THE ESTATE OF ENGLISH FUGITIVES UNDER the king of Spain and his ministers.  
Containing, beside, a Discourse of the said King's manner of government, and the injustice of many late dishonourable practices by him contrived.  
〈◊〉 CREDE  
LONDON, Printed for john Drawater, and are to be sold at his shop in Canon lane near Paul's. 1595.   

To the Reader.  
BEing some five or six years since in those parts of Flanders, which are subject to the Spanish king, and seeing a miserable troop of my unhappy countrymen, (some of which were gentlemen of good houses in England,) wandering in poor habits & afflicted gestures, heavily groaning under the burden of an extreme and calamitous necessity: on the one side, by their heedless demeanour there, debarred from return into their country: and on the other, daily overlooked with the proud eyes of disdainful Spaniards, and for want of due regard in that comfortless service, perishing without either pity or relief. Seeing, as I say, these things and entering into a consideration of them, with an unpartial judgement, knowing some of my good friends and acquaintance in England, possessed with the like humour, as that which moved the foresaid gentlemen, to forsake their country and to settle themselves in the service and dominions of the king of Spain: I thought good to advertise them of that which my poor experience had gathered touching the small regard, distress, poverty, scorn, calamity, & affliction, befallen to such as had already entered the course, that to their unexperienced judgement, yielded such show of contentment: thereby, if it were possible, to dissuade them from attempting the like, the same being in regard of the offence to their sovereign so treacherous; of the reproach to their family, and parentage; so infamous, and lastly in so deep a degree to themselves dangerous, that being once thereinto entered, it should not be in their power, upon their afterchange of humour and appetite, thence to withdraw themselves, the error being such as admitteth not any repentance or excuse. Having to that effect, written from thence privately to some of my acquaintance, the copies of my letters (contrary to my intention) were since my return, by some of them given abroad, and lastly not long since, a discourse printed in Paul's Churchyard, containing some part of the substance thereof, but many things that I had written left out, and many things inserted that I never meant, and finally in the whole so falsified and changed, aswell in matter as words, & ignorantly intermixed with fictions of the publisher, that howsoever the vulgar sort be therewith pleased, those that are of farther reach and insight, cannot but condemn it as a thing fabulous, grossly handled and full of absurdities. Besides, the time and occasion to which that discourse was fitting, is now altogether past, and therefore the same altogether impertinent. In regard of which and other inconveniences, I thought it not unfit to publish the true copy of my own letter, which though after so many years, cannot but seem stolen, yet the occasions that moved me thereunto considered, I trust I shall not otherwise be censured of, than the sincerity of my meaning deserveth, which is to dedicate the fruits of my poor experience to the benefit of my country, and withal to satisfy the world, as touching the former treatise (for though they are suppressed, yet there are great numbers of them extant) the which was by a fellow, that had stolen a copy thereof, foisted to the print, in hope of benefit, and now when the matter comes to examination, slips his head out of the collar and will not be found. Withal, I shall perchance, seeing I have so good an occasion offered, touch by the way some occurrents of later time. And whereas my meaning was at the first, only to satisfy a few private friends, now seeing it is my chance to publish it, I shall entreat the Reader whosoever he be, & howsoever in religion affected, nevertheless laying aside all prejudicate opinion, not to condemn any thing (seem the same never so strange) herein mentioned, unless he shall himself be able to disprove it, which I hope, for trewnesse of matter it shall not lie in any man's power to do. For my meaning is not to speak of sophistical devices, projected drifts, or matters forged in the air, but plainly and simply, of things actually and really done in public view of the world, and confirmed with the witness of thousands.   

THE COPY OF A Letter, written by a Gentleman that had sometimes served the King of Spain: To a Catholic Gentleman his Kinsman and Friend.  
SIR, understanding as well by your Letters, as also by the message lately done unto me by the mouth of R. B. of the great longing and desire you have to come into these parts, and to employ yourself here in service of the Spanish King: And perceiving also not only by your said Letters, but by the Gentleman that brought the same, & by the report of sundry others, that many young Gentlemen of our Country are of your mind in that point: Some thereunto (as I guess) moved of a youthful and vain tickling humour, to be wandering abroad in strange and foreign Countries: others in hope there to grow to great preferment, advancement, employment, & wealth: other some pretending matter of conscience, seem to have sure confidence that there they may live with more liberty & ease of mind, than that which within our Country they enjoy: I have thought good for the particular love which I bear, and always have born towards you, unto whom I wish as to myself (but chief in respect of that due humble regard, and zealous reverent affection which I bear to the service and sacred person of our most gracious and princely Sovereign, the Queen's most excellent Majesty, and to my most dearly loved native Country & countrymen) to set down some notes and observations, which by a long and dangerous experience in this place I have heedfully gathered, By which (I hope) I shall make manifest, as well to you, as likewise to all other my Countrymen (howsoever in humour disposed) by apparent examples, and undeniable truths, how greatly you and they (that desire to repair hither, by any of the motions before expressed, are in any hope of good to be received from the said King of Spain or his ministers,) do err and are deceived. I heartily and most earnestly desire you & all other that shall read this Treatise, deeply to judge and consider of these points, which I shall herein set down, which (God willing) I will do with such fidelity, true meaning, and sincerity, as that no part of the same shall be truly to be gainsaid or refelled, and myself by the persons, times, and places, and other circumstances, shall make most manifest and plain, to any that shall doubt of the truth of the same, or any part thereof. And I shall take great joy and comfort, if myself having undertaken an untowardly & dangerous course, though with better success than hath happened to many hundreds, may be as a caveat to all the young Gentlemen of our nation, how they hazard themselves so dangerously: and that my painful experirience may be to them as a Looking glass, wherein they may behold the spots & errors of their conceived fancies, or as a mark set up for them, whereby they may avoid the perils and most dangerous rocks and shelves, to them yet unknown, and lying hidden under the smooth, fair, and delightful conceived, and fantasied pleasures suggested unto them by their own imagination, the same being unexperienced, and therefore without mistrust. And surely I cannot too much commend the saying of that excellent Roman Orator, who placed in the first degree of wisdom, those that were of themselves best able to give good advise, and in the next, those that were willing, and inclinable to follow it.  
But some man may here perchance ask me, whence I have such an assurance of my wit, that I will take upon me to advise others, who are perchance better able to counsel me? To this I answer, that if any man how mean so ever, will for my profit and good go about to instruct me in any thing, wherein himself hath made so long experience, and will confirm the same with so many substantial proofs and examples as I will do this, he shall find me easy to be persuaded, without straining himself to the search of any high points of wit, or subtlety of well coloured speech, for so manifest a truth needs no disguising, but rather is by a plain and simple nakedness the more commended. But as for those that with fore-possessed minds, regard not what danger so ever they throw themselves into, 
Circe was a great Sorceress, who transformed such into beasts and monsters as hearkened to her allurements  greedily with a newfangled appetite swallowing down any liquor that presents itself unto them in a glistering cup, I think neither wit nor truth will be of much avail, though those that are of greater discretion and more temperately disposed, will (I doubt not) read it with indifferent eyes, and conceive of it as it deserveth. For if they were to sail along the perilous rocks of Circe or the sirens, I think they would not refuse to hear Ulysses speak, 
The sirens ●…vere the three ●…aughters of A●…helous & Calli●…pe between Italy and Sicily, who with their delicious music and singing, drew the passengers to ●…istē unto them: and procured their destruction. The Poets feign them to be transformed into Sea monsters, & to retain the said practice still.  but gladly give attention to his counsels, seeing among many that perished, it was his only hap to hear the alluring songs of the one, and to see the enchanting cruelties of the other, and yet to escape the danger of them both.  
I will entertain you no longer with circumstance, but for the confirmation of my speech, refer you to the following Discourse.   

THE BEGINNING of the Discourse.  
BEing forced by the fore-remembered occasions, to make of a private Letter a public discourse: I am at the very first troubled, not knowing what method to observe in a matter so abrupt and full of confusion; which I fear me, is likely to prove to the true English and well minded reader as delightless, as it is to me that writ it altogether comfortless, in regard of the numbers of our nation whereof I must entreat, & among the rest, of some of good parentage, that have with full draft swallowed into their entrails the loathsome dregs of this Spanish infection: being to our nation a thing as fatal and deadly, as ever was the gold of Tholouse, or the horse of Seian to the unfortunate possessors thereof. Whose course & actions (though the law of God, the law of nations, the duty to our Sovereign, and the love to our country, bindeth us to detest and hate, because they follow an opposite armed enemy that seeketh our subversion: yet in regard they are of the same nation and language which we are of, charity & kindness wisheth us to take compassion of their abused conceits, and to wish them yet now at length to open their eyes, and to behold the dangerous estate wherein they have plunged themselves, the infamy and scorn wherein they live, yea, under those whom they serve as hirelings: and lastly, the reproachful blot that they have given to the nobleness of our heretofore unblemished nation, which in former ages, howsoever labouring in intestine broils, yet never was detected of such base & wicked treacheries, as to sell themselves to a foreign prince, to be by him employed to the overthrow of their country, and the taking away of their Sovereign's life.  
This is the unpleasing subject I must entreat of, drawing forcibly unto it the recital of so many conspiracies, murders, violences, practices, and treasons, that for the strangeness thereof, it will rather bear the resemblance of a tragical fiction, them of a true discourse.  

The method of this ensuing Discourse.  I will first direct my speeches to such unexperienced gentlemen, as are in desire addicted to the Spanish service, showing them in what point of their hope & expectation they do fail and are deceived, laying unto them before their eyes, the fall, misery, and calamity of as many as have before them entered within the compass of this enchanted circle.  
Secondly, to our credulous Catholics at home, upon whose ignorance & driftles search into these matters, our practising traitors abroad do bulid their chiefest foundations of all their villainies (whom while they entertain with vain expectations, in the mean time, with traitors & spies which they daily send over) they abuse with overreaching subtleties, to the irreparable ruin and overthrow of them and theirs.  
They have also at their devotion certain ambidexter fellows, who upon feigned colours and pretences pass to & fro, feeding either side with news, who in regard of some few bad inteligences, which now & then they bring into England, would feign be accounted honest serviceable men: but they must pardon me a little, in respect of some experience that I have had of them, if I conceive otherwise, thinking them to be in deed far more dangerous than either the secret spy, or the discovered traitor, and in place where when I shall be asked, I will yield my reason. For since I was a scholar, I remember a verse in Seneca, 
Seneca in Octava Tragedia Agamemnon.  Pretio parata vincitur pretio sides: I speak this, because the Prince whom they serve, howsoever otherwise, with these fellows will not stick to deal most liberally.  
Thirdly, because many of our countrymen living in great happiness at home, yet (like those that cannot take good rest when they lie soft) do in their conceit mislike (surfeiting with to much ease) the quiet estate they live in, and the manner of her majesties most gracious & merciful government, I have thought it my duty somewhat to express these few things which have come to my knowledge touching the benefits and blessings which it hath pleased God so plentifully to pour down upon her majesty and her people: together with the flourishing estate of that fortunate realm, since this the time of her majesties government, so plentiful in peace, so victorious in wars, so industrious in arts, & so excelling in all sciences, that the very Spanish enemy himself will not stick many times to break out into admiration thereat, 
The Spanish enemy himself admireth the blessed estate and happy government of England.  and sometimes in his scoffing or rather blasphemous humour swear that he thinks jesus Christ is become a protestant: withal, I will briefly make a short comparison between this and the government of the adversary, I mean the king of Spain, his cruel and inhuman usage of his miserable subjects, his violent abolition & taking away of their privileges, and in fine, the unspeakable bondage, constrained servitude, and pitiful desolation in which they live, or rather despairfully do languish: a matter though far unfit for me to handle, but worthy of graver wits, & men of the highest wisdom and experience, yet considering I shall not presume to treat of matters of great estate & secrets, but such as every well affected subject may find and pick out of the heroical actions of the one, and the tyrannical insolences of the other, both done in the appearance of the world, I hope, and so with all lowliness most humbly desire her most gracious & benign majesty to pardon me, if undertaking such a task, I chance to come far short of that, which men fit for the handling thereof could say or entreat, and so likewise most earnestly beseech that I may therein be censured according to the loyal zeal I bear to her majesties service and my country, and not to the baseness and simplicity of my style, or the handling thereof.  
But to come to my discourse, to the end that you & the rest of your opinion, may clearly and plainly discern those things, which hitherto your eyes blinded with the vail of partiality, or perchance misled with a contrariety of affection, have not been able to view: I will begin with the good usage, honour, and advancement that you and other Gentlemen addicted to the Spanish service are to expect, bringing you for example sundry brave and worthy Gentlemen, Captains, & soldiers, that have taken the like cause before you; whereby you shall perceive that all is not gold that glistereth fair, but that whatsoever show the Spaniard make unto us, yet in his heart he mortally abhorreth us, & by all means possible seeketh our destruction, ruin, and subversion, as it evidently appeareth by his usage of such troops and companies of our nations as have served him.  
I will not speak of the cruelty of the Commendador upon certain English Gentlemen that had done notable services both to him and the Duke of Alva, 
Eight Englishmen hanged up in Antwerp by commandment of Don Luis Requesence, the Commendador and Captain general of the low Countries for the king.  of whom nevertheless for a mere trifling occasion, he caused eight to be hanged up after the sack of Antwerp on the Mere bridge.  
Neither will I trouble you with the tragical discourse of M. Aegrimont Ratcliff, & M. Grey, who were as the world knoweth, both gentlemen of noble houses, and most faithfully affected both in religion & service to the Spanish king; nevertheless, upon I know not what suspicion, that they should have practised the death of Don joan, they were both apprehended, and though there never was, 
M. Aegrimon● Ratcliff and M Grey wrongfully put to death by the Spaniard.  nor ever could be any thing proved against them, and they at their deaths protested themselves to be most innocent of that wherewith they were charged, yet their heads were stricken off in the market place of Namures. I touch these things the more sparingly, because they happened before my time of being there, and in matters delivered by heresaie I might err, which (undertaking to write no thing but that which is true & unrefutable) I would be loath to do, and therefore I will come to things of later time, and such as I do certainly know.  
At the siege of Audenarde, where the D. of Parma lay encamped, there came rendering themselves unto his service, under the conduct of Norris, Barney, Cornish, and Gibson, 
Six hundred Englishmen came and rendered themselves to the Duke of Parmas' service, who then lay at the siege of Audenarde.  whom they had chosen to be their Captains, a troop of six hundred, the tallest & best appointed soldiers that I remember ever to have seen in all my life, their coming being the only cause, that the Town (a matter of great importance, and on the land side, as it were the very key of the province of Flanders) was so soon delivered unto him as it was. 
The manner of their coming and their usage.  For whereas the Duke of Anjou and the Prince of Orange lay under the walls of Gaunt, with sufficient force and most deliberate resolution to secure the said town of Audenarde, upon this mutiny of the English, they marched away with their whole army, leaving the enemy now battering the town: which, seeing itself frustrated of the expected succours, presently rendered itself unto the Duke of Parma. Thence they were drawn to Wynoch bergen to serve against the French and English that lay there encamped, where they behaved themselves with such desperate resolution, that day that Monsieur de Balanson, brother to the marquess of Warambon was taken prisoner, that besides the loss of many of their lives, they were a wonder to the whole army, which praise of theirs the pride of the Spaniards not enduring, 
The envy of the Spaniard.  did upbraid them that they had served rather like giddy headed drunkards, than men wisely valiant. Sir Roger Williams well remembreth this days work, for he was there in service of the states, and unless I am deceived, lost a brother in that service. Shortly after, upon the remove of the Duke of Alansons army towards Gaunt, they were likewise brought thither, where also they gave exceeding testimony of their valour & courage, namely, the very day that sir john Norris made that famous & memorable retreat before Gaunt, 
The famous retreat made before Gaunt by sir john Norris.  who when the French men fled with a disordered amazement, did with a present courage and excellent direction maintain the place with such regiments of English as were under his charge; and withstanding the Duke of Parma in the teeth with all his puissance, who furiously charged him, nevertheless withdrew his men still holding their pikes in the bosoms of the enemy, safely under the walls of Gaunt, not without exceeding damage to the enemy: insomuch that the Duke of Parma would ever after say, that he only had that day barred him from crying quittance with the Duke of Alencon, for the retreat which he had caused him to make from Cambray; which still did stick in his stomach even to his dying day.  
But now to my newcome English that had done these notable services to the Spaniard, let us see how they were recompensed: within one year they were suffered all in a manner to famish, which misery some of them seeking to relieve by foraging out upon the country, 
Eoure & twenty Englishmen hanged by the Spaniard in Audenarde,  four & twenty of them were taken by the Spanish provost, & carried to Audenarde (of the rendering whereof they had been the chiefest means) & openly hanged in the market place. Another troop of them, being thirty in number, and lying in a village near Poppering in Flanders, a company of Spaniards hearing of them, came into the village where they were, and after a friendly and soldierly salutation of each side, as they were all making merry together, on a sudden the Spaniards took them at advantage unarmed, 
A most monstrous murder committed by the Spaniard up on sundry English soldiers that served among them.  & most treacherously and inhumanly murdered them every one, rifling them of their clothes, & such other things as they had peeled abroad in the country. Sundry complaints were made to the Duke by the friends of those that were thus murdered, and by the Captains of the regiment, 
Amongst the rest that were thus murdered, there was one Aucrie Crispe, brother in law to sir Stephen Thornax, likewise a younger son of Alderman Starkie: one Norton, etc.  but Spaniards being the doers thereof, there could neither be remedy nor justice obtained. But to make amends, because they would be the cleanlyer rid of the residue of this poor miserable troop the camp being then before Wynochbergen, wherein lay a mighty strong garrison of Frenchmen, they made them two little forts of purpose, in which they willingly placed them in the utmost quarter of the whole camp, and nearest confining to the town, to the end they might have all their throats cut, as in deed they had very few nights after, at which time the enemy assaulting them with great fury, and they defending themselves most manfully above the space of an hour, in such sort as the alarum passed through the whole camp, yet they were never relieved with any succour at all, 
These English troops overthrown by treachery of the Sqaniard  insomuch as the greatest part of them being slain in the defence, the enemy at last entered, & put the residue to the sword.  
To rehearse unto you the sundry and several calamities that these poor men as well captains as soldiers endured, during the time of that their unfortunate service, especially at Gausbecke, Ask, and Gaver, would seem (I am sure) unto you for the unspeakable strangeness thereof, scarcely credible, for they never received in all the time of their service, any one months pay, I have seen Lieutenants & Ensigns of them go up and down sickly and famished, begging their bread, covered only with poor blankets and tikes of featherbeds, that they had rifled in the villages abroad, and have myself relieved some of them: Neither were the ends of their Captains less tragical, which I thought good to set down, to the end you may perceive, that such and so great calamities as these, could never have happened without the apparent hand of God, whose revengful justice never ceased to pursue the infidelity of these miserable men, till he had taken them from the face of the earth.  
First Norris, chief captain and ringleader of the rest, 
The strange & tragical ends of the leaders and captains of this revolted regiment.  after he had leisure to bethink himself of the foulness of his fault, and withal saw the scorn and contempt wherein he lived under the Sraniard, conceived thereof so deep an impression, that he fell dangerously sick, and into a kind of lunacy, of which before he was well recovered, he stole secretly out of the camp lying then at Varnaton, with intention to convey himself into England, but by the way was taken prisoner and carried to Flushing, 
Norris died mirably at Flushing.  whereby dying in prison, or as some say, by laying violent hands on himself, he prevented those torments, that according to the quality of his offence, were prepared for him. Gibson at such time as the camp lay before Meaning, lying one night with his wife in his cabin, a Spanish horseman coming upon occasion into his quarter, chanced to tie his horse to the stake whereunto gibson's cabin was fastened, who what with stamping and shaking the cabin, did so disquiet him, that he arose thinking to untie the horse, giving withal some hard words to the owner, who in requital thereof ran him through the body with this rapier, 
Gibson slain suddenly by night.  so that he fell down in the place stark dead. I saw his wife many times afterwards weeping and falling down upon her knees before the Duke of Parma for justice. But English blood was there of so vile price, especially being shed by a Spaniard, that the matter was not thought worthy the enquiring after.  
Cornish was in the one of the little forts before mentioned, at such time as they were surprised by the French men, within the which both himself, his lieutenant, Ensign, and whole company were miserably slain and mangled. Barnies' Company was with the other likewise defeated, and put to the sword, but he himself was by his good hap sick and absent at Saint Homars. 
Cornish & his whole company slain in a fort before Winocbergen  Nevertheless he escaped not altogether his part and portion of these afflictions, for presently upon his return to the camp, as he stood beholding the march of a company of footmen that passed by, he was shot at, by an unknown man with an harquebus, which by chance though it miss his body, yet it lighted upon his right arm, in such sort, as it shivered all the principal bones thereof to pieces, so that he hath utterly lost the use thereof. Shortly after he was taken prisoner by the English soldiers of Ostend, where he was every day in danger of the gallows, but upon promises of great services he was at length set at liberty by Sir john Conway, and suffered to return from whence he came, whereas yet he liveth but maimed and very muserable, and in exceeding great distress, neediness, and poverty.  
Two or three years after this foreremembred story, came one William Pigot, 
A lost betrayed to the King of Spain by a regiment of Englishmen, of which one Pygot had the commanding.  who being of a mean man raised to the degree of a Captain by Sir john Norris, and in his absence left as commander in Alost, over the rest of the Companies, treacherously deceiving him to whom he was so infinitely beholding, rendered the Town, himself, and the whole Regiment, (being well near a thousand as tall and well appointed men as were in Europe) to the service and devotion of the Spanish King, which service, how meritorious and beneficial it was unto the Spaniard, I leave to their judgements that know the Country. For by this rendition of the town of Alost, they were the occasion that he got Dermounde, the Sasse, the forts of Leifkins hook, Saint Anthony's, and Saint Margaret's the dole, the best part of the land of Waste, and in manner Gaunt itself, as the sequel very apparently showed: notwithstanding all which service, they were within two years space, what with hunger, the gallows, and rigorous dealing, quite consumed and brought to nothing. And lastly at Stalbrooke, even against the yielding up of Anwarpe, when all other Nations whatsoever, were to receive their count and reckoning, they only were infamously cashiered without any one months pay, receiving only every one a Ducat.  
And which of all others is most monstrous and scarcely credible, whereas some of the Captains not long before, had made them of their own purses new and fair Ensigns, those Ensigns were by a Spanish Commissary called Spinosa (who came with order to dissolve the regiment) taken violently from those that bore them, 
An exceeding disgrace used to the English by the Spaniard.  in presence of the Earl of Westmoreland, who was Colonel of the regiment, and for a greater disgrace both to him and the rest, though both he, Captain Tresham, and the other Captains complained to the Duke for redress, 
Captain Treshan a little before the breaking of the regiment when Tailor was slain had his company given him.  which they could not obtain: the Spaniard afterwards made his brags, that he turned the English Ensigns into Spanish fieldbeds.  
Somewhat before this time, when the whole camp received at the siege of Dermounde two months pay, they only though of all others most traveled in the trenches, wading every night from their quarter to the place where they kept their guard, which was upon a dike or caussey, through waters up to the bosom, & having had more men slain in that siege, than any other regiment in the whole camp, could not receive one penny, notwithstanding that they had passed musters with the rest, yea, and some of the Captains had bribed the Commissaries to pass them many places, thinking thereby to make a great hand: but in stead of money when they made suit to the Duke, 
There are in the king's army two Contadors, whose office is to keep the Rolls and books of the army, to make the Patents of captains and colonels, & to put their hands to all such assignations of money as are granted, & many other the like things, so that their office is of great reclining and dignity.  were scornfully by him posted off to the Contadores of the army, of whom they received the most base and opprobrious speeches that were ever given unto soldiers, and that can Lieutenant Butler well testify: for he being then Lieutenant unto Pigot, was one of the number unto whom they were used: he is now in her majesties service, and was lately Lieutenant of sir john Poolies' horsemen, and as I hear, hath done her Majesty many good services. The conclusion is, they were absolutely rejected, without ever receiving one halfpenny. And lastly, upon casting of the regiment, whereas the pay of a reformed Captain, (for so they call them whose companies are cashiered or taken away) of what nation so ever he be amongst them, is forty crowns a month, they gauè only to our English Captains but five and twenty, neither that but in paper only, for I think some of them never received any penny at all in money, and if they did, I am sure it was very little.  
Thus much as touching the usage which they received from the Spaniard, but now keeping the course I began, I will acquaint you with the punishment which it pleased God to lay upon the leaders and first seducers of this miserable forenamed troop.  
Upon their arrival in the Spanish camp, they were divided into seven companies, 
The names of the Captains and commanders of this Regiment, and their miserable endo●.  the one of which was given to the Earl of Westmoreland, who upon their humble request and suit, was made Colonel & commander of them all, and one Contraras, a Spaniard, joined with him as his assistant, or rather as a master and commander both over him and the regiment: another was given to Pigot, with the title of Lieutenant Colonel: the third to Dalton, with the office of Sergeant mayor: the names of the other four upon whom the residue of the companies were bestowed, were Tailor, Vincent, Smith, and Walsh. I will begin with Pigot, 
The strange calamity & death of Pigot.  because he only was the first and chief actor & instrument in this treachery, abusing with the subtlety of his fair speech the rest of his countrymen, that were by him drawn into this action. Pigot after he had stayed a while in the camp, as he was wily and full of craft, 
The strange calamity & death of Pygot.  so he quickly perceived how the world was likely to go with him and his fellows, and therefore leaving the rest to wear themselves out in poverty and travel, he while he had money in his purse got him into Spain, thinking surely with himself, that in regard his service had been so important, he should there have been received with cross and candle, and beside be mightily recompensed. He would not admit any other of the Captains for companion in the journey, fearing least partnership might have made the merit of his service, (which to himself he attributed alone) seem the less, 
Pygots' cold entertainment in Spain.  and so consequently his reward.  
With this crafty intention he arrived at Madrile, where after he had a while wandered up and down unregarded, at length by means of sir Frances Englefield, to whom he was in that behalf an earnest suitor, he was brought by an interpreter, (for he had no other language but plain English) to the speech of Don joan de Ydeaques, being then the king's Secretary, from whom (after he had declared his service and cause of coming) he received this answer, that the King had appointed the Duke of Parma to be his lieutenant, 
The answer of Don ivan De Ydeaques the King's secretary.  and Captain general in the low Conntries, to whose direction and discretion he referred the consideration of all such like services as should there fall out, wishing him therefore with all speed to return unto the Duke, who, no doubt, would take notice of his services: offering him his Letter unto the Duke in that behalf.  
This answer was cold and contrary to Pigot's expectations, but back he must, there was no remedy: No reply of his could alter the Secretories resolution: Somewhat before his undertaking this journey, he had married a handsome young woman of those Countries, whom he left at Tourney in a citizens house, and with her in charge, all whatsoever he was worth. She in the time of his absence, being very fearful to lie alone, had entertained into her bed a young man of the Town of her old acquaintance, with whom (hearing of her husband's return) she ran away, selling first whatsoever of her husbands that was not portable, and the rest of the things that remained, being of any value, she took with her. And with this Companion of hers she got herself into England, knowing that her husband durst not make pursuit thither after her: but coming to London she met with certain Flaunders soldiers that knew her and her husband, who under colour of yielding her assistance in a strange place, coosened her of the greatest part of such things as she had left (being of good worth) as she had so deceived her husband of: the rest she spent in dissoluteness, and so by degrees, according to the fortune of such courses, fell into extremest misery and beggary that might be, in the mean time Pygots' heart being stricken dead, with the coldness of the entertainment he had in Spain, and now returning homewards on the one side, quite frustrated of all his expectations and hopes, and on the other side pursued with the stings and terrors of a guilty conscience, yet cheered up himself with thinking on the comfort of his wives youth and affections, 
Aloft sold by Pigot to the king of Spanie for 30 thousand French crowns.  and withal of the money that he had left in her keeping: for you must consider that he had not given, but sold the town of Alost for thirty thousand French crowns, for payment of which they had hostages, and the same was fully paid before he delivered up the town. Out of this money six months pay was deducted for the soldiers, the rest he divided among the Captains, retaining a great share to himself, which, as you hear, he had left in keeping with his wife, as a certain remedy in store against whatsoever hardness of fortune should afterwards happen. But being upon his return to Torney encountered with the news of his wives disloyalty, and withal, which grieved him most, finding his lodgings ransacked, his coffers empty, and himself at once overwhelmed with such a heap of scorn & misery; I leave you to imagine the patience and quietness wherewith his mind entertained these tidings, being (as before I told you) one that merely for money (as for religion he knew not what it meant) had sold his loyalty to his prince and country, his faith to his Colonel, (to whom in so many duties he was tied,) and finally his own person, as likewise he would have done his soul if he could have found a chapman. Sure I am that if by the body's gestures a man may judge of the minds unquiet perturbations, there was never any wretch more violently overthrown with the extremity of an inward affliction & despair, yet did he not for all this wholly forsake and abandon himself, but rather determined to turn, as the proverb is, every stone, and to attempt fortune once anew, thereby either to redress the miseries of his estate, or at the least, if the worst should fall, to end his life, for finding himself already about the shoes, he made no reckoning of being above the boots, & therefore following the saying of the Poet, Per scelera sceleribus tutum esse itur, he resolved himself by a new treachery to amend his old, & withal his fortune if it were possible, and therefore fell presently a tempering with some of his friends in Holland and Zealand, and lastly with my Lord of Leicester himself, being then newly come over to the government of the united provinces, to whom he offered, so he might have his pardon, and withal be rewarded, to betray the Duke of Parma in some notable sort, besides sundry other little services (of which none could be performed without notable perjury and infidelity) to perform which he made prodigal offers of his best endeavours, which neverthlesse truly I think he had not been able to perform, though he had never been hindered in the course of his practices, yet from time to time he sent my Lord over such poor intelligences, as the smallness of his credit wherein he lived could attain unto. The carrier of his letters and the returner of his answers, was a brokerly fellow, an Englishman, that then dwelled in the English house at Antwerp, called I. G. one that in intelligence, desired to correspond with either side, but with whether he dealt faithfully God knoweth, I will speak the less of him, because though his wife remain still in Antwerp, yet he himself is withdrawn to Middleborough, where some say he liveth now honestly and well. This fellow whether by careless conveyance, or by worse practice, as some suspected (though truly I think him thereof innocent, as Rowland York afterwards assured me) with whom Pigot had at that time intelligence, who had used him before in such like practices for himself, and by him received his pardon and passport, upon his first being with the Duke of Parma, from my L. of Leycester, yet in conclusion he handled his matters so ill, that Mondragon, chief Captain and Lieutenant of the Castles of Anwarpe and Gaunt, came to have intelligence thereof, who presently thereupon caused Pigot to be apprehended & conveyed prisoner to the Castle of Gaunt, 
Pigot sent prisoner to the castle of Gaunt.  where he had been presently laid upon the torture, but that Hugh Owen, who for some causes especially affected him, laboured to the contrary. And in fine so much prevailed, that after half a years imprisonment, he got him to be delivered: Thence poor and penniless he traveled to Burges, where the Duke of Parma then remained, with intention to sue for somewhat wherewith to relieve himself. 
Nemesis in Tergo.  But whether soever he went, still Nemesis followed him in tergo: 
justice still followed him at his heels.  for by the way he was taken by certain English soldiers that lay in ambush on the way, and by them carried prisoner to Ostend, where with the smoothness of his tongue, & the protestation of many great services by him intended, he so enchanted Sir john Conway then being governor of the town, 
Pigot taken & carried prisoner to Ostend.  that he forbore to hang him, as he was once determined: and presently by letters advertised the Counsel of his taking, and withal such services, of which he to shift the halter from his neck, had given such confidence & assurance, so he might be suffered to escape: all which notwithstanding, by the Counsel's commandment, he was sent for into England, and committed prisoner to the Marshalsea: 
Pigot died suddenly & strangely in the marshalsea.  where having remained some space of time, being one day well overnight, he fell into strange and extreme accidents of his body, and was found the next morning dead. Such after this goodly service was his fortune, and such his end, and such be the like of all other treacherous ill affected Englishmen. But now let us come to speak of master Dalton, being next in the row, and see how he sped.  
This Gentleman, to the end you should the better know him, was one of the craftiest Conicatchers that ever lived, and had all his life time shifted it out with cozening sleights and practices of villainy, as all the old Flaunders soldiers that knew him, can well testify: now by reason of his good experience he was grown very weather wise, and did by many conjectures foresee the storms and tempests that were coming towards him and his followers, and therefore thinking it a great madness to lie still at Anchor in so dangerous and unsafe a road, hoist up his sails and showed them a fair pair of heels, running away from them at Torney, where the Duke of Parma then kept his Court, into France, yet because he would not be in his absence unremembered, he first took up upon his credit as much wares, as by all his utmost devices he could procure, either of Mercers, Goldsmiths, or any other sort of Artificers. Thence he conveyed himself into the North parts of England: where, as he had gotten his goods wickedly, so he spent them as riotously: afterwards changing his name, he betook him to sea, 
Dalton hanged in the North Country.  and became a pirate, for which, and sundry other such honest parts as he had played, he was of afterwards apprehended, and tied up to the gallows there in the North, in the year 1586.  
Tailor of all the rest was most to be pitied, for he was a man of very comely parsonage, fine qualities, & very gentlemanly behaviour. His father had long served her Majesty, as likewise himself had done in some office, as I take it, pertaining to the provisions of her stable, it was my chance to converse much with him, both because we were of acquaintance in England, as also that I liked exceedingly his conversation, and the manner of his carriage, & truly thus much I must say of him being now dead, that I did never know any man that was stricken with a greater apprehension of his own fault, and that did more every way beat his brains and seek all occasions how to amend it. The cause that had drawn him into this matter, as sundry times he told me, and sometimes not without tears, were the many debts, with which (being very youthfully given) he had entangled himself in England, & withal his marriage, which was most unfortunate. To rid himself of both which inconveniences at once, he had thrown himself into this headlong action: which surely if God had lent him life, 
Colonel Morgan sent a Letter to Captain Tailor in the hair of an Irish lackey  he would have endeavoured to amend. For I remember once, the camp lying then at a place called Euergham, that colonel Morgan sent him a secret Letter, wrapped in the long hair of an Irish lackey that brought it, who not handling his matters with that wariness as was requisite, the Letter was discovered, & Captain Tailor apprehended: nevertheless by the help of his own wit, and the assistance of his friends, he was soon set at liberty again, though with an exceeding suspicion, that ever after overlooked his doings, insomuch, that in great grief of mind he complained unto me, that the only jealousy held of him in regard of this Letter, would be a great hindrance to that satisfaction which he had in his mind resolved, which was at least to have drawn back away with him all such English soldiers as served the king in that regiment, which in regard of their love unto him, he might easily have done. But it pleased the almighty in his judgements to prevent him, & to take him away in the midst of his imaginations, for he and my L. of Westmoreland having been one day in the quarter of the Walloons, 
The Earl of Westmerlande and Captain Tailor entered into quarrel.  banqueted by a captain of the Count of Egmont's, where according to the use of that nation, either of them had been constrained to drink liberally: as they returned back together, they two in company alone towards Euergham, they fell in to contention about a frivolous matter, concerning one Davies an Irishman, that served the Earl, and that so far, that the Earl reviling him in many opprobrious names, lighted down his horse, & drew his sword, willing him to do the like, but Tailor knowing how extremely there the law determines of him that should draw his sword against his Colonel, put spurs to his horse, & galloped home before to his lodging: which scorn of his, as the Earl did interpret it, moved him to so great choler, that getting up on his horse he pursued him, and drew upon him again afore the very door of his loading, which indignity Tailor not being able any further to endure, drawing his rapier likewise encountered him, and after some thrusts between them, 
Tailor hurts the Earl.  ran the Earl very dangerously into the breast, at which instant Contraras the Spaniard, accompanied with many soldiers of the Earl's company, the most part of the which had halbertes, came running in, 
Tailor slain by the Earl of Westmoreland, & Contraras a Spaniard.  and environing Tailor of all sides, most cruelly murdered him with above twenty wounds, for which cause the Earl was, upon the complaints and earnest pursuit of the other Captains and soldiers, by the Duke of Parma for a time banished the Regiment, and the government thereof given to one Mana Cardonni, an Italian.  
Shortly after another of these Captains called Edward Vincent, was sent out of the land of Waft, where the Spanish army lay then encamped, with two hundred English soldiers, in company of an Italian captain with as many more Italians, towards the fort of Terneuse, where by a sally made from out the fort, they were all overthrown, 
Captain Vincent taken prisoner.  sundry slain, and among the rest Captain Vincent taken prisoner, where nevertheless, in regard of former acquaintance with Colonel Michael, who was there commander for the States, he found such favour at his hands, that he was not presently delivered over to the States, (as he mortally feared) but set at ransom at an hundred and fifty pounds, provided that the same should be sent with speed, for otherwise when the matter should be once known to the States in Holland, it could not be in his power possible any longer to withhold him, of which desperate estate, Vincent did with all speed advertise his father, being then a poor old man, well near seventy years of age, who having by present sale of such things as his son had left with him, raised some part of the money, fell down upon his knees before the Duke, weeping and imploring his help for the rest, telling him in the Spanish tongue (in the which language he was very perfect) the great danger and extremity of the case his son then stood in, if so be his ransom were not presently sent. But in stead of yielding him relief, the Duke bad, take away the importunate dotard: but when nevertheless he persisted (overcome with a Father's affection) to use many loud and passionate speeches, the Spaniards by violence thrust him away, calling him fool and drunkard. The grief whereof struck the old man so inwardly to the heart, that he went home to his lodging, and died within six days after. And his son when his ransom came not in time, 
Vincents father died of sorrow, & himself hanged in chains at Bargenopsome.  was by the State's commandment sent to Bargenopsome, and there hanged in chains, where his cracasse remaineth yet waving in the wind.  
Smith held yet somewhat longer out, though drinking as deeply in the cup of misery, or rather deeplier than any of the rest, for he fell through sickness and poverty into such extremity of wants, that of a Captain he was feign to be come a victualler, and to buy butter and cheese, and by making sale thereof again to help to relieve his poor estate. Withal, he fell into so strange & extreme a dropsy, that I scarcely believe the like was ever heard of: neither truly do I speak this to amplify the matter, for all those that have seen him beyond sea, will approve my speeches: either of his legs was swollen to that bigness of a man's middle, his face only was bare of flesh and miserable, and his eyes sunk into his head, in such sort, that I never remember to have beheld a more pitiful spectacle: in which misery after he had languished well near a year and a half, he died finally in extreme calamity, as it is told me since, at Gaunt, in the year 1588.  
Walsh only had this good hap, that he survived all the rest, of whom I will speak the less, because there is scarcely any one in England that professeth arms, but knew both him and his fortunes. After the breaking of the regiment, from a Captain he was feign to become a private soldier, and yet not thereunto without great suit accepted, under Canullo de Mounts company of horsemen in the garrison of Breda, which issuing one day forth of the town, was upon the plains near adjoining encountered & defeated by sir Philip Sidneys company of English lances, 
Captain Walsh taken prisoner.  & among the rest Captain Walsh in two places grievously wounded, and taken prisoner, & brought into Holland, where my L. of Leicester gave commandment presently to hang him. Sir Philip Sidney (being full of true honour) earnestly entreated my Lord for his pardon, & obtained it, in respect that he knew him to be valiant, and withal, that howsoever in this action transported, yet he had ever borne a dutiful regard towards her Majesty. Whereupon being recovered of his hurts, he served some while in the army under my L. of Leicester as a private soldier. Afterwards coming into England, he went with my Lord Willoughby as Ensign to one of his companies to the siege of Paris. Lastly, he followed my L. of Essex into France, as a private soldier, where his fortune was to be slain under the walls of Roan: 
Captain Walsh slain under the walls of Roan.  and with his death finished the last act of this tragedy. Of which truly I know not what you will judge that read, but sure I am that I who writ it am full of wonder and amazement, when with myself I consider in so short a space the fall of so many men of great courage and valour, all taken away by violent death. Which undoubtedly maketh me assure myself that God doth mightily protect the cause of her Majesty, 
God doth apparently protect the cause and quarrel of her Majesty.  and will not suffer the disloialties of her unfaithful subjects to escape unpunished, as by these most miraculous foreremembred examples most evidently appeareth.  
But now to proceed with my Discourse. 
Sir W. Stanley and R. York, the one rendering the town of Deventer, and the other the fort of Zutphen.  Shortly after came sir William Stanley & Rowland York, either of them being a man of great courage, well approved valour, and long experience in the wars, the one rendering unto the king the town of Deventer, and the other betraying the fort of Zutphen: the one being colonel over a regiment of foot, & the other captain of a company of lances. Let us see the one & the others prosperity, and the sequel of their usage under their new chosen master the Spanish king. First sir W. Stanley was confirmed governor of the town which he rendered, & his regiment left there in garrison, with the receipt of two months pay. For a while he lived in the greatest applause that might be: Cardinal Allen was written unto to Rome, to send down priests to instruct this religious regiment. He informed the Pope thereof, who both wrote jointly unto the king, to be good and gracious unto this regiment, which being well & liberally entreated, as they had already at Rheims and Rome a Seminary of students and scholars, to pray & write for the Catholic cause of our Country, so this being conducted by so worthy and Catholic a Gentleman as sir William Stanley, might be a continual nursery and seminary of soldiers to fight for the same. 
A Treatise written by Cardinal Allen  Withal, Cardinal Allen wrote a book unto the Captains and soldiers of this regiment, endeavouring therein to satisfy their consciences as touching the justice of this action, and likewise animating them constantly to persever in this goodly course into the which they were now entered. Besides, down came Priests thick and threefold from France and Italy, catechizing these new soldiers with many Masses and continual Sermons. Gentlemen that for their conscience lay dispersed in other parts, all drew down thither in hope of this good payment and golden world that there was talked of. In the mean time while the matters were thus in handling, there chanced to arise a great and deadly contention between sir William Stanley and Rowland York, 
Quarrel between sir William Stanley & York  which as you shall hear, yielded a very good and easy occasion to overthrow them both, which to the end you may the better understand, I think it not amiss to fetch the matter somewhat farther from the beginning.  
Deventer, whereof sir William Stanley was made governor by my Lord of Leicester, is a fair City, chief and metropolitan of the Province called Ouerisel, which confineth on Frizeland, situated upon the inside of the river Isel: not far thence upon the same river and the same side, standeth a great town called Zutphen, wherein there was for the king of Spain a governor called Tassos, a German borne, and of obscure parents, but himself of notable courage, 
Tassos' governor of Zutphen.  and by degrees and deserts was grown unto these parts to great reputation and commandment, next in authority to Verdugo, who was General of Frizeland, Ouerisel, Zutphen, and the bordering places: he had first trained Tassos' up to the wars, 
Verdugo Lieutenant general of Frizeland.  and given him from time to time such charges and preferments, as at length he had brought him to be in a manner equal with himself in dignity, insomuch that at last he began to suspect his greatness, and would have clipped his wings, but could not, for the other was passing ambitions, full of courage, and by name and many deserts known unto the king, so that in no sort he would let himself be touched in the  jot of his greatness & reputation, whereupon each of them bore a secret grudge and rancour to the other, which came by this means to be more inflamed. For sir W. Stanley having in his mind fully determined the rendition of Deventer, entered into secret practice with Tassos' for the performing thereof, who with all gladness & secrecy entertained his offer till such time as the town was rendered into the hands of Tassos', 
Quarrel between Tassos' and Verdugo  upon such agreements and conditions as between them were concluded, Tassos' exceedingly rejoiced at the honour of his enterprise, and received both from the King and the D. of Parma many thanks & promises of reward, for his diligence and discreet behaviour therein. Then the which nothing could be more displeasing & bitter to Verdugo, who being governor of the province, & having the forces in his hand, took it as an exceeding disgrace & scorn done unto him, that an inferior person, such as he reckoned Tassos to be, should underhand accomplish so great an exploit, & go away with the honour thereof, & he in the mean time remain stolen & neglected, as a man utterly accounted unworthy so much as once to be acquainted therewith, so that from that time forward he nourished in his heart a deadly hatred against Tassos' and sir William Stanley. In the mean time Rowland York's company of horsemen was confirmed unto him by the Duke of Parma, and both he and they sent down to lie in garrison at Deventer: where of the one side he taking upon him more commandment that sir William Stanley thought to be convenient, & on the other side scorning to live as a private Captain in a town of garrison, (especially under the commandment of one of his Nation, to whom he judged himself no way inferior in worthiness) they began to enter into a great mislike one of the other, and by degrees into deadly quarrels & challenges, as some now in England can well testify, who were mediators between them. Nevertheless by mean of friends they grew again to reconciliation, though the same was but from the teeth outward, and continued not long. 
York practised with Verdugo to dispossess Sir W. Stanley of the government of Deventer.  For York in the mean time having discovered Verdugos humour, fell secretly to practise with him, a mean whereby to thrust sir William & his companies out of the town, hoping, (and therein being by Verdugo comforted and confidently assured) that upon the remove of sir William, the government of the town should remain wholly in himself: whereupon he ceased not to beat into Verdugos ears (that were of nothing more desirous than of these news) the wavering inconstant humours of sir William Stanley, the offers made unto him by my L. of Leicester, and his other friends in England, especially of the small affection his soldiers had to the service of the Spanish king, who desired nothing more than an occasion to recover the favour of their Country, which by no means they should so soon procure, as by redelivering the town. Assuring him that there were to this end great practices in hand, which could not but turn to a dangerous issue if they should not be in time prevented. Presently thereupon Verdugo wrote unto the D. of Parma, aggrevating the matter with so many additions of his own, that the D. counted the town as half lost already, though in truth I think there was never any such matter pretended, and presently sent down a strait commission to Verdugo, to draw three of the six companies, over which sir William Stanley was governor, out of the town, under colour of succouring Monsieur de Haultpen, brother to the Earl of Barlamont, who was in the fields with some few forces, taking in certain places of Gelderland. Verdugo was nothing slow to execute this Commission, but caused it to be accomplished with all speed, thrusting in their place certain companies of his own into the town: and within a while after he so practised, that sir William Stanley with his other three Companies, were under the like colour of service commanded also to come forth, 
Sir W. Stanley & his company drawn out of Deventre  being told that he should presently return into it again, which as yet to this day he never did. But by this fine devise was eased of his government, and such goods as he and his soldiers left, were spoiled & made booty of, even as though they had pertained to public enemies: since which time this regiment of seminary soldiers with all their religion, were never trusted in any town, nor as I believe, ever shall be. Being now joined with the troops of Haultpenne, they chanced to encounter the enemy hard by Balduke, where the Italians & Burgonians, over which Captain Haultpenne had charge, playing exceedingly the cowards, they only behaved themselves, though with loss of many of their lives, so manfully, and with such courage, that they grew over the whole country into a marvelous reputation of good soldiers. But leaving here Haultpenne their general wounded to death, they marched down into Brabant, 
Haultpen slain in an encounter not far from Balduke  where for recompense of their late good service, they were wintered in the field, without money, and in such great misery, nakedness, and poverty, that ten weeks together their chiefest food and sustenance in Turnot, was dried acorns that they found in sellers, which diet the priests not liking of, came to their Colonel to Antwerp, who to avoid the lamentations and complaints of his soldiers, had gotten him thither before, where one Oliver Eustace, an Irish Gentleman, told him to his face that he was the author of these poor men's misery, & therefore bound in conscience to procure them some relief. Sir William bitten his lip, knowing well that he had told him truth, & their calamity went to his very heart, but how to remedy it he knew not, and therefore absented himself in Antwerp, where you should never have found his table without four or five priests, some of the which were in their behaviour & words far more insolent and saucy than the meekness of their vocation required, insomuch that the Captains and Gentlemen took such grief & scandal at their controlling humour, that they left sir William Stanley wholly abandoned and unfrequented. Some did much wonder how a Gentleman of his worthiness and courage could endure these indignities, as to suffer himself to be directed and governed by them, especially in such matters as concerned not their vocation. I wit not touch for some respects herein any particulars, but if you speak with Captain Hart, who was then sir William's Lieutenant, or with Captain Salisbury, who are now both in England, they will satisfy you farther in this matter, none can better speak it than they, especially the last named, because he opposed himself, and had sure sunk under the burden, if that his wit and courage had not carried him through. Once sir William Stanley began to look it, and to avoid both that and other inconveniences, took (some years since) his journey into Spain, 
Sir W. Stanley took his journey into Spain  partly to secure unto himself some estate of living, of which he now (considering this dealing) began to doubt, partly by the invitation of the jesuits, with which order he is exceedingly enchanted, 
Sir William Stanley wholly drected by the jesuits  and to them wholly subjecteth, who dealt for him in such sort with the Cardinal, that he presently sent Parsons away into Spain, to inform the King of his worthiness and virtue: and withal, 
He took with him into Spain Hugh Owen, & George Parsons brother to Parsons the jesuit. He sent E: Crisp before to Rome to solicit his matters with the Cardinal, who returning thence met him afterwards in Spain.  of his experience of the sea coasts of England, but especially of his intelligence about Ireland, which in truth he presumeth to be very great. Parsons played his part in such fort, that sir William Stanley was presently sent for, who upon his arrival did what he covide to persuade the King to send forces for Ireland, but belike there was not such great credit given him as he expected there should be, insomuch that he wrote Letters to Holte the jesuite, being in Brussels, (which is his countryman, and one upon whom he chief relieth) of great discontentment, signifying that his entertainment was far colder than he expected. 
Sir W: Stanley sent to Coronia  Within short space after he was sent down to the king's navy, lying at Coronia, where a while he remained with the Adelantado. In the mean time his regiment began to drop and droop away, in such sort, that what for lack of sustenance, & through ill usage, the number of them was so melted, that they were not in all above an hundred and fifty: & for the chiefest captains, leaders, and gentlemen, they did both so much mislike the base handling of matters, & also the practices there daily set abroach against their country, 
Sir W: Stanley forsaken by his Captains  that they made (by means) intercession to her majesty for their pardon, which of her merciful and royal benignity she granted, so that such of them as remain alive, do enjoy their Country, and can testify this which I have said to be true. But now to return to York, whom I left in Daventre, assured both by Verdugos promises and his own hopes, of the towns government: when he saw Grave Harman make his entry as new created governor by the Duke's appointment, you must imagine that it grieved him to the very gall: but forced he was to dissemble it with his best patience. Nevertheless having in the town a gallant company of lances, in despite of them he flourished & bore his head aloft, ranging and scouring over the whole country, bringing in daily great booties, & growing rich. This prosperity of his was a great blemish in their eye, for they knew him to be discontented and of a dangerous humour, so that they did not greatly trust him: him therefore fairly one day at dinner they caused to be poisoned, where likewise poisoned with him young Richard Souch, and Robert Fen priest, 
York poisoned by the Spaniard. Richard Souch and Robert Fen priest  but he belike having swallowed the chief substance, they only met with the drams, so that he died miserably, and they fell sick & broke out into many pustules & biles, yet afterwards recovered, and did give this testimony, his breath was no sooner out of his body, but Trias, a Spanish Captain, and Grave Harman, the new governor, rushed into his lodging, to break up his coffers, in which being withstood by York's Lieutenant john Bowcer, and by Edward Bowcer his brother, 
I: Bowcer and his brother Edward Bowcer murdered by the Spaniard  they caused their guards at noon days to enter in upon them, and most inhumanly and barbarously to murder them both in their own presence: which worthy exploit being performed, they broke up his coffers, took out his jewels, plate, and money, of which they found great store, appropriating the same to their own use, as likewise they did his horses, arms, & furniture, though he by testament had bequeathed them to a little youth, his brother's son, called Edmond York, being then in those parts with him. Lastly, they chased his whole company out of the town, 
York's company barbarously entreated by the Spaniard  and spoiled their baggage at the gates, who (poor men) seeing their Captain poisoned, their Lieutenant murdered, and themselves so unchristanly dealt withal, repaired to Verdugo, imploring his help and assistance in so hard an extremity, who for recompense, very charitably cashiered them all without the receipt of one penny.  
Afterwards when the fame of this poisoning grew rife abroad, they gave out & published, that some one had done it suborned thereunto by the Council of England, but if there had been no other proof (as there were infinite) yet the sequel of their doings, their murdering of his friends, and the robbing of his treasure, showed by whom it was done, & whereat they aimed. Thus much as touching the usage which they received from the king and his ministers: now keeping the course I began, let us see with what prosperity it pleased God to bless this action of sir William Stanleys', & those whom he used as instruments therein.  
After his coming into the king's service, he divided his regiment, which was the greatest part Irish, into six companies. The leading of his own company he gave to Peter Win, 
The names of sir W. Stanleys' Captains  in which room afterwards, (master Winne discharging himself) he placed one Hart, an old soldier and follower of his. The other five companies he gave to Gwin, Salisbury, Eton, Reinolds, and Harrison, the sergeant maiorship he gave to one Simon Scurlocke, an Irish Gentleman, but above all the rest, he himself conversed most in kindness of love and affection with one R. Ashton, who had been his bedfellow, and the greatest furtherer of him in this enterprise. The four first named, after humble suit made unto her majesties honourable council for their pardon, returned into England, and employed themselves with great commendation in her majesties service.  
Gwin went first with my Lord of Essex, & lastly with sir Roger Williams over into France, as sergeant mayor of his regiment, 
Captain Gwin slain before Roan  where being wounded in a skirmish before the walls of Roan, he languished thereof grievously some three or four weeks, and finally ended his days at Diep.  
Peter Win likewise went over with my L. of Essex into France, & now lastly hearing of the Turks descent into Hungary, 
Captain Peter Win slain in Hungary by the Turks  obtained leave to go serve in the Christian army against him, where he was exceedingly well entertained, and honoured with the leading of a company of footmen. But now in the late overthrow given by the Turk to Archduke Mathias, it is reported that he was slain. I could wish the report to be untrue, for he was a man of singular good parts, and might have done her Majesty much good service. 
Captain Eton died in the Portugal voyage   
james Eton went the Portugal voyage with sir Frances Drake, where with the extremity of sickness he died on the way.  
Only Captain Salisbury liveth, but hath tasted his part of as much adverse fortune, as truly I think, his very enemies could wish him.  

