THE FRENCH HERALD SUMMONING ALL TRUE Christian Princes to a general Crusade, for a holy war against the great Enemy of Christendom, and all his Slaves. UPON THE OCCASION OF the most execrable murder of HENRY the great. TO THE PRINCE.  
LONDON Printed by E. Allde for Matthew Lownes, and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the Bishop's head in Paul's Churchyard, 1611.   

TO THE PRINCE.  
SIR,  
THis Herald, whose very phrase bewrays him enough to be french, though he never spoke his own french yet; and who rather chose, upon, so urgent a necessity, to speak ill & in a strange language, than not at all; now most rightly presents himself first unto your highness: because aswell by your merit, as by your fortune, you are one of the chiefest (if not even the first) upon whom he calls for the performance of the greatest, most Christian and most royal duty that ever was yielded, to the greatest person deceased, to the greatest persons living. It is no less than the cause of God, no less than the cause of the Gods; seeing, Princes are styled so, by him that only is so, and who, by a most excellent fashion, above all other men, after his own Image made them so: And what a more godly ground for all Christians to take the cross on them, against him that under a gaudy show of many false crosses, the more crossly because closely, crosseth the only and true Cross of Christ? Wherein, if it be not yourself (under the happy auspexes of your glorious father, or rather he himself by you) than I see no General in the world, when our Christian Army must come into the field. An other reason I have more especially and wholly to apply to your highness, that which is intended to many; A most special and holy zeal to your Princely service, which even eight years ago, brought me into your Country, and still working in my heart, now enforces me rather to give you a small touch thereof, how mean soever, than it should be longer hid from you, how much I am  
YOUR highness Most humble, most obedient, and most ready to be commanded servant, ✚   
THE FRENCH HERALD Summoning all truly Christian Princes to a general Croisado, for a Holy war, against the great Enemy of Christendom, and all his Slaves.  

WHo shall give me an yron-voice, that I may sound out to the four corners of the Earth the greatest piece of infamy, the strangest, the wonderfullest treachery, the rarest treason which ever was since the foundations of the world were laid? But alas! who will believe my report? And now to repeat that which the very Infamy thereof, long since hath made so famous through all Nations, Is it not in some sort most needles? Oh that it were so! But since so great, so pregnant, so extraordinary a cause, hath not yet produced conformable effects; Needs, needs I must remember you, as though you knew it not, or had forgotten it, That that King, that King of France, that great King of France, that mighty, that triumphant, that victorious, that famous Monarch, that Thrice-great HENRY, honour of his time, horror to his enemies, that faithful one to his friends, is (alas shall I say is, when he is no more, or if he be yet, is nothing but a very nothing) dead, o mischief! twenty years before his time, in the strength of his age, in the current of his glory, in the beginning of a new course for more & more victories, in the very time when most we needed him. He is dead, but (o Lord) how is he dead? It is a great thing when a King, even a mean King, dies; a thing that shakes often the deepest foundations of his Kingdom, sometimes of his neighbours: a thing where of all the world will speak & think much, though dead even leisurely and by the ordinary way. But when a great King, and such a great one as our great HENRY (If ever the like have been, or shall be) comes to an untimely end, not by that easy course of Nature, but suddenly snatched & violently plucked away from his own, from the very arms of his own, by the base & desperate attempt of a mad beast; who not able, not daring to endure the beams of his royal face, gives him his death before from behind; It is a case so strange, so rare, so unheard of, that if there can be any such wonder, it were only not to wonder at it: and would to God we might pass no further. We wonder at the furious fashion of Lions, even if tame, or when we look upon them thorough their grates; we wonder at the roaring of the waters even a far off: But if we see them once let lose, and enraged upon us, If the streams overflowing their banks have once covered our champions, and we be carried away by the currents, swimming between the apprehensions of a weak hope and the pangs of a deadly Shipwreck; Then leave we wondering and begin fearing, by so much more fearful as the former wonder was great and full of itself.  
Who shall give me an yron-voyce that I may thunder out, the most high, the most lamentable complaint that ever was heard in the world, since our loss is the greatest that ever was in the world? Alas! not the Lions, not the fiercest beasts of Africa, but the infernal Furies, the enchained spirits of the bottomless pit, the Dogs, the Wolves, the Tigers, the Lions, the Vipers, the Serpents, the Dragons of hell, are let lose upon us, walk and wander among us, under the shape and name of Frenchmen to work our mischief; for french must needs be that hand that must kill France, though Strangers thrust it on: as though they could find no where else, so much boldness, or so much desperate wickedness. Alas! not one river, not many, but a whole Ocean of miseries hath overwhelmed our whole land, now that royal mound, now that brazen wall, now that sacred trench is broken; which withheld it from swelling against us. What poor hope now (if fear may be so termed) but of a huge if not a general flood of woes? Terror and death environ us round about, which could not enter upon us but by that gap. And we are left swimming together & among the direfullest monsters of the deep in such a heavy case, as those which the merciless, mouth of the sea will spare, shall not escape their hungry bellies: And yet, Frenchmen, there is a small spark left us, of a better hope, if we can be wise.  
Who shall give me an yron-voyce that I may break into their minds, whose ears the sound of my doleful complaint hath pierced? That I may stir them up, no longer to a silent wonder, no longer to a melting compassion; but to a bloody anger, and no less pitiless than just revenge; of so wonderful, so pitiful, so wrongful a treason? The so miserable loss I say, of so great a King; a loss, alas! I cannot say it enough, so great, so public, so general, so universal, so far and wide extending itself, even to those that think they have no interest in it, even to those that believe they have gained by it, That we may boldly affirm, all the world, known and unknown, subjects and strangers, friends and foes, yea his greatest enemies, and who so treacherously furthered his end; have lost in him: for where they thought to escape his victorious hands, which had no further end of Glory, than the sweetness of his wont clemency; they must needs fall into ours, who more fierce now then otherwise we had been, not as a Lioness, not as a Tigress, robbed of their dear young ones, but as dear children traitorously deprived of their dearest father, will never grant them that pardon, which they might easily have obtained at his hands.  
Cursed, o cursed and dismal day, wherein we see the face of our France so sorrowful, so glad but the day before; our Queen so pitifully lamenting, the day before so gloriously crowned; our Court so deeply mourning, the day before so highly rejoicing; wherein, o mischief, we see a great King dead, which not only the day before, but even the same, and many after, made the furthest parts of Europe to tremble at his greatness, that could not so distinctly have heard the bruit of his fall. Cursed once more, o cursed, no more worthy to be called day, but black and dismal night, where Frenchmen lost their King, France her father, the Church her son, the Nobility their master, the people their protector, the whole world his ornament; wherein the greatest person of the world, was most unluckily murdered by the least, the best by the worst, the most honoured by the most infamous.  
And thou o eternal stain to the French name, scandal of mankind, abomination to the times, execrable Fury let out of hell to commit so heinous a parricide; remain, o sempiternally remain in the deepest of thy dark dungeon, thou incarnate devil for ever and ever accursed; And may thou never come out of those flames wherein thou art so deservedly tormented, but only to receive the last doom of thy everlasting and dreadful damnation.  
But thou, oh my dear Country, heretofore so glorious, now a shameful and bloody Stage of so pitiful a Tragedy, wilt thou ever be a fruitful mother of traitorous King-killers? must cruel Africa yield unto thee both in quantity & quality of monsters, which now of late thou bringest forth, who never before didst bear any? wilt thou never have a King but with this proviso, thou shalt kill him with a knife? Good Lord! what an oversight, what a blindness in a Prince otherwise so sharp-sighted, to have seen a like blow given to his next Predecessor, yea to have received himself another upon his own face, beside so many other desperate attempts, which he might have reckoned for so many warnings; and yet make no more use of other men's mis-haps, nor of his own feeling?  
