Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	earl_n	john_n	time_n	10,325	5	3.5686	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36946	Arcana aulica, or, Walsingham's manual of prudential maxims for the states-man and courtier : to which is added Fragmenta regalia, or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorites / by Sir Robert Naunton.; Traicté de la cour. English. 1694	Refuge, Eustache de, d. 1617.; Walsingham, Edward, d. 1663.; Walsingham, Francis, Sir, 1530?-1590.; Naunton, Robert, Sir, 1563-1635. Fragmenta regalia, or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth.	1694 (1694)	Wing D2686; ESTC R33418	106,428	275

of the innocency of his intentions exempt and clear from the guilt of treason and disloyalty The other of the greatness of his heart For at his arraignment he was so little dejected by what might be alledged and proved against him that he rather grew troubled with choler and in a kind of exasperation despised his Jury though of the Order of Knighthood and of the special Gentry claiming the privilege of trial by the Peers and Baronage of the Realm so prevalent was that of his native Genius and the hautiness of his spirit which accompanied him to his last and till without any diminution of courage it brake in pieces the cords of his magnanimity for he died suddenly in the Tower and when it was thought the Queen did intend his enlargment with the restitution of his possessions which were then very great and comparable to most of the Nobility Hatton SIR Christopher Hatton came into the Court as his opposite Sir John Perrot was wont to say by the Galliard for he came thither as a private Gentleman of the Inns of Court in a Mask and for his activity and Person which was tall and proportionable taken into Favour he was first made Vice-Chamberlain and shortly afterward advanced to the place of Lord Chancellor a Gentleman that besides the graces of his Person and Dancing had also the adjectaments of a strong and subtil capacity one that could soon learn the discipline and garb both of the times and Court the truth is he had a large proportion of gifts and endowments but too much of the season of Envy and he was a meer vegetable of the Court that sprung up at night and sunk again at his noon Lord Effingham MY Lord of Effingham though a Courtier betimes yet I find not that the Sun-shine of her Favour broke out upon him until she took him into the Ship and made him High-Admiral of England For his extract it may suffice that he was the Son of a Howard and of a Duke of Norfolk And as for his Person as goodly a Gentleman as the Times had any if Nature had not been more intentive to compleat his Person than Fortune to make him rich For the times considered which were then active and a long time after lucrative he died not wealthy yet the honester man though it seems the Queen's purpose was to tender the occasion of his advancement and to make him capable of more Honour which at his return from Cardize-Accounts she conferred on him creating him Earl of Nottingham to the great discontent of his Colleague my Lord of Essex who then grew excessive in the appetite of her favour and in truth was so exorbitant in the limitation of the Soveraign aspect that it much alienated the Queen's grace from him and drew others together with the Admiral to a combination and to conspire his ruine And though I have heard it from that party I mean of the Admirals faction that it lay not in his proper power to hurt my Lord of Essex yet he had more Followers and such as were well skilled in setting of the Gyn. But I leave this to those of another Age. It is out of doubt that the Admiral was a good honest and a brave Man and a faithful servant to his Mistriss and such a one as the Queen out of her own Princely Judgment knew to be a fit Instrument for that service for she was no ill Proficient in the Reading of Men as well as Books and his sundry expeditions as that aforementioned and 88. doth both express his worth and manifest the Queen's Trust and the opinion she had of his Fidelity and Conduct Moreover the Howards were of the Queen's Alliance and Consanguinity by her Mother which swayed her Affection and bent it toward this Great House and it was a part of her Natural Propension to Grace and Support Ancient Nobility where it did not intrench neither invade her Interest for on such trespasses she was quick and tender and would not spare any whatsoever as we may observe in the case of the Duke and my Lord of Hereford whom she much favoured and countenanced till they attempted the Forbidden Fruit The fault of the last being in the severest interpretation but a trespass of incroachment But in the first it was taken for a Riot against the Crown and her own Soveraign power and as I have ever thought the cause of her aversion against the rest of the House and the Duke 's great Father-in-law Fitz Allen Earl of Arundel a person of the first rank in her affections before these and some other jealousies made a separation between them this Noble Lord and the Lord Thomas Howard since Earl of Suffolk standing alone in her Grace the rest in Umbrage Sir John Packington SIr John Packington was a Gentleman of no mean family and of form and feature no way despisable for he was a brave Gentleman and a very fine Courtier and for the time he stayed there which was not lasting very high in her grace but he came in and went out and through disassiduity drew the Curtain between himself and the light of her grace and then death overwhelmed the remnant and utterly deprived him of recovery And they say of him that had he brought less to the Court than he did he might have carried away more than he brought for he had a time on it but an ill husband of opportunity Lord Hunsdon MY Lord of Hunsdon was of the Queen's nearest Kindred and on the decease of Sussex both he and his Son took the place of Lord Chamberlain he was a fast Man to his Prince and firm to his Friends and Servants and though he might speak big and therein would be born out yet was he not the more dreadful but less harmful and far from the practice of my Lord of Leicester's Instructions for he was downright and I have heard those that both knew him well and had interest in him say merrily of him that his Latin and his Dissimulation were both alike and that his custom of Swearing and obscenity in Speaking made him seem a worse Christian than he was and a better Knight of the Carpet than he should be As he lived in a ruffling time so he loved Sword and Buckler Men and such as our Fathers were wont to call Men of their hands of which sort he had many brave Gentlemen that followed him yet not taken for a popular and dangerous Person And this is one that stood amongst the Togati of an honest stout heart and such a one as upon occasion would have fought for his Prince and his Country for he had the charge of the Queen's Person both in the Court and the Camp at Tilbury Raleigh SIR Walter Raleigh was one that it seems Fortune had pickt out of purpose of whom to make an Example or to use as her Tennis-Ball thereby to shew what she could doe for she tost him up of nothing and too and fro to Greatness

