tyrants into Rage and posed the subtlest inventions of Pains and Tortures And indeed the numbers and sorts of vertuous Women have so increased in later Histories that to refuse them their honour would be the same thing as to deny the Splendors of the Sun and either we must have no eyes to see into the present nor any faith to credit past Records or we must allow and admire their merit But I might have superseded all these Authorities and relyed wholly upon the following Life to have demonstrated this verity Necessary it will be before we come to relate what she did to know from whence she was it being not the least Glory of her Character that as God had equall'd her by Birth to the greatest of her time so she her self equalled her Vertues to her Extraction Daughter she was to Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss Privy Councellor to King James both in England and Scotland and Master of the Rolls He Edward Lord Bruce discending from Robert Bruce the Norman to whom William the first gave the Castle and Lordship of Shelton which was a Barony by Tenure From him descended all the Noble Bruces both of England and Scotland and particularly Robert and David both Kings of the Scots whose Sister marrying into the Family of the Stewarts They in her Right inherited the Crown of that Nation It cannot therefore but be worthy our first thoughts to contemplate how the divine Providence designing her for the most illustrious Life besides that it furnished her Soul with extraordinary Graces took care that it should be united to a Body descending from a Family flourishing in Riches and Honours intending to Remarque to her what she soon understood and as truly practised that as God had raised her by her Birth to the heights of Glory so she should conduct her self to excel others as much in the Eminencies of Goodness as she did in Blood Such a Beauty therefore we have here to delineate not as we could wish were or a strong Imagination can Fancy but such an one as is true and solid and far better expressing her self in her own life than is possible by this Copy she not being to be parallell'd by any thing but her self Who as she was prepared by the Divine goodness for Scenes of Difficulty and Honour so was she better taught to act her own Part by observing how her noble Father performed his He the Lord Bruce amongst other great Services done for his Royal Master King James was also a Principal and happy Instrument of facilitating his obtaining the Crown of England to which though he had an undoubted Right yet he met with very potent Obstructions which in a great measure were removed by the Interest this noble Lord had before made in Secretary Cecil afterwards Earl of Salisbury and divers others of the English Nobility A friendship he had contracted both intimate and fortunate with some of the greatest Interest and Power during his Embassy here in England to Queen Elizabeth joined in it to the Earl of Marre proving afterwards an opportunity of a nobler conjunction that of the two Crowns which the King had no sooner well setled to his Head but he took this good Servant nearer to his Heart and Person Animadverting that he could not wear them with that security and pleasure he desired unless he might be Assisted by so useful and loyal a Servant brought him therefore into England with him that he might continue him in his Favours and have him near to conduct his Affairs and Councils Several Sons he had and but this only Daughter she born to him on Christmas day and for that reason had the name of Christian answering up to the highest measures the glorious Omen both of the Day and of her Name appearing so soon to be Christian as if indeed she had been born one expressing in her younger years such vigorous Demonstrations of Goodness that the World might easily see she had a Soul and Body made at first to all possible Perfections Such Impressions did this Purity of her Youth the Pregnancy of her Wit her freedom from Passions that neglect of Vanity and hatred of Excess together with that Modesty and Sweetness which were naturally hers made upon the mind of her Indulgent and Discerning Father that he expressed his value of her and her own merit by the first publick notice he could make which was to marry her to an Heir of one of the greatest Families and Estates in England and by giving also such a Portion as in those Days did exceed and would also now be a very great one viz. 10000 l. Her Husband was Sir William Cavendish Son to the Lord Cavendish made afterwards Earl of Devonshire descending from the ancient stock of the Jernon and Norman blood Made thus a Wife she soon put in practice all those Vertues which such a Relation required from her Such a Respect she paid as Saint Paul commended to Christian Women that should also increase to Reverence and Obedience Considering wisely with her self that when the Wife once falters from the Command of her Husband storms and tempests invade the Family and that her own her Husbands her Childrens and her Friends happiness and quiet are not indangered only but scattered into disorders worse than Hell This Obedience she looked upon as no hard Task because love assisted to bear the pleasing burden Her own and Husbands Soul met in equal Poize and the thoughts and desires of the one were the thoughts and desires of the other God made them two into one and they were one in Judgment and in Will and in Affection and in Care And as Love made them so Loyalty another of her Conjugal Vertues so kept them The Husband inclosed her to himself when he espoused her with his Ring his was the Right and hers the Virtue to be only his Assistance also one of those ends for which God made her Woman and marriage a Wife she gave to that eminent Degree that it is not easy to resolve whether it was more for the Interest or Honour of the Cavendish Family that she was united to
