Neither Do I Find That Any Of Her Sister's Council Of State Were
Either Repugnant To Her Religion, Or Opposed
Her doings; Englefeild,
Master of the Wards, excepted, who withdrew himself from the Board,
and shortly after out of her
Dominions; so pliable and obedient they
were to change with the times and their prince; and of them will
fall a relation of recreation. Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, and
Lord Treasurer, had served then four princes, in as various and
changeable times and seasons, that I may well say no time nor age
hath yielded the like precedent. This man, being noted to grow high
in her favour (as his place and experience required), was questioned
by an intimate friend of his, how he had stood up for thirty years
together, amidst the change and ruins of so many Chancellors and
great personages. "Why," quoth the marquis, "ORTUS SUM E SALICE,
NON EX QUERCU," I.E., "I am made of pliable willow, not of the
stubborn oak." And, truly, it seems the old man had taught them
all, especially William, Earl of Pembroke, for they two were always
of the King's religion, and always zealous professors: of these it
is said that being both younger brothers, yet of noble houses, they
spent what was left them, and came on trust to the Court, where,
upon the bare stock of their wits, they began to traffic for
themselves, and prospered so well that they got, spent, and left
more than any subjects from the Norman Conquest to their own times;
whereupon it hath been prettily spoken that they lived in a time of
dissolution.
To conclude, then, of all the former reign, it is said that those
two lived and died chiefly in her grace and favour: by the letter
written upon his son's marriage with the Lady Catherine Grey, he had
like utterly to have lost himself; but at the instant of
consummation, as apprehending the unsafety and danger of
intermarriage with the blood royal, he fell at the Queen's feet,
where he both acknowledged his presumption, and projected the cause
and the divorce together: so quick he was at his work, that in the
time of repudiation of the said Lady Grey, he clapped up a marriage
for his son, the Lord Herbert, with Mary Sidney, daughter to Sir
Henry Sidney, then Lord Deputy or Ireland, the blow falling on
Edward, the late Earl of Hertford, who, to his cost, took up the
divorced lady, of whom the Lord Beauchamp was born, and William, now
Earl of Hertford, is descended.
I come now to present them to her own election, which were either
admitted to her secrets of State, or taken into her grace and
favour; of whom, in order, I crave leave to give unto posterity a
cautious description, with a short character or draught of the
persons themselves (for, without offence to others, I would be true
to myself), their memories and merits, distinguishing those of
MILITIAE {40} from the TOGATI; {41} and of both these she had as
many, and those as able ministers, as had any of her progenitors.
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