Respiration she uttered this Verse of the Psalms A Domino factum est istud est mirabile in oculis nostris which we find to this day on the stamp of her gold with this on her silver Posui Deum adjutorem meum Her Ministers and Instruments of State such as were participes curarum and bore a great part of the burthen were Many and those Memorable but they were onely Favourites not Minions such as Acted more by her own Princely rules and judgments than by their own wills and appetites which she Observed to the last for we find no Gaveston Vere or Spencer to have swayed alone during forty four years which was a well settled and Advised Maxim for it valued her the more it Awed the most secure and it took best with the people and it starved all Emulations which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony even against the Prince where there is onely Amator Palatii The Principal note of her Reign will be that she ruled much by Faction and Parties which her self both made upheld and weakned as her own great judgment advised For I disassent from the common received opinion that my Lord of Leicester was Absolute and Above all in her Grace and though I come somewhat short of the knowledge of those times yet that I might not Rove and shoot at Random I know it from assured Intelligence that it was not so For proof whereof among many that I could present I will both relate a short and therein a known truth And it was thus Bowyer a Gentleman of the Black rod being charged by her Express Command to look Precisely to all Admissions into the Privy-Chamber one day stayed a very Gay Captain and a follower of my Lord of Leicester's from Entrance For that he was neither well known nor a Sworn Servant to the Queen at which Repulse the Gentleman bearing high on my Lord's favour told him he might perchance procure him a Discharge Leicester coming into the Contest said Publickly which was none of his wont that he was a Knave and should not continue long in his Office and so turning about to go in to the Queen Bowyer who was a bold Gentleman and well beloved stept before him and fell at her Majesties feet Related the story and humbly craves her Grace's Pleasure and whether my Lord of Leicester was King or her Majesty Queen Whereunto she replyed with her wonted Oath God's death my Lord I have wisht you well but my favour is not so lockt up for you that others shall not partake thereof for I have Many Servants unto whom I have and will at my Pleasure bequeath my Favour and likewise Resume the same and if you think to Rule here I will take a Course to see you forth Coming I will have here but one Mistress and no Master and look that no ill happen to Him lest it be severely Required at your hands Which so quelled my Lord of Leicester that his Feigned Humility was long after one of his best vertues Moreover the Earl of Sussex then Lord Chamberlain was his profest Antagonist to his dying day And for my Lord of Hunsdon and Sir Thomas Sackvile after Lord Treasurer who were all Contemporaties he was wont to say of them that they were of the Tribe of Dan and were Noli me tangere's Implying that they were not to be Contested with for they were indeed of the Queen 's near kindred From whence and in more instances I Conclude that she was Absolute and Soveraign Mistress of her Graces and that all those to whom she distributed her Favours were never more than Tenants at will and stood on no better ground than her Princely Pleasure and their own Good behaviour And this also I present as a known Observation that she was though very capable of Counsel absolute enough in her own Resolutions which was ever Apparent even to her last in that her Aversation to grant Tirone the least drop of her Mercy though Earnestly and Frequently Importuned by the whole Councel of State with very many Pressing Reasons and as the state of her Kingdom then stood I may speak it with Assurance Necessitated Arguments If we look into her Inclination as it is disposed either to Magnificence or Frugality we shall find in them many Notable Considerations for all her Dispensations were so poysed as though Discretion and Justice had both agreed to stand at the beam and see them weighed out in due Proportion the Maturity of her Years and Judgment meeting in a concurrency and at such an Age as seldom lapseth to Excess To consider them apart We have not many Precedents of her Liberality or of any large Donatives to particular men my Lord of Essex Book of Parks only Excepted which was a Princely gift and some few more of a lesser Size to my Lord of Leicester Hatton and others Her Rewards consisted chiefly in Grants of Leases of Offices Places of Judicature but for Ready Money and in any Great sums she was very sparing which we partly conceive was a Vertue rather drawn from Necessity than her Nature for she had many layings out and to her last Period And I am of opinion with S. Walter Raleigh that those many Brave Men of our Times and of the Militia Tasted little more of her Bounty than in her Grace and Good word with their due Entertainment for She ever paid the Souldiers well which was the Honour of her Times and more than her Great Adversary of Spain could Perform So that when we come to the consideration of her Frugality the observation will be little more than that her Bounty and it were so Inter-woven together that the one was suited by an honourable way of Spending the other limited by a Necessitated way of Sparing The Irish Action we may call a malady and a Consumption of her Times for it Accompanied her to her End and it was of so Profuse and vast an Expence that it drew near a distemperature of State and of Passion in her self For toward her last she grew Hard to Please her Arms being Accustomed to prosperity and the Irish prosecution not answering her Expectation and wonted success for a good while it was an Unthrifty and Inauspicious war which did much disturb and Mislead her judgment the more for that it was a Precedent which was taken out of her own pattern For as the Queen by way of diversion had at the coming to the Crown supported the revolted States of Holland so did the King of Spain turn the Trick on her self towards her going out by cherishing the Irish rebellion Where it falls into consideration what the State of the Kingdom and the Crown Revenues were then able to Embrace and Endure if we look into the Establishment of those times with the list of the Irish Army considering the defeatments of Blackwater with all precedent Expences as it stood from my Lord of Essex's undertaking to the surrender of Kingsale under the

