to scorn and contempt: you forsake yourself and overthrow your fortunes, and ruin your honour and reputation: you give that comfort and courage to the foreign enemies, as greater they cannot have; for what can be more welcome and pleasing news, than to hear that her majesty and the realm are maimed of so worthy a member, who hath so often and so valiantly quelled and daunted them? You forsake your country when it hath most need of your counsel and aid: and lastly, you fail in your indissoluble duty which you owe unto your most gracious sovereign, a duty imposed upon you not by nature and policy only, but by the religious and sacred bond wherein the divine majesty of Almighty God hath by the rule of Christianity obliged you.

For the four first, your constant resolution may perhaps move you to esteem them as light; but being well weighed, they are not light, nor lightly to be regarded. And for the four last, it may be that the clearness of your own conscience may seem to content yourself; but that is not enough; for these duties stand not only in contemplation or inward meditation, and cannot be performed but by external actions, and where that faileth the substance also faileth. This being your present state and condition, what is to be done? What is the remedy, my good lord? I lack judgment and wisdom to advise you, but I will never want an honest true heart to wish you well; nor, being warranted by a good conscience, will fear to speak that I think. I have begun plainly, be not offended if I proceed so. Bene credit qui cedit tempori: and Seneca saith, Cedendum est fortunæ. The medicine and remedy is not to contend and

strive, but humbly to yield and submit. Have you given cause, and ye take a scandal unto yon? then all you can do is too little to make satisfaction. Is cause of scandal given unto you? Yet policy, duty, and religion enforce you to sue, yield, and submit to our sovereign, between whom and you there can be no equal proportion of duty, where God requires it as a principal duty and care to himself, and when it is evident that great good may ensue of it to your friends, yourself, your country, and your sovereign, and extreme harm by the contrary. There can be no dishonour to yield; but in denying, dishonour and impiety. The difficulty, my good lord, is to conquer yourself, which is the height of true valour and fortitude, whereunto all your honourable actions have tended. Do it in this, and God will be pleased, her majesty (no doubt) well satisfied, your country will take good, and your friends comfort by it; and yourself (I mention you last, for that of all these you esteem yourself least) shall receive honour; and your enemies (if you have any) shall be disappointed of their bitter sweet hope.

I have delivered what I think simply and plainly I leave you to determine according to your own wisdom: if I have erred, it is error amoris, and not amor erroris. Construe and accept it, I beseech you, as I meant it; not as an advice, but as an opinion to be allowed or cancelled at your pleasure. If I might conveniently have conferred with yourself in person, I would not have troubled you with so many idle blots. Whatsoever you judge of this my opinion, yet be

assured my desire is to further all good means that may tend to your lordship's good. And so wishing you all happiness and honour, I cease. Your lordship's most ready and faithful, though unable poor friend.

LETTER VII.

THE EARL'S ANSWER.

My very good lord, though there is not that man this day living whom I would sooner make judge of any question that might concern me than yourself; yet you must give me leave to tell you, that in some cases I must appeal from all earthly judges; and if in any, then surely in this, when the highest judge on earth hath imposed upon me the heaviest punishment, without trial or hearing. Since then I must either answer your lordship's arguments, or else forsake mine own just defence, I will force mine aking head to do me service for an hour. I must first deny my discontentment (which was forced to be an humorous discontent); and in that it was unseasonable, or is so long continuing, your lordship should rather condole with me than expostulate: natural seasons are expected here below, but violent and unreasonable storms come from above; there is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a prince, nor yet at any time so unseasonable as when it lighteth on those that might expect an harvest of their careful and painful labours. He that is once wounded must needs feel smart till his hurt be cured, or

the part hurt become senseless. But cure I expect none, her majesty's heart being obdurate; and be without sense I cannot, being of flesh and blood. But you may say, I aim at the end; I do more than aim, for I see an end of all my for. tunes, I have set an end to all my desires. In this course do I any thing for mine enemies? When I was present I found them absolute, and therefore I had rather they should triumph alone, than have me attendant upon their chariots. Or do I leave my friends? When I was a courtier I could sell them no fruit of my love, and now that I am an hermit, they shall bear no envy for their love to me. Or do I forsake myself, because I do not enjoy myself? Or do I overthrow my fortunes, because I build not a fortune of paper walls, which every puff of wind bloweth down? Or do I ruinate mine honour, because I leave following the pursuit, or wearing the false mark or the shadow of honour? Do I give courage or comfort to the enemies, because I neglect myself to encounter them, or because I keep my heart from business, though I cannot keep my fortune from declining? No, no, I give every one of those considerations his due right, and the more I weigh them, the more I find myself justified from offending in any of them. As for the two last objections, that I forsake my country when it hath most need of me, and fail in that indissoluble duty which I owe to my sovereign; I answer, that if my country had at this time any need of my public service, her majesty that governeth it would not have driven me to a private life. I am tied to my country by two bonds; one public, to discharge carefully and

industriously that trust which is committed to me; the other private, to sacrifice for it my life and carcase, which hath been nourished in it. Of the first I am free, being dismissed by her majesty : of the other, nothing can free me but death, and therefore no occasion of performance shall sooner offer itself, but I will meet it half way. The indissoluble duty I owe unto her majesty, the service of an earl and of marshal of England, and I have been content to do her the service of a clerk, but I can never serve her as a villain or a slave. But you say I must give way to time. So I do; for now that I see the storm come, I have put myself into harbour. Seneca saith, We must give way to fortune: I know that fortune is both blind and strong, and therefore I go as far as I can out of the way. You say the remedy is not to strive: I neither strive nor seek for remedy. But you say, I must yield and submit: I can neither yield myself to be guilty, nor this my imprisonment, lately laid upon me, to be just; I owe so much to the author of truth, as I can never yield truth to be falsehood, nor falsehood to be truth. Have I given cause, you ask, and yet take a scandal? No, I gave no cause to take up so much as Fimbria his complaint: for I did totum telum corpore accipere; I patiently bear and sensibly feel all that I then received when this scandal was given me. Nay, when the vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to sue? Doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? Why? Cannot princes err? Cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my lord, I can