The knife of that perfidious in- Clement (alas must I again bring to memory those sacrilegious caitiffs?) was yet scarce dry from the blood of the last VALOIS, when that of desperate Chastell was died in the blood of the first BOURBON; & the same was yet reeking hot, when this savage Bedlam imbrued his in the best blood of his heart: Ah wretch! what hast thou done? o Guard where were you? French men whereof dreamt you? Croesus' had but one son, and he dumb, yet seeing the life of his father endangered, he could cry aloud Save the King. Nature at that extremity untied the strings of his tongue; and a silly child's affection, stronger than the very destinies, could effect with a simple word, and against many, that which so many men, so many Frenchmen (truly unworthy of so great a Prince) could not withstand, neither with tongue nor hand, opposing themselves against the weak attempt of one only. And yet France lacks not a million of white souls, which would rather have wished that impious steel red-hot in their own bowels. But no man can save where God hath once decreed to destroy; and surely we must look for no less, since he hath taken to himself that valiant instrumet, which was able to prevent our destruction.  
Celestial guardians, and thou o mighty Angel, which hadst so happily led him through so many dangers, returned him victorious out of so many battles, why did ye not put by that blow, like the former? had ye so faithfully kept him hitherto, now to give him over to the fury of this enraged beast? Lord! how the measure of our sins must needs have been heaped up and running over, since thou thoughtst it fit to strike us with so mighty a thunderbolt of thine anger? Lord! how much is that man void of judgement, who knows not this to be a judgement of thine own, most justly given out against the fullness of our iniquities?  
Poor Prince! but more poor people! we had been so often threatened with a blow from heaven; now alas, now it is burst out upon our miserable heads! who told it not, who heard it not, that thou shouldst die when thy Gallery should be at an end? Who read not the to true and no less unhappy predictions, that expressly said thou shouldst receive a wound behind? how many most unfortunate, most unlucky Cassandra's, had written unto thee upon the murder of thy predecessor, that thou mightst take it as a looking-glass and a lesson; and the consideration of his so untimely death, might be the preservation of thine own life? yet all that could not so work, but that noble courage of thine, enemy to all mistrust, thine own goodness to-to accessible, thine own easiness have been so many knives to pierce thy bosom.  
If death had found this great king in his bed, and by a natural way, it is an ordinary thing, which scarce one would wonder at; If he had found it in a battle, lest of all; for there even most he sought it, which then most fled before him: But to be murdered in his own Paris, in his Caroche, in the midst of his nearest servants & by a base Pedant, not by one, but by two several wounds, with a short knife (as though it had been at his full choice) It is so wonderful & so prodigious an event, & so far from all likelihood, that hitherto belief can scarce lay hold of it: me thinks yet I am in a dream, or for a while enchanted when I remember it; and that mine eyes and ears (only deceived for the time by some strong illusion) will presently be freed of their error, and I shall see my King again.  
How is so great a Monarch, the fear and terror of his Enemies, and who upon the preparation of so great an Army held the whole world at a bay; How is so great a Monarch, passed even in a moment from this world to another? He that had but the day before crowned his Queen! he that was the day after to lead her triumphant into Paris! he that was immediately to march forth with that fearful Army, which threatened to stamp all his Enemies to powder! Good Lord! how many high designs overthrown? how many threads cut with that of his life? and what a wretched Remora stays now a great ship? He was so full of life and vigour, he had so many friends and so many means, so many men and so many horses, so many arms and so many cannons, besides so much courage and valour, so much judgement and dexterity, so much resolution and wisdom, so much experience and readiness, in war, in state, Camp, Counsel, and every where; as it is unpossible to discern, whether he was more valiant or more wise, more politic or more martial, being a like excellent and perfect every way. And all that could not help, but a forlorn wretch, a man of nothing, a nothing and not a man, hath stayed the course of so great, so mighty and so matchless a Monarch, to whom even the most dreadful elements had yielded, & who sent a trembling Ague into the hearts of all those, who were conscious to have deserved his anger.  
At Melun he shunned the attempt of Barriere; At Fontainebleau that of a Spaniard, who would have rewarded him with a treacherous death, even when he healed him of the King's evil: At Paris that of a mad fellow yet living, and whom he would never suffer to be punished, so naturally was he given to compassion and clemency. All these attempts, though missing indeed, together with that which really, and effectually, did beat out his very teeth, were sufficient to provide him against this last and fatal blow. But alas, that to brave mind could never learn how to fear. And yet the very day of his death, had he some secret feeling of his end; He lay down twice or thrice upon his bed against his custom, & rising again as oft, kneeled and prayed heartily to God that morning, as if he had foreknown it would be his last.  
For that morning he was entreated not to stir abroad, and forewarned by a learned Astronomer, (called La Brosse) that that day was dangerous to him: but he, trusting his own goodness, and after so Christian a preparation, resolved to any thing his maker would lay upon him, made so small account thereof, as going after noon to the Arsenal, even he refused to take any Guard. Nevertheless an hour before, he could not well frame with himself, if he would go or tarry; being divided between the withdrawing counsel of his good Angel, & the impulsive force of his destiny; a thing altogether unusual to the promptness of his wit, never before having been seen to stagger upon any occasion: At last his courage and our mischance got the upper hand. When he received the blow, he was reading a letter from the Archduke, who offered him passage for his Army, and to defray all charges through his Country; And in the very feeling of his joy, our sorrow overtook him. Oh! how far was he in the world when he went out of it? But sure, those cruel blows were more against ourselves then against him▪ and God in his wrath took that inestimable jewel from us, whose worth we never rightly valued. Yet O Lord, stay here at the least; we, indeed, are worthy of a sharper punishment, but altogether unable to bear it; Give us leave now to lament for our worthy Prince, for whom forgive us, o father, if perhaps our sorrow be more than is due to any mortal.  
And yet, dear Country men, thus far may we joy in our sorrow, and thank God for many comforts which cannot easily be taken from us; we suffer a great loss indeed, & most senseless & stony were we, if we should not feel it; But, I pray you, look over me with me, both the fortune and nature of our state. Whensoever any new line of our Kings hath been about to set up itself by his own strength, these great changes have never been without great troubles, and some extraordinary great convulsion: For as in the natural, so in the Politic body, as a chief bone cannot be broken without much violence, but when it comes once to knit again, there grows a certain hardness & callosity, more strong than ever the bone itself was: So, when after such aebreach the Kingdom hath once taken root, & been well established, the father ever left it surer to his son, and a son, greater than his father. above whom as per excellentiam, he always got the surname of great indeed. We had but three lines since our stories began to be written by our own men; for in those times our forefathers more careful to do, then curious to speak, rather gave than took occasion of writing: So that if even those, that most would have concealed it, had not been forced to tell it us, we should have known nothing of ourselves afore Faramond. But look how soon came in our first Clovis? but the second after Merovee, from whom the first line took name; and how justly deserved he the surname of great; if in that golden age of simplicity those swollen titles had been in use? And afterward was not our Charles great indeed; the second of the second line, to which even in double respect he gave name? Now in the third, was not our Robert, both King and surnamed great, even during his father's reign, who (never so worthy) had but a sorry surname; as though his son had been the very soul of the Kingdom, and the father could not truly be a King without him. And howsoever the accession now of Bourbon to the Crown, cannot rightly be termed the change of a line, no more than that of Valois (being just both alike, after the successive decease of three brethren, without heir male, successively Kings after their father) but only the engrafting of a native bud upon his own stock; yet the example may hold, because it is a new branch and name: and more, especially because one brave Prince, was more stood against, more powerfully and more passionately, then ever any of all those before, or even all they together. He had wonderful small means when he came to the crown, and no better friend but Dieu & son droit, with his own sword; he was of a religion contrary to that which was formerly professed in his kingdom: he had not only the bodies, but, which is worse, hearts, minds, and souls, strongly preoccupated, & wholly bend against him: all which oppositions he must needs overcome one by one: And howbeit in the end he settled his affairs, & was a better Catholic than the Pope himself, yet the weak faith of some incredulous souls could not as yet well receive it; and the wily craft of those deceitful Foxes, or rather ravenous Wolves, accustomed to make advantage as ill of silly men's weakness, as of desperate wretches resolutions; and whose wide claws nothing escapeth, be it never so hot or cold, light or heavy, dissembling their own knowledge, did foster and further the others unbelief, & made away to make him away.  