new Farmers So that we may take this also into observation that there were of the Queen's Council that were not in the Catalogue of Saints Now as we have taken a view of some particular Notions of her Times her Nature and Necessities It is not beside the text to give a short Touch on the Helps and Advantages of her Reign which were without Parallel for she had neither Husband Brother Sister nor Children to Provide for who as they are Dependants of the Crown so doe they Necessarily draw maintenance from thence and do oftentimes Exhaust and Draw deep especially when there is an ample fraternity of the bloud Royal and of the Princes of the Bloud as it was in the time of Edward the third and Henry the fourth for when the Crown cannot the Publick ought to give them Honourable Allowance for they are the Honour and Hopes of the Kingdom and the Publick which enjoys them hath a like interest in them with the Father that begot them and our Common-Law which is the Inheritance of the Kingdom did ever of old provide aids for the Primogenitures and the eldest Daughter So that the multiplicy of Courts and the Great Charge which necessarily follow a King and Queen a Prince and the Royal Issue was a thing which was not in rerum natura during the space of forty years and which by time was worn out of memory and without the consideration of the present times Insomuch that the aids given to the late and right noble Prince Henry and to his Sister the Lady Elizabeth were at first generally received for impositions of a new Coynage Yea the late impositions for Knighthood though an ancient Law fell also into the imputation of a Tax of novelty for that it lay long covered in the embers of division between the Houses of York and Lancaster and forgotten or connived at by the succeeding Princes So that the strangeness of the observation and difference of those later reigns is that the Queen took up beyond the power of the Law which fell not into the murmur of the people and her successors nothing but by warrant of the Law which nevertheless was conceived through disuse to be Injurious to the Liberty of the Kingdom Now before I come to any further mention of her Favourites for hitherto I have delivered but some Obvious Passages thereby to prepare and smooth a way for the rest that follows it is requisite that I Touch on the Relicks of the other Reign I mean the Body of her Sisters Council of State which she Retained intire neither Removing nor Discontenting any although she knew them averse to her Religion and in her Sisters time Perverse towards her Person and privy to her Troubles and Imprisonment A prudence which was incomparible with her Sisters nature for she both dissipated and Persecuted the major part of her Brother's Council But this will be of certainty that how Compliable soever and Obsequious she found them yet for a good space she made little use of their Counsels more than in the Ordinary course of the Board for she held a Dormant Table in her own Princely Breast yet she kept them together and their Places without any sudden Change so that we may say of them That they were of the Court not of the Council For whilest she Amused them with a kind of Promissive Disputation concerning the Points Controverted by both Churches she did set down her own Reservations without their Privity and made all her Progressions Gradations But so that the Tenents of her secrecy with intent of her establishment were Pitcht before it was known where the Court would sit down Neither do I find that any of her Sisters Council of State were either Repugnant to her Religion or Opposed her doings Englefield Master of the Horse excepted who withdrew himself from the Board and shortly after from out her Dominions so Plyable and Obedient they were to Change with the Times and their Princes And of this there will fall in here a Relation both of Recreation and of known Truth Paulet Marquess of Winchester and Lord Treasurer having served then four Princes in as Various and Changeable seasons that I may well say time nor any age hath yielded the like precedent This Man being noted to grow High in her Favour as his Place and Experience required was questioned by an Intimate friend of his how he stood up for Thirty years together amidst the Changes and Reigns of so many Chancellors and Great Personages Why quoth the Marquess Ortus sum ex salice non ex quercu I was made of the plyable Willow not of the stubborn Oak And truly the Old Man hath Taught them all especially William Earl of Pembroke for they two were ever of the King's Religion and over-zealous professors Of these it is said that being both younger Brothers yet of Noble Houses they spent what was left them and came on trust to the Court where upon the bare stock of their Wits they began to Traffick for themselves and prospered so well that they Got Spent and Left more than any Subjects from the Norman Conquest to their own Times whereunto it hath been prettily replyed that they lived in a Time of Dissolution To conclude then of any of the former reign it is said that these two lived and dyed chiefly in her favour The latter upon his son's marriage with the Lady Katharine Grey was like utterly to have lost himself But at the Instant of the consummation Apprehending the insafety and danger of an inter-marriage with the Bloud-Royal he fell at the Queen's feet where he both Acknowledged his Presumption with tears and projected the Cause and the Divorce together and so quick he was at his work for it stood him upon that upon Repudiation of the Lady he clapt up a marriage for his Son the Lord Herbert with Mary Sidney daughter to Sir Henry Sidney then Lord Deputy of Ireland the blow falling on Edward late Earl of Hereford who to his cost took up the Divorced Lady of whom the Lord Beauchamp was born and William Earl of Hereford is descended I come now to present Those of her own Election which she either admitted to her secrets of State or took into her Grace and Favour of whom in their order I crave leave to give unto posterity a cautious description with a short Character or Draught of the persons themselves For without offence to others I would be true to my self their memories and merits distinguishing them of the Militia from the Togati and of these she had as many and those as able Ministers as any of her Progenitors Leicester IT will be out of doubt that my Lord of Leicester was one of the first whom she made Master of the Horse he was the youngest Son then living of the Duke of Northumberland beheaded primo Mariae and his Father was that Dudley which our Histories couple with Epson and both so much Infamed for the Caterpillars of

