there be no hopes at all left of reducing these men and bringing them back again into the True Way and making them to submit themselves to our Government and Doctrine then must the King embrace that counsel which was given by Terentius Varro to Hostilius for the keeping of the Tuscans within the bounds of their Duty and Obedience namely let him so order the matter as that they should not be able to shake off the yoak if they would never so fain And this may be done by observing these three things namely by bringing them to be Low-spirited Weak and lastly if they be Kept asunder from one another for the Boldnesse that any take upon them in attempting to cast off the Yoak from their Necks proceeds either from their Height of Spirit or from their Strength or else from their Multitude But before these severer Courses are taken with them it cannot be expressed how mightily advantageous it would be to the businesse in hand if so be the Children of Infidels were put to such Masters as should instruct them in the Arts and Liberal Sciences and all such exercises as are fit for any Ingenuous Man to be brought up in for by this course alone we should at once oblige both the Children and the Parents also to Us. We must therefore erect as I said before Seminaries both for the Tongues and Armes which we call the Two Instruments of our Future Monarchy the Former of these for the reducing of all such of our Subjects as are Infidels and Hereticks and the bringing them back in a peaceable manner into the True Way and to a Unity of Faith and the Later to the end that they may be utterly weakned and deprived of all power in case they shall stand out and refuse to return to the True Faith of which we have formerly spoken elsewhere CHAP. XIX Of such Kingdomes as are Properly belonging to the King of Spain and of such also as are his Enemies and of these which are in League with each other and which not SOme are of Opinion that it is Impossible that the Kingdom of Spain should stand long as well because almost All Other Nations are either Enemies to it or at least not very good Friends as also by reason of the remotenesse of the several parts of it from each other some lying in the New World and others lying scatteringly here and there like Islands as in Italy the Low-Countries and in Africk all which are most different from one another both in their Languages Situation and Temper of the Climate whereas on the contrary the Turk who layes claime to the Universal Empire of the whole World hath his Dominions lying all close together and besides in his Wars he observes the same Course that the Romans heretofore did in making War alwayes upon his Neighbours only that lye round about him Neither can the Enmity or hatred of those Nations that are his Enemies do him any hurt at all for as much as he brings up within his own Dominions Young Children of all sorts of which afterwards he maketh Souldiers so that his Empire seems in a manner to be nothing else but a Military Republick Neither can Religion at all hinder his proceedings and besides his Bashawes or Governours of Provinces have all of them an absolute power of Rule given them so that they need not stand in fear of poor naked and unarmed People whom if they should but offer to rise they would be able to suppresse by their own Sons Whosoever desires to become a great Monarch it will behoove him to be continually in making War upon all his Neighbours that lye round about him and to reduce them under his subjection as soon as possibly he can For thus the Romans heretofore did first of all setting upon the Sabines and Latines and then afterwards falling upon the Aequicolae the Peligni the Veientes Lucanians Tuscans and Samnites alwayes going round in a Circle till at length having subdued all Italy they passed over into Sardinia Sicily Spain Gaule and Germany The self same Course was taken by the Babylonians in their expeditions against those of Asia and the Persians The Macedonians did the like making War upon the Thebans first then falling upon the Epirotes Lacedemonians Achaians and Aetolians and afterwards passing over into Asia they filled it wholly with their Armies in so much that at length as Livy and Plutarch write they were so puft up with the glory of their Victories as that they would have marcht on against the Romans and Carthagineans also Certainly had not Alexander the Great been taken off by an untimely death he would without all doubt have made an Expedition against the Romans also I say therefore that the Turk does at this day take the very same course that the Greatest Empires in former times did For having first subdued all Asia Minor he then passed over into Europe and conquered all Greece next he falls upon Syria Egypt and Armenia till at length he came as far as Macedonia Epirus and Hungary Where after he had taken in some certain Christian provinces and added them to his Empire and that the Christians now out of a General fear of being swallowed up by him betook themselves all to their Armes and joyned their whole strengths together against him He then very craftily and subtlely makes a Truce with them and agrees upon conditions of Peace These things passing on thus the Christians in the mean while fall at variance among themselves and make war upon each other so that the Turk being now secure from any Molestation by them turnes his Victorious Armes against the Kings of Persia or Georgia till such time that finding the Christians all to peices again among themselves he thinks fit then to strike up a Truce with the Persian or those other of his enemies whosoever they were and so falls on again upon the Christians with all the strength he hath and does them what mischeif lies in his Power And then while They are fain to spend time in consulting what is to be done the Turk he goes on still Victoriously taking in now one Place and then another without controule So great and of so dangerous and sad Consequence are those Intestine Dissensions that are at this day kept up among the Christian Princes But the King of Spain at one and the same time maintaines a War with several Nations neither hath he at any time all his whole forces joyned together in any one Battel by which meanes He utterly destroyes himself For we shall have him making War in the most Remote Parts of the World whiles yet in the mean time He hath all his Neighbours that lye round about Him his enemies as the English French Hollanders and perhaps even the Italians themselves also Whence it may seem that He takes a very crosse and unlikely way for the enlarging of his Dominions and Empire But to this Objection I Answer that though much of this is
the Venetians with the Genueses God hath raised up the Turks and hath sent them into both Empires because that the Christians were too gently and lightly punished for their sins by the Arabians Tartars and other forreign Nations as I have already shewed in my Papal Monarchy And the Turk is the same to us at this day who are so distracted and divided by several Heresies that the Assyrians were of old to the Jewes who by faction were divided into the Kingdomes of Judah and Israel except the Good Angell of Spain afford us his assistance as I have elsewhere shewed CHAP. III. Of the First Cause of Empires namely God IT is very evident that neither Prudence alone nor yet joyned with Occasion is sufficient for the attaining to or governing a Kingdome for as much as we know that the Freedom of the Will consists only in the Will it self and not either in Action or Passion For it may so fall out that a man may over night purpose the next morning to go to Sea or to study or to go to plow or to do any other businesse and yet upon a sudden the falling of Rain or unexpected tempestuous and foul weather may crosse that so wise counsel of his so that he must be forced to do not according to his own determination but according as matters shall fall out So that he that knowes how so to order his Counsels and Determinations as that they shall alwaies be subordinate to the Superiour Causes his affaires shall seldom fail of succeeding prosperously Wisemen therefore make it their businesse to labour after the knowledge of these Superiour Causes of God and His Divine Will on which the whole Chain and Series of future things depends And hence it is that some have sought for God in the Stars who hath also answered some by the Stars as namely the Magi or Wisemen at our Saviours Nativity And perhaps a Rainy Morning may have done no hurt at all to this or that Astrologer because they foresaw this Rain and so probably ordered their affaires accordingly having regard to the Will of God herein who out of his singular goodnesse will be found there where we seek him with a sincere heart Nay when the businesse so requires he answereth even those that do not seek him with a sincere heart as we see in Balaam whom he answer'd perhaps when he was not askt And so likewise in King Saul who was informed by Samuel what the Event of things should be though he had by Witchcraft consulted the Divel and not Samuel as Tho Aquinas also is of opinion in his 2.24.140 And therefore we also ought to believe that the True God gave answer to the Diabolical Superstitions of the Romans Gracians and Chaldeans by the Ministry of the peculiar Angel of each of these several Empires For the Inevitable Decree of his Will sometimes exalted and again sometimes depressed and clouded the Majesty of those Monarchies Therefore the Chaldeans and so likewise the Medes whensoever their own Wisdom failed them made their Invocations upon God by the Stars as the Greeks did by their Oracles at Delphos the Romans by their Auguries and Observations of Birds and as the more Sound Philosophers sought Him in the Works of Nature as Pythagoras also did in Numbers which are as a certain Ray of Divinity disseminated and diffused throughout the whole Universe But much more rightly did the Jewes seek after him by the Prophets which were sent unto them Which custome of theirs the Christians also followed when as the Archangel Michael had gone over from the Jewes to the State of the Christians For in all probability we ought to believe that when any Empire is overthrown the Angel of that goeth over to the Conquerour And this is a Secret which was not unknown to the Romans who for this very reason would not have their Tutelar Angel to be known to the end that he might not be invoked by other Nations And therefore we may probably believe that either the Angel of Persia yeelded to that of Greece or else that He went over from the Persians to the Greeks and so consequently that the Angel of Constantinople does at this time fight for the Turks or else having removed his station stands now for Germany and hath joyned himself to Her Angel Now where there are the more of these Tutelar Angels There there is the greater growth and stronger confirmation of Power And therefore being instructed hereto out of the Scriptures I affirm that if at any time God appear to treat either favourably or else contrarily with any Monarchy we are to understand this in reference not to that present Monarchy only but to the succeeding also For unlesse this were so God should not have revealed the Knowledge of Future things to his Church by the Prophets which is an absurd thing to believe and it would also follow that this Knowledge was to be sought for by the Stars or some other things Which things seeing they are partly also forbidden by the Pope we are necessarily to believe that all things are otherwise sufficiently provided for Wheresoever therefore God speaks of the Babylonish Empire we are to understand it as said also of the Persian Grecian and Roman which in their turns succeeded It. And hence it is that St. John calls Rome Babylon And so likewise what is said of the Kingdom of the Jewes the same is to be understood also of the Church of Rome which hath received the Keyes of David and the Name of Jerusalem according to that which is said to the Angel of Philadelphia Now Philadelphia is Brotherly Love as Roma Rome by turning the Letters backward is Amor Love And God oftentimes threatens his Church I will remove thy Candlestick out of its place unlesse thou repent For in like manner the Angel of God may be said to remove from one Church to another as for example from Heretical England to Catholick Borussia as from one Kingdom to another And so what is pronounced by Ezechiel Jeremy and Esay concerning the Prince of Tyre is sometimes to be taken as spoken of the Prince of the Angels that fell from Heaven and were cast out of their Kingdom there Where that also which is said How art thou fallen O Lucifer which is spoken of the King of the Chaldaeans is to be taken as by way of similitude spoken of his Successors and of the Aerial so called Empire of the Great Divel For both Empires and all other Earthly things bear a similitude to the Heavenly as those of the Sea do to them of the Land Whence it is that you have your Bishop-fish your Sea-calf and the Calamary or Sea-Clark for as much as all of them have their dependance from the Prime Reason or the Divine Idea which is the Eternal Word Whence I seem to my self to have found out a Key by which I may find out a passage to the knowledge of the Original Government and end of the
English Genuese or others provided alwayes that into such Councels as concern the State there be taken in some that are of Religious Orders and also some of the Wisest among the Nobility and any others that are well skilled in the Customes Religion Rites Situation and the Policy both Domestick and Military of the several Nations what Country soever they themselves be of I shall here lay down one most Admirable and Profitable Rule more for the King to observe and that is that every Seventh and Ninth year which are the Fatal Numbers He should call together all the Nobility of each of his several Kingdomes every one of which shall come to the Court attended but with three Servants a piece at the most and at the same time let there be sommoned to appear also all persons whatsoever that are the ablest and best seen in the affaires and Secrets of State and of Government and there let him command them to propose every one of them severally what they conceive most advantageous for the promoting of the Greatnesse of the Spanish Monarchy or else for the particular Benefit of their several Provinces and withal to give notice what Errours have been there committed to that very time which it concernes the Publick should be rectified And I would have all the Counsellours also of all the several Councells to be present at this assembly that every one of them in particular may be instructed in what concerns the whole World and may take notice by this meanes wherein he committed any Error for the last Seven yeares and so may either be reproved for the same or may otherwise receive the praise due to him For if this Course were taken the Counsellours of the Several Councels growing Wiser and more Circumspect would take heed how they gave any either Unworthy or Unprofitable Counsels and the King himself would have a greater insight into the Condition of his Monarchy and by discovering New Secrets and Mysteries of State should thereby find out waies of advancing his own Greatnesse more and more every day and the Nobles also would set their braines to work all that Seven years space to find by what means their Princes State might be the most advanced and would not any longer continue in their former Ignorance and both they and the rest of the learned of the Kingdom would utter the Virulency of their Ambition not by their Sword but by their Tongue Now there is none so weak but is able to deliver in words the State of his own Republick seeing that there is no Philosopher but will undertake out of his own brain to give a description or Model of the same Whence indeed are scattered abroad the seeds of Heresy and Sedition But by the taking of this course when any of these kind of Persons hath hopes of being rewarded by the Prince he will conceive it his best way to expect rather to be called to give his Judgment at the Septennial Assembly or else to send it thither in writing and so will suppresse his Opinions till that time And so by this meanes the King shall be rendred the more secure of the Obedience of his Nobility and shall understand who they are that deserve either well or ill of Him Neither shall He be deceived and abused by his Courtiers or Flatterers and shall have the better Opportunity of calling his Ministers of State to an account for their evill Administration of the Provinces they were set over and shall withal very much mend the condition of the said Provinces and shall find many other Advantages to follow hereupon which I am not at present able to reckon up and shall besides bring it so to passe that his Councel shall be both the Wiser and withal the Truer to Him But the Nobles of the New World in case they cannot make their personal appearance at this Meeting may send others in their places Which is the Custome that the Clergy being instructed by a certain Divine Wisdome have alwaies observed in their General Chapters though no Monarch or State hath ever taken the said course except it be the Venetians whose Embassadours when they return home from any Forreign parts are to give an account in the Senate of what they found Observable in the several Countries whither they were imployed Now although our Discourse here hath been concerning the Particular Councels and Kingdoms that belong to the King of Spain onely yet we may not therefore omit to say something of Councels in general seeing that it is certain That More Weighty Affaires are Effected by Good Conduct and Counsels then by Weapons and Hands But because a Dissertation of this nature being besides the intention of our present design would be too prolixe I shall only here touch at some few particulars Such Counsels as are too Subtile and Nice are not much to be regarded because they seldom are brought to any good Issue for by how much the greater Subtlety there is in them so much the more Exactnesse and Punctuality is there required in the Execution of them which is a businesse of the greatest difficulty that can be And hence it is that the Venetians although they are not so Ingenious a People as the Florentines yet are they more happy for the most part in their Consultations then They are as of old the Lacedaemonians were in this particular more Fortunate then the Athenians Those Counsels are not to be much regarded that have no matter of Weight or Eminency in them Yet much lesse are such to be esteemed that aime at too Vast and Immense Undertakings such as for the most part were those that were designed by the Emperour Maximilian and Pope Leo X. the Effecting whereof required both a better Purse a longer Life and greater Abilities then either of them had which kind of undertakings are very pernicious to a State or Kingdom All deseperate Counsells are likewise Dangerous and are commonly attended by Despaire and Misery It remaineth therefore that those Counsells are chiefly to be Embraced that have the greatest both Facility and Security in them and such as are well grounded and upon Mature deliberation resolved upon and as little subject as may be to Casualties and the power of Fortune Slow Counsels become Great Princes for it concerns them to be more careful in the Preserving and making good then in the Enlarging of the Bounds of their Kingdomes But those Counsels that are designed rather for the Acquiring of More then the Preserving only of what they have must be more Quick and Sudden But of this subject I have elsewhere discoursed more largely CHAP. XIII Of Justice and Its Contrary IF the King be just all his Ministers will likewise be just and if the Superiour Ministers of State shall be Unjust the Inferiour will be Unjust also but there is nothing can hurt a Prince more then to distribute the Rewards of Virtue at the pleasure of any Favourite And therefore where Offices are disposed of
both which things are of very ill Consequence to a Kingdom He ought rather therefore to seem not to believe any such Accusations although perhaps they should be true unlesse they be also manifestly proved except they be such as wherein Religion is concerned For by so doing He will shew himself to be a just and Good Prince and such a one as doth the least in the World deserve to have any such Conspiracies contrived against him and so also the Conspirators themselves will presently lay aside the Ill Opinion they had conceived of Him In the mean time for the Prince to cause any of his Subjects to be thought guilty of Rebellion and Treason when no such thing can be proved against them is but a very sad businesse for then out of the sense of the Infamy that is cast upon them they will be forced to desire a Change of Government and will invite the Kings Enemies to invade him which hath often happened both in the Low-Countries and in France And notwithstanding that there seems to be some hope of gain issuing from thence because an Occasion may hereupon be taken of keeping a stricter hand over the Subject which advantage being readily apprehended by the forementioned Cosmo de Medicis he took an Occasion presently to break off the Articles of Peace that had been concluded upon betwixt him and the Florentines in like manner as our King also upon the like Occasion held a harder hand over the Arragonians upon Pretense that they had entred into Conspiracy against Him with Antonio Perez yet in truth the King receives more damage then Advantage thereby And therefore the more sure and certain way to confirm and assure his Kingdom to himself would be so to winne over the People to him by Mutual Love and favours bestowed upon them that they should not have any ground to have any such Suspicions of him And besides where this note of Infamy is thrown upon the Subjects not only themselves but their Children also will be sure to preserve the memory of it and so will watch for some fit opportunity of Revenge which when it offers it self they will not stick openly to joyn with Forreigners against him and thus their Treasonable Designs are not by those meanes quite quashed but are deferred only And hence it was that Nero's hoping to get mony out of the People about the First Conspiracy against himself and so by punishing them to benefit himself did not at all suppresse the said Conspiracy but only put it off till some other time which also the Senatours afterwards set on foot again but with greater care and circumspection as it likewise happened to Tiberius and other wicked Princes If any such thing therefore should befall our Prince He should endeavour to obliterate and blot out the memory of such Rebellions by Benefits rather then Punishments by that means both putting a bridle into their mouthes and yet withall sweetning them and winning them over to Himself by his bounty so much more advantagious is it for a Prince at all times and in all places to approve Himself rather Good then Cunning But yet it cannot be denied but that such Conspiracies are most dangerous which are countenanced by the Pretext of Introducing a New Religion or when any Seditious Preacher takes liberty to cast Reproaches upon the State And therefore I shall say something in my following discourse touching Preachers both Good and Bad and afterwards also of the Vniting and Division or falling off of Kingdomes and Countries from one another I would also have Severer Punishments and more examplary peeces of Justice then usual if it may be to be at once and speedily inflicted upon all Conspirators least by often repeating of lighter Punishments upon them their Hate be thereby the more encreased and shew it self upon all Occasions But again if any such having made their escapes shall yet after some space of time begin to be humbled and repent of their Wickednesse I would not that all hope of Pardon and Reconciliation should be cut off from them As for the Preventing of the Barons rising against the King the courses before laid down may be taken No Heresies can spread or get any footing any where but by the Clergy as I have demonstrated elsewhere The King's Deputies or Viceroyes ought to have no command over any Castles or Frontier Townes that have Garrisons in them but all such places are to be committed to the trust of some Particular Commanders residing in the same and who are Experienced Souldiers and betwixt whom and the Viceroyes there is no great correspondence And let these be chosen out of the Barons of the Kingdome that so their Baronies or Lordships may be as Pledges for their Fidelity to the King And to this end I would have Spaniards to be sent into Italy and contrariwise Italians to be sent into Spain to take upon them these Charges CHAP. XVIII Of Preachers and Prophesies IT is certain that the People especially of a certain number of Kingdomes are of more power then the King himself with all his Friends and Souldiers I mean in the Christian World for in Turky whether it be so or no is as yet something a doubtful businesse It is therefore necessary to produce here some reasons why the People do not upon every light Occasion rise up against the King and shake the Yoak from off their neck and these are because that being so scattered and at such a distance from one another they cannot so well joyn in a body and stick together or else because they are worthlesse dull-headed fellowes and have none to head them in a Rebellion in whom they may repose their confidence and hope Now it is manifest again on the other side that the Causes of the Publick peace and quietnesse do derive their Original from the Wisedome of the Preachers and others of the Clergy to whom the people give an ear and that so much the rather because These promise unto them Eternal Blessings which if they do but despise their Temporal they may attain unto perswading them withal that it is agreeable to the Will of God that Obedience should be yeilded to the King and that by suffering Afflictions they shall be rewarded by God himself withal often inculcating into their minds Humility and other the like Vertues but grievously threatning all Theeves Murderers Whoremongers and Seditious persons declaring what Punishments both from Men and God himself continually hang over their heads on the contrary comforting and encouraging the Good and promising them all manner of Happinesse And so by this meanes the words of these men being greedily hearkned unto by their Auditors overcome and captivate their Minds and Affections and then again all Wicked Irreligious persons are cast out of doors with their Perfidious designs being unable to infect any either Magistrate or Souldier with their corrupt malitious Perswasions or by any means to incite them to a Rebellion The First Instrument