Yet his virtue & strength are not dead, but with a fame and a name which can never die, and is able still to win battles, as a new Scanderbag after his own death, He hath left us a successor, who as another Phoenix sweetly raised out of those Ashes, and rising upon our darkened Horizon, as a new Sun in his Orient, faithfully promiseth to dry our moistened eyes, and clear up all the mists of our sorrows. And as a Great one said once, since more adore the Sun rising then declining; no doubt but this new Planet, now so happily beginning to shine upon our heaven, shall one day be saluted and worshipped by many more subjects, then that whose course was of late so unhappily shortened.  
And indeed, if we may judge of the fruit by the flowers, his buds are so many, and so fair already, that when it shall once please God to spread them, they cannot but exceed the most perfect beauties, and even the very Gold of his own Lilies. Nothing can be imagined greater than the motions of that young Prince; and me thinks I see already in him a picture in little of that worth of his father, which doth promise, I know not how much, more in this hopeful abridgement then in the original: as though God reviving in him not only all those former virtues, would add to his number some other more, as yet to the world unknown. It is wonderful to see him at this age, send out so many lively sparks of that powerful Genius within him, saying already such things, as would contend in excellency with all those old sayings of Plutarch; as though he would put to school again those famous men that fathered them: taking it of the father as well as his kingdom. For who was there in the world more quick more sharp; and of a more present wit than he, who could put down at his pleasure the most solid judgements, by the readiness of his answers? This young son of his is active, stirring, courageous, as he was; so delightful, as one would never be weary to look upon him; Of such a natural towardness to all his exercises, as you would think Art can teach him no more; Of a manlike fairness, and drawing already to be a man before men's expectation; through which manly lineaments yet shines a royal greatness. It was a sorrowful Essay, yet very comfortable to all his subjects in that public desolation, to see his gracious fashion at the Parliament, sitting the first time on his royal Throne of justice, assisted with the Queen his Mother, Princes, Peers and Officers of his Crown; and to hear him speak with such a Majesty as did gainsay his Age, and overreach our reason: yet all that, nothing like to his fair presence, to his royal countenance, at his happy coronation, as though months had been years, for his prenticeship, and he had perfectly learned to be a King, afore he be a man.  
He is carefully trained up, under the vigilant care of a wise mother, who could give a good proof even in the brunt of this general mischance, and in every action since, how well her great mind was fitted to the greatness of her charge; And will not be less blessed in the government of this Empire, and in bringing up our lawful king in all virtues meet for his great rank, then in the bringing him into the light of this world: A Princess indeed most accomplished in every thing, and whose heroical qualities surmount the ordinary feebleness of her sex, beyond proportion.  
He is seconded with two young brethren, who as two strong Pillars of the Realm, shall without weariness faithfully lend their shoulders to the weight of his charge. He hath three fair Princesses to his Sisters, whose happy marriages will strengthen more and more the firmness of his Sceptre; Besides so many great and ancient alliances of his father's approved friends, whose only name will suffice to beat down the power of such enemies, as would rise against him. He hath a mighty Army at hand at all times, many treasures to maintain it, and many brave Generals to command it; which, like so many thunders, are ready to fall upon all that would offend him. So that if any had but the least known thought thereof, I do not say of his subjects only, but even among his greatest Enemies, he should sooner be crushed with the force of the blow, then hear the noise of it.  
Away therefore, go and hide yourselves for shame, ye vain babblers, black souls, infamous remnants of the League, infernal matches of our civil fires, poisoned springs of all our miseries; be never seen, be never heard in the world with your Syren-Songs, that our enemies are moved with pity through the strange cruelty of our accident, and that although their hatred were yet in his heat, it will now be cooled in the depth of our mischief; as though we were ready to call for their mercy, as though it were in their hands to be good to us, and fear had taken such impression in our hearts, as France were glad to kneel to the next Conqueror. O God what a base slackness, what a feigned faintness, what an open treason? & yet you dare miscall it Policy and skill of State; Good Lord! what a hurtful Policy, to show weakness in this great body, where there is none? when rather (if there were any) it were true skill to conceal it. And how far is that from emboldening us, by the very weakness of the enemy himself; who by that unhapy remedy wherewith he was constrained to put by for a time his evil to come, hath so basely uncovered his shame, & bewrayed the sores of his estate? All their safety was set upon the point of a bad knife, which if it had miss our King's royal bosom, our swords could not have miss their execrable breasts, unless they had prevented us with cutting their own filthy throats.  
O brave Frenchmen, Those that in the sharpest of their sickness, in the extremity of their weakness and irresolution, carried the fire and the sword into the very heart of Cleve-land, bravely to secure their friends; should they not be able in the best of their health, in the height of their strength, and when the state hath taken firm root and form; should they not be able now more bravely to defend themselves against their Enemies? Nay, but there is another reckoning to be made. If we may ever smell out, that this mischievous blow hath been sent us by any one in the world, either from the East, the West, or the South, (the North we need not fear, it is to white and to pure to use such black remedies and hath no cause thereof) We must, we ought, and we will die, men, women, children and all, in our revenge; we will go and fetch them down from the very tops of their hills, search them into the deepest holes of the earth, if they run & hide themselves thither; we will pull them out, to their deserved slaughter: If not, we will rather destroy our whole seed, then leave a generation which might remember and reproach to our tainted memory, that we were such Traitors to our King & to ourselves, as to wink at such an injury. For if we be so faint-hearted, as to suffer those attempts upon our Princes, without making merciless vengeance, to light as quickly upon the Author's heads, we are gone for ever; there are no more French in France, no men, no Monarchy, none of that ancient freedom and franchise, from whence we derive our name; there is no France in the world. They will boast we complain, but dare not say who hath hurt us. They will pronounce sentence of death in their own Chairs at their pleasure against our dearest Kings, they will send to kill them when they list, and all our straightest guards, & all the cruelest punishments we can invent, shall not be able to keep them: For the earth will never cease to bring forth murderers, so long as it brings forth gold, or religious arguments; nor our enemies to set them against us, so long as they stand in fear of our greatness.  
What must we do then in so lamentable a case? Take only a fearful punishment of that cursed caitiff? Make even with the ground the infamous den wherein he was borne; lay waste the unhappy soil that brought him forth; cut down the trees of so hurtful a shade; sow all the ground over with salt, & leave no rennant, no memory of all that cursed brood, most justly punished, to have any part in so portentous a monster. Alas! & yet this hath not been done; & yet it were but a small suplice, & a sorry revenge, far far inferior, far far unanswerable to our great ruin: It were only to whip the clothes, as the Persians used, and to punish the instrument, without passing to the cause, as one that would break the sword and forgive the murderer. Do you believe if we had spared him, he would ever have refrained the like attempt, since even amidst the rack and tortures, and in the apprehension of a direful death, he had been so powerfully taught and persuaded, as he stood fast to his damned resolution? what think you then of them that set him on work, but that losing such an Instrument (as they were well content) their loss is so little, their profit so great, as they will ever most gladly venture like losses, for like gains.  
Once more what must we do then? stay till that furious serpent, only cut by the tail, return more fierce than before, to sprinkle our Lowre afresh with the blood of France? Ah! let us rather die, or bruise a thousand times his mischievous head, then fall into the like extremity again; and rather kill all in revenge of the present outrage although there were none henceforth to be feared.   