the Common-wealth during the reign of Henry the seventh who being of a Noble extract was Executed the first year of Henry the eighth but not thereby so Extinct but that he left a plentiful Estate and such a Son who as the vulgar speaks it could live without the Seat for out of the ashes of his Father's Infamy he rose to be a Duke and as High as subjection could Permit or Soveraignty endure and though he could not find out any Appellation to assume the Crown in his own Person yet he projected and very nearly Effected it for his Son Gilbert by Inter-marriage with the Lady Jane Gray and so by that way to bring it about into his loyns Observations which though they lie behind us and seem impertinent to the Text yet are they not much Extravagant for they must lead and shew us how the After-passages were brought about with the Dependances and on the hinges of a collateral workmanship and truly it may amaze a well-setled judgment to look back into those times and to consider how this Duke could attain to such a pitch of Greatness his Father dying in Ignominy and at the Gallows his Estate confiscate and that for Peeling and Polling by the Clamour and Crucifige of the People but when we better think upon it we find that he was given up but as a Sacrifice to please the People not for any offence committed against the Person of the King so that upon the matter he was a Martyr of the Prerogative and the King in honour could do no less than give back to his Son the Privileges of his blood with the acquirings of his Father's profession for he was a Lawyer and of the King's Counsel at Law before he came to be ex interioribus consiliis where besides the licking of his own fingers he got the King a mass of Riches and that not with the hazard but the loss of his fame and life for the King's Father's sake Certain it is that his Son was left rich in Purse and Brain which are good foundations and full to ambition and it may be supposed he was on all occasions well heard of the King as a Person of mark and compassion in his eye but I find not that he did put up for Advancement during Henry the Eighth's time although a vast Aspirer and Provident storer It seems he thought the King's reign was given to the falling sickness but espying his time fitting and the Soveraignty in the hands of a Pupil Prince he thought he might as well then put-up for it as the best for having then possession of blood and a purse with a head-piece of a vast extent he soon got Honour and no sooner there but he began to side it with the best even with the Protector and in conclusion got his and his Brother's heads still aspiring till he Expired in the loss of his own so that Posterity may by Reading the Father and Grandfather make judgment of the Son for we shall find that this Robert whose original we have now traced the better to present him was inheritor of the Genius and Craft of his Father and Ambrose of the estate of whom hereafter we shall make some short mention We take him now as he was admitted into the Court and the Queen's favour where he was not to seek to play his part well and dexterously But his play was chiefly at the fore game not that he was a learner at the latter but he loved not the after-wit for they report and I think not untruly that he was seldom behind-hand with his Gamesters and that they always went away with the loss He was a very Goodly Person and singular well-Featured and all his youth well Favoured and of a Sweet aspect but High-foreheaded which as I should take it was of no Discommendation but towards his latter end which with old Men was but a middle-age he grew High-coloured and Red-faced So that the Queen in this had much of Her Father for excepting some of Her Kindred and some few that had handsom wits in crooked bodies she always took Personage in the way of her election for the people hath it to this day in Proverb King Harry loved a Man Being thus in her grace she called to mind the sufferings of his Ancestors both in her Fathers and Sisters Reigns and restored his and his brothers blood creating Ambrose the elder Earl of Warwick and himself Earl of Leicester c. And he was ex primitiis or of her first choice for he Rested not there but long enjoyed her favour and therewith much what he listed till Time and Emulation the companions of great ones had resolved on his Period and to cover him at his setting in a cloud at Cornbury not by so violent a death and by the fatal Sentence of Judicature as that of his Fathers and Grandfathers was but as it is suggested by that Porson which he had prepared for others wherein they report him a rare Artist I am not bound to give cred●t to all vulgar Relations or to the Libels of the Times which are commonly forced and falsified suitable to the Moods and Humours of Men in Passion and discontent But that which leads me to think him no good Man is amongst others of known truth that of my Lord of Essex death in Ireland and the Marriage of his Lady yet living which I forbear to press in regard that he is long since dead and others living whom it may concern To take him in the observations of his Letters and Writings which should best set him off for such as fell into my hands I never yet saw a style or phrase more seeming Religious and fuller of the streams of Devotion and were they not sincere I doubt much of his well-being and I may fear he was too well seen in the Aphorisms and Principles of Nicholas the Florentine and in the Reaches of Caesar Borgia Hitherto I have touched him in his Courtship I conclude him in his Lance. He was sent Governour by the Queen to the United States of Holland where we read not of his wonders for they say that he had more of Mercury than of Mars and that his device might have been without prejudice to the Great Caesar Veni vidi redii Sussex HIs Corrival before mentioned was Thomas Radcliffe Earl of Sussex who in his Constellation was his Direct Opposite for he was indeed one of the Queen's Martialists and did very good service in Ireland at her first Accession till she Recalled him to the Court where she made him Lord Chamberlain but he Played not his Game with that Cunning and Dexterity as Leicester did who was much the more Facete Courtier though Sussex was thought much the Honester Man and far the Better Souldier but he lay too open on his Guard He was a goodly Gentleman and of a brave Noble nature True Constant to his Friends and Servants He was also of a very Noble and Ancient Lineage