Captain Reynoldes died at Brussels of a bloody flix  Reinolds labouring with all instance by his friends here in England for his pardon, was prevented of his return by a cruel bloody flux, of the which he died in Brussels.  
Harison was one morning, as the companies marched, run through the body & slain, 
Captain Harison slain by a soldier of the regiment  by a baggage fellow of the regiment, whom he had stricken the night before  
Scurlocke the sergeant mayor, straggling with certain of the soldiers abroad, was encountered by the peasants, 
Scurlocke the sergeant mayor burned alive by the peasants  & chased up into a Church steeple, where finally both he and they, refusing to submit themselves to the fury of the clowns, were burnt alive.  
Roger Ashton coming lately into England, was apprehended & executed at Tyburn for treason. 
Roger Ashton executed for high treason  If God himself lay it down as one of his blessings, that he will give the righteous long & many happy days on the earth, surely then the taking of these men away in the best of their years by such violent ends, in my judgement is an apparantargument of his wrath, from which of his divine and inestimable mercy, I beseech him to deliver us.  
Neither were it only the Captains that thus perished, but in a manner all the rest, though I trouble you not with their particular names and discourses, in so much, that lately (the old English and Irish soldiers being worn out, sir W. Stanley was feign to fill up his regiment with Walloons and Dutchmen) appointing new Captains over them, 
jaques, Lieutenant Colonel to sir W. Stanley  & making one jaques Francisco his Lieutenant Colonel: one borne in Antwerp of Italian parents, but from his infancy brought up in England, and in many duties tied both to the nation, and to sundry Gentlemen of the same, for many their loves and liberalities towards him, especially to the late Lord Chancellor, whom he served, and who had always been his especial good friend and favourer. He followed a while the wars of Ireland, where he behaved himself so well, that he was advanced to honest degrees in her majesties service, such as among soldiers are accounted honourable and of reputation, at length being brought thence, not without great suspicion of ill carrying himself in matter of allegiance to her Majesty, yet he found such assured friends, that he did not only recover his liberty and freedom, but also tasted very deeply of their liberalities, such, as I think some of them, though very honourable, scarcely ever used the like to any, and engaged with these courtesies, which for ever would have tied a thankful mind, he was suffered to departed the realm. All which notwithstanding, it is reported, that there is not any beyond the sea, that doth run a more violent and unreverent course against the person of her Majesty, and the state of our Country than he doth, at which truly I do much wonder, how a mind not altogether void of reason and humanity, can suffer itself to sink into so deep a degree of ingratitude. Let him yet at length look into his own conscience, and if so many benefits received claim not his fidelity & service, yet at least let them keep him from attempting villainy, I speak this in respect of his own good, and not that he nor ten thousand more such as he is, is able to do her Majesty or her realm a halfpenny worth of harm, for the mighty hand of God, and the approved valour of her faithful subjects are able, and will always defend and protect her against whatsoever violence of whosoever her malicious enemies, who hitherto have done her no farther harm, than themselves to perish, and to be confounded in their own devices, and I hope it shall never be otherwise. But as for jaques, if he will needs run on his desperate course, forgetful of the oaths & protestations he made when he departed out of England, let him likewise attend that scourge and punishment which ever followeth such infidelity.  
As for the other Captains & Gentlemen that have any true English blood in them, let them yet (for they are those to whom I chief intent my speeches) look with a discreeter judgement into the depth of their estates, let them not tyre out their years and youth in so comfortless and unrewarded a service, the end whereof is never other than untimely death, desolation, or beggary, let them not trust themselves to sleep in the bosom of a flattering stepmother, that holdeth a knife in her hand to cut their throats, when they may securely throw themselves into the arms of a loving natural mother, that will receive them, coming like penitent and obedient children, with true tears & perfect joy. Let them cast back their eyes upon the glory and greatness of her Majesty, their sovereign Princess, who in deed is a true and loving mother to us all, let them but look into the happy and blessed estate of their native Country, and finally consider the duty they do owe unto them both. They are not yet so far passed, but that their submission may be received: yea, and such services they may do, highly rewarded too.  
But leaving these digressions, to which I know not what zeal transporteth me, judge now (I pray you) what reward, honour, & advancement you may expect of the king of Spain, that never deserved of him any favour or good usage, when you see these men suffered to perish, and that in so miserable estate, that have done him so many, so great, and so weighty services. But perchance you will say that he hath dealt better with private men than he hath done with those tumultuous military troops: if you can name me but any one that he hath raised or advanced to honour, or that liveth richly or wealthily in his service, I will name you an hundred that being Gentlemen of good houses & of worthy merit, have consumed, languished, and been brought to nothing in his service, yea, & some of them perished & died for lack of sustenance. You perchance will name Hugh Owen, & in good faith he is the only man that ever I knew advanced, 
Hugh Owen  credited, or graced in his service: and yet (God wots) all that he getteth is no more than to maintain him in a mean estate or show, with a man only or two to serve him: where on the other side, I will reckon you up of those that are only for want of things necessary, & of pure poverty, 
Sundry English Gentlemen of good houses that have perished in the King of Spain's service.  consumed and dead, M. Dakers, Michael Tempest, old Norton, Israel Harman, Markenfield, Tremaine, straddling, Henry Carew, Edward Allen, Fleming, Suthwell, Bulmer, with sundry others of good race & credit in their country.  
But to recite unto you the names of those that do yet live so poorly & uncomfortably in his pension, would be a matter too tedious, & therefore take them all in general, C. Paget only excepted, who came well furnished with crowns out of England, & likewise inherited many good things that my L. Paget left unto him at his death, and examine them one from another from my L. of Westmoreland down even to the very lowest, and if there be in the whole world a more miserable and discontented troop of Gentlemen, let me never be credited in any thing else that I shall tell you. And because you shall yourself the better judge, I will tell you what payment they have of such pensions as the king hath given them.  
They had granted them at Bruges the first day of August, in the year one thousand five hundred eighty eight, a general Liberanca, to receive three months pay a piece of their pensions. But first before I go any further, I think it very necessary to let you understand what manner of thing this Liberanca is, of which I speak, to the end that you may be acquainted with the inventions and crafty delays that they use in this matter of payment: for if you have not especial favour, it will be six months after the grant thereof, do what you can, afore it will be fully signed, and in estate, 
〈◊〉 manner of payment that is that is granted by way of Liberanca  for you to demand your money. A Liberanca, is a bill of assignation for the receipt of money granted to some one in particular, or to two or three jointly, or a hundred or more, as occasion shall require, it is first drawn, and underneath signed by the chief Secretory that attendeth on the general: it is directed by the Duke unto the treasurer general, commanding him to pay the same of whatsoever money he shall have within his charge, but first to see that the same be perused and registered in both the offices of the two Contadors of the army, and signed with their names & rubrikes, and then that it be likewise registered, perused & rubrikt by the Veedor general, and signed with his name. 
The Veedor is as it were a censor or overseer of all the other officers, and is a man of great & principal dignity  After this he expresseth the causes that moveth him to grant the sum of money to the party that bringeth the Liberanca, with many other particularities. This is the manner of a Liberanca, without which there is not there any payment made of money to any man, unless it be by secret billets from the general, which are but seldom, and that upon secret & sudden causes, as treachery, intelligence, or espial, or some such base matter as requireth secrecy, and not to be delayed. The words of such billets, 
payment by secret billets.  are to command the treasurer to pay unto the bringer for secret services, so much money as is therein expressed: which without more words, being signed with the Duke's hand, is presently dispached. But unless it have been to some notable spy, few such billets have fallen to any englishman's share. As for the Liberanca, which is the ordinary and usual kind of payment, after that by tedious labour and solicitation, a man hath in six months space gotten all their hands, yet in a manner he is never the nearer, for some of them are never paid, & scarcely any till they be two or three years old, if in the mean time the party lose his Liberança, there is no recovery of a new by any means possible: if he die, no benefit thereof riseth to his wife, children, or heirs, for a Liberança is never paid but personally to him in whose name it is first granted. If it be with long carriage fretted, or the names of those that signed it obscured, it is a sufficient cavil to frustrate the payment, insomuch that one Camel, 
A pretty jest of one Camel, a Scotchman  a Scotchman, came with a fair piece of parchment in his hand, to Cosmo the Secretary, humbly desiring that his Liberança might be therein engrossed, for in paper he was sure it would be worn out before he should recover the payment.  
Such a Liberança (I say) as this was granted to the English pensioners in the year abovesaid, for three months pay, of which till October in the year 1590. I am sure they had not received one penny, how long they stayed without it afterwards I know not; for of later time I cannot give any so certain assurance, only the common report is, that things there are not much bettered, but now especially since the Duke of Parmas' death much impaired.  
Their necessity was great, and they followed the Duke from town to town, importunately requiring payment, but especially they never left Cosmo, the Duke's Secretary in quiet, who to rid himself of their troublesome importunities, addressed them to Baptista Spinola, a Genovese Banker dwelling in Antwerp, giving them his Letter, and sending the same by one Henry Haslewood, requesting him to relieve those distressed English Gentlemen, and to buy their Liberança, which he doubted not but they would sell good cheap greatly to his profit: the whole sum was ten thousand crowns, which Cosmo promised him should be allowed and passed in the reckoning which he had with the king. Haslewood in the name of the rest offered him the said sum for six thousand: but Spinola utterly refused the same, saying he would not take it for two thousand: and withal, he desired that he might not meddle any more with the king, wishing that he had not meddled with him so much. So that they were feign to return poor and pennyless, and did in that instant of which I speak, live in so poor and pitiful, a sort, that truly it was a grief to see it: insomuch that I knew a Gentleman that sold his part there, amounting to 24. pounds, for three pounds. But perchance you will say he giveth great pensions, & intertaineth many of our nation. It is true in deed, in show he doth so, and therewith doth blear the world's eyes, with an appearance of great liberality. But his payment & usage considered, (I protest unto you that I speak unfeignedly) I do not know any estate of life in England so mean, which I do not much prefer before being here a pensioner to the king of Spain. I leave the judgement of the truth hereof to those that have tried it: you have many of them amongst you, confer with them, and examine them upon their conscience. As for my part, in good faith I cannot imagine the cause why he intertaineth us, unless it be to use us as stales to allure others, connsidering the hatred that he and his beareth us, and so under the dissembled colour of a false affection, at length to overthrow us all.  
Thus much I dare boldly say, because through the conference that I have had with them I do know it assuredly, that even those of our nation which do most serve his turn, howsoever in outward appearance they seem for some particular causes to magnify and extol his liberality, yet in their own secret conceits they do imagine and know nothing in the world to be more reproachful, base, and contemptible, than to be an Entretenido in the king of Spain's service, especially if he serve not in the wars, and have his entertainment assigned him in some company or other, which few or none of our Countrymen have, chiefly those of the better sort. As for those that have their pensions granted them to follow the court without any obligation of service, as in a manner all the pensions granted to the Englishmen are, the Spanish soldier maketh the most base and contemptible reckoning of them that may be, even as of men that live by charity, as our poor knights do at Windsor. 
English pensioners there utterly scorned and unregarded  But to the end you may in this point clearly discern the manner of their usage, you must understand that the king granteth two manner of pensions or extraordinary pays, bestowing upon men of desert either of them, as the occasion and the quality of their service shall require: the one called by the name of Entertainment, and the other Ventaja in the Patents wherein they are granted. 
The difference between two kinds of pensions or payments, which the king giveth to such as serve him, the one called Entretenumento, the other Ventaja.  The first which they call Entertainment, is such as is granted to our Countrymen, & to straggling Italians, and to some cashiered Captains, such as are of best regard, and to strangers of other nations, who are never paid till the whole army be satisfied, & all other occasions defrayed, then if any overplus remain, which seldom happeneth, somewhat thereof perchance may come to their share. This pension is very casual, and hath often been abolished & taken away quite, as well from the English as from all other nations: witness Charles Browne, Hugh Owen, and Ralph Ligons, that were feign four years since, upon that occasion to go into Spain, where after long & great suit, they brought down order again to have the same renewed, yet still commonly once a year there comes an alarum among them, that the king will not be any longer at the charge of so many pensions, and in danger to be turned out of pay. And some three or four years agone they were all commanded to go down to the army, and to put themselves in service under some company, or otherwise not to expect any pension or payment: which how unfitting it is, and unworthy to men brought up in other courses, as most of them are, I leave to your judgement, yet the misery of that bondage to which they have subjecteth themselves, must endure all: and which is most miserable, must not complain when they are stricken. The other payment or pension which is called Ventaya, as it is much more honourable, because (though very usual among the Spaniards and all other nations, ours excepted) yet they are never granted but upon pretence of good service done, or some duenes of desert: they that have them are more respectively regarded and better paid than the other, and they are never taken from them, so long as they follow the king's service. Many of our nation have served among the Spaniards, yet to this day did I never know any one graced with one of these Ventayas, though they are common to all other nations, yea, even to the Germans, though granted to them by the name of Sobrepagas, which in effect is all one.  
If I were guilty to myself, that this which I do write were untrue, I should greatly fear the shame of reproof in a matter so manifest, especially there being now in England many that are as well or better acquainted with these matters than myself, & can contradict me where I err. But grounding myself upon the confidence of an assured truth, I cannot but wonder, these things being so, how any that hath the true feeling of that which pertaineth to the honour of a gentleman, can endure an usage so scornful & contumelious as this which daily they receive from the Spaniard: of which if you desire one example for all, this may satisfy you which followeth. 
The most contemptible usage of the English at Bruges  At such time as the Duke of Parma lay at Bruges, busy about his preparations for England, & attending the Spanish fleet, when they all expected to be made knights, Colonels, Captains, & conductor of the army, & to be filled with crowns, they were so far from those matters with which they flattered themselves, that in stead of being honoured and advanced, they were the only rejected & contemned people that followed the court, all nations else being relieved with some months pay, they only excepted. And which is more, whereas they moved the duke sundry times to know his pleasure, how he would dispose of them in that journey, telling him beside, that upon the well usage of them depended much matter of importance, as the alluring & drawing unto them other Gentlemen of their kinsmen & friends, who upon hope of the like good usage, honour, & advancement, would be able to do great service upon their landing, whereas contrariwise seeing them come over so poor in show, without credit, money, or arms, like lackeys, (for so were the words of their request) it would be a cause to terrify them from undertaking of any such course: they were by the Duke scornfully & with derision rejected, neither did he vouchsafe to give them any other answer, than only that he would think upon it. But on the night in which upon the hurly burlie of the coming of the Spanish navy, they thought to embark, he departed towards Donckerk, leaving them all behind, not thinking them any way worthy to be called upon, or to be taken with him. Wheruepon the Earl of Westmoreland, the L. Paget, & sundry of the better sort, laid their heads together, & made their complaint unto the D. of Pastrana, (who was newly come out of Spain with great favours from the king, 
The D. of Pastrana supposed to be the kings bastard  & there lived in great honour and applause among the Spaniards) but by him, some say, they were as basely and scornfully handled as by the other. The Spaniards did much disdain their aggravation of their ability and means to facilite the king's enterprise for England, insomuch that one Don Ambrosio, a man of principal quality, asked them in choler whether they thought the king of Spain not puissant enough to win England with out them & their friends. This evil entreaty wrought so great an apprehension in my L. Paget (who both in regard of his father's especial credit in times passed with the king, 
The L: Paget died at Brussels  as also of his own quality and carriage, had presumed upon much better usage) that he retired himself to Brussels, where what with the conceit of this grief, & what with other accidents, he shortly ended his life. Sir W. Stanley took it also in such disdainful sort, that he was not called to the counsel of the wars, (whereas he presumed & gave out, that no man in the army knew more, or was better able in this voyage than himself,) that he sequestered himself from the court, & coming discontented to Antwerp, there hired a house, where four or five months he lived full of melancholy & passion, making evident show that his mind was utterly unable to bear the burden of so great an indignity.  
But whosoever liveth there, must be contented to endure this and a great deal more, for the Spaniards will not be by any means persuaded, that those of our nation living there with them are gentlemen of good houses, qualities, & living in England but rather take them to be such as the Banditi of Italy, men fled out of their Country for theft, debt, robbery, or manslaughter, 
The speeches of a Spanish Captain to sir W:: Stanley  as a Captain of them spared not plainly to tell sir W. Stanley in the passage boat between Antwerp and Brussels, saying that he could not but exceedingly wonder what should move a man, being rich, well descended, and of good living in his Country, to change the same for the service of an opposite foreign Prince, swearing a great oath that all the religion in the world should not make him to do the like.  

