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.
RADCLIFFE, Earl of Sussex.
His {50} co-rival was Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who in his
constellation was his direct opposite, for indeed he was one of the
Queen's martialists, and did her very good service in Ireland, at
her first accession, till she recalled him to the Court, whom she
made Lord Chamberlain; but he played not his game with that cunning
and dexterity as the Earl of Leicester did, who was much the fairer
courtier, though Sussex was thought much the honester man, and far
the better soldier, but he lay too open on his guard; he was a godly
gentleman, and of a brave and noble nature, true and constant to his
friends and servants; he was also of a very ancient and noble
lineage, honoured through many descents, through the title of
Fitzwalters.
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