could not chuse but look through the sacrifice of the father on his living son, whose image, by the remembrance of former passages, was a fresh leek, the bleeding of men murdered, represented to the court, and offered up as a subject of compassion to all the kingdom.

There was in this young lord, together with a goodly person, a kind of urbanity and innate courtesy, which both won the queen, and too much took up the people to gaze on the new adopted son of her favour;

and as I go along, it will not be amiss to take into observation two notable quotations; the first was a violent indulgence of the queen (which is incident to old age, where it encounters with a pleasing and suitable object) towards this great lord, which argued a non-perpetuity; the second was a fault in the object of her grace, my lord himself, who drew in too fast like a child sucking on an over uberous nurse; and had there been a more decent decorum observed in both, or either of these, without doubt, the unity of their affections had been more permanent, and not so in and out, as they were, like an instrument welltuned, and lapsing to discord.

The greater error of the two, though unwilling, I am constrained to impose on my Lord of Essex, and rather on his youth, and none of the least of the blame on those that stood sentinals about him, who might have advised better, but that like men, intoxicated with hopes, they likewise had sucked in with the most of their Lord's receipts, and so, like Cæsars, would have all or none; a rule quite contrary to nature, and the most indulgent parents, who, though they may express more affection to one in the abundance of bequeaths, yet cannot forget some legacies, and distributives, and dividends to others of their begetting; and how hurtful partiality is, and proves, every day's experience tells us, out of which common consideration, they might have framed to their hands a maxim of more discretion, for the conduct and management of their new graved lord and master.

But to omit that of infusion, and to do right to truth, my Lord of Essex, even of those that truly loved and honoured him, was noted for too bold an ingrosser, both of fame, and favour; and of this, without offence to the living, or treading on the sacred grave of the dead, I shall present the truth of a passage, yet in memory.

My Lord of Mountjoy, who was another child of her favour, being newly come, and then but Sir Charles Blount (for my Lord William, his elder brother, was then living) had the good fortune to run one day well at tilt, and the queen was therewith so well pleased, that she sent him, in token of her favour, a queen at chess in gold, richly enamelled, which his servants had, the next day, fastened unto his arm, with a crimson ribband; which my Lord of Essex, as he passed through the privychamber, espying with his cloke cast under his arm, the better to command it to the view, enquired what it was, and for what cause there fixed: Sir Foulke Greville told him, it was the queen's favour, which the day before, and next after the tilting, she had sent him; whereat my Lord of Essex, in a kind of emulation, and as though he would have limited her favour, said, Now I perceive, every fool must have a favour. This bitter and publick affront came to Sir Charles Blount's ear,

at which he sent him a challenge; which was accepted by my Lord, and they met near Marybone Park, where my lord was hurt in the thigh, and disarmed; the queen, missing of the men, was very curious to learn the truth, but at last it was whispered out; she sware by God's death, it was fit that some one or other should take him down, and teach him better manners, otherwise there would be no rule with him; and here I note the imminution of my Lord's friendship with Mountjoy, which the queen herself did then conjure.

Now for his fame we need not go far, for my Lord of Essex, having borne a grudge to General Norris, who had unwittingly offered to undertake the action of Britanny, with fewer men than my Lord had be fore demanded; on his return with victory, and a glorious report of his valour, he was then thought the only man for the Irish wars; wherein my Lord of Essex so wrought, by despising the number and quality of the rebels, that Norris was sent over with a scanty force, joined with the relicks of the veteran troops of Britain, of set purpose, and as it fell out, to ruin Norris; and the Lord Burrows, by my Lord's procurement, sent at his heels, and to command in chief, and to conveigh Norris only to his government at Munster; which aggravated the great heart of the general, to see himself undervalued, and undermined, by my Lord and Burrows, which was, as the proverb speaks, juvenes docere

senes.

Now my Lord Burrows in the beginning of his prosecution died, whereupon the queen was fully bent to send over my Lord Mountjoy; which my Lord of Essex utterly misliked, and opposed with many rea sons, and by arguments of contempt towards Mountjoy (his then professed friend, and familiar), so predominant was his desire to reap the whole honour of closing up that war, and all others; now the way being paved, and opened, by his own workmanship, and so handled, that none durst appear to stand in the place; at last, and with much ado, he obtained his own ends, and therewith his fatal destruction, leaving the queen and the court, where he stood impreguable, and firm in her grace, to men that long had sought and waited their times to give him a trip, and could never find any opportunity, but this of his absence, and of his own creation; and those are true observations of his appetite and inclinations, which were not of any true proportion, but burried, and transported, with an over-desire, and thirstiness after fame, and that deceitful fame of popularity; and, to help on his catastrophe, I observe likewise two sorts of people, that had a hand in his fall: The first was the soldiery, which all flock unto him, as it were foretelling a mortality, and are commonly of blunt and too rough counsels, and many times dissonant from the time of the court and state; the other sort were of his family, his servants and his own creatures, such as were bound by safety, and obligations of fidelity, to have looked better to the steering of that boat, wherein they themselves were carried, and not to have suffered it to fleet, and run on ground, with those empty sails of tumor of popularity and applause; methinks one honest man or other, who had but the brushing of his cloaths, might have whispered in his ear, My Lord, look to it, this multitude, that follows you, will either devour you, or undo you; do not strive to over-rule all, for it