him And indeed from that time forward the Kingdome of France seems to have been continually in declining as appears plainly out of History It is therefore a Profane Remedy to lay hands upon or to attempt any thing against the person of a Priest Other Princes again have elected Anti-popes as did the Duke of Bavaria by which meanes they were afflicted worse then before Others have summoned such Bishops and Popes as have been obstinate perverse Persons and enemies to them to appear before a General Councel but this devise of theirs the Pope hath now eluded it being openly delared to all the World that a Generall Councel hath no power at all over the Pope and a Decree being also made That No Councel shall be called but by the Pope alone And for this reason did Pope Leo X. ruine those Cardinals that were present at the Councel of Pisa and yet neither did their friends the Princes obtain what they desired Eclesiastical Princes have alwaies been wiser then Secular some of whom have found a remedy for this Evil by yeilding and submitting themselves as Theodosius the Emperour humbled himself before that Good Bishop St Ambrose and the Kings of the Goths left Rome and went to Ravenna to reside giving way to the Popes as well to the Bad as the Good And That King of England also by whose command Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered made choyce rather to enter into Conditions of Peace with the Pope then to lose his Kingdom and so was forced to pay yearly to the Pope forty Thousand Marks of Gold and besides at his death he made the Pope his heir to the Kingdom by his last Will and Testament After the Example of these Princes it will behoove the King of Spain also to give way to the Pope whether He be Good or Bad and to lay aside what Controversies soever he shall have with him and to leave such Bishops as are his enemies to be chastised by the Pope to whom He must wholly unite himself by those waies which are before set down Alexander the King of the Jewes having drawn upon himself the hatred of the Pharises and being now upon his death bed persuaded his wife as Josephus testifies that by all meanes she should take him and throw him down headlong out at the Window telling her that by so doing she should give full satisfaction to the incensed Pharises who after she had done that Act would suffer her to succeed him in the Kingdom giving her Counsel besides that she should ever take heed how she fell out with any Religious persons least she suffered that which himself had done But if such men as are Authorised by no Superiour Power especially if they be Clergy men such as were Arrius Savanarola and Luther shall rise up against any State this is a very dangerous case and it must then be enquired into whether these men have any encouragement from the Pope to do so or not for if so be they have and He contradicts them not then is the Evill in a manner Incurable but if they have not Him for their Abettor then may an order be very easily taken with them For here it is necessary that it be considered whether these Men be Good or Bad for both may prove very dangerous and if they are Bad they must then be rooted out by the Authority of the Pope but if they are Good men they must then be cited to appear before a General Councel where by the Authority of the Pope being also interposed they may be openly convinced in like manner as Berengarius being convinced of his Errour yeilded to the Truth and submitted and this is the Course that ought to be taken where the Parties are sincerely and really Good men and not meer Hypocrites onely But if they maintain a Good Cause those Faults which they did inveigh against in their Sermons are to be mended and they themselves are to be sent for away to Rome where they should afterwards spend the rest of their Lives as was done by Bartholomaeus Miranda Archbishop of Toledo and the Bishop of Curzola who was expelled from his Bishoprick by the Venetians If they are Lay-men as was John of Leyden and Philip Melancthon there is no great danger to be feared from them For these two after the breach had been first made by Luther at length rose up and when now Luther had already setled his Erroneous Religion and false Priesthood in Germany But in our Dominions no One Lay-man whatsoever would be able to bring about such a businesse without the assistance of some one of the Clergy It is an Infallible Rule that no Heresie did ever do any hurt in a Country unlesse the Prince himself of that Country for some Reasons of State afforded some Patronage to the same as I have shewed where I discoursed touching the Papal Monarchy It will therefore concern all Princes to take care that their Nobles also be not infected with the said Heresie which they may prevent by taking them off with Employments and so diverting their Minds from any such thoughts as I have delivered before Now these Rules are to be diligently observed with these aforesaid Hereticks You must be careful that you do not fall to dispute with them about Minute Quirks and subtilties in Divinity but only that you require them to give you a good account of their Calling and to produce the Names of their Authors after this manner suppose Who commanded you to teach these things publickly Were they Men or Divels rather For we cannot believe they should be any other And then if they shall answer that They have their Calling from God let them then make the same appear to you by doing some Miracles or other such as God heretofore armed His Messengers with namely Moses Elijah and the Apostles And if they are not able to do any such things you should then bring them to the Stake and burn them if you can and render them as Infamous as possibly you may But be sure you avoid all Grammatical Disputations and Logical Subtilties but dispute with them only according to the Principles of Divine Logick as St. Francis did in Egypt and St. John Guidalbert and as I my self have endeavoured to do in my Dialogues against the Lutherans and Calvinists laying down a way how they are to be convinced by an Apostolical and Political way least out of multiplying idle and vain words one Controversie may still be started out of another which to perverse and Malicious spirits will be taken for a kind of Victory I would also have them condemned to be Burnt out of the Imperial Constitutions for as much as they rob Persons in Authority of their Goods and Good name such as are the Pope and other Religious and Pious men who have confirmed the Faith of the Church and sealed it with their Blood which indeed is more precious then what ever other Treasures in the World and therefore
as the Finlanders are used to do who when they go out to fight against the Muscovites are wont to carry along with them a great number of Fierce Mastive dogs which also many times do them very good service Which very thing was also put in practise in the West Indies by Vasco Nugnez not without much slaughter done upon those Barbarians many times also by this meanes putting them to flight But we have already dwelt long enough upon Spain CHAP. XXI Of Italy SPain hath no Nation that is more a friend to It then Italy And therefore for the preserving of the Amity and Friendship of the Italians it is very fit that the King of Spain should so court and ply by Benefits and Gifts both the Neapolitans and the Millanois as that other Nations seeing it should admire the Felicity of those Two countries should withal wish themselve had the like good Fortune And this the King may do by remitting some thing of their Gabels and Taxes by increasing the number of Men in both those Dominions and He may also erect in both these Countries certain Seminaries out of which as out of the Trojan Horse may issue forth Able Persons that are skilled both in all the Liberal and Military Sciences and such as are withal most firm and resolved Catholicks as we have hinted before Which thing would certainly cause in Forreigners both Admiration and Astonishment neither would the King as the Opinion of some men herein is lose any thing at all thereby Let there be also some course taken for the Restraining of Usurers and let Him set up some Monti della Pieta as they call them that is Banks of Charity which are certain publick Houses where the poorer sort of Citizens have the liberty of taking up Mony upon their Pawns Let them also restrain the grouth of the Nobility and let the Barons Prisons be visited sometimes for These are many times too cruel Neither would I have it in the power of any to imprison any man by any private Authority except it be in Case of Sedition or Violation of the Publick Peace or of Treason against the Prince and those that are Prisoners should be dealt more gently with then they have been hitherto wont to be for the Kings Officers by their Intolerable Cruelty have caused the King to be branded with that Infamous Name of a Tyrant especially in the Kingdom of Naples And I conceive it would make very much for the winning of the Love and Good will of the common People if the King would appoint One Commissary at least who should joyn to himself some of the Clergy and should go and visit all the Publique Prisons reforming what abuses they find there and should also take an Account of all Usurers and of the Inferiour sort of Publick Officers as hath been touched before I would also have him to shew mercy to such as are Proscribed and Banisht persons under the Pretense of sending them into Africk and I would really advise Him once in seven years to send all such into the West-Indies As for those Souldiers which have alwayes hitherto been set over the subjects I would have them to be all disbanded and in their stead to have so much the greater Number of Gallies provided that should lye all along the Sea Coasts throughout all the Kings Dominions to guard and secure them against the Invasions of the Turk For these Souldiers have alwaies carried themselves very Insolently and proudly towards the People but have been still very backward and unwilling to go out in any Expedition by Sea against the Turks and besides when they have returned home from any such Expedition they have usually abused poor Citizens that have behaved themselves stoutly in the Fight cudgelling them and forcing from them such prisoners as they had taken and so afterwards in a Thrasonicall boasting way make their brags abroad that Themselves had taken those Turks prisoners which most base unworthy course we see practised in Calabria every day It were a better way therefore that the subjects themselves should take up Arms and go out against the Turks and should have at least half the Mony that the Prisoners taken in the War are valued at for by this means the King will have both Valiant and Rich men to Fight for Him neither shall He have cause to fear least the subjects through the hatred they bear the Souldiers for their Cruelties should seek to change their Masters and bring in some other to Rule over them Let Him also take order for the restraining of the knavish Diligence of the Officers of the Kings Exchequer who to maintain the Kings Right forsooth forbear not to use any manner of cruelty towards the poor subjects imprisoning them and extorting mony from them under any pretenses how unjust so ever But of these evils and their Remedies we have spoken sufficiently before where we discoursed of Justice c. These Sea expeditions will render the King secure both from his Enemies abroad and his own subjects at home whereas on the contrary the Souldiers that are set over the Country people do at first but very little good and afterwards do none at all And therefore the putting of good full Guards into all the strong Holds upon the Sea Coast will be sufficient for the securing of the Inland parts and withall the People will by this means be kept in a Loving Awfulnesse and Dread of their Prince The best part of Italy that is to say the Kingdome of Naples and the Duchy of Millan is subject to the King of Spain and those other parts that are not so are stirred up by their several Princes who stand in fear of the Spaniards Potency against the Spaniards made to hate them whence it is that they are wont to threaten the King of Spain with two things The first is that they will call in the French and encourage them to set upon the state of Millan which mischief however the King might easily prevent if he would but place strong Garrisons in all the Frontier Towns of the said Duchy and would quite destroy all the small unfortified Villages that lying here and there scattered about are made a Booty by the Enemy that hath liberty to range up and down where they please And He might take order also as the Hungarians do that all the Provision of Corn and all the subjects Goods be carried into the Fortified Cities and Places of strength with all manner of Mechanical Instruments that so those that have fled thither in the time of any Siege or Incursions of the Enemy may have where withall to set themselves on work and may so get wherewith to keep themselves But Genoa lies very conveniently for the coming into the Kings Assistance and so doth Naples also if so be the King would but provide himself of such a Fleet as I spake of before to ly about those Seas in a Readinesse For it is a most certain
this particular he must then deal with them that it may be conferred upon some one that they shall pitch upon by way of Election Or else in the last place He must speedily have recourse to the Arts before set down which King Philip failed in before And this manner of Electing a King upon condition that he be a Catholick would very much please the Italians and the Catholick Princes of France also would very willingly assent thereto because that every one of them would have some hope hereby of attaining to the Crown himself And if this should once come to passe it would prove a very great Weakning to the Kingdom of France for during the Vacancy of the Crown there must needs arise very great and long Dissentions amongst them and possibly the King of Spain also being called in by some or other of the Princes might come to have a finger in the businesse Now for as much as Elective Kings are for the most part not much given to trouble themselves about the enlarging the Bounds of their Kingdome because that they know very well that their Sons are not their Successours therefore neither will they expose themselves to danger upon the Account of another mans Interest And this is the onely reason why the Emperours of Germany never trouble themselves about the enlarging of their Empire as neither do the Kings of Poland unlesse they chance to be Persons of a high Warlick Spirit as King Steven was surnamed Battorius and Sigismund both which maintained Wars with the Muscovites Tartarians and others about the Principality of Prussia and some other Territories because they hoped that their Sons should at least have succeeded them in those This Course is of very good use to a Prince for the acquiring of Military Glory and through the Multitude of Victories and the affection of his Souldiers for the bringing his own Country under his subjection which Course I before shewed was to be taken by the Emperour of Germany according to the Example of Julius Caesar Yet notwithstanding this piece of Craft being well understood by the French hath been the cause that they have now laid aside all desires of enlarging their Territories meerly to avoid that Suspition And This Suspition is the reason why the Venetians do not send Commanders of their Own into their Wars but rather chuse to make use of Forraign Commanders whom a Little Mony contents well enough for their Pay For as to this particular it was no small hazard which they heretofore run under Carmagnola and Ludovicus Vrsinus And Francis Sforza who was but a Mercenary Souldier under the State of Venice returning home a Conquerour made himself Duke of Millun For this very cause the Romans heretofore hated the Tarquins their Kings who till that time had alwaies been Elective and this very thing also was the Ruine of the Duke of the Athenians that was Elected at Florence Neither are Opportunities at this time wanting of setting the French together by the ears among themselves for although their Peace is not at this time at all disturbed by any Forraign Enemies yet they being naturally of an Impatient Unquiet spirit are alwaies rising up one against another although it be perhaps but upon their quarrel about the Heresie of the Calvinists and I know not what New Gospel which wheresoever it is preached it bringeth not Joy but Mourning not Peace but horrid Wars and filleth the Minds of Men not with Good Will but with rage and Madnesse This Mischief therefore ought to be taken in due time and have a stop put to it for this Contagion hath already infected above two hundred thousand persons in France For if so be it should spread further and should infect the Nobility also and Peers of the Kingdom it would be much to be feared that there would never be any end of the Troubles of France which is now the Condition of Germany by means of the Dukes of Saxony Hessen and others For as we see such Kingdomes as abound with Nobles are made in a manner Immortal as we may evidently perceive by the examples of France and Persia For when France was heretofore in a manner all subdued and brought in subjection by the King of England yet it was afterwards through the Industry and by the endeavours of the Nobility and Gentry wholly asserted restored again to Its first Natural Lord. And so likewise the Kingdome of Persia which is one while annoyed by the Tartarians and again another while by the Saracens is yet so well defended by the Persian Nobility as that It is kept from falling under either of their Power and Obedience But yet on the contrary side again the very same Kingdomes are by reason of their Nobility also obnoxious to most unavoidable and miserable Calamities seeing they are able at any time either to assist or protect all such as endeavour to introduce any Innovations either in the State or Religion CHAP. XXV Of England Scotland and Ireland ALthough the English seem the least of all to affect an Vniversal Monarchy yet notwithstanding they have been a very great hinderance to the King of Spains designs that way several examples whereof may be gathered from the proceedings of the aforesaid Queen Elizabeth of England who appeared both against the Catholick King in the Low-Countries and against the most Christian King in France by fomenting the corrupt Humours in the subjects of both these Princes and in assisting the Hereticks both with her Counsels and Forces For they possesse an Island that is excellently well furnished both with Shipping and Souldiers and by this means they rob the King of Spain in all places in the North wheresoever he hath any thing and also wander out abroad as far as to the New World where although by reason of the Fortifications made upon the Sea Coast they cannot lay the foundation of any Kingdome yet do they do the Spaniards no small harme there For that same famous Englishman Captain Drake following the example of Magellan who had done the same before him sailed round about the whole World more then once and it is not impossible but that the Kingdom of Bacalaos which lies somewhat near to the English and is very convenient for them by reason of the temperatenesse of the Air may be some time or other seazed upon by them However it is most certain that if the King of Spain could but once make himself Master of England and the Low-Countries He would quickly get to be sole Monarch of all Europe and of the greatest part of the New World But seeing that He is not able to reduce this Island under His Obedience because that It is so exceeding strong by reason both of its Situation and multitude of Inhabitants who Naturally hate the Spaniard and are quite different from them both in their Manners and also their Religion it will concern Him therefore to defend himself as well as he can and to fortifie and set strong
while that we do nothing but faâ—â— together by the Eares one with another But if this cannot be brought about the Persians must then be persuaded to joyn with the Ethiopians Muscovites and Polonians as hath been said before And I do believe also that the Great Turks Bassaes and other of his Subjects would quickly be got to fall off from him if so be they could but be once fully perswaded assured that they should each of them really be made the absolute Lords of what they now possessed All which things ought to have their Accomplishment in the death of this Mahomet III. now Raigning seeing that That Number is Fatal The Great Turks Younger Sons also are to be seazed upon and conveigh'd away least the Eldest Brother should Murder them according to their usual Custome and this the Venetians may do conveniently enough by their Merchants or else the same may be committed to the Christian Slaves that are there to be done by them After that this Empire shall be thus weakned and divided it would be convenient then to send thether some Preachers who should endeavour to convince the Natives of their Error There should care also be taken by all meanes for the bringing of Printing into Turky by meanes whereof that People may be taken off from the exercise of Arms and may apply themselves to Books and by being taken up with Disputations concerning Points of Divinity and Philosophy both of the Peripateticks Stoicks Platonists and Telesians they may be divided amongst themselves and so be the more weakned For those that give themselves to the study of Books onely usually become a Prey to such as apply themselves to the exercise of Armes and the study of the Arts too as we see in the example of Athens which became a Prey to the Lacedemonians both which Nations Philip King of Macedon by the force of his Armes afterwards subdued being first instructed by Epaminondas by what meanes this was to be effectd Cato was wont to say that the Romans would lose their Empire so soon as ever they should begin to apply themselves to the study of the Greek Tongue and Sciences This the Great Turk who is wiser then We are knew very well and therefore preferred rather the exercise of Armes and got him great Guns and Slaves I mean those Jewes that were sent to him by Ferdinand the last King of Arragon for he knew very well what and how great Advantage might be made by Sâ—â—â—es and that the Children that they should beget were to be brought up in the exercise of Armes and the knowledge of Military Affaires But then on the contrary He would not receive nor accept of those Printing-Presses and Letter for the Printing of the Arabick Tongue that were sent Him by the great Duke of Tuscany because he would not have his Dominions filled with Books because that would much take off the Military Valour of his Subjects and besides because that Mahumetanisme by frequent Disputations about it might easily in a short time have been overthrown It hath also been very prejudicial unto Us that we have had no Law made for the Injoyning of Silence whereby we should have been commanded to conceal some things from others which Law certainly would have been of very good use But now adaies in Germany all things are made Publick and laid open to the whole World and hence it is that we see every one there publisheth in Print a New Bible and that the Empire goes to ruine and that all places are overwhelmed with Luxury and Riot And had not the fear of the King of Spain's Armies kept the Netherlanders in Awe they also would by this time have been as Effeminate and Luxurious as the Germans are And the like would have befallen to the English also So that we might have hopes that unlesse there were a War maintained amongst them to keep them in exercise they would all quickly come to utter ruine after that they should but once come to be Effeminate Heart-lesse and at discord one with another as we have said formerly and that so much the rather because that the Heresie they professe seeing it denyes the Freedom of the Will is repugnant to all Principles of Policy Now all Heresies when they are once gone so far as to Atheisme are reduced again into the way of Truth by some Wise Prophet or other such as were in Italy Thomas Aquinas Dominicus Scotus and others For Heresies also have their Periods as well as States which fall first from being governed by good Kings into the hands of Tyrants from their Tyranny into an Aristocracy from thence into an Oligarchy and so at length to a Democracy and in the end they shift about again and in a Circle as it were return again to their first form either of a Kingdom or a Tyranny CHAP. XXXI Of the Other Hemisphere and of the New World THe Admirable Discovery of the New World which was foreseen by St. Brigitt and expressely foretold by Seneca in his Medea and there lively set forth in its proper Colours and Names according as he had received the same from one of the Sibylls hath been the cause that this Hemisphere of Ours hath been thereby rapt into the greatest Admiration that can be For some of the Ancientest among the Philosophers of which number was Xenophanes were of Opinion that That Other Hemisphere lay all covered over with Water some others as Lactantius and St. Augustine thought that the Earth was not a Perfect Globe about which the Sun was carried in his Diurnal Motion And some others believed among whom was Dante that those Countries were Inhabited and were a certain kind of Earthly Paradise Some there were that doubted hereof amongst whom was Aristotle and again some others of them confidently affirmed that the Earth was an Absolute and Perfect Orbe or Globe and of this number were Plato and Origen And therefore it is but for just cause that all the World admires the Spanish Monarchy as both very Daring and very Powerful seeing that It hath measured and overcome so many Seas and in a short space of time hath put a girdle about the vast Globe of the Whole Earth which neither Carthage nor Tyre were ever heretofore able to do nor yet the wisest of All Men King Solomon whose Fleet making its Voyage as far as Goa only and Taprobane spent alwaies three whole years in the same which yet Our Seamen now adaies perform in three Moneths time So that although the Vast distance of place that there is betwixt the several parts of the Spanish Monarchy seems to render It Weak yet doth their Admirable Skill in Navigation for the shortening of those Distances together with those other Means of Uniting these Parts which the Spaniards daily do make use of or may make use of when they please make the same most Illustrious and more Admirable then some perhaps do imagine However to the end that the King of Spain may not
out in reference to the Spanish Monarchy only and the support of the Papacy yet may all wise Judicious men make very good use of the same and apply what Counsells are here given the King of Spain to their own Affaires For if it be good counsel for the King of Spain to take To procure and maintain a peferct Vnion among his own subjects at home but on the Contrary To sow the seeds of Division among his Enemies abroad the same must be as good Counsel for the King of France also to take or any other Prince or Potentate what ever If it be good Counsel to the Spaniard Never to trust so much to any peace made with an Enemy as thereupon quite to lay aside his Armes it is altogether as good Counsel for any other Prince And the same may be said of any other of the General Maxims of Policy delivered here by our Author But as for what in Particular concerns the Advancement of the Spaniard and his Designs in order to the bringing about of his Universal Monarchy whether the Rules by our Author laid down were in sufficient to do the businesse or whether hough they were every way as full and proper as could be yet having not been precisely observed the businesse hath miscarried and the Spaniard hath not as yet arrived and perhaps now is never like to arrive to the end of his Desires all this needs not hinder but that thou shouldest look upon this Author as a man of a most clear wit Judgment and prize him as one that was full of knowledge and experience in the Affaires of the World and a most industrious and studious person In the Third and last place thou art to take notice as concerning this Translation that we have therein dealt so fairely nd Ingenuuosly with our Author as that we have perfectly and entirely preserved his own sense unto him Neither have we stopt his foul mouth where he hath either used ill Language toward any of the Protestant Princes or cast dirt into the faces of the first Reformers Luther Calvin c. For to what end should we falsifie our Original by making our Author more Civil then he had a mind to be seeing we are never a whit the worse for being so miscalled by him nor is he himself a jot the wiser for using us so And to say the Truth we our selves take the same Liberty towards them and therefore for ought I see Hanc Veniam petimusque damusque vicissim We must even be content to allow each other this Liberty on both sides An Index of the CHAPTERS CHAP. I. OF the Causes of Humane Principalities Page 1. CHAP. II. The Causes of the Spanish Empire p. 4 CHAP. III. Of the first Cause of Empires namely God p. 6 CHAP. IV. Of the Spanish Empire considered according to the First Cause p. 9 CHAP. V. Of the Second Cause namely Prudence 15 CHAP. VI. How the Clergy are to be dealt withal 25 CHAP. VII What may be further added concerning Prudence and Opportunity 30 CHAP. VIII The Causes by which the Spanish Monarchy may be enlarged and become lesse 31 CHAP. IX Of the King 32 CHAP. X. What Sciences are required in a Monarch to render Him admired by all 45 CHAP. XI Of Lawes both good and bad 50 CHAP. XII Of Counsel 52 CHAP. XIII Of Justice and its Contrary 57 CHAP. XIV Of the Barons and Nobility of the Spanish Empire 60 CHAP. XV. Of the Souldiery 66 CHAP. XVI Of the Treasure of Spain 81 CHAP. XVII Of the Peoples Love and Hate as also of Conspiracies 93 CHAP. XVIII Of Preachers and Prophesies 105 CHAP. XIX Of such Kingdomes as are properly belonging to the King of Spain and of such also as are his Enemies and of these which are in League with each other and which not 115 CHAP. XX. Of Spain 125 CHAP. XXI Of Italy 129 CHAP. XXII Of Sicily and Sardinia 136 CHAP. XXIII Of Germany 139 CHAP. XXIV Of France 144 CHAP. XXV Of England Scotland and Ireland 155 CHAP. XXVI Of Poland Muscovia and Transylvania 162 CHAP. XXVII Of Flanders and the Lower Germany 165 CHAP. XXVIII Of Africk 185 CHAP. XXIX Of Persia and Cataia 194 CHAP. XXX Of the Great Turk and his Empire 197 CHAP. XXXI Of the Other Hemisphere and the New World 211 CHAP. XXXII Of Navigation 223 The Authors Preface THe Universal Monarchy of the World begining from the East and so coming at length to the West having passed through the hands of the Assyrians Medes Persians Greeks and Romans who were divided by the Imperial Eagle into Three Heads is at length come down to the Spaniard upon whom after so long Slavery and Division it is wholly conferred by Fate and that with greater Splendour then on any of his Predecessors to whom also according to the Vicissitude of Humane Affaires it did of right belong Now although I had not any Intention to write any thing touching either the Government or the Enlargement of the Spanish Monarchy which you most Noble Alfonso have desired me to do yet being at length delivered from my Tedious Sicknesse and my Ten years Afflictions though I am utterly deprived of the help of any Books and am as it were shut up as a Prisoner in this my Cell I shall notwithstanding in a brief and Compendious way give your Lordship an account what my Judgment is concerning this Subject and shall give in the Causes of each several Point in General first not after a Natural nor a Theological but after a Political way and shall afterwards also descend to treat more Particularly of the same Tho. Campanella A DISCOURSE TOUCHING The Spanish Monarchy CHAP. I. Of the Causes of Humane Principalities IN the acquiring and managing of every Dominion and Principality there usually concur three Causes that is to say God Prudence and Occasion All which being joyned together are called by the name of Fate which is nothing else but a concurrence of all the Causes working by vertue of the First And hence also is Fortune sprung which is the Successe of Earthly things whether it be good or evil which if it be rightly known is called Prudence but if otherwise it is then called Fate Fortune or Chance As for example if a man find that which he had long sought after it is called Vnderstanding and Prudence but if he light upon a thing which he did not seek after nor knew where it was it is called Chance or Fortune Among these three Causes One sometimes prevailes in the ruling of things more then Another and perhaps more then the Other two Yet notwithstanding if we will confesse the truth they are all Three Politically concurring in the businesse Do but take notice of the Kingdome of the Jewes wherein God was the Principal Agent who by sending Moses and Aaron furnished out the Other Two Causes For Moses was a person of extraordinary Wisdome and Knowledge not onely in Divine but in Humane things also for he
