the Persian Coast. And I am of opinion also that the same ought to be done with the Kings of Calecut Narsinga and Caramania but these are not to be furnished with Guns They may indeed be instructed in the Art of Printing and other Arts that are in use among the Christians to the end they may thereby have the Christians in admiration and high esteem and that by the introducing of Ingenious Arts and Sciences amongst them they may be made our Own And yet Arts are wont to become a Prey to Armes at last unlesse they be both equally in practise together And hence it is that Pallas in the Fable is said to have overcome both Calliope and Mars because She was experienced as well in the use of Mars his Armes as Calliope's Arts. The like course is to be taken with those of Taprobanâ— China and Iapan by communicating our Arts and Sciences to them as Printing Painting and the like which will be very much admired by them and by the means of which they may by degrees he won over and may be brought to embrace the Christian Faith But those that deal with them must be sure that above all things they abstain from Covetousnesse and exercising of Cruelty upon any of these people lest otherwise they should be provoked and should joyn all together against us and should thereby prove a great hinderance to the Spaniards Designs We shall not need to speak any thing here of the Great Cham of Cataia seeing that his Country lies so far out of the road that the Spaniard takes in his Voyage to the East-Indies notwithstanding that the Persians and Turks have cause enough to stand in fear of him and we know very well that the Tartarians have many times over-run all Asia and that also becoming Christians they restored unto Us Ierusalem Yet afterwards when they once saw Our Unworthy Base Disposition in that notwithstanding we all professed the same Christian Religion we were yet continually at War one with another they forsook Christianity again and presently embraced Mahumetanisme which at that time flourished infinitely and was in high esteem throughout the Whole East And by this means was it that they came to give over making war any longer upon the Persians and Turks whom they now suffered to live quietly without being at all annoyed by Them who yet had in former times often overthrown and beaten them But on the other side they were more and more alienated from the Christian Faith and from the Christians whom they saw to be so Base and Unworthy as to be continually at discord and variance amongst themselves And yet I believe that the Glorious Spanish Monarchy which encompasseth the whole Earth will shortly reduce them and bring them to embrace again the Christian Religion especially if there should any Wars break out in the Eastern Parts and that so much the rather because that Macon is now divided into many several Sects Besides the People of Calecut and of Goa are Christians already though but Nestorians yet they might easily be brought to embrace the True Primitive Christian Religion if it were but proposed to them to consider that God hath alwaies preserved the Church of Rome and firmly settled it in its own Proper Seat and Power whereas on the Contrary all the Heresies of others have been successelesse and could never get any Dominion or Authority throughout Christendome as appears by Arius Nestorius Macedonius Apollinaris and all other Authors of Heresies Now I do not know any thing that would cause those most Remote Kingdoms to admire us more and that would sooner draw the Inhabitants of the same from their Superstitions and would besides weaken them too and make them unapter for War then if the Knowledge of the Liberal Arts the Languages Philosophy and the Mathematicks were carried thither from hence by some of our Western Professors of the same because that Minuit vires nervosque Minerva Minerva's quiet Arts Take off and Chill our hearts Let the King therefore take care that Forraigners may be exercised only in Idle Umbratil Sciences and Light toyish matters and Pastimes but in the mean time let Him keep His own Natural Subjects to the exercise of their Armes also together with those forenamed Sciences by which Means He may still be victorious But lastly that we may return to our former discourse touching the Persians aiding us against the Turks The Persians having alwayes relyed wholly upon the Number and Goodnesse of their Horse have notwithstanding in the mean time while they have been Victorious in the Open Field yet lost their Cities at home And therefore I say they are to be advised to fortifie their Cities with Castles and strong Holds every where For the Turk although he have been many times beaten by them hath yet by litle and litle so entrenched himself about as it were with Garrisons and Fortifications made in all convenient places that he hath by this means made himself Master of a very great part of the Persians Country and hath possessed himself at last also of the great City Tauris or Ecbatan They must be taught therefore to make use of the same Arts in defending themselves by which they have formerly been beaten