The monstrous hateful speeches of the Spaniards, condemning such of our nation as served among them  Likewise a great company of them standing round together in a ring (as their manner is) upon the mere Brigge in Antwerp, and seeing certain English gentlemen pass by, one of them, and he a Captain, by name Lucas, well known by his red beard, bald head, and maimed arms, said that he wondered what the King made with any such vermin in his Country. Another of them swore a great oath, that look how many English men there were in the king's service, there were so many spies & traitors: the third said it were an alms deed to put them all in sacks and to throw them into the river: but the fourth very gently replied, that it would be a better course to send them down to the king's galleys, where in regard of their big joints and broad shoulders, they could not but prove good tuggers at an oar. But these being but the speeches of private men, might the better be borne, 
Speeches of the treasurer general to Thomas Throckmorton.  were they not confirmed by men of greater sort: which whether it be so or no, ask T. Throckmorton, who talking with ivan de Lasture, the king's treasurer general, one day upon the walls of Brussels, wondered why the king having such pretences for England, made no more reckoning of such Englishmen as followed him, who in regard of their parentage and intelligence might be able to do him great services, if they were heartened with somewhat better usage: whereas now by reason of their póuertie and drooping, they were not fit for any thing. To which the treasurer replied, that he was not ignorant of the estate, quality, and condition of all such Englishmen as followed the king, but for his part (swearing a Spanish oath or two) he knew not any one of them in regard of ability to do the king service, worth the straw that lay under his foot.  
The like answer in a manner was given by Francisco Blancocavallo, his advise treasurer in Antwerp, to captain Pernay & other Gentlemen, who being denied by him the payment of certain money they demanded, and speaking of the services they had done unto the king: he answered that he knew not what services they had done, or were able to do, unless it were to spend the king's money in taverns and brothel houses. The like they received from, Sammariba, the Veedors' chief officer, but that the same was accompanied with worse effects. For Captain Barney laying hand on his rapier, making proffer to revenge the hardness of such speeches as were offered him, was presently environed among them, and run through the doublet in a place or two, not without exceeding danger of his life.  
But by the way I think it not amiss to tell you a merry accident that fell out between the treasurer & one Captain Smith, an Englishman, 
A pretty jest between captain Smith and the treasurer general  spoken of before in this Treatise: who being one day well tippled, came in all haste to demand his money of I. de Lasture. He seeing him come in that unreverent sort, grew so far gone with choler as the other was with wine, & reviled him by many foul names, as Perro, Luterano, Borachio, etc. Smith had not a word of Spanish, nor any other language but a little Dutch, wherein he requited the treasurer in as snarling terms as he could, calling him Honscont, Schellam, & Turk. Wherewith the treasurer came in a great rage, and would have thrust him down the stairs, but Smith drew out his dagger, and had without doubt mischieved him, if Colonel Boid & other Scottish Gentlemen that were there present as suitors for money had not come between them. The matter came before the Duke, who as always haring I. de Lasture exceedingly, made but a jest of it, & Smith being sober submitted himself, imputing his fault to the wine, and so the matter was ended.  
I could recite unto you a thousand the like things as these, but they are not worthy the remembering. Returning therefore to my purpose: They are so jealous and suspicious of us, that if any thing prove untowardly in their service, they think it strait to be done by our especial means and intelligence, as upon the taking of Axhill by that honourable and worthy soldier sir P. Sidney, 
The exceeding jealousy of the Spaniards over the English that erue amongst h●em.  Mondragon presently imprisoned Pigot within the castle of Gaunt, took away all things whatsoever he had worth any thing, and the rest he caused his men to rifle and steal, saying openly, that we were all traitors & spies. And if you desire further confirmation of the good opinion & confidence they have of us, tell me what Companies of English they have trusted within these ten years in garrison, I am sure you cannot name one. And whereas sundry English Gentlemen have instantly sued to have their pensions granted them in the castles of Anwarp or Gant, because the payment is there somewhat better, no one hath hitherto been able to obtain the same, so base & of no regard is the estate in which they live. I could allege unto you many other examples of mighty wrongs & disgraces offered unto our nation, whereby they might (if they list) easily discover the hatred the Spaniard beareth them, the suspicious jealousy with which they overlook them, and the danger wherein they stand to have one day all their throats cut. And that this hard dealing and hatred of theirs proceedeth not of any demerit of the English but of a rooted and engrafted malice of the Spaniards to our whole nation, may by many actions of theirs be proved & made manifest. Eor whensoever the fortune of the wars hath delivered any of us into their hands, it is strange to think with what greedy and unsatiable thirst they have desired to shed English blood. 
The cruelty of the Spaniards at Rosendale  As for example: At Rosendale, where sundry English regiments being by the Marshal Byron abandoned and betrayed, were by them defeated and overthrown, it is scarcely credible what barbarous cruelty they used upon men rendered, and demanding mercy upon their knees. But admit all cruelty tolerable during the fury of an execution (though among christians, & men of noble and valorous minds, there is yet a moderation to be used) what bloody inhumanity was ever heard the like to that which they used the next day. For whereas the Italians & Burgonians (moved with a soldierly compassion) had taken many English prisoners, and saved them from the former slaughter: upon the next morning's march, as they brought them forth, thinking to lead them quietly home to their quarter, the Spaniards with a hellish fury, crying Matta, Matta, drew their rapiers, and murdered with many wounds these poor naked men, 
Matta, Matta, Kill, Kill  not suffering a man of them to scape alive.  
Likewise in that treacherous & sinonical practice of graveling, 
Their treachery and cruelty at Grueling  wherein they thought to have entrapped noble sir P. Sidney, how cruelly & tyrannously did they use those poor men of ours, that were sent before to discover it. All were safe, according to promise, whom after they had received into their gates with friendly salutations, and entertained a good space in the town, in the end when they saw the success of the enterprise answered not their bloody, traitorous, and unmanly expectation, they disarmed & unclothed them in the market place, and finally, like cruel butchers, & not like honourable soldiers, murdered them every one.  
We have not (thanks be to God) wanted occasion many times since to cry quittance with them, as namely at the fort of Bergues, where by Grimstones practise they were brought to the trap. There were gentlemen of good worth there present, that advised my L. Willoughby to serve them with the same measure as they had served the poor Englishmen at graveling. But he having ever in all his actions followed the way of honour, disdained unnobly to embase his hands with the unworthy blood of men rendered & unable to resist. Likewise after the overthrow of that their late fleets (which before hand they termed Invincible) when such numbers of them were taken, that the prisons of London were not capable of them, if her Majesty would have followed the example of their own nation, she might have used them as Don ivan did the Walloons after the battle of jeblours; 
The cruelty of the Spaniards towards the Walloons after the battle of jeblours  where taking very near 2000 of them prisoners, the next day after the battle he caused them to be bound two and two together, and to be tumbled headlong over the bridge of Namures into the river of . But her majesty like a Christian princess, full of royal magnanimity (though the mischievous intention of their coming, and the horrible cruelties they that pretended were not unknown unto her) yet caused them to be dispersed into several convenient places, & there upon her charge to be provided for: and lastly, to be sent over into Flanders, 
The nobleness & mercy of her majesty towards the Spanish prisoners  accompanied with ships, artillery, and sufficient convoy of men to warrant their safety by the way. Likewise she permitted those that had been cast a land in Scotland, quietly to pass along her narrow seas, yea, & accompanied them with her safeconduit, though she well knew that their arrival in the low Countries could not but be a great reenforcement to the weakened troops of her armed enemy the Duke of Parma.  
The affection then of the Spaniard being such towards us and our nation as you have heard, I hope those before remembered examples, shall be sufficient to assure and persuade you, that under the k. of Spain's dominion & government there is not any wealth, honour, or advancement to be gotten, but contrariwise, poverty, peril, jealousy, and disgrace.  
Now let us see touching the points of conscience & repose in religion, if the same be to be found here, such as you expect. In a matter of religion I will not take upon me to dispute▪ but will leave the decision thereof to men of greater ability. Only for this time allowing your religion to be good (which surely if it bring not forth better fruits, will hardly be proved to be the true tree) Let us now come to the contentment which you might here receive in free usage of the same, together with the conversation of such other your countrymen as are here of the same profession and religion.  

Divisions, factions, & partialities among the fugitives  First, I think you are not ignorant of the divisions, partialities, and factions that are between them, which surely are such, that I think scarcely in the world there is to be found such a divided sorcery of men, I speak it not in respect of private quarrels and contentions, wherein they have often wounded, maimed, & slain one another: but I mean in regard of different and long enduring factions, 
Four factions or sorts of humours among the fugitives  wherein great parts of them are most maliciously opposite one against another, to the great prejudice and slander of them all. For you must consider that there are amongst their four sorts of humours, of which each sorts himself to his semblable. The one, (and I name them first, for otherwise they would not take it well) pretend to be great state-men and deep politicians, 
Men of state & policy.  these will not vouchsafe to look on any other book but such as treat of high matter, policy, and government, as Bodins' Commonwealth, Machivels' Prince, Lipsius his politics, Manutius his Laws, and such like. Neither is there any of these, no not the least, but thinks himself sufficient to be a Magnifico of Venice. There is a second sort, wholly devoted to the following and faction of the jesuits, 
jesuitisted  serving them as their espials and instruments in whatsoever they employ them: these are very hateful to the rest, and are dangerous to converse withal, not so much in regard that any of them are able to do a chips worth of harm, as of their willingness to do it if they were able. There are others, whom the rest generally in derision call by the name of Patriots, which is to say, 
Patriots: these men desire an alteration in our country, but do not desire that the same should be done with the Spaniards.  lovers and affecters of their Country. These in deed, among all the rest, are men of the greatest temperance and best behaviour, who, howsoever they are in religion contrarily affected, yet you shall never hear them speak unreverently of her Majesty, neither truly do I think that in their hearts they wish her any harm, at leastwise they are very respectious in bewraying it either in word or action, I have heard some of them say, that so they might be suffered to return into England, & to enjoy the liberty of their conscience, they would be contented to be confined within the compass of a poor cottage, & be bound never to come out of it while they lived.  
But of all the rest, the fourth and last are the best fellows, for they fly but a very low pitch, being men utterly void both of learning, wit, and civility, these the rest esteem no otherwise of, 
Idiots & dunces.  than as of very dunces, not fit for any employment. The farthest drift of their religion is, to speak ill of the Queen, to say the Pope is a good man, and to thump their breasts hard when they come to Church: I knew one of them that having sometimes been a petty merchant in England, sold all that ever he had, and putting two hundred pounds in his purse, went to Jerusalem to buy a pound of wax candles, which he brought home upon his back, and withal as much earth of the mount Olivet as he was able to carry: imagining that every dram thereof was able to cast out a legion of devils. In regard of which relics, upon his return to Brussels, he obtained a pension, where he still remaineth: and truly he may be a good man, for I think he liveth in as great poverty as ever did any of the Apostles, though perchance not so voluntary, but the best is, he will not give his best friend the least mite of his holy things, saying that he reserveth them to furnish the Churches in England, when they shall come one day to be Catholic, and hath already appointed what Churches they be that he means to make beholding unto him for this high benefit.  
I would have named the particular names of every one according to the factions to which they are affected, but that I fear this last remembered sort would have been angry with me, and withal, there is another respect or two besides: but above all these, there is one overruling faction, that hath drawn them into mighty partialities and strange extremities one against another. The original whereof sprung out of the Romish Seminary between the English & the Welsh: either party had for favourer and protector a man of great authority, to which leaned Doctor Allen for the one, and Doctor Lewes for the other, a man very wise and learned, 
Contention between D: Lews and D: Allen  and by reason of his age, gravity, and long continuance in those parts, of great authority in the court of Rome, and since in the later end of Pope Gregory, created Bishop of Casano in Naples, but always a very bitter enemy to the jesuits. In fine, each nation with all vehemency laboured for the presidentship and superiority one over the other. The Welshmen pretended the first foundation of the College to have been by a British king, for the perpetual behoof of his Countrymen. The Englishmen likewise alleging their reasons: but in the end do what they could, they were by the Welshmen caused to avoid the house. Whereupon (with their farthels upon their necks, as being ready to departed the town) they presented themselves unto Pope Gregory, whom with a lamentable Oration they moved to take such compassion of them, that he caused them to return, taking (to theirfull contentment) order between them and their adversaries. Notwithstanding which reconciliation, there still remained a great hart-burning & dislike. Shortly after Pope Sixtus determining to make a Cardianall of our Nation, 
Competency between D: Lews & D: Allen for the Cardinalship  there grew for the same great competency between Doctor Lewes & Doctor Allen, each one for the obtaining thereof applying his best friends to the uttermost. But in the end through the instant pursuit of the jesuits, who spared no travel nor expense, they procured unto D. Allen such mighty friends, that the lot and pre-eminence of this dignity fell upon him, of whom, & of the jesuits, and of their faction, were for ever mortally hated, all those that had been any way favourers or well-willers to D. Lewes: but chief & among the rest one Thomas Morgan, 
Morgan hated of the jesuits  a man not inferior to any of them all in drifts of policy, who had been sometimes secretary to the Scottish Queen, & in deed had instantly laboured in the behalf of D. Lewes. The jesuits since have had many a pluck at him, but Morgan being wise, strengthened himself always with such friends, that they could never do him any hurt, but rather ever now and then he gave them a secret blow: he drew wholly unto his faction the L. Paget, the Bishop of Dunglane, a Scotchman of great credit and gravity, C. Paget, T. Throckmorton, Ralph Liggons, and sundry other that esteem themselves to be of the better sort. 
The names of those that held part with Morgan  Notwithstanding all which, so effectual and forcible were the means with which they practised against him, that they got him to be imprisoned in Paris, laying to his charge that he was an intelligencer for sir Frances Walsingham, a traitor to the service of the Queen his mistress, and from time to time a discoverer of her practices, and withal procured the said queen to conceive exceedingly ill of him, and taking the receivers ship of her dowry in France from him, to bestow the same upon the Bishop of Rosse. Yet for all this Morgan found such friends in the court of Rome, that by the Pope's express commandements directed from time to time to his Nuntio then resident at Paris, he was set at liberty, and thereupon began to make his justifications to the world, and withal bitterly to inveigh against his adversaries, & the wrongs which they had done him. Likewise at that instant there was a book printed in Paris, publicly accusing the jesuits of many wicked practices and most malicious impieties, of which they suspected Morgan, and sure I think it was his work, but they could never apparently prove it against him. Therefore seeing that they had in this failed, they determined to take their revenge by another course: to effect the which, they used as an instrument a young Gentleman called Gage, whom by many pratises they suborned & incensed thereunto: the manner whereof was as followeth. Morgan being come down into the low countries in company of the L. Paget, & his brother Charles, having been one night late at evening service in the Church of Saint Gudala at Brussels, was as he came down the church stairs encountered in the dark by Gage, 
Morgan wounded by Gage, suborned thereunto by the jesuits  & by him grieously wounded in the face. Who thereupon presently fled, thinking that he had slain him, but afterwards by the means and earnest pursuit of the L. Paget, was apprehended. The jesuits and their party seemed at the first stiffly to deny that they had been the causers of this fact, but the sequel of their proceed made it most apparent to the whole world. For when Morgan, the L. Paget, and diverse of his friends laboured very earnestly & with petitions unto the duke, to have the rigour & severity of justice to proceed against him by whom this great violence was offered, they first laboured for reconciliation, which being flatly refused, 
Morgan accused by the jesuits of treason.  then to stop the plaintiffs mouths, and to prevent such mischiefs as they feared might ensue, they found no better means than once again to accuse Morgan of treason, laying to his charge sundry points of treachery, as well in former matters concerning the Scottish queen, as also the service & person of the d. of Parma. Besides they accused him to have been a setter on of Gilford & his confederates, in such practices as they had undertaken by sir Frances Walsinghams' warrant & setting on, & to that end they sent Chriton the Scottish jesuite to Paris, to take Giffords' examination, whose imprisonment they had there procured: and withal, they caused all such as any way relied upon them, to take their oath before the auditor general, that in their conscience they though Morgan to be a traitor and a spy: unto the taking of which oath also they laboured earnestly with sundry others, which (they not having their conscience so saleable) refused & utterly denied to do: yet in the mean time while these things were in hand, they wrought so with their forged accusations, that Morgan was clapped close prisoner in a miserable dungeon, called the Truerenborche, where till the D. of Parmas' death he remained: at which time, as it is said, he was set at liberty, and liveth now with the Bishop of Cusano. Upon his apprehension there were above thirty several ciphers found in his closet, in which, abroad in the world he corresponded with great personages: and withal a Letter which he had newly written to the Bishop of Dunglane, very defamatory against the person of the D. of Parma: which incensed the Duke exceedingly against him, & was, without doubt, the chiefest cause of his long imprisonment, for otherwise it is thought he would easily have overpassed the calumniation of the jesuits. In fine, these two factions have sought to overthrow one another's credit in the chiefest courts of christendom, opening of either side such foul matters, and tossing to & fro such filthy & slanderous defamations, that all men cry out against them both, holding them to be traitors, & men of no fidelity. So that undoubtedly I cannot but think him distracted of his wits, that having means to am else where quietly, will make himself a party in these partialities and contentions, which whosoever liveth there must needs do, or else like an enemy to them both be rushed like a ship between two tempests.  
But the pretiest of all is, to see how smoothly they handle the matter with you in England, abusing your simplicity with the subtlety of their words, and the holiness of their, appearance. They make you and the other Catholics of England believe, that what practices & drifts so ever they take in hand, are all for the zeal of religion and advancement of the Catholic cause. And you silly souls think all they say to be Gospel; whereas (God wots) religion is the least matter of a thousand that they think upon. The only point they aim at, being lost companions at home, 
The drift of the English traitors abroad:  is to make themselves great where they are, & that by making you hazard your lives, repuputations, and credits, and to that end they are always breeding of practices and conspiracies, both within and without the realm, caring not what success they take: if they prove well, than they will have the praise, merit, honour, and reward thereof: if otherwise, than they say their good will must be accepted, in great matters the attempt is sufficient. And thereby they think to win the reputation to be accounted great state men, and contrivers of weighty matters, not caring in the mean time for the security of them by whom they work, as appeareth by the example and fall of many brave gentlemen of England, whom by their treacherous practices they have brought to ruin and destruction. They very well knew that when they first began to set abroach the matter of Babbington & his disloyal confederates, that the effecting thereof in such sort as they had plotted it, was altogether unpossible, 
Babington and his confederates.  as Mendoza the Spanish Ambassador, told Ballard the priest, their instrument in contriving the same, when he was at first in Paris brought unto him by C. Paget, to desire him to inform the king his master of their intention, and withal, that at a day appointed, there might be a force & assistance of men ready to correspond with them. But that was all one, so they might be accounted men of great reach, and dealers in such high state matters, they spared not to proceed in enchanting those poor unexperienced young gentlemen, never leaving till they had brought them to their ends, to the utter ruin of them and their houses, in such sort as to the whole world is manifest, and needs not to be recited.  
Let therefore all the gentlemen of England, especially the catholics, (who in regard of their religion & credulity, are by them likeliest to be ensnared) take heed & beware of having any thing to do with this pestilent and factious race of people, for they speak so devoutly, look so smoothly, and write with such counterfeited gravity and holiness, that it is hard for any man to eschew their deadly baits, unless he do first know the falsehood & treachery under which they do colour and shroud them. What else hath entangled M. Shelly in these extreme calamities? 
M. Shelly  What likewise brought the late Earl of Northumberlanà, (who never before was once detected of the least disloyalty towards his Prince or Country) into so great troubles and distresses, 
The late Earl of Northumberland  and finally to so tragical & despairful an end, but only these outlandish practices, & their conference with counterfeit Mope, 
Charles Paget.  who was sent out of France by this seditious troop, to the end to overthrow both the one and the other?  
What beside hath been the cause of bringing so many other Gentlemen to the loss of their lives and livings, that lived before in ease, repose, and security of conscience. And which is more, were not they the only contrivers of the death of the Q. of Scotland, by setting her in continual practice one upon another against the sacred person and royal estate of our most gracious Sovereign, 
The Queen of Scotland  the Queen's majesty, so that of violent necessity, her majesty, though tardif, unwilling, and with great grief, at the general and instant petition of all her most loving and faithful subjects (whose only weal and comfort dependeth upon her long life and prosperity) to satisfy them, and to preserve the estate of her noble and flourishing realm in quiet, was constrained to secure the sceptre in her own hands, by taking away the life of her that sought to wrest it from her: though how much the nobleness of her mind was therewith aggrieved, the whole world that hath known any thing of her proceed therein, either before or after, can be a witness. I say not this only of myself, though I and all the world else do know it to be true, that these their dealings have made them hateful and detestable even to those of their own religion, insomuch that a French jesuit termeth them all in general, in a book which he hath written touching the Q. of Scotland's death, a viperous, mischievous, and faithless kind of people, 
The censure of a French jesuite concerning the English Fugitives  treacherous to those they deal withal, disdainful, arrogant, ambitious, and worthy to be extermined out of the utmost bounds of the world: besides many such other goodly epithets, with which he beutifies them in their colours: his whole book being nothing but railing against English fugitives, wishing all princes, noble men, and gentlemen whatsoever, to beware and take heed of them, and that in such earnest, vehement, & invective manner, that it is not possible to be more.  
And yet for all so many tragical ends of their bloody and traitorous endeavours, are they moved with any the least spark of repentance. Neither hath the ruin of so many of you their countrymen, wrought and contrived by their practice, allurement, & persuasion, bred in them any feeling of remorse or conscience, but rather thereby animated & encouraged to set new conspiracies & treasons abroach, with meaning in deed by sowing seditions among you, and by opposing you against the state, to make you the only instruments one of the others ruin, & so to make the way open to the Spanish tyrant. I will not speak any thing of their infinite former practices, as well in Ireland as within this realm, against the person of her majesty, the quietness of either country, wherein still their instruments have by violent ends miserably perished: which desolations procured by their only practice (but that they are utterly void of all christian humanity) might have served to persuade them, that God is not pleased with their action, or at least the bloody quarters of so many Gentlemen as the sword of justice from time to time, (constrained by their horrible attempts) hath divided & dispersed about the walls & turrets of London, and other places in this Realm, might have strooken a terror into their minds, never more to hazard the lives of their countrymen, in so wicked & tragical an enterprise. But no whit at all are their uncharitable & stony hearts herewith touched, but rather still incensed more & more to practise the desolation of this noble realm, and the death of our most dear and dreaded Sovereign, no whit at all regarding the greatness of her majesty, the same being of all other nations had in such regard & reverence, nor the tenderness of her sex, which even amongst the most barbarous nations, hath been always a safeguard against violence: nor lastly the shining brightness of her virtue, which hath moved the remotest regions of the world to admire her, & the greatest princes living, some by themselves, some by their ambassadors, to offer herall honour, service, & reverence.  
All this notwithstanding, these men, according to the confession of their instruments lately executed, keep a solemn council table, 
Holt the jesuite chief precedent of this damnable crew.  wherein nothing is handled but new & daily practices for the shortening of her majesties most glorious life, though they see how miraculously God blesseth and defendeth her, and that as the giants which did shoot against heaven, 
The obstinacy of the English traitors  they are still wounded with the fall of their own arrows.  
What followed of their late practice with that worthy and honourable gentleman, Ferdinando late Earl of Derby, but only that it brought poor Heskits, their instrument for execution thereof, 
Heskits sent by them to practise with Ferdinando Earl of Derby  to the gallows, who bitterly with tears bewailed their acquaintance, and naming sir William Stanley and others, cursed the time that he ever had known any of them?  
But all had been well, if his death only, or the death of a thousand more such traitors, had concluded the tragedy, so that the noble Earl had not likewise with his fall given all England cause to cry out upon them, for when they had once fully discovered the loyalty of his affection towards her Majesty, and the hatred that he bore to them and their faction, either of which he well testified by the apprehension of Heskits, he came shortly afterwards to the end of his life, whether by their practice or no, God knoweth, & time will discover. But that so it was (the circumstance of the matter, & the accidents of his sickness considered) there is nothing more likely.  
Having herein failed, presently they set new instruments awork, as Cullen the Irishman, York, & Williams, promising great rewards, 
Cullen, York, and Williams.  & giving them instructions how they should behave themselves upon the landing, for the better accomplishing thereof, but the end was, that after having confessed all the circumstances of this hateful act, and the names and means of them that laboured them thereunto, and cursed the authors and contrivers of the horrible treason by them intended, they ended their lives at Tyburn, and their quarrters were dispersed about the gates of London. But some may perchance demand of me what their meaning herein may be, or what credit, commodity, or gain might have alured them to enter in these beforesaid so wicked & detestable inclinations. For answer hereunto: first I told you that so they might be accounted and reputed for great state-men, high spirited, and of deep action, to procure that reputation & credit, they care not whose estate of life they endanger. But besides this also which we have already spoken of, they have also farther meanings and drifts, 
Another drift of the English fugitives.  as those that do look deepliest & with greatest heedfulness into their actions do verily imagine, having by sundry their proceedings evidently discoured the same: of which the chiefest is, that as they are of all people living the most ambitious, so seeing this beggarly service doth not fit their humours, they do feed themselves with an imagination of the time to come, I mean a Spanish or Romish world in our Country, at which time the doubt not the long time of their exile, sufferance, & loss of their livings considered (for so is their phrase & manner of speech) to become mighty and great men, and to have principal dignity, sway, and authority in our country. Marry again on the otherside, considering that the most part of them are but base defamed companions, of no birth or living, and that there are in England many Gentlemen of the same religion of great quality and houses, that would disdain to have such mates preferred before them in quality or degree. They have gone by all means possible they can, about with their practices and colourable devices to root them out, so serving their onwe turns two ways: the one to win unto themselves the name and reputation of men of service, the other to rid out of the way those that they imagine would stand in competency with them, but (God be thanked) the chiefest harm their conspiracies have done hitherto, hath been to perish in their own devices. 
Spies sent by them into England  A little before the coming of the Spanish fleet, they sent their espials, & among them some that were priests, in disguised garments, with instructions to sound the meaning of such Gentlemen as they thought to be favourers of their religion, & to incline their minds to the Spanish cause, encouraging them to take arms against her majesty: to which they printed in the English tongue many hundred of books in Antwerp, barreling them up until such time as the army should have been landed, 
Seditious books printed in Antwerp.  and then their meaning was to have dispersed them, expryssing therein many great promises and large rewards to such as should assist or do any manner of service to the Catholic party, terrifying the rest with bitter menaces. In fine, the whole being full of traitorous and proud threatening speeches, as well against her majesty, as against all such her faithful subjects as should have taken her part. Likewise they obtained of the Pope & the king, that as many as had their voices in the parliament house at such time as the queen of Scotland was adjudged to die, of what degree soever they were, should be deprived not only of their lives & livings, but that their posterity also should be for ever disinherited and disnobled. The like also they threatened in their books, to all such, as well noble men as others, that should after the landing of the catholic army persist in arms against the same. But all this by the goodness of God, hath but served to discover their wicked intentions, and to animate all true Englishmen to persist with the greater love, unity, & courage in obedience to her majesty.  
Turning therefore my speeches to you, O unnatural & degenerated Englishmen, to those whom you should obey treacherous & unfaithful, and of those that you do obey, contemned & made slaves: How can you endure to thirst after the destruction of so sweet a country, in which you received your being, & that gave you nurture when you were young? Why do you abuse religion, in making the same a mask to your intended treasons? How can you find in your hearts to seek the destruction of so benign a prince, & the subversion of so glorious an estate, by bringing into the bowels thereof the barbarous arms of so insolent an enemy, who where he is victorious, staineth the earth with blood, the air with blasphemy, and the heavens with his abominable & luxurious incontinencies, let Flanders, Portugal, Hispaniola, & the other princes of India be witness. The old worthy Romans thought it the most heroical thing that might be, to vow themselves sometimes to death for their country, 
The two Deccis. Tit. Liu.  and even to spend their lives in defence of their altars, temples, & monuments of their elders: but you seek to see your country bathing in the blood of your parents, kindred, & friends, to see your cities, graves, & temples of your predecessors consumed with fire, to see your virgins deflowered, your women ravished, and finally to bring the noblest of nations to a perpetual slavery & servitude, yea, and that of the most cruel nation that liveth, a nation not fully an hundred years since wholly they received christianity, & as yet are in their heart's Pagans & Moors, from profession of which they are only restrained by the severe bridle of their cruel & sanquinary inquisition: which paganism of theirs, though in their speeches they dare not manifest, yet do they in their abominations discover the same. If the Numantines, Saguntines, and Nessatians burned their towns, slew their wives and children, & finally themselves, rather than they would receive the yoke of worthy & virtuous nations that assailed them. What should we then do, whom our virtuous ancestors have left honoured with the invincible trophies of so many victories over great and mighty nations, yea over Spanie itself, rather than to endure the insolent, wicked, & tyrannous government of that nation, whom all Europe hath in horror, leaving to our posterity after us a perpetual servitude and bondage, as an everlasting memory of our cowardice.  
But leaving this until a fit time, I hope that his already said shall be sufficient to make you clearly & plainly understand, that there is not to be found among these disentions, partialities, conspiracies & treasons, that sweetness, liberty, and tranquillity of conscience which you expect & look for, but rather turmoil, grief, & distraction of mind, with a perpetual grudging & remorse of conscience, scandalised with infinite examples of evil life, impiety, defamation, & perjury, on the one side offensive to her Majesty and the state of your country, & on the other side subjecteth to the disdain & bitter scorn of the Spaniard, 
The Spaniarde esteemeth the service, but scorneth the traitor  who howsoever he respect the service, yet never regard the person of a traitor, as a great noble man in Spain spared not to tell Charles the fift, when by him he was commanded to lodge the Duke of Bourbon in his house at Madryle, saying that he would willingly obey his Majesty, 
The answer of a noble man to Charles the fift  but protesting withal by a great oath, that he would set it a fire so soon as the Duke should be out of it, for his predecessors had not built it to be an harbour for traitors. Likewise when Christian var de Veque had betrayed, 
The king's recompense to Christian var de Veque, for betraying to him the castle of S. john's in Portugal  for a promised great pension, the castle of S. john, being one of the most important fortresses for Portugal, to this k. Philip that now is: how & with what reward was he honoured? Even truly with such as a traitor deserveth, for being entertained a while with hope, till such time as the king saw himself absolute master of all, he was then for his pains banished, & confined to the wars of Africa for ten years. The like usage in a manner, received all his fellows that had betrayed their lawful king, by delivering such places as they held in government, or by doing the king of Spain any other service to the prejudice of Don Antonio. Who when they came afterwards to demand recompense, were answered that the king did not use to buy that which was his own, and therefore wished them to take heed how they mentioned any such matter, lest thereby they came to be called further into question.  
Not much more pleasing was the speech that sir W. Stanley received from Verdugo, 
The speech of Verdugo to sir W:: Stanley  who hearing him one day with passion transported into violent speeches against his country, wished him to use moderation, for though he had offended his country, his country never offended him.  
Likewise R. York at dinner one day with Count Charles of Mansfet, at his house in Brussels, 
Count Charles of Mansfet to R: York  beginning to use unbeseeming speeches of her Majesty, was commanded by the Count to hold his peace, praying him thence forward to be better acquainted with the customs of his table, which did not give any man privilege to speak unreverently of Princes. So that (as I said) there is nothing more apparent than the scornful account the Spaniard maketh of our persons, howsoever for his own purpose he embraceth our services. 
Two Seminaries erected by the king in Spain, one at Valladolid, the other at Ciuil● & two in the low countries, the one at Douai & the other at Saint Homars.  But perchance some of you will say, it is not your intentions to serve him in his wars, or to meddle with any matter of estate, but whereas he hath now charitably & liberally erected four Seminaries for the behoof of English students, there quietly to pass your time, & to apply your book in one of them, not coming among these contentious fellows I speak of, nor so much as once to think of them. I do not much mislike the simple sincereness of your intention, but yet if I might counsel you, I would wish you to look a little better into the matter, before you engage yourself in any such course. Wise men are not carried away with the appearance of things, but in matters that are doubtful, do always suspect the worst. The worst wine hath always the fairest ivy bush: the foulest serpents lie under the best and rankest grass: and the birds that fly unto the bait without regarding the lime twigs, are easiliest entangled. The Troyans' seeing the fair and fertile fields of Sicilia, bended their oars thither, but Alchimedes cried unto them to launch away, for Poliphemus was there. Undoubtedly the love and zeal which the king seemeth to bear unto those of our nation is great, in inviting them to study in his countries, & to that end preparing such convenient places for them. But I have often heard say, that the fawning flatteries of an enemy are far more dangerous than the frowning apprehension of a friend. 
The flattery of an enemy more dangerous than the reprehension of a friend  joab killed Abner when he embraced him, and the Syrensings when she allures to death. For to what else can I liken these favours of the king of Spain, than to the songs of a Siren, or to the kisses of an enemy, under which he shadoweth the deep and deadly mischief that he intendeth to our nation, & to none deardlier than to those that embrace his offers, such I mean as do plant themselves in his new erected colleges, of which (if we were not altogether blinded, or rather cruelly bewitched with some magical sorcery) the proofs are to apparent. For if it be for their good he allureth them thither, why then (if they attain to such degrees of learning as are fit for dignity & promotion) doth he not advance them to Bishoprics, 
The cause why the king allureth Englishmen to his Seminaries.  Deaneries, Abbeys, Chanonries, & other such spiritual dignities as they are capable of? Oh no, there is no such matter, he hath other ways in which he must employ them, which are such as he well knoweth cannot cost them less than their lives, which though he shadow under other pretences, yet when I have declared the order thereof, I will leave the reader to judge of as it shall please him, for my part I conceive as I have written. First, whosoever cometh to apply his time in study in any of these Seminaries, must promise to take upon him the orders of Priesthood, when he shall be called upon so to do, for I assure myself that the same rules are observed in his two Seminaries of Spain, as were at that of Douai & Rheims, which were by his pensions there maintained. Likewise he must solemnly make a vow of obedience to his superior, directly & without any contradiction, to go whether soever he shall send him, & to govern himself according to such instructions as he shall receive from him, & from the same not to serve, though it should cost him his life. This superior is always one that absolutely dependeth of the k. of Spain, as did cardinal Allen and Parsons, who being absolutely at his commandment, and so by consequence also are all the inferiors, of which as any growth to greater perfection than his fellows, so is he soon chosen out to be sent in to England, there to parturbe the quiet of the realm, to sow sedition, to practise revolts, and to alienate the mind of the subjects from obedience to her majesty, thereby to prepare a bridge for him, whereby he might make his entry into the realm, in which action the poor instrument is assured still to perish: of which we have seen but too many examples, & I would to God we might never see more. But that our Countrymen whom God hath blessed with such excellent gifts of learning and eloquence as sundry of them, would, if not turn the same to the service of their Prince and Country, and the comfort of their friend, yet at least not suffer themselves to the drawn into such violent courses against it, wherein they see God prospers them not, justice confoundenth them, and finally howsoever they be there canonised for martens, our Chronicles, and all the stories of our time, will for ever, to the shame of their stock & parentage, record them fortraitors.  
Here now you see the drift of the king of Spain in erecting these his Seminaries, and to what end he allureth you over, assuring himself, that so long as he can with his fair shows draw any of you thither, he shall never want instruments to sow sedition in our Country, and to take upon them the execution of whatsoever his mischievous endeavours. Fly therefore from the enchanted snares, you that will not be transformed into monsters. Those that beheld the head of Medusa were only turned into stones, but these that are insorcered with these Spanish enchantments, are transformed into shapes much more horrible and monstrous: their hearts are alienated from their prince and country, their hands made instruments to write hateful slanders, and defamatory libels against persons of great nobility and honour, yea & sometimes to hold a dagger wherewith to murder the Lords anointed, their tongues into trumpets, to arm men to rebellion, bloodshed, and wars, and finally, whereas every age hath held it, according to the saying of the Poet, Decorum mori pro patria, to be a comely thing to die for ones Country. 
The Spanish dissembled friendship intendeth greater mischief unto us, than ever did the hatred of any other nation  Their lives (with such fury are they possessed) are upon every Spanish commandment, ready to be offered up against the same as a sacrifice.  
And this assure yourself, that this dissembled Spanish friendship intendeth greater mischief unto us, than ever did the apparent hatred of any nation else whatsoever.  
Be wise therefore in time, and come not within the fatal entry of this dedalian labyrinth, out of which only Theseus by good hap escaped, all the rest that ever entered, were devoured by the minotaur. The Italians have a saying, which me thinks may very well be applied to our nation, for such Spaniards as the king sendeth to the wars of Flaunders, because they are needy bare wretches, at the first taking up, he sendeth them to his garrisons of Naples and Mylain, there to be heartened and fashioned a year or two, and then sending a new supply of the like into their places, he passeth them away into Flaunders: & after when they are consumed, for commonly they hold not above a year or two, than he supplieth them with his italian garrisons, and so successsively seconds still one with an other, 
To make them fat in Italy, to kill them in Flanders.  whereupon the Italians have a proverb: In Italia gli ingrassano, in Fiandragli amassanos. Which surely can be better applied to none then to our fugitives, whom he keepeth to no other end then to send to the slaughter. I could urge this point farther, confirming it with infinite proofs and examples, but that this already spoken may suffice to let you know the danger of putting yourself into this Spanish coop, which whosoever knoweth, and yet will go thither, it is greatly to be feared, what innocency so ever he pretend, that he beareth with him the mind of a traitor.  
Now to the third point of my discourse, concerning the mislike which sundry of you have of her majesties government, and the state of our country at this present, pretending that to be the cause why ye transport yourselves into the king of Spain's dominions, who in your conceit, are governed with much more mildness and tranquillity: I will by comparing the one with the other, as near as I can, let you see the difference between them both, and so consequently your own error.  
As near as I can guess, this your disliking proceedeth of two points, 
The causes of their disliking the government,  the one that your laws are too rigorously & severely executed against such as profess the Catholic religion: the other, that the adversary hath buzzed a fear into your heads, making you believe that the forces of our state are too feeble to resist so mighty and puissant an enemy as the Spanish king: whose mighty treasures, many dominions, and armies of men, they magnify to the skies, & therefore perchance you covet to join betimes with that party which you do think advantageous, for your future security and advancement. First touching the persecution of Catholics, which our fugitives do so much exclaim upon, filling whole volumes therewith, and aggravating the same in terms most bitter and lamentable, to foreign nations: let us see what reason they have. I would feign demand one question, If ever they did read, hear, or know of any one king or queen, that did with greater mildness or lenity tolerate or suffor within his or their dominion, a sect of religion opposite to the laws by him or them established, especially the same having sundry times made rebellious attempts against their crown, estate, and dignity.  
Let them look, if they be men of judgement, into the ages passed, even amongst the Heathens, and into the present time among all the princes of Europe, whether there be any to be found that hath dealt with the like lenity as her majesty hath done. Why then do they so falsely slander her? Do they not know that she is their sacred and anointed Queen, appointed by God to rule over them? If they do, why do not they then with all reverence and humility, love, honour, and obey her, praying God to convert her, (seeing such is their desire) and not by traitorous endeavour seek to murder and deprive her. They learned not that of the ancient Christians, in the Primitive Church, who prayed for the Emperors and Princes under whom they lived, yea, and though they were idolaters and heretics, beseeching God that it would please him to grant them Vitam prolixam, 
The fathers of the primitive church prayed unto God for their prince, yea, even such as persecuted them, that it would please him to give them along life, a secure Empire, their house safe, their armies strong, their Counsel faithful, their people true, and finally, a peaceable world  imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populumprobum, orbem denig quietum.  
Now let our fugitives examine the secret of their own consciences, and I doubt not but their shall find them guilty of another manner of matins.  
But they will say, she hath executed many Seminary Priests, I confess in deed that the law hath had his course with many of them, as likewise it hath had with many other malefactors for their crimes. But yet her majesty hath always proceeded therein in so gracious and merciful a sort, that she hath witnessed sufficiently to the world, how loath she is to come unto blood, so long as there was any other remedy to be used.  
For her Majesty knoweth, her honourable Council knoweth, yea, and I & the whole world knoweth, that the coming of these Seminaries, Priests, and jesuits, to reconcile men (as they term it) to the obedience of the Roman church, is directly and absolutely to alienate and divert their minds from her majesty, and to incline them to be ready to assist any enemy either within or without the realm, that shall colour his cause under the pretext of religion. Her majesty, I say, and counsel, and all good subjects knowing this, and foreseeing the danger that might thereof ensue, forbade by act of Parliament, these sorts of seditious people to enter into her realm, or to use or exercise any such unquiet doctrine. Limiting therewithal to such as were within the realm, a time to departed out of the same.  
But this lenity wrought rather contempt than obedience, for these men contemning the gravity of our laws, and not thinking any to be obeyed, but such as they make themselves, came still into the realm as fast as before. Great numbers of them were taken and imprisoned, whom though her majesty deservedly, and with great justice, (especially the daily mischief stirred up within the realm, by their malicious practices considered) might have executed as Traitors and Rebels, yet the greatness of her princely clemency and compassion, was so unwilling to come unto extremes, that she caused them all once more to be pardoned, and to be put out of the realm but with express commandment, never to return in the like sort: in doing otherwise, they should not attend any other than the rigour of the laws. All this would not serve their turn, but in despite of her majesty, and contempt of her laws, sundry of them returned, of which some of them being taken, have received the hire and just recompense of their disobedience.  
But that her majesty seeketh not their blood, as they most falsely give out, appeareth by her clemency used to sundry of them, taken by her soldiers in the Low-countries, who though they were of Sir William Stanlyes' crew and adhaerentes, yet seeing they were not taken within England, she graciously pardoned them all, and caused them to be set at liberty, in giving some little recompense to those that had taken them prisoners.  
Where is then this rigour you speak of? I hope the king of Spain keepeth another manners of revel in his dominions, 
The cruelty and persecutions of the Spaniard in matters of Conscience.  over all Spain, Portugal, Lombardie, Naples, and Sicilia: whosoever speaketh a word, or maketh the least sign in the world to mislike his religion there established, or any point or ceremony thereof, his cruel & bloody ministers, the Inquisitors, cause them without remission to be presently burnt alive: of which the death of poor Doctor Augustine Cacalla can give good witness. Who for a small point in difference of religion, was at Valladolid in Spain apprehended for a Lutheran, and with him thirty, of such as had given him audience: many of which were Gentlemen and Ladies, and among the rest the two sons of the marquess of Poza, the greatest part of which were presently burnt alive, the rest submitting themselves, were pardoned their lives, but condemned to perpetual prison, with the confiscation of all their goods: and all their life time to wear the Sambenito, which is a yeolow garment, 
The Sambenito  with a red cross before and another behind, painted all over full of devils faces: a thing of the greatest reproach and dishonour there that possibly can be.  
But seeing these, of which we have spoken, are his subjects, and are of force tied to the jurisdiction of his law, how cruel so ever, I will not here trouble you any farther with the recital of the calamities and miseries laid upon them from time to time, how sundry of them for the breach of his constitutions in matter of ceremony, have been cruelly committed to the flames. But what reason hath he, I would feign know, to extend the like rigour and cruelty against strangers, who own him no obedience, but come only into his Country in regard of machandise, or other their occasions, and nevertheless have been apprehended, their goods taken away, and their themselves cruelly executed.  
Among innumerable other examples hereof that I could allege, I will only acquaint you with one. At execution of which, a Gentleman of good credit in the low Countries, swore unto me that he was present, and that it was in manner as followeth.  
There was one Giles Rat, a Citizen of Antwerp, 
The execution of a Dutchman & an Englishman in Spain for religion  and by his occupation a shoemaker, who some few years since going into Spain about some business pertaining to his trade, was apprehended & brought before the inquisitors, only for that he had smiled at the image of our Lady, which as they said he had done in derision, and therefore presently condemned him to the fire, and with him likewise an Englishman for the like cause, whose name the Gentleman that saw them burned, knew not: but he told me, that at the time of their execution there mounted up into a scaffold there by two jesuits, forbidding the peoto, upon pain of excommunication, to pray for them, saying that they had delivered them both over inbodie and soul to the devil, as those that died obstnate and wilful heretics.  
Surely by these examples it appeareth, that he would be loath to tolerate in Spain any that should go about to seduce his people with any contrary doctrine, especially ministers, of which if any such should fall into his hands, it is likely he would not so often pardon them as the Queen hath done the other. As for his low Countries, 
They were taken in the town of Dermounde three years since  I never knew but of two taken, and they were both put in sacks by the Spaniards, and thrown into the river.  
This is in deed extreme tyranny, and not that which her majesty useth, who is always ready to receive into grace and favour, those of whom she hath any hope that they will become good subjects, 
The merciful offer of her majesty to Catholics after their condemnation.  and hath, as I have heard, offered (after that by law they were condemned) her princely mercy and favour to some of them, if they would have promised to become good subject.  
O how different is this proceeding from that, whose mildness and clemency they so highly commend! But it is the nature of men, especially of those whose judgements are wavering and unsettled, always to mislike and loathe those things to which they are accustomed, deeming other, to them unknown, much better.  
But perchance you will say that in their so great commendation, they do only mean his manner of government in the Low Countries. True in deed it is, that he hath not yet planted there his inquisition, though the same be much against his wil Nevertheless if you did but see the manner of his government in those parts, I think you would judge them worthy of small belief, that have so highly commended the same unto you. First, in matter of religion and conscience, I do not think that it is possible for any people be more hardly any uncharitably dealt withal, than they are under the servitude of the clergy, but especially of the jesuits.  
As for the other orders of religion, as Monks, Friars, etc. though they are exceedingly exhausted by them in matter of charge, as being compelled to re-edify their ruined cloisters, to furnish them with costly images and rich furnitures, & daily to supply their wants, as well in yielding them victuals, as in satisfying all their other exorbitant demands, which are infinite, (of which who so denieth any, is presently reputed to be an heretic) Yet all this is nothing in comparison of that which by the jesuits they are constrained to endure, 
The jesuits grown to an exceeding authority in the Low Countries.  who have now gotten that hand over them, that the chief magistratships & places of dignity, are not granted but unto such as shall be by their liking allowed, & by their authority confirmed. Neither without their advice and council dare they determine of any great matter, concerning either government or policy. There is not any man's business but they must have an oar in it: 
The greatness magnificence, and the deliciousness of the jesuits  they never plant themselves in any places but in the midst of goodly cities, where they wring themselves into the fairest palaces, in some of them dispossessing by violence those to whom they appertained. 
Their college at Antwerp belongeth to the society of the merchants of Aquisgrane, whom they have excluded. Likewise their college at Brussels, is usurped & detained from the true heirs  Their churches are rich and sumptuous, their movables and household stuff magnificent, rather than decent, their gardens pleasant, spacious, and delightful, their garments fine and comely, their fare plentiful and of the best: and in fine, they are not tied to any rise in the night, or any the like hardness, to which other religious orders are subjecteth. Their first mass doth never at any time begin before eight of the clock, unto the which you shall see him come attended on with novices, in as great a gravity as the Pope himself when he is in all his pontificalibus: 
The politic institution of the jesuits,  they are accounted to be the greatest intelligencers and state-men of the world. They may not according to their orders, receive any higher officer or dignity: wherein of all other things they have the greatest policy, for otherwise their old politicians should be from them advanced to higher promotions, which would be great diminution to their dignity, which as they now order the matter, is of such credit and reputation, that they take the name of a jesuit, not to be any whit inferior to the title of a Bishop, they are not subject to any ordinary, nor to the controlment of any Bishop or Legate whatsoever, but only to the provincial or general of their order, who never lightly comes amongst them, and if he do, he is a brother of the society, and will find no faults for fear of scandal.  
But the best is, to see how busy and diligent they are when they hear of a wealthy man that lieth sick and in danger of death. 
They bestir themselves when they hear of a rich man that lieth in danger of death.  This is their chiefest harvest and most Opimapraeda. Then they commend unto him the poverty of their College, and the merit that he shall gain by dealing liberally with them, as being for ever to be remembered in their masses, as one of their benefactors. The Cordeliers and they are at this present in process together in Spain, about this visitation of sick men in articulo mortis. 
The Cordeliers are such as in England we called Grey friars, of the order of Saint Frances.  The jesuits say, that it appertains unto them, because their profession is active, and to be always stirring among the flock, and to do good to the world abroad: whereas that of the Cordeliers is contemplative, and so by consequence most decent, that they should contain themselves within their cloisters. The Cordeliers on the other side do reply that their profession is meekness, innocency, poverty, & to do good unto all men. As for the jesuits, that they are proud, ambitious, aspiring, entermedlers in matters of state: Men of great riches and covetous of more, and therefore by no means to be admitted to such as lie at the point of death. 
The jesuits have been inveighed against in the public schools of the university of Louvain.  The matter hath been much argued of and greatly debated in Spain. All the other Doctors of religion are vehemently against them, and they have been openly inveiged against in the public schools of Louvain: yet notwithstanding they are so strongly backed by the king (whose turn they serve again in other matters) that howsoever the cry go against them, they hold their own still.  