of the whole World and we see that he hath already followed his Footsteeps in having delivered the Church heretofore out of the hands of the Moors of Granado as he hath lately done from the Hereticks of England the Low-Countries and France and He maintaines besides with yearly Revenues so many Bishops Cardinals and Monasteries and he hath also setled the Daily Sacrifice throughout the whole World for as much as that every half hour indeed continually the Masse is celebrated throughout his Empire within the compasse whereof the Roman Papacy the City of Jerusalem and the Temple are contained Neither doth it ever Sleep in his Empire For seeing that the Sun being carried about in his Course from Spain to Brasile the Straites of Magellan the Philippine Islands Japan China Archipelagus Lazari Calecut Goa Bengala Ormus the Cape of Good hope the Sea Coast of Africk and the Fortunate Islands till it comes back again to the same Spain there is no hour of the day but it enlightens some part of His Dominions there is no question but that there are continually Sacrifices offered up to the God of Heaven and Earth It is certainly a very wonderful thing and a most evident Sign that this Kingdom of his is diffused to a vast distance wherein Prayers are continually offered up for the Church and the King together with what Stupendous Sacrifice which both according to the Truth and the Opinion of Men is of no mean Efficacy in the hearts of his Subjects Whence I affirm that the King of Spain following the Order of Things and by observing the Rules of Prudence together with Occasion may bring all things under his Obedience as it shall be made appear out of the Reasons hereafter following For this is already evident that he engages in the same Interest with that of the German Empire which is the same with that of Italy which is the same with that of Rome of Greece and of Persia or the Empire of Cyrus and so consequently of that of Media and Babylon And he shall have the Assistance of many several Angels as that of Cyrus and of Michael and afterwards all things shall be delivered into the hands of Gog and Magog But the Christians shall overcome and then shall Christ come to Judge the World And then shall the end be But the Eclipse and the Great Conjunction in Sagittary which is the Constellation of Spain will discover many secrets when I shall have opportunity to discourse of the same CHAP. V. Of the Second Cause namely Prudence FOr as much as Prudence is required in the manageing of all Humane things which is a Cause adjoyned to Fate consisting of an infinite number of Joynt Causes acting by vertue of the Prime Cause so especially it is necessary in the manageing of an Empire by It the whole World is governed and it is disseminated by God through all the Universe For Nature is an Intrinsecal Divine Art and whosoever shall follow Nature as his guide he is wise which appears evidently in Plants Ants Bees Cranes and the very Fishes themselves which small Creatures do oftentimes afford Instruction even to Men in the managing of their Dominions Whence we are to understand that Prudence is a different thing from Craft which is called by some Ratio Statuum regendorum the Reason or Rule of State-Government For Prudence is agreeable to the Prime Cause namely God whence it searcheth into Prophesies and Divine Sciences to the end that it may attain to the knowledge of things to come But Craft seeks after its own satisfaction and Pleasure only and is Pleased with nothing more then the subtlety of its own Wit Which notwithstanding though falsely calls it self Wisedom according to what was spoken by Pharaoh Venite Sapienter opprimamus eos Come on let us deal wisely with them Prudence is Magnanimous and Proposeth to it self onely such things as are truly of most difficult Atchievement But Craft is pusillanimous and sneaking yet that it may appear to be Magnanimous It puts on the garbe of Pride and would fain seem to reach at high matters but alwayes out of the way of Vertue and it flies at mean things such as are scarcely of any value at all Prudence is addicted to Clemency and Truth but Craft is Cruel and given to Flattery Whence the Crafty Princes saying is that the Nobles the Wise and the Valiant are to be made out of the way least happily they should wrest the Scepter out of his Hand Quicquid excelsum est cadat was the saying of Nero and Periander whatsoever is High you must down with it But Prudence makes use of the Assistance of such for the establishing of its own Kingdom as we read that the Honest Pharaoh who differed much from the other Crafty Pharaoh made use of the service of Joseph And this is the Rule also of the Pope who is wont to advance such as are Wise and Learned persons to the dignity of being Cardinals The Crafty Prince studieth how to find out deceitful tricks and fraudulent devises to impose upon his Subjects But the Prudent looks after advantageous and useful Arts and such as may encourage his people and make every one of them the more ready for the discharge of his duty as we see in Numa who that he might render Himself the more Venerable and worthy of esteem to the People of Rome found out for them and established a Form of Religion and Sacred Rites that so by this meanes He might the better make them contain themselves within the Bounds of their Duty and Obedience Prudence is a Vertue that becometh Kings and Emperours but Craft is fit only for Davusses and Slaves Prudence while it loseth is a gainer as we may observe of St. Peter and from the practise of the Pope at this day and the more inwardly we are acquainted with it the more fervently we love it Whereas Craft while it gaines is a loser and the better it is known and seen into the more it is hated As wee see it was in that wicked Disciple of Machiavell Caesar Borgia who by his Crafty Politique Tricks lost the Principality of Flaminia which is now called Romania and in Tiberius also and Nero who by their Finesses and Crafty designments darkened and cast a cloud over the Majestie of the Roman Empire which had been rendred so resplendent and Illustrious before by the Prudent Management of Augustus Caesar The Prudent Prince proposeth to himself the good of the Publique only but the Crafty looks onely after his own Private gain The Prudent that he may accomplish his desires shewes himself Valiant even almost to Rash adventuring as Columbus Caesar Alexander and Cyrus did and withall Liberal also even to a seeming degree of Prodigality and lastly Just yet with a Moderation in his Severity And therefore when he gets any thing he bestowes it all upon his Subjects that so he may oblige them to him by Benefits and may make them
Spain therefore do in like manner aspire to the same Height it is necessary that he frame some New Religion but this neither God nor Reason permits him to do For First this is never to be done but in the very Infancy and beginning of a Kingdom as you may see in the examples of Mahomet Romulus and Pythagoras for otherwise he must needs come to ruine by changing the Auspicia Regni the Fortune of the Kingdom as I may call it whose dependance is from Faith in Christ and then the People will immediately betake themselves to their Armes and revolt from him Neither indeed have any Monarchies been either more certainly or more miserably brought to destruction then when they have changed their Religion as is testified by Histories And then again the Pope and the rest of the Princes of Christendom would joyn their whole strengths together and would in a very litle time root him out of his Kingdom of Naples Millan and consequently also of the New World the rest of his Dominions And although these things were not done to Henry the VIII of England nor yet to the Duke of Saxony because their Territories were encompassed within small though well fortified Bounds yet for all that did they fail of succession and so their States went away from them And we have examples hereof also in Jeroboam Jehu Julian the Apostate and others who for having changed their Religion incurred the hatred of their People and brought destruction upon themselves Unlesse we shall say that the Pope hath no power at all in Temporal things nor is any whit above either any other of the Bishops or theirs Surrogates or Chaplains in Authority or degree which is evidently contradictory to Gods Ordination by which He hath been constituted a Regal Priest and hath been armed with both the Swords as well the Civill as the Spiritual For were it otherwise Christ should be a very mean Law-giver and should be lesse then Melchisedech who was both King and Priest together which addeth both the greater Majesty as well as security to any Kingdom as I have proved in my Treatise Touching Monarchy against Dante who looking only upon the Priesthood of Aaron allowes to the Pope nothing but Spiritualties and Tithes only And which is more this impugnes also all Reasons of Policy because the Pope can never want those that will take up Armes in His defence in case He should not be able to defend Himself and that either by being moved thereunto through Zeal to Religion as the Countesse Matilda did against the Emperour Henry or else out of Emulation or some interest of Faction as it was in the Case of the Venetians making war upon the Emperour Frederick whom they compelled to kisse the Popes Foot or for both these reasons as when King Pipin and Charles the Great took up Armes in assistance of the Pope against the Lombards and others who waged war against him Thus we see that the Constantinopolitan Empire came to be destroyed for the Apostasy of Julian and Constantius in like manner as all the Fredericks Henries and other Kings also of Naples suffered for the same Cause as often as they denied their Obedience to the Pope And certainly the Opinion and Beliefe which hath prevailed upon the Minds of all People touching the Christian Religion is of very great force and moves them to defend It to the utmost of their power so that whensoever the Pope hath excommunicated any Prince He doth at the same instant ruine him also Do but observe I pray you to what state Ferraria is reduced at this day But we have discoursed more copiously of this in the Treatise of Monarchy It is lastly against all Policy too for the Pope withholds the rest of the Princes of Christendom from invading Spain as he doth the King of Spain from invading them by continually composing their differences in like manner as he divided India betwixt the Portugals and the Spaniards and thus hath several times made peace betwixt the Spaniards and the French Venetians and Genowaies and so likewise betwixt Pisa and Florence which yet he would not so easily be able to do by the meer Reverence they bear to Religion For here in these Cases they have an eye as well to the force of Armes as to Religion for He that is in the wrong Cause may justly suspect the Popes joyning of his strength to that of his Antagonist and so for this reason he will the more readily obey the Popes Injunction as I have declared formerly in the forementioned Treatise And the King of Spain if he but declare himself for and stand up in the defence of the Pope shall be sure to have alwayes the assistance of His Forces at his devotion at any time which will be a good means of confirming his Kingdom to him And therefore I conceave it very necessary according to the Fate of Christendom that if the King of Spain would arrive to an Universal Monarchy He must declare himself publiquely to have his dependance from the Pope and command it to be published all abroad throughout the World that himself is the Cyrus that was before typified and the Catholick King that is the Universal Monarch of the World declaring this his Monarchy by his Religious Counsels and pious Actions and passing also by many litigious Controversies which he hath with the Pope and dwelling in the Tents of Sem making it appear to all the World that He is the Chief Defender of Christian Religion that depends wholly upon the Pope of Rome calling together also the Christian Princes to consult about the recovery of those Countreys they have lost and are at this day in the hands of Hereticks and Turks and He must proceed to the causing of such to be excommunicated as shall deny their assistance herein and lastly he must also take care that Pious and diligent Preachers be sent abroad into the World to promote this businesse For the Plain truth of it is that the Pope picks quarrels sometimes with the King of Spain for no other reason but only because he is afraid that in case he should subdue the King of France and the Princes of Italy hee would then make Him only as his Chaplain And this is the reason why He desires that they should alwayes be at variance one with another that so in case either of them should fall off from Him by reason either of Apostasy or some quarrel or other He might have the other to assist him And this is the reason why he stirred up the Western Empire against the Eastern onely because they had forsaken their former Religion had had many Clashings with the Pope about It. But now if King Philip will but do that which is his duty as is before declared and will but give way to the Pope in some things which he pretends His Right and will besides send some Bishops and Cardinals into the Belgick Provinces and to the New world to
dispose of and order things there he will by this meanes both free the Pope from this suspition and shall withall effect his own desires seeing that it is evident that the Pope by his Indulgencies and Croysados brings him in more mony then those Dignities which he bestowes upon Cardinals Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Persons do yearly stand him in so that he will be a gainer in that wherein he is affraid most of being a loser And this he would quickly confesse if he would but cause it to be publickly preached and proclaimed abroad that the end of the World is at hand and that the time is now come when there is to be one Sheepfold under One Shepheard that is the Pope and that Himself is another Cyrus whose Office it is to see these things brought about and to gather all the Flock into that One Sheepfold and that what Nation or Kingdom soever shall refuse to yield Him obedience shall be brought to destruction and many other things which I had rather deliver by speech then writing There are many Causes to be laid open whereby the King of Spain as well in reference to Prudence Power and lastly Prophesy may be rendered Admired by all the World For whether all these things do joyntly incline there necessarily must the Empire follow And seeing that this height of Dignity is to be atained unto under the Fortune and Interest of the Empire of Italy which is now called the German Empire there is a necessity that the King of Spain should labour by all possible meanes to reduce that Empire under his power And the better to effect this he must deal with the Pope that he would denounce the most direful Curses that may be against the Three Protestant Electors of the Empire threatning them withall that unlesse they return to the Church of Rome He will deprive them of their Electoral Dignity which they received from the Pope onely and that feeing they now affirm that the Pope is Antichrist they shall be convinced out of their own words and made to see that themselves are Antichristians and that therefore they ought of themselves to lay down that Dignity of theirs unlesse they will recant and again admit of the Catholick Beliefe And to this end the French Italians and Spaniards being first all reconciled and made friends by the Pope are to joyn their whole Forces together and to go against them which certainly would much promote this businesse and having overcome them they must utterly extirpate all the Sects that have raigned among them and send in new Colonies into their places And this expedition is so easy a one that Charles the Fifth himself might have been able to have effected it alone But whereas the Free Cities of Germany do in no wise desire to hear of any such Empire or Vniversal Monarchy lest so They should be reduced into their ancient servitude again and also because they are very slow in their Deliberations and as slow also in the Execution of them it would therefore very much advance this design if the rest of the Princes of Christendom joyning their Forces together would suddenly fall upon them Which businesse when it should be over the most Potent or most Forward of those Princes should be chosen Electors of the Empire by the Apostolical Authority of the Pope whether they were Germans Italians or Spaniards or else they might be chosen by Lot when the most potent of the Christian Princes should meet together in a Solemne Convention And although the Universal Empire of Christendom might easily by these meanes be translated to Spain yet it would be sufficient to do the businesse if but any one King of Spain would so order the matter that Himself might be but chosen Emperour who should then immediately march into Germany with a good Army and should instantly subdue it while it is at so great discord and variance within it self both in point of Religion and of State And this Expedition he ought speedily to go upon and that under a Pretext of marching for Hungary These things I say that all People might take notice how much it concerns the Interest of the King of Spain that he endeavour the attaining to the Empire of the World by the means of the Pope And indeed his being Dignified with the Title of the Catholick or Vniversal King shewes plainly that this is the will of the Holy spirit speaking by the Clergy CHAP. VI How the Clergy are to be dealt withal BUt it is not sufficient that we have the Clergy on our side but we are further to labour that at length we may get a Spaniard to be elected Pope or rather one of the house of Austria seeing it is evident that whensoever the Pope pronounceth his Oracle for this House He doth thereby raise it withall and on the contrary He casts a cloud upon it and keeps it under whensoever He declares against it Which the Kings of France observing they have endeavoured with all their might that the Pope should remove his Seat and go and live in France And so we know that when the Oracle at Delphos began once to speak on Philips side King of Macedon He presently what by his Politick Stratagems and what by Pretense of Religion arrived to the Monarchy of all Greece In the Determinations also concerning Differences in Religion it behoves the King of Spain to be the most Active of any in the managing of the same and indeed to take a greater care and to be more Vigilant herein then the Pope himself Whence we see that Philip King of France did alwaies in a manner as it were command Pope John the XXII as being himself more Zealous then the Pope was in defending and propagating that decree of the Church namely That the Saints in Heaven do see the Essence of God even before the last day of Judgment There must also alwaies some Novelty or other tending to Christian Religion be set on Foot such as are the Canonizations of Saints the changing of the Names of Holy Dayes of Moneths other the like things by transferring them to Christian Worship by which means He shall keep busy the heads of the Prelats as much as he can and so shall thereby the more confirm his own Authority among them He ought besides to oblige the Chief of the Clergy to himself by the most commodious Arts that he can as namely by sending into the Low-Countries and the like suspected places Cardinals and Bishops to be Governours there for the People would much more readily and chearfully obey the commands of such then they will the severity of the Spaniard and such Prelates would also adhere more to Them Neverthelesse in the mean time they ought to have as subordinate to them some Military Commanders with Forces too And besides He ought by the Popes consent too to send abroad such Cardinals as are either Spaniards born or at least of the Spanish Faction
Kings Subjects when they are hardly dealt withal by the Prelats may appeal to the Supreme Councel of Spain Which Assertion is certainly both an unworthy and an Heretical one and is of dangerous consequence also to the King for it tends to the rendring Him odious to his people and diminisheth rather then encreaseth His Authority as we find it testified by daily Experience Or else it may indeed be desired at the Popes hands that it should be so and it may also be declared that the King is willing to yield that in all Causes whatsoever there should be Appeales to the Pope if so be that it may be but every where allowed to appeal first to a Councel of Three Bishops or else that Appeales in all Causes of the Laity shall come at length to the Pope but passing first by degrees through a Councel consisting of two Bishops and a King and so to be referred afterward to a General Councel and last of all to come to the Pope for Appeals from General Councels are very seldome heard of and besides the very Name of a Councel is hateful to the Pope So that in conclusion the determination of all Causes will alwaies rest with the King who by this means shall be a Gainer where he seems to be a Loser CHAP VII What may be further added concerning Prudence and Opportunity THat Prudence ought in the first place to agree in all things with Divine Fate hath already been shewed it remaineth now that we speak of all the rest of the parts of Prudence and shew whitherto all its Vertues and especially Opportunity ought to be referred for as much as it is the property of Prudence to know how to make use of Occasion We have already also declared upon what Interests and under what Confederacy with the Pope the Monarchy of Spain ought to proceed at least as far as was fit to be committed to writing for the most secret Arcana and Mysteries of State are not thus to be made Publick It is therefore Manifest that the Occasion which the King of Spain hath consists chiefly in this that his Neighbouring Enemies are weak and at discord among themselves touching both Points of Religion and matters of State but his Remoter Enemies are more Powerful so that these if his weaker Neighbours were once overcome seem the more easily conquerable The Spaniard hath besides a Notable Occasion from the Extraordinary advantage of Navigation and by his having Dominion in all places round about the whole Earth in a Circle And it seems to me that the attaining to the Empire of the whole World is a very feasible businesse for Him to bring about if there could be such an Uniting of things together by degrees as I shall shew hereafter according to the General Rules of Politick Prudence Where we shall at length come to Particular Actions examined according to Nearer and Remoter Relations But first of all the Politick Relation of Spain at home is to be strengthened and afterwards the Forrain is to be looked after Thus therefore I proceed on to the businesse CHAP. VIII The Causes by which the Spanish Monarchy may be enlarged and become lesse THe Occasions by which the Spanish Monarchy may be kept up or perhaps be enlarged also are these First of all The Virtue of the King Secondly the Goodnesse of the Lawes thirdly the Wisdome of the Councel fourthly the Justice of the Officers of State fiftly the Obedience of the Barons sixtly the Multitude and good Discipline of Souldiers and Commanders Seventhly a Full Treasury Eightly the Mutual Love of the People among themselves and toward their King Ninthly Good Preachers in their Sermons speaking for subjection to Kings Tenthly the Good Agreement betwixt his own Kingdomes and the Disagreement betwixt his Neighbours And on the contrary this Monarchy hath these things that may be the ruine of it as First A wicked King Secondly Bad Lawes Thirdly an Ignorant Councel Fourthly Vnjust Officers of State Fifthly a Disobedient Nobility Sixthly the Want of Souldiers and Commanders and those He hath not well disciplined Seventhly Want of Mony Eighthly The Mutual Hatred of the People among themselves and toward their King Ninthly False Prophets or else perhaps True ones that may rise up against Monarchy Tenthly The Discord of his Own Kingdomes and the Agreement among others All which things are Prudently to be considered and weighed seeing that the present Disagreement among the Enemies of Spain and his Power at Sea all over the World have rendred the Attempt not only of maintaining but of enlarging this so great a Monarchy very feasible CHAP. IX Of the King HE cannot govern the World that cannot govern an Empire neither can he rule an Empire that cannot a Kingdom nor he a Kingdom that cannnot a Province nor he a Province that cannot a City nor he a City that cannot a Village nor he a Village that cannot a Family nor he a Family that cannot a single house nor he a single house that cannot govern himself neither can he govern himself that cannot reduce his affections and bring them within the compasse of Reason which very thing no man is able to do except he submit himself to the will of God For whosoever rebels against God who is the Supreme Wisdom against him shall all things that are subordinate to him rebel also and that justly and by the Law of Retaliation which is most just in all both Governments and Actions of Men. Having therefore weighed in our mind and considered all the Ideas and Formes of Humane Government we say that the King of Spains endeavours must be that He may arrive to the Highest pitch of Wisdom that may be For every Virtue is an Affection of the Mind consisting in a certain Mean beyound which if it arise or fall beneath it it comes to be a Vice Now it is Reason that constitutes this Mean And therefore we are to say that Actions alone do not render a man Vertuous but to this purpose there is required also a Natural Inclination in the Person which is derived both from the Complexion of his Parents from the Aire and from the Stars Seeing therefore that the Kingdom of Spain is not an Electtive one but descends by succession I say that the King ought to have but one wife for to have more is contrary to Reason it self which is to be of a tall Stature and she must be both fruitful and Eloquent and must excel all other women in the endowments both of Body and Mind Neither must he look after the Noblensse of her Family only for so she may chance to be barren or may some other waies be not so pleasing to Him and he should be overwhelmed with all those mischieifs that Henry the Eighth was or the Duke of Mantua Whence Francis the Duke of Tuscany might seem to deserve commendation if he had married Blanch only because he wanted an Heir to succeed him The King is likewise to exercise