CHAP. XXX Of the Great Turk and his Empire BY what means the Turk endeavours to make himself Lord of the whole World hath been as I conceive sufficiently declared before in this Treatise and He will also at this time already be called The Vniversal Lord as the King of Spain is called The Catholick King so that these two Princes seem now to strive which of them shall attain to the Universal Monarchy of the whole World And therefore I think it not amisse to examine here in what Particulars the one of them is either Inferiour or superiour to the other The Great Turk is the most Absolute Lord of and Heir to all the Goods that his subjects have throughout his whole Empire and not of their Goods only but also of their Persons And in this He is worse then ever any Tyrant was in that He arrogates all to Himself and because that although He calls all his People His Sons Yet He doth not like a Father suffer them to inherit any thing but only bestowes yearly upon every one of them as much as He thinks fit appointing them withal the Employments that they shall serve him in He hath also a Religion that is framed according to his own Will only without taking the advise with him of any Arch-Priest He hath likewise a most Able Souldiery because that He takes all the likeliest boyes and youths through all his Dominions and breeds them up in Seminaries erected for that purpose and these He employes both in his wars abroad and in peace at home making some of them Souldiers and others Judges and Noblemen also Neither hath He any Barons to stand in fear of neither hath He any Brothers to share with Him in the Empire For the
be forced by the necessity of imposing upon his Subjects Unusual Taxes to gain their ill will and lose their Affections which was Caligula's Case heretofore who after that he had in riotous courses fool'd away all his own Estate was necessitated presently to snatch away other mens Certainly whosoever takes in hand any high and difficult Attempt under the Assistance of a Favourable Fate he must necessarily be Couragious and daring and indeed every Great and Memorable Enterprise requireth a certain Extraordinary Valour and Courage which yet in case the successe should not be answerable would be called Rashnesse As for example it was accounted a Bold undertaking in Columbus to go in search of a New World but plain Rashnesse in Vlisses only because the one escaped safe but the other suffered shipwrack But when a Prince hath effected his desiâ—es he must then have an eye to the uncertainty of Fortune and must therefore take heed how he is too bold and daring the observing of which Counsel being neglected by Charles the Fift was the cause of bringing to nothing all that he had atchieved before in Germany for he did not take the same wise Course to preserve what he had gotten as he had done in the getting of it And the case was the same also with the great Iulius Caesar. And then again in war there is a necessity of using severity that so the Souldiers may all be kept to their several duties and besides those that perform any Signall peices of Service are to be rewarded accordingly which Course unlesse it be taken they will begin to spurn at the Government and break out into seditious wayes as Tiberius his Army did when it was in Germany and will fall to an insolent course of Plundering and robbing and so by these meanes will bring the Victory they had gotten before to nothing as it happened to Conradinus the Swevian and Charles of Anjou Therefore after any Conquest gotten over a Kingdom the Conquerour must modestly use his Victory and endeavour to please the People For otherwise he will alienate their affections from himself and they will be apt upon all occasions to invite in his Enemies to fall upon him as it happened to Rehoboam and Charles of Anjou in Sicily and to the Carthaginians after the First Punick War and to Aecolinus against whom his subjects the Citizens of Padua shut their gates as likewise to Nero who though Prince of it was yet called The Enemy of his Country And although many Crafty Practises are now in use among Princes for the keeping of their Subjects in due obedience yet I dare boldly affirm that they will in the end prove destructive to those Princes For we see that Tiberius that Grand Artifex of Subtleties and Craft was miserably hated by his Subjects and so led a very sad life because he found he was not loved by any body so that he was fain to put some or other every day to death as contemners of his Majesty and so to be ever of a troubled disquieted mind which certainly may better be called a Death then a life Therefore the highest and most advantageous Craft that a Prince can make use of is to shew himself Beneficent Religious and Liberall toward his Subjects yet this in so moderate a way as that by this means he give them not occasion to despise him as happened to Pope Celestine the Fifth But let us now proceed to those things that more Particularly concern Spain As I have before shewed by Divine Reasons that there can be no Universal Monarchy among the Christians expected save that of the