my Lord of Leicester and Burleigh out of France containing many fine passages and secrets yet if I might have been beholding to his Cyphers whereof they are full they would have told Pretty Tales of the times But I must now close up and rank him amongst the Togati yet chief of those that laid the foundation of the Dutch and French Wars which was another piece of his fineness and of the times with one observation more That he was one of the Great Allies of the Austrian Embracements For both himself and Stafford that preceded him might well have been compared to the Fiend in the Gospel that sowed his tares in the night so did they their seeds of division in the dark And it is a likely report that they father on him at his return That he said unto the Queen with some sensibility of the Spanish designs on France Madam 〈◊〉 beseech you be content not to fear The Spaniard hath a great Appetite and an Excellent Digestion but I have fitted him with a bone for this Twenty years that your Majesty shall have no cause to doubt him provided that if the fire chance to slack which I have kindled you will be ruled by me and now and then cast in some English fewel which will revive the flame Willoughby MY Lord Willoughby was one of the Queen's first Sword-men He was of the Ancient Extract of the Bartues but more ennobled by his Mother who was Dutchess of Suffolk He was a great Master of the Art Military and was sent General into France and commanded the Second of Five Armies that the Queen sent thither in aid of the French I have heard it spoken that had he not slighted the Court but Applyed himself to the Queen he might have enjoyed a plentiful portion of her Grace And it was his saying and it did him no good That he was none of the Reptilia intimating that he could not creep on the ground and that the Court was not in his Element for indeed as he was a Great Souldier so was he of a Suitable Magnanimity and could not brook the Obsequiousness and Assiduity of the Court and as he then was somewhat descending from youth happily he had an animam revertendi and to make a safe Retreat Sir Nicholas Bacon I Come to another of the Togati Sir Nicholas Bacon An arch-piece of Wit and Wisdom He was a Gentleman and a man of Law and of great knowledge therein whereby together with his other parts of Learning and Dexterity he was promoted to be Keeper of the Great Seal and being of kin to the Treasurer Burleigh had also the help of his hand to bring him into the Queen's favour for he was abundantly factious which took much with the Queen when it was suited with the season as he was well able to judge of his times He had a very quaint saying and he used it often to good purpose That he loved the jest well but not the loss of his Friend He would say That though he knew Vnusquisque suae fortunae faber was a true and good principle yet the most in number were those that marred themselves But I will never forgive that man that loseth himself to be rid of his jest He was Father to that Refined Wit which since hath acted a disastrous part on the publick stage and of late sat in his Father's room as Lord Chancellour Those that lived in his age and from whence I have taken this little Model of him gives him a lively Character and they decypher him for another Solon and the Synon of those times such a one as Oedipus was in dissolving of Riddles Doubtless he was as able an Instrument and it was his commendation that his head was the Mawl for it was a great one and therein he kept the Wedge that entred the knotty pieces that came to the Table And now I must again fall back to smooth and plain a way to the rest that is behind but not from the purpose There were about these times two Rivals in the Queen's favour Old Sir Francis Knowls Comptroller of the House and Sir Henry Norris whom she called up at a Parliament to sit with the Peers in the higher House as Lord Norris of Ricot who had married the daughter and heir of the old Lord Williams of Tame a Noble person and to whom in the Queen's adversity she had been committed to safe custody and from him had received more than ordinary observances Now such was the goodness of the Queen's Nature that she neither forgot good turns received from the Lord Williams neither was she unmindfull of this Lord Norris whose Father in her Father's time and in the business of her Mother died in a Noble cause and in the justification of her innocency Lord Norris MY Lord Norris had by this Lady an ample Issue which the Queen highly respected for he had Six Sons and all Martial brave men The first was William his eldest and Father to the late Earl of Berkshire Sir John vulgarly called General Norris Sir Edward Sir Thomas Sir Henry and Maximilian Men of an haughty courage and of great experience in the conduct of Military affairs And to speak in the Character of their merit they were persons of such renown and worth as future times must out of duty owe them the debt of an honourable memory Knowls SIr Francis Knowls was somewhat of the Queen's affinity and had likwise no incompetent Issue for he had also William his eldest and since Earl of Banbury Sir Thomas Sir Robert and Sir Francis if I be not a little mistaken in their names and martialling and there was also the Lady Lettice a Sister of these who was first Countess of Essex and after of Leicester And these were also brave men in their times and places but they were of the Court and Carpet not led by the genius of the Camp Between these two Families there was as it falleth out amongst Great ones and Competitors for favour no great correspondency and there were some seeds either of emulation or distrust cast between them which had they not been disjoyned in the residence of their persons as it was the fortune of their imployments the one side attending the Court the other the Pavilion surely they would have broken out into some kind of hostility or at least they would have wrestled one in the other like Trees incircled with Ivy For there was a time when both these Fraternities being met at Court there passed a challenge between them at certain exercises the Queen and the old men being spectators which ended in a flat quarrel amongst them all And I am perswaded though I ought not to judge that there were some reliques of this feud that were long after the causes of the one Families almost utter extirpation and of the others improsperity For it was a known truth that so long as my Lord of Leicester lived who was the main pillar of the one side as

