religion, the pope would presently style the war catholic, and curse and excommunicate all princes and states, subject to the see of Rome, that should offer us assistance.

The little princes of Italy have not that daring that they had in former time; when Philip Visconti, Fortibraccio, Francis Sforza, and other lords and commonwealths, invaded the territories of the church, and enforced the Romans themselves to thrust the pope Eugenius out of Rome, to save their city from sacking. No, the great king of Spain will not now offend his holiness; for the pope, in favour of Philip II. because he was wasted in a war against the Lutherans, cut off by his authority I know not how many millions of his debts to the Genoese. The pope hath given him in favour all the pardons which are sent to the Indies, worth to the king a million every year; he giveth to him the collation of the benefices and bishoprics; he suffered him to enjoy the rich orders of Calatrava and St. James; he gives him the service of the Jesuits, assassins, to murder all kings and princes his enemies; witness William of Nassau, prince of Orange, Henry III. and IV. of France. Proportionally hath the duke of Savoy many benefits from the pope. His son Victorio hath received from him the cardinal's hat: cardinal Aldobrandino, nephew to Clement the Eighth, hath purchased Racense in Piedmont of the duke; after whose death that rich territory must fall to the church, if the pope of his grace doth not confer it upon the duke.

In brief, the duke is so tied to the see of Rome, both by religion and benefit, as he can be no more separate from it and subsist, than the body of man be from his soul and live.

What then remains of profit to our prince by this alliance? A sum of money and a beautiful lady for beauty was never so cheap in any age, and it is ever better loved in the hope, than when it is had. For the million of crowns. offered, which makes but two of our subsidies, I speak it confidently, when all those dukes, lords, and great ladies, which will attend the princess in her passage hither, shall

be all presented with gifts according to their degrees and the king's honour; when the preparations, triumphs, and feastings, are paid for; there will nothing remain but a great increase of charge, and perchance a great deal of melancholy.

If then, by the duke of Savoy, we can neither strengthen or enrich ourselves; let us see who they are that for the present we have cause to fear, and against whom we have need of assistance. There are but two princes that the king hath cause to look after; to wit, France and Spain. As for the archduke, the States, for their own interest, will attend him.

In France, his majesty hath a party strong enough, both of his own allies and of the religion: at least he is sure, that, during the king's minority, the queen will keep all quiet, if she can.

For Spain, it is a proverb of their own, that the lion is not so fierce as he is painted. His forces in all parts of the world (but the Low Countries) are far under the fame: and if the late queen would have believed her men of war, as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that great empire in pieces, and made their kings kings of figs and oranges, as in old times. But her majesty did all by halves, and by petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to defend himself, and to see his own weakness; which, till our attempts taught him, was hardly known to himself.

Four thousand men would have taken from him all the ports of his Indies; I mean all his ports, by which his treasure doth or can pass. He is more hated in that part of the world by the sons of the conquered, than the English are by the Irish. We were too strong for him by sea; and had the Hollanders to help us, who are now strongest of all. Yea, in eighty-eight, when he made his great and fearful fleet, if the queen would have hearkened to reason, we had burnt all his ships and preparations in his own ports, as we did afterwards upon the same intelligence and doubt in Cadiz.

He, that knows him not, fears him; but excepting his

Low Country army, which hath been continued and disciplined since Charles the Fifth's time, he is no where strong. They are but fables spoken of him elsewhere; and what can the Low Country's army do, if the Indies pay them not, but mutiny and spoil his own territories, as they have often done, and of late years, almost to the ruin of the archduke? But perchance you will say, that being combined with France, he is now more powerful than ever. It is true, if France and Spain were married together, as their princes are; or if these marriages were not more politic than faithful. The French and Spanish will never agree, that either of them shall overmuch endanger England, if it were in their power so to do.

When the emperor Charles V. the king of England, the pope, and most princes of Italy had made a league against Francis I. as soon as he was taken prisoner at Pavia, some of them fell presently off, and the rest made a league against the emperor to save France.

