Travels in England [32]
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 book, 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 loaded 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,
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 book, 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 loaded 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,