So That The Queen Had Then A New
Task And Work In Hand That Might Well Awake Her Best Providence,
And
required a muster of new arms, as well as courtships and counsels,
for the time then began to grow
Quick and active, fitter for
stronger motions than them of the carpet and measure; and it will be
a true note of her magnanimity that she loved a soldier, and had a
propensity in her nature to regard and always to grace them, which
the Court, taking it into their consideration, took it as an
inviting to win honour, together with Her Majesty's favour, by
exposing themselves to the wars, especially when the Queen and the
affairs of the kingdom stood in some necessity of the soldiers, for
we have many instances of the sallies of the nobility and gentry;
yea, and of the Court and her privy favourites, that had any touch
or tincture of Mars in their inclinations, to steal away without
licence and the Queen's privity, which had like to cost some of them
dear, so predominant were their thoughts and hopes of honour grown
in them, as we may truly observe in the exposition of Sir Philip
Sidney, my Lord of Essex and Mountjoy, and divers others, whose
absence, and the manner of their eruptions, was very distasteful
unto her, whereof I can hereunto add a true and no impertinent
story, and that of the last: Mountjoy, who, having twice or thrice
stole away into Brittany, where, under Sit John Norris, he had then
a company, without the Queen's leave and privity, she sent a message
unto him with a strict charge to the general to see him sent home.
When he came into the Queen's presence, she fell into a kind
railing, demanding of him how he durst go over without her leave.
"Serve me so," quoth she, "once more, and I will lay you fast enough
for running; you will never leave till you are knocked on the head,
as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was; you shall go when I send.
In the meantime, see that you lodge in the Court" (which was then at
Whitehall), "where you may follow your book, read, and discourse of
the wars." But to our purpose. It fell out happily to those, and,
as I may say, to these times, that the Queen during the calm time of
her reign was not idle, nor rocked asleep with security, for she had
been very provident in the reparation and augmentation of her
shipping and ammunition, and I know not whether by a foresight of
policy, or any instinct, it came about, or whether it was an act of
her compassion, but it is most certain she sent no small troops to
the revolted States of Holland, before she had received any affront
from the King of Spain, that might deserve to tend to a breach of
hostility, which the Papists maintain to this day was the
provocation to the after-wars; but, omitting what might be said to
this point, these Netherland wars were the Queen's seminaries or
nursery of very many brave soldiers, and so likewise were the civil
wars of France, whither she sent five several armies.
They were the French scholars that inured the youth and gentry of
the kingdom, and it was a militia, where they were daily in
acquaintance with the discipline of the Spaniards, who were then
turned the Queen's inveterate enemies.
And thus have I taken in observation her DIES HALCYONII - I.E., these
years of hers which were more serene and quiet than those that
followed, which, though they were not less propitious, as being
touched more with the points of honour and victory, yet were they
troubled and loaded ever, both with domestic and foreign
machinations; and, as it is already quoted, they were such as
awakened her spirits and made her cast about her to defend rather by
offending, and by way of provision to prevent all invasions, than to
expect them, which was a piece of the cunning of the times; and with
this I have noted the causes and PRINCIPIUM {57} of the wars
following, and likewise points to the seed-plots from whence she
took up these brave men and plants of honour who acted on the
theatre of Mars, and on whom she dispersed the rays of her grace;
who were persons, in their kinds of care, virtuous, and such as
might, out of their merit, pretend interest to her favours, of which
rank the number will equal, if not exceed, that of her gown-men, in
recount of whom I will proceed with Sir Philip Sidney.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
He was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and
President of Wales, a person of great parts, and of no mean grace
with the Queen; his mother was sister to my Lord of Leicester, from
whence we may conjecture how the father stood up in the sphere of
honour and employments, so that his descent was apparently noble on
both sides; and for his education, it was such as travel and the
University could afford none better, and his tutors infuse; for,
after an incredible proficiency in all the spheres of learning, he
left the academical for that of the Court, whither he came by his
uncle's invitation, famed after by noble reports of his
accomplishments, which, together with the state of his person,
framed by a natural propensity to arms, soon attracted the good
opinions of all men, and was so highly praised in the esteem of the
Queen, that she thought the Court deficient without him; and
whereas, through the fame of his desert, he was in election for the
kingdom of Pole, {58} she refused to further his preferment, it was
not out of emulation of advancement, but out of fear to lose the
jewel of her time. He married the daughter and sole heir of Sir
Frances Walsingham, the Secretary of State, a lady destined to the
bed of honour, who, after his deplorable death at Zutphen, in the
Low Countries, where he was at the time of his uncle Leicester's
being there, was remarried to the Lord of Essex, and, since his
death, to my Lord of St. Albans, all persons of the sword, and
otherwise of great honour and virtue.
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