Pope and have also declared how he is to be dealt withal so I shall now prove by Reasons of Policy that there can be no Monarch in the Christian World unlesse he have his dependance upon the Pope For certainly what Prince soever hath any other that is superiour to Him though in Religion onely and not in point of Armes as the Pope is he can never attain to an Universal Monarchy For whatsoever He shall take in hand it will be successelesse and he shall be as it were crushed in pieces by the superiour For All Religions as well the False as the True do prevail and are Victorious when they have once taken root in the Minds of men upon which onely depend both their Tongues and Armes which are the onely Instruments of attaining Dominion Thus we see that Iulius Caesar when any were created Consuls if the Poâ—tifex Maximus came and sayd They were not created Rightly they were presently by him put by and so whensoever he was to enter into a fight if the Augurs said that The Pullen would not eat their meat he forbare to go on and did onely what he was directed to by their Omen And therefore when the same Caesar had fallen upon a resolution of making himself A Monarch he opposed Cato as much as possibly he could and endeavoured by all possible meanes to be chosen to be the Pontifex Maximus Which when he had once attained unto he acted another way and took upon himself all the Martiall Offices that were to be administred by the sword that so he might drive on his designs the more securely and withal by his gifts obliged all the Souldiery so to him as that they refused not to bear arms for Him even against their Country and to assist him in his designs of changing the Government of the state So in like manner Cyrus would be called by the Title of Gods Commissary that so no Prophet might pretend to be greater then Himself And Alexander the great would be accounted the son of Iupiter Ammon for the very same reason It is also very evident that no Monarchy in the Christian World hath arrived to the Height by reason of the obedience which is due to the Pope And hence it is that Mahomet when he aspired to a Monarchy brought in first a New Religion which was quite different from what was before For Armes cannot effect any thing against Religion if they be overmaster'd by another more powerful Religion though a worse if so be it be but entertained by the People For as much therefore as there is no more powerful Religion found in the World then that of the Roman Christian it is evident that neither Spain nor France can attain to any greater Dignity then It. And hence it was that Charles the Great when he had a design upon the Universal Monarchy of the World took upon himself the Title of being The Protector of the Pope and indeed so long as he stood up in a defence of Christianitie he became Great If the King of 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
above Humane Condition and ought to be esteemed as a kind of Godâ— or a Christ or at least is to be reputed as qualified with a certain measure of Divinity and to have some eminâ—nt 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 â—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 Mahomâ—t 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 Publiâ—k He must alwaies after the example of Philopoemen 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 â—end 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 Empireâ— 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 â—f both sexes both Kings and Queens have been murdered And of late years in Ethiopia Abdimalo was called to the Crown not from ouâ— 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 Maâ—ritania 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 onelyâ— 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 For seeing they are all certainly enough assured that they shall be put to death by the succeeding Emperour they have need all of them to provide for themselves and so are necessitated in a manner to take up Armes and to implore the aid and assistance either of subjects at home of Forrain Princes abroad Hence it was that Sâ—lim was wont to say that He was to be
is Impossible but that things should alwayes succeed ill with Him so long as there is no provision made for the remedying of this mischief Yet I do not say that a Kings whole strengh consists only in his Mony but He is to consider that Mony alone will do little toward the subduing of an Enemy And indeed we read that Iulius Caesar by his great knowledge in Military affaires and having withal the love of his Souldiersâ— though they were but a very Small Army to speake of yet for all this conquered the whole World And so likewise the Saracens Tartarians and Hunnes without any Mony made themselves Lords of almost the whole World We confesse therefore that Mony is of Excellent good use and most necessary for a Prince for the Preserving and making good the Bounds of his Dominions but not at all for the enlarging of them by adding New Provinces to the same And therefore let him believe that the sinews of his Strength lye in something