more do well-advised princes lay all their hopes on one na

tion.

Now, if, by these dislikes of the former alliances, you make judgment, that it is my desire that the prince should not marry at all; I say, my desire is not, that he should not marry at all, but not as yet; and I am exceeding sorry the prince hath not the same desire. For, seeing his majesty is yet but young, and by God's favour like to live very many years; and that his highness, if he should now marry, may have many children born unto him before he be thirty years old; and seeing all his children shall be princes, and must be provided for as princes; I think it will much perplex him to find himself so environed, till his majesty have somewhat repaired his estate, and provided beautiful gardens fit to plant those olive-branches in. While the prince is unmarried, all the eyes of Christendom are upon him; for with what king soever he shall be balanced, he will cast the scale; but to have him weighed with a little prince, I should be sorry, and he himself will be as sorry after.

All the princes in Christendom wooed Charles duke of Burgundy, while his daughter was unmarried; and while our prince is free, (our enemies not knowing on what ground to build their practices,) his majesty's safety in the mean while will be infinitely more assured; but the prince once disposed of, they will presently muster our forces, measure our fortunes, sound us to the bottom, and make their proaches accordingly: they will then say we have seen the utmost of the prince of Wales.

ap

Seeing therefore we have nothing yet in hand; seeing there is nothing moves; seeing the world is yet in a slumber, and that this long calm will shortly break out in some terrible tempest; I would advise the prince to keep his own ground for a while, and no way to engage or entangle himself. While he is yet free, all have hope; but a great deal of malice will follow us after he is had, from those that have been refused. We shall say, Manebit (though it mar the verse) alta mente repostum

Judicium Paridis spretæque injuria formæ.

"He that hath been sought by many, and hath refused many, shall be hated by many."

I should therefore wish, that the prince were fastened to such a party, when he is fastened, as could best sustain it. And seeing there is none but a catholic lady for us, let us have a king on our side to boot. If you object the daughter of France is too young, I hope the prince doth not find himself too old to tarry a while; and for any reason that I know to the contrary, if money be the matter, it may be had in the mean while. This match, I say, will give the new league such an alarm, as they will hardly know how to cover themselves in their own trenches.

There was never nation had so much cause to hate another, as France hath to hate Spain. They hold from him the kingdom of Navarre, without so much as the colour of a title: they betrayed him in Naples, and did not overcome their army there, but murdered it after a peace proclaimed. They hold Milan from them by strong hand; and after that Charles V. (to have leave to pass through France into Flanders to pacify the tumults of Ghent) had promised the French king to restore it, the emperor derided him, and said, that he promised him Milan, which is the French word for a kite. They have betrayed them in many offers of marriages; they poisoned the dauphin at Viennoys; they have murdered their ambassadors; they displanted them in Florida, and, contrary to faith, killed the possessors in cold blood. They tore Strozza in pieces at Terceres; they set the subjects of Henry III. and Henry IV. against them; they invaded France, possessed Paris, and most of the cities of France, and, in conclusion, practised to murder both these kings. Now if these injuries be not far more memorable than marriageable, let the world judge. On the contrary, against us the French have no pretence. They hold from us that which we never had from them but by our lawful inheritance, yet did her majesty assist them in all their extremities; and as all her majesty's ancestors have been most constant friends unto them, so did king James V.

send 16,000 of his nation to succour Francis I. when the emperor invaded Provence.

If therefore our prince shall also take a daughter of France, (the lady promised to Spain being yet taken but in terms,) we may well assure ourselves, if there remains virtue in nobility, or gratitude in the French nation, that the queen of France will make great difference between her sons-in-law; and the king of France between his brotherin-law of England and Spain.

By holding France, we hold the Low Countries, which will make us invincible; for they dare not abandon us both. On the contrary, although these princes, apart and disunited, are not (as before is said) to be feared; yet were it a needless hazard to neglect the love of France, and to sustain the hatred of the archduke, of the pope, and of the king of Spain: a hatred more than immortal (if more can be) to our nation and state. The wounds are too many and too deep, that we have given them, to be healed with the plaister of a peace. And herein the different affections of these two nations were made manifest; that the Spaniards did utterly shun, and the French did earnestly seek, the love of our prince.

If then the former princes shall combine against us, from whom may we hope for help? If it be from Savoy, or Florence, God help us! our friends inhabit beyond the mountains; our enemies hard at hand. We leave those that are strongest and nearest us, for those that are weakest and furthest off. We leave those that can help us or harm us, for those that can do neither; those we leave that depend on themselves, to wit, the French, for those that depend on others, to wit, the Savoyans and Florentines.

A DISCOURSE

OF THE

ORIGINAL AND FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE

OF

NATURAL, ARBITRARY, NECESSARY, AND UNNATURAL WAR.

THE ordinary theme and argument of history is war; which may be defined the exercise of violence under sovereign command against withstanders; force, authority, and resistance, being the essential parts thereof. Violence limited by authority is sufficiently distinguished from robbery, and the like outrages; yet consisting in relation towards others, it necessarily requires a supposition of resistance; whereby the force of war becomes different from the violence inflicted upon slaves, or yielding malefactors. As for arms, discipline, and whatsoever else belongeth to the making of war prosperous, they are only considerable in their degree of perfection; since naked savages fighting disorderly with stones, by appointment of their commanders, may truly and absolutely be said to war. Nevertheless, it is true, that as the beasts are armed with fierce teeth, paws, horns, and other bodily instruments, of much advantage against unweaponed men: so hath reason taught man to strengthen his hand with such offensive arms, as no creature else can well avoid, or possibly resist. And it might seem happy if the sword, the arrow, the gun, with many terrible engines of death, could be wholly employed in the exercise of that lordly rule which the Lord of all hath given to mankind over the rest of living things. But since in human reason there hath no means been found of holding all mankind at peace within itself; it is needful that against

the wit and subtlety of man we oppose, not only the brute force of our bodies, (wherein many beasts exceed us,) but, helping our strength with art and wisdom, strive to excel our enemies in those points wherein man is excellent over other creatures.

The necessity of war, which among human actions is the most lawless, hath some kind of affinity and near resemblance with the necessity of law: for there were no use either of war or of law, if every man had prudence to conceive how much of right were due both to and front himself; and were withal so punctually just as to perform what he knows requisite, and to rest contented with his own: but seeing our conveyances of land cannot be made so strong by any skill of lawyers, without multiplicity of clauses and provisos, that it may be secure from contentions, avarice, and the malice of false seeming justice; it is not to be wondered that the great charter, whereby God bestowed the whole earth upon Adam a, and confirmed it unto the sons of Noah, being as brief in words, as large in effect, hath bred much quarrel of interpretation.

Surely, howsoever the letter of that donation may be unregarded by the most of men; yet the sense thereof is so imprinted in their hearts, and so passionately embraced by their greedy desires, as if every one laid claim for himself unto that which was conferred upon all.

This appeared in the Gauls falling upon Italy under their captain Brennus, who told the Roman ambassador plainly, "That prevalent arms were as good as any title; "and that valiant men might account to be their own "as much as they could get that these wanting land "wherewith to sustain their people, and the Tatienses hav❝ing more than enough, it was their meaning to take what "they needed by strong hand, if it were not yielded quietly."

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Now if it be well affirmed by lawyers, that there is no taking of possession more just than in vacuum venire, to enter upon land uninhabited, (as our countrymen have lately

a Gen. i. 28.