the Act of Copulation with his Queen under a Fortunate Planet onely and after Digestion is finished and besides he must not do this till after he hath abstained some reasonable time from the said Act to the end that his seed may be the more fruitful and when ever he hath any thing to do with his Queen he ought at that instant to be very hot in his love to her for it is of great concernment to the whole World what the seed of the King be And I could wish that all men did observe these Rules But the World is now come to that passe that men take more care to have a generous Breed of Horses then to have generous Children Then must his Queen when she is with Child use some Moderate Exercise that so the Child may be the stronger When she hath brought forth a Son there must be some woman that is a Gentlewoman provided to be his Nurse which Gentlewoman must also be a Wise woman and of a high Spirit too For the Manners are suckt in together with the Milk of the Nurse When the Child is grown up to some Maturity He must converse with Men rather then with Women and he must delight himself with the looking upon Mathematical Figures and also with Maps and draughts of the Kingdoms He is born to He may also look upon Horses and Armes but he must not be suffered to run about to idle Childish sports and plaies as were the sons of Cyrus Cambyses and Darius as if they had been born for themselves only and not for their People and who therefore as Plato saies came to destruction He must have Religious Tutors both Bishops and Commanders that are eminent for their knowledge in Martial affaires He must also have Eloquent persons that may instruct him in the Art of Oratory and informing him rather in the Solid Rules then the trifling Quiddities of Grammer After he hath grown past a Child he must then exercise both his Mind and his Body also for Valour and Wisdom are Virtues that are proper to Princes And we are to know that what Prince soever shall use the Exercise of Body only and not of his Wit as well his own as his Subjects he shall be a slave to him that exerciseth his Wit too And hence it is that the King of France and his Officers of State yeilded themselves up to Calvin as the Germans did to Luther both which so bewitched their eyes that they took all for right and good whatsoever these laid down before them And thus the Tartarians also after they had made themselves Lords of the whole East were at last made fools of by Mahomets Priests And if they are not enslaved by Wicked Ingenious Men yet how ever they are slaves to those that are Good as well as Ingenious And hence we see that those Kings of Judah and of Israel that were both dull and wicked persons were given up into the hands of Elias and Elisha and others who set them up and deposed them from their Thrones for their Ignorance of their own Religion The Consuls of Rome likewise were in subjection to their Priests And again on the other side he that exerciseth his Wit only is brought under the power of him that exerciseth his Body and Feats of Armes Whence it is that the Popes have so often been made the laughing stock of the Goths and Lombards and that Platonical King Theodoricus the second K. of Ravenna was subdued by Belisarius But that King that exerciseth himself both these waies he is the truly wise King And hence it was that the Romans never exercised their Wit without the exercise of the Body too as Salust informs us I adde moreover that a King ought not to bend his studies wholly to and to spend all his time in one certain Science onely as did King Alphonsus who became one of the most famous Astronomers in the World following the Example of King Atlas who was overcome by Perseus a valiant Man of Armes as the Fable tells us nor yet would I have him to addict himself wholly to the Study of Divinity as Henry the VIII did who by this means utterly ruined his own Wit But he ought to have several Tutors for each several Science and be a hearer of each of them at their several appointed times But the Knowledge most sit for the King is to know the Division of the World into its parts and of his own Dominions the different manners and Customes of the several Nations of the Earth and their Religions and Sects as also the stories of all the former Kings and which of them was a Conquerour and which was overcome and for what reasons And for this purpose he must make choice of the best Historians that have written He must likewise know the several Lawes of Nations and which are wholsome Lawes and which not and the Grounds they were made upon But chiefly He is to be well skilled in the Lawes of his own Kingdome and of the Kings his Predecessors and to understand by what means Charles the Fifth got here or lost there and how Maximilian sped in his wars So likewise with how many and what kind of Nations and Kingdomes They made their Wars and how the same Nations may be subdued He must also give an ear to all sorts of Counsels but let him make choice of and publish as His own the Best and Soundest onely Let his rule be also to inflict all punishments upon his Subjects in the name and by the Ministry of his Officers but to confer all benefits and rewards upon them with his own hand and in his own name In a word he must be adorned with all kinds of Vertues and let it be his chiefest desire to leave to His Successors Himself an Example worthy of their Imitation as it must be his care to imitate all the wisest of his Predecessors Those Affections which he ought with his utmost power to restrain are Grief Pleasure Love Hatred Hope Fear and lastly Mercy also For when a King shewes himself to be cast down by any Ill Fortune that hath befallen him He betrayes his own Weaknesse discourages his Subjects and lastly gives himself wholly to grieve for the same for which King David was justly reproved by Joab when he lamented so excessively the death of his Son Absalon As on the contrary side when he is too much lifted up with Joy for any good successe it argues in him an abject and servile Disposition and Temper And especially if he addict himself to keep company with Buffoons and Jesters and give himself up to excessive Banquettings and other the like pleasures he must needs be despised by his Subjects as Nero was who minded nothing but Stage-Playes and his Harp or Vitellius and Sardanapalus who giving themselves over wholly to Women and Feasting were therefore scorned by their Subjects and deposed with the losse of their Lives And indeed the Love of Women will very often
endanger him unlesse he fortifie his mind against it as it happened to the most Wise Salomon himself and especially of his own Wife who commonly hates her Husbands nearest and most intimate friends conceiving that the greatest share of His Affection is due to Her self in so much that she will hate and persecute the Wisest and ablest Commanders for War that are about him Thus we read * He would have said Theodora for so was Justinians wise called Sophia Wife to the Emperour Justinian dealt with Narses who being thereby very much incensed he took occasion to invite the Lombards into Italy to the infinite prejudice and losse both of the Emperour and Empresse Covetousnesse also proves the ruine of Kings as we see in Antiochus who pillaged the Temple of Jupiter Dodonaeus and in Caligula who having profusely wasted all his own most greedily gaped after other mens estates whence they both came to be hated by their Subjects and so died a miserable death Such a one also was Midas who wished That whatsoever he touched might presently turn to Gold whereas he could neither eat his Gold nor could it procure him an houres sleep when he wanted it that is to say it was of no use at all to him but it onely laid him open to the spoyl of him that had but the Skill to make use of his Iron Caligula in one year consumed riotously seventeen Millions of Crowns which his Predecessor Tiberius had scraped up together and was afterward reduced to that want that he was forced to betake himself to spoyl his Subjects and to practise all manner of Cruelties upon them King Solomon also what in building of Sumptuous Palaces and Temples and about other most chargeable Pomps and Magnificences expended the better part of a Hundred and twenty Millions which his Father David had left him and notwithstanding that he had no trouble upon him from any part yet did he so excessively overburden his Subjects with Taxes that being become Intolerable to the greatest part of his People he lost a great part of his Kingdome in his Son Rehoboam We do allow in our King a desire of Honour but so that he aspire to it by the steps of Vertue for otherwise He will gain onely the opinion of being Proud which was the ruine of Alboin and Attila And indeed Honour is the Witnesse to Vertue and therefore whosoever is a Vertuous Person he shall attain to True Honour without any Flattery which hath been the overthrow of many a Prince in the World And hence it will also follow that a Prince should not enter into so strict a Tye of Friendship with any One or Two of his Subjects as to indulge them the liberty of transgressing the bounds of Justice and the Lawes without controul For by so doing the Principal Persons of his Nobility and Commanders in War laying aside all duty will look upon him as an Abject Unworthy person And which is more they sometimes in these cases enter into Conspiracies against Him and that very person whom He advanced to so much honour as to make him his Favourite may chance to usurp the Kingdome as we read it happened betwixt Gyges and Candaules King of Lydia So likewise Sejanus did much mischief to the Emperour Tiberius who notwithstanding was as subtle and crafty as any man But yet Macro did more who made an end of him Neither can any thing be more destructive to a Prince then to single out One onely to be his Friend and Favourite And hath not Antonio Perez been of very ill Consequence to the Present King If the King hate any particular persons he must by no means discover it unlesse he find that they are hated by the People also as are commonly all Hereticks Infidels Usurers and Publick Executioners of Justice upon Malefactors for by so doing He shall the more indear himself to the People He must also take notice that Accusations among his Subjects do not so much avail his Kingdome as Calumnies hurt it and therefore He ought alwaies to encline rather to the Accused Party And to the end that he may attain to the highest degree of his Subjects Love and Affection He must set up some Court of Grace that shall be above all other Courts whatsoever that all such persons as are condemned to death may have yet some left to whom they may appeal And the King ought to pardon Offenders often where it may be done safely enough and where the Condemned person hath not been admitted to make his Appeal to the Kings Deputies or hath not offended either against the State or Religion and these Offenders by Him pardoned may be sent out either for Souldiers or else to the Gallies and this will do very much good And of this Court of Grace I would have the King himself to be President and it should consist onely of his Queen and his Children and one Bishop only The King must also with all Modesty and Humility put his chiefest trust in God and repose but little confidence in his own strength especially when He is not endued with any Extraordinary Prudence for the managing of the same and all the wrightiest of his Actions must be referred to God as the Author of them that so they may be lookt upon by all with the greater reverence and esteem Let him never hope with a few to vanquish a greater number nor with Undisciplined and unruly Souldiers nor to conquer a forraine enemy in his own Country of which things I have elsewhere spoken He must alwayes remove all Fear far from him and he must discover his onely Fear to be lest any Sad Disaster should befall either Religion or his Subjects And in all His Expeditions He must shew himself to the Height of Valour and even of bold Daring too provided that he do it with Reason and that so He may the more inflame the courage of his Souldiers Neither ought he ever to seem to be Jealous of the Worth of any one lest he should so betray His own Timorousnesse and Poorenesse of Spirit And therefore to the end that his Subjects may not rebel His safest course will be to keep them alwayes up in Armes rather then to let them lie unarmed quietly at home for being in Armes they will the easier be kept within the bounds of Obedience Because that if they be by fair and Prudential meanes kept in awe they will be ready to make use of their Armes at all times for their Kings advantage but if though Unarmed they be otherwise then fairely dealt with by their Prince they will be apt to revolt from him or which is worse will find Armes which they will turn against Him An example of this kind we have in David and Saul who was Jealous of David seeing his Valour and Worth The King ought also as often as he begins to be Jealous and fearful of the Greatnesse of any of his Subjects under the shew of honouring him to send him
People and them with his own Example Learning and Abundance of good Things and withall defends them by his Armes and Wholesome Lawes And therefore a good King ought to be endued with so much a greater proportion of Learning and Knowledge above his People who do infinitely herein excel Brute Beasts as the Shepheard is above his Mute Flock So that a Prince as Plato said is somewhat above Humane Condition and ought to be esteemed as a kind of God or a Christ or at least is to be reputed as qualified with a certain measure of Divinity and to have some eminent knowledge conferred upon him from above as had that Divine Law-giver Moses and as at this day have the Pope and the Bishops Or if this be not granted to Him he ought however hrough Humane Virtue at least to submit and yield Obedience to the Divine Law-giver as did Charles the Great And there have been some who wisely considering these things have endeavoured to perswade the World that they were Inspired from Heaven as did Mahomet and Minos whose Lawes were thereby held in great Reverence by the People And certainly wheresoever the King shall approve himself to be such the People in general will be made good where as on the contrary if the Prince be Bad the People will be so too And therefore following the Example of the Pope and his Bishops he ought to appear as like them as he can doing nothing at all without their approbation but making a Union betwixt his Kingdom and their Church so to make up one Body of a Republick betwixt them as I have said before and by observing the Ecclesiastical Order and by constituting good Lawes he must render himself Worthy of Reverence from the People which by appearing but seldom abroad among them in Publique he shall be sure to have from them As for those Acts which Humane Nature cannot abstain from as eating and the like these he ought to do privately Or if at any time he do any of them in Publick He must alwaies after the example of Philopâ—emen the General of the Achaeans have some by him to discourse touching Peace and War Our King must not endeavour so much to be Accounted a Vertuous Person as to be so Really for where any one is discovered to have but once played the Dissembler no body will ever believe him again afterwards And because that for want of Issue to succeed him the Kingdome may easily fall to the ground His chiefest care must be that he get children as soon and early as he can And so soon as ever his Eldest Son shall be grown up to any maturity and himself perchance is yet a young man he may then do well to send him to Rome that so he may be instructed both in the affaires of the World and in those of Religion also and withal the Kingdom of Spain may be the more firmly incorporated into the Church by having both the Cardinals and Popes themselves alwayes true to their Faction and also that His Son and the Barons may not dare to joyn together and take up Armes against Him which our King Philip suspected of his Son Charles and so by Obeying he shall learn how to Rule The King of Spain ought also alwayes to design some of the House of Austria to be his successor in case that he should die without a successor of his own Let him alwayes speak the Language of his Native Country and give Audience to such only as speak the same He ought alwayes to keep his Court in Spain the Head of his Empire neither let him ever go out of it unlesse it be to the Wars and leaving his Son behind him Or to suppresse some mutinying Province or some Baron that he suspects He may go and take up his quarters among them that so being thereby reduced to want and scarcity they may be forced to serve the King instead of Souldiers and He by this means may be freed from all fears and jealousies The rest of His Male Children that are not brought up in the hope and expectation of Reigning he may make Cardinals neither ought he at any time to commit the rains of Government to their hands least happily they should be possessed with a desire of Ruling And hence it is that among the Turks it is the Custome alwayes to make away with all the yonger Sons And the King of China shuts up those that are next in blood to Him in large spacious places which abound with all variety both of necessaries and Delights as the King of Ethiopia confines all his to a certain very high and most pleasant Mountain called Amara where they are to continue tell they shall be called to succeed in the Kingdom But yet for all this neither doth the King of China or Ethiopia by confining their nearest of kin nor the Great Turk by killing his nor yet the Moor by putting out the Eyes of his acquit themselves from the danger and fear of Seditions and Rebellions For notwithstanding that the Parents of these confined Persons may haply bear it with a patient and quiet mind enough yet it may possibly be that either the Common People or the Nobles of the Kingdome being moved either with Indignation and Fury or else Fear of Punishment or desire of Revenge may corrupt and provoke those Persons so shut up or by killing their Keepers may carry them away out of their prisons by force and may place them in the Throne as those they call The Common Rebels of Spain attempted to carry away by force the Duke of Calabria who was at that time a Prisoner in the Sciattive Tower And in China many most cruel Tyrants of both sexes both Kings and Queens have been murdered And of late years in Ethiopia Abdimalo was called to the Crown not from out of the Mountain of Amara but from out of Arabia whether he had fled to preserve himself Neither is there any Country where there have been more Civil Wars and Rebellions raised then among the Moors in Mauritania The Kings of Ormus before that that Country was subdued by the Portuguez were wont to kill their Parents which custome was practised also by some Emperours of Constantinople by the Kings of Tunis also and of Marocco and Fez as likewise among the Turks as appears by the Wars betwxt Bajazet and Zerim and of Selim and his father Bajazet the second Therefore this Cruelty of the Turks renders them not much more secure thereby For in other Kingdomes it is onely Ambition and a desire of Honour and Rule that excites men to raise sedition and to take up Armes against the Prince Which Ambitious Desires may either be satisfied some other way or be diverted to some other design or possibly may be overawed and crusht But those of the Blood Royal among the Turks and Moors besides Ambition have a Necessity also of seeking the preservation of their own Lives to force them on to such Attempts
which those Heresies that chiefly raign at this day are built upon And therefore on the contrary let him endeavour to bring in the Knowledge of the Arabick Tongue by meanes whereof the Mahumetans may be the better convinced and the troublesome Transalpine Wits may imploy themselves rather in confuting the Turks then in vexing the Catholicks with their Disputes Eighthly Let him also erect Mathematical Schools because this would be of great use and advantage in respect of the New World as well as of the Old because by this means the Peoples Minds will be diverted from creating Us any trouble and will be incited to bend their studies that way which may be useful to the King Then let him get about him the Ablest Cosmographers that he can and assign them Liberall Allowances Whose businesse it shall be to describe those several parts of the World wheresoever the Spaniards have set footing throughout the Compasse of the whole Earth because that Ptolomy knew nothing of most of those Countries at all And let Him by the Industry of these his Mathematicians correct all the Errours of the Ancient Geographers and he may also put forth a Book under the Title of the King of Spains Name wherein he shall set forth the praises due to Christophorus Columbus Magellanus Amoricus Vesputius Ferdinandus Cortesius Pizarrus and others of his Valiant Sea-Commanders whose Posterity He ought to confer Dignities upon for the Incouraging of others to fall upon the like undertakings Let him also send able Astrologers abroad into the New World and especially some of those beyond the Alpes to the end that he may by this means also take them off from their Heresies and filth and let him by proposing rewards to such invite the ablest Wits out of Germany and send them into the New World that there they may give an account of and describe all the new Stars that are in that Hemisphere from the Antarctick Pole to the Tropick of Capricorn and may describe the Holy Crosse whose figure is at that Pole and about the Pole it self they may place the Effigies of Charles V. and of other Princes of the House of Austria following herein the Example of the Grecians and Egyptians who placed in the Heavens the Images of their Princes and Heroes For by this meanes both Astrology and Local Memory will be both learnt together And when any such Illustrious Persons are so advanced to Honour and rendred so Venerable and such Astrologers are encouraged with large rewards it is of no small advantage to the enlargment of a Kingdom For all the Worlds Affections will be inclined toward such a Prince and will desire to serve him We are to know also that the Novelty of Doctrine is a great promoter of Monarchy provided it be not against Religion as was that of Luther but that it rather agree well with it as doth that of Telesius and that which I my self have collected by my reading of the Ancient Fathers of the Church or at least when it doth not contradict the same but rather enlargeth it and renders it admired by all men and takes up the Minds of the People and keeps them in from running after and employing themselves in that which is prejudiciall to the Kingdom Aristotle though his Opinions were impious yet was he in nothing at all any hinderance to Alexander and therefore much lesse can there be any hurt in such a Doctrine as we speak of The King must also take care to have the General Histories and Annals of the Whole World compiled in a compendious and succinct way like that of the Books of the Kings of the Hebrewes and which may also shew from the first building of Rome the whole progresse of this Monarchy down to this present day and may set down the time when the Christian Faith was first embraced by it and may make it known to all so many Kings thereof as were Pious and and Religious men were all of high esteem in the World and reigned happily but those that were Wicked and Ill men were also Unfortunate Let Him likewise cause a Brief Collection to be made of the Lawes of all the several Kingdomes and Principalities of the World digested in their several Orders as also their Religions and Customes and let him make use of the best of these and reject the bad But he must be very careful that He publish not in any place such Lawes as the Nature of that place cannot bear CHAP. XI Of Lawes both Good and Bad. THe King of Spain as well for Theological as Politick reasons can enact no New Lawes For the Christian Law together with the Roman Military Power and Prudence is that which He succeeds in and with which He is to comply He must take heed therefore that He make not many Pragmatical Sanctions And it would be an excellent thing if the Lawes as far as it were possible were all written in the Spanish Tongue that so the whole World might be acquainted and might have some commerce with the Spanish Monarchy both in the Language and the Lawes But seeing that this Monarchy had Its Rise under the Roman Empire and Religion the Latine is a Language that it needs not be ashamed of Let such Lawes therefore be made as the People may keep rather Willingly then by compulsion and through fear of punishment as finding them to be advantagious to themselves For when such Lawes are enacted as make for the Profit of the Prince or some few Particular persons only the People must needs be out of love with them and then do they presently find out waies to elude the same whereupon there strait followes Confiscation of the Subjects Goods with Mulcts Punishments and Banishment Then must we have New Laws made to punish the Transgressors of the Former and then again other New Lawes must be made for the punishing of such as have offended against these latter and thus is the Number of Lawes increased the Princes Authority slighted and the Subjects at length out of hate to their Prince either rise up against Him or else forsake the Kingdom to the very great damage no question of the Prince for by this means both the number of the Souldiery is diminished and besides the Kings Subsidies grow lesse Every Tyrant therefore that maketh Lawes that are for his Own Advantage only and not for his Subjects is a Fool for by this meanes He loseth himself whereas on the other side a wise King while he seems to do things Prejudicial to himself doth himself notwithstanding thereby the greatest Right that can be And we find by Experience that Princes that are Popular are more extolled then those are that admit into their friendship and favour some few Noblemen or Courtiers only as we may observe in the Contrary Examples of Augustus and Tiberius It is moreover necessary that a Law be conformable to the Custome of the place for which it is made for all Northern People love Easie Lawes
then serve him either in some Ignoble Art or else in some inferiour Office in his Wars The Former of these Inconveniences any King of Spain may prevent if he but confer these rewards upon such onely as are deserving Persons but the Remedy of the Second which is practised by the Turks cannot be made use of among Christians Onely let him be sure that many of these Baronies do not in time fall into the hands of one man who perhaps upon the first Opportunity given may revolt from him as did the Nobility of Japan who being grown great in power made opposition against their King in the City Meaco which was also done by the Barons of France who thereby hindered their own Monarchy and as Scanderbeg did to the Turk and so likewise the Princes of Tarentum and Salerne and many other in the Kingdom of Naples who made the same Attempts against their Kings both those of Arragon and of Anjou too Now the Mischeifs which these Barons bring upon the People and consequently upon their King are these They come to Naples and to the Court and there spending their mony profusely and lavishly they make a great shew for a while and get in favour with the Kings friends and at length having spent all they return poor home and make prey of whatsoever they can that so they may make themselves whole again and then they return to Court again running round still as it were in the same Circle in so much that we see these mens Territories much more desert and naked then the Kings in Italy are all through the default of the Barons themselves And then if the People have been infested with any Pestilential Diseases or have suffered by the Turks They presently beg of the King to have the yearly Taxes to be remitted for some certain time the payment whereof they themselves require at the hands of the People and in the Kings name too and that with all the severity that may be which the Prince of Rogebo had the confidence to do after the battel with the Turks And lastly under the pretence of the Camera as they call it that is to say that the Country may be freed from quartering of Souldiers they extort from the Subjects many Thousands of Crownes And they find out a Thousand other wayes of fleecing the poor Subjects that so they may never want Supplies either for their Luxury or their Prodigality And notwithstanding that the Spaniards believe that this Lavishnesse of theirs makes for the Kings Advantage and renders his state the more secure because that those that are so given to rioting and Luxury are never any gatherers and hoarders up of vast Sums of Mony which may prove the Instruments of Rebellion yet the plain truth of it is they do him much hurt for they by this meanes reduce the People from whom the greatest part of the Kings Revenues come to a poor low condition For the remedying of which Mischeif it would do well if there were a Law made that no Baron should have above 3000. Crowenes of yearly Revenues and that whatsoever any of them hath more it should not descend to his Successor but should go after him to the Exchequer I speak here onely of such Baronies as shall be conferred by the King upon the Grounds aforesaid As for the Ancienter Barons it would do well if there were some Competitions cherished among them that by this means by their contentions they might keep one another under and so likewise that at every Seven years end there should be such an Assembly called together as I spake of before and that the Barons should be freed from all Bonds Likewise that every Baron should every three years find the King as many Souldiers and Horses as he hath Thousands of Crowns of yearly Revenue Let him also divide the Tittles of Honour and besides he may do well to create many New Lords finding out for them New Titles that so the smalnesse of their number may not encrease their dignity and honour Let Him take care also that the Lordships and Lords Mannours of the Kingdom of Naples Millan Spain and the Netherlands may be bougt by Forraigners that is to say by the Genuese Florentines French and Venetians that so the Barons that are the Natives may be brought lower and the Forreigners may bring the King in a large yearly Revenue out of their own Country Lordships By which means I dare be bold to affirm that the King shall have greater power and Command at Genoa then at Millan because that nothing can be done or resolved upon at Genoa without his knowledge and consent whiles the Genueses will alwayes be in fear of losing the Lordships they have in the King of Spains dominions And by this means also the King shall not need to trouble himself about allowing them maintenance as he is with the Millanois for Whosever is fed by thee he is thy servant And thus have the Florentines alwaies been servants to the King of France into whose Dominions they have liberty of Traffick allowed them But there must be care taken that no Fortified Places be ever put into the hands of any of the Barons And besides there must be such Provision made as that all the Sons of the said Barons should have Spaniards for their Tutors who shall Hispaniolize them and train them up to the Habit Manners and Garbe of the Spaniard And when these Barons shall once begin to grow Powerful He must take them down yet under the pretense of honouring them by sending them away to some Office or Charge that lies in some place far remote from their own Lordships and where they shall be sure to spend more then they get And again when ever the King shall please to take his Progresse into the Country let him so contrive his Gists as that He may lye upon these Barons and so under the pretext of doing them Honour may force them to be at a great charge in entertaining Him Let Him give a willing ear to the People when they make any complaints of them Neither ought Nobility to be higher prized by the King then Virture which is a Rule that deserves to be observed above all the rest Besides in all the Metropolian Cities in his several Kingdomes as at Lisbon Toledo Antwerp and the rest as well in this as in the other Hemisphere the King under pretext of doing them honours may Constitute in each of them five eight or ten Ranks or Orders of Barons such as are at Naples that when they are to treat of any Affairs of State each of them may go into his own Order and Place For being thus divided they will never be able to determine any thing that shall be Prejudicial to the King by reason of the Ambition that will be amongst them and so where there shall be three Lawes perhaps made to the Kings prejudice there will alwaies be eight made for his advantage And the common People
