We Took Him Now As He Was Admitted Into The Court And The Queen's
Favours, And Here He Was Not
To seek to play his part well and
dexterously; but his play was chiefly at the fore-game, not that
He
was a learner at the latter, but he loved not the after-wit, for the
report is (and I think not unjustly) that he was seldom behind-hand
with his gamesters, and that they always went with the loss.
He was a very goodly person, tall, and singularly well-featured, and
all his youth well-favoured, of a sweet aspect, but high-foreheaded,
which (as I should take it) was of no discommendation; but towards
his latter, and which with old men was but a middle age, he grew
high-coloured, so that the Queen had much of her father, for,
expecting some of her kindred, and some few that had handsome wits
in crooked bodies, she always took personage in the way of election,
for the people hath it to this day, KING HENRY LOVED A MAN.
Being thus in her grace, she called to mind the sufferings of HIS
ancestors, both in her father's and sister's reigns, and restored
his and his brother's blood, creating Ambrose, the elder, Earl of
Warwick, and himself Earl of Leicester; and, as he was EX PRIMITIS,
or, OF HER FIRST CHOICE, so he rested not there, but long enjoyed
her favour, and therewith what he listed, till time and emulation,
the companions of greatness, resolved of his period, and to colour
him at his setting in a cloud (at Conebury) not by so violent a
death, or by the fatal sentence of a judicature, as that of his
father and grandfather was, but, as is supposed, by that poison
which he had prepared for others, wherein they report him a rare
artist. 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.
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