else then his Mony For that Faith that is purchased by Mony may again be sold for Mony And therefore I beseech you do but observe how in France our King Philip by his mony procured the Dukes of Maine Ioycuse Mercoeur and Guise to take up Armes against the King of Navarre and then again how the King of Navarre by the same meanes got over the very same men to His side after they found King Philip to be grown somewhat close-sisted and not to come off with his Mony so freely as before And in like manner the Commanders and Souldiers in the Low-Countries do now a daies rather exercise the profession of Hucksters then of Souldiers for they do not fight that they may overcome their Enemy but that they may make a gain of their serving in the Wars And so have made Armes which are the Instruments of Monarchy to be the Instruments of their Covetousnesse and their Sports And the King deceives himself whiles He pursues all Covetous Designs for He hath Mony enough if he have but Souldiers enough and if there be withal but Mutual love betwixt him and them and a due regard had to their several merits which things if they be wanting he shall be sure to be a sufficient Loser in the end First therefore and above all things let the King endeavour to treasure up to himself the Minds and Affections of his Subjects and Vassals and indear himself to them by his own Gallantry both in Peace and in War making Himself admired by them by making profession of and proposing to them some New Sciences c. as hath been said before Secondly let Him raise himself a Treasure of his Subjects Bodies by causing them to multiply by Frequency of Marriages to which they are to be encouraged by Honours and other Inticements c. as was also touched before And in the Third place let Him raise himself a Treasure out of the Wealth of his Subjects whiles He makes them Rich by taking care that Agriculture and Manuring of the Ground be promoted and that the making of Silks Woollen Cloath and the like Useful and Profitable Arts and Trades be set on foot and diligently followed rather then that such Courses should be taken as we see now adaies every where whiles in the smaller Towns most people give themselves to Usury and in the Greater Cities men for the most part apply themselves to Merchandise and Extorsion The Pope raises up his Treasures in the Minds of Men and therefore is He a Conquerour because that This being conjoyned with Eloquence and Wisedom is the onely Instrument by which that Treasure is acquired And hence it was that the Saracens by the use of their Tongue and also by making Profession of New Sciences and of a New Religion became Conquerours Iulius Caesar raised Himself a Treasure both in Minds and Bodies by His own Personal Virtue and Gallantry winning to himself and obliging the Hearts and Affections of the Whole Souldiery But the Taâ—tarians and Hunnes did this by Bodies only rendring them so Fruitful as that by reason of their Vast numbers they were fain to leave their Native soyl marching out of it in huge bodies like swarms of Bees and seizing upon others Territories But now the King may by His Own just Right exact all these Treasures at the hands of his Subjects as namely Religion by placing Able Preachers among them Love by Good Lawes the Subjects Profit and True Justice and Multiplication of them by the Waies before laid down where I spoke touching the encreasing of the Number of the Souldiery and let Him require of each several Nation that which they most abound in as People from the Germans Souldiers from the Spaniards Commanders in War and Garments from the Italians from the West-Indies Gold but not the contrary We may truly affirm that the New World hath in a manner undone the Old for it hath sowen Covetousnesse in our Minds and hath quite extinguished Mutual Love among men For all the World are wretchedly in love with Gold only and hence it is that Men are become Deceitful and Fraudulent in their dealings and have often sold and re-sold their Faith for Hire because they saw that Mony was That that did the businesse every where and that was held in Admiration by all people and so They are come now to despise all Sciences and Holy Sermons in comparison of Mony and have bid Adieu both to Agriculture and other Arts applying themselves only to look after the Fertility and Increase of Mony and to get themselves into Rich Mens houses It hath likewise Introduced a great Disparity amongst Men making them either too Richâ— whence they become Proud and Insolent or else leaving them too Poor whence proceeds Envy Theft and Open Robbery Hence also it is that the prices of Corn Wine Flesh Oyl and Cloath are very much raised because that no man applies himself to this kind of Merchandise whence followes Want and Penury and yet Monies in the mean while must be laid out In so much that the poorer sort being not able to hold out in the world are fain either to put themselves into service or else betake themselves to robbing upon the High-Way or else turn Souldiers being necessitated to do so through Poverty and not at all for Love either of the King or of Religion and many times also they run away from their Colours or else change them neither do they endeavour to get Children in a Lawful Way of Marriage because they are not able to pay Taxes or else perhaps they try all the waies that 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
