He Was Sent To Cambridge, And Then To The Inns Of Court, And So Came
To Serve The Duke Of
Somerset in the time of his Protectorship as
Secretary, and having a pregnancy to high inclinations, he came by
degrees
To a higher conversation with the chiefest affairs of State
and Councils; but, on the fall of the duke, he stood some years in
umbrage and without employment, till the State found they needed his
abilities; and although we find not that he was taken into any place
during Mary's reign, unless (as some say) towards the last, yet the
Council several times made use of him, and in the Queen's {53}
entrance he was admitted Secretary of State; afterwards he was made
Master of the Court of Wards, then Lord Treasurer, for he was a
person of most excellent abilities; and, indeed, the Queen began to
need and seek out men of both guards, and so I conclude to rank this
{54} great instrument amongst the TOGATI, for he had not to do with
the sword, more than as the great paymaster and contriver of the war
which shortly followed, wherein he accomplished much, through his
theoretical knowledge at home and his intelligence abroad, by
unlocking of the counsels of the Queen's enemies.
We must now take it, and that of truth, into observation that, until
the tenth of her reign, the times were calm and serene, though
sometimes overcast, as the most glorious sun-rising is subject to
shadowings and droppings, for the clouds of Spain, and the vapours
of the Holy League, began to disperse and threaten her felicity.
Moreover, she was then to provide for some intestine strangers,
which began to gather in the heart of her kingdom, all which had
relation and correspondency, each one to the other, to dethrone her
and to disturb the public tranquillity, and therewithal, as a
principal mark, the Established religion, for the name of Recusant
then began first to be known to the world; until then the Catholics
were no more than Church-Papists, {55} but now, commanded by the
Pope's express Catholic Church, their mother, they separate
themselves; so it seems the Pope had then his aims to take a true
number of his children; but the Queen had the greater advantage, for
she likewise took tale of her opposite subjects, their strength and
how many they were, that had given their names to Baal, who {56}
then by the hands of some of his proselytes fixed his bulls on the
gates of St. Paul's, which discharged her subjects of all fidelity
and received faith, and so, under the veil of the next successor, to
replant the Catholic religion. 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:
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