Freedom To which glorious Designs they were not a little invited by her carnest solicitations and very much incouraged by her Prudence and in which Essex had given the surest Demonstration of his loyal Purposes had not Death prevented him in the end of the year Forty six The Presbyterian Faction in general that first fomented and still carried on this unnatural Rebellion beginning the War in the name of God would not put an end to it neither for his sake nor the Kings having other Apprehensions and making other Advantages of the Kings and Churches sufferings For because God was pleased to make them the Crucifiers of his People they supported their Persons and their Pretenses by their successes and reckoning their own Christianity from their Victories would not allow either the King or his Cause to be so much as Christian for they themselves are the men that were Fortunate and Prosperous and therefore had the Baseness as well as ignorance to declare that they were setting up Christs Kingdom though by the breach of all his Commandments being suffered by Heaven to satisfie their lust ambition and revenge upon the Crown and Mitre A Principle that equally serves Presbitery and Mahumetism for we have seen the Grand Segnior to prevail upon a great part of Christendom and to have made both the Kings and Bishops of the Eastern Churches his Slaves and Tributaries and yet he is prosperous hence the Sultans of each Party do agree that every thing is Right that is Fortunate and what mischief both the Turk and the other have wrought to Christian Princes the whole World can tell or what hopes there may be to find Penitents amongst such men who will declare a Prevaling Villain to be Gods General the next Age must expect for we can find but very few in this The Generosity indeed of Essex ought to have its due allowance and commendation and the rather because even after all his successes he saw the Error of his Arms and the Kings Right did then appear to him when he had triumphed over all his Power But he could live no longer than only to see his Faults and it may be his being infected with Loyalty was the Poison that dispatched him Essex being dead the Janizaries of the Rebel Army by the basest Treachery and Violence soon made themselves Masters of the Kings Person and carrying him from place to place whether they pleased brought him to Latimers where our noble Lady happening then to be with her Son the Earl of Devonshire his Majesty had much private Consultation with her concerning the State of his Affairs and at the same time expressed both to her and the Earl the great sense he had of the faithful Services they had done him The latter end of that year increasing the Kings troubles and the consideration of his multiplying her own being much depressed in mind with such a load of publick Calamities she would try if Privacy might give ease to any part of her Sorrows retire therefore she did to her Brothers the Earl of Elgins House at Ampthill a place if any in the world next to her Sons that could compose her distracted thoughts and the only means she could then think on to give any tolerable comfort under those circumstances of the Kings and her own Afflictions And thither she was the rather invited by that unparallelled kindness that ever had been between her self and Brother the extraordinary love she bare to his Lady the Countess of Oxford and the dear Respects she had also for her Nephew the Lord Bruce his Lady and Children Here as she would always acknowledge to her death she both lightned her griefs and her expences and at this time during her three years stay there she became Mistris of those Riches which her Retirement gave her opportunity to gather For when at home her expences in the noblest House-keeping and the most generous Charity kept equal measures with her Incomes and her Goodness so vied her Huswifry that she could scarce tell how to lay up mony so long as she had a friend to entertain or any in distress to relieve For Charity was one of her dear Delights nor would she stay for but find out Opportunities though indeed she lived in such times that afforded dayly Objects for her tenderest Compassions The War had made Loyalty poor and Sequestrations upon the Priests of God had reduced the Clergy to such lamentable wants that they had nothing left to cloath them but their own Righteousness nor any thing to feed on but a good Conscience and their passive Vertues Here our noble Lady saw and pitied and as ever she had been the Defender so now she became the succourer of the Righteous Cause Fed and Cloathed and Comforted all that lived within the Vicinage of her Charity and as one Act of goodness creates Appetites after others so neither could her Desires be satisfied with the next occasions for her Bounty but she sought abroad and diffused it round the Nation and beyond it also to such as were made poor for Gods sake and the Kings And in this she had a peculiar Generosity for though she would give with both hands to the loyal Sufferers yet she would not indure it should be reckoned as an Alms but rather as a just Debt to them out of her Abundance And God was pleased to invite her forward to keep the Fountains of her Nobleness and Charity continually open by the greatest incouragements for as she laid up Riches in Heaven by her mighty Expence in the Acts of mercy so those waters upon which she cast her bread returned with such Fertility and Increase that she became Owner of larger Possessions upon Earth and collected mony and Blessing by her Dispersions to the Poor Removing in the year 50 to that pleasant seat of Rohamptom in Surry she had not lived much above a year in it ere it became her own by Purchase And now began again the usual Resort of her former friends and her own magnificent way of living which she improved not only to raise to her self the Memoirs of a private Greatness but a Name of everlasting Honour for her concerns in the Publick good Hence she took opportunity from such loyal Persons as frequented her House to discourse with and perswade them to the most Active indeavours for the Kings Restauration and her Counsels in this business as they were the most Prudent and steady so neither could any to whom she communicated them scruple in the least their own joyning in such honourable Designs because they saw that she invited and incouraged her nearest Relations into the same generous Hazards For during her abode at Amphthill she had continual Correspondencies with such Persons both in England and Scotland as she found would assist to the resettlement of the King and the Recovery of the Church and State from those thraldoms under which they both groaned To this end many Letters passed between her and Duke Hamilton the