most Idle and Vile persons who after they have once gotten themselves Wives do then by their crafty Wiles oppresse poor men and begin to spread abroad the Poyson of their Wickednesse far and near And for this reason it was that Bishops have oftentimes forbidden those Prelats that have been under their Jurisdiction the use of a Numerous Retinue though here there was no great need of any such Interdiction For although that such Servants of Prelates are not in truth Honest and Good men yet are they forced at least to appear such in those places and so they give the lesse Scandal to the World Wherefore the King ought to endeavour to introduce an Equality by restraining all Numerous Retinues Let Him moreover indulge the Common People so much as that for the space of whole ten years they shall pay onely the one half of their Taxes and for the other half let Him exact the payment of it at the hands of the Barons and others that are Artificers I would also have those Lawes and Arts spoken of before where I treated of the Barons and Usurers to be brought into use But for as much as the Spaniards are hated by all Nations the best Course would be that the King should endeavour to reconcile them to the Spaniard by intermarrying with them and also by erecting such Military Seminaries into which should be admitted indifferently and be there maintained Souldiers of all other Nations For by this means the King shall have both a more Copious and also a better Tempered and more Generous Army as we see Chestnut Graffes when they are set upon other stocks bring forth the better fruit And this very course God himself is wont to take who that He may render all Mankind the more Noble uses to transplant the People of the Northern Parts and to remove them into the more Southern which He also does for some other causes which yet are all save one or two unknown to us After this let the King of Spain so order his affairs as that not only his subjects may live together in mutual love amongst themselves but also that He himself may be beloved by them which thing he may easily effect by Enacting Profitable Lawes by encreasing the number of his subjects by remitting their Taxes and Impositions by bringing in an Equality amongst them and lastly by not omitting even those things also of which We spoke before And because that nothing is so destructive to a Prince as the stirring up of the subjects Hate against Himself whence it is for the most part that Conspiracies and Treasons are plotted against both Prince and State it would be very well if all the subjects were of the same Religion that the Prince is of for nothing in the World doth more set men at Variance then Diversity of Religion And this the King of France hath found to be true by his own sad Experience But it is here necessary that the Prince should shun those two Extreams to wit Hypocrisie â—ud Superstition God is Truth and will be worshipped in Truth and with a Clear upright mind Let our Prince therefore be sure that he approve himself to be a Pious and Religious Prince without Hypocrisie by which Tiberius Caesar did himself much wrong and without any apparent softnesse or Effeminatenesse But nothing more commends a Prince to his People then to be furnished both with Domestick and Military Vertues which are sufficient to engage all his subjects of all Ranks and Conditions whatsoever to be faithful to Him for these are the Foundation and Groundwork of all Principalities For as the Elements and all Bodies compounded of them do without any Reluctancy obey the Motions of the Celestial Bodies by reason of their Ingenit Excellencie of Nature and in the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbes themselves the Inferiour follow the Motion of the Superiour in like manner do all men willingly submit and yeeld themselves up to such a Prince in whom they find all Eminent Vertues shining forth For this is an Impression of Nature imprinted on all that no Inferiours refuse to yeeld Obedience to those that are above or better then themselves For it is received by the Eternal Law of Nature that Inferiours should obey their Superiours And it is the Bond of Faith saith Livy to obey our betters Andâ— Our Superiours Commands are to be obeyed saith another Author And Aâ—istotle sayes that Natural Reason requires that those that do excel in Wit and Iudgment should govern those that are not so excellent therein When any Prince therefore is Eminent for Vertue it gains Him the Love of his People especially if he shall but make it appear to them that He loves them with a Fatherly Love admitting them to come into his presence and to discourse with Him and withall looking into the Accounts of His Inferiour Ministers and alwayes more readily lending an ear to the Poor then to the Rich and besides if He