SIR, I must needs speak unto you the first, though the youngest; you have the first, the greatest, and the nearest interest in the quarrel: And I am your most humble and faithful Subject. Of all abominations in the world, treason is most to be abhorred; The king your father hath often seen all christendom wholly bend to his ruin, ready to overwhelm him; & yet cold that never stop the current of his victorious fortune. But now as he was going, as a mighty whirlwind to overthrow all his enemies, there he is stopped by one only Traitor; who showed to truly (as Augustus said) that there is nothing so dangerous, as the resolution of a coward: A coward indeed, but such a one as having no particular quarrel, that might cast him into so high an extremity, must needs be moved to it by some higher powers. If that may ever be found (Sir) & if it were possible that the feeling loss of such a Father (to whose blessed memory all your subjects daily sacrifice their dearest tears, all your Allies their hottest sighs, and generally all honest men their deepest mourning) could not move you to take Arms against the Authors of our mis-haps; the mere reputation of your kingdom, the safety of your own life ought to do it: And let not the consideration of your underage hinder so just a war. Your own father scare exceeded your years, when he began to be a soldier; when both he and the Prince of Condé, in regard of their youth, were called the Pages of the Admiral. Do not venture your life in an imaginary peace, more than in open war; your life, I say, no less is the mark they aim at. The noble examples of your predecessors, yet recent and before your eyes, the best hartblood of your so loving father, yet hot-smoking up to your own nostrils, challengeth that duty of you.  
Open or suspected Enemies, our Kings have always laughed at; but secret and hidden ones ever made us to weep: and better it were to have a million in an open battle before you, than one alone lurking in a corner. And better yet seek a noble death in the midst of all dangers, through a thousand spears and as many muskets, then daily look for it in fear and suspicion.  
Suspicion, Sir, is not the Element of the kings of France; They cannot be mewed up all day in their closerts, without taking the air but at a window, or speaking to their people through a reed; They cannot live but free, ever abroad, ever on horseback; fight is more pleasing to them, and less dangerous than playing. They can die in Tilt, never in Battles; in their own Cities, in their Chambers, & with a violent death; never in war, but by sickness or a natural course. True it is, few kings die in war also, for few go thither; but the kings of France have sought it in the remotest Africa, carried it into the very heart of Asia, ever returning victorious, & triumphing over their utmost extremities: while death durst never be so bold as to assail them but by the ordinary way. There have been some sick, some prisoners, some dead; Never any one killed, much less overcome; yet was it not for want of venturing through the hottest perils; Never any Princes went more freely, nor further into them: But it was, that they have ever been invincible, and, as it were, immortal, when they stood upon their guard. But were it not so, and that our kings free and far from all mistrust and harm, could live altogether safe, and out of the shot of all treacherous designs; into what contempt, I pray you, would fall the blood of France, in times passed so honourable among all nations, if they should but once see that it durst not revenge itself against those that caused it so traitorously to be shed? If this should not nearly touch it, what would? & what injuries would it revenge hereafter, if this were now so lightly passed over? would it not belie itself, & with itself the public voice of the world, afirming that never any offered it disgrace or injury, without dear repentance? And would it not hearten his enemies, to continue their mischievous blows, if they saw the whole vengeance light upon one only, the inferior and weaker instrument?  
Our King Francis the great, had no other ground for that bloody war he made against the Emperor, but only the revenge of a servant of his, Merueilles; The death of that man alone cost the lives of an hundredth thousand, and shook the very foundations of Europe. And now shall the death of the greatest king that ever wore the Crown of France, be so meanly regarded, so slightly passed over, even by his own servants, by his own son; without more feeling, without more stirring, then for a glass broken? And shall all posterity see the story, & our Nephews read therein, without blushing at the impassibility of their Fathers? What would so many Nations say, which do so honourably esteem of the French name, if they should see us drink up such a shame? What would we say, ourselves, to the sacred ghost of that famous Prince, if (as once that of Achilles to the Greeks) it returned and would reproach us, we sacrificed nothing upon his Tomb? Will we say it is want of money? The Bastille is heaped full with it; want of men? France overfloweth with them; want of friends? Never any King had more or better; want of Arms and munition? Never storehouse was better furnished, both for quantity and goodness. What want we then, but that rare King hath most abundantly left it us to revenge his death?  
Ah, Sir, I can well tell what we want; nine or ten years more & nothing else: & you should have had them for us, if that unhappy wretch had not so untimely prevented the natural death of your healthful father: But what? Did we never beat our Enemies, even under younger Kings than yourself? what then under the infant Clotaire, whom our Queen his mother carried hanging on her breast, in his swaddling bands, at the forefront of the battle, crying aloud Frenchmen, this is your King? She was a Queen indeed, and he a king nevertheless, though young; nor those old French, daunted ever the more. And yet by the way, I would wish you to note, that this young King, this sucking babe, being scarce four months old when he won battles, was the first afterwards, who for his greatness, valour, and worth, got the glorious surname of great among his French, though yet in those days of a general goodness, they were more ready to nich-name their kings for one only vice, then to honour them for many good qualities; so rife were these, so scarce, those. What? and under Lewis your own Ancetor, whose happy name you carry, as well as his Sceptre? Did not he succeed in this same State, and very near at the self-same age as yourself? And did he leave to chastise his Enemies abroad, his rebels at home, and afterwards to undertake upon Palestine and Egypt; Then coming back into France, make a new journey into Africa? yet found he at his entry to the Crown, all his kingdom in trouble (never more quiet then at this present;) his Princes and great ones divided from him, united against him, (which do not devise any thing now, but general union, and your service;) and did nevertheless most happily overcome all those difficulties, his kingdom being not so great as yours by much, nor his revenue, the tenth part of that which you possess. Do you think, Sir, that that brave Prince, which so valiantly undertook so great wars, as far from his interest as from his limits, would have demurred upon the revenge of so high an injury? Foreign examples would even shame our own, being so fair and so worthy of imitation; as among many, I cannot here deny due place to one most famous and very near our case. Philip of Macedon a great Captain and a great king, as our eyes have seen our great HENRY, having conquered all Greece, as he, France; is murdered, even as he, in his own chief City, in a public rejoicing, and upon the very instant when he was to execute the greatest enterprise he ever had in hand. His son Alexander the great, yet a child (for so Demosthenes calls him) ascended upon the Throne of Philip as our LEWIS, upon that of HENRY; but he feels it shake under his feet; sees Greekes and Barbarians up against him on every side, his Counsel dismayed wish him to leave off the affairs of Greece, and quietly compound the rest. Nay, saith he, but if I be perceived to shrink at the beginning, I shall ever have my hands full of them: and following this brave resolution, overthrows the Barbarians in a great battle, over-runnes all Greece, like a fire, and destroys the Empire of the Persians, the greatest then in the world, with a small Army of thirty thousand men at the first, and a stock of thirty Talents. Yet with so small means never would go out of the Haven, but he would requite old servants and get new; giving all away save hope, which he only kept for himself: And when he had endeludged the world with a general inundation of blood, yet is not contented if jupiter from heaven do not assure him, the death of his father is fully revenged, and his Manes fully appeased.  
And you, Sir, who have more Captains, than he Soldiers; more Millions then he Talents; more steadfastness in your estate, more obedience in your subjects, more love in your Nobility, more wisdom in your Counsel, than ever Alexander had; with so many advantages, will you not resolve yourself to the execution of that vengeance? will you not steel yourself in that resolution? and will you rather be faint-hearted at this first trial? will you wink at your Father's murder? and tarry till another knife, forged (perhaps) upon the same anvil, send you the same way, tell his doleful Shadow, that for contemning the revenge of his death, you yourself lost your own life? Oh! let me rather lose mine eyes then see it, rather my senses, rather my understanding, rather all, then feel it, or at any time come to the knowledge thereof! This puts me out of frame, this kills me, when in the fit of this burning Ague, in the sharpness of this pain, those who but yesterday armed themselves for some Dutch, come & tell me now, we must not speak of war for the King's death: for what else then Countrymen? for a foot of ground, for Cleves, or juliers, which are none of ours?  
