Her Wars Were A Long
Time More In The Auxiliary Part, And Assistance Of Foreign Princes
And States, Than By
Invasion of any; till common policy advised it,
for a safer way, to strike first abroad, than at home to
Expect the
war, in all which she was ever felicitous and victorious.
The change and alteration of religion upon the instant of her
accession to the crown (the smoke and fire of her sister's
martyrdoms scarcely quenched) was none of her least remarkable
actions; but the support and establishment thereof, with the means
of her own subsistence amidst so powerful enemies abroad, and those
many domestic practices, were, methinks, works of inspiration, and
of no human providence, which, on her sister's departure, she most
religiously acknowledged - ascribing the glory of her deliverance to
God above; for she being then at Hatfield, and under a guard, and
the Parliament sitting at the self-same time, at the news of the
Queen's death, and her own proclamation by the general consent of
the House and the public sufferance of the people, falling on her
knees, after a good time of respiration, she uttered this verse of
the Psalm:
"A DOMINO FACTUM EST ISTUD, ET EST MIRABILE IN OCULIS NOSTRIS." {21}
And this we find to this day on the stamp of her gold, with this on
her silver:
" POSUI DEUM ADJUTOREM MEUM." {22}
Her ministers and instruments of State, such as were PARTICIPES
CURARUM, or bore a great part of the burthen, were MANY, and those
MEMORABLE; but they were only FAVOURITES, and not MINIONS; such as
acted more by HER princely rules and judgments, than by their OWN
wills and appetites; for we saw 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, it took best with the people, and it staved off all
emulations, which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony
even against the prince, where there is ONE ONLY admitted into high
administrations.
A MAJOR PALATII
The principal note of her reign will be, that she ruled much by
faction and parties, which she herself both made, upheld, and
weakened, as her own great judgment advised; for I do dissent from
the common and received opinion, that my Lord of Leicester was
ABSOLUTE and ALONE in her GRACE; and, though I come somewhat short
of the knowledge of these times, yet, that I may not err or shoot at
random, I know it from assured intelligence that it was not so; for
proof whereof, amongst many (that could present), I will both relate
a story, and therein a known truth, and it was thus: Bowyer, the
Gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged by her express command to
look precisely to all admissions in the Privy Chamber, one day
stayed a very gay captain (and a follower of my Lord of Leicester)
from entrance, for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn
servant of the Queen; at which repulse, the gentleman (bearing high
on my lord's favour) told him that he might, perchance, procure him
a discharge.
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