will cost hot water, and it will procure envy, and if needs your genius must have it so, let the court and the queen's presence be your station, for your absence must undo you. But, as I have said, they had sucked too much of their Lord's milk, and, instead of withdrawing, they drew the coals of his ambition, and infused into him too much of the spirit of glory, yea, and mixed the goodness of his nature, with a touch of revenge, which is evermore accompanied with a destiny of the same fate. Of this number, there were some of insufferable natures about him, that towards his last gave desperate advice; such as his integrity abhorred, and his fidelity forbad; amongst whom Sir Henry Walton notes, without injury, his secretary Cuffe, as a vile man, and of a perverse nature. I could also name others, that, when he was in the right course of recovery, settling to moderation, would not suffer a re cess in him, but stirred up the dregs of those rude humours, which, by times and his affections out of his own judgement, he thought to repose, and give them a vomit. 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 fre quent 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 shew 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 stile; 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 insnared in the factions of the court, which were all his times strong, and in every man's note, the Howards and the Cecills 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. As though he would have charactered, in a word, the genius of his house, or express somewhat of a higher inclination, than lay within his compass; that he was a courtier is apparent, for he stood always in her eye, and in her favour.

MOUNT JOY.

per

MY Lord Mountjoy was of the ancient nobility, but utterly decayed in the support thereof, patrimony, through his grandfather's excess, his father's vanity in search of the philosopher's-stone, and his brother's untimely prodigality; all which seemed, by a joint conspiracy, to ruinate the house, and altogether to annihilate it. As he came from Oxford, he took the Inner Temple in the way to court, whither he no sooner came, but he had a pretty kind of admission, which I have heard from a discreet man of his own, and much more of the secrets of those times. He was then much about twenty years of age, brown-: haired, of a sweet face, and of a most neat composure, tall in his son; the queen was then at Whitehall, aud at dinner, whither he came to see the fashion of the court, and the queen had soon found him out, and, with a kind of an affected favour, asked her carver who he was; he answered he knew him not, insomuch that an enquiry was made, one from another, who he might be, till at length it was told the Queen, he was brother to the Lord William Mountjoy. Thus enquiry, with the eye of her majesty fixed upon him, as she was wont to do, and to daunt men, she knew not, stirred the blood of the young gentleman, insomuch as his colour went and came; which the queen observing, called unto him, and gave him her hand to kiss, encouraging him with gracious words, and new looks, and so diverting her speech to the lords, and ladies, she said, that she no sooner observed him, but she knew there: was in him some noble blood, with some other expressions of pity to wards his house; and then, again demanding his name, she said, Fail. you not to come to the court, and I will bethink myself, how to do you good; and this was his inlet, and the beginning of his grace; where it falls into consideration, that, though he wanted not wit, nor courage,

for he had very fine attractives, as being a good piece of a scholar, yet were those accompanied with the retractives of bashfulness, and natural modesty, which, as the wave of the house of his fortune then stood, might have hindered his progression, had they not been reinforced by the infusion of sovereign favour, and the queen's gracious invitation; and that it may appear how he was, and how much that heretick, necessity, will work in the directions of good spirits, I can deliver it with assurance, that his exhibition was very scanty, until his brother died, which was shortly after his admission to the court; and then was it no more but a thousand marks per annum, wherewith he lived plentifully, and in a fine garb, and without any great sustentation of the queen, during all her times.

And, as there was in nature a kind of backwardness, which did not befriend him, nor suit with the motion of the court, so there was in him an inclination to arms, with an humour of travelling, and gadding abroad, which had not some wise men about him laboured to remove, and the queen laid in her command, he would, out of his own native propension, have marred his own market; for, as he was grown by reading, whereunto he was much addicted, to the theory of a soldier, so was he strongly invited, by his genius, to the acquaintance of the practice of the war, which were the causes of his excursions, for he had a company in the Low Countries, from whom he came over with a noble acceptance of the queen; but, somewhat restless in honourable thoughts, he exposed himself again, and again, and would press the queen with pretences of visiting his company so often, till at length he had a flat denial; yet he struck over with Sir John Norris into the action of Britanny, which was then a hot and active war, whom he would always call his father, honouring him above all men, and ever bewailing his end; so contrary he was in his esteem, and valuation of this great commander, to that of his friend, my Lord of Essex; till at last the queen began to take his digressions for contempt, and confined his residence to the court*, and her own presence; and, upon my Lord of Essex's fall, so confident she was of her own princely judgment, and the opinion she had conceived of his worth and conduct, that she would have this noble gentleman, and none other, to bring in the Irish wars to a propitious end; for it was a prophetical speech of her own, That it would be his fortune, and his honour, to cut the thread of that fatal rebellion, and to bring her in peace to the grave; wherein she was not deceived: For he atchieved it, but with much pains and carefulness, and not without the forces and many jealousies of the court and times, wherewith the queen's age and the malignity of her settling times were replete. And so I come to his dear friend in court, Secretary Cecill, whom, in his long absence, he adored as his saint, and counted him his only Mecenas, both before, and after his departure from court, and during all the time of his command in Ireland; well knowing, that it lay in hist power, and by a word of his mouth, to make or mar him.

* As related before, in the account of Secretary William Cecill.