The policy of the jesuits in teaching of children.  Among all their other policies, they have one, that in my judgement is no whit at all inferior to any of the rest. For wheresoever they remain, they take upon them to teach and instruct the children of chief men and magistrates, professing to do the same freely and without reward: wherein they deal so carefully, that the parents do not account their children's time misspent: they in the mean time making hereof a double benefit. For first they bind the fathers and parents of their children to be their friends and favourers: secondly, as for the scholars, they strike into their tender capacities such a reverence of themselves, and withal do distill into their minds such points of doctrine, and such an opinion of their holiness and integrity, that the same seldom weareth away, but rather increaseth with their years, which is undoubtedly of no small moment, to the strengthening and the upholding of their society and faction. Likewise they have so cunningly wrought, that where soever they are, they only are the general hearers of all confessions, diving thereby into the secrets and drifts of all men, acquainting themselves with their humours and imperfections, and making thereof, as time and occasion serves, their own use and benefit.  
But by the way, seeing it comes so well to our purpose, I cannot choose but tell you a pretty story that happened lately in the low Countries.  

A story of the jesuits impiety.  A merchant whose name was Hamyel, being sick at Antwerp, of a consumption or fever, Ethicke the jesuite knowing him to be a man of great possessions, and without children, presently repaired unto him, under colour of spiritual consolation, laying before him the vanity of this life, and the glory of the world to come: With sundry other persuasions, as of all men living they have their tongues most at will: and withal, commending unto him their order, as of all other the most meritorious, perfect, and acceptable to God, and to which our holy Father the Pope and his predecessors have granted more indulgences than to any other order of religion whatsoever: insomuch that they brought the poor man (being of himself simple) into such a fools paradise, that he professed himself into their society, thinking that there was no other way to be saved: So as before hand he enfeoffed their college with his land, which was two hundred pounds a year, giving them much goods & rich movables, & when he had so done, died within three months after the same. His next heirs, by counsel of their friends, put the jesuits in suit. Against which though they opposed themselves with all vehemency, yet to their great shame & reprehension, sentence was given against them by the royal council of Macklin. 
It is called Magnum, regium, consilium, and hath authority to determine definitly both in civil & criminal causes without appeal.  Notwithstanding they would not so give over, but by the means, aid, and support of Precedent Pamele, a chief favourite of theirs, they appealed from thence to the council of Estate at Brussels, getting the cause, after sentence given, to be removed, a thing there unusual, and scarcely ever heard of before. There I left the process hanging, what became of it afterwards I know not, but by hook or by crook it was thought they would carry it away in the end.  
Another time a rich & wealthy merchant of Antwerp, 
An other the like history.  but one in that point whose devotion and scrupulotitie over-went his wisdom, coming to them in confession, and telling them of some unjust gain, with which he felt his conscience touched, they presently (with sundry terrifying speeches) told him that he was in the state of damnation, out of which he could not be delivered until such time as he had made restitution, as well of that confessed, as of all other money and goods, that he had by usury unlawfully gotten: laying before him, Quod non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum, with sundry other such sentences, of which they had store. In fine, they put the poor man into such a sear of conscience, that he yielded to make restitution, if so the same might be done without his undoing, discredit, or shame▪ Whereupon to comfort him again, but in deed fearing lest if they dealt too rigorously and roughly with him, they should get nothing, they told him that if in steed of all such interests and usuries, with which he felt his conscience burdened, he only would be content to deliver unto them some such sum of money, as without his undoing, he thought he might conveniently spare, 
His name is John Baptista Spinila, a man known in most merchant towns of christeodom.  they would take it upon their souls to see the sum employed upon good, virtuous, & charitable uses, to the greater benefit and merit of his soul, & as a thing more acceptable unto God & less scandalous to the world, then if he should make restitution to whom it appertained, and had been by his usury interessed: where upon the merchant being well satisfied in conscience, gave them the money, and they him their absolution. It was a great speech for a while about the town, that this great merchant would become a Capuchin and make a distribution of his goods among them: he himself made great show thereof a while, but it the end he deceived them, and falling to his old bias, did not stick to tell unto some of his private friends this fore-remembered tale.  
But I will hold you no longer with the recital of these their politic and unconscionable practices, which truly, in my opinion, are very unfitting for men that profess themselves to be of the society of jesus, who being the fountain of all pureness, will surely never associate himself with deceivers, and false worldly politicians. But let them take heed: for this the intrusion of themselves into temporal matters, their subtleties and unquiet stirring wits hath made them odious to most part of the world: I mean even to such as profess their own religion. The templars were as mighty as ever they were, and in outward appearance of great holiness and integrity, yet for their hypocrisy God suddenly overthrew them, 
The Templars greater than ever they were, yet suddenly for their hypocrisy overthrown.  took away their lives and possessions, & made their memory infamous. Let them beware, that the like punishment hang not over their heads, for I can assure them they are grown odious to the world, and to none more odious, then to some of their own religion, who do well foresee the scandal and slander that by their behaviour ariseth to the Roman Church. I could here in particular touch some of them by name: with matters that they would be ashamed to here of. But I am not so uncharitable or malicious as to libel the names of any men, or to defame them publicly, especially for matters of frailty: though among them, nothing is more common and usual, then upon the dislike of any man's humour or action, presently to publish his name to the world, in some malicious pamphlet or other: upbraiding him therein, yea even with theverie errors and frailties of his youth, if they can touch him with any such, if not then imputing to him feigned falsehoods and villainies: which how false, wicked, or improbable soever they be, they know they have customers that will receive them for currant. 
They have dared in their Libels to touch the majesty of princes, & the dignity of great & honourable counsellors.  Yet all were well, so they would content themselves to deal only with private men in this sort. But such is their respectless, audacious, and unbridled insolence, that they have dared to lift their damned and rebellious pens, dipped in stronger poison than the arrows of Hercules, against the sovereign and sacred majesty of Princes, and against the high & ancient dignity of great and mighty counsellors, yea even of such as sit at the helm of government, taking out of the foulest sinks of hell itself, false, defematorie, perjured, & abominable speeches, thereby to dispossess the worlds mind of the opinion, which their constant course in long continued virtue and integrity hath gained them. But in fine they lose their labour, and get no more than he that defiled his own face with spitting into the wind: or the other that kicking against a thorn, made his own heels bloody. For howsoever in their commonwealth, which they delineate according to the guiltiness of their own feeling and government, or their Philopater, which name they give themselves by a figure called Antiphrasis: But howsoever in them or any other pamphlet they rail or bewray their own malice, they can no whit at all impeach the honour and reputation of these noble personages, who like mighty and well grounded rocks, contemning the forceless winds that blow against them, are so surely seated upon the safe ground of loyalty to their Prince, and love to their Country, that albeit they please the humour of a few, whom they lead like Buphals by the noses, forbidding them to look into the light, lest they should perceive their juggling: yet those that have any wisdom or discourse of reason, will the more reverence, honour, and esteem them, and admire their happiness in having deserved so well of the realm, as that thereby they should procure unto them the hatred of those that are such deadly & desperate enemies to the state, & safety of the same. And as for some of them, no succeeding age can ever be so unthankful, as not for ever to remember their names with an infiniteness of honour.  
But in the mean time, judge with yourselves how miserable and enthralled these people must of necessity be in matter of conscience, 
The miserable wretchedness & calamity of the Low-countries under the government of the Spaniards.  whose leaders religion is nought else but ambition, perjury, policy, and defamation. But if you will turn your eyes from thence to their temporal government: surely I do think the recital of their miseries, would rather breed in you admiration then belief, so far doth the same exceed the compass of all their tyrannies that ever were used. 
Count Egmont: Count Horn: marquis of Bergues: Monsieur de Montigni, Monsieur de Strale: The Lord Gisbert and Thery of Battenburg: Monsieur de Hares, Pierre de Andelot: The Lord Peter and Philip of Alts etc. This was at such time as the young count of Egmond went with a force of Lowcuntri-men into France, where he was slain at the battaileof Yury, leaving in the meantime Newmegen besieged by the states, and brought to the greatest misery that might be.  There is no calamaitie in the world, of which these miserable people hath not tasted: their country being as a stage, upon which for the space of this twenty years, there hath been nothing acted, but bloody tragedies. Their noble men and rulers in whose virtue & courage consisted their chiefest refuge in times past (when they were wronged and tyrannised) have been murdered, strangled, poisoned, and slain: by the bloody ministers of their cruel king. They are taxed in great sums of money, and numbers of their men sent violently into France and foreign wars; and the relics of their nobility, forced to go with them to their apparent slaughter, leaving in the mean time their own Country in pray to the neighbouring enemy, their villages flaming in fire, and their Towns battered about their ears, with the cannon: Their privileges taken from them, their cities that sometimes strived in opulence and glory with the goodliest and greatest of the world, are governed by base and barbarous Spaniards, bridled with their garrizons and Castles, and sackaged and spoiled by them at such time as their payment faileth. I could at length recite unto you the histories and declarations of these several points here briefly touched, but that I should trouble you with matter altogether tragical and delightless: and withal, they being so common, apparent, and lately done, that there is scarcely any one unacquainted therewith, at least of such as have had any the least desire to look into the estate of foreign matters. In fine, there is no face of justice in their commonwealth, the same being wholly pliable to the will of such strangers as are governors of their towns, and Captains of their Castles. Their commonwealth justly now resembling the Turkish government, 
The Turkish government.  where the peaceable estate obeys the military, and where there is no laws but such as arms prescribe.  
Their goodly havens beautified sometimes with the concourse of innumerable ships laden with rich merchandise, from out all parts of the world, are now unfrequented even of fisher-boats. Their traffic ceased, their towns abandoned and made desert, of which some are utterly dispeopled, and in most of the rest, of ten houses searsely three inhabited. Their villages abroad burned, and overgrown with bushes, their goodly meadows and fruitful pastures drowned many miles wide and long, by letting in of sluices and cutting down ditches. The mansion houses and Castles of their Nobility, abated and thrown down: Some by fury of the Cannon, some by violence of the soldiers, for covetousness of the Lead, Iron, Glass, Marble, etc. And some by standing long forsaken and abandoned of their owners: their errable ground lying many large miles waste and untilled, insomuch that there a man may have as much land as he will, and thanks withal, for the only manuring thereof.  
As for the poor labouring people of the Country, (whom the Spaniarde never calleth but Villanos) for the most part they are all starved and consumed of hunger, of which disease, (being according to the saying of the Greek Poet, of all deaths the most miserable) I have myself known twenty thousand to die in one Summer, and God knoweth how many more: namely, the year that Marshal Byron lay encamped with the French army at Rozendale, and the Englishmen at Oudenbesech: so that you may ride an hundred miles without seeing of any man, woman, or child, unless it be some poor silly souls that come creeping out of the woods hunger-starved, more like resuscited ghosts, than living Christian creatures. And yet all these in a manner happier, (because they are at an end of their miseries) than such as do live within the inhabited places of the Country, as the land of Waste, the Kempine, etc. For I take them of all the people in the world to be the most wretched and miserable. Over every village of these are appointed certain horse men, 
The misery of the inhabited places.  to whom they are constrained to pay monthly by contribution, some ten crowns, some twenty, some forty, some more, and some less: I knew one that paid an hundred crowns every month, called Turnolt: but they paid it so long, till all the dwellers ran away, and have now in a manner left it void of inhabitants. Over this village and the whole Country is appointed a Commissary called Sygonio, 
Sigonio, chief Commissary of that contributions  for the distributing and ordering of these contributions, of all tyrants living the most cruel, and of least conscience. Who if they fail, and do not bring in their money at the last day of the month, he sends forth troops of horsemen, to take the best of them prisoners, and withal, to drive home to their quarters or garrisons such sheep, horses, oxen, or cattle whatsoever, as they find in their villages, which he causeth, if the money follow not within five or six days at the farthest, to be sold ta the Drum or Trumpet: and withal, forceth them to pay a great fine, the one half of which he retaineth to himself, and the other he giveth to the soldiers for their outroads and forbearance of their money.  
But the misery of these poor people endeth not here. For besides all this, they are forced and compelled many times to lodge soldiers in their houses, as they march along the Country upon service, at which time it is scarcely credible what outrages they receive. They have their cattle killed, to the use of their unthankful guests, their corn threshed out, and some carried away, the rest given to horses, their chests broken up, their goods, even to the very sheets, and the tykes of their beds, (the feathers being turned out,) stolen and carried away by the soldiers when they march; themselves beaten, and beside constrained to give money, their wives and daughters abused: and in fine, what else is to the nature of man most grievous and intolerable, 
The barbarous cruelty of the Spanish soldier.  they are constrained to endure: yea, insomuch that I have seen the rude and barbarous soldier cut off the fingers of women to come to their rings, which otherwise would not come off with such speed as they desired.  
Neither is the condition of the poor Citizen or Townsman any better, who being constrained in places of garrison to lodge soldiers in their houses, imparting to them the best lodgings and commodities of the same, never hearing from them any other word, especially if he please them not in all their exorbitaunt demands, than Perro, Flamenco, Luterano, Borachio, etc.  
Yet besides all this, he is daily wearied out with continual exactions and taxations, as of the hundredth penny, the tenth penny, and once a year without fail, the fifth penny of valour of all his goods and lands whatsoever: besides infinite other pillages and gatherings towards the making of rampires, revelins, bulwarks, palisadoes, countrescargres, casamats, pertaining either to the reparation of their walls, or the fortification of their Towns, and beside to giving of munition, bread, breere, and cheese, to such companies of soldiers shall pass by their Towns distressed of victuals, with infinite such like. I have known it (I speak it on my faith) poor people of Antwerp forced to sell their beds they lie upon, 
A strange exaction of the king of Spain.  to satisfy these yrannous exactions, which if they should not do, execution of their goods, and attachment of their persons should follow. But which is most beyond reason, whereas within the Towns many of the houses lie vacant and unhired, yet the owners of them are taxed according to the value in which they were wont to be rent. Insomuch that in Antwerp and other Towns, it is a matter very usual for men to disclaim, and quite their own houses, thereby to be exempted of such payment, 
The Amptman is a magistrate for the King, whose chief authority consisteth in the execution of civil causes, after sentence given, which the Dutchmen call Vonnysse Likewise in matter of confiscation and forfeiture.  as otherwise by reason of them they are charged with, and that they do formally before the magistrate, at which time the Amptman entereth in, and seizeth them to the king's use.  
But beside, whereas sundry Gentlemen, and others the inhabitants of these provinces, having certain annual rents issuing and growing out, and charged upon the Kings domains in the Duchy of Brabant, at least to the yearly value of ten thousand pounds, some of which rents have been by themselves bought of the states general, some left unto them by their parents and predecessors, the King (without all conscience) most unjustly and wrongfully disannulling the said rents, hath and doth without all equity or form of justice, take into his own hands the said domains, appropriating the use, commodity, and revenue thereof to the maintenance and keeping of his troops of horse men.  
Lykewse, what bondage can be greater than that of their Assizes, which constraineth them to pay for their wine and beer as much in equal portion to the King, as they do to the Vintner or Brewer, from which the poor beggar is not free, but if he will drink, he must pay as much unto the King, as he doth to the victualler. Neither do they eat their bread or flesh without yielding and paying duties to the King.  
Compare now (I pray you) herewith, your estate of government at home, and tell me which of the two you do think to be most fortunate. Doth her Majesty deal in this order with you, whose government you so much mislike?  
Oh good God, how can you be so perverse, seeing the great happiness and security wherein she keepeth and maintaineth you, as not to acknowledge and confess the same? How gentle are the helps and subsidies which she exacteth of you, without the undoing or hindrance of any man of whom they are exacted? And on the other side, how profusely spendeth she her own treasure for the maintenance of you, your wives, and children, in quietness, justice, and freedom? Oh pray unto God therefore, that she may long and prosperously live, for in her consisteth the type of your felicity.  

But now to the other points of your mislike:  
Whereas the adversary goeth about by all means possible to beat into your minds, a fearful imagination of the King of Spain's forces, and the dangerous weakness of your state, persuading you that the same is far to feeble and insufficient to withstand and resist so mighty an opposed enemy as is the King of Spain, terrefying you with his millions of gold, and the many, mighty, and powerful Nations over whom he commandeth: I hope, notwithstanding all this ruffeling and great show, by clear and evident reasons to let you understand and know, that the fame of him is far greater than his force: and that there is not this day any prince in the whole world, whose estate standeth more tickle and ready to ruin than his, 
That the fame of the king of Spain is greater than his power.  and that there is no cause why we should fear him, but many why he should fear us.  
First, that he is the most mighty and oppulent Prince, I do not deny, if he had used moderation in his greatness, and acknowledged the great benefits which it hath pleased God to have bestowed upon him with thankfulness, using them unto his glory, and not making them instruments of his unlimited ambition, to the overthrow and destruction of his neighbours, and the maintenance of factions wars in every corner of Christendom. To which dissension occasioned by his means, we must needs attribute this late formidable descent which the Turk hath made into Christendom. But such is now the estate where unto his all-coveting ambition hath brought him, or rather the revengeful hand of almighty God, which hangeth over his head, for his many cruel, bloody, and unchristian practices, and aspiring tyrannies, 
Apolog: principis Auraici.  especially for imbruing his hands in the royal blood of his innocent wife, of his eldest son Prince Charles, and of sundry other his best and truest subjects, that he is in the midst of all his glory and pompous magnificence turmoiled with unquiet thoughts, & in the midst of his riches & treasures indigent, poor, and indebted, unable to give satisfaction unto such armies as he maintaineth, to which end he is forced to extort from his poor subjects, and to make himself to all future ages a precedent of the extremest tyranny, that ever in any time was used: of which his scarcity and indigence, what more manifest proof can we desire, than the daily experience which we have before our eyes, of his own natural subjects the Spaniards, who being the best disciplined soldiers he hath, those of whom he maketh best and most account, and in fine, the very pillars that underproppe his tyranny, have nevertheless within these few years, for want of their payment been sundry times constrained to enter into seditions and mutiny against their general in the low Countries some five or six years since? it was my hap to be then in Flaunders, when there were two thousand of them that took one of his own towns called Courtray, and in demand of their payment, the which was then three years behind, 
The mutiny of the Spaniards at Courtray.  they displayed their ensigns, and planted their artillery upon the walls against the Duke of Parma their General, refusing to obey his commandments, and reproaching him with words of infamy. For remedy of which inconvenience, the Duke having no money, sent post upon post into Spain: but in seven months there could not any money be gotten. Notwithstanding many and most important detriments he received by occasion of this mutiny, as, the loss of Bredno, the retardance of the intended succours for Paris, the danger of Nieumegen etc. At length, by the fair persuasions of the Prince of Ascoly their mutiny ceased with the receipt of a months pay or two, and promise of more upon their return from France, which not being then performed, they fell, and that greater troops of them, into a stronger mutiny than before.  
Besides, look into the rest of his proceed in these his Low Countries (of which, because I have best experience I will chief speak) and you shall not find any thing in the world that carrieth with it a greater appearance of want. Neither (as the report goeth) is it better in his other Provinces, which verily I believe, seeing of all others it behoveth him to use these best, as being his eldest, perfectest in discipline, and best experienced troops: and in fine, those (as I say before) upon whom the hopes of his ambition dependeth. All which notwithstanding, I can not think that ever any Prince hath suffered so many valiant men, especially his own subjects, and within his own Country to perish through hunger, or that hath been driven to such strange kind of shifts and devices to stop necessities, and to deceive his soldiers, as he hath.  
First, the Country not being yet fully consumed, wasted, and destroyed, he permitted his military troops, with barbarous inhumanity to live upon the spoil of the Country, to rifle the poor inhabitants, and to constrain them to ransom their houses from fire, and their persons from murder by the which means, the soldiers lingered in such sort, that I have known them remain three years together without any one months pay, especially the horsemen. But afterward, Antwerp being rendered, and by reason of the general devastation of the Country, the soldiers failing to find their wonted relief and prey, grew into so great and miserable extremity, that it was a great matter to find any ensign that was twenty strong.  