I never spoke of Naples, Milan, and Navarre, which are ours indeed; there they stand still, & there shall we ever find them. But where shall we recover that great HENRY, who hath been taken, & so traitorously taken from us? Yet if we had lost him in war, where the heat of the fight spares none; Patience; Arms are doubtful, & oft-times number surmounts valour: But to have him murdered in cold blood, in a full peace, & before the eyes of all the world; & that we durst not, and that we should not revenge it, it would be the shamfullest and greatest dishonour that ever happened unto us, to cover, darken, kill, & bury for ever, the whole French name, and whatsoever glorious we have done heretofore. Moreover, we do never so sensibly esteem of other men's losses, as of our own; All those pieces, were indeed lost for us, not by us, they were taken from our Fathers upon some colour of right, at least right of war, which as our Brennus was wont to say, is the most ancient and universal Law; The grief thereof is passed long since: But if any would encroach now but one foot of land upon our Borders, in what an other sort would we stir for it, then for all those kingdoms? And will we not stir for the death of our Kings? who would not without fear undertake against their sacred lives, if we valued them cheaper than their Lands? Yet have we a kind of comfort in those losses; they were so dearly sold, that the possessors dare not much boast of it: And shall we not make them pay more dearly for the priceless life of our dear Prince? Shall they laugh it out to our faces, whilst we sit basely weeping? And shall not their insolency sharpen our anger? O French-women, & no more French men, if that might ever be reproached unto us! But now, what relation, what proportion, of the loss of some land, to the loss of a King, and of such a King as he was? Nevertheless, who knows not but the least of those pieces, hath often set all Christendom in fire and blood, our Kings themselves not sparing their own lives for them?  
Again, I never spoke in the young days of your majesties reign; Then we could not choose but greatly be amazed at the greatness, at the suddenness of our blow, and somewhat yield to the fury of the storm; Then were we rather to look to assure ourselves then to trouble others, rather to defend then to assail, and panting under the weight of our ruin, take hold (as it were) for a time, of that hand that had drawn it upon us; as not knowing, or rather not seeming, or rather not striving, to know our enemies. But now, since there is nothing to be apprehended, since in their lowest degree of weakness & misery, they had no further end then only to take him away, esteeming they had gotten enough, if we might but lose him, as to his perpetual glory they feared him alone, more than all France beside; or else thinking that he being gone, all things would go away after him, & of themselves be turned upside down; Since it pleased God in his divine mercy to confound their thoughts, showing them, and us, and all the world, that he can scourge and have pity, wound to death with one angry hand, having the other still ready to apply the plaster, and against all hope, to heal; that he can kill and make alive, bring down to the grave and raise up again; since we are now as strong, and as strongly settled as ever in your father's time, if not more; Why should we not speak boldly? Why should we not point at our enemies with the finger, and call them by their own names? Why should we not go, and yet more boldly fall upon them all?  
There is no more doubt, no more difficulty, who hath forged that parricidious steel; we know, alas! now we know to much their doctrine and practice; and cannot say worse against them than they have written themselves. Time was, and in King Henry the thirds time it was, when we feared only secret confessions, private conferences, hidden chambers of Meditation; All these works of darkness were as yet done in the dark, and could catch none but some weak and brainsick souls. But now, Time is, that he that can transform himself in an Angel of light, hath set an open school thereof, and sent his black Doctors, through all nations (more safely to deceive) falsely carrying the sweet name whose person they persecute, because when he put them out of hell he told them A jesus ite: Now it is publicly taught, and as a thirteenth article of faith, maintained and commanded to be added to the Creed, under pain of eternal damnation. And if we do not at last open our eyes, if we do not set ourselves against it, if we let it cool any longer, and not put it down in hot blood, Time shall never be nor so good, nor so fit, as it is now. Mariana was the first who was bold to reduce it in art, and precepts, in three set books, De regis destructione; And though many, almost as pestilent as he, both of his own nation and Society, both before and after him, have written upon that unhappy subject, as Ribadeneyra, Toledo, Valencia, Vasquez, Azor, Sa, and others; yet because, with them, he that can work most mischief, is worthy of the highest title, this most unworthy villain shall go in the forefront, since he without them, and above any of them, or rather above all them, hath wrought most villainy, and killed so great a King: That execrable monster could not be borne very far from Africa; And Indè prima mali labes. Yet, because Spain shall not be disgraced alone, by breeding such royal Dragons, such venomous Basilisks, which kill not men simply but kings; not with their sight (being not otherwise so resolute, or religiously minded as to venture so near) but with their breath only and a far off; And whose infectious stink can still murder, not during their lives only, but a thousand years after their death, very far from those old Prophets, whose dead carcases did raise others to life: There is no Nation in the world, but hath a share in the shame, Germany, even honest Germany, that golden Latium of old Saturnus, and who hath kept herself more unspotted of this newer world, will acknowledge she hath no small part therein; There you shall find one of those, doting indeed, and yet no less proud, & yet no less wicked, serpents, who dares not only vomit his venom against kings, but inveighing against them, usurp even their very title and phrase, as in a kind of comparison, or as if he would play the king himself; But oh! how far comest thou short, impudent Gretzerus? No jebuzit but one only Araunah could ever bring forth a Royal Gift; and far better hadst thou done to keep thyself within thine own rank, & adding the most crooked letter of the Alphabet, and most like thy serpentlike dealing, to thy title, more fitly call it, Basiliscon Doron. But God would not have thee both wicked and wise at once; for when thou hast broke thy head at the very head and first word of thy book, it is not enough, but thou must needs break thy neck also in thy foolish dedication, to such a one as thou never sawest, to such a one as thou shalt never see (for that great soul being departed penitent, no doubt, but where she is, Gretzerus there shalt thou hardly come) finally, to such a one as shall never hear of it; and if she should, could never but greatly abhor to be cogged from here below, & persuaded to make a party there above for the Loyalists, and Cabalise with the blessed Virgin, with S. Brigid, S. Andrew (& why not S. George to?) with a high hand to carry from God such things, as she now upon better information knows most to be eschewed. Together & of the same feather, you have there one Becanus, the more wicked because the more witty; so apt are these monster-men to turn to ill uses the very blessings of God. A little lower there is Carolus Scribanius, who most justly ashamed of his traitorous name, hath been feign to feign another in his Ample Theatre of dishonour, yet never forgetting herein the ambitious pride natural to the society, in taking of the best when they choose: One, who as though he were not able of himself to be wicked enough, therein is he more wicked, that he praises the wickedest. Poland, Swethland, Trans-siluania, Bohemia, at their own cost, will contribute to the public shame, those by whom they have received, and still receive so much smart, though some have paid dear enough for it. And after these farther countries, the remotest part of that famous Island, penitus toto orb remota will not be ashamed to stake her penny (Haies and Hamilton) though not a penny worth, to the common reproach of Nations. But belike, her sister would be too proud, if she could not name for herself, or rather against herself, red-hatted, or rather red-harted, Allens, Campion, Hart, Parsons, Creswell, Hall, Tesmond, Gerrard, Hammond, all bloody or fiery Traitors, and their superior in all, Garnet. And now, Sir, among all them, perhaps you think your France will escape free; But alas! shall we not find within our own bowels, one Kakodemono-zannes, apoligising for this Garnet, and Franciscus Verona for jan Chastell? both which, we know whence they are, but since they themselves condemn their own deeds, by counterfeiting their names, and therein (the only thing they have done well) in some sort redeem their Country's shame; let them die for ever, unknown indeed and unnamed; let those that have any part in them, disclaim it; let them perish in their blood, & let me not have their names within my lips. But oh! but we have such as glory in their own infamy, those cursed ones that call evil, good, and good, evil; who lest they and their villainies should not be known enough by their writings, have preached it openly, from Town to Town before all the world, and shamelessly taught it with a brazen face in their public lessons; to show that France owes nothing to the rest in treason & wickedness. But because holy father Cotton was come of late, as it were with a blast of his sweet breath, and in a sheet of paper, to gainsay and disannul all his predecessors misdoings, and seem to recover the honour of the