and from thence down to little more than to that wherein she found him a bare Gentleman Not that he was less for he was well-descended and of good alliance but poor in his beginnings and for my Lord of Oxford's Jest of him the Jack and an Upstart we all know it savours more of Emulation and his Humour than of Truth and it is a certain Note of the Times that the Queen in her Choice never took into her Favour a meer New Man or a Mechanick as Comines observes of Lewis the Eleventh of France who did serve himself with Persons of unknown Parents such as was Oliver the Barber whom he created Earl of Dunoyes and made him ex secretis consiliis and alone in his favour and familiarity His approaches to the University and Inns of Court were the grounds of his improvement but they were rather excursions than sieges or settings down for he stayed not long in a place and being the youngest Brother and the House diminished in Patrimony he foresaw his own destiny that he was first to rowl through want and disability to subsist otherways before he could come to a repose and as the Stone doth by long lying gather Moss He first exposed himself to the Land service of Ireland a Militia which then did not yield him food and rayment for it was ever very poor nor had he patience to stay there though shortly after he came thither again under the Command of my Lord Gray but with his own Colours flying in the field having in the interim cast a new chance both in the Low-Countries and in a Voyage to Sea and if ever Man drew Vertue out of Necessity it was he therewith was he the great example of Industry and though he might then have taken that of the Merchant to himself Per mare per terras currit mercator ad Indos He might also have said and truly with the Philosopher Omnia mea mecum porte for it was a long time before he could brag of more than he carried at his back and when he got on the winning side it was his commendations that he took pains for it and underwent many various adventures for his after-perfection and before he came into the publick note of the World And that it may appear how he came up Per ardua Per variot causus per tot discrimina rerum not pulled up by chance or by any gentle admittance of Fortune I will briefly describe his native parts and those of his own acquiring which was the hopes of his rising He had in the outward man a good presence in a handsome and well compacted person a strong natural wit and a better judgment with a bold and plausible tongue whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage and to these he had the adjuncts of some generall Learning which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and perfection for he was an indefatigable Reader whether by Sea or Land and none of the least observers both of men and the times and I am confident that among the second causes of his growth that variance between him and my Lord Grey in his descent into Ireland was a principal for it drew them both over the Council Table there to plead ●heir cause where what advantage he had in the cause I know not but he had much better in the telling of his tale and so much that the Queen and the Lord 's took no slight mark of the man and his parts for from thence he came to be known and to have access to the Queen and the Lords and then we are not to doubt how such a man would comply and learn the way of progression And whether Leicester had then cast in a good word for him to the Queen which would have done no harm I do not determine But true it is He had gotten the Queen's ear at a trice and she began to be taken with his elocution and loved to hear his reasons to her demands and the truth is she took him for a kind of Oracle which netled them all yea those that he relied on began to take his sudden favour for an Alarm and to be sensible of their own supplantation and to project his which made him shortly after sing Fortune my foe c. So that finding his favour declining and falling into a recess he undertook a new peregrination to leave that Terra infirma of the Court for that of the Wars and by declining himself and by absence to expel his and the passion of his enemies which in Court was a strange device of ecovery but that he knew there was some ill office done him that he durst not attempt to mind any other ways than by going aside thereby to teach envy a new way of forgetfulness and not so much as to think of him howsoever he had it always in mind never to forget himself and his device took so well that at his return he came in as Rams do by going backward with the greater strength and so continued to her last great in her grace and Captain of the Guard where I must leave him but with this observation That though he gained much at the Court yet he took it not out of the Exchequer or meerly out of the Queen's purse but by his wit and the help of the Prerogative for the Queen was never profuse in the delivering out of her treasure but payed many and most of her servants part in money and the rest with grace which as the case stood was taken for good payment leaving the Arrear of recompence due to their merit to her great Successor who payed them all with advantage Grevil SIR Foulk Grevil since Lord Brook had no mean place in her favour neither did he hold it for any short term for if I be not deceived he had the longest lease and the smoothest time without rub of any of her Favourites He came to the Court in his youth and prime for that is the time or never He was a brave Gentleman and honourably descended from William Lord Brook and Admiral to Henry the seventh Neither illiterate for he was as he would often profess a friend to Sir Philip Sidney and there are of his now extant some fragments of his Poem and of those times which do interest him in the Muses and which shews the Queen's election had ever a noble conduct and its motions more of verture and judgment than of fancy I find that he neither sought for or obtained any great place or preferment in Court during all the time of his attendance neither did he need it for he came thither backt with a plentiful Fortune which as himself was wont to say was the better held together by a single life wherein he lived and dyed a constant Courtier of the Ladies Essex MY Lord of Essex as Sir Henry Wotton a Gentleman of great parts and parly of his time and retinue observes had is introduction by