Earls of Holland and Norwich that Norwich who was General of those Forces raised by Esq Hales in Kent and many others of eminent conduct which Letters were both written and received in Characters in the writing and opening of which she intrusted none but her Nephew the Lord Bruce now Earl of Ailesbury and her Chaplain Mr. Gale Her Nephew though too young to be concerned in the first War did as soon as possible give the noblest Demonstrations what he would have done then by his ingaging in the Kings Cause immediately upon his Return from his Travels in the year 56. He had indeed that Part of Felicity which the Orator esteemed to be one of the bravest Portions of the Character of Constantine the Great viz. to be born happy and our Lady therefore considering his very Extraction as his great Ingagement to the Crown and finding him prepared by his Principles as well as Birth to do every thing that should be to the reputation of both though he was as dear to her as one of her eyes yet she would have him put his Person and his Fortunes into the same bottom with Caesar and either stem the storm of Tyranny or suffer shipwreck from which it was only the Divine Providence that delivered him he being once in the hands of Cromwel his Major General men thirsty enough of such loyal Bloud But he had given himself to the publick and therefore considered not his own concerns in the least when the services of the King and Church called him forth to the greatest dangers and entring upon his Duty with such brave intentions and without the least mixture of base and mercenary ends God was pleased to deliver him from great Disasters and to bless his purposes by seeing that King and that Religion restored which are both the best in the whole World And though the glory of this must be wholly ascribed to Heaven yet God was pleased to prepare a way to his own designs by the vigorus and restless endeavours of the loyal and orthodox Lords and Gentry for could These have been seduced to have complemented and addressed to Cromwel and his Son as it is notorious all others but those of the Church of England did it had in humane speaking been the most probable establishment of the Usurpation But our Church restrains as from Assisting so likewise from wishing well to an Usurper both which all the World knows the whole Faction did It is well therefore for Monarchy and the Church of England that they have such sure and constant Friends as this noble Lord I am speaking of who was not only industrious in their Resettlement but has been as great an Instrument ever since of their mutual preservation It is not unknown to any how both the Crown and Church have been Deserted in their Necessities when they most wanted the Constancy and Fortitude of those that seemed to be fast Friends to each in their prosperous days but even then when it was a popular Crime to be just and loyal this noble Lord stood as firm as a Rock having such a greatness as well as steadiness of mind that no Flatteries could charm no Importunities force or Dangers terrifie either to the doing or so much as consenting to any Evil to the Government or making one false step from the closest and most fixed Rules of Honour and Justice And one thing more I must take leave to add that it is impossible his Loyalty and Religion should ever languish or faint they not at all depending upon the nourishments of Ambition or Avarice but resuming new vigours continually from the source of his own Vertues In these things He was our Excellent Ladies Relative as well as by Blood nor was her Loyalty without its hazards For though her Actings were not thorowly discovered yet so much suspected they were by the then usurped Powers that a Troop of Horse had been sent down to fetch her up from Ampthill about the same time that the Countess of Carlisle was put into the Tower had not her Goldsmith a Confident of the Rebells given a Bribe to one of the then Council of State whose great Licentiousness and narrow Fortunes rendred him greedy enough of Mony Escaping thus narrowly did not in the least abate but rather redouble her Fortitude and reinforce her Resolutions not to give over till she had attained her ends of which she had the fairest Prospect in that Critical time of General Monks Action With him therefore she enters into a speedy and secret Correspondency and though he was one of a most retired and prudent wariness yet so far he intrusted her which he did few besides that he sent her by a considerable Officer a private Signal by which she might know his Intentions and so managed they were by this brave Man that they proved according to his Assurances and her Wishes the Kings Restauration And if there be any thing by which this great Lady may be allowed to have obliged the Present or to fill Future times with Admiration and Acknowledgments it must be this glorious Act of Assisting towards that universal good which the whole World stood in expectation of and so many Thousands of hands were lifted up to Heaven to Accomplish The General in all this knew her Merit and valued her accordingly and entring into a noble Friendship continued it with the greatest Respects to her death The King himself also that she might receive the utmost Honour as well as Satisfaction by his Return was pleased as his Father of Blessed Memory had done before Graciously to assure her that he had a great sense of her constant Zeal in his Service and as a particular mark of his extraordinary Favour would Himself with the Queen Queen Mother and Royal Family often Dine with her and sometimes break in upon her on a suddain after hunting And that no Token of Respect might be wanting towards the Declining part of her Age when she could not pay her Attendance upon the Queen with the usual and due Solemnities of Court Address she was admitted to wait upon her Majesty with more than ordinary Ease and Kindness But there were other Courts to which as she had through her whole life been preparing her self now she began with greater Intentions and the expence of larger portions of her time to Dress up her Soul for Enter she does into a beloved Retirement from the noise and imbroilments of business with silence and devotion to fit her self for Paradice drew the Curtain to the Affairs of the world some years before her Death to entertain her self with Meditations and Preparations for Eternity Not that she excluded her self from any offices of Civility to her Friends or the most indearing expressions of Tenderness towards her Relations but rather did with more Passion and Earnestness desire their continual Company and when without that of her Son the Earl of Devonshire and his Lady she would be more importunate for the useful and