society (though if his Amphibologious Equivocations be rightly tried, he speaks as traitorously as any of them all) yet, lest they should take to much hold of him, and interpret his double meaning in the better part; or rather to check him as a false brother, & one that had yielded to much to the time; Behold, out of Italy the great jebuzit Cardinalised, the great Cardinal shortly to be Papised; who not contented with that which he hath formerly written (as well he might, for any new thing he says) but because it was only done by the way, and among his other controversies (a load to big for any man to carry) comes out now, as the Triarij in that great Army of forlorn hopes, with a book by itself and of set purpose, sounding and denouncing from the Vatican to all Princes, they are subject to the Pope in temporalibus. True it is that in Atheus tOrtus that is, he himself, had first made the way before him; but it was under an obscure name, & that could not carry great weight: But since the Chaplain was so bold, as to undertake no less than a great king for his share, to write against; Do you think, Sir, that his Illustrissime, Lord and Master, hath it against Barclay only? No, no, poor Barclay is but the poorest part of his book; yet his son takes it in hand as his father's cause; and, I am sure, will not leave the Cardinal unpaid. Neither is it against the king your brave father; They have his heart fast, and have done as some Barbarians were wont; They have executed him first, & then comes forth this sentence of death against him: But there is nothing more to be had of him, but yourself; yourself, Sir, It is against yourself directly that this book is written, against all kings alive, against all kings yet unborn; The hawks of a Cardinal, will not fly for less, then at the birds of Paradise. And you, holy father, oh! is it after that manner you will have your sons hearts? Sure, sure, that great father of mankind, of whom you pretend yourself so wrongfully to be the general Vicar, did never mean it so, when he said, My son give me thy heart. But you, sweet child, since you see two Barclaies, two private men, & none of them a Protestant, nor nothing near; the one, undertake it so virtuously against the Pope, upon no other particular offence, but the mere love of the truth; the other, follow it so dutifully, against Pope, Cardinal and all, only as his father's quarrel, which yet is no such matter; you, I say, which are so great, so noble, so ancient, and so mighty a king, will you not revenge your father's death? will you not revenge your own quarrel, against one that was but a Cardinal five years ago? one, that was but a base priest once? It is he, It is he, that speaks in that book, it is he that made it; Bellarmin is unworthy of your anger; He is but a mean instrument, he is but a slave, and dares not do otherwise then his master bids: The Pope himself, the great Lord, the great God, of all, & not Acquaviva, a slave too, hath viewed it, corrected it, allowed it, caused it to be printed at his own charges, & under his own nose, lest there should be any fault in the print. To what end then, tarry any longer? what will you have more? when they have killed you also, you shall no more be able to take revenge; Take it while you can, and while you may.  
Yet am not I of those hot-burning spirits (though a strong Protestant, I confess) that would set Rome all in blood and fire; and dig up her foundations a thousand fathoms under the ground. I would have Rome reform, not Rome ruined. And what can the poor walls do withal for the inhabitants sins? Yea, I will unparcially deal with the Pope, and with more kindness than he dares look for at any Protestants hand. Let every Prince, according to the law of God, of Nature, and of Nations, establish a good and holy Patriarch within his own dominions, to whom all his Church men shall answer, & to none else without, and he answer for them; Let the Bishop of Rome reduce himself, or be reduced, to that estate, wherein he was when the Council of Nicaea did grant it him, and then let him have the precedency of all our Patriarches, as the ancientest; Let him keep still the keys of his own gates, as an ecclesiastical Prince; yea and the sword within his own scabbard, as a secular Prince to; And let him draw it when he list, and flourish with it, in his own territories. I am sure this is the best, this is the shortest, way to reform many abuses, which the reasonabler sort avow are crept into the Church; the surer way to reconcile that wilful diversity of opinions, which hath so long distracted the hearts and minds, yea & the bodies, of Frenchmen, into several factions; bringing your two flocks again into one fold, and under a shepherd of your own: And there shall not be a Huguenot in France.  
For the jebuzits (which I will never grace with their usurped name) If you will not deal with them, as all Christian Princes did once, and at once, and upon far lesser reasons, with the poor knight-Templers: If you will not renew that wise sentence of your father, pronounced against them with his own mouth, yet full of blood when they did beat out his teeth; & rather imitate his hurtful clemency, that called them again to strike at his heart: If you will not follow the laudable example of that grave Senate & Commonwealth, whose Catholicity none can call in question: Then at least, at least, & for a great work of supererogation, & transcendency of kindness, let them be brought under a new General of our own Nation, let them take a new oath to him, he to your Patriacrh, your Patriarch, to yourself; & so let it be severally through all Nations, without having any thing, either to meddle or correspond one with another.  
But Sir, the Tyrant is in such & so long a possession of his usurped power, as he will think these most equal conditions, unjust; and there is no hope of all this to take effect, without the sword: If fair means would do it, the better; It is written Beati pacifici, and most happy be they indeed. But if peace cannot be had with peace; If an uncertain, but honourable, war be to be preferred to a certainly dangerous, but dishonourable, peace; To the sword then, in God's name & to the fire, if need be: And blessed, o thrice-blessed be the war & war-makers, whose end is, so happy & desired a peace. But all the fire that can ever be kindled, all the blood we can ever shed, will not give us our king again; True, but let us be wise, after the blow at least, since we have received so mighty a one; That which can not bring back HENRY, may preserve LEWIS; you shall make your own life sure, by revenging the death of your father; and yield unto whom you own yourself, the justice you own to all. So Cesar made sure his own Statues by setting up again those of Pompey.  
And if any crooked soul, or weak mind, will still wilfully contend, that you are young, and your affairs engaged to other ends; Once more for all I answer, whatsoever they be, they cannot, they must not, they ought not, to admit other or more convenient and necessary ends, than those of your honour, life, and safety, wherein all ours is included, and with yours and ours, that of all Christendom. For your person, I have showed, you are great, both for your age, & Kingdom, favoured beside of heaven and earth in so just a quarrel; namely of other Princes your good friends and neighbours, all touched in this murder.   

KIng, you o most mighty, most wise, most excellent, King of yonder fortunate islands, which by nature (as so many little worlds) most fortunate in themselves, are yet more fortunate by your government: Bright morning-star of human learning, holy Oracle of heavenly wisdom, purified light of the finest and most refined judgements; unto whom there is not any crowned head at this day, living, but will & must needs stoop in acknowledgement of superiority; Thrice worthy Monarch, whose name I need not otherwise set down, since even those that most are loath, must needs acknowledge you by your own marks. Do you not really, & feelingly lament for our loss? Do you not above all take it in deed as your own? Have I not often heard you tell it to others? Have you not often told it to myself? Alas! & so very well you may; Our brave father your dear brother was taken but in exchange; It was but his lot to go before; The enemies did, & yet at this time do, pretend no less against your life. You know it of old by the blessed miscarrying of their hellish plots; and you knew it of late, even by himself, who more careful of his friend's safety then of his own (as though he had done enough to warn you) was since negligent in guarding himself: Monarch, o double Monarch, equally over souls, by that worth which makes you a king, though you had not been borne so, as over bodies by right of blood: Time is now past writing; forbearance, longanimity, clemency, pardon, and all pen-worke are now out of season: the sword, the sword must cut the knots of this business. They make themselves worthy to write against you, who are most unworthy you should look upon them: And while you strive to cut their tail, contrary to the weakest Serpents, their venom lies in the head. They get a name by being overcome by so famous an Adversary, and yet live. They dare bite you again, they dare ruffle your honour, who were better to be ruffled by a hangman, a most fit decider of their quarrels. Alarm, Alarm, He himself hath thrown into the Tiber his most lawful weapons (as too kind) setting all his rest upon Paul's sword, but S. PAUL'S sword, even that sword of the spirit is ours, and will not cut for him. His sword is but vain imaginary, blunt, broken, borrowed, though very hurtful. Yours is your own, even the royal, even the real, and sharp sword of the just revenge of God, which shall break his asunder like brittle glass: and that sceptre of iron, which the son of the Almighty hath put into your hands, shall crush his in pieces, as a Potter's vessel. On, on, sword against sword, let's try which cuts best.  