he had very fine Attractions and being a good piece of a Schollar yet were they accompanied with the retractiveness of bashfulness and a natural Modesty which as the Tone of his House and the Ebbe of his Fortune then stood might have hindred his Progression had they not been re-inforced by the infusion of Soveraign Favour and the Queen 's Gracious Invitation And that it may appear how low he was and how much that Heretick Necessity will work in the dejection of good spirits I can deliver it with assurance that his exhibition was very scant until his Brother died which was shortly after his admission to the Court and then was was it no more than 1000 Marks per Annum wherewith he lived plentifully in a fine way and garb and without any great Sustentation during all her Times And as there was in his nature a kind of backwardness which did not befriend him nor suit with the motion of the Court so there was in him an inclinations to Armes and a humour of Travelling which had not some wise Men about him laboured to remove and the Queen her self laid in her commands he would out of his natural propension have marred his own market For as he was grown by reading whereunto he was much addicted to the Theory of a Souldier so was he strongly invited by his Genius to the acquaintance of the Practick of the War which were the causes of his excursions for he had a Company in the Low-Countries from whence he came over with a Noble acceptance of the Queen but somewhat restless in honourable thoughts he exposed himself again and again and would press the Queen with the pretences of visiting his Company so often that at length he had a flat denial and yet he stole over with Sir John Norris into the Action of Britain which was then a hot and active War whom he would always call his Father honouring him above all men and ever bewailing his end so contrary he was in his esteem and valuation of this great Commander to that of his Friend my Lord of Essex Till at last the Queen began to take his Decessions for Contempts and confined his residence to the Court and her own Presence And upon my Lord of Essex's fall so confident she was in her own Princely judgment and opinion she had conceived of his worth and conduct that she would have this Noble Gentleman and none other to finish and bring the Irish War to a propitious end For it was a prophetical Speech of her own That it would be his fortune and his honour to cut the thred of that fatal Rebellion and to bring her in peace to the Grave Where she was not deceived for he atchieved it but with much pains and carefulness and not without the fears and many jealousies of the Court and Times wherewith the Queen's age and the malignity of her setting times were replete And so I come to his dear Friend in Court Master Secretary Cecil whom in his long absence from Court he adored as his Saint and courted for his onely Maecenas both before and after his departure from Court and during all the time of his Command in Ireland well knowing that it lay in his power and by a word of his mouth to make or marr him Cecil SIR Robert Cecil since Earl of Salisbury was the Son of the Lord Burleigh and the Inheritor of his Wisdom and by degrees Successor of his Places and Favours though not of his Lands for he had Sir Thomas Cecil his Elder Brother since Created Earl of Exeter He was first Secretary of State then Master of the Wards and in the last of her Raign came to be Lord Treasurer all which were the steps of his Father's greatness and of the Honour he left to his House For his person he was not much beholding to Nature though somewhat for his Face which was the best part of his outside but for his inside it may be said and without soloecisme that he was his Father's own Son and a pregnant proficient in all Discipline of State He was a Courtier from his Cradle which might have made him betimes yet at the Age of Twenty and upwards he was much short of his after-proof but exposed and by change of Climate he soon made shew what he was and would be He lived in those times wherein the Queen had most need and use of Men of Weight and amongst able ones this was a Chief as having his sufficiency from his Instructions that Begat him the Tutorship of the Times and Court which were then the Academies of Art and Cunning for such was the Queen's condition from the Tenth or Twelfth of her Raign that she had the happiness to stand up whereof there is a former intimation though invironed with more Enemies and assaulted with more dangerous Practises than any Prince of her Times and of many Ages before Neither must we in this her Preservation attribute too much to Humane Policies for that God in his Omnipotent Providence had not onely ordained those Secondary Meanes as Instruments of the Work but by an Evident Manifestation that the same Work which she acted was a Well-pleasing Service of his own out of a peculiar care had decreed the Protection of the Work-Mistriss and thereunto added his abundant blessing upon all and whatsoever she undertook which is an observation of satisfaction to my self that she was in the right though to others now breathing under the same form and frame of her Government it may not seem an Animadversion of any worth but I leave them to the peril of their own folly And so again to this great Master of State and the Staff of the Queen's declining Age who though his little crooked Person could not promise any great supportation yet it carried thereon a Head and a Head-piece of a vast content and therein it seems Nature was so diligent to compleat one and the best part about him as that to the perfection of his Memory and Intellectuals she took care also of his Sences and to put him in Linceos Oculos or to pleasure him the more borrowed of Argus so to give unto him a prospective sight and for the rest of his sensitive vertues his Predecessor Walsingham had left him a Receit to smell out what was done in the Conclave and his good old Father was so well seen in the Mathermaticks as that he could tell you through all Spain every part every Ship with the Burthens whither bound with preparation what impediments for diversion of Enterprises Counsels and Resolutions And that we may see as in a little Map how docible this little man was I will present a taste of his Abilities My Lord of Devonshire upon the certainty the Spaniard would invade Ireland with a strong Army had written very earnestly to the Queen and the Council for such Supplies to be sent over that might enable him to march up to the Spaniard if he did Land and follow