pardon all Offenders and bestow all Rewards Himself but inflict punishments on Malefactors by his Ministers and also if He suppresse Usurers and those Mercenary Barons spoken of before and shew Himself clear from all Wicked Acts whatsoever and withall render Himself worthy to be reverenced for his Religion by having Godly Counsellors about Him and winning to himself a holy love from all by reason of the most strict Tye that is between Him and the Pope and the Holy Church And let Him in all things Propose for Examples for Him to follow David Constantine Theodosius Trajan Augustus Martianus Charles the Great all which being endowed with the forementioned Vertues aâ—d with Sciences raigned more happily then Iulian Frederick Henry Tiberius Nero and Philip Surnamed the Faire who spent his time in a quite contrary course to what Charles the Great did Besides I would have Him to invite his Subjects by honours and Rewards to an Emulation of Vertue and Sciences and an Endeavour to excel each other herein by which means there would be New Sciences invented Gaming also would be of good use in Spain and would serve to divert the Common People from prying over-curiously into Affairs of State or else it would necessitate those that have lost all their Estates that way to turn Souldiers But yet seeing that this breaking of one another is the cause of Extortion Covetousnesse Hatred of their fellow Subjects and of the love of Mony this Gaming seems in the end to bring more damage to the State then benefit And therefore I conceive it were better that there were some Sports of Recreation devised for his Subjects of Spain to try Masteries in and some Velitations and Innocent Contentions in some Arts or Sciences but for his Forraign subjects abroad they should use Gaming either at Cards or Dice which they should be put upon by the Leiger Ambassadours there that so by this means they may become Broken and Heartlesse through Idlenesse and want of Exercise I would also have some Mathematical
Philosophical and Politicall Questions proposed among them that they may so be diverted from embracing Heretical Opinions But the best course the King can take for the preventing of all Conspiracies and designs against Him will be to shew Himself a Good Awful and Iust Princeâ— The want of the First of these Vertues was the Ruin of Nero and Acciolinus the Defect in the second undid Sardanapalus and Vitellius and the failing in the last cost Philip King of Macedonia his life who because he had denied the due Course of Justice to one Pausanias was by him killed Inequality also and Injustice was the Cause of the Ruin of Rome it self If any one Single person have any Treacherous Design against the Prince the only Course in that case for prevention of it will be to take notice of and search every one that comes into the Kings presence least they should carry any Armes Privily about them for it is a difficult businesse to prevent such Treacheries as are designed by One single Person alone And hence it was that Henry the III. of France and the King of Moab and so likewise Philip King of Macedonia were all Slain by single persons the First of them for his Religion the second for his Cruelty and the Third for his denying Justice to be done to a Subject of his But if there be Many joyned together in any Conspiracy against the Prince it cannot be but that unlesse they effect their design within fifteen or twenty daies space or except the Conspirators have fallen upon their Design out of their Love and respect they bear to Justice Piety or the benefit of the Publick and so it prove to be onely a Conspiracy contrived by Honest Men against a Tyrant it cannot otherwise be I say but that they must necessarily be discovered For every body will hope some way or other to advance himself by the Prince's Favour if he do but discover the said Conspiracy to him And hence it was that the Conspiracy of Absolon against his father David and of Catiline against his Country were detected because that those that were the Conspirators were nothing at all better or honester men then those against whom they had conspired Conspiracies are also easily and speedily too discovered by servants unlesse they be presently put into Execution as was that of Laurence de Medicis against Duke Alexander which was deferred but one night onely And whensoever Honest Men joyn in any Conspiracy against a most Cruel Tyrant notwithstanding they should delay the putting of the same in execution yet would there be no great danger of its being discovered and hence it was that the Conspiracy of Iohn de Procitha and the Barons of Sicily against the French and Charles of Anjou who miserably afflicted the poor Inhabitants was kept close above a year before the Execution of it and that too though both the Emperour the Pope and Peter King of Arragon who were Forraigners were all privy to the Same the only Reason of which was because that This was a Conspiracy made by the Nobles and others that were therein concerned against Forraigners and Tyrannical Governours The like was that Conspiracy also which was entred