Even the greatest, even the best part of Christendom, & all the honest Catholics & not papists will follow you; who look for nothing else but to see somebody in the field to break the first ice. Now they grieve, now they are ashamed, to have been so long nuzzled up in so many gross errors, now they confess them; now they begin to see somewhat clear; and where they had of old an Egyptian darkness before their eyes, they have now but cobweb-lawnes, which yet God will remove in his good time. Long since have many great & learned men, earnestly longed for reformation in their own Church; who yet affirm they cannot hope for so great a good, unless the Tyranny of Rome (for so they stick not to call it) be put down. And I might name a great person among them, a true Catholic, Apostolic, and not Roman, of whose worth, and great virtue, not only his own country, to whom it hath been most beneficial, but even Germany, Italy, Flanders, and by reflection, Spain, finally England itself, takes an honourable notice of, with whom talking not long ago after a free opening of the sores of their Church, (which he could not well conceal, otherwise he would) he told me a common saying of his, to show how freely and honestly soever he acknowledges the simple truth, he is not cracked in his own belief and religion, That he thanks God with all his heart, that having had great dealings at Rome & Geneva, and great friends of both sides, yet God hath ever kept him, in that truest & surest middle, that he ever was a good Catholic & nor a Huguenot or a Leaguer. I answered him, good my lord, oh! would to God we were all catholics, after your fashion: & for me, if I were borne so, I would scarce believe I could change my religion for a better.  
Come then, come out, most noble king, come out by so much the sooner as you see the matter easy; you have so many men & so many means; you are the only Monarch in the world, who can set up as many & as good, both horse & foot, of his own subjects, without begging supply, either of Albanians or ruyter's, of Landsknechts' or Suytzers. And yet, need you not much trouble yourself; you need not stir out of your royal Whitehall; There we will send you the news of the ruin of your Enemies: Your arms are long enough to chastise them all a far off; most especially your right Arm, the son of your thigh, the flower of your strength, the excellency of your dignity and power. Let's but have him, let him but have himself, and he will come to us; let him go for the public good of all Christendom, for your interest, for his own: We have none else to be the head of our Croisado.   

ANd you, young Sun, rising to all glory and happiness, hope of the earth, joy of the sea, eye of the world, wonder of minds, love of hearts, sweet comfort and delight of mankind; my most noble, my most brave Prince, all heart; God forbidden I should forbid learning, and less in a Prince then in any private man, and where it may easily be gotten without hindrance to further and more necessary ends. But thus much I dare say, with their good leave, who are more wise than I; As times stand now, as urgent occasions require, you are learned enough for a Prince; and if any Prince in the world ever had less need of learning it is yourself: you shall never want it, as long as you give up yourself wholly to be ruled, as a second wheel, as an inferior Globe, by that first Motor, by that heaven of wisdom, by that matchless Father of yours, which hath learning enough for you both. And let it not grieve you needs to yield unto him in that kind; It is a wonder scarce seen in many ages, to see a king learned, a wonder that was never seen but once, to see a king so learned as he. Our great and our first Francis had scarce more learning than you, and yet did not leave to be a great king, & yet did not leave to be called the great father and restorer of learning. And that great Prince also for whom we now mourn, was he not a great Captain & a great King, though not a great Scholar? True it is, he ever favoured true learning where he found it, without any acception of persons, no not of his rebels if they would be reconciled. And even in his latter days (greedy of Apollo's bays, as of the palms of Mars) had he not undertaken (I dare say, by the Council of a great Cardinal, for all Cardinals are not jebuzits) to build in every City a great College and free-school for all kind of learning; and to that end hire and gather to himself all the famous learned men of Christendom? Which royal design our wise Queen now most advisedly following, there is a mighty great one already building in Paris, which, even by anticipation, some call the Cuthroat of jesuits. It is enough for a Prince (though otherwise not so extremely learned himself) if only he favour learned men; and so he shall be sure never to want learning at his need. Once more, far be it from my thoughts, to dissuade learning in a Prince, I know he can scarce favour learned men, if he have no learning himself; And great Alexander with his brave Grecians, great Cesar with his bravest Romans, tell me, the Soldier who hath it and manages it well, hath a more easy, a more open, a more ready way, and a greater advantage over him that hath it not, to be a better Soldier; the Captain, a valianter Captain; the Prince, a greater Prince. But that it is not so essentially individual, & unseparably incident to a King, as without a great abundance thereof, he cannot be a great king indeed, and truly perform the duties of his great charge, It is only that which I stand upon; A thing whereof the contrary hath been seen in every age; And our own fathers, and we ourselves, can yet remember the same.  
Do not therefore mould any longer among your books, no not among your tiltings and feigned combats, though otherwise in peace, honourable, delightful, needful; To horse, to horse, the quarter is broken, the bloody Trumpet hath sounded; True & mortal war is open. They have killed your valorous Godfather, who miss to kill yourself; yea even him who by mutual agreement was appointed to be your second father by your first, if the unhappy blow had lighted upon him: so assured were these two great Princes, & greater friends, that their lives were sought. It is time, it is high time to put on your Armour, and make your Enemies and ours, justly to feel the smart which so much they fear, and by so unjust means seek to prevent. Our young LEWIS will not be long after you, and though he can not yet accompany you hand in hand, (as he would, if we would let him) in the thickest throng of the enemies, to scatter and overthrow them, both upon a couple of their best Gennets, both in like Armour, both in huge mighty feathers, all black with their  blood at the coming out of the battle, white before for your mutual love and faith; yet he will not be far off, He will visit you in your Camp if need be; And will even glory and joy, to lend his tender hand to gird your sword when you go out, meet you on horseback when you come in, bring you victorious under your Tent again, and wield your bloody sword after the battle, as if he thought by that to enter into part of your glory, as the profit must needs be common.  
The noble precedents of your royal Ancestors, yea in the very time of their thickest darkness ought to move you. Do you not among many hear the mighty voice of that brave Coeur de Lion, a French man by father and mother, and the first Prince, orderly born English, since the conquest? How strongly doth he call upon you? How far went he to conquer the holy land? How many dangers, how many troubles, how many pains, did he pass and overcome? But now, since it is God's pleasure, the holy land is by two third parts nearer than it was then; A most fit, a most holy, a most easy subject of your conquest. And will you not take the cross on you to go thither, now in this shining brightness of the Gospel? There is no more a do but go and take possession. And what land now in the world, more sacer, more holy, then holy Rome, which hath been so much watered by so much holy blood of so many Saints and Martyrs? Behold, and why else doth she call herself Romala Santa, he Padre Santo, or his holiness?   