also may in like manner be distributed into their several Classes and Ranks And this is much the more honourable and secure way then to cause divisions and sidings into parties among them which is the counsel of some Writers who have a Saying Divide impera Cause Divisions among thy subjects and thou shalt rule them well enough The King must alwayes make much of such persons as are of eminent either Valour or Virtue and must prefer them to dignities and honours In every place also where He hath any Councel sitting He ought to joyn to them one of some Religious Order or other whom he can trust and that for the common security of both parties both Prince and Counsellour And all such persons as shall be admitted to this honour should have an Oath administred unto them or else should have some kind of Obligation by way of some Religious Fraternity with the Crown by which they should be bound in all troublesome and perillous times not only to deliver into the Kings hands all the Gold and Silver they have but that themselves also shall in person serve in the Wars in defence of the Fortune and safety of the Kingdom By which means the King shall prevent all Insurrections among them or in case they should stirr He shall have a sufficient Pledge in his hands as being possessed of all their Treasures in so much that their Wives will not spare in this case to bring in what Rings Bracelets and Chains of Gold or any thing else of value that they have as we read the Roman women did when Rome was distressed by Hannibal and other Enemies and lay them all at the Kings feet And as for Commanders in War those he ought to account the best that were themselves once common Souldiers such as Antonius de Leva and Gonsalvus de Corduba were as those Counsellours also are to be esteemed the ablest that have risen to that height from the lowest and meanest Trusts and Employments And therefore the King shall not take any great care for such Barons as have not been in service abroad before so that they may have thereby rendred themselves fit to discharge the offices of able Commanders in War or to serve the King in his Councells But he must get about him such as have been men of long Experience and are well acquainted with and versed in the Affaires of the World Neither is it a small Calamity that the Kingdom of Spain lieth under by reason of such Quarells and Suits of Law as oftentimes arise among the Nobility about Precedency as they call it which certainly in the time of War must needs be of most dangerous consequence for There Military Valour is onely to be looked after And who knowes whether or no this very thing might not be the cause of the Miscarriage of the Armado that was sent against England in the year 1588. But herein the Barons are of great use and advantage to the King because that in case He shall have any ill successe in any expedition He can immediately make himself whole again by his Barons which the Turks can not do For when he hath once received but one notable Blow and is now much weakened thereby He hath no Barons left him by whose aide he may recover himself again which was the case also of Darius when he was overthrown by Alexander the Great and of the Sultan of Aegypt that was conquered by Selim both which being once beaten were never afterward able to make head again against their Enemy And if so be that Emulation and Envy had not born too great a sway among the Christians in that Memoral Victory obtained at Sea against he Turk in the year 71. Constantinople might at that time have tbeen recovered and the Turk utterly rooted out The King must therefore take especial notice wherein the Barons may be prejudicial to Him and in what they may advantage Him and He must make use of them rather as his Treasurers of his Arms and Monies then make them as it were the Patrons of His State And yet out of these Treasurers of his he may choose out some to be Commanders in his War provided that he lay a Command upon them to set aside their Second Sons to be as a Seminary of Military Valour both for Sea and Land Service as we shall shew hereafter and by this means He shall have their Fathers the Barons themselves as it were bound to be faithful to him by reason of this Engagement of their Sons to the Prince and so He shall be sure to have them at his devotion whensoever he shall have occasion to make use of them as shall be shewed hereafter in the Chapter Of Navigation CHAP. XV. Of the Souldiery THe Souldiery of Spain and consequently the defense and Enlarging of that Kingdom may faile two wayes One is because that Spanish Women by reason of the too great Heat of the Country are not very Fruitful whence it may well so come to passe as that seeing there are very many Spaniards killed both in the Netherlands and in the New World and other of their wars they may want Souldiers As on the contrary the Helvetians and Polonians and all other Northern Nations do abound with Souldiers by reason of the Fruitfulnesse of their Women and especialy because there are so few of them in those parts that put themselves into Monasteries neither do they suffer any Publick Stewes there at all by which it is a wonderful thing to consider how much Humane seed is lost and utterly cast away and also because they deal more openly and freely with each other neither are matches among them so often broke off through the disagreement of Parents about Dowries c. and therefore they Multiply much the faster as having fewer Impediments either from Art or Nature And hence it is that the Franks Goths Vandals Lombards Herulians and other Northern People have alwaies abounded with plenty of Men In so much that by reason of the too narrow Limits of their own Countries they have been fain to leave them and to seek for places of Habitation in ours and other Countries and have like Bees been continually sending forth fresh Colonies into other parts by which means we see it hath come to passe that the Oriental Nations together with the Grecian Italian Spanish and Hungarian are now in a manner quite extinct And therefore the Spaniards being but few in Number have been forced for the reasons afore alleadged quite to clear all the places whatsoever that they conquered of their ancient Inhabitants as appears by the course they took with the Indians in the New World least otherwise they should have lived in a continual fear that the conquered who were much the greater number might rise up and take armes against their Conquerors And this is the reason why by the Ignorant they are accounted Cruel Mercilesse people for such their proceeding against the Indians The number of the
too near of kin may not marry contrary to the Orders of the Church and withal that those Marriages that are made may prove the more fruitful I would have Italian Women to be married to those that are of the Seminaries of the Low-Countries or of Spain For by this means also there will not so many Idle persons enter themselves into Religious Orders as there do who are a great burthen to the Church for as much as these Men make choice of this kind of Life not out of any sense of Religion but meerly being forced out of necessity and so are a Scandal to the rest and besides the King is also hereby prejudiced who by this means hath both the fewer Vassals and Souldiers and the smaller Subsidies also There may also be educated in these Cloysters or Colledges or call them what you please people of all Nations whatsoever for the maintenace of whom there may Revenues be taken out of the Allowances of Almes-houses and Hospitals appointed for the Maintenance of Old Men or of any other honest Men or of such Friers as by preaching about the Country get enough to sustain themselves and toward this Charge there may be something exacted of all Usurers as I shall shew hereafter when I come to speak of the Kings Treasure And by this means the Kings Revenue will be so far from being diminished that if He do lay out any thing of his own He will rather prove a gainer by it But now it would be very advantagious for Spain that the Spaniards should marry Italian and Low-Country Women and so make up one Family betwixt them for by this meanes the whole World would by little and little be brought to embrace the Manners and Garbe of the Spaniard and so would the easilier be brought into subjection And those Spanish Souldiers that are at Naples are in an errour while they seek onely for Spanish Women to make Wives of and therefore the Vice-Roy there should see that the Spanish Women should have Italians or Netherlanders for their Husbands on whom He should confer all the honours he can especially where these Marriages happen to be among the Barons or other persons of quality Neither let any one think that those Seragli or Cloysters among the Turks before spoken of are a meere fiction for this most excellent Design hath been practised in the Church ever since the Apostles time and we see how many Colledges for young Students the Pope hath both of Germans English and Maronites that are as so many Seminaries of the Faith And then the Orders of St. Dominick S. Francis and the rest are nothing else but Seminaries of Apostolical Souldiers who using no Armes but their Tongue only do bring the World in subjection And These are the very Nerves of the Ecclesiastical Monarchy The Pope likewise promotes Men of all Nations to the Dignities both of Priests Bishops and Cardinals having no respect either to Rich or Poor Barbarian or Roman as the Apostle himself commanded if so be they be but Wise and Good Men. And hence it is that His Dominion is so far extended and so united within it self namely through Spain the New World Africk and France as well as in Italy and that by reason only of the Common Tie of Religion and the Union of Men and Minds And therefore the King whose design it is to procure an Association not of his Subjects Fortunes onely but also of their Persons and Armes unlesse He be Powerful over their Religion too which is the Bond of Mens Minds and Affections He will have but a kind of an Estranged and weak Dominion among them And it is very evident that the Emperour of Germany by reason of his Subjects being of different Religions is of lesse power then either our King is or the Duke of Bavaria And hence it is therefore that the Turks have learnt Wisedome to Our Prejudice and Damage whilest we in the mean time transgresse against the Lawes of Policy while we observe the Roman or National Lawes Wherefore the King might do what would well become a Christian if he would cause to be erected Colledges of Souldiers and would also promote to Military Preferments not Spaniards only but all Persons of Worth and Valour whatsoever by that means engaging them in the Spanish Manners and Customs for by so doing He should be beloved as well by strangers as by his own Subjects And it is also consonant to the Opinion of Thomas Aquinas to take and baptize in the Seminaries such Children of Hereticks and Moores as have been taken from an enemy in time of War though not to do so in time of peace as for example to take the Children of Jewes living at Rome perhaps and by force to baptize them notwithstanding that Scotus approves of both these I would have the King likewise every seven years to pardon all such as are Banished Persons or are guilty of Murder upon condition that they shall serve Him as Souldiers in his Warres against Africk or in the New World Let Him also make an Act that each several Parish shall every year furnish him out one Souldier a piece which is a Proposal Your Lordship saith was made by a Friend of Yours in Spain for by this means there may be raised Threescore Thousand Souldiers and more in that Kingdom It will therefore be very expedient that there should an Union be made up betwixt the King and the Pope as hath been before spoken of But it would be better that every Baron at the end of such a set term of years should bring in to the King such a certain number of Souldiers and it would be best of all that the Baron himself also should go in person to the Wars whensoever the King goes And this ought to be observed not only in Spain but in all other of the Kings Dominions and likewise that other Rule that only the Eldest sons shall inherit their Fathers Estates in all places what ever But all these Rules cannot be observed any where to any great purpose except the Foundation of the Nations be first reformed namely in Making of Marriages and by erecting Seminaries or Colledges of Souldiers who should be such as contenting themselves with Meat and Drink and Cloathes onely shall have the Courage through hope of Advancement in case they approve themselves stout and Valiant persons to attempt as daringly and adventure upon all the most dangerous Undertakings and those greater then even the Turks Janizaries are wont to venture on And let this suffice to have been spoken concerning the means of encreasing the Souldiery and against the Depopulating of Countries As touching Captains and Commanders in War they ought not to be made out of that most Idle sort of men whom they now adaies call Nobiles Gentlemen but rather let the most Stout and Valiant persons be chosen for this purpose and such as are inclined rather to Severity as Hannibal was then such as are of a Courteous
small number it will concern him that he have more of his own Souldiers with him then either of Auxiliaries or Hired Souldiers or of those that are Guarders of the Frontiers least when they come to the point they all run away There are many more Observations required to the making up of a Perfect Commander all which I cannot here set down my design being at present to deliver such things as concern Spain only But above all care must be taken that the Souldiers be not used like Beasts who if they have but their wages duly paid them and if when they are wounded they be carefully looked to and be encouraged also to shew themselves Valiant men through the hopes of Military glory and by hearing good Preachers and by rewards they will then never think either of running away or of Revolting which are two of the greatest Mischiefs that can befal an Army I would also have some persons appointed out of some of the Religious Orders to commit to writing the famous and memorable Acts of each particular Souldier which should be read openly before the King when ever He bestowes rewards upon his Souldiers For this is the reason why the Barons refuse to serve in person in the Wars saying The King himself is not there to be an eye witnensse of my Valour and I cannot confide in the treacherous Memories of Envious Commanders Neither would I have the Souldiers to be rewarded with Mony only but sometimes also with some Coronet either of Oak or of Olive which is a most Magnificent argument of Honour to them and of no charge to the Prince and by this means they will be the more faithful and constant to Him For an other mans Mony may in like manner buy and sell perhaps that Faith which you have so purchased of them but such Honour it cannot seeing it is a most ignominious thing even in the esteem of an Enemy himself for any one to forsake his King And therefore it should be lawful for any man to kill such a one as should begin to run away or that goes abroad a pillaging without the leave of his Commander which very thing hath often hindered the obtaining of Victory against the Enemy and those that are of least account in the Army do by these courses enrich themselves while the Valiant Souldier fights it out to the last drop of blood in his body What Souldier soever shall fill up the place of his slain fellow-Souldier or protects him and saves his life he should have a Coronet of Oak granted him This was called by the Romans Corona Civica That Souldier that shall first get upon the Enemies Walls should have a Mural Coronet made of Herbs wreathed together in form of a Coronet which he should recieve at the hands of the General whiles the rest of the Army standing round about shall celebrate his Gallantry with Acclamations and Songs according to the ancient custome of the Romans For these two things Punishment and Reward are the two Pillars whereon all Military Discipline is founded and built the Former whereof deterrs the Souldier from wicked courses as the latter pricks him on to do gallant things the Former was devised for the restraining of Vile Rebellious spirits as the latter was for the Encouragement of the Generous and Valiant the former serves instead of a Bridle as the later doth of a Spur. Alexander the Great erected for the honour of his Souldiers that were Slain at the River Granicus Statues of Marble in a most stately manner The King of Siam that he might encourage his Souldiers to fight bravely took care to have the names of all those that had behaved themselves Gallantly in the Wars to be registred in a Book and afterwards to be recited before him which was the custome also of King Ahasuerus as the holy Scripture testifieth Whensoever there are any designs on foot for the gaining any large Kingdom or Empire the King ought alwayes to go in person to the Wars because that Princes that are Warlick alwaies get more then those that are sluggish and negligent which is a consideration of great importance for all such Princes as desire to enlarge their Dominions But if they care only to preserve their own they may then stay at home themselves provided that they set Valiant and faithful Commanders over their Souldiers However it will concern a Prince that he get an opinion of being a Warlike man unlesse he mean to be despised by all People or let him make an open shew that he loves Wars And to the end that He may be the more secure of Victory let him alwaies take with him good store of Souldiers that so he may neither lose his reputation nor be despised by his Enemies Those Defeats of his Armies are the least hurtful to Him where He himself was not present at the Engagement Strength of his forces at Sea wherein the Genoese Portugals and Hollanders do most excel is also a most necessary businesse For whoever shall make himself master of the Seas the same shall command all by Land also CHAP. XVI Of the Treasury of Spain IT is necessary that the King have a full Treasury if it be but for the keeping up of his Reputation abroad for as the World goes now a dayes the Power of Princes is valued according to the fulnesse of their Purses rather then the largenesse of their Territories And therefore not only in the time of War but of peace also it behoves a Prince to have alwaies good store of ready Mony by him For it is a very hard and dangerous businesse also especially when He is now already engaged in a War to expect and wait till monies can be raised Tolle moras Semper nocuit differre paratis It is necessary therefore that there be Monies alwayes in a readinesse for the raising of Souldiers in an instant least while you are employed in getting Mony together your Enemy be before hand with you To this end Augustus Caesar erected a Military Treasury as Suetonius testifieth and that he might alwaies and without any trouble be provided of Mony for the raising and paying of his Souldiers he filled the same with New Taxes and Impositions And certainly very many wonder how it comes to passe that the King of Spain whose yearly Revenues amount to above twenty Millions hath not by this time made Himself Universal Monarch of all Christendome nor hath all this while so much as as once set upon the Turk To whom I answer that this is nothing at all to be wondred at if they would but take notice that the reason of this it because He hath not the skill to lay hold on Occasion when it is offered Him which very thing hath hitherto upheld the Fortune of all Great Empires For there was an Occasion given him at the Uniting of the Kingdomes of Castile and Arragon and of Naples and Millan but there was a much fairer offered to Charles the V. who was
a man of a Warlike spirit being King of Spain was afterwards chosen also Emperour of Germany by al which advantages He might have been able to have made himself Lord of the whole Earth had He but known as well how to give Lawes to those He conquered as He knew how to conquer them This Prince took Tunis and having driven thence Ariodenus the Turk He made Muleasses King of that place without changing the former State of the Kingdom at all After this He conquered Germany that is to say the Protestant Princes there whom He devested of their Electoral Dignity substituting into their places their Brethren and Kinsmen but otherwise leaving them in the same state He found them And although He had once got Luther himself into his hands and power yet looking after the empty Fame only of being accounted a Mercisul Prince He let him go again that so he might have the opportunity forsooth of reducing all Germany and the Nâ—therlands He took Francis the King of France and then set him again at liberty that so he might raise up a new War against Him and thereby frustrate all that He had done before He also took in the Cities of Sienna Florence and bestowed them upon the Family of the Medici that so He might procure himself more powerful enemies by the bargain For whosoever is raised by any one to some degree of Power what service soever is due from him to his Rayser he will be sure to decline the doing it as much as he can and therefore he seeks all the occasions he can of shaking off the Yoak that he may make his Benefactor his Enemy which very thing was done by the Dukes of Florence and by Maurice Prince Elector of Saxony against Charles the Fifth And indeed such Benefits as by reason of the greatnesse of them cannot any way be returned commonly they draw a hatred upon the Virtue of the Benefactor as we see it evidently fell out in the case betwixt the aforementioned Francis King of France and Charles the Fifth Another cause that this Monarchy hath not yet hitherto been brought about is this because that Philip could not succeed his Father not so much as in the War and therefore lost both the Low Countries together with the Imperial Titles But that Affliction which also fell upon him by the losse of Charles his Son was the most grievous of all the rest for he would have been able to have maintained the Wars in His stead which seeing the King of Spain is not able to do He is constrained alwaies to defend and make good the bounds of his Kingdom rather then to endeavour to enlarge them and to look to his Commanders and see that they do not pillage the Countries where their Command lies and enrich themselves out of the Kings Treasure it being their onely care how to keep up such a Trade of War by which they may make advantage to themselves rather then any way enlarge the Kings Dominions I shall therefore here lay down these Rules though they are not so proper for this place that when any new Country is conquered that is of a different Religion and manner of Government the Natives are presently to be removed out of it and carried into some other Country where they may serve as Slaves and their Children are to be Baptized and may be either put into the Seminaries before spoken of or else sent into the New World and into this conquered Country may be sent Colonies of Spaniards under the conduct of some Wise and faithful Commander Which Course ought to have been taken by Charles the Fifth at Tunis who should also have carried away Muleasses to Naples And He should by right have done the very same thing in Germany namely in Saxony in the Marquisat of Brandenburg and the Lantgravedome of Hessen into which Countries He should have sent New Colonies under the Command of New Governours The Free Cities also He should have suppressed and have taken away their Priviledges and lastly He should have made Three Cardinals the Governous of all Germany But when any New Country is taken in that is not of a different Religion but only differing in Government let Him then change nothing at all in matters that concern the People but only let Him set strong Guards upon the Country and let the Chief Officers be chosen all out of the Kings party but the Inferiour out of the Common People of the place the Lawes whereof may also be altered by little and little and made to conforme to the Kings Lawes either by heightning or abating the rigour of them according as the Condition and Temper of the place shall require All Authors or Heads of Factoins must be presently removed out of the way either by Death if they have been Enemies or if they have been friends they must be carried away into Spain that they may there receive Baronies for their reward or may have liberty of free Traffick into the Kings Dominions granted them But the Chief Heads of such People as He shall subdue He must never suffer to continue in their places which course ought to have been taken with the Strozzi Medici Cappones Petruccij and other Ringleaders and Heads of Factions at Sienna and Florence And indeed the same Course should have been taken with Francis King of France that so he might have had no further opportunity of attempting any thing against Charles the V. But as for the Hereticks and Luther the best way would have been to have suppressed them under some other Pretense presently after the breaking up of the Diet at Ausburg as I shall shew hereafter And if Charles the Fifth had but taken these Courses He had never left behind him so much work and trouble for King Philip and perhaps his young son Charles too might have been alive at this day and might perhaps by His Arms have added Africk Hungary Macedonia Italy and England to his Dominions But He as I have before said was the onely cause of all those Evills which we see at this day So that I do not wonder at all that notwithstanding the vast Treasures of the King of Spain yet the bounds of His Monarchy are not all this while enlarged But I rather wonder that so Wealthy a Prince hath not laid up all such his Revenues for Necessary Uses against times of need which might have been his ruin For if so be his Negotiation by Sea should be stopt or interrupted but for one five or six yeares space together or that his Plate Fleet should be intercepted in its return home from the West-Indies would it not be so fore a cut to him as that he must of necessity be forced to oppresse his own snbjects by laying most heavy and unusual Taxes upon them and so draw upon himself their Hate and besides should he not also undoe all his Merchants and defraud his Souldiers of their Pay and by that means be in danger
