Having thus touched, and now leaving her stirp, I come to her
person, and how she came to the crown by the decease of her brother
and sister.
Under Edward VI. she was his, and one of the darlings of Fortune,
for, besides the consideration of blood, there was between these two
princes a concurrency and sympathy of their natures and affections,
together with the celestial bond (confirmative religion), which made
them one; for the King never called her by any other appellation but
his sweetest and dearest sister, and was scarce his own man, she
being absent; which was not so between him and the Lady Mary.
Under her sister {19} she found her condition much altered; for it
was resolved, and her destiny had decreed it, for to set her
apprentice in the school of affliction, and to draw her through that
ordeal-fire of trial, the better to mould and fashion her to rule
and sovereignty: which finished, Fortune calling to mind that the
time of her servitude was expired, gave up her indentures, and
therewith delivered into her custody a sceptre as the reward of her
patience; which was about the twenty-sixth of her age: a time in
which, as for her internals grown ripe, and seasoned by adversity,
in the exercise of her virtue; for, it seems, Fortune meant no more
but to show her a piece of variety and changeableness of her nature,
but to conduct her to her destiny, I.E., felicity.
She was of person tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith
well favoured, but high-nosed; of limbs and features neat; and,
which added to the lustre of these external graces, of a stately and
majestic comportment, participating in this more of her father than
of her mother, who was of an inferior alloy, plausible, or, as the
French hath it, more DEBONAIRE and affable: virtues which might
well suit with majesty, and which, descending as hereditary to the
daughter, did render her of a sweeter temper, and endeared her more
to the love and liking of the people, who gave her the name and fame
of a most gracious and popular princess.
The atrocity of the father's nature was rebated in her by the
mother's sweeter inclinations; for (to take, and that no more than
the character out of his own mouth) HE NEVER SPARED MAN IN HIS
ANGER, NOR WOMAN IN HIS LUST.
If we search farther into her intellectuals and abilities, the
wheel-course of her government deciphers them to the admiration of
posterity; for it was full of magnanimity, tempered with justice,
piety, and pity, and, to speak truth, noted but with one act of
stain, or taint, all her deprivations, either of life or liberty,
being legal and necessitated. She was learned, her sex and time
considered, beyond common belief; for letters about this time, or
somewhat before, did but begin to be of esteem and in fashion, the
former ages being overcast with the mists and fogs of the Roman {20}
ignorance; and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times,
that IGNORANCE WAS THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION. Her wars were a long
time more in the auxiliary part, and assistance of foreign princes
and states, than by invasion of any; till common policy advised it,
for a safer way, to strike first abroad, than at home to expect the
war, in all which she was ever felicitous and victorious.
The change and alteration of religion upon the instant of her
accession to the crown (the smoke and fire of her sister's
martyrdoms scarcely quenched) was none of her least remarkable
actions; but the support and establishment thereof, with the means
of her own subsistence amidst so powerful enemies abroad, and those
many domestic practices, were, methinks, works of inspiration, and
of no human providence, which, on her sister's departure, she most
religiously acknowledged - ascribing the glory of her deliverance to
God above; for she being then at Hatfield, and under a guard, and
the Parliament sitting at the self-same time, at the news of the
Queen's death, and her own proclamation by the general consent of
the House and the public sufferance of the people, falling on her
knees, after a good time of respiration, she uttered this verse of
the Psalm:
"A DOMINO FACTUM EST ISTUD, ET EST MIRABILE IN OCULIS NOSTRIS." {21}
And this we find to this day on the stamp of her gold, with this on
her silver:
" POSUI DEUM ADJUTOREM MEUM." {22}
Her ministers and instruments of State, such as were PARTICIPES
CURARUM, or bore a great part of the burthen, were MANY, and those
MEMORABLE; but they were only FAVOURITES, and not MINIONS; such as
acted more by HER princely rules and judgments, than by their OWN
wills and appetites; for we saw no Gaveston, Vere, or Spencer, to
have swayed alone, during forty-four years, which was a well-settled
and advised maxim; for it valued her the more, it awed the most
secure, it took best with the people, and it staved off all
emulations, which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony
even against the prince, where there is ONE ONLY admitted into high
administrations.
A MAJOR PALATII
The principal note of her reign will be, that she ruled much by
faction and parties, which she herself both made, upheld, and
weakened, as her own great judgment advised; for I do dissent from
the common and received opinion, that my Lord of Leicester was
ABSOLUTE and ALONE in her GRACE; and, though I come somewhat short
of the knowledge of these times, yet, that I may not err or shoot at
random, I know it from assured intelligence that it was not so; for
proof whereof, amongst many (that could present), I will both relate
a story, and therein a known truth, and it was thus: Bowyer, the
Gentleman of the Black Rod, being charged by her express command to
look precisely to all admissions in the Privy Chamber, one day
stayed a very gay captain (and a follower of my Lord of Leicester)
from entrance, for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn
servant of the Queen; at which repulse, the gentleman (bearing high
on my lord's favour) told him that he might, perchance, procure him
a discharge.
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