The general mutiny of the king's army in the low countries.  The Spaniard mutined upon the staccada, whom presently they found means to appease with some few months payment. The Walloons mutined in Liefekins hook, and the land of waste. The Almains went by hundreds begging up and down the streets of Antwerp barelegged and barefooted, and in a manner naked. The Italians starved in their quarters, and divers of them in garrison at Bredaw, ran thence to Huysden, and to other adjoining Towns of the enemy. For remedy of all which inconveniences, he found means to deal with the Italian Bankers of Antwerp for cloth and silk, as Northern kerseys, packe-clothes, bays, refuse Italian velvets, taffetas, and satin, taking up the same at excessive rates, yearly to a certain sum, for receipt of which, and delivery out again, he appointed a Spaniard, one Christopher Caraesa, a man of most wicked conscience to be his Treasurer.  

The manner of the king's payment of his soldiers in cloth.  Then he began to grant payments to the whole camp, horse and foot, in this manner of merchandise, and unto such Gentlemen and Pensioners as were in great extremity, and had been long suitors: which they having received, were forced for want of money presently to make sale of for the third part of that value in which they received it. For, according to the high prizes at the which the were rated, and the badness of the stuff, it was not possible to get more: so that a soldier having fourteen shillings a month, received for his months pay, only four shillings and six pence.  
Caresa had always his factors and Brokers abroad to buy those said clothes and silks in again, the which he presently delivered out at the first price to the next that came, and still forth delivering, and buying the same in again, for the third part of the price, insomuch, that with ten thousand pounds disbursed, it is probable, that he made payment of above a hundred thousand pounds in the year: and yet sometimes he would make them stay four or five months before he would deliver them cloth, or any contentment at all: Within a while after he would many times never trouble himself with the delivery of the cloth, but by a second, cause the suitors lyberansa to be bought, as in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred eighty and nine sir William Standley before his departure thence into Spain bade obtained a lyberansa in cloth for two months pay for his Regiment amounting unto two thousand and five hundred crowns, the payment whereof being above a year deferred, an Agent of his, after his departure, was feign to fell it for seven hundred and fifty crowns, and yet thought that he had therein made a good bargain. I have known sundry that have sold such their lyberansaes for eight and twenty and thirty in the hundred: yet this payment how bad soever hath somewhat contented the soldiers four or five years, rather having that than nothing: But now also the same is dried up and vanished: for the Merchants utterly refused to furnish the King with any more wares, both because the sum wherein he stood already indebted unto them, amounted unto an excessive matter, as also, that be began to wrangle with them about the interest, of the which he craved moderation: and the rather, because they saw before their eyes many fresh presidents of men that were undone, and dishonoured, such as he had dealt withal. Amongst the rest, 
The kings hard and dishonourable dealing with Simon Swears.  one Simon Swears a Portuguise Merchant greatly respected in Antwerp, as well for the wealth and credit which he possessed, as also for the sincerity and uprightness with which he handled the Duke of Parma, seeing after the reduction of Antwerp the passage of the river shut up, and the country and Towns, as likewise his army afflicted with great dearth and scarcity of corn (rye being them in Antwerp about four and forty shillings the vierendall) and withal, 
The vierendal is about four bushels of our measure.  being daily cried upon by Trynquart the General of the Viures for munition and corn to victual the camp, the old store being clean consumed, knew no other means than to deal earnestly with this Simon Swears, and other Merchants that had trade with Hamborough, Lubeck, and the Easterlings, which Countries were replenished with corn, to make some adventure thither for the relief of their present extremity.  
He among the rest showed himself not unwilling to enter into an action so charitable and virtuous, so that his pains might be requited, and he sufficiently warranted, and kept free from such danger as might ensue, either by-perill of sea, taking of the enemies, or loss in the same when as it should come.  
To this end the Duke procured him the king's Letters of assurannce in the most ample manner possible, encouraging him with fair words, and many promises to proceed, which he did with the adventure of the most part of his credit and goods, insomuch that he laded three ships, of which one was by tempest scattered from the rest, and driven on the coast of Scotland where it perished: the other two after many casualties & dangers arrived safe at Dungnergne: but at that time such was either his ill luck, or the Country's good luck, that upon a new plentiful year, they had such store of corn, that the price thereof abated from forty four shillings to six shillings the vierendall, at which price the King's officers having made their provision, & furnished their store, utterly refused to take that which arrived in the ships of Simon Sweres, wrangling with him about the goodness thereof, and the long stay which his Factors had made, whereby the poor man making suit unto the king by one whom he presently dispatched into Spain, was forced to keep the same so long upon his own hands, that it venowed and waxed musty, in such sort, that he was feign to throw the greatest part thereof away, without ever to this day being able to receive of the king one penny of recompense, insomuch, that he was constrained by reason of this, and other losses happening by the occasion thereof to the wonderful shame, grief, and confusion of him, his wife, his children, and his friends, having before time lived in as great magnificence and good respected sort, as any Merchant in the town, to break banker out: and I saw him at Brussels, suing to the Duke and to the privy counsel for a protection to keep his body from attachment.  
But shall we wonder at this his dealing with private men, 
His unkind dealing with the Duke of Parma.  when he spared not in these reckonings of money to deal as bitterly with the Duke of Parma himself, the unkindness of which was the greater, in regard that the nobleness of the party to whom he used it, and the dearness to himself in blood, being his own nephew, seemed even in honour unfit for the receipt of so unrespectfull a message? for whereas the D. of Parma not long before his death had borrowed 30000. crowns of the Bankers of Antwerp, to stop therewith a sudden extreme necessity that concerned exceedingly the King's service, and had for the payment thereof interposed his own credit and assurance, which otherwise they refused to lend him, in regard of the kings ill correspondence in their former reckonings: Upon the next coming down of the King's money into Flaunders, the D. caused the said sum with the interest thereof, to be according to his promise paid to the Merchants. Whereupon the Treasurer general advertising the K. his master of the late sum received, and withal, of the deduction made by the Duke of Parma, for satisfaction and payment of the Italian Bankers. The King presently wrote down a Letter unto the Duke of Parma full of the bitterest and disgracefullest reprehensions that possibly might be: amongst the rest, wondering how he dared presume to turn such money to satisfaction of Merchants, as he had appointed unto the maintenance of his army, commanding him from thence forward not to arrogate unto himself so great an authority as to dispose his money to any other uses, than such as he should ordain them for, and withal, rebuking the Treasurer general for delivering the said sum, directly charging him, not to do the like at any time, without his especial warrant. Which undeserved indignity did so much grieve the Duke, chief, being guilty to himself of the well employment thereof, and of his many notable and faithful services, that he shut himself up for many days into his chamber, full of the extremest melancholy that might be: the cause whereof being by the world wondered at, his inward favourites did not stick to publish the same, in manner and form as you see it here described.  
Other men may hereof imagine as they please, but surely I cannot be persuaded, but this his unroyall dealing proceedeth directly from a mere disability and unableness that he findeth in himself to supply the infinite charges of the many great enterprises with which he hath entangled himself, of which if you desire to have better experience, look but into the office of his treasure at Brussels, and I doubt not but you will confirm my opinion. There you shall see a miserable troop of suitors with lyberansaes in their hands, 
The in digenco of his Treasurer general, and the misery of such as are suitors unto him at Brussels.  some of the which have lost a leg or an arm, some, that wearied with the wars, and pretending either age or infirmities, have gotten their licences and pasportes to depart into their Countries, some alleging one cause, and some another: but in fine no one of them all (in less than two or three years following him) able to get a penny, so that there is no year but a great number of them die for hunger, yea and some of them even at his gates. I assure you on my credit, I have known some poor people, that for the sum of fix pounds have followed him three years, when either he goeth out or cometh in to his house, he is feign to go through gardens and bie-waves to deceive his poor suitors, who otherwise enraged with desperate necessity, did assail him, though in vain with such lamentable and rueful cries, that it would pierce any honest man's heart to bear them.  
But here by the way I think it not amiss to tell you two pretty jests that happened at Brussels whiles I was there, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and ninety, the one of a Spanish, and the other of a Sicilian soldier, either of which practised his wit upon john de Lasture the King's treasurer, to the obtaining of a little money, for the which they had a long time followed in vain. 
A notable cozening trick of a Spanish soldier.  The Spaniard getteth him to the guardian of the grey Friars in Brussels, professing with a marvelous contrition and remorse of conscience, an exceeding zeal and inclination to enter into religion, praying him in christian charity not to refuse to receive him, seeing it had now pleased God to touch his heart with so godly and zealous a desire: in fine, he used such persuasive speeches that the guardian was contented presently to admit him, and withal, to allow him a time of probation, after the which, if in the mean time he did not mislike of their orders, nor they of his behaviour, he promised to accept him into their fraternity. Presently a friars long coat with a cowl was given him, which, after he had worn three or four days, and learned the behaviour thereto belonging, he acquainted the guardian with certain debts that he had in the town wherewith his conscience was greatly burdened, Marry withal, that he had a lyberansa able to discharge them, and overplus besides remaining, which he meant to bestow upon the Cloister, if that the Treasurer would be so favourable unto him as to pay the same: to which end he requested the guardian to accompany him, and to help to entreat the Treasurer in that behalf, to which he consented, and being both admitted to the presence of the Treasurer the new converted brother: first with a friars duck low to the ground, then with a very reverent gesture and humble speech, told him that he came not now, as in former time to importunate him for money, but only to signify to his Lordship, the grace the which it had pleased God by his holy spirit to work in him, praying him from hence forward to continue his good Lord and patron, as he would for ever in his spiritual function remain his Orator and bedseman: Marry withal, that the debts which he had made during his time of being a suitor, lay heavy upon his conscience; and withal, his creditors came clamorously to the cloister, in such fort that the guardian there present had threatened to expel him the house, unless he took present order for their satisfaction; which, as it could not but be greatly to his bodily shame, even so might it also turn to the destruction of his soul, if he should be now again thrust into the wandering courses of the world, which of necessity he must be, unless it would please his Lordship to be good unto him, and to cause his poor lyberansa to be paid; and therewith wiping his eyes, as though he had wept, made an other low reverence, neither was the guardian behind to confirm his speeches, and earnestly in his behalf to entreat the Treasurer, who at the general request of the standers by, as also, that he felt his own conscience beginning to wamble with compassion, after he had encouraged him with many comfortable words to patience and perseverance in that blessed estate of life, caused his lyberansa to be taken, and his money to be forthwith paid: upon which with many himble thanks took their leave. The Spaniard upon his return to the Cloister, told the guardian, that he could not by any means conform the frailness of his flesh to that austerity of life. And therefore with many hearty thanks delivering him his coat, went his ways to make good cheer amongst his Cameradoes, not gloyifying a little in the happiness of his success.  

The like practice of cozenage used by a Sicilian.  But now to our Sicilian: he having by many observances found the humour of the Treasurer chief to be addicted to one especial jesuite, above any other of the College, as both being his ghostly father, as also otherwise of very private conversation with him, and finding the jesuite one day hearing of confessions in the Church of their College, according as their custom is, kneeled down, and when his turn came uttered his confession, in the end whereof he interrupted his speeches with many sighs, as though there were something hanging in his teeth, that he was loath to commit to the utterance of his tongue. Which the jesuite perceiving with many protestations and assurances, both of his comfort and counsel, encouraged and persuaded him to reveal it, insomuch, that after a long show of great unwillingness and drawing back, he told him that he had made a solemn oath and vow to kill john de Lasture the King's high Treasurer, moved thereunto by a violent despair whereunto his extreme and rigorous dealing had driven him. The jesuite amazed at so strange a speech, failed not to tell him, that the observation of such a vow was much more wicked, than the breach thereof, and withal, that the performance would procure both his body's death, and his soul's damnation. The soldier replied, that he knew his words to be true, and withal, that he had in his mind already forecast this and much more: nevertheless, that his mind was so strongly possessed with this dispairefull and dreadful resolution, that it was not in his power to withdraw his thoughts from the desire to accomplish it. Whereupon the jesuite seeing that it was not in his force to divert him from that, upon which, to his seeming, his mind had so fully resolved, requested him yet, that he would the next morning at eight of the clock meet him in the same place again, and he would confer further with him. Which the soldier promising, the jesuite presently repaired to the Treasurer, and after his solemn oath taken never to prosecute any thing against the fellow, acquainted him with what had happened, forgetting not withal to dilate much of the wild countenance and amazed gesture of the fellow, and therefore wished him, not by any means to hazard a thing of so great value as his life upon the frantic resolution of a desperate soldier. The Treasurer not daring to apprehend the fellow, lest thereupon danger might have ensued to the jesuite for revealing a thing uttered in confession, and withal, restrained by his oath, requested him to bring him with him the next morning, which the jesuite not failing to do, they found a fellow ready in the hall to receive them with money, who taking the soldiers lyberansa, gave him presently satisfaction, which was of such virtue, that it assoiled him of his vow.  
In fine, you may see that these are no great tokens of that bottomless plenty which they speak of, when poor men that have spent their years, and their blood in his service, must be driven to use such dishonest sleights and cozening devices for the obtaining of their money. Neither (as I hear) is the matter much better in Spain itself, even there where the storehouse of his treasure is. For I myself have seen many coming thence poor and penylesse, cursing their journey, and denied the suits they went for. And withal, I heard not long agone a gentleman of good sort and judgement say, that it was his hap to be in Spain, at such time as sundry of those Spaniards that had been prisoners here in England after the overthrow of their Amada arrived there poor & miserable, where he saw great troops of them suing in the court for some small relief, but to so small purpose, that he heard divers of them exclaim even afore the Secretary's door, and wish themselves in England again, for there they had meat and drink and lodging, whereas in their own Country they could not get any. The sight of this hard and beggarly usage, but especially the feeling of that which they themselves received, have made many great and worthy soldiers to abandon him with mighty discontentments, as amongst the rest john Baptista de Monte, and Camillo de Monte, two notable Captains, 
john Baptista de Monte. Canullo de Monte.  both now retained under two mighty States the one being General to the Duke of Florence, the other bearing like charge under the Venetians, who both lie in await to cry quittance with him.  
And if report be true, I hope ere it be long we shall hear that they have accomplished their desire; for they say these two States begin to shuffle the cards, which if it be so, it is very likely that they will deal the King of Spain but an ill game. Once it is certain, that the Duke of Florence his brave bastard brother Don john de Medicis, who had a pension of four hundred crowns by the year from the king of Spain, 
Don john de Medicis hath renounced the king of Spain's pension.  hath sent him back both his pension and his patent; and he raiseth troops of horsemen, but to what end and purpose, the sequel will show.  

The Venetians well affected to the French King.  As for the Venetians, their Ambassador resident in the French Kings Court, and their apparent favours done him from time to time, sufficiently declareth their affections unto the other side: But these things being above my reach, I will leave them to their success, and so return to my matter.  

The unnoble and ingrateful usage of sir Martin Skinke.  Sundry of you have known, and scarcely any but hath heard of that renowned German sir Martin Skinke, a man both in courage of attempting, and judgement in directing and managing matters of war, scarcely second to any Captain of our time: the story of his life and fall is as common as pitiful, and therefore I will not trouble you with the rehearsal of it, neither is it incident unto the matter I entreat of; only I will briefly acquaint you with some part of his deserts, and the recompense which he in fine received, to the end that you may the better judge what reward or advancement after long deserving and infinite merits is in this penurious service to be expected. First, after the memorable siege of Mastricht upon the last departure of the Spaniards out of the low Countries, according to the capitulation between the K. & the provinces of Henalt and Artoys, who thereupon put themselves in the King's obedience, whereas the Duke of Parma serving himself in his wars, only of the Walloons of the country, and a few Italian horsemen was daily overtopped by the Prince of Orange, and the French, not knowing scarcely where to turn him for want of Forces to keep the field: Skinke brought him out of Germany a mighty power of Reyters, which coming in such a season, you must imagine were welcome, as being indeed the only occasion of many great exploits which the Duke of Parma happily achieved.  
Secondly, after the siege of Cambray raised, and the town of Cambray, Lyberium, and Saint Gillian's taken by the French, & on the other side the towns of Eyndoven and Helmont, and the Castles of Buxtell, Hemer, Lemmicke, and Midlaer, taken in Brabant by the States, the duke of Parma being as much or more distressed than before, Skinke brought him a second supply of at least five and twenty hundred horsemen, which (as I have often heard him say) he had levied in a manner wholly upon his own charge, joining the which with certain troops of footmen, being under the charge of Monsieur de Houltepenne, he took in all those forenamed places which the enemy had surprised in Brabant, and clearing the country round about, did many other notable services of importance. But to be short; it was at last his chance, by a treacherous plot that was laid for him, to fall into his enemy's hands, and to be carried prisoner into Gelder's: of which one Ouersay a German was at that time governor for the States, who being glad of such a prize, in regard that he was his country man, and so great a soldier, endeavoured by all means and practise possible to divert his mind and affection from the Spaniards, but finding him still most resolutely faithful and constant to the party which he followed, he caused him to be imprisoned in a great obscure filthy Tower of the Town, and withal, set him at an excessive ransom, such as he did think would exceed the compass of his ability to discharge. Skinke in the mean time by his friends earnestly solicited the duke of Parma to help him with somewhat towards his ransom: but in fine, seeing there came nothing from thence but delays and dilatory excuses, he used such means by the sale of his goods and the help of his other friends, that after fifteen months imprisonment he procured his liberty, and came directly to the D. of Parma, lying then at the siege before Antwerp at a place called Beaver, where it was my chance to see him a long suitor, without obtaining any the least help at all, such was at that time the Duke's necessity, insomuch I assure you, that I have heard Skink earnestly protest, that he had not in his purse wherewithal to buy him so much as a pair of shoes (for those were his very words) neither had he known where to have gotten meat or drink, but that by good hap he met there with Chenows a German, to whom he was much beholding for relief in these great extremities: In fine, seeing no money was to be gotten, he desired the government of Nieumegen, the which by a devise of his plotting was newly rendered: nevertheless he was denied, and the same given to Monsieur de Haultpenne. Then he desired the King's commission to levy a standing regiment of Dutch footmen, that likewise was denied. Lastly, to stop his mouth, he had a company of horsemen granted him, with which going down into Gelderland, he put himself presently into employment. But winter coming on, when all the King's horsemen had their quarter appointed them, for the receipt of their contribution: He likewise sent his Furrier to Sigonio chief commissary for those causes to demand such quarter, contribution, and allowances as were appointed to the other troops of horsemen, who sent him word that his company was not enrolled within the list of the King's horsemen, and therefore, that he had not authority to assign him any, whereupon Skinke went presently unto the Duke of Parma, requesting his Highness to cause his company to be enroled in the lists, and to command, that they might receive such usage as the rest; but his answer was, that the King would not raise any other new companies, but rather had sent commission down to cassiere many of the old companies.  
Nothing ever more moved Skinke, than the indignity of this dealing, and so telling the Duke, that he would be loath now he had spent all that ever he had, in the King's service, to be accounted a Captain of Fryboters, 
Fryboters, are such as are not lawful fouldyors on either side but live only upon spoil robbery and rapyne.  took his leave, bending his mind presently to revenge, and is forthwith surprising Nuis by a stratagem, delivered both the same and the castle of Lemmicke, and withal, his own person into the service of the States, of whom he was received with such honour as to a man of such worthiness belonged. I know not what may hereof be imagined, but in common sense and reason, this not requiting the deserts of men of such exceeding value, argueth either an unwillingness, or else an unableness to do the same; if an unwillingness, what comfort then shall a man have to spend his years and fortunes in so ingrateful a service? It unableness, as in respect of the hindrance and inconvenience thereby ensuing to his own service I rather judge it: where is then this overflowing plenty and endless treasure, with opinion of which they endeavour so far to possess the world, as though every man that doth him service should be choked with gold for his labour? To what end useth he this scarcity in rewards and payments? or when will he use his golden mountains, if not now, the loss of his Country, honour, and religion, and the greatness of his undertaken enterprises considered? No undoubtedly, it is mere want and indigence that driveth him to these exigents: he is mighty, but he gripeth at more than he is able to embrace: he is rich, but the infiniteness of his charge exceedeth the measure of his riches: upon the coming down of his last fleet, he set up his rest and lost it with an evil encounter, and that not only his own, but that also of his friends, the Popes, the D. of Savoy, the Genowese, etc. which set him in such arrearages, that I think he will not hastily come out of them.  
As for the treasure of his Indies, wherein indeed consisteth the very marrow, strength, and substance of all his puissance I confess the same to be exceeding great: yet his occasions considered, and making an estimate between the one and the other, I account the one (as I said) far to feeble to answer the unlimited greatness of the other: and yet the same hath been reasonably impai●ed also since such time as sir Francis Drake, and other worthy English Captains have found the means to ferret him in those parts, since which time the return of his Indian fleet hath not kept the course it was wont to do, but stayeth sometimes half a year, sometimes more, longer than it was accustomed, and yet cometh not securely home in the end: and whereas he was wonted to waft them home only with a Galleass or two, he is now constrained to entertain a great and mighty navy of many ships to his inestimable and continual charge.  

The King of Spain's treasures unanswering and inferior to the infiniteness of his charge.  If you desire to know what these great charges are, on which he is enforced to imply them, first you must consider that he scarcely holdeth any of his Provinces wherein he is not constrained to hold garrisons of soldiers, and not as other Princes are accustomed, upon the frontiers only, but even in the heart and inland places of them, as well to resist the foreign suspected enemy, as for to repress the natural tyrannised subject, who upon every offered occasion are ready to take arms to recover their liberty, and to free themselves from forth the yoke of his hateful government, as the Indies, Arragon and Flaunders will bear me witness.  
As for his Low Countries, of the which I will first speak, because they are nearest; it is manifest, that there is not any town or castle (besides many forts, sconces, and blockehouses) in which he is not constrained to hold a garrison, unless he utterly raze and dismantle the same, as he hath already done Eyndoven, Terlemount, Leaw, Sickem, Susteren, etc. Antwerp alone as the case now standeth, being of greater charge unto him than the revenue which he receiveth out of the whole country is able to defray. For, besides the continual maintenance of a thousand Spanish footmen in ordinary garrison within the Castle, besides canoneers and officers that do attend upon the artillery, munitions, provisions, and infinite other charges thereto belonging he is forced to maintain two companies of horsemen in the town, as well for convoys, sallies, as sundry other occasions that are daily presented, and withal, seven or eight ships of war under the walls of the town upon the river to secure the same from the incursions of the Zelanders, both to keep them from attempting any thing upon the town, as also from piercing further down along the river, he was once determined afore the coming down of his great Armada to have increased his number of shipping there; and to that end commanded the duke of Parma to make provision of timber, anckres, sails, cables, and tackeling, the which was done with an infiniteness of charge, and at length eight hundred Genowes, mariners, and shipwrights sent down, who were presently set awork about the making of twelve new great ships all at once. But before they were half finished (whether the greatness of the charge, or what other occasion moved him thereunto I know not) but he sent a new commandment to make only four of them up, of which the one was great galleon Alexander, 
The great galleon Alexander and her posy.  who beareth aloft in her starne a great blazing Sun with this posy underneath, Non fert terra duos. The other eight I saw long after lying in the Dock like rotten carcases, with their ribs out, in which estate they do yet remain for any thing I know.  
In fine, so great and excessive are his charges, in those parts, that I do know it upon good and assured grounds there hath been no one year these twenty years, but that they have cost him two millions and more yearly above the commodities and revenues which they do yield him, and yet scarcely any man contented.  
Neither are his provinces of Italy in a manner of less expense, or greater commodity unto him: for, besides the strong and puissant garrisons, which even of necessity he doth maintain in the great Castles of Milan, Naples, and the many other fortified places, he is constrained to entertain in yearly pension, the greatest part of the Nobility and Gentlemen of either province, thereby to keep them from attempting any manner of novelty against his government; than the which all the world knoweth right well, (especially whosoever hath been in Italy, or is any thing acquainted with the estate of those countries) there is nothing more odious, 
Nothing so odious to the Italian as the government of a Spaniard.  displeasing; and contrary to the nature of an Italian.  
Likewise he is feign to entertain continually a great number of galleys upon the coast of Naples, to defend those seas and shores from the incursions of the Turk: the like charge by sea and by land he is forced to be at in Sycilia, Sardina his Cities on the coast of Africa, Portugal, the Terceraes, the Indies, Brasile, Maiorque Minorque, yea and even in his Spanish Provinces, of Biscan, Galycia, and Arragon; as for Navarre he knoweth that he holdeth them no longer than he treadeth upon their necks, and therefore he layeth on load there with his garrisons both of horsemen and footmen, as well in Pampelona as the other Towns and Fortresses of the Country, and all will be little enough and if it would please almighty GOD to bless the endeavours of the French King.  
And of all these his garrisons and charges, he cannot for his life diminish any, being guilty too himself of the violence of his government, being not further assured of them, than whiles he holdeth their heads in the bridle. I will not dispute the justice of his Titles, not yet allege the pretences, whereby the Frenchmen entitle their King, not only to Artoys, Henalt, Naples, and Milan, but also to Spain itself. But that he holdeth Portugal, Maiorque and Minorque, the County of Ronsillen, and the kingdom of Navarre by mere extortion and extremity of wrong, is to all the world a matter most apparent and evident, insomuch that some of his own Writers, in their Apologies and defences of some of his Titles, are constrained in a manner to fortify their best reasons with the verses of Eurypides:  
If right and justice are to be transgressed,  
To break them for a kingdom then t' is best.  
Besides all this, his provinces and dominions do stand so severed and disunited, that the very transporting of his money from one to an other, as it is with danger and inconvenience, so is it of it of infinite charge unto him, insomuch that I have heard some of his Commissaries in the Low Countries swear, there is no crown of his that cometh from Spain into those parts but standeth him in five rials of plate, so great is the charge of carriage, convoys and commissaries to deliver and receive the same from one place to another.  

He nourisheth factions and divisions in most Countries of christendom. His Intelligencers and Spies.  Withal there are few Realms or Countries of Christendom, in which he entertaineth not factions and divisions and scarcely any in which he nourisheth not a number of Intelligencers and Spies, all depending of his purse, with whom he dealeth more or less liberally, according unto the place or means they have to do him service, if they be entertained in Court, or near about the person of a Prince, able to send him good intelligence, or to do some notable mischief for him, 
His detestable practice with Lopes for the taking away of her majesties life.  he will not stick to come off bountefully; as for example you saw how cunningly he had practised with Lopes that damnable Physician, who like his predecessor judas had for money consented to betray innocent blood, to whom besides the fifty thousand crowns for which the bargain was, he commanded his Secretary Ibarra to bid him demand what else he would, so that he would take upon him to perform that which he had promised, which was by taking away her life, by whom we do all live, to bring our noble Country into such a sorrow, desolation, and misery, as never any Nation had tasted the like. But it hath pleased the Lord our God of his endless mercy, as he hath always mightily and miraculously defended her Majesty, so likewise now to confound the wicked conspirators in their own devilish devices, and to prevent the tragical intended issue of their most barbarous and bloody practice, being such, as well in regard of the secrecy of handling, as the imagined facility of performance, that of many which he, the devil, and their adherents have set abroach since the beginning of her majesties glorious reign, never any (to man's judgement) was half so dangerous; the manner and memory whereof is so fresh, that the recital of any particularities would be but superfluous.  
Only let us not forget to be thankful unto almighty God for his mercy showed in revealing it: nor unto that worthy and honourable Lord, by whose watchful industry and zealous care of her majesties safety, it was first suspected, and finally, by his wisdom and discreet handling fully discovered, who although he did before possess the faithful loves and undissembled affections of as many as ever did any of his rank; yet never did he (although he hath done many things virtuously and nobly) any thing, that won him such reputation and applause throughout the whole Realm: All men in general, and every man in particular acknowledging to have herein received of him a most singular and peculiar benefit.  

All his kinsmen of the house of Austria depend chief upon the maintenance of his purse.  But leaving this, and returning unto my former matter; it is a thing notorious to all the world, that the house of Austria is spread into many branches, of which every one retaineth the name of Archduke.  
But in conclusion, their dignity, lordship, and estate is feign to rely wholly upon his purse: for there is not any thing in all this world that he more affecteth, than to maintain this house of Austria in greatness and dignity, and therefore upon the death of Battor the last King of Polonia, he laboured infinitely to invest his coosine Maximilian the emperors brother in the royalty of the Realm, 
Maximilian of Austria sent by the King of Spain into Polonia with an army.  sending him down (besides many secret bribes bestowed upon the noblemen of Polonia) with a mighty army of Reyters to take possession: the unfortunate success of which enterprise, as also the Archedukes' imprisonment and dishonourable escape, I do voluntarily omit as being a thing unto the whole world well known, and altogether impertinent unto the discourse which I have in hand.  
In the Consistory of Rome he is feign to entertain a great number of those hungry Cardinals in pension and fee, as well to gain their voices, when need requireth, as also when the pontifical sea is void, to look well to their election, especially, and above all things, that he whom they elect can dance the Spanish Measures, in which if after his being chosen, he should chance not to foot it well, according unto the tune of his pipe, then presently to remove him with a Castilian Calenture, 
A Castilian Calenture.  the which is a strange disease, never lightly holding them above three days, and many of them of late have been subject unto it.  
This Pope doth fear it mightily, and that maketh him so loath to accept the French Kings reconciliation, though, as in Religion, so in Policy and Estate, he knoweth that there is not any thing more expedient and necessary for him, than to have a mighty King in France, that may serve to hold the King of Spain some tack, and serve as a barriere between him and Italy; for his predecessors have along time since discovered this secret, that there is not any thing more necessary for the maintenance of the Pontifical dignity, as the balancing of kings in equal counterpoise one with another: which he now in respect of the king of Spain's increased greatness is not able to do; and yet underhand I do think he could be very well content, to see his wings a little clipped, lest one of these days he take his flight into Italy (as his father did) and make him as a private Bishop of a diocese to do nothing but whatsoever it shall please him to command him.  

Pope Sixtus liked not the amo●ious greatness of the Spanish K.  Pope Sixtus, was accounted one of the greatest Politicians of our time, like nothing at all this overweying greatness of the King of Spain, as he told his Ambassador plainly one day in the Consistory, when he braved him with threatenings and commandments from the King his Master. But presently the smell of the Spanish gold that certain of his Cardinals had in their purses, struck him into such a calenture, that much against his will he was feign to take his leave of the world, and leave behind him uneffected many great matters, on the which he had in his mind determined. So that although the King of Spain be at great charge with these noble pillars of the Church, yet you see, that sometimes of their sides it is not unrequited, seeing that for his sake, they are contented so honestly to betray their Master. He had not many years since an other charge no whit at all inferior to this, which was in maintenance of the pension in wars against the Turk. But how the matter standeth since the late agreement between these two Princes I know not, but I do imagine that his treasures walk that way still: for, Turpius eijcitur quam non recipitur hospes: Pensions and entertainments given to strangers, as for the time they procure a certain hired and mercenary affection, so their withdrawing engendereth for ever a deadly and everlasting hatred. Lastly, for conclusion, he maketh at this instant open wars with France, England, and the Low Countries: what deem you then hereof? Hath he not vent (trow you) for his treasures? His father was a better soldier, and a greater man of war than he is, and of much more mightiness and puissance; for, in steed of Portugal and the Indies thereunto belonging wherewith this hath increased his dominions, the other swayed the mighty Empire of the Germans, and that with such a commanding authority over that proud Nation, as never any of his predecessors since Charlemagne did the like; and withal, he quietly enjoyed the whole seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries, whom in respect of their great opulence, abundance of riches, and convenientnesse of situation, 
Monsieur de la Nove. Discourse sur l'estate de France.  some late Writers of great authority have not spared to compare unto his Indieses; and yet he never dared to make wars upon France alone, before he had first sought by all manner of possible means, to assure himself in friendship with England, giving to that end great and mighty presents unto Cardinal Wolsey, and other of the Nobility, that in those days did bear sway with her majesties father of most famous and worthy memory King Henry the eight: whereas this maketh war carelessly with all the world at once, but the Italians have a true proverb; Chitutto abbraccia, nessuno string: 
He that embraceth all, holdeth not any fast.  And so I hope it shall far with him.  
Now as touching those his mighty and puissant numbers wherewith they do go about to strike such terror and fear into your minds; I do take upon me to know the estate of his forces as well as an other man. And I do not think him to be in any thing more penurious than in the want of men: for as for Spain, Naples, and Lombary, upon which his only force doth consist, and which are his principallest and chiefest Storehouses of men, it is sufficiently known that his Drums have gone at the least the space of a whole year together beating up and down, according as the manner is, to gather together six thousand men, and those all Shepherds, Hedgepikers, and such idle trewantly rogues, the most part of the which he is forced to put into garrisons for the space at the least of a year or two, to the end to fashion them, before he do send them to service; for, upon their first levy, you did never in all your life see more silly snakes than they are. I saw some few years since a great number of them brought down into the Low Countries, fresh out of Spain by the Duke of Pastrana, such ragged beggarly starvelings, that in my very conscience I do speak as I think, a man indeed would have beaten ten of them.  
As for Germany, out of the which heretofore he hath drawn great numbers, and by their good help he hath achieved many great matters, his usage hath been so base and miserable unto them, that the old soldiers are all starved and consumed in his service, whose calamity hath so much feared and terrified the rest at home, that no Prince in Europe hath less credit to raise men there than he hath. And although there were no such kind of matter, yet they are no manner of way bound unto him more than to an other, their profession being to serve only him that will pay them best, and yet if he should raise any of them (the alliaunces of her Majesty, and the situation of their Country considered) it should be a matter of great difficulty to join them with his other troops.  
Where are then his innumerable legions, with which these mount-banke loud mouthed fellows, say he is able to overrun the world? Alliances he hath none, unless it be with the holy rebellious league of France; the which now of late is grown very sick, and keeps the chamber, 
The holy League of France is of late grown very sick.  and every day we do look to hear the news of the death and Vltimum vale thereof; and yet when the patrons thereof were in best health, was never of any assistance, but of a continual burden and charge unto him: Neither did he ever trust his chief Agentes in this same sanctified society, nor they ever love him. Each of them working and drifting with particular ends and meanings: of the which I will speak but a word or two succinctly, leaving the rest to men that are of better ability to dilate upon, which (in my judgement) in regard of the practices, jugglings, diffidences, circumventions, underminings, treacheries, mischiefs, and conspiracies that have been between them, would yield matter to as delightful an history, as hath been penned in our time.  