possibly they can to get to be admitted into some Covent or other for Friers or Preachers I therefore here leave it to the King to consider whether or no He may not rather be overcome by Gold which is the Cause of so many Evils I say therefore that there are many things here that stand in need of a Reformation that so the Kings Treasury may grow Rich and that He himself may have greater Testimonies of his Subjects Love and Fidelity which might easily be brought about if so be that those Rules before laid down touching the encreasing the Number of the Subjects and the remitting and abating the Taxes and Exactions laid upon them were but observed and if the King going into the Wars Himself in person would by that means chalk out to his Wise and Valiant Commanders and Souldiers the Way to Honour rather then to Covetousnesse and would also propose New Arts and Sciences So likewise if He would make some such Lawes to which those that are Obedient should have their former honours continued to them but the Refractory and Disobedient should have Disgraces cast upon them and to perswade Obedience to which Lawes there should in the Second place some Profit and Advantage be proposed for such but in the Third place before the Disobedient should be laid down the Fear of Punishment to which our Modern Writers absurdly attribute the First Place in Relation to the due Observing of Lawes who having regard to the Time rather then to Religion require Fear in Subjects rather then Love because that the Rulers of the Gentiles preferred this Later before the Former and so taught that Wicked Wretch Macchiavel and other the like Polititians those Rules But if there be no place left for a Reformation it is then necessary that respect being had to the Present Abuses there should be good store of Treasure got up together lest at length the King should be undone by Use-Mony or some other Losses should fall upon him in case the Plate Fleet should not return back from the West-Indies in three or four years together perhaps I shall first therefore lay down the Usual Rules in this case and then such other as I my self have thought upon First therefore there must be matter administred for the promoting of Vsury and Vsurers and every one of them is to be bound under a certain Penalty to have alwaies a stock of Monies lying by them that so when there shall be any Necessity the King may know where to fetch presently good store of Large Summes of Mony Which Course is to be taken in all the chief Cities both in the Kingdome of Naples and of Spain Then when any great War is near at hand the said Summes of Mony are to be called for at the said Usurers hands and that by the intervening too of the Popes Authority that so the King may not draw upon himself alone the Hatred and Ill Will of his Subjects Secondly let him introduce the Tribute of Apulia which was brought up by King Ferdinand through all the Provinces that are under him imposing it either in the same or some other the like Form Thirdly let Him cause all the Barons to bring in what summes of Mony they have binding them thereto in the name of Religion and the Crown of Spain to which they are joyned and engaged Fourthly let Him procure of the Pope Indulgences and Croisados for all his Kingdomes and those Summes of Mony that shall be raised by the same He shall lay up in some Treasury where they may encrease to such a quantity as that an Army may be raised out of them which may be sent into the Holy Land Fifthly let Him get an Injunction from the Pope that for the space of five years all Churches Monasteries Bishopricks and Parishes throughout all his Provinces shall pay in a certain sum of Mony into The Sacred Treasury so called as being collected for the making of a War against the Infidels that is to say Five in the Hundred of all their Revenues but so that every year there should be an abatement made of One As namely the first year they should pay Five in the Hundred the second year Four the third Three and so on till the five years be expired But the Venetians exact the Tenths And this Course may be taken betwixt the King and the Pope under the Pretense of making a War upon the Infidels After all this is done let Him then appoint two Bishops to be the Treasurers of this Mony Sixthly let the King by his Treasurers traffick in every Country with such Commodities as are used there as in Calabria with Silks in Apulia with Wheat in Sicily with Oyl for by this means He will divert his Subjects from applying themselves to Usury and will cause them to attend more the Manuring of the Ground and withal will hereby mightily enrich Himself Seventhly let Him send out into every City and Town especially in the Kingdom of Naples a Commissary having a Counsellour joyned with him who shall be one of the Clergy to make enquiry into all Usurers and to cause Them to make it appear by the testimony of Three Witnesses that they have taken no other Use then what is allowed to be taken by the custome of the Kingdom and where they shall find any to have done otherwise to seize upon all they are worth and carry it away to some publick place for the King's use But then the King may afterwards restore half of it to them again if he think fit as for example suppose his Officers took away from any of these Usurers Ten Thousand Crownes He may then restore to the Owner Five Thousand Crownes of his Mony again For they are a hateful sort of People and are despised by all men so that you need never fear that they will rebel and besides the people when ever they see Them ruined will be very glad of it neither will any of them take their parts and indeed the Usurers themselves when they have half of their estates left them will think themselves very well dealt withal And with the rest of such Monies the King may set up A Bank of Charity where poor people shall take up Monies upon their Pawn but upon this condition that if they redeem not their Pawn by the Limited Time that then it shall be forfeit to the King And afterward with the Mony arising from hence He may drive a Trade of Merchandise as the Usurers themselves use to do or else He may with those monies erect Cloysters or Seminaries for Souldiers and Poor Women as hath been shewed before And if some of the Clergy were sent abroad with the like Commissions to inquire into the Barons also it would do them much good both in reference to their Soul Body and State who otherwise by their arts would swallow up and devour the whole World Eighthly let Him require an Account of all the Kings Ministers and Commissioners for the
true yet the Course that the Turk takes is so blunt and plain that if he should have but one overthrow so that it were a lusty one indeed it would prove his utter Ruin as I have hinted before since that He hath no Vice-Roys or Barons by whom he might be recruited and made whole again But we cannot say so of the King of Spain who in such a case would presently be furnished with Aides from the Pope and the Princes of Italy and that by reason of their Union in point of Religion I say moreover that He cannot suffer any Notable Overthrow unlesse it be by some very Potent Prince such a One as the great Turk is who yet lying so very far remote from him as Alexander the Great of old did from the Romans cannot so quickly ruin him whereas on the Contrary any Peaceable Agreement of the Christians among themselves if so be it were but Firm and Lasting would utterly confound the Turk And therefore I say that although King Philips Kingdomes lye scattered far and near yet his enemies also lye far asunder one from another and therefore it is clear that his Emulators the Italians Tuscans and Venetians will never enter into a Combination against him unlesse he First give them some evident cause and wrong them very much Neither indeed will the Pope ever suffer any acts of Hostility to be done against His Catholick Majesty and besides it is also most certain that the Catholick Princes both out of fear of the Hereticks and also of the Authority of the Pope will never attempt any such thing And the Hereticks are at very great Variance also amongst themselves and for this reason Germany being divided into severall small Republicks cannot do him any harm at all and it is besides part of it made subject to the House of Austria and the Archdukes thereof by the Emperours and part also to certain Archbishops who are withall secular Princes as namely the Archbishops of Mentz of Colen Trevers Salsburg Strasburg and Bamberg and part also to the Dukes of Bavaria so that the Protestants can by no meanes make any Insurrection against the King of Spain The Lower Germany also is divided into more Common-Wealths then the other all which bear Armes against the King of Spain though it be only to defend themselves and not to offend Him And of this number are the Provinces of Holland Frisland and Zealand Besides the Upper and the Lower Germanies differ very much in their Religion which we may also say of the Danes Norwegians Transylvanians Gotlanders Polonians French Switzers and Grisons so that the King hath no need at all to fear that these should ever all joyn together against him and besides the King retains a great part of these Nations in pay and by that means keeps them his friends and then the King of Poland and the Prince of Transylvania are allied to him by Marriage and so are in league and amity with him So that He hath no body to stand in fear of but only the King of France and the King of England which two Princes by reason of their being of different Religions can never agree together Now although the King of Spain cannot as yet subdue the King of France yet it makes very much for His Interest that the King of France being absolved by the Pope is returned again to the Obedience of the Church For otherwise he would have been the Head of all the Transalpine Hereticks and would have marcht with an Army of them over into Italy to the great Prejudice both of the Pope and of our King which None of the Hereticks hath to this day adventured to do merely for want of a Powerful General to head them Then besides there is a Division broken out in France betwixt the Catholicks and the Hereticks and which is the chiefest thing of all there are in that Kingdome many Potent Bishops who would not by any means see Spain ruined And lastly our Kings Subjects do not come into the field with Lances Swords and Horses as the French use to do but they come into it armed with Guns which are a kind of Arms that are fitter for the defending of strong Holds and Fortifications then for the setting upon an Enemy in an open Field And hence it is that the French are able indeed to resist all the Spaniards Attempts but they cannot overcome them for in this case the very Princes and States of Italy who have to this day alwaies held with the French would go over to the Spaniard for it is their Design to keep the Ballance alwaies so even betwixt these two Nations as that neither of them may preponderate and bear down the Scales and so make a Prey of the Other which Hiero King of Syracuse heretofore laboured to do betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginians although he failed of his purpose Besides the King of France cannot march with an Army into Spain by reason of the Fortified Places and Castles that lye in his way and are kept by the Spaniards who are very well skilled in defending such Places Neither can he so soon march out with an Army against Millan or Naples but that the King of Spain can be much sooner in France with an Army and shall so force him to return back again and defend his own Kingdom Neither did the King of France ever passe over into Italy unlesse when he was assisted by the Pope as the Expedition of Charles of Anjou testifies or except he were called in by some Prince or State of Italy as Charles the Eighth was called in by the Duke of Millan which yet at this time can hardly be done again For the Italians were now afraid that they would bring in a New Religion with them And besides it is a usual thing that that Prince that first calls Forraigners in to his aide shall be first ruined by them for he must necessarily entertain them and allow them Quarters who after they have overcome the adverse Party will joyn with them and so drive out Him who called them first in Examples of this we have in the Sforza's Castruccio's and the Florentines with many others and also in the Pope himself although his own Papal Authority restored him again And therefore the Spaniard hath no need to fear the King of France much And as for the English he hath much lesse reason to stand in fear of them seeing they are shut up within an Island and we seldome see Islanders get any sure footing and make themselves Masters of any part of a Forraign Continent And therefore it is sufficient for them if they can keep their own only they send out their Ships to fetch in Prizes by Sea but for this Mischief I shall hereafter set down a Remedy Only let the King of Spain take care that the English joyn not their Navy with the Hollanders Scots Danes Norwegians and Danzickers for if they should they might then be able to overrun all
Spain as the Alans Goths and Vandals did of old And yet seeing that these Nations differ all in Religion and the King of Spain doth craftily under hand sow new seeds of Dissention amongst them there is no great cause to fear that they should joyn their forces together upon any design Let us now see what Spain is able to do within it self and by what means it may become Greater and enlarge its Territories laying down this for a Ground That for the rendring of any Dominion whatsoever Firm and Durable it is necessarily required that there be first a Natural Sociablenesse and an apt Correspondence among the subjects themselves and then betwixt the Prince and the subjects as there is in Mans body betwixt the Members themselves and also betwixt them and the Head Now this Natural Sociablenesse is founded first in the Man and Wife then in the Father of the Family and his Children with the rest of his Family and then again in several Families being linked and united together then in those also who are allied together by the Bond of Consanguinity or Affinity and likewise those that live in one Common Aire and Climate enjoying the same Temper of the Heavens as also those that agree in their Lawes Manners Customes and studies whereto also we may add their using one Common Language and wearing all one the same Habit in Apparel Neither do I account their Identity of Species or of Humanity to be any small Bond of this Natural sociablenesse namely because they are All Men and wheresoever Many of these Bonds Ties meet together there also must necessarily be a Firmer and more Durable Association made up and a more lasting Dominion setled Hence it is that the Italians and the Spaniards do so readily jump and agree together both because they understand each the others Language and are also like each other in their Manners Bodies and their Rites and Customes which can never be amongst the French because they differ among themselves not only in their Language and Manners but are also of a different Natural Constitution and temper So the Spaniards would much more easily be brought to enter into a league of Society and Friendship with the Africans then with the Netherlanders who are of a much more different Constitution from them For the Spaniards are Naturally Hot and Dry and are therefore Lean and of a Low Stature being withal Sharp-witted Subtle and Talkative But on the Contrary the Netherlanders are Cold Corpulent and Big-boned and are Heavy and Dull and of few words Whosoever therefore is to Rule Several and Different Nations and would keep them all within the bounds of Obedience let him endeavour to reduce them into a conformity as far as he is able and to make them in all things like to each other And this Uniting of Men to one another God himself the Author of all Polity had pointed out unto Men. Now there are Three sorts of this Union we here speak of the First is of Minds which is caused by Religion which is indeed the strongest of all Unions for it uniteth together in Opinion Nations that are at the greatest distance that may be from each other Upon this have both Mens Wills and Actions their Dependancy and in This are both their Tongues Arms united By this the Pope ruleth over Europe Asia Africk and America and in a word over all the Christians in the whole World Whereas on the contrary the Emperour of Germany is scarse able to Rule Germany alone although the People there are otherwise as like and as much agreeing among themselves as may be both in their shape of Body Habit Arms Rites and Customes and all because It wants this first Vnion namely of Religion For there are so many several different Opinions in Religion among the Germans that it may be truly said of them Quot homines tot Sententiae so many Men so many Minds And for this reason the English and Helvetians suffer but two sorts only of Religion in their Countries for that common saying Divide impera that is Divide thy subjects and thou shalt rule them is of no use here but rather on the contrary Divide perdes that is If thou devide thy subjects thou shalt ruin thy self Catharine de Medicis Queen of France that she might contrary to the Salique Law sit at the Helme and have the Government of the Kingdome in her hands complied sometimes with the Catholicks and sometimes with the Huguenots but by this means she brought destruction both upon her self and upon her Sons one of which was Slain by a Dominican Fryer And therefere in this Particular the King of Spain is more happy then any other besides because that his Kingdomes though they lye at a great distance from one another are yet all joyned together and united in one Religion and in this very respect also he stands upon better terms then the Great Turk himself or any other Prince whatsoever because as we have shewed before He converts those that are under his subjection and makes them to be all of one and the same Faith The second is the Vnion of Bodies and in this the Turk goes beyond all other Princes for He hath under his subjection and in perfect Obedience both Mahumetans Christians and Jewes which are all as much differing one from another in their Religions as can be neither doth this their diversity of Religion prejudice him at all because that he brings up their Sons to serve him in his Wars and besides He leaves all such of his Subjects as are not of his Religion without either Armes or any meanes possible of doing him any harm But indeed in case He should intrust any of these with the Government of any part of his Empire and should exercise not a Despotical but a Political Soveraingty over them He would quickly be brought into Sad Straites by them as we see it for example in many of our German Princes at this day or at least all meanes of enlarging his Empire would quite be cut off from him as we see the case now stands with the Emperour and with the King of Poland If haply among the Turks Vassals there should chance to start up some Gallant-Spirited Person he might possibly prove to be the Ruin of his Empire as Scanderbeg had like to have been had he had but the Christians as ready to assist him as the Genueses were to do him a mischief who both to their own and also to the great Losse of Hunniades K. of Hungary were hired for so many Crownes to passe over forty Thousand Mahumetans out of Asia into Europe by which meanes Amurath that was before in a manner utterly broken and had well near lost all was now so well relieved and recruited again as that by these forces He afterwards made himself Master of half Europe I shall not here speake of Moses who was raised up against God by Pharaoh according to which example
among the Venetians and this the King ought to do so much the rather because that he wants young Seamen more then any thing but yet to these he must joyn some Transalpine Seamen for the encreasing of his number There may also be instituted in these Islands two New Orders of Knights such as those of Malta neither ought the Revenewes belonging to the Knights that are of the Order of St James or of any other Order of Knighthood to be bestowed upon Idle Persons that the King may not alwaies be forced to make use of Auxiliary Seamen or else to imploy Mercenaries such as the Genois are In such Islands as these the Barons ought to have a stricter hand held over them then any others because that the Conveniency of the situation of such places may tempt them to take an occasion of Rebelling here rather then in any other places these men being indeed Naturally inclined to be Rebells And therefore the best way would be to send Barons from out of some other Countries into these Islands and of all other those of Spain are the fittest the rather because they lye all in the same Climate and these should be put in trust with all Offices and Seafaring Affaires with whom may be joyned some Transalpines partly to assist them as Souldiers and partly for Procreation of Children Neither ought any Noble men of the Natives to be intrusted with any of the stronger Holds or Castles for these are most commonly the Authors and Ringleaders of all Rebellions as they have alwaies proved against the French especially And yet these men have been since very faithful to the Arragonians by reason of their likenesse both in Temper and Manners In a word there is nothing more Necessary for the making a Prince to reign happily then that he throughly understand the Nature Temper and Inclination of his Subjects For according as He finds these to be so must He order his Government CHAP. XXIII Of Germany COmming now to speak of such Nations as are Enemies to the King of Spain to some of which notwithstanding He hath some Title the Germans first offer themselves unto us whom yet the King needs not fear seeing that the House of Austria is the most powerful in all Germany being now raised up to so great a height of Greatnesse and Power by continual Marriages with great Princes and Hereditary Successions and great Alliances as we see it at this day For Maximilian had the Provinces of the Lower Germany falling to him by Mary his wife who was daughter to Charles the last Duke of Burgundy and Philip. Maximilians Son became possessed of Spain with all its Appurtenances by the marriage of Joan he daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella in which Kingdomes his Son Charles succeeded And in these our daies King Philip the most worthy Son of so worthy a Father hath had Portugal with all its Appurtenances which certainly are very great fallen to Him by the death of his Mother Isabella from which very house is derived the Title of King of Both Spains Now we are to understand that the house of Austria is in league with none save only Catholick Princes such as is the Duke of Bavaria with the German Archbishops Bishops and some few others and therefore it is very necessary that these should still be more and more closely united to each other not only in Religion but also by Marriages into one anothers families and other like ties and bonds of Friendship which as it is the Justest course that can be taken so it is also the safest and is much more firm and durable then any other whatsoever But there must be all the care taken that may be to sow continually the seeds of discord and dissention between the Marquesse of Brandenburg the Landgrave of Hossen the Duke of Saxony the Duke of Brunswick the Count Palatine of the Rhine and also the Duke of Wirtemberg and those other Petty Common-wealths in Germany which may easily be effected by reason of those State Divisions and Emulations that frequently trouble these Republicks and fill them with suspicions and Jealousies of each other And hence it comes to passe that they never come in with their Aides to the Emperours in any seasonable time First because they conceive the Emperours businesse and design to be to bring Hungary in subjection not to the Roman Empire but rather to the House of Austria and then again they are afraid lest the Emperour when he is now grown to so great a height of Power should endeavour to put a yoak upon their necks also and keep them in subjection And therefore they do acknowledge Him to be indeed the Head of their Union but yet they will not yeeld Him any Homage but themselves order matters as they see cause among themselves both in reference to the abolishing of old Lawes and enacting New as also in doing the like in matters of Religion a sufficient example whereof we have both in Norimberg Spires Strasbourg and Frankford Yet I shall here add that this Dissension among the German Princes is in one respect Advantageous to the King of Spain and in an other Prejudicial as it usually proveth to be in reference to all Forreign Powers For the Turk hath already taken away Bosnia Croatia and Hungary from the House of Austria and it is to be feared that possibly he may some time or other force his way even into Austria it self also And then if Germany should find it self to suffer thus under the Protection of this House possibly they may reject It and elect some Heretick to be their Emperour which certainly would prove to be the cause of many Greater Mischeifs And therefore I conceive the King of Spain ought to labour as much as in him lies to bring either the Emperour himself or else his brother Maximilian to enter into a League with the Duke of Transylvania or else with the Muscovites and that they should joyn all their force and strength together to ruin the Turk I would have the Emperour also to engage Himself faithfully both to the Protestant Princes and Free Cities of Germany and also to the Duke of Bavaria that what places soever He shall take in in his Wars they shall be all reckoned as Parts added to the Empire and not be accounted as Additions to his Own House only Then again I would have him during the time of the War to confer upon all such persons of Eminency as shall be sent to his assistance by the Free Cities Lands and Lordships and the like Gratuities by this means to oblige them the more to His service rather then to that of their own Native Country in like manner as Caesar engaged His Army even against Rome it self But this must be the businesse only of some one of the House of Austria that shall be a Person both of great Valour and Wisedom neither can any meaner man undertake it And then having conquered the Turks He must
meanes which is never to be done but with those that are farther off and which is especially to be declined when a Prince hath so Potent Neighbours that are his Antagonists for an Empire For the French had first a design of making themselves Universall Monarchs of the World before the Spaniards had any such thought whom the French afterwards envied when they found them aspiring that way A second Opportunity of keeping France under in such sort as that It should not have been able to have opposed or hindred the growing Potency of the Spaniard was offered to his Son Philip had he but had the skill to have laid hold of it and to have made the right use of it For Henry the III. of France being slain by a certain Dominican Frier under pretense of his favouring those of the Religion and the whole Kingdom of France being now divided into two Factions namely the Catholicks and the Huguenots and many Governours of Provinces having at that time the said Provinces at their Devotion as for example Montmorency had that of Languedoc and Espernon and others had others the Line of Valois being now quite extinct and there being a great Controversy started amongst them whether it were best for them to think of choosing any New King of some other House or not and lastly Henry of Navarre being by reason of his being an Heretick hated by the Catholick Party King Philip had at that time five Opportunities offered him either of which had He but laid hold of it would have been sufficient to have made him Master of France or at least to have weakned the power of it very much not to say any thing what might have been done when all of them concurred and met together And yet to say truth it lay not in his power at that time to effect this for he saw that if he should fall upon this design in an open way of making war upon them it would have been necessary for Him then to have had good store of Souldiers to have brought into the Feild which at that time He had not to be able to divide and distract all the Nobles of that Kingdome and to set them together by the ears And therefore he should first of all have dealt under hand either with the Duke of Guise or of Maine or with some other of the most Powerful amongst them and have promised to make Him King and besides to make him His Son in Law and at the same time to give hopes also to all the rest of the Nobility that they should every man of them be made the Proprietary and Absolute Lord of their several Provinces as that Montmorency should have Languedoc confirmed to Him Espernon should have Provence and every one of them should have had a promise made him of such Lordships as they liked best and all of these He should also have furnished with mony that they might have been the better enabled to make resistance against Henry of Navarre He ought also to have entred into a League with the Pope and the rest of the Catholick Princes that so joyning all their forces together they might all at once have set upon Henry of Navarre who was of a different Religion from them And then besides all this He ought to have obliged to him the hearts of all the French Bishops and Preachers by conferring upon them large Dignities and Preferments And when all these things had been thus ordered then either the King himself in person or else if He should not think that fit His Son or the Duke of Parma should presently have invaded France with an Army of at least a Hundred Thousand men consisting of Germans Italians and Spaniards and He should also immediately have sent out some to make Excursions into France by the way of the Duke of Savoys Country and by Navarre and Picardy And all these things should have been with all care and diligence put into Execution which if they had He had then certainly done his businesse and had either added France to his other Dominions or else might have Canton'd it out into many small Baronies and Republicks as Germany is and so he should have been ever after secure from their being able to do Him any hurt But King Philip was not nimble enough in his businesse and besides He was deluded by the French Nobles who almost all went over to the King of Navarre whereas had He been but as quick as He should have been all this had never happened For this is the usual Course of the World that every man looks first of all to his Own Interest and then to that of the publick and accordingly men use to bestirr themselves in troublesome times But here in this case where every one of them perceived that the good of the Publick did consist in the welfare of each Particular person and so on the Contrary they then presently made choise of that which they conceived would be for the Publick Good And so although those French Nobles being at the first by Mony and fair Promises wrought over to favour the King of Spain and so were brought to enter into Action in order thereunto yet when upon better Consideration they found at last that in case the Crown of France should passe away to another or that the Kingdom should be parcell'd out into small Dominions and Republicks the losse would at length redound to each of them in particular whiles that the King of Spain might then with ease reduce them one by one and bring them under his Obedience seeing that they were so divided as that they could not in any convenient time joyn their strengths together to make any opposition against him and besides knowing that France it self which had been hitherto so much honoured by all other Nations would now come to be despised by them and that all hopes of ever attaining to the Crown would now be quite cut off from them and that they should afterwards find that the Spaniards would but laugh at them for all their pains they conceived it to be the safer and more advantageous Course for themselves to adhere to the King of Navarre and receive him for their Prince Which certainly when at the first whiles they were inveagled and blinded by the false hopes of the Spaniards Mony they had not so well and throughly considered as They did afterwards when they had once weighed in their minds what the Event was like to be and also saw with their eyes what the Kings Proceedings were They then at length began to elude Art with Art Besides the French perceiving also how great Inconveniences would arise by maintaining a War with the Spaniard did therefore the more willingly and chearfully proceed to the election of a New King because that they were perswaded that when a King was once chosen those evils would then be removed which yet at the first they made litle account of But the King of Spain committed yet
