Having thus touched, and now leaving her stirp, I come to her
person, and how she came to the crown by the decease of her brother
and sister.
Under Edward VI. she was his, and one of the darlings of Fortune,
for, besides the consideration of blood, there was between these two
princes a concurrency and sympathy of their natures and affections,
together with the celestial bond (confirmative religion), which made
them one; for the King never called her by any other appellation but
his sweetest and dearest sister, and was scarce his own man, she
being absent; which was not so between him and the Lady Mary.
Under her sister {19} she found her condition much altered; for it
was resolved, and her destiny had decreed it, for to set her
apprentice in the school of affliction, and to draw her through that
ordeal-fire of trial, the better to mould and fashion her to rule
and sovereignty: which finished, Fortune calling to mind that the
time of her servitude was expired, gave up her indentures, and
therewith delivered into her custody a sceptre as the reward of her
patience; which was about the twenty-sixth of her age: a time in
which, as for her internals grown ripe, and seasoned by adversity,
in the exercise of her virtue; for, it seems, Fortune meant no more
but to show her a piece of variety and changeableness of her nature,
but to conduct her to her destiny, I.E., felicity.
She was of person tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith
well favoured, but high-nosed; of limbs and features neat; and,
which added to the lustre of these external graces, of a stately and
majestic comportment, participating in this more of her father than
of her mother, who was of an inferior alloy, plausible, or, as the
French hath it, more DEBONAIRE and affable: virtues which might
well suit with majesty, and which, descending as hereditary to the
daughter, did render her of a sweeter temper, and endeared her more
to the love and liking of the people, who gave her the name and fame
of a most gracious and popular princess.
The atrocity of the father's nature was rebated in her by the
mother's sweeter inclinations; for (to take, and that no more than
the character out of his own mouth) HE NEVER SPARED MAN IN HIS
ANGER, NOR WOMAN IN HIS LUST.
If we search farther into her intellectuals and abilities, the
wheel-course of her government deciphers them to the admiration of
posterity; for it was full of magnanimity, tempered with justice,
piety, and pity, and, to speak truth, noted but with one act of
stain, or taint, all her deprivations, either of life or liberty,
being legal and necessitated. She was learned, her sex and time
considered, beyond common belief; for letters about this time, or
somewhat before, did but begin to be of esteem and in fashion, the
former ages being overcast with the mists and fogs of the Roman {20}
ignorance; and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times,
that IGNORANCE WAS THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION.
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