Kings are not like private men: they forsake not one another in adversity, though not for their sakes perchance that are oppressed, but for their own; because they fear the surmounting greatness of any one. What they may do by the preservation of the Jesuits for matters of religion, I do not know; but these marriages of France and Spain may vanish away in smoke, as many of them have done heretofore, when they have been as solemnly confirmed and sworn unto as these are.

However it be, the queen of France hath reason to keep all quiet during the minority of the king her son, and till such time he be able to draw his own sword. The Austrians have oftentimes overreached France, and made them children with the marriages of children; and therefore made the time more fruitful for their affairs than the daughters of France.

The French at this time may, for ought we know, pay them with the like coin; for it was well said by Machiavel in his Florentine History, Intra gl' huomini, chi aspirano a una medessima grandezza, si puo facilmente far parentado,

ma non amicitia: "Between men that aspire to one and "the same greatness alliance may easily be made, not friendship."

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Now the fourth part of this division is the consideration of the inconveniences in general.

At first, if we join in amity with Savoy, we lose all the protestant cantons, and break the hearts of the people of Geneva, which our late queen greatly favoured and relieved; which all the German protestant princes cherish; which the king of France, though of a contrary religion, hath ever protected. The duke of Savoy will ever be an enemy to their commonwealth, and they to him. Interest of dominion and religion will for ever separate them, till one be

master.

Secondly, That, which is a matter of the greatest importance that our state can look after, we shall by this means increase the jealousies of the Netherlands. They began to cool towards us when we made peace without them, which enforced them to make a long truce. They were the last that put down arms; and though they compounded upon the greatest disadvantage, France and England having first compounded, yet they made a far more noble peace with Spain than we did.

Since that time they have neglected us by degrees. Let us look to it with all the eyes we have; for to which of the three those people fasten themselves, as either to England, France, or Spain, he that hath them will become the greatest, and give the law to the rest. If any man doubt it, he knows not much; but this hath been our own fault, and the detested covetousness of some great ones of ours. For whereas in my time, I have known one of her majesty's ships command forty of theirs to strike sail, they will now take us one to one, and not give us a good-morrow; they master us both in their number and in their mariners; and they have our own ordnance to break our own bones withal. We had good reason to help them, but not to set them up to that height, as to make them able to tread upon our own heads.

Henry IV. of England gave assistance to the faction of Burgundy against Orleans; but as soon as he found that Orleans began to sink, he drew his sword on the weaker side; but de præteritis non est consilium: there is no counsel of things past, other than how to prevent the like, the like occasions arising.

For the last, the match with Savoy divides us from France. The narrow seas cannot so much sunder us, as that alliance will do. It dissolves their hope; and whereas now they are fastened to Spain but with cords of cobweb, they will then perchance chain themselves with steel.

You will then ask me, where the prince shall marry? Neither in Savoy nor in Florence; for the money received from either being told, you have told the best of the tale for them. Not to object what I have heard hath been objected against those princes, that they are meanly descended; for the Medici were ancient, and ancient in virtue and fame. It is true, that long agone they were merchants; and so was king Solomon too. The kings in old times had their herdsmen, their shepherds, and their ploughmen; they traded with nature and with the earth; a trade by which all that breathe upon the earth live. All the nobility and gentry in Europe trade their grass, and corn, and cattle, their vines and their fruits: they trade them to their tenants at home, and other merchants adventure them abroad.

The king of Spain is now the greatest merchant: the king of Portugal was. The kings of France are twice come out of the Florentines, and therefore their supposed ignobility cannot disvalue them; but, as I have said already, they can give us but money, and the sum is but the same which the Savoyan hath offered. If you ask me, if I like of any German lady? I say, that I like it well enough in respect of the nation, who are just, and free from treachery: but the match between the palatine of the Rhine and the lady Elizabeth will make us strong enough in Germany, and, by reason of his alliance with the house of Nassau, better assured of the Netherlands than we were. But as the merchant doth not hazard all his estate in one vessel, no