Leicester Coming To The Contestation, Said Publicly,
Which Was None Of His Wonted Speeches, That He Was A Knave, And
Should not long continue in his office; and so turning about to go
to the Queen, Bowyer, who was a
Bold gentleman and well-beloved,
stepped before him, and fell at Her Majesty's feet, relates the
story, and humbly craves Her Grace's pleasure, and in such a manner
as if he had demanded whether my Lord of Leicester was King, or Her
Majesty Queen: whereunto she replied (with her wonted oath, GOD'S-
DEATH) "My lord, I have wished you well, but my favour is not so
locked up for you that others shall not participate thereof; for I
have many servants unto whom I have, and will, at my pleasure,
bequeath my favour, and likewise resume the same; and if you think
to rule here, I will take a course to see you forthcoming; {23} I
will have here but one MISTRESS, and no MASTER; and look that no ill
happen to him, lest it be severely required at your hands:" which so
quailed my Lord of Leicester, that his faint humility was, long
after, one of his best virtues.
Moreover, the Earl of Sussex, then Lord Chamberlain, was his
professed antagonist to his dying day; and for my Lord Hunsdown, and
Sir Thomas Sackville, after Lord Treasurer, who were all
contemporaries, he was wont to say of them, that they were of the
tribe of Dan, and were NOLI ME TANGERE, implying that they were not
to be contested with, for they were, indeed, of the Queen's nigh
kindred.
From whence, and in many more instances, I conclude that she was
absolute and sovereign mistress of her graces, and that all those to
whom she distributed her favours were never more than tenants-at-
will, and stood on no better terms than her princely pleasure, and
their good behaviour.
And this also I present as a known observation, that she was, though
very capable of counsel, absolute enough in her own resolution;
which was ever apparent even to her last, and in that of her still
aversion to grant Tyrone {24} the least drop of her mercy, though
earnestly and frequently advised thereunto, yea, wrought only by her
whole Council of State, with very many reasons; and, as the state of
her kingdom then stood, I may speak it with assurance, necessitated
arguments.
If we look into her inclination, as it was disposed to magnificence
or frugality, we shall find in them many notable considerations; for
all her dispensations were so poised as though Discretion and
Justice had both decreed to stand at the beam, and see them weighed
out in due proportion, the maturity of her paces and judgments
meeting in a concurrence; and that in such an age that seldom
lapseth to excess.
To consider them apart, we have not many precedents of her
LIBERALITY, nor any large donatives to PARTICULAR men, my Lord of
Essex's book of PARKS excepted, which was a princely gift; and some
more of a lesser size to my Lord of Leicester, Hatton, and others.
Her rewards chiefly consisted in grants and leases of offices, and
places of judicature; but for ready money, and in great sums, she
was very sparing; which, we may partly conceive, was a virtue rather
drawn out of necessity than her nature; for she had many layings-
out, and as her wars were lasting, so their charge increased to the
last period. And I am of opinion with Sir Walter Raleigh, that
those many brave men of her times, and of the militia, tasted little
more of her bounty than in her grace and good word with their due
entertainment; for she ever paid her soldiers well, which was the
honour of her times, and more than her great adversary of Spain
could perform; so that when we come to the consideration of her
FRUGALITY, the observation will be little more than that her BOUNTY
and it were so woven together, that the one was {25} stained by an
honourable way of sparing.
The Irish action we may call a malady, and a consumption of her
times, for it accompanied her to her end; and it was of so profuse
and vast an expense, that it drew near unto a distemperature of
State, and of passion in herself; for, towards her last, she grew
somewhat hard to please, her armies being accustomed to prosperity,
and the Irish prosecution not answering her expectation, and her
wonted success; for it was a good while an unthrifty and
inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment;
and the more for that it was a precedent taken out of her own
pattern.
For as the Queen, by way of division, had, at her coming to the
crown, supported the revolted States of Holland, so did the King of
Spain turn the trick upon herself, towards her going out, by
cherishing the Irish rebellion; where it falls into consideration,
what the state of this kingdom and the crown revenues were then able
to endure and embrace.
If we look into the establishments of those times with the best of
the Irish army, counting the defeat of Blackwater, with all the
precedent expenses, as it stood from my Lord of Essex's undertaking
of the surrender of Kingsale, and the General Mountjoy, and somewhat
after, we shall find the horse and foot troops were, for three or
four years together, much about twenty thousand, besides the naval
charge, which was a dependant of the same war; in that the Queen was
then forced to keep in continual pay a strong fleet at sea to attend
the Spanish coasts and parts, both to alarm the Spaniards, and to
intercept the forces designed for the Irish assistance; so that the
charge of that war alone did cost the Queen three hundred thousand
pounds per annum at least, which was not the moiety of her other
disbursements and expenses; which, without the public aids, the
state of the royal receipts could not have much longer endured;
which, out of her own frequent letters and complaints to the Deputy
Mountjoy for cashiering of that list as soon as he could, might be
collected, for the Queen was then driven into a strait.
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