I Am Not Bound To Give Credit To All Vulgar Relations, Or
The Libels Of His Time, Which Are Commonly
Forced and falsified
suitable to the words and honours {45} of men in passion and
discontent; but what blinds me
To think him no good man, amongst
other things of known truth, is that of my Lord of Essex's {46}
death in Ireland and the marriage of his lady, which I forbear to
press in regard he is long since dead, and others are living whom it
may concern.
To take him in the observation of his letters and writings, which
should best set him off, for such as have fallen into my hands, I
never yet saw a style or phrase more seemingly religious and fuller
of the strains of devotion; and, were they not sincere, I doubt much
of his well-being, {47} and, I fear, he was too well seen in the
aphorisms and principles of Nicholas the Florentine, and in the
reaches {48} of Cesare Borgia.
And hereto I have only touched him in his courtships. I conclude
him in his lance; {49} he was sent Governor by the Queen to the
revolted States of Holland, where we read not of his wonders, for
they say he had more of Mercury than he had of Mars, and that his
device might have been, without prejudice to the great Caesar, VENI,
VIDI, REDIVI.
RADCLIFFE, Earl of Sussex.
His {50} co-rival was Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who in his
constellation was his direct opposite, for indeed he was one of the
Queen's martialists, and did her very good service in Ireland, at
her first accession, till she recalled him to the Court, whom she
made Lord Chamberlain; but he played not his game with that cunning
and dexterity as the Earl of Leicester did, who was much the fairer
courtier, though Sussex was thought much the honester man, and far
the better soldier, but he lay too open on his guard; he was a godly
gentleman, and of a brave and noble nature, true and constant to his
friends and servants; he was also of a very ancient and noble
lineage, honoured through many descents, through the title of
Fitzwalters. Moreover, there was such an antipathy in his nature to
that of Leicester, that, being together in Court, and both in high
employments, they grew to a direct frowardness, and were in
continual opposition, the one setting the watch, the other the
guard, each on the other's actions and motions; for my Lord of
Sussex was of so great spirit, which, backed with the Queen's
special favour and support, {51} by a great and ancient inheritance,
could not brook the other's empire, insomuch as the Queen upon
sundry occasions had somewhat to do to appease and atone them, until
death parted the competition, and left the place to Leicester, who
was not long alone without his rival in grace and command; and, to
conclude this favourite, it is confidently affirmed that, lying in
his last sickness, he gave this CAVEAT to his friends:-
"I am now passing into another world, and I must leave you to your
fortunes and the Queen's grace and goodness; but beware of gipsy"
(meaning Leicester), "for he will be too hard for you all; you know
not the beast so well as I do."
SECRETARY WILLIAM CECIL.
I come now to the next, which was Secretary William Cecil, for on
the death of the old Marquis of Winchester he came up in his room:
a person of a most subtle and active spirit.
He stood not by the way of constellation, but was wholly attentive
to the service of his mistress, and his dexterity, experience, and
merit therein challenged a room in the Queen's favour which eclipsed
the other's over-seeming greatness, and made it appear that there
were others steered and stood at the helm besides himself, and more
stars in the firmament of grace than Ursa Major.
He was born, as they say, in Lincolnshire, but, as some aver upon
knowledge, of a younger brother of the Cecils of Hertfordshire, a
family of my own knowledge, though now private, yet of no mean
antiquity, who, being exposed, and sent to the City, as poor
gentlemen used to do their sons, became to be a rich man on London
Bridge, and purchased {52} in Lincolnshire, where this man was born.
He was sent to Cambridge, and then to the Inns of Court, and so came
to serve the Duke of Somerset in the time of his Protectorship as
Secretary, and having a pregnancy to high inclinations, he came by
degrees to a higher conversation with the chiefest affairs of State
and Councils; but, on the fall of the duke, he stood some years in
umbrage and without employment, till the State found they needed his
abilities; and although we find not that he was taken into any place
during Mary's reign, unless (as some say) towards the last, yet the
Council several times made use of him, and in the Queen's {53}
entrance he was admitted Secretary of State; afterwards he was made
Master of the Court of Wards, then Lord Treasurer, for he was a
person of most excellent abilities; and, indeed, the Queen began to
need and seek out men of both guards, and so I conclude to rank this
{54} great instrument amongst the TOGATI, for he had not to do with
the sword, more than as the great paymaster and contriver of the war
which shortly followed, wherein he accomplished much, through his
theoretical knowledge at home and his intelligence abroad, by
unlocking of the counsels of the Queen's enemies.
We must now take it, and that of truth, into observation that, until
the tenth of her reign, the times were calm and serene, though
sometimes overcast, as the most glorious sun-rising is subject to
shadowings and droppings, for the clouds of Spain, and the vapours
of the Holy League, began to disperse and threaten her felicity.
Moreover, she was then to provide for some intestine strangers,
which began to gather in the heart of her kingdom, all which had
relation and correspondency, each one to the other, to dethrone her
and to disturb the public tranquillity, and therewithal, as a
principal mark, the Established religion, for the name of Recusant
then began first to be known to the world; until then the Catholics
were no more than Church-Papists, {55} but now, commanded by the
Pope's express Catholic Church, their mother, they separate
themselves; so it seems the Pope had then his aims to take a true
number of his children; but the Queen had the greater advantage, for
she likewise took tale of her opposite subjects, their strength and
how many they were, that had given their names to Baal, who {56}
then by the hands of some of his proselytes fixed his bulls on the
gates of St. Paul's, which discharged her subjects of all fidelity
and received faith, and so, under the veil of the next successor, to
replant the Catholic religion.
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