The pretence of the kings of France to Naples and Milan  First, no man is ignorant of the pretension and title which the Kings of France do pretend to the kingdom of Naples, the dukedom of Milan, the County of Ronssillon, and the earldoms of Artoys and Henalt; for the recovery of which, still as they have been within themselves at quiet, they have made one attempt or other: always therefore one of the chiefest policies of the King of Spain, hath been to find them work at home; insomuch, that though it be strange, yet the Frenchmen do very confidently write it, that such was his desire to keep civil dissension afoot in France, that he spared not to animate, yea and sometimes secretly to help and assist with money. The prince of Conde and the Admiral although all the world knoweth, he neither liked their cause, nor religion, the like they say he offered to this King of France when he was King of Navarre, though he knew he could not offer it to a man in the world which less loved him.  
But leaving these secret excusable matters, and coming to open and published apparent practices: Seeing that the last King of France beginning to grow strong and mighty, the Protestants quiet, and his Realm peaceable, he thought it high time to look about him, and therefore casting his eyes upon the discontented humours of France, he amongst the rest made choice to use as a principal instrument for shuffling the Cards the late Duke of Guise, 
The duke of Guise picked out by the K. of Spain to set civil warr● afoot in France.  a brave and valorous Prince, haughty, ambitious, audacious, a soldier, a spender, prodigal, popular, and indebted even up to the hard cares.  
Him he fed with money, which, though not answerable to his humour; for to that effect his Indias had been to tithe, yet it put him in such gallant humours, that he presently reproachfully gave out amongst the people, that the King was a favourer of heretics, a schismatic, and a sorcerer, and withal, 
The audacious insolence of the duke of Guise.  he called high himself Protector of the Church of France; and finally, grew to so great an insolency, that being forbidden by the King, he durst enter into Paris, put the people in arms, assail the King's Guards; and finally, constrain the king by flight to abandon both the City and his Palace of the Lonure. The day of which holy enterprise was ordained by the Sorbonists to be kept holiday, and called the day of the Barricades. 
The day of Barricades.   
The king was mightily aggrieved hereat: but being not able to play the Lion, was contented for a while to counterfeit the Fox, using the matter so slily that he drew the duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal to the parliament of Bloys, where with fair and gentle words, he so finely overwent them in the midst of all their confidence and greatness, that whereas they did attribute all his friendly shows and offers to want of courage, 
The duke of Guise and the Cardinal his brother slain by the king of France.  and feebleness of spirit, he nevertheless still persevered pretending all love and meekness, until such time, as taking them at advantage he saw them both he dead and bleeding at his feet.  
The news of which tragical accident was not so much displeasing to the king of Spain in regard of their deaths, upon whom his factious business so much relied, as it was pleasing insomuch that the greatness of their parentage, the multitude of their followers and partiseans, and the affections of the people considered be knew, that there could not but ensue, many great tumultuous and in a manner irreconcilable broils; 
Mendoza the king of Spain's Ambassador in Paris.  to which effect, Mendoza his purblind Ambassador in Paris serving for nothing, but like the devils trumpeter to set men together by the ears, used the uttermost of his endeavour and diligence, incenfing the people to such rageful madness, that though murdering one an other with mutual wounds (which was the only thing they shot at) they saw apparently their own miserable calamity and destruction, yet like men troubled with a frenzy, abhorring all remedy and cure, they grew from degree to degree into so great a fury and violence, that they procured the death of their anointed king, by the hands of a detestable jacobine, 
The king of France murdered by a jacobine Friar.  whom as a late Frenchman writes, they have since, in regard of that worthy exploit canonised for a martyr, by the name of S. Clement.  
These things succeeding so much to the Spanish kings desire, whereas before his endeavour was, to nourish between them only civil dissension and strife, he now began to entertain greater hopes, and to aspire to the very royal diadem and monarchy of France. To which end he caused his Ambassador to hire the Sorbonists, jesuits, and mercenary Friars to step up into the pulpits, and to insinuate to the people the necessity of a K. especially of such a one as were mighty and of power, to resist the K. of Naaurre, coming then puissant in arms against them. Mendoza likewise spared not himself to broke his master's cause by bribery, and all the other best bad means he could, persuading them, his Master having married a daughter of France, and his children being half French, that they could not so safely throw themselves into the bosom or protection of any man as of his: but in fine, 
The Cardinal of Bourbon elected king of France by the name of Charles the tenth.  the Parisiens' liked better of his gold than his government, and elected for their king the old Cardinal of Bourbon's uncle, & at that time prisoner to the king that now is, calling him Charles the tenth. But he being near 80. years of age, was scarcely so soon chosen as dead.  

The duke of Feria sent down to Paris.  Then began Mendoza to bestir himself again, & within a while likewise to help him the better, the D. of Feria was sent down: but the utmost that both could do with infinite and profuse expense of their master's money, was to get him the title of Protector of France: provided always, that the Spanish pistolets kept their course, 
The king of Spain chosen Protector of France.  which only kept him from being discarded: for how closely soever he hand led the matter, the League had discovered, that like a Canker he meant to eat into their estate. And therefore, though they could not break with him, their business being now brought to a necessity of him and of his money, yet they liked not his intiteling himself to Britain, and sundry other his proceed, all tending to usurpation, insomuch, that they held him in so great a jealousy, diffidence, and mistrust, that they would never suffer any of his forces for to enter into any of their Towns or places of importance, 
The King of Spain, and the League in jealousy one of an other.  but had continually as watchful an eye over him as they would have done over their enemy. Neither was he (how fair a show soever he made) behind them in the like subtlety of practice, as the course of his actions did well declare. For, when as they were by this King so straightly besieged in Paris, that they were ready to eat one an other through hunger, he made his Lieutenant the Duke of Parma, although he were long before ready, yet still to delay his succours, even until that they laboured in their last gasp; and then the great effect that he did for them, was only to put a few brown loaves and cheeses into their Town, not therewith to relieve the extremity of their famine, but even as if a man would give a lock of hay unto a hungry jade, only to keep him in life. He freeed not their rivers, nor fought not with their enemy, but went his way, leaving them, in a manner in as desperate estate as he found them.  
The like he did at Rouen, in neither place so much as once adventuring to fight for their sakes, which was not so much in diffidence of his force, as that he meant not with Spanish blood to purchase the victory, leaving the Frenchmen rather to justle one against an other, to the end that he might tread upon both parties when they were down. Which being by the wisest of the Leaguers perceived, as Vytry, Vilroy, Grillion, etc. they abandoned him utterly, betaking them to the service of their own true and lawful Kings. Sundry other of them have done the like, and in a manner all, except some few, who draw still backward rather through the terror of their own despairing conscience than in any hope of good success, or fortunate event.  
Hear now you see, that this French League and society of his hath not been, nor is not unto him of any avail, but rather of great detriment, burden and expense.  

The king of Spain and the Princes of Italy, in diffidence one of an other.  As for the Princes of Italy, what fair weather soever they do bear him; he neither trusteth them, nor they him, and the pretences of the one, and the estates of the other considered, neither of them both is without reason; and withal, this malediction hangeth over the head of him and his Nation, that as he is of all foreign Nations disinherited, doubted, and abhorred, so both he and the very name of a Spaniard, is unto the rest of his own subjects most loathsome and hateful; insomuch, that in Milan the young Gentlemen amongst many other pastimes, count that which they do call Caccia marrani not to be the meanest, which is by putting on vizards upon their faces by night, 
A pastime of the young Gentlemen of Milan which they do call Caccia Marrani.  to go with their rapiers, or good piked bastinadoes under their cloaks, out into the town to seek Spaniards, in the Stews, or any other place, where they are likely to find any of them, and there to give them as many stabs and blows as they can lay upon them; insomuch, that the Spaniards dare not for their ears abide out of the Castle after the shutting in of the gates.  

The hatred of the Netherlanders to the Spaniards.  Neither is the affection of the poor Netherlanders better towards them, who as their usage hath been harder, so is their desire of revenge greater; insomuch, that whensoever any Spaniard falleth into their hands straggling from the army, or otherwise, he is assured to endure as much cruelty, as their best invention can add unto the extremity of their hatred, some they have whipped to death, others they have mangled with linger torments, and some they have buried alive in the ground, leaving nothing out but their heads, at which they have bowled matches, never leaving till they saw their bowls embrewed with their brains.  

The cruelty of the Spaniards to the west Indians, and of the hatred in the which they live.  As for the poor west Indians, of whom at their first arrival they were honoured as gods, after a small and short acquaintance with their customs, humours and cruelties they were so deeply and dispairefully detested, that there was nothing more usual, than to see those poor wretches by great companies to get themselves to the tops of rocks, and to tumble themselves down headlong into the sea, others to cut their own throats with sharp stones, some to pine themselves away with famine; yea, and women great with child, some to take poison, and some to rip open their own wombs, to the end, to free themselves and their infants from the hateful conversation and cruel government of those intolerable Spaniards, whose monstrous inhumanity, they deemed far more unsufferable and unsociable than the raging fury of lions, bears, or whatsoever bloody monsters.  
I will not defile my pen with writing, nor your ears with hearing their barbarous, naturelesse, and unmanly kinds of inhumanity exercised upon these poor, desolate, miserable and distressed wretches, the whole world being infected with the fame thereof.  

The extremity of the Portugals hatred towards the Spaniard.  But if you will thence throw your eyes upon the kingdom of Portugal, (a Nation, civil, militaire, opulent and noble, with desire to see how he is there loved, honoured, and affected, you must consider, that in former times of their happiness, liberty and freedom, there was never any hatred so settled, deadly, and violent, as that which they bore unto the Spaniard, insomuch, that if any one of them had but chanced to name a Castilian, he would presently have spit (as the common sort usually do when they speak of the Devil to cleanse his mouth after the pronouncing of so hateful a word: but being now constrained to receive for masters, those that before they would not allow for honourable enemies, nor ever use and entreat according to those military rules that the nobleness of war prescribes, as their battles of Alnibarota and Toro can testify, wherein they suffered not any one prisoner to escape unslain.  
Their hatred then being (as I said before) so great, that it could not well be greater, you may imagine, that this their constrained slavery and servitude hath no whit at all amended their affection, especially being guilty to themselves, that he hath wrong himself into their estate, not by any justice of election or lawful title of inheritance, but by an absolute injurious usurpation, and forcible intruding violence, making the puissance of his army supply the weakness of his title. And so contrary unto the testament and ordinance of their last King, the Cardinal, and to the great scorn and prejudice of all the other competitors, who were all agreed to stand to the trial of justice, surprised them, and seized their estate, being unarmed and utterly unprovided of all means of defence, attending nothing less than violence, especially the title being undecided, and they wholly busied and intentive about means to clear and discuss the same.  
Finally, being by violence possessed of the crown, he presently used the authority of a Conqueror, and the tyrannical cruelty of an unjust usurper altering their laws, 
The cruelty of the king of Spain in Portugal.  confounding their Privileges, and turning upside down the whole estate of their government. Their Nobility were some strangled, some beheaded, some imprisoned, and some banished. Their religions men and Friars such as had in the pulpit spoken for the liberty of their country, were pulled out of their Cloisters, some murdered, some drowned in the river, and some beaten to death; and finally, because there should be no kind of cruelty left unattempted, 
The wife of Don Antonio's Agent, his daughters and mother in law, and three Gentlewomen professed nuns of the order of S. Clare.  sundry Ladies of great account for being faithful and secret wives to their husbands, were imprisoned, fettered, and banished with their dear and tender children, without compassion of their sex or innocency.  
Which tyrannical proceed, if they were able to alienate minces otherwise before well affected, what judge you would they then do, to those that were already filled and possessed with the highest degree of hatred and enmity? Surely he is puissant enjoyeth many kingdoms and countries, but it hath not pleased God to bless him with the love and hearty affection of his subjects, wherein consisteth the true beatitude of a Prince. Tyrants for the time command the bodies of men, 
The true beatitude of a Prince consisteth in the unfeigned love of his subjects  but only virtuous Princes enjoy the possession of their minds, which indeed is a much more kingly, noble, and heroical domination for the one, every man wisheth his destruction, and gapeth after every occasion of alteration and change: for the other, every man's eye watcheth, every man's heart prayeth, every man's life and living is ready for their defence, as though all their lines, 
The happiness of a virtuous Prince.  treasures and well-fares were in them alone included.  
It is in a private man's estate, a thing comfortless, hateful, yea, and dangerous too, not to be beloved, but (as they say) from the teeth outward of those that serve and follow him, but much more in the greatness and dignity of a Prince, who should be as a careful shepherd, to defend and preserve his flock, as a loving father, zealously affecting the prosperity of his subjects; and finally as the image and lieutenant of God shining over them with his heavenly rays of virtue; bounty, clemency, piety, and justice, and not as the Eagle and Lion, who being the kings of birds and beasts do maintain themselves by the blood and destruction of their subjects.  
In fine, it is to be wished, that it would please God of his goodness, either to grant the King of Spain a better moderation in his greatness, or else soon to bereave him of those means, thorough the confidence of which, his ambitious greatness hath set all Christendom in an uproar.  
But leaving him here to his ambitious usurpations, cruelties, severities, rigours, and injustices; and his unfortunate subjects, to their enthralment, vexation, 
The fortunate and blessed estate of England under the government or her Majesty.  slavery, slaughter, and bondage: let us from this hell of miseries cast back our eyes upon that heaven of blissfulness which we do enjoy at home, under the fortunate and happy government of our most excellent and incomparable sovereign; there we shall find an other estate of matters, all things flowing in plenty, peace, comfort, quietness, pleasure, and tranquillity. Her Realm copiously abounding in men of warlike disposition, of whom, as she is outwardly reverenced and obeyed, so she is inwardly unfeignedly loved and adored; her wars are just, charitable, and defensive, for maintenance of the which, besides the trust that she reposeth in God; she is allied in straight league, friendship, and confederated with the most victorious and christian king of France with the Kings of Scotland, and Denmark with the Swissers, and with sundry princes and estates of the empire, most of them being her neighbours, and their dominions united, or not far distant from hers, and thereby ready to assist, aid, and secure one an other in all such occasions as shall or may happen.  
She like a princely, zealous, and loving mother carefully tendereth, fostereth, and preserveth, her subjects by wisdom and fortitude from foreign violences; and by clemency, religion, and justice, from inward mischiefs.  
If on the other side you desire to know how her subiets stand affected towards her, 
A most apparent proof that her Majesty hath a sure possession even of the very hearts and inward affections of her subjects.  mark then the manner and behaviour of the people, when as you see a traitor going to his arraignment or execution, which though it be a case of compassion, and moving the minds of men to commiserate the calamitous estate of those unfortunate wretches: yet such is the ardent love they bear to her Majesty, the jealousy of her safety, and the hatred to her enemies, that many times they are hardly restrained by the officers from doing violence to the prisoners on the way, and whereas they do usually accompany all other kind of malefactors to their deaths with a kind of feeling sorrow and compassion, they do then no other thing but curse, ban, and revile these with all the most approbrious speeches they can invent; yea, and commonly applaud the instant of their deaths, with a general shout of joy, with some such cry or other, as; God save the queen, and confound all traitors, flattery this can not be, nor hope of reward, being confusedly done by thousands of unknown people, much less fear of correction; for silence is unpunished. No no, it is no constrained fear, 
Not fear but affection must sway the minds of a multitude.  but a voluntary affection that must sway in this sort the minds of a multitude.  
Upon the death of king Edward the fourth the Duke of Buckingham made an eloquent Oration in the Guild hall, flattering the Mayor and his brothers, and promising them many goodly matters and golden days, in the behalf of king Richard the tyrant. The assembly seeing there was no remedy to prevent the intended mischief, did him reverence with their bodies, but with sorrowful faces, and silent tongues: insomuch, that the Duke rebuked their silence, and began his excellent premeditated tale again, half threatening, half begging an applause, but it would not be: not any one that would open his lips to cry, King Richard, except a few of his own lackeys at the neither end of the Hall; so that (as I say) howsoever their bodies may, the minds of men can never be constrained. Blessed therefore and glorious is the domination of her Majesty the which so happily and fully possesseth, not only the exterior service of her subjects bodies, but also the interior fidelity of their minds.  
I cannot here omit to speak a word or two, as well of the worthiness and loyalty of those honourable gentlemen of her majesties Court, 
The honourable offer of certain worthy Gentlemen of the Court made unto her Majesty.  who upon the approach of the Spanish fleet, presented, not only their persons and lives for the defence of her Ma. but also a great portion and yearly revenue of their lands; as also of her majesties great benignity and gracious answer, telling them, That she accounted herself rich enough, 
And her most princely and gracious answer made unto them again.  in that she possessed such subjects, assuring them, that for her part, she would spend the last penny of her treasures for their defence, rather than she would be burdenous unto them: O happy people in such a Princess, and happy Princess in such a people; here is a well tuned music, an agreeing concord and perfect harmony of government, where the frankness of voluntary affection draweth from men the effects of duty, and not the baseness of servile and constrained fear.  
Let atheists and traitors breath out their bootless blasphemies, and inveigh, impugn and malign against the flourishing happiness of our estate: and let them turn themselves to all the malicious practices they can: the end of all their wicked endeavours, will be (like Erisychthon that dared presume to lay his profane axe upon the holy tree of Ceres, to starve, languish, and pine away with a self consuming disease of envy and despair.  
As for these that are virtuous and wise, they can not, but in the infiniteness of our blessings acknowledge the mighty and apparent hand of God, which surely cannot be casual or attributed to the politic industry of man, but merely to the mightiness of God's merciful working, and to his long and eternal foreappointed ordinance.  
In fine, to come to the conclusion of this point, you see that her Majesty is protected by God, confederated and linked in friendship and alliance with mighty Kings and Princes, that she commandeth a populous and manly Nation, that her wars are virtuous, just and lawful; and finally, her successes fortunate and prosperous.  
This then being considered, I see no reason, why you or any man else should be so apprehensive of that terror wherewith the Spanish Brokers; do daily endeavour to dismay the courages of our countrymen.  
If it be through doubt, that our Nation is not equal unto the Spaniard in force of arms and valour of courage, I can not judge of him that shall so conceive as of a true English man borne, but as of a degenerate, bastardly, and adulterine plant, guilty to his own mind of an inward self feeling cowardice: and finally, worthy of that enthralled slavery, under which many of our falsehearted countrymen do groan and languish, as one that through the disease, infection, and unsoundness of his own corrupted mind is not able for to take the true taste and relish of his own native Country virtues. Sore eyes can not endure the Sun beams, nor false hateful minds never harbour true or noble minds and affections. The Poet saith:  To him that loves, each foul thing seemeth fair: 
And so by contrary;  To him that hates, each fair thing seemeth foul. 
If such would but read the Chronicles, as well of ours as other nations, they should find, that a small army of English men, under the conduct of that worthy and magnanimous Prince of Wales, 
The memorable & famous battle of Nadres obtained by th' Englishmen in Spain under the conduct of the black Prince  eldest son to King Edward the third, passed in despite of them through Navarre into Spain, and there, even in the midst and bowels of their own country, overthrew at Nadres their usurping king Henry the bastard (of whose race this man is descended by his grandmother) being accompanied with the nobility of their country, and three score thousand of the bravest fight men in Spain, and so utterly overthrew him, that they erected in his place Don Pedro their just and lawful Prince of that kingdom, compelling, and by main force constraining the nobility and Cities to receive him. There they may likewise read the valorous conquests archieued by john Duke of Lancaster brother to the said Prince in Galicia against Don john, 
john Duke of Lancaster victorious in Galicia.  son of the said Henry the usurping bastard: beside, the Chronicles of Portugal are full of the martial prowess of the English men, and glorious victories obtained in service of their King, 
At the battle of Alaibereth.  to whose aid they were called against the said king of Castille.  
But what need I run back into the passed ages, to seek examples? Look but into the encounters that have been of late days between them and us either by sea or by land, and you shall find that we have always carried the victory, and they blows. As, by land, at the encounter of Grave, and that of Zutphen, where the honour of the world and ornament of England sir Philip Sidney by his adventurous valour was slain, besides many other bicker and skirmishes of less moment needless to recite.  
Of sea matters I do count it bootless for to speak so greatly; and above measure glorious is the same, and bruited throughout the world of the worthy voyages of sir Francis Drake, sir john Hawkins, sir Martin Frobysher, Captain Ryman, the Fennor's and the rest of the brave and courageous Gentlemen, who for the benefit of their country have not spared to make adventure of their lives and fortunes.  
But if you desire one example of all, let that then serve of his huge late fleet, with the which Golyas-like he threatened heaven and earth, and, with the which he thought to have circumvented and surprised at unawares her Majesty, whilst falsely, wickedly, and abusively he entertained her majesties Commissioners in Flaunders, with a treaty of peace: to which her highness like unto a christian Princess, and for to annoyed the effusion of christian blood, was very inclinable; but God, as he hath always done, so at this time did he miraculously protect her Majesty in such sort, that through the great careful and valorous resolution of the Lord high Admiral of England, and the rest of his noble and courageous followers, they were with a small number of English ships so fiercely and vigorously encountered, that their resistance not prevailing them, they were scattered, chased and utterly discomfited, in such sort as the whole world knoweth, so that Lucan's verse which in those days he wrote to the glory of our Nation, upbraiding the Romans cowardice, may to none better be applied (in my judgement) than unto them.  Territa quaesitis ostendunt terga Printannis. 
Besides, what better trial can you have of the valour of either Nation than this; they being thirty thousand, the cream of all their forces, and about the assembling of which he had been above three years busied, yet when they came upon the coast of England, dared not to land a man, whereas we the next year following, with a little navy, containing not above eleven thousand men, under the conduct of the two renowned Captains, sir john Norris, and sir Francis Drake, landed in Spain, burned his ships, put his people to the sword, and his Towns to the fire, and coasted thence along into Portugal, and there landing, marched in his country, even to his gates of Lisbon, with drums sounding, and with ensigns displayed; from whence we returned unfought withal by any of his forces, by sea or land.  
These things well considered, me thinketh you have greater reason to hope one day to see English ensigns displayed in Madrill, together with the utter ruin of this aspiring tyrant, and all his followers and partisians', than any way to sear him and his proceed. And yet there is one point besides all the above rehearsed, out of which we may receive singular comfort, as that which of all other most deeply vexeth and afflicteth his cogitations, and which (not doubt) before it be long, will give us a great advantage against him, and that is, the contention which he seethe to spring up in his own house, of which I will briefly discourse unto you the occasions, because ye shall understand the same the better.  

His eldest & on●l son Don Philip by Anne of Austria daughter to Maximilian the second.  He hath by several wives three children living, two daughters, and one son, the son young of years, pale, and weak of complexion, and not of the greatest vivacity of spirit, though the same according to the course of the world, is by the common sort much covered under the high dignity of a Prince.  

His eldest daughter Donna Isabel by Madam Isabel the eldest daughter to Henry the second King of France.  His eldest daughter whom they call la infanta of Spain, a woman, as by birth great, so proud exceedingly, haughty minded, and above measure aspiring, prudent in her speeches, majestical in her actions and countenance, an above her sex, manly and courageous: her he hath always nourished under his own wing, acquainting her even from her cradle with matters of state and government. In which now, by reason of her long experience therein, she is exceedingly practised and ripe; with her what weighty matter soever he undertakes, he participateth the same, before demanding her advice and counsel, spending sometimes whole half days they two in communication together; upon her (the youth and imbecility of the young Prince considered) are the eyes of all men thrown, upon her depend the nobility, gentlemen, and commons, and innumerable troops of surers, into whose hearts she hath so insinuated herself, that they bear an exceeding love & reverence towards her, many mighty men have been offered her in marriage, as the emperor Rodolph, the Cardinal of Austria, and divers other; but she will abandon Spain for none of them all, till she see what will become of her father, whom she seethe old, oppressed with infinite cares, and not likely long to live, upon whose death, her actions and manner of life doth assuredly show that she is not of metal to give place to the young Prince her brother, but at least she means to part stakes with him.  
In Spain she knows there is no law Salic to bridle her ambitious thoughts, but women may succeed as well as men, for so did her great grandmother juana to Ferdinando her father, & Isabel wife to Ferdinand to Don Henryques her brother; having these examples before her eyes, she feedeth her mind with high and ambitious desires, of which her pretence she hath made so clear and evident demonst●ations, that her father, to prevent this mischief the which he feareth, he was forced, nor long since to assemble and gather the whole Estates of Spain, and to make them swear to be true to his son, 
When her father was sick some three years since, and the D. of Savoy sent for into Spain, she had so wrought, that by her father's testament, she was ordained to be governess of Spain and protectress of the Prince her brother.  whom he presently caused to keep his Court apart, sending him sundry of his counsel, and commanding the Nobility to be attendant on him, acquainting him, as much as in him lieth, with the managing of matters of weight and government: beside, it was a while bruited for certain, that the Precedent of Artoys, Richardo, whom the Duke of Parma had sent into Spain, to make his excuses and justifications against certain points of treason, of which he was by the Duke of Pastrana and the Prince of As●oly accused to the King upon his return had commission to assemble the nobility and states of the Low Countries, and to cause them to take the like oath unto his son, thereby to prevent as well his daughter, as the Duke of Parma of their conceived hopes; but whatsoever the cause was, the same was not effected.  

His second daughter by the daughter of France. Donna Katalina married to the Duke of Savoy.  But now to come unto his second daughter, whom he hath long time since bestowed in marriage upon Charles Emanuel the Duke of Savoy, with absolute promise and solemn vow betwixt him and her, to leave her a kingdom for her dowry. She is a Princess in ambition and high desire, nothing unequal to her sister, but in wit and courage very far her inferior. She and her husband both already take upon them in their manner, style and usage, a state and title far beyond their dignity, convenient only unto Kings; Altezza is the meanest phrase that they will be spoken in unto, 
Altezza Highness.  refusing any Letters that are not so entitled; for such is the will and pleasure of the King her father. Naples and the Duchy of Milan they have already devoured in their hopes, which if her father at his death leave not quietly unto them, they will be so bold as to strain courtesy with his son, to get them perforce (if they can;) on the other side, the States of Italy like not such a mighty neighbour amongst them: and therefore to prevent both him and his father in father's desseignement have made a most strait secret league and alliance amongst themselves, terming the same, ragione de stato: in the which are comprised, the Pope, the Venetians, 
The Princes of Italy in league.  the Duke of Florence, the Dukes of Vrbyne, Mantua, and Ferrara.  
The Duke of Parma in his life time dared not to enter in among them, but was forced though none more aggrieved to dissemble and temporize for a while, he knew right well that the king had been exceeding jealous of him, and did seek, though slily and dissemblingly, his life, honour and reputation. What his son the new Duke will do when occasion shall serve, the Lord only knoweth, but certain it is, that the detention of Portugal, to which he persuadeth himself to have right: manet alta mente repostum, sticketh deep in his stomach; 
The duke of Parma and his discontentment.  and surely when as opportunity shall be presented, it is thought he will make the world witness of his discontentment.  
But leaving these things to their event, and the better discussion of these points at which I have but lightly glanced to men of greater ability, having already exceeded the limits which I did at the beginning of this discourse proportion to myself, it is now ●ime that I restrain my pen, concluding, that the fame of the King of Spain is greater than his force; 
The fame of the king of Spain exceedeth his force  and he not better to be likened than to a shadow, which seeming long towards the setting of the sun, yieldeth to our sight a deceitful proportion of his greatness. The Philosophers hold, that there is in all things, a beginning, a progress, a state, and a declining, and that the perfecter their creation and beginning is, the more are they durable, and longer ere they come unto their period. And so contrary; if their beginning be corrupt and unsound, it is improbable and impossible, that there should be any long continuance; which argument, if it be as it is, infallible, then what shall we expect of this mass of kingdoms which the King of Spain and his late predecessors have huddled together by extortion, intrusion of himself, extrusion of others, violence, injustice, & most of them by forcible usurpation; but that one day, when opportunity shall serve, every bird will claim his own feather, and leave him or his heirs naked? In the mean time (as I said before) in regard of his many irons in the fire, the disjoined situation of his own provinces, and lastly, the general hatred that the world beareth him, he ●s nothing so formidable as he seemeth.  
But by the way, I would not have any man mistake me, in this extenuation of his mightiness, as though I should do the same to lull us asleep in security, for there is nothing more dangerous than a contemned enemy; let us rather do like well disciplined soldiers that keep still good and wary watch, though they be never so far from the enemy.  
I do not think that the Devil hath so many horns in his head, and stings in his tail, as he is painted withal: yet nevertheless I think him to be very ill favouredly faced, and a dangerous companion, and able to do much hurt if a man do come within the compass of his claws. It is an old saying, Frugality is the mother of Liberality, and Wariness of Security. Let not us of our part be defective in contributing our goods, or hazarding our purses for the public weal of our Country, than which, nothing is more honourable. Neither let us grow confident and careless, in that of late since the overthrow of his last fleet, he hath not attempted any new invasion, but assure ourselves, that he fetcheth his blow the further, because he would strike the surer. The Dutchmen have a proverb, that when the Spaniard sleeps, the devil rocks the Cradle. Let us therefore be in a readiness for him against he awake, the which undoubtedly we shall be, and that to his disadvantage, if we will fear God, obey her Majesty, and be true within ourselves; from which union whosoever shall dismember himself, God send him speedy amendment, or else, as he deserveth, soon confusion. I know this discourse of mine shallbe diversly censured of, according to the diversity of their affections that shall chance for to read it, but that request which I did make in the beginning, I turn in the end now to review, the which is to entreat those that shall peruse it, not to bring with them any settled fore-ingrafted opinion, but unclothing their minds and affections of all partiality to judge thereof accordingly as the truth of the matter, and the sincereness of my meaning deserveth.  
Let them only wince, that feel their galled back rubbed (for my part) I would to God, and I wish it unfeignedly, that this poor advertisement of mine, might leave as a cataplasm or medicine to remedy and cure the rankleing of their malady and disease, the which if it may not be, but that in recompense of my friendly, honest, and charitable intention, they shall reward me with a malicious and detracting censure, I shall not therewith be much grieved, but rather greatly comforted, in having made myself worthy of their malice, the which seeing they have not spared to power out in such opprobrious terms against Princes and men of authority, it were folly in me to think to escape it, or want of courage to regard it.  
As for the truth of these things which I have touched I give them free liberty and scope to impugn it if they can; nay rather, I wish with my heart, that they could disprove it, and that my writings might be condemned as false, so their actions might be justified as innocent, and that therein my Country might not with the viper have cause to complain of the too much fertility of her womb, and the unnaturalness of her own fruit.  
But lastly now to you for whose behoof I do chiefly take these pains, whereas you do write, that if so be there were no other benefit to be gotten in those parts, but attaining the language of foreign Nations, with the knowledge of military discipline, and the state of the world abroad, wherein you hear, that even myself and others your Countrymen have somewhat, it were a motion sufficient, not only to make you leave your Country for a time, but also to hazard yourself to any dangers in foreign parts, I have thought it good, therein to let you understand, that howsoever I, or any other have profited therein, yet as the time doth now serve, and the case now standeth at this present, there is no possibility that you or any other may, in far longer time than I have spent, attain to the like. And if you could, yet the dangers that in adventuring the same you shall endure, were far greater than the benefits you could possible reap, might in any wise countervail, were they such as might answer your expectation; in which respect I pray you first consider, that when I came first over thither, the wars then there undertaken seemed, and were in appearance to all the meaner sort of men in the world, but inrestine wars between the king and his subjects, such as neither foreign prince, and most especially our most noble Queen and Sovereign was therein nothing interessed, whereas since it hath been made manifest to the world, that these wars and injuries offered by the King of Spain unto those of the Low Countries, whose laws, customs, and privileges he hath most violently, tyrannously, wrongfully and periuredly broken, hath freed them from his subjection, yoke and tyranny, and justly, and deservedly for ever caused him to lose all such pre-eminences, prerogatives, authority and jurisdiction as he pretended over them, as more amply appeareth in the ancient Records of the privileges of these Nations, which both he and his predecessors at every entry of government into these provinces have solemnly vowed and sworn to maintain all in general, and every one in particular inviolate; and upon that covenant and condition, they have reciprocally sworn unto him due fidelity and obeisance he failing in the one, they to be exempted from the other.  
Moreover her Majesty seeing the lamentable and most pitiful cause of her distressed neighbours and allies, finding no other possible means by labour, suits, messages, and sundry Ambassadors which she most honourably sent unto the King of Spain for pacifying the said troubles, and reconciling the said King, and those sometimes his said subjects hath been enforced to take pity and commiseration of their most miserable & afflicted estate and distress, and for their relief, to her excessive and almost importable charges, to undertake a most just, godly, and charitable defensive war against those that daily seek the blood, lives, goods, lands, and liberties of the inhabitants of the said distressed Nations, since which being published, I think it not only unlawful, but a most heinous and capital crime and offence for any of her majesties subjects to serve on the contrary part.  
It shall be good for you and all other good subjects of her Majesties to remember, that consideration being had by her Majesty and her most honourable prudent council, of the looseness of many of her subjects, and small respect they had to her Highness and country, and as little to their own safety, her Majesty hath caused to be published and set forth divers laws, ordinances, proclamations and inhibitions, whereby all her subjects (except known merchants and strangers are straightly forbidden to pass the seas into any foreign parts without especial licence of her Majesty. Therefore if you or any other of her majesties subjects, shall now attempt to pass the seas without lawful licence, there is no reason why you should expect any other than the rigour of the laws and justice, and to be holden guilty of cases capital, especially such as shall serve under so open and professed an enemy to the crown and state.  
Further, I pray you to have in consideration, that when I came over hither, the case so stood, as all Gentlemen of any quality or merit, were gratefully received, and employed in good and honourable services; whereas since the Spaniard hath professed himself an open enemy to her Majesty and the state of her realm, he hath had all English men in very base account, being jealous and extremely suspicious of those that be most inward with him, and who for his sake have make shipwreck, not only of their honour and credit, but also of their loyalty, duty, and allegiance to her Majesty and their native country; examples whereof are infinite, and partly touched in my discourse before set down.  
Besides, there is of late crept into that Nation with a commanding authority, a proud; insolent; and factious company of jesuits, and with them a consorted crew of other practising busy people, all of them malicious enemies to her Majesty, and to their own country, vile and pernicious instruments of the Spansh King and his adherents, who daily (as it is manifest to them that have knowledge and experience of them and their actions) seek nothing more, than the utter ruin, pulling down, and destruction of her Majesty and their country: He therefore that doth think to live among these subtle and dangerous people, in any credit or account, let him, as he worthily doth deserve, be accounted beside his wits, or else as disobedient and traitorous to almighty God, her Majesty, and his country.  
As for my part, howsoever in my young years affected to learn languages, and to see the wars and fashions of foreign places, yet when I perceived that the matter began to concern her Majesty, and withal, to look into the drift and conveyance whereto their practices tended, presently abandoning and utterly rejecting the merit of my long service, and such hopes and preferrements the which I might as well as any man else of my quality of my Nation have pretended, and perchance should as soon have obtained, I made humble intercession to her Majesty my most honoured princess and sovereign Lady for my return, which of her royal and accustomed benignity she graciously granted: so that besides the unfeigned prayer which I will never cease to send to the heavens from the depth of a most faithful affection for the continuance of her blessed estate and happiness, I take God to record, that there is not in this world any thing that I more thirst after than an occasion to make the world witness of the desire I have to do her service; and so concluding, I beseech God, that as her virtues are infinite, so her joys may be endless. Amen.   
FINIS.   