into by Iehoiada and the Levites against Athaliah And yet for the most part although the number of those that are in the Conspiracy be but of a few and it be besides contrived against some Wicked person too yet if it be not speedily put in Execution it comes to light and is discovered as we may see by that Conspiracy made against Nero in which even Seneca himself also was and that Other contrived against Cosmo de Medicis by the Wicked Strozzi who were themselves much worse then He. But in case any single person aspiring to some Principality shall yet bear his followers in hand that He drives at some other thing and so in the mean time winnes upon them and gaines their Affections He shall certainly bring about his designes This was the course that Iulius Caesar took in attaining to the Empire though He kept his Design close to Himself and never discovered it to any being yet wont while He was but a Youth to have this saying often in his mouth Si violandum est jus Regnandi gratiâ violandum est If I would violate the Lawes it should be to Rule And of this Design of his he laid for himself Two Foundations namely Religion and The Love of the Souldiery to whom at length He made known his purpose though under another Pretext Whereas Catiline in his attempting the same took a quite Contrary Course and having laid down to himself before hand no one particular Foundation He without any more ado at first made all of his fellow Conspirators acquainted with his drift and purpose By whose Miscarriage Caesar taking warning He attempts the same thing but with more Caution and Advisednesse The King therefore ought to use all diligence and care to discover how the Minds of His Subjects and Ministers stand affected toward Him and what they have in agitation amongst them and when He hath once found what they would have He shall do well immediately to give them Satisfaction in that Particular And besides it would not be amisse that He should bestow some gifts under hand yet without any shew at all of fear or suspition upon some one Principal person among the Conspirators who being by this meanes wrought over to the Prince will be able to acquaint Him with what ever Designs his Subjects have in hand And if any shall inform Him that there are certain Persons that have for many months together been openly contriving some conspiracy against Him He may very well laugh at such Informers For whosoever shall go about to attempt any such thing in that manner are either Fooles or very Unskilful in the Course of the World or else lastly those that gave him such Information are Liers and forged those Stories only to ingratiate â—â—emselves with the Prince and get into Favour with him Thus heretofore Perseus falsely accused his Brother Demetrius of having Secretly conspired against their Father Philip King of Macedonia And in the Reigne of Tiberius and afterwards of Nero there were every day some or other that accused others of Treasonable Designs against the Emperour Which certainly is a very Villanous base thing for by this meanes the Prince is both made to suspect every body and besides He renders Himself withal suspected by every body so that the Subjects are put to act really upon Him that which Himself stands in fear of or else Innocent men are unjustly put to death 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
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 Esperâ—on 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 shonld 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 choice 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
means of the Bishops though under some other name And yet even then He should have forborn to have imposed any Taxes upon them that so it might appear to all the world that nothing but their own Welfare and Good was sought after by Religion and not the Kings Advantage and Benefit onely There should also have been set over them such Governours as were chosen either out of the Germans or Italians seeing they naturally abhor a Spaniard and these indeed should be employed only in the keeping of Cities but not be made Governours of them for they are too Severe and Ceremonious whereas the Dutch should have such Governours set over them as are more Remisse and Easie. To these Errours were added others that were committed in the Managing of the War for the King himself who was very much beloved of them as being descended of German Blood yet never went himself in person to the War but sent in his stead Spanish Commanders who were cruel by nature and withal extreamly hateful to the Dutch being such as in their Commands would make use of Blowes rather then of Fair Words And the truth of this appeared in that they desired to have one of the House of Austriâ— to be their Head and therefore made choyce of Matthias the Arch-Duke After him they chose one that was neâ—rer unto them namely Francis the King of France his son who yet having afterwards laid a plot so as that upon a certain day appointed he would have entered into the City of Antwerp upon a sudden with all his Horse whilest the Citizens