GReat men, if you be but, men & not worthy of a higher title, whose brains harbour so much wisdom; whoso breasts, so much temperance, justice & faithfulness, virtues so rare now adays, anywhere else; which have wrought in the world the only miracles of these latter times; favourits of heaven, spirits of lead, of brass, of hard steel, purer than the very gold, scutcheon times refined in the furnace; who (as it were) fetching every year, by thousands, whole ships laden with a new wisdom out of India, are wiser than their ancient Gymnosophists: you that shaking off a most cruel, and yet more unjust yoke, are risen from a base and servile bondage, now to be equal with Princes, by your own hands making yourselves such as you would be, & setting a most lawful bound to your high desires (as though anything besides yourselves were not worth your ambition) were contented to have but your own selves; Generous Helots, far better and more noble than your proud Lacedæmonians. If ever you did kindly and faithfully help us at our need; If ever our great king did Kindly, faithfully, and gratefully, help you again at yours, if virtue live even after death, and a loyal love grounded upon the same to so royal a friend: Come, come, join hands with us; Our case, our cause is your own; your strong bull work, the Rampire of Christendom, hath been most unluckily thrown down; Ere it be long, the enemy will give you a furious, if not treacherous, assault. And even though you would, though you could, forbear love to others, yet show now your wisdom for yourselves, if ever you had any. You also peerless couple of Princely brethren, both flourishing in age, much more in worthy and warlike deeds; you great, not Citty-razer, as the other was, but Citty-rayser, strong Nestor, wise Ajax, the honour of arms, the love of Soldiers; now without controversy the first Captain in the world: your task is not yet at an end: To the field, to the fire, to the sword once more, as glorious as I have seen you many times; the sickness is more sharp than ever, it is in relapse. And you martial Henry, Henry, doth not your heart rise, at that great name? Do you not remember who gave it you? as though our great HENRY would not grace with it other then great Princes, and such as he foreknew, would be most worthy of the same. Henry, if yet you remember his personal kindness to you; Henry, if yet you have a drop of French blood, of that right noble blood of that high: Admiral your Grandfather, in his time the Captain of Captains: And after these high respects, if private ones may take place, If yet you remember these innocent plays, but still savouring of war or learning, whereby we were wont to recreate and stir up your mind, while you were a child; If yet you remember your many promises, so kindly made to me since you are a man; Up, up, I lay down all particular pretensions, I claim all for the public; Come & avenge the death of your royal Godfather, & withal, remember your own father was killed so: And that a traitorous murderer even before you saw, did for ever bereave you of the sight of that most excellent Prince, who had given you the power of seeing; and whom to have seen, so many eyes would have thought themselves most happy.   

Imperial Princes, right honest Sycambrians, our ancient brethren, from whom when we departed, with dint of sword to get us a new habitation, happy we, if we had not left our integrity & plainness behind, or rather had kept aswell as you, that which indeed we brought with us! Happy souls, blessed remnant of the golden age, if ever you pitied our hard case, who thinking to conquer other men's lands, lost our own minds, and were overcome even by those we overcame; If there remain in you any spark of that ancient love which once made us all Germans, when we lived under the same heaven: But if old respects serve not, if that fervent love our most Christian King did so lately witness unto you, who set up so great an army, endangered his whole estate, ventured his own life, lost it, even in your quarrel, and for your sakes; if the help we brought you at so fit a time, if the never enough lamented damage we suffer yet, and shall suffer longer, for your occasion, can be of some effect in your noble hearts: Come, come, and let us all gather, as one man, to revenge our common loss, & prevent the common evil; for though otherwise the loss must still be of our side, yet look how much your dearest honour remains engaged therein. And you brave Ernest of Brandenburg, Illustrious Prince, whose princely aspect told me once you were such, when most you would have hid it, and for your better concealment, made me an hundred times sit at the upper end of your table, while I told you as often, I was scarce good enough to wait at it: Nevertheless did it, though with a willing kind of shame and unwillingness, when you commanded me once for all, it must needs be so. If ever you loved our nation in general, If ever most especially you admired, and protested affection to that hart-ravishing Prince, as many times as I brought you to the sight of him, as a private Gentleman, If ever you repeated at night with love and passion, that which you heard, that which you saw of him that day: Ernest, I earnestly beseech, Ernest, I earnestly adjure you, And with you, and in you, and by you, all your most noble house, and those of your princely name, Come out to revenge the public injury; And let me see you at the forefront of our Crusade; No Princes have such an interest in this quarrel, nor among them, any so much as yourself.   

WOrthily worthy, and all praiseworthy Heroes, True remnant of those old everliving Troyans', who invincible to all force, had never died, if subtlety and treason, the worse, because masked with Religion, had not surprised their simply-honest souls, and sooner burned their bodies, then overcome their minds; you that now trenched within your own waters, (as it were for fear of an other such accident) where also never any body could come to hurt you, no body can; And even when that great Deluge of the Goths spread itself round about you, were left to yourselves, safely swimming in your land-no-land, or rather so many islands; Sacred ephors, sharp-sighted Areopagits, grave Senate, who not to have one King, subject in a deadly stroke to wound all his subjects, have a Prince, as it were in name only, but are so many Kings yourselves, and Kings indeed, since you command Kingdoms; which yet you should command in no less quantity, than once that ancient Monarcichall Commonwealth, (a part of your Type) seeing your MarTial power, is no less than theirs, if your Marcial equity had not made you as moderate, as they were greedy; Truly sons of Mars in deed, for valour; Truly children of Marc, for piety; and again, of Mercury, for industry & riches. If ever you remember that ancient alliance between both our States, If ever you remember the recent love & true friendship of the fourth his offers & endeavours to you, and for you, when the third and the fift seemed to plot your ruin; If you have, even of late, felt the sharp stings of that Tyrannical ambition; seen and felt traitorous murders within your own bowels, though not against your King (when you have none) yet against your best men, and those that most sound have maintained your Kingly authority; If the innocent wounds, of that learned wise, and good Padre Paolo, yet alive in spite of their heart; If the holy ashes, yet almost hot, of that happy martyr, your worthy Fulgentio, burned in yonder hilly City, for that quarrel, though upon other far fetched, feigned and most false pretences; If the royal blood of your greatest, of your best friend, cry yet aloud Vengeance, Vengeance, in your ears: Come, come, brave and wise men, shake hands with so many and so great Princes, Be none of the last to take the Cross on you; The matter is of State, not of Religion: And let not that stain, for the first time, be cast on your spotless name, that you once forsook your friends, even fight for your quarrel, as much as for theirs; that you once forsook your own selves. And when was such a thing ever seen, either in you or others? Come, come, I say, you shall be still as good Catholics, as you were afore, if not better; They tremble already for fear, They are ours; And though they cannot stand against us, and though (thanks be to God) we have no need of more help, having equity, strength, valour, riches, and all advantages of our side, yet we call, yet we summon you, not to exclude you of your part of the glory.   


Conclusion, to the young King of France.  NOw Sir, if any will yet grudge, saying, I take to much upon me, and that yourself and all those great Princes are wise, & ready enough in that which concerneth them, without need either of my counsel or summoning. First I say, I pray God, in this sense, I may be a needle's Herald indeed, and you gather yourselves without calling, though otherwise truth be ever truth, well beseeming and to be followed, in any man's mouth. For the rest, I am neither a Councillor, nor worthy to be so, but a silly worm, and poor Soldier as once I was, I am a piece, not only of your State, but of the Christian Commonwealth; and as a feeling (though unprofitable) member of that great body, interessed in the loss of so excellent and needful a head: by so much the more as I ever preferred the public good, before my private welfare; the honour of my Country, before my particular advancement; and the life of my Sovereign and of all good Christian Kings, above mine own, & all others of my nearest & dearest kindred: who yet being already crosse-signed, and the least of an hundred thousand which are ready to crosse-signe themselves for so lawful and so general a cause, when either by this my summoning, or some other more effectual means, I see a just army in the field, am most ready to embrace again my ancient profession, which I had forsworn; to scour my old weapons, rusty with our ●ong peace, which I thought never to use again; And taking in hand my sharpest spear of all, most boldly venture my life, as far as any; most happy to be lost in this quarrel, the right quarrel of God and Gods anointed.   
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