I come now to the next, which was Secretary William Cecil, for on the death of the old Marquis of Winchester he came up in his room: a person of a most subtle and active spirit.
He stood not by the way of constellation, but was wholly attentive to the service of his mistress, and his dexterity, experience, and merit therein challenged a room in the Queen's favour which eclipsed the other's over-seeming greatness, and made it appear that there were others steered and stood at the helm besides himself, and more stars in the firmament of grace than Ursa Major.
He was born, as they say, in Lincolnshire, but, as some aver upon knowledge, of a younger brother of the Cecils of Hertfordshire, a family of my own knowledge, though now private, yet of no mean antiquity, who, being exposed, and sent to the City, as poor gentlemen used to do their sons, became to be a rich man on London Bridge, and purchased {52} in Lincolnshire, where this man was born.
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 abr 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: Mountjoy, who, having twice or thrice stole away into Brittany, where, under Sit John Norris, he had then a company, without the Queen's leave and privity, she sent a message unto him with a strict charge to the general to see him sent home.
When he came into the Queen's presence, she fell into a kind railing, demanding of him how he durst go over without her leave. "Serve me so," quoth she, "once more, and I will lay you fast enough for running; you will never leave till you are knocked on the head, as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was; you shall go when I send. In the meantime, see that you lodge in the Court" (which was then at Whitehall), "where you may follow your read, and discourse of the wars." But to our purpose. It fell out happily to those, and, as I may say, to these times, that the Queen during the calm time of her reign was not idle, nor rocked asleep with security, for she had been very provident in the reparation and augmentation of her shipping and ammunition, and I know not whether by a foresight of policy, or any instinct, it came about, or whether it was an act of her compassion, but it is most certain she sent no small troops to the revolted States of Holland, before she had received any affront from the King of Spain, that might deserve to tend to a breach of hostility, which the Papists maintain to this day was the provocation to the after-wars; but, omitting what might be said to this point, these Netherland wars were the Queen's seminaries or nursery of very many brave soldiers, and so likewise were the civil wars of France, whither she sent five several armies.
They were the French scholars that inured the youth and gentry of the kingdom, and it was a militia, where they were daily in acquaintance with the discipline of the Spaniards, who were then turned the Queen's inveterate enemies.
And thus have I taken in observation her DIES HALCYONII--I.E., these years of hers which were more serene and quiet than those that followed, which, though they were not less propitious, as being touched more with the points of honour and victory, yet were they troubled and ld ever, both with domestic and foreign machinations; and, as it is already quoted, they were such as awakened her spirits and made her cast about her to defend rather by offending, and by way of provision to prevent all invasions, than to expect them, which was a piece of the cunning of the times; and with this I have noted the causes and PRINCIPIUM {57} of the wars following, and likewise points to the seed-plots from whence she took up these brave men and plants of honour who acted on the theatre of Mars, and on whom she dispersed the rays of her grace; who were persons, in their kinds of care, virtuous, and such as might, out of their merit, pretend interest to her favours, of which rank the number will equal, if not exceed, that of her gown-men, in recount of whom I will proceed with Sir Philip Sidney.
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