dreamt of no such thing and would by this meanes have made himself Master of it but in the mean time having before-hand laid no foundation for this his design neither by way of Religion nor Policy He was in an instant driven out again by the Tradesmen and Merchants and that not onely with the losse of his Reputation and Principality but so great was the Tumult that He had like to have lost his life in it too And although Margaret Arch-Duchesse of Austria was made Governesse of these Provinces for one while and ruled there indeed with the Love and good Will of the Subjects yet could She not by any means reduce the same into a due Obedience because that Heresie had now taken so deep root amongst them and that the People had besides a suspition that She had a Design of reducing them and bringing them again under the Obedience of the Spanish Scepter and this was the Pretense under which the Ringleaders of that Sedition amongst them covered their desire of Principality and Liberty which they so greedily thirsted after And yet afterwards God himself shewed a way by which these people might have been subdued seeing that they were so divided by their several Sects into divers parts some of them standing for dull Luther others for subtile Calvin and some again for dissolute Zuinglius and Mennon in so much that you can hardly find a house amongst them wherein these different Heresies are not maintained neither are we wanting to our selves in any thing save only that we have not the skill to lay hold on so wished an Opportunity as this is and to make the best use of it For every Kingdom that is divided within it self shall be destroyed and a firm Union hath alwaies a very hard Knot to â—ye Notwithstanding we have not yet succeeded all this while not because the Enemy doth do us any harm but because we annoy them For it is certain that by reason of their differences in Religion they dare not one of them so much trust another as to joyn together in the Election of a General for their Wars so that if ever any where it may be truly said here that Quot capita tot sententiae so may Men so many minds I would be understood to speak here in reference to their Making of Warres abroad for the enlarging of their Dominions For they are every one of them so Jealous as that they cannot believe but that should they proceed to the chusing of such a General to be over them He would presently take upon himself the Authority to extirpate all such Sects of Religion as are different from that which He professeth and it would be the general fear of them all that such a one would usurp an Absolute Power over them And therefore we see that the successes which they have had in their Wars under the Conduct of Count Maurice have yet heartned them so far onely as to enter into a League amongst themselves of maintaining a Defensive War but not of an Offensive And then in the last place there be many other mischiefs that lye in the way to hinder the Spaniards from compassing the Dominion of these Provinces The First whereof is because they are to fight with an Enemy in his own Country to whom both the Nature and Site of the Country and also the Temper of the Air are very agreeable all which are most contrary to the temper of the Spaniard The Second isâ— because that this Nation understandeth very well how great Inconveniences do arise unto them by this their War with the Spaniard and therefore it is not without good cause that they do so hate the Spaniards who are the Authors of this War and certainly to them Pax una triumphis Innumeris potior A Firm Peace once settled betwixt them would be infinitely more Advantageous then all the Victories they shall get be they never so many A Third is because that the Spaniards being now as it were mad that the Netherlanders have been able to hold them play now for so many years together should they but once get the better of them They would questionlesse make a horrible slaughter amongst them seeing that They do now at this time miserably afflict what Towns soever they take in punishing the Inhabitants most grievously A Fourth Hinderance of the Spaniards Successe herein is because that the Spanish Commanders fight onely so as that they may have still Occasion to fight and not that they may get the Victory by this means making as it were a Trade of War which should be used rather as a Means not only of Defending but also of Enlarging their Dominions And the very same is the Practise of the Commanders of the other side also for even Count Maurice himself to the end that He may the longer keep that Power he hath in his hands and that conquering the Country by degrees he may at length get into his power the whole Principality of it protracts the War and spins it out as long as he can and His footsteps do the rest of the Officers and Commanders diligently follow Now the Spanish Commanders prolong the War that so their Pay as well as their Authority may also be prolonged and take the same course here that Charles Spinola took when he was sent into Abruzzo against Mark Sciarra with whom he dallied only and had no desire