And Thus I Conclude This
Noble Lord, As A Mixture Between Prosperity And Adversity, Once A
Child Of His Great Mistress's Favour, But A Son Of Bellona.
BUCKHURST.
My lord of Buckhurst was of the noble house of Sackvilles, and of
the Queen's consanguinity, or as
The people then called him FILL-
SACKS, by reason of his great wealth, and the vast patrimony left to
his son, whereof in his youth he spent the best part, until the
Queen, by her frequent admonitions, diverted the torrent of his
profusion; he was a very fine gentleman, of person and endowments,
both of art and nature, but without measure magnificent, till on the
turn of his honour, and the alloy, that his yearly good counsel had
wrought upon those immoderate courses of his youth, and that height
of spirit inherent to his house; and then did the Queen, as a most
judicious, indulgent prince, who, when she saw the man grown settled
and staid, gave him an assistance, and advanced him to the
treasurership, where he made amends to his house for his mis-spent
time, both in the increasement of his estate and honour, which the
Queen conferred upon him, together with the opportunity to remake
himself, and thereby to show that this was a child that should have
a share in her grace.
They much commend his elocution, but more the excellency of his pen,
for he was a scholar, and a person of a quick dispatch, faculties
that yet run in the blood; and they say of him, that his secretaries
did little for him, by the way of indictment, wherein they could
seldom please him, he was so facete and choice in his phrases and
style; and for his dispatches, and for the content he gave to
suitors, he had a decorum seldom put in practice, for he had of his
attendance that took into a roll the names of all suitors, with the
date of their first addresses; so that a fresh man could not leap
over his head, that was of a more ancient edition excepting the
urgent affairs of the State.
I find not that he was any way ensnared in the factions of the
court, which were all his times strong, and in every man's note, the
Howards and the Cecils of the one part, and my Lord of Essex, &c.,
on the other, for he held the staff of the treasury fast in his
hand, which made them, once in a year, to be beholden to him; and
the truth is, as he was a wise man and a stout, he had no reason to
be a partaker, for he stood sure in blood and in grace, and was
wholly intentive to the Queen's service; and such were his
abilities, that she might have more cunning instruments, but none of
a more strong judgment and confidence in his ways, which are
symptoms of magnanimity, whereunto methinks this motto hath some
kind of reference, AUT NUNQUAM TENTES, AUT PERFICE.
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