another Errour in this Point in that by his Slownesse He gave the King of Navarre time to make over to his Party the Princes of Italy and the Pope only by making them believe that He intended to abjure the Protestant Religion and turn Catholick besides that those Princes did likewise consider that when France was once subdued by the Spaniards whom they knew very well to gape earnestly after an Universal Monarchy their Own Turnes would probably have been next to have been swallowed up by them This very Slownesse of his was the reason why the Spaniard gained the lesse and was also the longer held in expectation and besides by gaping in this manner after what belonged to others became hated by all So true is that Common Saying namely That there is no place Inexpugnable into which an Asse laden with Gold can but get in But then this is also to be added to that Saying namely that That Golden Asse or that Asse laden with Gold must have many Horses laden with Iron to come after it that so while the Citizens are all busied in weighing and telling out their Mony Thou mayest in the mean time make use of thy Iron in the subduing and taking in of that Place To this we may adde that the Spanish Commanders as well as the French plaid booty as we say neither of them fighting for the Victory but for Gain onely And the reason of this was because that neither the King himself nor his Son were present in person in the Army And besides the Duke of Parma durst not at first in the beginning of the War hazard all in a Battel without Commands from the King by which means the King of Navarre had time given him to gain over to him the French Nobility whom the Spaniard had before wrought over by his Mony to His side only by an Opinion they had conceived of his Military Valour And in this He imitated those other most Valiant Princes who neglecting the Common People made it their only businesse to oblige the Nobles to them only Which hath been the Ancient Custome with the Polonians Persians and French And because that the Nobles think it a thing too much below them to march with Foot Souldiers hence it is that these very Nations have alwaies been very strong in Horse but have still been but weak in Foot And seeing the businesse is come to this passe that the King of France hath now won to himself the Affections both of his Subjects the French and of the Pope also and hath thereby got himself more Renown then if he had beaten the King of Spain himself it is now to be feared that He may sometime or other attempt to take in some part of Spain also For He is of a Turbulent Unquiet Spirit neither can the French hold while they have well settled a Country that they have newly taken in but they must on still and fall upon some other and this the King of France must the rather do because that being out of Mony He is forced to forrage abroad and take from others that he may have to pay his own men And therefore it will be necessary that the King of Spain take care that the Frontiers of Spain and the Duchy of Millan also be well guarded and fortified and also that he carefully observe these following Rules The first whereof is that he enter into a League with the French who are his Competitors and the Second is that He hinder the coming of any Assistance to him either from England or from Italy both which things may be effected one and the same way namely if He do but perswade the Pope that the King of France hath a purpose of Assisting the Hereticks and that should he but once come into Italy he would scatter abroad the Poyson of his Heresie every where and that Tuscany and the Venetian Territories will first be the Seat of the War and afterwards will be his Prey Let the King of Spain therefore deal with the Pope that He would interdict the King of France the contracting of any League or Friendship either with the Queen of England or with any other of the Hereticks such as are the Genevians Helvetians and Rhetians or Grisons for these would be able to assist him very much Let the Pope also make Him swear that He will go to the Holy Land and there joyn with the Italians in the Defence of the Christian Faith But the best course of all would be that the Nobility of France and of Italy should all joyn together and should be sent in an Expedition against Greece and that there should also be another Association made betwixt the Princes of the House of Austria against the Hereticks For if that the Christian Princes were but thus dispersed and kept at a distance one from another the Kingdom of Naples together with that of Spain and the Duchy of Millan also would have none to stand in fear of but would be secure on all sides and besides the King of Spain might in the mean time bethink himself what waies were the best to be taken for the reducing of the Netherlands over whom were he but once Conquerour the forenamed Princes would be so much astonished at the report of that his Victory and of his Military Strength that they would never dare to attempt any thing against Him no though they should return home Lords of all Asia For although Pompey was a Conquerour in Asia yet he was not able to stand against Caesar that had now subdued the Belgick Provinces For the Belgians by reason of their Fiercenesse in War put Caesar much more to it to subdue them then those of Asia did Pompey who was for this reason also inferiour to Caesar in Power Now in case that Henry the Fourth should die as he begins now to be an old man and hath neither Successor nor Wife or if he should marry and should leave a Son behind him yet probably he would be under Age and so Conde would either be the next Heir to the Crown or else would at least have the Administration of the Government put into his hands during the Minority of the Prince whose Ancestors having alwaies been the Leaders and indeed the stirrers up of the Hereticks of France in all their Wars were the Authors of shedding so much Catholick blood I say should things come to this passe it would then concern the King of Spain to lay hold on that Opportunity in proposing to the Consideration of the Catholicks of France whether they thought would be the better course to make choyce of Conde or else of some Catholick to be their King remembring that He is the Son of that Father that acted so much Cruelty upon the Catholicks which this Prince suckt in with his Nurses Milk The King of Spain must also so order the matter as that if He cannot bring it about that the Kingdome of France should be divided in Judgment upon
Guards upon all such places of His Dominions as lye open to their Incursions least otherwise the English should chance to seaze upon them And such are the Haven Corugna and all the Sea Coast of Galicia Leon Biscay and all the Kingdomes that lie in the other Hemisphere as shall be shewed hereafter But this he must make his cheifest businesse namely to weaken the Power of the English for the effecting of which design it would be sufficient if He could but bring it about that the Hollander and the Freezlander should with their Fleets fall upon the English Forces at Sea as I shall by and by make it plainly appear But seeing He is so far from doing this that his own Navies are very often damaged by the English ships the only Remedy that is left him is to provide himself of some Vast Fleets of ships which should lie at Corugna and Lisbon that when ever the Spanish Fleet shall return from the Indies they may serve as convoys to It and may bring it home safely or else they may be sent forth either against Ireland or England and so may divert them from lying in wait for and infesting of the Spanish Navies And because the King of Spain is to be Lord of the Seas it is very necessary that He build himself many Wooden Cities that is to say great Navies for the securing of His Treasure that he recieves out of the New World It would also be a very good course for him to hire those that are of the greatest strength among the Hollanders though it cost him a Million of mony to guard such Fleets of his as are to passe to and fro in the Northern Seas and to deal in the like manner with such Nations as are better skilled in Nautical affaires then the English themselves are as namely the Danziokers by means of the King of Poland who is allied to the house of Austria likewise with the Gutlanders Swedes Finlanders and the rest that are of Scandinavia Denmark Pomerania and Borussia procuring them to declare against the English and either to set upon some of their Islands or else to invade England it self that so they may divert them from falling upon the Spanish Fleets or else if the King shall think it better to set upon the English Navy it self If I say He would but be at so great a charge as to hire the said Nations to fall upon the English and would besides but give them all the Booties that they should take from the English He might compasse all his desires and besides the seeds of such a Feude once sown would spread far and near and would never be killed and choaked again And therefore I conceive that Mony alone would be able to set these People at Variance and make them fall foul one upon the other And it is certain that England stands in fear of no other Nations so much as of those above named because they are both more fierce and more Populous Nations and also more powerful at Sea then the English themselves are For Spain cannot it self make any considerable opposition against the English unlesse it be by makig use of some such Artifice seeing that they are better acquainted with those Northern Seas then the Spanish are And then England is an Island whose Inhabitants are both very Numerous and they are also a diligent and subtle People and it is besides very strongly fortified both by Sea and Land and withall a deadly enemy to Spain partly by reason of their different Religions and partly because the English claime a kind of Right to that Crown by reason of the Castilian Line which is derived by the House of Lancaster besides diverse of the former Kings of England of the Family of York and others have been allied to Spain Now as concerning the weakning of the English there can no better way possibly be found out then by causing Divisions and Dissentions among themselves and by continually keeping up the same which will quickly furnish the Spaniard with better and more advantageous Opportunities And as for the Religion of that People it is that of Calvin though very much Moderated and not so rigid and austere as it is at Geneva which yet cannot so easily be extinguished and rooted out there unlesse there were some certain Schooles set up in Flanders with which People the English have very great coâ—â—erce by meanes of which there should be scattered abroad the Seeds of Schisme and Divisions in the Natural Sciences as namely betwixt the Stoicks Peripateticks and Telesians by which the Errours of the Calvinists might be made manifest For the truth of it is That Sect is Diametrically contrary to the Rules of Policy for they teach that whether a Man do well or ill he doth all by Divine Impulsion which Plato Demonstrates against Homer to be opposite to all Sounder Policy which sayes that every Man hath Free Liberty of Will either to do Well or Ill so that it is in our own Power either to observe or not observe what is commanded us and from hence we are to expect either our Rewards or Punishments according as I have most evidently demonstrated in my Dialogue touching Policy where I have discoursed of this Point though but briefly and without any flourish of Language which They since they have become Hereticks are grown somewhat subtle in and yet being of a Nature that is still desirous of Novelties and Change they are easily wrought over to any thing As concerning their Dominions and Private Estates the English are divided and live in several Countries whence some time or other the Spaniard may easily light upon some convenient Opportunity of advantage against them For the King of Englands Dominion is divided into Ireland and England which together with Scotland maketh up the Isle of Great Brittain Now Scotland it self hath also many small Islands belonging to it which are called the Orcades And hence it is that the Isle of Great Brittain had alwaies two Kings reigning over it namely one of them was King of England and the other of Scotland who by reason of their lying so near to each other were in a manner continually at wars and invading one anothers Territories for their Kingdomes are severed only by a little small River and some few hills But now the King of Scots hovers as it were at this time over England not only by reason of his Neighbourhood to it but also because of His Right of Succession for His Mother was Niece to King Henry the Eighth who was Father to Queen Elizabeth that now reigneth and if we should confesse the truth there is none so near in blood to the Crown of England as He is And therefore the time now draweth on that after the death of the said Queen Elizabeth who is now very old the Kingdom of England must fall into the hands of their Ancient and continuall Rivals the Scots We may here add that the Peers of the
Land who when they are assembled together in a Body are called in their Language the Parliament carry a great sway with them and have very great Power in so much that they seem to desire to set up an Oligarchy or an Aristocratical State according to the example shewed them by the Netherlanders For all Northern Nations are Naturally impatient of Monarchy or Absolute Power in Princes and the Kings of England were alwaies kept under by the Parliament till that now of later times under pretext of introducing a New Religion they have taken upon them to exercise a more absolute power over their Subjects But in Antient Times the whole Kingdom of England was divided into four lesser Kingdoms as Spain also hath been anciently distributed both into many several Kingdomes both of which Countries did afterwards grow into two entire Kingdomes although it cannot be denied but that the Power of the Kings of England was never so great as that of the Kings of Spain My opinion is therefore that the King of Spain should do well to employ under hand some certain Merchants of Florence that are wise and subtle persons and that traffick at Antwerp who because they are not so much hated by the English as the Spaniards are should treat with some such of the English as are some way or other descended from some of the former Kings of England and should promise each of them severally no one of them knowing any thing what is said to the other all the possible aides that can be from Spain for the restoring of them to their Inheritances Legally descending down to them from their Ancestours and undertake to effect this for them if not as to the whole Kingdome yet at least to some part of it requiring them to engage themselves to nothing else so to give a colour to the businesse save only that they shall not joyn their forces and assist the English in setting upon the Spanish Fleet at its return from the West Indies For by this meanes each of them being puft up with hope will presently fall to question the King of Scots his Title to the English Crown and will endeavour to oppose him in it Let him also send privately to King James of Scotland and promise him that He will assist him to the utmost of his Power in his getting possession of the Kingdom of England upon this condition viz that He shall either restore there again the Catholick Religion for the love whereof His Mother Mary Stuart Queen of Scots refused not to spend her dearest blood and even to lay down her Life too or at least that he shall not annoy or any way disturbe the said Spanish Fleet. But then again on the other side let him under hand labour with the English Peers and the chiefest of the Parliament and egge them on to endeavour to reduce England into the Form of a Republick withal assuring them that the King of Scots when he shall have once gotten into the English Throne must needs prove a cruel Prince to them as having alwaies about him a deep remembrance how injuriously the English have heretofore dealt with the Scots Moreover let Him endeavour to strike a terrour into Queen Elizabeths friends by often putting into their heads that they will find that King James will revenge his Mothers blood upon Queen Elizabeths friends seeing that She is like to leave behind her None of Her Own blood upon whom He might take revenge especially seeing that His Mother Queen Mary when she was now to dye seriously commended unto Him the care of the Catholick Religion and the Revenge of Her Blood The English Bishops are also to be exasperated and put into Fears and Jealousies by telling them that the King of Scots turned Calvinist out of hope and desire of the English Crown and being also forced to do so by his Heretical Barons but that when He shall once be quietly settled in the English Throne He will then quickly restore the Former Religion for as much as not onely His deceased Mother but even the King of France also have both of them very earnestly commended the same unto Him By which means it must necessarily follow that the seeds of a continual War betwixt England and Scotland will be sown in so much that neither Kingdome shall have any leisure to work any disturbance to the Spanish Affaires Or else by buzzing into their ears that in case King James should be possest of this Kingdom He will however be a Friend of Spain that the whole Island would be devided into many Dominions or else that it would come to be an Elective Kingdom by which means the King of it will be the lesse careful of making himself Master of other Countries and of adding them to the English Crown neither indeed though he should never so much desire it would he ever be able to do so as I have before shewed where I speak of France or else that this Country of England will be reduced into the Form of a Common Wealth which will perpetually be at feude with Scotland and that all Actions It shall undertake will be long in bringing to effect and so It will be able to do the lesse harm to Spain The Spirits of the English Catholicks also are to be rouzed up and as it were awakened from sleep and encouraged to Action for by this means so soon as ever the Throne shall be vacant the King of Spain shall come into England under Pretence of assisting them Let Him also deal with those English Nobles who are possessed of some certain circumjacent Islands lying about England that they should exercise an Absolute and full Jurisdiction each of them in their several places and have Peculiar Courts of Justice of their own distinct from those of England which very thing we read to have been Anciently done by them The Chief of the Irish Nobility also are to be dealt with that as soon as they hear of the Queens death they should new model Ireland either into the Form of a Republick or else should make it a Kingdom of it self throwing off all Obedience to the English withal promising aides to each of them in particular and that so much the rather because that in that Kingdome or Island the Catholicks and especially the Friers that are of the Order of S. Francis are very greatly esteemed and beloved There is also much greater agreement and correspondence betwixt the Spaniard and the Irish then betwixt them and the English whether it be by reason of the Similitude of their Manners or else by reason of the Clime and the nearnesse of these two Countries one to the other There are also in Ireland many Vagabond persons and such as have fled their Countries being men that are most impatient of Government and yet are good Catholicks and such as may be able to do good service in this kind as hath been shewed already But this sort of Men is not very rare to
be found either in England or Scotland also These and the like Preparations may be made before hand that so soon as ever Queen Elizabeth is dead they may be immediately put into Execution For there is no man but knowes what horrid Civil Wars and what strange Alterations and Turns have happened several times in England So that what I have here proposed ought not to appear to any man as things either New or Impossible CHAP. XXVI Of Poland Muscovia and Transylvania THe Kingdom of Poland is in Our time the most Potent of all the Northern Kingdomes insomuch that if it were not so divided in it self about Points of Religion as it is and were withal an Hereditary Kingdome and had a Prince that were a Native and were not Elected out of some Forraign Nation as their custome is it would prove a sufficient Terrour to the Great Turk especially if the Great Duke of Muscovia were but joyned with them But the Nobility of that Nation in whose Power the Election of the King is are very much afraid of the King's Power and for that reason They keep as hard a hand over Him as possibly they can The King of Spain therefore must endeavour as much as lies in Him that no King be elected there but such a one as is of the Catholick Religion which course hath hitherto been observed amongst them For should they chuse themselves a King that were of any other Religion He would then very easily be induced to countenance by his Authority the Northern Hereticks who do all agree in these two Points although they differ among themselves almost in all the rest namely that the Pope is Autichrist and that the Arch-Dukes of Austria are all of them such as fight for Antichrist And therefore upon any the least Occasion that could be they would be apt to joyn their forces together against both the Pope and the Emperour their Neighbour had they but any Powerful Prince to head them and to be their General which Charge none is so able to undertake and go through with as the King of Poland is For the King of Denmark is but a weak Prince and the King of Sweden lies too far off and besides is severed from Germany by the Sea The King of Spain must then in the next place by all meanes endeavour that one of the House of Austria may be advanced to the Crown of Poland or at least such a one as is some way or other allied to the House of Austria as the now King of Poland is And lastly he must be such a one as shall alwaies make head against the Turk and that should enter into an Association with the Muscovites who together should to their utmost endeavour as much as in them lies the utter Ruine and Extirpation of the Turks He must also make choyce of some of the Wisest and most Eminent persons of his Kingdom whom He shall send as Embassadours to Cracovia and who by their presence may adde Authority and Weight to the Spanish Union in the Esteem of the Electors of Poland and that may obtain of them that in case the King of Spain should have more Sons then one that then They would Elect one of the Younger of them to be their King for certainly were any of the King of Spain's Sons chosen King of Poland He would never be so simple and foolish as to take upon him to govern the Kingdome of Poland according to his Own Will and pleasure as the King of France's Son endeavoured to do Besides He must deal with the People of Scandia and the Dantzickers by the means of the King of Poland who now is King of Swethland also that they would joyn together and send out a Fleet against the English as hath been said before For by taking this course the Kings expense will not be half so great as his Gains will be He must also labour that the Prince of Transylvania may in like manner enter into a league with the Polanders or else that either He or the great Duke of Muscovia may be chosen King of Poland For seeing that these two Nations are not only Neighbours to the Turks but do also naturally hate them they might easily be able to stop his proceedings And I am verily perswaded that among all the Northern Nations there is not any so fit and able to oppose the Turk as is the Muscovite who would but the Tartarians and the Polanders joyn with him might be able to make Incursions into the Turks Dominions and march up even to the very Walls of Constantinople Neither indeed hath Macedonia or Moldavia or Bulgaria or Thrace ever suffered so much losse by any Nation as by the Muscovites And if there were an Association contracted betwixt the King of Spain and the Muscovite either by Marriage or else by the nearer Tie of Religion brought about there by the Industry of the Jesuites it must needs prove a very advantageous businesse to Him because that Spanish Gold is among these Northern Nations of greater Estimation and Account then any thing else in the world And then must the King of Spain be very careful that as soon as ever he finds he hath wrought up the affections of these people to a Willingnesse to do him any service He set them upon some Notable Expedition or other while they are now ready for it and before they begin to cool again and repent themselves of their forwardnesse For Delay hath alwaies been the Ruine of the King of Spain's Affaires by reason that his Confederates through his slownesse in putting them in execution have alwaies had time enough to smell out the subtilty of His Designs and by this means it comes to passe that he commonly loses his labour and is at charge to no purpose The Bohemians also might be hired by the King of Spain's and the Popes Mony to joyn with the Transylvanians against the Turks because that They are in league with the House of Austria Yet when all is done there cannot be any considerable matter done in this Particular without the Assistance of the Polanders also and the Muscovites and unlesse the Emperour himself also be a Man of a stout and Warlike spirit as we shewed before when we spake of Germany and use his utmost endeavour to stop all growing Mischiess in their very Beginings least by Delay they get head and grow so much the stronger and Intractable CHAP. XXVII Of Flanders and the Lower Germany IT is not without good cause that the King of Spain endeavours by all possible meanes that he can to recover the Low-Countries again about the keeping of that only part whereof which he still possesseth it hath cost him more Humane Blood then there is Water in it and about which He hath spent more Gold then there are stones in it And yet neither is this a matter so much to be wondred at seeing that could He but once make himself Master of those Countries again He