on his prosecution against the Rebels Sir Robert Cecil besides the general dispatch of the Council as he often did Wrote this in private for these two began then to Love dearly My Lord Out of the abundance of my affection and the care I have of your well-doing I must in private put you out of doubt for of fear I know you cannot be otherwise sensible than in the way of Honour that the Spaniard will not come unto you this year for I have it from my own what preparations are in all his parts and what he can doe for be confident he beareth up a reputation by seeming to embrace more than he can gripe but the next year be assured he will cast over unto you some forlorn hopes which how they may be reinforced beyond his present ability and his first intention I cannot as yet make any certain judgement but I believe out of my intelligence that you may expect their Landing in Munster and the more to distract you in several places as at King's-Saile Beer-haven Baltimore where you may be sure coming from Sea they will first fortifie and learn the strength of the Rebels before they dare take the field howsoever as I know you will not lessen not your care neither your defences l … and whatsoever lies within my power to doe you and the publick service rest thereof assured And to this I would add much more but it may as it is suffice to present much as to his abilities in the Pen that he was his Crafts-master in foreign intelligence And for domestique affairs as he was one of those that sate at the Stern to the last of the Queen so he was none of the least in skill and in the true use of the Compass And so I shall only vindicate the scandal of his death and conclude him For he departed at St. Margaret's neer Marleborough in his return from the Bath as my Lord Viscount Cranborn my Lord Clifford his Son and Son-in-law my self and many more can witness But that the day before he swounded in the way was taken out of the Litter and laid into his Coach was a truth out of which that falshood concerning the manner of his death had its derivation tho' nothing to the purpose or to the prejudice of his worth Vere SIR Francis Vere was of the ancient and of the most Noble extract of the Earls of Oxford And it may be a question whether the Nobility of his House or the Honour of his Atchievements might most commend him but that we have an authentick Rule to decide the doubt Nam genus proavos quae non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco For though he were an Honourable Slip of that ancient Tree of Nobility which was no disadvantage to his vertue yet he brought more glory to the Name of Vere than he took of Bloud from the Family He was amongst the Queens Sword-men inferiour to none but superior to many Of whom it may be said To speak much of him were the way to leave out something that might add to his praise and to forget more that could add to his Honour I find not that he came much to the Court for he lived almost perpetually in the Camp but when he did no Man had more of the Queen's Favour and none less envyed for he seldom troubled it with the jealousie and alarms of supplantations his way was another sort of undermining They report that the Queen as she loved Martial Men would Court this Gentleman as soon as he appeared in her Presence And surely he was a Souldier of great worth and Commanded Thirty years in the Service of the States and Twenty years over the English in Chief as the Queen's General and he that had seen the Battel of Newport might there best have taken him and his Noble Brother my Lord of Tilbury to the Life Worcester MY Lord of Worcester I have here put last but not least in the Queen's Favour He was of the ancient and Noble Blood of the Bewfords and of her Grandfather's Line by the Mother which the Queen could never forget especially where there was a concurrency of old blood with fidelity a mixture which ever sorted with the Queen's Nature And though there might appear something in this House which might avert her Grace though not to speak of my Lord himself but with due reverence and Honour I mean contrariety or suspicion in Religion yet the Queen ever respected this House and principally this Noble Lord whom she first made Master of the Horse and then admitted of her Council of State In his youth part whereof he spent before he came to reside at Court he was a very fine Gentleman and the best Horseman and Tilter of the Times which were then the Manlike and Noble Recreations of the Court and such as took up the Applause of Men as well as the Praise and Commendadation of Ladies And when years had abated these Exercises of Honour he grew then to be a faithful and profound Counsellor And as I have placed him last so was he the last Liver of all the Servants of her Favour and had the honour to see his Renowned Mistriss and all of them laid in the places of their Rest And for himself after a Life of a very Noble and Remarkable Reputation he died Rich and in a Peaceable Old Age. A fate that I make the last and none of the slightest Observations which befel not many of the rest for they expired like unto Lights blown out with the Snuff stinking not commendably extinguished and with Offence to the standers by And thus have I delivered up this my poor Essay A little Draught of this great Princess and her Times with the Servants of her State and Favour I cannot say I have finished it for I know how defective and imperfect it is as limbed onely in the original nature not without the active blemishes and so left it as a task fitter for remote times and the sallies of some bolder Pencil to correct that which is amiss and draw the rest up to life As for me to have endeavoured it I took it to consideration how easily I might have dasht in too much of the strain of pollution and thereby have defaced that little which is done For I profess I have taken care so to master my Pen that I might not ex animo or of set-purpose discolour truth or any of the parts thereof otherwise than in concealment Happily there are some which will not approve of this modesty but will censure me for pusillanimity and with great cunning Artists attempt to draw their Line further out at large and upon this of mine which may with somewhat more ease be effected for that the frame is ready made to their hands and then happily I could draw one in the midst of theirs But that modesty in me forbids the defacements of Men departed whose Posterity yet remaining enjoys the merit of their