A DISCOURSE OF THE USAGE OF the English Fugitives, by the Spaniard.  
SIC CREDE  
LODON, Printed by Thomas Scarlet for john Drawater, and are to be sold at his shop in Pater noster row, at the sign of the Swan. 1595.   

THE COPY OF A Letter sent out of the Low countries by a Gentleman entertained by the King of Spain in pension: To a young Gentleman his Kinsman in ENGLAND.  
MY very good Cousin, understanding as well by your Letters, as by the message lately done unto me by the mouth of A. T. of the great longing and desire you have to draw yourself into these parts, & to employ yourself here in service of the Spanish king: & perceiving also as well by your said Letters, as by the Gentleman that brought the same, and by the report of diverse other young Gentlemen of our Country, there be many that are of your mind in that point: Some thereunto, as I do guess, moved of a youthful and vain tickling humour, to be wandering abroad in strange and foreign Countries: Others in hope there to grow to great preferment, advancement, employment, and wealth: Other some pretending matter of conscience, seem to have sure confidence, that there they may live with more liberty and ease of mind, then that within our Country they enjoy. I have thought good for the particular love which I bear, and always have borne towards you, unto whom I wish as to myself, but chiefly in respect of the sincere, faithful, reverent, and loyal fidelity and regard I have to the person of our sacred, renowned, and most gracious Sovereign, the QVEENES' most excellent Majesty, and to my native Country and Countryemen, to set down some notes and observations, which by long and painful troubles and experience in this place I have gathered: by which I hope I shall make manifest not only to you, but also to all others my most dear Country men, if I may have the favour to have it published: in which point I mean to labour by my best friends, to such of the greatest persons as may permit the same, how greatly you and they that desire to repair hither by any of the motions before expressed, or in any hope of good to be received from they said King, do err and are deceived. I heartily and most earnestly desire you, & all other that shall read the same, deeplye to judge and consider of these points which I shall set down, which (God willing) I will do with such fidelity, true meaning, and sincerity, as that no part of the same shall be truly to be gainsaid or refelled, and myself by the persons, times, and places, and other circumstances shall make most manifest and plain, to any that shall doubt of the truth of the same or any part thereof, & I shall take great joy & comfort, if myself having undertaken an untowardlye & dangerous course, though with better success than hath happened to many hundreds, may be as a caveat to all the young Gentlemen of our Nation, how they hazard themselves so dangerously. And that my painful experience may be to you as a looking Glass, wherein they may behold the spots & errors of their conceived fancies, or as marks set up for them, whereby they may avoid the perils & most dangerous rocks and shelves, to them yet unknown, & lying hidden under the smooth, fair, and delightful conceived and fantasied pleasures forged in their imaginations.   