of the war for the war doth but onely increase their strength and makes them abler to resist And therefore I conceive that there are but two waies left now to be taken for the bringing this businesse to effect the first of which is to sow the seeds of Division amongst them and the second To draw them forth out of their own Country Cadmus having a designe of erecting a Monarchy at Thebes whether he came a stranger is said first to kill a Serpent by which was signified the Defence and Safeguard of Thebes and then afterwards to sow the Teeth of it that is to say to scatter abroad the Poyson of Desire of Innovation and an Earnestnesse to be instructed in the knowledge of learning namely in such New Sciences and Arts as he had brought over with him from his own Country And hence Souldiers are said to spring up who through mutual discord slew each other and the remainders of them that were left joyned themselves with Cadmus their Head and Captain so laying the foundation of the Kingdom of Thebes in Boeotia I affirm therefore that these very Courses ought to have been taken by the King of Spain and not a war to have been onely maintained against them all this while And certainly if the Southern People would ever conquer or lay the foundations of a Monarchy over the Northern seeing that they are not strong enough to bring the same about they ought to have recourse to the Arts either of Cadmus or else of Jason although of the two Jason went the more wisely to work seeing he first wonne the heart of Medea that is the good will and Affections of the Northern Women to him for the Women of those Countries are easily brought to love Southern Men by reason of the Natural Heat that is in them which those Women like very well neither indeed do the Netherlanders hate the Spaniards so much as their Wives love them Afterwards Jason by the enchantments of Medea slew the Dragon that is the Guard of the Kingdom such as are the Warlick and Valiant men of a Nation with the Preachers And then did he by the meanes of enchanted Oyntments tame fierce Beasts the Brazen-footed and fire-spitting Bulls that is by his Friendship and Gifts He won over to him the Nobles and Principal men of the Kingdom And at length by them he sowed about the Teeth of the Dragon that is by the assistance of the Nobles he spread abroad the Seeds of Discord and Dissention about Religion Arts and Honours Whence in the last place sprung up Souldiers that is Factions such as are those of the Guelphs and Gibellines the Pontificians and Imperialists the Lutherans and Catholicks wherein they killed each other But those that remained chose Jason for their Head and Commander and though few in number yet afforded Him their assistance in the getting of the Golden Fleece that is to say such an Empire as we here speak of This Learned Fable I have therefore proposed and explained that I might shew the King of Spain what he is to do seeing that He hath hitherto taken so great pains and lost so many men and all to no purpose as Cadmus did before he had killed the Serpent Namely in the first place I would have either the King himself or else his Daughter or his son to go and dwell either a Antwerp or Bruxels or if he think fit rather at Gaunt that so by their Presence the Subjects may be the more encouraged and withal Forraigners may be drawn thither too herein following the Example of Cadmus who after his men were slain went himself to the Fountain of the Sarpent that kept the same In the next place I would have Him remove from all the Neighbouring Provinces all Suspition or fear of having any more Wars made upon them by the Spaniards and He should suffer them to live a while in peace and quietnesse and He withal shew himself so gentle and full of humanity to his own Subjects there that Forreigners taking notice of it should even repine thereat and should have a desire kindled within them of enjoying the same happinesse and of joyning themselves with His Subjects in the defending of that his Dominion In the Third place He should remit the Taxes and Impositions that have been laid upon those Places that are under his subjection and should exact no more of them then what is necessary for the Maintenance of the Kings Court only and the payment of the Souldiers that keep the Garrisons there But however instead thereof He should require a certain number of Souldiers to be raised yearly out of every City which He may send away into the West-Indies And let him be sure to pick out the stoutest and ablest men for this purpose by this means diverting the Noxious Humours from hence and turning them another way and filling up with these men his Armies in other Parts For from all such Countries as abound in Men it is better to require Men then Mony for this is both more advantageous to the Prince and also more agreeable to the humour of the People themselves Fourthly I would have Him make a General Feast every year to be kept upon one certain day in each several City and great Town and at His own charge at which time every City throughout the whole Province would Voluntarily declare their readinesse to serve the House of Austria And at this Yearly Feast I would have no cost to be spared for there is nothing in the world that doth more unite this People among themselves and bind them to others then to Feast them and make them Drunk once a year at least which Practise is said to have been first taken up by Minos the ancient Law-giver Fifthly I would have the Name of the Inquisition taken away though the Inquisition it self should be kept up by the Bishops but under some other Name and It should not be so severe as it is in Spain and at Rome but the Terrour of it should consist in Words only and Threatnings rather then in any more Harsh Usage Sixthly that under pretense of a Croysade Expedition there should be Indulgences and Dispensations procured from the Pope concerning Fasting daies and the Abstaining from Flesh at certain times of the Year for these People are infinitely given to Feastings and Revellings Seventhly all Garrison'd Towns should be kept by Spanish Souldiers but the Government of the same should be committed to the care of Bishops as the Government of the several Provinces should be put into the hands of Cardinals who should be such as are of Ripe Years and are eminent also for Wisdom And then would I have some of the Gentry of Venice to be appointed as Judges and to have the hearing of all Law Causes amongst them for by this means the Italians and Low-Country-men will easily be reconciled to each other seeing that these later love the Italians much better then they do the Spaniards Eighthly
Romans introduce their Language into a great part of Africk and of Spain and William Duke of Normandy surnamed the Conquerour endeavoured about five hundred years since to do the same in England But now for the introducing of a Language into any conquered Country it is necessary in the first place that the Lawes of that Country be written in the said Language and that the Lawyers Plead in that Language in all Courts of Judicature and likewise that all Commissions Proclamations and Petitions be published or written in no other Language but that This was also done heretofore by Charles the Great who having made himself Master of the Exarchate of Ravenna which He afterwards bestowed upon the Church He would have it called by the Name of Romania that so by degrees He might bring into disuse the Language and Customes of the Greeks to whom that People had been formerly subject and might withal implant in them the love both of the Roman Church and of the Roman Emperour And even the Great Turk also does not suffer any of the Inhabitants of Natolia to use any other Language but the Turkish save onely in their Church Services 25. Education also seemes to have a great stroke herein as being indeed as it were a second Nature by the meanes whereof strangers are in a manner Naturalized The King of Spain therefore should do well to take the Sons of the Nobility and Principal men as also such Poor mens sons ar are found to be endued with any extraordinary Natural Parts and to take order that they may be carefully brought up in some of the afore mentioned Seminaries in Spain either of Armes or of Arts. Alexander the Great finding the benefit of this course commanded that so many Thousands of the Pe sian Youth should be picked out and be Trained up in Learning the use of Armes in the Habit and Manners of the Macedonians conceiving that He should by this meanes receive as much benefit by them when they were once grown up to be men as by his own Natural Subjects of Macedonia themselves After the same manner doth the Turk bring up his Janizaries who are onely the Children of such of his Subjects as he hath conquered by war or else of Christians and Forreigners such as he can catch abroad at Sea which afterwards prove the most faithful Souldiers to him that ever he had And indeed these are the men to whom the Guard and Protection of the Emperours person is committed and these men doth the Great Turk make use of only in all Affaires of the greatest consequence where there is most need either of strength or Fidelity By meanes of the Turks thus bringing up of the sons of his subjects He makes two great Advantages to himself For first he deprives his unfaithful subjects of their strength and then secondly by that strength of theirs of which he hath deprived them he confirmeth his own 26. I would advise Our King not to despise or make light of any the least Commotions or Distempers among his Nobles or Subjects for all Mischiefs have but small Beginnings which yet if they be neglected and not looked unto in time will very probably bring Ruine with them in the end as we see the least Clouds in appearance at first do in the end produce most Horrid Tempests and storms 27. I would not have the King to assent to the Proposal of any thing that may introduce with it any Change or Innovation in the State for His very giving way to have the same deliberated upon addes both Authority and esteem to the same All the Troubles that have befallen both in the Netherlands and in France took their Rise from Two little Books of which the one was read to Francis the Second King of France by Caspar Coligni and the other was presented to the Duchesse of Parma by the L. de Brederode 28. Let the King take heed how he ever exercises his Absolute Power among those people where His Ordinary Power will serve the turn well enough for That way of proceeding is proper to Tyrants only but this Later to Good Princes And indeed all Absolute and Extream Power may rather be said to be Tempest as then Potest as a Tempest rather then Power 29. Let there be all care taken about the chusing of the Ministers of State in those Countries that only such be made choyce of as are but just sufficient to discharge the Trust committed to them and that they be neither too much above it nor beneath it which we find to have been carefully observed by the Emperour Tiberius For those whose Abilities are above the Employment they are put upon will be apt to neglect the same as despising it and thinking it below them and then the other are not able to discharge it if they would Lastly Let Him never so much trust to any Peace as to make him quite lay aside his Armes for such an Vnarmed Peace would prove but a weak one Constantine the Great enjoying now a Settled Peace every where round about Him disbanded all the Souldiers that lay in Garrisons upon the Borders of his Empire by which means He set open a Gate for the Barbarous Nations to break in upon His Territories And in like manner Maximilian the First trusting too much to the Truce agreed upon betwixt Him and the Turk and thereupon laying down his Armes was the cause of the Ruine of very many Christians And thus have we discoursed of these Particulars as copiously as we thought was fit to be committed to Paper but as for the rest of those more Secret Particulars and which are more worthy of Observation I shall reserve them till some other time when it shall please his Majestie to admit me to his Presence and shall give me Audience concerning the same However in the mean time those things which we have here proposed are not to be omitted for unlesse by these Means here set down the Peoples good Affection towards their King be stirred up and cherished His Dominion in those parts will prove to be but like a Plant without any Root For as every the least Storm will be apt to overturn a Tree that hath no firm Root in the ground in like manner will every the least Occasion offered alienate the hearts of the Subjects from their Prince where they are but ill affected to Him before and will take them off from their Allegiance to their Natural Prince and being thenceforth hurried about by Fortune they will one while adhere to One and by and by again to Another And hence arise all the Mutations that we see in Kingdoms and States a most evident Example whereof we have in the Kingdom of France CHAP. XXVIII Of Africk THe Turk possesseth in Africk all Egypt Algier and Tunis The Kingdome of Fez hath a peculiar King of its own who notwithstanding might very easily be cast out of his Throne because that Mahumetanisme in those parts is divided into
above sixty several Sects The rest of the Kings in Africk have but very small Dominions except only the King of the Abyssines who is commonly called Prester John and hath above fifty smaller Kingdomes under him This King of the Abyssines is a Christian although He doth not professe the Pure Catholick Religion It is necessary therefore that Forces should be brought over thence into Spain seeing that the passage to and fro is very easie For our King is possessed of the Kingdome of Oran there already where He is in continual Wars with the Moors who might easily all of them be conquered if he should but make One Invasion only upon them with an Army of Germans Neither indeed need the King fear any Obstruction to His Spanish Monarchy from those Parts For those Nations are much fitter to serve then to Command and bear Rule neither have They ever been able to conquer any of the Northern Nations but rather themselves have been alwaies conquered by Them excepting only Carthage which was a Colony of Tyre who yet were at length utterly ruined by the Romans And the Arabians also passed over out of Africk into Spain where they kept their footing for the space of Eight Hundred yeares yet were at length quite driven out again Neither indeed were they truly Africans but only the Novelty of their Armes together with that of their Mahometan Religion encouraged them so far as to fall upon so bold an attempt But the Africans at this day are a very Weak unwarlike People and for as much as they are Naturally Envious Crafty and of a servile Nature the King of Spain by making use of one of the little Kings there might in a little time break in upon them and make his way to the most Inmost Countries of all Africk as the Romans of old did by the help of Masinissa And therefore Sebastian King of Portugal did wisely when he made use of the King of Fez his sons for the getting and possessing himself of that Kingdom although he was not so very wise in venturing his own Person in that Expedition And indeed because that the sons of those Kings are wont to kill one another they are so much the more easily conquered if a man do but make any one of them over to him But seeing these People are so much divided among themselves there is no need of fearing them at all The King of Spain ought therefore to get further footing in Africk seeing that he hath opportunity enough of doing so by reason of the many strong Holds that He is Master of all along the Western and Southern Coast of Africk And He should do well to make over to him the above named Prester John whom he should cunningly set against the rest and get him to make War upon them And the King of Spain may very easily contract friendship with this Prester John by means of the Jesuites whom he may send thither And He should also by his Embassadours sent to him for that purpose put him in mind of the Duty and Obedience that he owes to the Pope which was formerly done in the time of Pope Eugenius IV. and Clemens VII by means of the Portuguez and so should make a League with him There should therefore be sent thither such as are both true Catholicks and Learned men to instruct them in the Arts and in the True Religion both which they are as yet Ignorant of For they would be easily converted and that so much the rather because they say it hath been heretofore foretold them by a certain Prophetesse whose name was Sinoda that They were predestinated to joyn with the Latines and to root out the Turk and to set at Liberty the Holy Sepulchre of Christ Seeing therefore that the King of Spain is Master of all the African shores He must make it his care that none may have any Fleets to passe by the said Coasts but that it may be free and safe for the aforesaid Prester John by the assistance of the Portuguez to sayl into Palestine when ever he pleases by the Gulf of Arabia and there to fall upon the Turks and to do them what mischief he can And to this purpose He is to be furnished with all Necessary Means as namely Engines of War and other such Provisions whereby he may be the better enabled to conquer the Turk For if Mahumetanisme should but once be introduced into that Kingdom of his it would prove extreamly prejudicial to the whole Christian World and especially to Spain He may also come in by Egypt and so fall upon the Turk And if there were but a gallant Fleet lying about Naples that might go out at pleasure and scour the Seas all along the Northern Coast of Africk it might easily be brought under the King of Spain's power and those Slaves also that are at Algier and in Cyrene might be dealt with to rise up all at once and rebel in favour of the Spaniard And such a Fleet as I but now spake of might be maintained meerly by the Prizes that they should take and so by that means would both Italy be secured and all such other places also that are now obstacles to the Spanish Monarchy might be taken in CHAP. XXIX Of Persia and Cataia THe King of Spain must endeavour by all Means possible to hinder the Persians and those of Taprobana from putting out any Fleets of Ships to Sea and also the Arabians for these people would questionlesse be a great hinderance to his Affaires in the East-Indies and would annoy His Fleet in its passage that way and might also probably infect the New-converted Christians there with Mahumetanisme He ought therefore to build strong Castles all along the Coasts of Arabia and Ethiopia and so likewise upon the Coasts of the Arabian Gulf and also in all the Southern Islands that lye upon the Coast of Africk and Asia and He should enter into a League with the Persian against the Turk And yet perhaps He need not so much care to have the Turk quite extirpated for whosoever of those two should over come the other whether the Turk or Persian he would thereby become so powerful as that he would be able to conquer the whole Christian World and so consequently to spoyl all the hopes of a Spanish Monarchy and it might prove as Prejudicial to Christendom to have the Turk ruined by any other but some Christian Prince as it would be for the advantage of Christendome that he should be conquered by the Christians themselves alone But yet seeing that the Turk does us continually very much harm breaking in upon us by Hungary Solavonia and Africk it would be good Policy to set the Persian upon him and to take a course that He may have Guns and such like Artillery sent unto him to make use of in his Warres against the Turk For it was meerly the want of these that was the cause that He lost almost all Armenia and that the
seeing that those Monuments and short Inscriptions that we see in small Chappels do enflame those that are living through the Desire of Fame and excite them to the study of Virtue what ought we to think it will do when Men shall see that their Names shall be recorded in Annals and Histories and shall be carried throughout the whole World and celebrated to all Eternity In which Particular certainly our Castilians were very much overseen who notwithstanding that they performed things most worthy to be committed to everlasting Memory namely their so frequent Compassing the Earth about their finding out of so many Islands and Continents and which is the most eminent piece of service of all the rest the Discovery of the New World yet did they never all this while take care to employ any Able person in the committing of these famous Acts of theirs to Memory and after the example of the Greeks and Romans to record them in Writing and transmit them over to the Perpetual Memory of Posterity Although that the Portugals have herein gone far beyond the Castilians for they have found out such able persons as have published abroad to the world their gallant Acts both in Latine and in their own Native Language The Second sort of Rewards should respect Profit and this I would have to be the Chiefest Dignity or place of Honour in the Kingdom that should be taken in the King whereof should be carried over into Spain and should there be instructed in the Catholick Religion and there should also be conferred upon him some Barony in Spain to the end that It might so be rendred the more Illustrious and also that the rest of the Indian Princes might be given to understand that we put not to death any of the Kings of such Countries as we subdue if that they will but embrace Our Religion as for instance Motecuma Atabalipa and some other petty Kings that we could name but rather use them with all courtesie and civility that may be For it is Fear of being put to death only that forces those Princes to take up Armes against the Spaniard Businesses of State do all contain in them some Certain thing the not knowing of which makes all other things both Difficult and also Vain and to no purpose as in sayling there are some that spread the sailes and others that ply their Oares and some again are imployed either in casting forth or taking in of Ballast yet are all these things to no purpose unlesse there be joyned with these an able Pilot who by his skilful steerage of the Vessel shall make good and set forward the Labours of all the rest And therefore Spain especially hath very great need of some Wise Person that should know in what thing chiefly consists the Stern as we may call it of the Kingdom without the knowledge whereof all Conceipts Contrivances Labours Charges and Consultations whatsoever will come to nothing After that Pope Clement the VIII began to think of making a Reformation among the Clergy all men were ready to put to their helping hand and assist in the framing of New Lawes Orders and Ceremonies together with appointing of Fasting daies and such Habits as every one should wear But I living at that time at St. Sabines told them plainly that all the endeavours of the Commissaries were vain seeing that the Rule it self was sufficient for the bringing about of all those things neither indeed did they know wherein the main point of the businesse lay I added moreover that the whole businesse of the Reformation consisted in this that no one particular person of the whole company in Monasteries or the like Religious Houses should have a Key or Lock to himself of his Cell but that there should be only One Common Key that should serve both for the Dormitory and also for every mans particular lodging For this would have been a means at once to have put an end to all Proprieties and to have kept out all Wanton Books Gifts and Obscene Poetry But when that the Chief and Principal Governours of this Ship once perceived that all this would redound to Their Losse there was none of Them then that would set his hand to the Stern nor come to the head of the matter but they would onely have some Lawes to be made concerning Novices only and such as were newly entred in Religion but would not hear of any thing at all that touched their own interest And so by this means the good Intention of the Pope was utterly frustrated and came to nothing The Kingdome of Spain therefore hath need of some Wise Palinurus by whose Conduct all things may be rightly managed according to the Rules before laid down Which certainly would much more tend to the advancement of the Majesty of its Empire then any Macchiavilian Suggestions and Cunning Devises whatsoever which have nothing of a Good Conscience in them at all and which besides serve as a Cloak only to disguise the Tyranny and Cruelty of Princes by arming them with the Law of Majesty and which countenance such Abuses as even not silly Women much lesse People that have been accustomed to Liberty can endure And therefore I cannot sufficiently wonder that there should be any that should so extol this Impious Politician to the heavens as they do as if His Writings were a Certain Rule and Idea of a Good and Happy Government And yet this I do not so much wonder as I am angry at when I see that most Vile Maxime in Politicks to be admitted in the Administration of State Affaires namely That some things are Lawful in respect of the State and others in respect of Conscience Then which Opinion there cannot certainly be imagined any thing to be either more Absurd or more Wicked For he that shall take away or restrain that Universal Jurisdiction that Conscience ought to have over All Things as well Publick as Private shewes thereby that he hath Neither any Conscience nor any God The very Beasts themselves are lead by a Natural Instinct to such things as are good for them and refuse whatsoever would be hurtful to them and should the Light of reason and the Dictate of Conscience which were given unto Man that He might know how to distinguish betwixt Good and Evill be utterly Blind in Publick Things and fail in businesses that are of the Greatest Moment I have had I confesse I know not what Itch upon me to give an account in writing of such Points as that Author ought to be chastised for with the Rod of Censure and not onely he himself but all his Disciples I mean the Counsellours of Princes and their nearest Favorites for certainly both all the Scandals of the Church of God and all the Perturbations and hurly burlies that have happened in the whole World have had their rise from hence But yet I have thought fit to hold my hand till some other time seeing that some other have written of the
Kingdome of Spain by the First Cause which God hath laid open in the Prophets and by which we may proceed on further to discover the Prudence herein requisite and the Occasion which the Spaniard ought to lay hold on CHAP. IV. Of the Spanish Empire considered according to the First Cause IT is evident that the Prophesy concerning the end of the World both according to Nature and the Art of Policy is shortly to be fulfilled being that the Fixed Stars of Scorpio and Taurus have changed their places and the Sun is now ten thousand miles nearer to the Earth and so many Eclipses also appear by reason of the Transposition of the Equinoctial Points which according to the Opinion of Plato though Aristotle who was Ignorant in Deeper matters and was skilled only in Logick and such like Quiddities denies the same do foretel Grand Mutations These Exorbitances of the Heavenly Bodies together with the Deluges and devastations by Fire that have happened in all parts as also the Changes that have happened in the greatest Monarchies of the World according to the Gospel wherewith Seneca also agrees in Opinion are the evident signs that the world is drawing to an end For the Empire or State of Christianity and it is a thing very well worth our observing hath lasted already 1600. yeares and upward Which number being Composed of Sevens and Nines is fatal to all Monarchies as both Pythagoras and Plato have written and as may be gathered also out of Moses where he speaks of Jubiles and Weeks as likewise out of Jeremy speaking of the Sabbatisme of the Holy Land and also out of the Art of Physick touching the Cure of Fevers and the difference of Complexions and Ages and lastly from a passage of Augustus Caesar who in an Epistle of his to his Nephew rejoyceth very much that he had escaped the Sixty Third year of his age which year seeing it is composed of nine Septenaries of years is most dangerous and Fatal to people And even God himself created all things in Number Therefore this very time doth presage Enlargement or Impair and Mutations in all things We see also that the Prophesy touching the Monarchies drawes now near an end seeing that Balaam as it is recorded by Moses Num. Cap. 24 reckoning up the Monarchies stops at that which concerns Italy saying They shall come in ships from Italy ' and shall overcome the Assyrians and in the end themselves also shall be destroyed In which place he speakes of the Monarchy of Spain so that it is necessary that it must be ingrafted into that of Italy And consequently also the Fate of Tyre may be understood of that of Spain for as much as Carthage was a Colony of Tyre and by reason of the frequent voyages they made thither by Sea to and fro it followed the manners and fashions of the Tyrians And hence are the Spaniards descended who at first embracing and applying themselves to the Manners subtleties Gods of the Carthaginians and afterwards becomming Christians were overwhelmed with all those evils with which God in his Prophets Ezechiel Jeremy and Esay threatens Tyre And besides they were very skilful also in Navigation as those of Tyre were And if Spain shall imitate the pride of Tyre by extolling it self above the Church as Tyre did it shall suffer a sorer destruction then that did neither shall it ever enlarge the bounds of its Empire Neverthelesse before the end of the World the Spaniard being joyned in amity with the Pope shall live in a more happy condition and shall raign securely and peaceably holding Correspondence with the Church and courting the Pope and the Cardinals like the Daughter of Tyre as it is in the Psalmes and Esay with Gifts neither yet shall he arrive to that Height of Vniversal Monarchy which he had aspired unto But this is a businesse to be handled secretly and not to be published openly to the World And as concerning the Spaniards Ambition I affirm that while he complies with the House of Austria he shall be humbled for as much as Isaiah saith Onus Jumentorum Austri the burden of the beasts of the South intimating that He shall effect none of those things which I shall hereafter touch upon that is raigning in the condition he now doth but shall be destroyed as one overwhelmed by a Wall falling on him like as Tyre was And hence considering with himself the evill likely to befal him he shall at length lift up his head when he shall have called to remembrance that after that the House of Austria was once inserted into that of Spain the New World was presently discovered by his Agents and he had thence returns of ships laden with gold which are Jumenta Austriae those Beasts of Austria besides that the Title of Monarchy and this so great Principalitie of his began under Charles V. had he but known as well how to keep what he had got as he knew how to get it But because that neither in his time Fate answered the expectation of Spain we must therefore search the Scriptures more diligently that we may discover when that time is to be as a certain Politician said and as we also God willing shall shew that we may attain to that which they drive at But I say that the end of Monarchies is now come and that we are now come to that Age wherein all things are to be in subjection to the Saints and to the Church which is to be after the end of the four Monarchies and the death of Antichrist who shall continue for the space of three Weeks and a half according to the opinion of Lactantius Irenaeus Tertullian Origen Victorianus S. Bernard Joachimus Abbas Dante Petrarch and some others both Divines Philosophers Prophets and Poets as I have elsewhere shewed Daniels Image also is fallen to the ground so likewise the Four Beasts the Three Weekes and the Twelve Feathered wings of the Eagle spoken of in the second Book of Esdras are now all at an end together with the Roman Empire which seeing according to him it is the same with that of Babylon it is by succession divided into Three Heads First into the Right Head which is the Western or German Empire then into the Left Head that is the Eastern Empire of the Turks and Saracens and the Middle one which is that of Constantinople For in the Scriptures the Right and Left hand of the World is otherwise assigned by Moses then it is by Aristotle in his works Now amongst these three Heads the Left as the same Prophet testifies hath devoured the middlemost that is to say the Turkish Empire hath destroyed the Constantinopolitan to wit in the time of Mahumet the Second It now remaines according to the same Prophet that the Right Head or Western Empire devour the Left that is that of the Turks And hereto agrees the Astrology of Torquatus which saith that Hungary threatens destruction to the Turk and