The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

448 IN PRAISE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
wavering faith, she rendered with all honour and ers- and that King Henry the Third, awaked by
security; and his person to safe and faithful those pressing dangers, was compelled to execute
hands; and so ever after during his minority the Duke of Guise without ceremony; and yet
continued his principal guardian and protector. nevertheless found the despair of so many persons
In the time and between the two occasions of embarked and engaged in that conspiracy, so vicScotland, when the same faction of Guise, lent, as the flame thereby was little assuaged; so
covered still with pretence of religion, and that he was inforced to implore her aids and sucstrengthened by the desire of retaining govern- cours. Consider how benign care and good corment in the queen-mother of France, had raised respondence she gave to the distressed requests of
and moved civil wars in that kingdom, only to that king; and he soon after being, by the sacriextirpate the ancient nobility, by shocking them legious hand of a wretched jacobin lifted up against
one against another, and to waste that realm as the sacred person of his natural sovereign, taken
a candle which is lighted at both ends: and that away, not wherein the criminous blood of Guise,
those of the religion, being near of the blood- but the innocent blood which he hath often spilled
royal, and otherwise of the greatest house in by instigation of him and his house was revenged,
France, and great officers of the crown, opposed and that this worthy gentleman who reigneth
themselves only against their insolency, and to come to the crown; it will not be forgotten by so
their supports called in her aid, giving unto them grateful a king, nor by so observing an age, how
Newhaven for a place of security: see with what ready, how opportune and reasonable, how royal
alacrity, in tender regard towards the fortune of and sufficient her suecours were, whereby she
that young king, whose name was used to the enlarged him at that time, and preferred him to
suppliants of his strength, she embraced the his better fortune: and ever since in those tedienterprise; and by their support and reputation ous wars, wherein he hath to do with a hydra, or
the same party suddenly made great proceedings, a monster with many heads, she hath supported
and in conclusion made their peace as they would him with treasure, with forces, and with enlploythemselves: and although they- joined themselves ment of one that she favoureth most. What shall
against her, and performed the parts rather of I speak of the offering of Don Anthony to his
good patriots than of good confederates, and that fortune; a devoted Catholic, only commended
after great demonstration of valour in her sub- unto her by his oppressed state.l What shall I
jects. For, as the French will to this day report, say of the great storm of a mighty invasion, not
especially by the great mortality by. the hand of of preparation, but in act, by the Turk upon the
God, and the rather because it is known she did King of Poland, lately dissipated only by the
never much affect the holding of that town to her beams of her reputation: which with the Grand
own use; it was left, and her forces withdrawn, Signor is greater than that of all the states of
yet did that nothing diminish her merit of the Europe put together. But let me rest upon the
crown, and namely of that party who recovered honourable and continual aid and relief she hath
by it such strength, as by that and no other thing gotten to the distressed and desolate people of the
they subsisted long after: and lest that any Low Countries; apeople recommended unto her by
should sinisterly and maliciously interpret that ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their
she did nourish those divisions; who knoweth cause so innocent, and their fortune so lamentanot what faithful advice, continual and earnest ble. And yet, notwithstanding, to keep the consolicitation she used by her ambassadors and formity of her own proceeding never stained with
ministers to the French kings successively, and to the least note of ambition or malice, she refused
their mother, to move them to keep their edicts of the sovereignty of divers of those goodly propacification, to retain their own authority and vinces offered unto her with great instance, to have
greatness by the union of her subjects t Which been accepted with great contentment both of her
counsel, if it had been as happily followed, as it own people and others, and justly to be derived
was prudently and sincerely given, France at this either in respect of the hostility of Spain, or in
day had been a most flourishing kingdom, which respect of the conditions, liberties, and privileges
now is a theatre of misery. And now, atlast, when of those subjects, and without charge, danger,
the said house of Guise, being one of the whips and offence to the I'ing of Spain and his partisans.
of God, whereof themselves are but the cords, and She hath taken upon her their defence and proSpain the stock, had by their infinite aspiring tection, without any further avail or profit unto
practices wrought the miracles of states, to make a herself, than the honour and merit of her benigking in possession long established to play again nity to the people, that hath been pursued by their
for his crown, without any title of a competitor, natural king only upon passion and wrath, in
without any invasion of a foreign enemy, yea, such sort.that he doth consume his means upon
without any combination in substance of a blood- revenge. And, having to verify that which I said,
toydl or nobility; but only by furring in audacious that her merits have extended to her greatest enepersons into sundry governments, and by making mies; let it be remembered what bath passed in
the populace of towns drunk with seditious preach- that matter between the King of Spain and her: