Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/514

 THE BEGINNING HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. BY the decease of Elizabeth, Queen of England, the issues of King Henry the Eighth failed, being spent in one generation and three successions. For that king, though he were one of the goodliest persons of his time, yet he left only by his six wives three children; who reigning successively, and dying childless, made place to the line of Margaret, his eldest sister, married to James the Fourth, King of Scotland, descended of the same Margaret both by father and mother : so that by a rare event in the pedigrees of kings, it seemed as if the divine Providence, to extinguish and take away all envy and note of a stranger, had doubled upon his person, within the circle of one age, the royal blood of England by both parents. This succession drew towards it the eyes of all men, being one of the most memorable accidents that had happened a long time in the Christian world. For the kingdom of France having been reunited in the age before in all the provinces thereof formerly dismembered : and the kingdom of Spain being, of more fresh memory, united and made entire, by the annexing of Portugal in the person of Philip the Second ; there remained but this third and last union, for the counterpois ing of the power of these three great monarchies ; and the disposing of the affairs of Europe thereby to a more assured and universal peace and concord. And this event did hold men s observations and discourses the more, because the island of Great Britain, divided from the rest of the world, was never before united in itself under one king, not withstanding also that the uniting of them had been in former times industriously attempted both by war and treaty. Therefore it seemed a mani fest work of providence, and a case of reservation for these times ; insomuch that the vulgar conceiv ed that now there was an end given, and a con summation to superstitious prophecies, the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men, and to an ancient tacit expectation, which had by tra dition been infused and inveterated into men s minds. But as the best divinations and predic- ions are the politic and probable foresight and 38C conjectures of wise men, so in thi? matterthe pro vidence of King Henry the Seventh was in all men s mouths; who being one of the deepest and most prudent princes of the world, upon the de liberation concerning the marriage of his eldest daughter into Scotland, had, by some speech ut tered by him, showed himself sensible and almost prescient of this event. Neither did there want a concurrence of divers rare external circumstances, besides the virtues and condition of the person, which gave great reputation to this succession. A- king in the strength of his years, supported with great al liances abroad, established with royal issue at home, at peace with all the world, practised in the regiment of such a kingdom, as might rather en able a king by variety of accidents, than corrupt him with affluence or vainglory; and one that besides his universal capacity and judgment, was notably exercised and practised in matters of re ligion and the church : which in these times, by the confused use of both swords, are become so intermixed with considerations of estate, as most of the counsels of sovereign princes or republics depend upon them : but nothing did more fill foreign nations with admiration and expectation of his succession, than the wonderful, and, by them, unexpected consent of all estates and sub jects of England, for the receiving of the king without the least scruple, pause, or question. For it had been generally dispersed by the fugi tives beyond the seas, who, partly to apply them selves to the ambition of foreigners, and partly to give estimation and value to their own employ ments, used to represent the state of England in a false light, that after Queen Elizabeth s decease there must follow in England nothing but confu sions, interreigns, and perturbations of estate, likely far to exceed the ancient calamities of the civil wars between the houses of Lancaster and York, by how much more the dissensions were like to be more mortal and bloody, when foreign competition should be added to domestical, and divisions for religion to matter of title to the crown.