THE METHOD OF the ensuing Discourse.  
THE method and manner that I intent to use in this Discourse, shall be after this sort. First, I will direct my speeches to the unexperienced Gentlemen, desirous to serve here in Spain, showing them in what point of their hope and expectations they do fail and are deceived.  
Secondly, to our credulous Papists at home, upon whose grossness and simplicity, our rebellious traitors here abroad do build their chiefest foundations of all their villainies, whom while they entertain with vain expectations, in the mean time with spies, Priests, and traitors, which they daily send over, they abuse with treacherous practices, to the irrepiable ruin and overthrow of them and theirs. Thirdly, because many of our country men living in great happiness at home, do yet in their conceits mislike, surfeiting with ease, the blessed estate they live in, and what withal, the manner of her majesties most gracious and merciful government, I have thought it my duty somewhat to express these few things which have come to my knowledge, touching the innumerable benefits & blessings with which it hath pleased God to adorn her royal Majesty, together with the flourishing estate of that noble soil, since the time of her majesties reign, so flourishing with peace, prosperity, and abundance in glory of wars, so renowned and victorious in arts, so curious and excellent in justice, even to the very enemy, so admirable, and (which surpasseth all the rest) in the free, sweet, and comfortable use of the true religion: so above all others blessed and fortunate, that I have heard the very Spaniards themselves say, they fear jesus Christ is become a protestant. Withal, I make some comparison between this and the tyrannical government of the Spanish tyrant, his cruel and inhuman usage of his miserable subjects, their abolition of their privileges, and in fine, the unspeakable bondage, slavery, and desolate despair in which they live languishing. A matter though far unfit for me to handle or treat, but worthy of the most grave and experienced men of quality and highest degree, yet considering I shall not presume to treat of matters of high state or secrets, but such as every good subject may find and pick out of the heroical actions of the one, and the tyrannical insolence of the other, both done in the appearance of the world, I hope and so with all lowliness most humbly desire her gracious and most benign Majesty to pardon me, if I come far short of that which men fit for the handling thereof could say or entreat. And so most humbly also make petition, that I may therein be censured according to the loyal zeal I bear to her most princely Majesty, and not to the baseness and simplicity of my style or the handling thereof.  
But to come to my Discourse, to the end that you and the rest of your opinion, may clearly and plainly discern those things which hitherto your eyes blinded with the vail of partiality, have not been able to view: I will begin with the good usage, honour and advancement that you and other Gentlemen addicted to this service are here to expect, bringing unto you for example, sundry brave and worthy Gentlemen, Captains, and soldiers, that have taken the like course before you, whereby you shall perceive it is not all gold that glistreth, but that whatsoever show the Spaniard maketh unto us, yet in his heart he mortally abhorreth us, & by all means possible seeketh our destruction, ruin, & subversion, as it evidently appeareth by his usage of troops and companies of our nation that have served his. For example: at the siege of Antwerp there came unto him under the conduct of Norris and Cornish, a troop of six thousand, the tallest and best appointed soldiers, that ever I remember to have seen in all my life, their coming being the only cause that the town was so soon delivered unto him as it was. For whereas the Duke of Anjou lay under the walls of Gaunt, with sufficient force and most deliberate resolution to secure the said town of Antwerp upon his mutiny, fearing further inconvenience, he marched away with his whole camp, leaving the enemy now battering the town, who seeing themselves frustrate of their expected hope, presently rendered the same to the Duke of Parma. But how were they recompensed? Within one year they were l●● all to ●am●●h for hunger, which some of them seeking to relieve, by foreranging out upon the Country, four and twenty of them were taken and carried to Antwerp, of whose beginning they were the chiefest, and there openly hanged in the market place. Whereas all other nations had liberty to rob and steal, and do what they list. Another troop of them of thirty, being forth, and lying in a village near Poppering in Flanders, a company of Spaniards hearing of them, came into the village where they were, and after friendly and souldierlye salutation of each side, as they were all making merry together, on a sudden the Spapiardes took them at advantage unarmed, and most treacherously and inhumanly murdered them every one. Sundry complaints were made to the Duke by the friends of those that were thus murdered, and by the Captains of the Regiment, but there could be no remedy nor justice obtained. But to make amends, because they would be the cleanlier rid of the residue of this poor miserable troop, the camp being then before Winockbergen, they made them two little sorts of purpose, in which they willingly placed them in the utmost quarter of the whole camp, and nearest confining to the town, to the end they might have all their throats cut, as in deed they had very few nights after. At which time the enemy assaulting them with great fury, and they defending themselves most manfully above the space of an hour, in such sort as the alarm passed through the whole camp, yet they were never relieved with any succour at all, insomuch that the greatest part of them being slain in defence, the enemy at last entered and put the residue to the sword.  
To rehearse unto you the sundry and several calamities that these poor men, as well Captains as soldiers endured, during the small time of that their unfortunate service, especially at Ganskecke, Ask, and Graver, would seem (I am sure) unto you for the unspeakable strangeness thereof, scarcely credible, for they never received all the time of their service any one months pay. I have seen Lieutenants and Ensigns of them go up and down the camp begging their bread, covered only with old mantles about their shoulders, and have myself relieved some of them. Shortly after came Pigot, who brought with him sir john Norris his regiment, being well near a thousand, as tall and well appointed men as were in Europe, whose service, how meritorious and beneficial it was unto the Spaniards, I leave to their judgements that know the Country. For by rendering of Alost unto him, they were the occasion that he got Darmounde the Sasse, the forts of Leiskins hook, Saint Anthony's, and Saint Margaret's, the best part of the land of Waste, & in manner Gaunt itself, as the sequel showed. Notwithstanding all which service, they were within two years space, what with hunger, the gallows, & rigorous dealing, consumed and brought to nothing. And last at Stalbrooke, even against the yielding up of Antwerp, when all other nations were to receive their count and reckoning, they only were infamously cashiered without any one months pay. And which of all other is most monstrous and scarce credible, whereas some of the Captains, not long before had made them of their own purses new and fair Ensigns, those Ensigns were violently taken away from those that bore them, and detained: Which abuse and wrong, though captain Tresham and the other Captains complained off to the Duke with great protestations, yet they could never obtain any restitution.  
Somewhat before this time, when the whole camp was at the siege of Dermound paid two months, they only though of all others most traveled in the trenches, wading every night bosom high to their waist, and having had more men slain in that siege than any other regiment in the whole camp, could not receive one penny, notwithstanding they had passed in muster with the rest, and some of the Captains bribed the Commissary, thinking thereby to make a great hand. But in stead of money, when they showed the Duke, they were scornfully by him turned of to the Contadores, of whom they received the most base & opprobrious speeches that ever were given soldiers, & were in fine rejected without ever receiving one halfpenny. And lastly, when the Regiment was cast, whereas the pay of a reformed Captain amongst them, of what Nation soever he be, is forty crowns, they give only to our English captains five and twenty a month. Not long before it chanced that one of the Captains, whose name was Edward Vincent, was taken in a skirmish by the enemy at Pernence, and set at ransom at a hundred and fifty pounds, to make which ransom, his father being then in Flanders, a poor old man of seventy years of age, fell upon his knees before the Duke, weeping and imploring his help. But in stead of yielding him relief, the Duke bad take away the old drunken fool: the grief whereof struck the old man so to the heart, that he went home and died within six days, and his son for lack of his ransom was shortly after hanged at Perges. Pigot himself being some three years since taken, and Barn, between Gaunt and Bruges, were never relieved with any one penny towards their charges or ransoms, Pigot was suffered miserably to end his days in prison, and so had Barn also, but that his wife, by her solicitation, found such favour among his private friends, that she got as much as paid his ransom, but never could obtain one penny of the Duke, though she were an importunate suitor unto him.  
Lastly, came sir W. Standley and R. York rendering unto the King the town of Deventer, & fort of Sutphen, the one with a regiment of foot, the other with a company of lances. Let us see how the one and the other was used. First, sir William Standley was confirmed governor of the Town, he rendered, and his regiment left there in garrison, with the receipt of two months pay. For a while he lived in the greatest applause that might be: Cardinal Allen was written to to send down Priests to instruct this religious regiment: he informed the Pope thereof, who wrote jointly to the king to be good unto this regiment. Which being well and liberally entreated, as they had already at Rheims and Rome, a Seminary of scholars to pray and write for the catholic cause of our Country, so this conducted by so worthy and catholic a Gentleman as sir William Standley was, might be a continual nursery, and seminary of soldiers to fight for the same. Down came Priests thick and three fold, from France and Italy, many Masses, and much preaching there was: Gentlemen from all parts drew down thither, in hope of this good payment, and golden world that then was talked of. But what followed? within short space, to weaken then number, three of their companies under colour of service, were cunningly drawn out of the Town by Verdugo Haaltephen, never from that time after being suffered to return to it again: & within a while after sir William himself with the remnant, was commanded under the like colour of service, to come forth, being told that he should presently return into it again. And by this fine means was cased of his government, and such goods as he and his soldiers left, were spoiled & made booty of. And sithence that time, his seminary soldiers, with all their religion, were never trusted in any town, nor never shallbe I warrant them. From thence they were presently drawn down into Brabant, where they wintered in the field without money, and in such great misery and poverty, that ten weeks together their chiefest food and sustenance in Turnolt, was unpoudered acorns, which they found in cellars. Which diet the priests not liking of, came to their Colonel to Antwerp, who to avoid the lamentations and complaints of his soldiers, had gotten him there a lodging, where you should never have found his table without a squadron of Priests. Some did wonder, so worthy a soldier could suffer their indignities, which to avoid, some years since he went into Spain: partly to secure unto himself some estate of living, of which he now considering this dealing, began to doubt: partly by the invitation of the jesuits, with which order he is exceedingly enchanted, & to them wholly subjecteth: who dealt for him in such sort with the Cardinal, that he presently sent Parsons away into Spain, to inform the King of his worthiness, virtue, and experience of the sea coasts of England, but especially of his intelligence about Ireland, which in truth he presumeth to be very great. Parsons played his part in such sort, that sir William was presently sent for: who upon his arrival, did what he could, to persuade the king to send forces for Ireland: but belike there was not such credit given him as he expected, insomuch that he wrote Letters to H. Holt the jesuit in Brusels (which is one of those on whom he chief relieth) of great discontentment, signifying, that his entertainment was far colder than he expected. Within short space after, he was sent down to the king's navy, lying at Coconia where as yet he remaineth. In the mean time his regiment began to drop and droop away, in such sort, that what for lack of sustenance, & what for ill usage, the number of them was melted to an hundred and fifty: which base and villainous usage the gravest and wisest of his Captains seeing, especially abhorring the treacherous practices of their Colonel, made by secret means humble intercession to her most gracious MAJESTY to pardon their offences committed, and to grant them liberty to live in their Country: which of her most princely and royal benignity she granted, so as now they live here in honest and good sort, & can testify all this which I have said to be true.  
Having gotten sir William out of Deventer, yet York still remained a blemish in their eye, who always, notwithstanding their base usage, still flourished & bore his head aloft, ranging over the whole country with his Company, bringing in daily many great and rich booties: Him therefore fairly on a day at dinner, they caused to be poisoned, where likewise were poisoned with him young Richard Souch, & Robert Fen priest: but he belike having swallowed the best Boncon, they only met with the drams, so that he died miserably, and they fell sick and broke out into many pustles & biles, yet afterwards recovered, and did give this testimony. His breath was no sooner out of his body, but Fiorias a Spaniard, and Vandenberg, the new governor of Deventer rushte into his lodging to break up his coffers▪ in which being withstood by York's lieutenant Edward Boncer, and his brother, they caused their guards at noon days to enter in upon them, and to murder them both in their own presence: which done, they broke up his coffers, took out his jewels, plate and money, of which they found great store, appropriating the same to their towns use, which he by Testament had given to a little youth his nephew, being now at this present in England. Lastly, they chased his whole company out of the town, and spoiled their baggage at the gates. The poor soldiers being thus inhumanly deprived of their Captain and Lieutenant, and seeing themselves so vilely dealt with, repaired to Verslugo for relief, who for recompense presently cashiered them all without receipt of one penny.  
Afterwards they gave out and published, that York was poisoned by subornation of the counsel of England: but, if there had been no other proofs (as there were infinite) yet the sequel of their doings, their murdering of his friends, and their robbing of his treasure, showed by whom it was done, and whereat they aimed.  
If these examples be not enough to serve the turn, but that perchance you will say, he hath dealt better with private men. If you can name me but any one that he hath raised or advanced to honour, or that liveth richly or wealthily in his service, I will name you an hundred, that being Gentlemen of good houses and of worthy merit, have consumed, languished, and been brought to nothing in his service, some of them perished & died for lack of sustenance. You perchance will name Hugh Owen: and in good faith he is the only man that ever I knew advanced, credited, or graced in his service. And yet (God wots) all that he getteth, is no more than to maintain him in a mean estate and show, with a man only or two to serve him. Where on the other side I will reckon you up of those that are only for want of things necessary, and of pure poverty consumed and dead, M. Copley, L. Dacers, Michael Tempest, old Norton, Tremaine, straddling, Henry Carew, Edward Allen, Southwell, with sundry others of good race and credit in their Country: Copley being sick at Bevere, and in unspeakable distress and calamity, desired a Gentleman his kinsman, one Lo. Lewkner, to beseech Pedro de Olane, who then was treasurer, to pay him upon an assignation which he had, only five pounds, protesting that at that present his life might therewith be saved. The Gentleman performed his request with all instance and fidelity, as he hath oftentimes told me, but could not obtain one penny. Whereupon he moved the Duke, but nothing would come, so that without finding any man that took compassion of his distress, his own Countrymen being unable to help him, he ended his life, though with patience virtuously and well, yet the state of so honourable a gentleman considered, most pitifully, and in great misery.  
To recite unto you the names of those that do yet live so poorly and uncomfortably in his pension, would be too long, and therefore take them all in general (Charles Paget only excepted) and examine them one from an other, from my Lord of Westmoreland downward, even to the very lowest: and if there be in the whole world a more miserable and discontented troop of Gentlemen than they are, let me never be credited in any thing else that I shall tell you. And because you shall yourself the beteer judge, I will tell you what payment they have, of such pensions as the king hath given them.  
They had granted them at Bruges the first day of August, in the year one thousand five hundred eighty and eight, a general Liberanca, to receive three months pay a piece of their pensions. Since that time they have followed the Duke from Town to Town, making unto him sundry requests for the payment thereof: but if they have until this present day obtained the same, then let me not be credited in any part of the rest which I shall here entreat of. In deed some small time passed, Cosimo being wearied with their importunities and lamentations, addressed them to Baptista Spinola a baker dwelling at Antwerp giving them his Letter, and sending the same by one H. Haslwood, requesting him to relieve those distressed English Gentlemen, and to buy their Liberanca, which he doubted not but they would sell good cheap, greatly to his profit: the whole sum was ten thousand crowns, which Cosimo promised him should be allowed, and paid in the reckoning he had with the king. Haslewood in the name of the rest, offered him the said sum for six hundred. But Spinola utterly refused the same, saying, he would not take it for two hundred, and withal he desired that he might not meddle any more with the king, wishing that he had not meddled with him so much. So that they were fain to return penniless, and do at this instant live in so poor and pitiful sort, that truly my heart grieveth to see it, insomuch that I knew a Gentleman that sold his part there, being four and twenty pounds, for three pounds. But perchance you will say, he giveth great pensions, and entertaineth many of our Nation: it is true in deed, in show he doth so, and therewith doth blear the worlds eyes with a show of great liberality. But his payment and usage considered, a (God is my judge and witness) I speak unfeignedly, I account it a far happier estate to be a doorkeeper in that your blessed soil, than to be here pensioner to the king of Spain. I leave the judgement of the truth thereof, to those that have tried it: you have many amongst you, confer with them and examine them upon their consciences: as for my part, in good faith I cannot imagine cause why he entertaineth us, unless it be to use us as stales, to allure others, considering the hatred that he & his bear us, and so under the dissembled colour of a false affection, to overthrow us all at the last.  
Thus much I dare boldly say, because through the conference I have had with them, I do know assuredly, that even those of our nation which do most serve his turn, howsoever in outward appearance they seem for some particular causes to magnify and extol his liberality, yet in their own secret conceits they do imagine & know nothing in the world to be more reproachful, base, and contemptible, than to be an Entertain do in the king of Spain's service. As for example: you shall easily see what account is made of them. At such time as preparation was made at Brussels for the voyage of England, when they all expected to be made knights, colonels, captains, and conductor of the army, and to be filled with crowns, they were so far from those matters with which they flattered themselves, that in stead of being honoured and advanced, they were the only rejected and contemned people that followed the Court, all men being relieved with some months pay (they only excepted) and which is more, whereas they moved the Duke sundry times to know his pleasure, how he would dispose of them in this journey, telling him beside, that upon the well usage of them depended much matter of importance, as the alluring & drawing to them other gentlemen of their kinsmen and friends, and upon hope of the like good usage, honour, and advancement, would be able to do great service upon their landing: where contrariwise, in seeing them come over so poor in show, without credit, money, or arms, like lack is, for so were the words of their request, it would be a cause to terrify them from undertaking any such course. They were by the Duke scornfully and with derision rejected, neither did he vouchsafe to give them any other answer, than only that he would think upon it. But on the night that they thought to embark, he departed, leaving them all behind, not thinking them any way worthy to be called upon, or to be taken with him. Whereupon the lord Westmoreland and Paget, and sundry others, laid their heads together, and made their complaint to the duke of Pastrana, by whom they were as basely and scornfully handled as by the other, insomuch as a great Spaniard standing by, asked them whether they thought the king of Spain not puissant enough to win England, without them and their friends: Upon which answer the Lord Paget, that verily thought he should have been made one of the privy Council, and now finding himself to be had in so small account, conceived such an inward grief, that for that time forward he never joyed till his dying day. Sir William Standley also took it in such heavy and disdainful sort, that he was not called to be counsel of wars, whereas he presumed, and so gave out, that no man in the army knew more, or was better able in this voyage than himself, that he sequestered himself from the Country, and came malcontent, and hired an house in Antwerp, where he lived a most melancholy life four or five months, and oftentimes would burst out into such impassionate speeches, that the world verily imagined he would have professed himself into a cloister.  
Besides, the love the Spaniarde beareth us, appeareth by the speeches he daily useth in public assemblies concerning us. Once seeing certain Englishmen pass by, as they stood a great many of them in a ring, (as they use) together upon the bridge in Antwerp, they said, They wondered what the king made with such vermin in his country, one of them swearing a great oath, that look how many Englishmen there were in the Low countries, there were so many spies and traitors. Another said, it were an alms deed to put them all in sacks, and throw them into the river. I could recite a thousand more such speeches, but that they are not worth the remembering. They are so jealous and suspicious of us, that if any thing prove untowardly in their service, they think it strait to be done by our especial means and intelligence. As upon the taking of Axhil by that brave & worthy soldier Sir Philip Sidney, of worthy memory, Mondragon presently imprisoned Paget within the Castle, took away all things whatsoever that he had worth any thing, and the rest he caused his men to rifle and steal, saying openly that we all are traitors and spies. To confirm the confidence they have in us, tell me what companies of English they have trusted within these ten years in garrison? I am sure you cannot name one. And whereas sundry Gentlemen amongst us have instantly sued to have their pensions granted them in the castle of Antwerp or Gaunt, because the payment is there somewhat better, no one hath hitherto been able to attain the same: so vile & base is the reckoning they make of us. I could allege unto you many other exampls, of sundry disgraces offered unto our nation, whereby we might (if we lust) easily discover the hatred they bear us, the suspicion they have of us, and the danger wherein we stand, to have one day our throats cut. But this I hope, which I have already rehearsed, shall suffice fully to assure and persuade you, that here is no advancement, wealth, or reputation to be gotten, but poverty, peril, jealousy, and disgrace.  
Now let us see, touching the point of conscience, and repose in religion, if the fame be to be found here, such as you expect. In matter of religion, I will not take it upon me to dispute, because it were to digress from my purpose, and beside, I never studied divinity: only making comparison between the comfortable freedom of the one, and the despairing slavery of the other: laying of the one side Indulgences, pilgrimages, forged relics, fabulous devices, and auricular confessions: on the other side, the merits and passion of our Saviour jesus Christ, the Invocation of his holy Name, and true penitence proceeding from a contrite heart: on the one side men's traditions, and on the other side, the sincere and holy word of our saviour. In think the choice is not hard to make for him whose heart is not hindered with obstinacy and self will opinion. But leaving this, and allowing your religion to be good, let's come to the contentment which you might here receive in free usage of the same, together with the conservation of such other your country men which here do profess the same religion. First, I think you are not ignorant of the broils, divisions, seditions, and factions, which are here among them: some they call Patriots, some jesuits, some over negligent & careless in religion, other some over pure and hypocritical, some dunces state men: but the notablest of all these factions, is that, between our Cardinal Doctor Allen, and D. Lewes' bishop of Casane: on these two parties are all dependent: and so must you be also, if you were here, or otherwise cleaving to neither of them, you should be counted enemy to them both, and so within short space might put up your pipes, for ye should be sure to be put up for a spy, or at least so to be crossed in all your matters & pretences, that you would quickly, I warrant you, be weary of such entertainment. On the other side, embracing the one, what envy, what defamation, what slander should you not be subject unto? On the other side, what oaths and solemn depositions must you make? Finally, you would think there were no greater purgatory than to live among these dissensions, ●arres, and tumults. These two factions I tell you of, have sought to overthrow one another's credit in the chiefest courts in Christendom, tossing to and fro such foul and filthy defamations, that all men almost cried out against them both. On the other side of the Cardinal, are dependent Hugh Owen, with the jesuits & their retinue of favourites. On the other side the Bishop of Dunglane a Scottish-man, the Lord Paget whilst he lived, Charles Paget, Thomas Morgan, the two Throgmortons' Ra. Liggins, etc. The beginning hereof arose about the Cardinalshippe, to which both Allen and Lewes were competitors: each one for the obtaining thereof applied his friends to the uttermost, but at length through the instant pursuit of the jesuits, and of their faction, were for ever after mortally hated, all those that had been ways or fautors to Doctor Lewes, but chief and among the rest Thomas Throgmorton, who had been one of the earnestest in that pursuit. The jesuits since have had many a pluck at him, but Morgan being wise, strengthened himself always with such friends, that they could never do him any hurt, but rather secretly he galled them: the which they seeing, and peceyving that that was not the way to be revenged of him, they took another course, and that was this: One evening as he came from the Church, they caused him to be assaulted by a young man called Gage, who giving him on the sudden a grievous blow upon the face, presently made haste away, & so for that time escaped, but was afterwards by my Lord Pagete means and earnest pursuit apprehended. The jesuits and their part seemed at the first to deny that they had been the causers of that fact, but the sequel of their proceed made it most apparent unto the whole world. For when Morgan, my Lord Paget, and diverse of their part, laboured very instantly and with often petitions unto the Duke, to have the rigour and severity of justice to proceed against him, of whom they had received this great injury, they, to stop their mouths, and to prevent the mischief that might ensue, found no better means than to accuse Morgan of treason, laying to his charge sundry points of treachery touching the Queen of Scotland. Besides, they accused him to have been a setter on of Gifford & his assistances, in such practices as he had undertaken by sir Frances Walsinghams' warrant, & to that end sent Chryton, the Scottish jesuite, to Paris, to take Gyffords examination. And withal, they made some of their adherents to take their oath before their Auditor general, that in their conscience they thought Morgan to be a traitor and a spy: unto the taking of which oath also, they laboured earnestly with sundry others, which (they not having their consciences so saleable as some of them) had refused and utterly denied to do: yet in the mean time while these things were in hand, with their forged accusations they wrought so, that Morgan was apprehended, and clapped up in close prison, whereas yet he remaineth. But this broil hath opened such foul matters, both of the one side and of the other, that the whole Nation is therewith infamed, and held to be traitors & spies: and in good faith, in my judgement, not unworthily.  
Good sir, take it not in ill part, that I writ thus boldly unto you: for as near as I can, my endeavour is to let you know, what hell, torment and vexation it is to live here, among this unquiet, troublesome & traitorous crew. I mean not this by them all, for there are among them some well disposed and honest gentlemen, whom they use in such malicious and wicked sort,, that they make them in a manner weary of their lives. But the pretiest of all is, to see how smoothly they handle the matter with you in England, and how they do abuse your simplicity. They make you and other Catholykes of England believe, that what practices and drifts so ever they take in hand, are all for the zeal of religion and advancement of the Catholic cause: & the silly souls think all they say is Gospel, whereas (God wots) religion is the least matter of an hundred they think upon. The only point they shoot at, being lost Companies at home, is to make themselves great here, and to make you hazard your lives, reputation and credit: and therefore they are always breeding of practices and conspiracies both within and without the realm, caring not what success they take: if they prove well, than they will have the praise, merit, honour and reward thereof: if otherwise, than they say their good will must be accepted, and therewith they think to win the reputation to be counted great state-men, and contrivers of weighty matters: not caring in the mean time, of the severity of them by whom they work, as appeareth by the example and fall of many brave Gentlemen of England, whom they by their treacherous practices have brought to ruin and destruction. They very well knew, that when they first began to set abroach the matter of Babington and his disloyal confederates, that the effectation thereof was altogether unpossible, as Mendoza the Spanish ambassador told Ballard the priest, their instrument in contriving the same, when he was first brought unto him in Paris by C. Paget, to desire him with all speed to inform the Kings his master of their intention, & withal, that at a day appointed they might have some force and assistance of men ready to correspond with them: but that was all one, so they might be counted men of great reach, and dealers in such high state matters, they spared not to proceed in enchanting those poor unexperienced young Gentlemen, in such fort, as to the whole world is manifest, and need not to be recited. Let all Gentlemen in England, especially papists, take heed and beware of their mischievous brood of caterpillars, for they speak so devoutly, look so smoothly, and write with such counterfeited gravity and holiness, that it is hard for any man to eschew their deadly baits, unless he thoroughly do first know their treachery, under which they do colour and shroud them. What hath brought master Shellie into these his extreme troubles and peril of life, if her gracious Majesty of her great clemency & merciful disposition had not regarded him with the eyes of pity? Likewise what hath brought the late earl of Northumberland into trouble and calamity, and finally to that desperate and miserable end, but only these outlandish practices, & their conference with counterfeit Mopo, I mean C. Paget, who was sent out of France by this seditious troop, to undermine and overthrow both the one and the other? What beside hath been the cause of bringing so many other Gentlemen to the loss of their lives and livings, that lived before in ease, repose, and security of conscience: and which is more, were it not that that plot contrived the death of the Queen of Scotland, by setting her in continual practice one upon an other, against the sacred person and royal state of our most gracious sovereign Queen, so that of violent necessity, her Majesty though unwilling and with great grief, at the general and instant petition of all her Graces most loving and faithful subjects, whose only weal and comfort dependeth upon her long life and prosperity, to satisfy them, and to preserve the state of her noble & flourishing realm in quiet, was constrained by cutting off that rankled and infected part, to yield ease, remedy and comfort to the rest of the whole body. I say not this only of myself, though I and all the world else do know it to be very true: but these their dealings have made them hateful and detestable even to those of their own religion. For that a fresh jesuite termeth them all in general in a Book, which he hath written touching the Queen of Scotlandes' death, a viperous, mischievous, and faithless kind of people, treacherous to those they deal withal, disdainful, arrogant, ambitious, and worthy to be extermined out of the utmost bounds of the world. Besides many other such goodly epithets, with which he beautifies them in their colours, his whole book being nothing else but railing against English papists, wishing all princes, noble men and Gentlemen whatsoever, to beware and take heed of them: and that in such earnest, vehement, and invective manner, that it is not possible to be more.  
But some man perchance may demand of me what their meaning herein may be, or what credit, commodity or gain might have alured them to enter into these before said, so wicked and detestable imaginations.  
For answer hereunto: first I told you, that so they might be accounted and reputed for great state-men, high spirited, and great of action, to procure that reputation and estimation they care not whose estate they endanger. But besides all this which we have already spoken of, they have also further meanings and drifts, as those that do look deepelyest and diligentest into their actions, do verily imagine, and have been by sundry their proceedings evidently discovered, amongst which the chiefest is, that as they are of all people living the most ambitious, so seeing this beggarly service doth not fit their humour, they do feed themselves with an imagination of the time to come, I mean a Spanish or popish world in this our country, at which time then they doubt not, the long time of their exile, sufferance, and lack of living considered (for so is their phrase and manner of speech) to become mighty and great men, and to have the principal rule, sway dignity, and great authority in our country. Marry again on the other side, considering that they are but base companions of births and living, and that there are in England many gentlemen of great quality and houses of the same religion, that would disdain to have such mates preferred before them in race, quality or degree: they have gone (by all means possible they can) about by practice or colourable devices to root them out, so serving their turns two ways: the one to win reputation of men of service: the other, to rid themselves of other competitors. But (God be thanked) the chiefest harm their conspiracies have done hitherto, hath been to themselves, and they confounded in their own devices. And yet for all this, so many tragical ends of their so many traitorous proceedings, are they not moved with any spark of repentance. Neither hath the ruin of so many of you their countrymen wrought and contrived by their practice, allurement and persuasion, bred in them any feeling of remorse of conscience, but rather are thereby animated & encouraged to set new devices abroach, with meaning in deed by sowing seditions among you, & by opposing you against the state, to make you the only instruments of the others ruin, and so to make the way open to the Spanish tyrant, to which end there is no week but they receive spies and spials from you. Insomuch that (I speak upon good assurance) there are at this instant among you above three hundred seditious beggarly priests, sent over by them to no other purpose. A little before the coming of the Spanish fleet, they sent four priests, and two jesuits, in disguised apparel, thoroughly instructed to sound the meaning of such Gentlemen, as they thought to be of their religion, and to incline their minds to the Spanish cause, encouraging them to take Arms against her MAJESTY, to which end they printed in English many hundred of books in Antwerp, barrelling them up until such time as the Army should have been landed, and then their meaning was to have dispersed them, full of the most blasphemous speeches and proud traitorous menaces, as well against her Majesty, as against you all in general, as never (I think) the like was heard of.  
Besides, they have obtained of the Pope, & of the king, that as many as had their voices in the parliament house, at such time as the Queen of Scotland was adjudged to die, of what degree so ever they were, should be deprived not only of their lives and livings, but that their posterity also should be for ever disinherited and disannulled. The like also they threatened in their books to all such, as well noble men as others, that should after the landing of the Spaniards army, persist in arms against the same. But all this by the goodness of God hath but served to discover their wicked intentions, and to animate all true Christian Englishmen, to persist with the greater love, unity and courage in their obedience to her Majesty.  
But returning again my speeches to you, (O unnatural Englishmen) to those whom you should obey treacherous and unfaithful, and of those that you do obey contemned and made slaves! how can you endure to thirst after the destruction of so sweet a country, in which you received your being, & that gave you nuriture being young? What religion must that be, that animateth you to seek subversion of so benign a princess and of so glorious an estate? The old worthy Romans thought it the most heroical thing that might be, to vow themselves sometimes to death for their country, and even to spend their lives in defence of their altars, temples and monuments of their Elders: and you seek to see your Country bathing in the blood of your parents, kindred, and friends, to see your cities, temples, and ancient monuments flaming in the fire, to see your virgins deflowered, and further, to bring the noblest nations to perpetual slavery and servitude, yea, and that of the most base, wicked, proud and cruelest nation that liveth, a nation not yet fully an hundred years since wholly they received Christianity, and as yet are in their hearts a great number of them, Pagans and Moors, from profession of which, they are only held by the severe bridle of the sanguinary and most cruel heathen Inquisition.  
But that Paganism of theirs, which in their profession they dare not show, they do in their tyranny, blasphemy, sodomy, cruelty, murder, adultery, and other abominations sufficiently discover. If the Nunamantines Saquntines, and Nessatiagis burned their towns, slew their wives and children, and families themselves, rather than they would receive the yoke of worthy and virtuous Nations that invaded them. What should we then do, whom our virtuous ancestors have left honoured with the innumerable trophies of many victories, rather than to endure the insolent, wicked, and tyrannous government of that Nation, whom all Europe hath in horror, leaving to our posterity after us a perpetual servitude and bondage, and an everlasting memory of cowardice.  
But leaving this until a fit time, I hope this that is already said shall be sufficient to make you clearly and plainly understand, that there is not to be obtained the sweetness, liberty, and tranquillity of conscience which you expect and look for, but rather, turmoil and grief of mind, with a perpetual grudging and remorse of conscience, scandalised with infinite and innumerable examples of evil life, impiety, sodomy, blasphemy, defamation, and perjury. On the other side, towards her Majesty and the state of your country, you shall be held & reputed as a traitor, and of those whom you shall here serve, no better, who make no further reckoning of any of us, than as of base people, fugitives out of our country for debt, thievery, of some other heinous crime or other, thinking it a matter unpossible (howsoever we disguise the same under pretext of religion) that any man being in his country of honest calling or means to live, should be so senseless as to exchange the same for a condition so base, beggarly, and infamous, as that which we do here endure: And so did a Spanish Captain in plain terms signify to sir William Standley, as they passed in the ordinary boot between Antwerp and Brussels.  
But now to the third point of my Discourse, concerning the mislike which sundry of you have of her majesties government, and the state of your country at this present, to seek to transport yourselves hither as into a haven of bliss & security. I will by comparing the one with the other, as near as I can, let you see the difference between them both, and so consequently, your error, as near as I can guess, & by report of sundry coming thence informed, this your disliking proceedeth of two points: The one, that your laws are too rigorously & severely executed against such as profess the catholic religion: The other, that the adversary hath buzzed a fear into your heads, making you believe that the forts of your state are too feeble to resist so mighty and puissant an enemy as the Spanish king, whose mighty treasures, many dominions, & armies of men they magnify to the skies, and therefore perchance you covet to join betimes, with the party which you do think most advantageous for your future security & advancement.  
First, touching the persecutions of Catholics, which our traitors here so much exclaim upon, filling whole volumes therewith, & aggrevating the same in terms most bitter and lamentable to foreign Nations. Let us see what reason they have. I would fayne demand one question, If ever they did read, hear, or know of any one King or Queen, that did with greater mildness of lenity tolerate or suffer within his or her dominion a sect of religion opposite to the laws by him or her established, especially the same having sundry times rebelliously attempted against their crown, state, and dignity.  
Let them look (if there be men of judgement) into the ages passed, even amongst the Heathen, and into the present time among all the Princes of Europe, and if there be not any to be found that hath dealt with the like lenity as her Majesty hath done, why then do they so falsely slander her? Do they not know that she is the sacred and anointed Queen appointed by God to govern them? If they do, why do they not then with all penitency and humility, love, honour, and obey her, and praying to God to convert her (seeing such is their desire) and not by traitorous mischief seek to murder and deprive her. They learned not that of the ancient Christians in the primitive church. But they will say, she hath executed many seminary priests: I confess she hath indeed by cutting them off preserved her realm from many diseases that rankled within the same. But yet hath she proceeded therein in so gracious and merciful a sort, that she hath witnessed sufficiently unto the world, how loath she is to come unto blood, so long as there is any other remedy in the world to be used. For her Majesty knoweth, her council knoweth, you and I, and the whole world knoweth, that the coming of these Seminaries, priests, and jesuits, to reconcile men, as they term it, to the obedience of the Roman Church, is directly and obstinately to alienate and divert their minds from her Majesty, and to incline them to be ready to assist any enemy either within or without the realm, that shall colour his cause under the pretext of religion. Her Majesty, I say, and Council, and all good subjects knowing this, and foreseeing the danger that might thereof ensue, forbade by Act of Parliament these seminaries to enter into her realm, or to use or exercise any such seditious doctrine, limiting therewithal a time to such as were within the realm, to departed out of the same. But this sufficed not, these good fellows think no laws good or to be obeyed, but such as they make themselves.  
In they came as fast as before, great numbers of them were taken & imprisoned, who though her Majesty deservedly and with great justice, (especially the daily misciefe stirred up within the Realm by their seditious practices considered) might have executed as traitors and rebels, yet the greatness of her princely clemency and compassion was so loath to come unto blood, that she caused them all once more to be pardoned, and to be put out of the Realm, but with express commandment never to return in like sort: in doing otherwise they should be sure to find no favour. All this would not serve their turns, but in despite of her Majesty and contempt of her laws, sundry of them returned, of which some of them being taken, have received the hire of their graceless disobedience and rebellious attempt.  
But that her Majesty seeketh not blood, as they most falsely gave out, appeareth by her clemency used to sundry of them, taken by her soldiers in the Low Countries, who though they were of sir William Standley his crew and adherents, her most professed enemies, yet seeing they were not taken within England, she graciously pardoned them, and caused to be set at liberty, in giving some little recompense to those soldiers that had taken them prisoners, Where is then her rigour you speak of? I hope the king of Spain keepeth another manner of rule in his Countries, over all Spain, Portugal, Lombardie, Naples, & Ciciliae, whosoever speaketh a word, or makes the lest sigh in the world to dislike his religion there established, or any one point or ceremony thereof, his cruel ministers the inquisitors, cause without remission to be burnt alive: as for example, There was this last year a Citizen in Antwerp, one Gyles Rat a shoemaker, that going into Spain about some business, was apprehended for smiling at the Image of our Lady, brought before the inquisitors, and by them presently condemned to fire, and with him an Englishman for the like cause: whose name the Gentleman that saw them burned knew not: but he told me that at the time of their execution, there mounted on a scaffold thereby two jesuits, forbidding the people upon pain of Excommunication to pray for them, saying that they had delivered them both over in body and soul to the devil, as those that died obstinate and wilful heretics. I would feign know how he would do with Ministers, if he should catch them in Spain, as the Queen hath done priests in England. As for his Low Countries, I never heard but of two taken, and that was at the siege of Dermond, and they were both put in to sacks by the Spaniards, and thrown into the river.  
This is indeed Tyranny, and not that which her Majesty doth, who is always ready to receive into grace and favour those of whom she hath any hope that they will become good subjects, and hath (as I have heard) offered even at the hour of their death her princely mercy and favour to some of them, if they would have promised to become good subjects.  
Oh how different from this is their proceeding here which you see so highly commended! But it is the nature of men, especially of those, whose judgements are not settled as they should be, always to mislike and loathe those things to which they are accustomed, thinking other to them unknown far better. If you did but once see the tyrannous usage & explication what is used in matter of religion to the poor people under the Spanish government in this Country, I doubt not but you would be of another opinion, especially the woeful slavery considered in which the clergy, or rather the ravening multitude of jesuits, Friars, Monks and priests do keep their mind subjecteth. It is not sufficient that they hold their minds in a perpetual despair, pronouncing upon every frivolous point damnation unto them: but withal, they compel them perforce to offerings, to buying of pardons and indulgences, to give them money towards the reparation of their Churches, pictures, images, and wax candles, always having one device or other in hand to rob them, and to draw from them their substance: for whosoever yieldeth not to every of these demands, is presently an heretic.  
The best houses in the Town they take violently from the true owners, and appropriate unto themselves, saying it is meet that God should first be served before man. There is no one day but the poor citizens are punished and pestered with one or other of their orders of Friars, Monks, Mendicants, Capuchins, Candles, and money towards the reparation of their Churches, and which they must not be denied, unless you will be presently accused for an heretic.  
But the best is, to see how busy and diligent they are when they hear of a wealthy man that lieth sick, and is in danger of death. This is their chiefest harvest and most optima praeda: then they commend unto him the poverty of their cloister, and the merit that he should gain, as being for ever to be remembered in their masses, as one of their benefactors: the jesuits and Cordelleres are at this present in process of Spain about this matter of visitation of sick men, in articulo mortis. The jesuits say that it appertains unto them, because their profession is active, & always stirring among the flock, and to do good in the world abroad, whereas that of the Cordelleres is contemplative, and so by consequence, most decent that they should contain themselves within their cloisters.  
The Cordelleres on the other side reply, that their profession is meekness, innocency, and poverty, and to do good unto all men. As for the jesuits, that they are proud, ambitious, aspiring, meddlers in matters of state, men of great riches, and covetous of more, and therefore by no means to be admitted to such as lie at the article of death. The matter hath been much argued of, and greatly debated in Spain, and beside, the jesuits have openly inveighed against them in the public schools of Louvain: yet notwithstanding how ever the cry goeth against them, they hold their own. But this by the way, seeing it comes so well to our purpose, I cannot choose but tell you a pretty jest which happened this last Summer in these parts.  
A Merchant of Antwerp, whose name was Hamiel, being sick of a consumption or fever ethic, the jesuits knowing him to be a man of great possessions, and without children, presently repaired unto him under colour of spiritual consolation, laying before him the vanity of this life and the certainty of the world to come: with sundry other persuasions, as of all men living they have their tongues most at will: withal, commending unto him their order, as of all other the most meritorious, perfect, and acceptable to God, and to which our holy father the Pope and his predecessors have granted more indulgences than to any other order whatsoever: they brought the poor man, being of himself simple, into their society, thinking that there was no other way to be saved, and withal before hand enfeoffed their college with his land, which was two hundred pound a year, giving them beside, much goods and rich movables, and when he had so done, died within three months after the same: his next heirs, by counsel of their friends, put the jesuits in suit, against which, though they opposed themselves with all vehemency, yet to their great shame and reprehension, sentence was given against them. Notwithstanding they would not give over, but by the means, aid, and support of precedent Pameley, who is one of their best children, they appealed from thence to the council of Brussels, getting the cause after sentence given to be removed, a thing unusual or scarcely ever heard off before, as yet there the process hangeth, by hook or by crook it is thought they will have it in the end. Another time a rich and wealthy Merchant of Antwerp, but one in that point whose devotion & scrupulocity over-went his wisdom, coming to them in confession, and telling them of some unjust gain with which he felt his conscience touched, they suddenly with sundry terrifiing speeches, told him that he was in the state of damnation, out of which he could not be delivered, until such time as he had made restitution as well of that confessed, as of all other money and goods that he had by usury unlawfully gotten, laying before him, Quod none dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur oblatum: with sundry other such sentences, of which they had store: in fine, they put the poor man into such fear of conscience, that he yielded to make restitution, if so the sane might be done without his undoing, dyscredite, or shame. Whereupon to comfort him again, but in deed fearing lest that if they dealt too rigorously with him they should get nothing, they told him, that if in stead of all such interest and injuries, with which he felt his conscience burdened, he would only be content to deliver unto them some such sum of money, as without his undoing, he thought conveniently he might spare, they would take it upon their souls to see the said sum employed upon good, virtuous, and charitable uses, to the greater benefit and merit of his soul, and as a thing more acceptable to God, and less scandelous to the world than if he should make restitution to whom it appertained, and that were by that his usury interessed. Whereupon the Merchant being well satisfied in conscience, gave them the money, and they him their absolution.  
But I will hold you no longer with the recital of these things, of which if I would entreat, their impiety would yield me too much matter. My principal meaning and intention only being to let you see, that under heaven there is no state so wickedly, impiously, & devouringly governed in matter of religion and conscience, as these here under the Spaniard. I think the recital of their miseries would rather breed in you admiration than belief, so far doth the same exceed the compass of all their tyrannies that ever were used, there being no calamity in the world of which they have not tasted of. Their noblemen & rulers, in whose virtue and courage consisted their chiefest refuge in times past, when they were wronged & tyrannixed, have been murdered, strangled, poisoned, and slain by the bloody ministers of their cruel king: they are taxed in great sums, and numbers of men sent violently into France & foreign wars, and the relics of their nobility forced to go with them in person, to their apparent slaughter, leaving in the mean time their countries in prey to the enemy, their villages flaming in fire, & their towns battered about their ears with the canon, their privileges are by wrong and tyranny taken from them, their cities that sometimes strived with oppulency and glory with the goodliest and greatest of the world, are governed by base and barbarous Spaniards, bridled with their garrisons and castles, and foraged & spoiled by them, at such time as their payment faileth. No face of justice in their commonwealth, but the same is pliable to the will of such strangers as are governors of their towns, & captains of their castles, their goodly havens, harbouring sometimes with innumerable ships laden with merchandise from all parts of the world, are now frequented even of the fisher-boats, their traffic ceased, and their towns almost desert: in the most of which, of ten houses together, there are scarce three inhabited, their villages abroad burned and overgrown with bushes, their goodly meadows and fruitful pastures drowned many miles wide and long, by letting in of sluices, and cutting down ditches. The mansion houses and castles of their Nobility abused and thrown down, the errable ground waste and untilled, insomuch that there a man may have as much land as he will, and thanks withal, for the only manuring thereof. As for the poor labouring people of the country, for the most part they are all starved and consumed with hunger, of which disease, I myself have known two thousand die in one summer, so that you may ride in some places an hundred miles without seeing of a man, woman or child, unless it be some poor silly soul that cometh creeping out of the woods hunger starved, more like confusitated ghosts, than a living christian creature. And yet all these in a manner happier, because they are at an end of their miseries, than such as do live within the inhabited places of the country, as Cempine and the land of Waste: and these of all the people in the world I take to be the most wretchedst. Over every village of these are appointed certain horsemen, to whom they are all to pay monthly contribution, some ten pounds, some twenty, and some thirty, some more and some less, I knew one village that paid an hundred pounds every month, called Turnolt: but they paid it so long, till all the dwellers ran away, and have now in a manner left it void of inhabitants. Over this village and the whole Country is appointed a Commissary called Sygonio, for the payment of their contributions, of all tyrants living the most cruelest, and of least conscience. Who if they fail, and do not bring in their money at the last day of the month, he sends forth troops of horsemen to take the best of them prisoners, and withal, to drive home to their quarters or garrisons such sheep, oxen, or cattle whatsoever as they find in those villages, which he causeth, if the money follow not within five or six days at the furthest, to be sold at the drum or Trumpet, and withal, forceth them to pay a great fine, the one half of which he retaineth to himself, and the other to the soldiers, for their out-roads and forbearance of the money. But the misery of these poor people endeth not here, for besides all this, they are forced many times to lodge soldiers in their houses, as they march along the country upon service, at which time it is incredible what outrages they receive, their cattle killed, their corn threshed out and given to horse, their chests broken up, their goods even to the very sheets and tikes of beds, stolen and carried away by the soldiers when they march, themselves beaten, and their wives and their daughters abused: and in fine, what else is to the nature of man grievous and intolerable, they are constrained to endure. Neither is the condition of the poor citizens or townsmen any better, who being forced to receive garrison, and to lodge soldiers in their houses, imparting to them the best chambers and commodities of the same, never hearing from them any other word, especially if they please not them in all their exorbitant demand,, than Perhamengo, Lutherano, Borchio, etc. Yet, beside, they are daily wearied out with continual exactions and taxations, as the hundred penny, the tenth penny, and once a year without fail, the fiftly penny of all their goods and lands, besides infinite other pillages and gatherings towards the making of rampires, bulwarks, ballasadowes, countercerpes, and the reparation of their walls, and to giving of munition, bread, beer, and cheese, to such soldiers as shall pass by their towns distressed of victuals, with infinite such like. I have known (I speak it of my faith) poor people of Antwerp forced to sell their beds they lie upon, to satisfy their tyrannous exactions, which if they should not do, execution of their goods, attachment of their persons, should presently follow. But which is most beyond reason, whereas within the towns the most part of their houses are vacant and unhired, yet the owners of them are taxed according to the value in which they were wont to be hired. Insomuch, that in Antwerp & other towns, it is a matter very usual for men to disclaim, and quit their own houses, thereby to be exempted of such payment as otherwise by reason of them they are charged with, & that they do iurisdicially before the magistrate, at which time the Ainan entereth in, and ceaizeth upon them to the king's use. Besides, when as sundry Gentlemen and other the inhabitants of this country, having certain annual rents issuing out and charged upon the kings domains in the Duchy of Brabant, at least to the yearly value of ten thousand pounds, some of the which rents have been by themselves bought of the states general, some left unto them by their parents and predecessors. The king unjustly and by tyranny disannulling the said rents, hath, & doth, without form of justice, take into his own hands the said demains, appropriating the use, commodity, and revenue thereof to the maintenance of the troops of horse men. But what shall I trouble you any longer with recounting unto you the assize, impositions, taxes, extortions, pillages, and heavy intolerable burdens laid upon this afflicted poor people, by their unjust and cruel king. Compare now (I pray you) herewith, your estate of government at home, and tell me which of them two you think to be most fortunate. Doth her MAJESTY deal in this order with you, whose government you so much mislike? Oh God, how can you be so perverse, seeing the blessedness wherein she maintains you, as not to acknowledge the same? How gentle are the helps and subsidies which she exacteth of you, without the undoing or hindrance of any man of whom they are exacted? And on the other side, how profusely spendeth she her own treasure for the maintenance of your wives, and children, and parents, in repose justice and security. Oh pray to God for her long life and prosperous estate, for in her consisteth the type of your felicity!  
But now to the other point of your mislike. Whereas the adversary hath beaten into your heads, that the state stands dangerous, as being far too feeble and not sufficient to withstand and resist so mighty and opposite an enemy as is the king of Spain, terrifying with millions of gold & innumerable nations over whom he commandeth, I hope by the clear and evident reasons I shall show you, to make you understand that the fame of him is far greater than his force, and that there is no prince this day in the world whose estate standeth more tickle and ready to ruin than his, and that there is no cause why we should fear him, but many why he should fear us. First, that he is the most mighty and oppulent prince of Europe, I do not deny, if he had used moderation in his greatness, and acknowledged the benefits which God hath bestowed upon him with thankfulness. But such is the state whereunto his ambitious aspiring hath at this present brought him, or rather the revengeful hand of God which hangeth over his head for his horrible, tyrannies and odious offences, especially for his wicked pariacide and murder committed upon the person of his wife, his son, and sundry others of his best and truest subjects: that he is in the midst of these his riches, indigent, poor, and indebted, unable to give satisfaction to such soldiers as he maintaineth, to which end he is forced to extort upon his poor subjects, and tyrannize over them. Of this his indigency & beggary, we see every day experience here before our eyes, his own natural subjects, the Spaniards, being the best disciplined soldiers he hath, and of whom he maketh greatest account, are forced for want of their payment, which is now three years behind, to cease his towns and artillery, to contemn his commandments and proclamations, & finally to bend their arms & display their Ensigns upon the walls against the Duke. To remedy which mutiny, there was post upon post sent into Spain, yet in seven months there could no money be found. Notwithstanding many & most important detriments, he received by occasion of this mutiny, as the loss of Breda, the retardaunce of the French succours, the danger of Numigen, etc. whereas the whole sum they demanded was not much above fifteen thousand. Besides, do but look into the manner of his proceed in these low countries with his soldiers, (of which because I have best experience I will chief speak) and you shall find nothing in the world more beggarly and indigent. Neither (as I hear) is it better in his other provinces, which verily I believe, seeing of all others it importeth him to use them best, as being his eldest, perfectest in discipline, & best experienced troops, and in fine, those unto whom he chiefliest reposeth, as the only upholders and maintenance of him in his tyranny. Yet was there never in the world, I dare undertake, King nor Prince, how bankrupt, or needy soever, in whose service so many brave soldiers have died of hunger, or that have used such cozening tricks and snifts to stop necessities, and to deceive his soldiers as he hath done.  
First, the country not being yet fully consumed, wasted, and destroyed, he authorised his soldiers to spoil and steal the goods and cattle of the poor peasants, forcing them to ransom their houses from fire, and their persons from murder, by which means the soldiers lingered in such sort, that I have known them remain three years together with out one months' pay. But afterward Antwerp, being rendered, & by reason of the general devastation of the country, the soldiers failing to find their wont relief and pray, grew into so great and miserable extremity, that it was a great matter to find twenty soldiers under any Ensign. The Spaniards mutined upon the Staunda, whom they found means to appease with some few months' payment. The Wallounds mutined in Laiskine, Houlke, and the land of the Wast, the Almains went by hundreds begging up and down the streets of Antwerp bore legged, and bore footed, or in manner naked, the Italians starved in their quarters, and divers of them being in garrison in Breda, ran thence to Huisden, and to other towns of the enemy. To remedy all which inconveniences, he found means to deal with the Italian Bakers of Antwerp for cloth and silk, as Northern kerseys, packe-clothes, bay, refuse Italian silks, taking up the same upon excessive interest yearly to a certain sum: for receipt of which, and delivery out again, he appointed a Spaniard, one Christopher Craesa, a man of most wicked conscience, to be his treasurer. Then he began to grant payments to the whole camp, horse and foot, & unto such gentlemen and pensioners as were in great extremity, & had been long suitors: which they having received, were forced for want of money presently to make sale thereof for the third of that value in which they received it: so that a soldier having fourteen shillings a months pay, received only four shillings and six pence. And he hath his factors and brokers abroad to buy those said clothes and silks again, which he delivereth presently out of the first price to the next that comes, and so still forth delivering and buying the same again for the third part of the price, insomuch that with an hundred pounds he maketh ten thousand pounds in a year, and yet sometimes he maketh them stay four or five months before he will deliver them cloth, or any contentment at all. And sometimes he never troubleth himself with the delivery of the cloth, but causeth their assignation to be bought, as now at this instant sir William Standly before his departure had obtained a Liberanca for two months for his regiment, amounting to an hundred and fifty pounds, the payment thereof, hath been deferred till this present, and is now sold in Antwerp to one of his factors for three score pounds, and yet he that sold it made a good bargain. I have known divers that have sold divers such Liberancas for thirty pounds, and eight and twenty pounds in the hundred. Yet this payment how bad soever, hath somewhat contented the soldiers four or five years, rather having that than nothing. But now also the same is dried up and come to nothing. Payments have been this half year very scarce, and with much difficulty, for the merchants have at this instant utterly refused to furnish him with any more wates, both because the same wherein he standeth already indebted unto them amounteth to an excessive matter, as also he beginneth to wrangle with them, about the interest of which he craveth moderation: seeing beside before their eyes so many precedents of men ruined, undone, and dishonoured, such as he hath dealt withal, of which, what more apparent example may there be than that of S. Siveres a Portugal merchant and one of the chiefest & best respected merchant of Antwerp, both for the wealth and credit which he possessed, as also for the security and uprightness which he handled: the Duke of Parma reducted of Antwerp, the passage of the river shut up, and the countries and towns afflicted with great dearth & scarcity of corn, at which time rye was at 44. s. sterling the virendel in Antwerp, & withal being daily cried upon by the general of Vibres for munition & corn to victual the camp, the old store being clean consumed: knew no other means than to deal earnestly with this S. Siveres, and other merchants that had trade with Hanborough, Lubeck, and the Easterlings, which countries were replenished with corn, to make some adventure thither for the relief of the country: he amongst the rest showed not himself unwilling to enter into an action so charitable and virtuous, if so be his pains might be requited, and he sufficiently warranted and kept free from such danger as might ensue, either by peril of sea, taking of the enemies, or loss in the same: when it came to this end, the duke sent into Spain, and procured him the king's Letters of assurance in the most ample manner possible, encouraging him with much thanks & many promises to proceed, which he did with the adventure of most part of his credit and goods, insomuch, that he laded three ships of which one was scattered by tempest, and cast away upon the coast of scotlan, the other two came safely home to Calais, but at that time such was either the ill luck of him, or the good luck of the country, that upon a new plenty harvest which they had, corn was abated from forty four shillings the Virendell, to six shillings, at which price the Duke, by the king's appointment, bought his provision and munition, utterly refusing that of Syveres, so that he was feign, whilst he made his suit to the king, to keep the same so long upon his own hands, that it venowed and waxed musty, in some sort, that he was feign to throw the greatest part away, without ever to this day being able to receive of the king one penny of recompense, insomuch that he was forced, to the wonderful grief, shame and confusion of him, his wife, his children, and friends, having before time lived in the greatest honour and magnificence of any Merchant in the Town, to break bankrupt, and is at this present suing to the Duke, and the privy Council at Brussels, for a protection to keep his body from attachment.  
These are the rewards and recompense that this mighty Monarch giveth to those that employ their endeavours in his service. Of which if you do desire to have better experience, look but into the office of his treasurer at Brussels, and there you shall daily and hourly see a token sufficient of his oppulencie and great magnificency, there shall you find a miserable troop of sutours, with assignations for money, granted them by the Duke, some of which have lost a leg or an arm, either through age or infirmity, that hath gotten their Licence and Passport to departed into their Countries, some pretending one cause and some another, but no one man able in two years following to get one penny: so that there is no year but a great number of them die in the pursuit for hunger, yea, and some of them even at his gates. Of my salvation I speak it, I have known some poor people, that for the sum of six pounds have followed him three years: when either he goeth out, or cometh into his house, he is feign to go through gardens and by-ways, to deceive his poor suitors, who otherwise assayed him, though in vain, with such ruthful cries, that it would pierce any man's heart to hear them. Which beggarliness, and misery, sundry worthy soldiers of strange nations seeing, especially the base and unworthy usage which they themselves received, have abandoned that bankrupt service, as john Baptista de Monte, and Camillo de Monte, two warlike Captains, but now retained under two mighty states, the one General to the Duke of Florence, the other to the Venetians, who both lie in wait to cry quittance with him, and by God's grace shall one day have means to accomplish their desire. Then sir Martin Skinke, of whose just discontentment and valorous revenge, you yourselves in England are witness. Where are then the mountains of treasure that the mighty king possesseth? Or if ye say he spareth them to some other end, I pray you tell me to what, & when he will use them? If not now the danger of the loss of his country, fame, & religion, and the greatness of the causes he hath undertaken and considered. No, no, it is pure want & extreme indigences that forceth him to deal so, though he be rich, yet the greatness of the cause he is entered into, doth far exceed the means he hath to maintain the same. Upon the coming down of this last fleet he set up his rest, and lost it, not only his own, but that also of his friends, the pope, the duke of Savoy, the Geneoises, etc. which set him into such arrearages, that I think he will not easily come out of them.  
As for the treasure of his Indians, where in deed consisteth the very marrow, strength, and substance of all his puissance, I confess the same to be great, yet his charges considered, making an estimate between the one and the other, it can no way be able to answer and countervail them. And yet the same hath been reasonable well impaired also, since such time as sir France's Drake and other of your worthy English captains by sea, have begun to firk him in those. For whereas before he was wont usually to wait his Indian fleet homeward with a Gallyasse or two, only their return accustomed to be every six months, he is now forced to maintain a great and mighty Navy of many ships and galleys, to his inestimable and continual charges. Notwithstanding all which, his return is seldom above once a year, and that oftentimes minglingly as may be, and yet they are sometimes met withal, some of them scattered, some sunk, and some of them also taken by our English ships.  
If you will know what these his great charges are, on which he is enforced to employ them. First, consider that he scarcely holdeth any country in which he is not constrained to hold garrisons of soldiers. As for these low Countries, I know it upon good and assured grounds, there hath been no year these twenty years, but they have cost him one with another two millions and more yearly above the revenue and other commodities received thereout, and yet how beggarly his soldiers are used, you have heard before.  
The rest, for Naples, Cicilia, Portugal maiorque, minorque, the frontiers of Arragon and Navarre, and Lombardie: he is feign to be at the charge of many strong and mighty garrisons by land, and in the most of them main Galleys or other shipping in the Havens, and all along the Sea-coasts, none of which he can for his life diminish, for his government is so hateful, that none of these provinces are his any longer than he hath their heads in the bridle. And beside, his provinces stand so severed and disunited, that the transporting of his navy from one to an other is infinite chargeable unto him, insomuch that I have heard some of his commissioners here swear, that there is no crown of his that cometh from Spain into these Countries by land, but standeth them in five rialles, so infinite is the charge of carriages, convoys and commissaries, to deliver and receive the same.  
Besides all this, he disburseth yearly mighty sums of money to the Persian, to the end to keep the Turk occupied, of whom he standeth mightily in fear: and truly he hath reason, if her Majesty would condescend to such conditions as have been by this Turk to her proposed. But she like a christian Princess, how greatly soever to her advantage the same might be, will not do any thing whereby christianity might hereafter seerne to receive any detriment.  
As for Polonia, the same hath been incredible chargeable unto him, aswell for the mighty bribes bestowed upon the nobles of the country, as also the charges of a great army of Rewtiers: he sent his kinsman Maximilian of Austria, what by force and what by help of the part which he had gained, and with his treasures, thought to invest him in the kingdom. The success of which enterprise I would not write, being to the whole world notorious and known. In the consistory of Rome he is feign to entertain a great number of those hungry Cardinals in pension and fee, thereby to gain their voices when need requireth, which liberality of his he cannot by any means withdraw, for in so doing, he should be assured to have them his enemies, and contrary to his proceed.  
Lastly, for conclusion, he maketh at this instant open wars with France, England, and the Low counties. What deem you then hereof? Hath he not (trow you) vent for his treasures? His father was a better soldier and a greater man of war than he is, and as mighty a prince every deal (his Portugal Indians only excepted) in place of which he quietly enjoyed these his Low countries, which in respect of their great oppulencie, abundance of riches, & convenientnes of situation, were to them accounted nothing inferior. And yet he never dared attempt to make wars upon France alone, but he first sought by all possible means to assure himself in friendship with England, giving to that end great and mighty presents to Cardinal Wolsey, and others of the council, that in those days were with her majesties father of worthy memory, K. Henry the eight: whereas his son makes war with all the world carelessly at once, but the Italians have a true proverb, Cum tutto abraccianes iunque string. And so I hope it shall far with him.  
Now as touching those his mighty and puissant numbers of men which they say he is able to make, I take upon me to know the state of his forces aswell as other, and I herein of all other men know him to be most needy & wanting. For as for Spain, Naples, and Lombardie, of which his only force consisteth, and which are his chiefest storehouses of men, it is sufficiently known that his drums have gone a whole year beating up and down, according as their manner is, to get together six thousand men, and those all shepherds, hedgebreakers, and such idle trewantly rogues, the most part of which he is forced to put in garrison for a year or two to fashion them, before he send them to service. I saw about two years agone a fresh levy that came out of Pastravia, who put them presently in the castle of Antwerp, drawing out the old garrison, the most silly naked snakes that ever I saw in my life, such, as in my conscience, a man in deed would beat ten of them.  
As for Germany, out of the which heretofore he hath drawn great numbers, and by their help done great matters before Mastrig in Freisland, and those places, his usage hath been so base and miserable unto them, that the old soldiers are all starved and consumed in his service, whose calamity hath so terrfied the rest at home, that no prince in Europe hath less credit to raise men there than he. And although there were no such matter, yet they are no way more bound unto him than to an other, their profession being to serve only him best that will pay them best, and yet if he should raise any of the allyaunces of her Majesty, and the situation of their Country considered, it should be a matter of great difficulty to join them with his other troops. Where are then his innumerable legions, with which he means to overcome the world? Alliance he hath none, unless it be with the rebellious league of France: of them he can receive no aid nor comfort, themselves being miserable and distressed, by reason whereof, most burdenous unto him, & yet there is no man living in the world less beholding unto them than he. For notwithstanding all his assistance, they would never yield to receive his forces into their towns or fortresses, serving only their turns on him for the present time.  
As for the Pope and the Princes of Italy, what fair weather so ever they do bear him, he neither trusteth them, nor they him, and great reason they have so to do. And withal, this malediction hangeth upon him, that as he is of all foreign Nations disinherited, doubted, and abhorred, so both he and the very name of a Spaniard is most loathsome and hateful to the rest of his own subjects. Insomuch, that in Milan the young Gentlemen have a pastime by night, which they call Caccia Marran, that is, putting on a vizard on their face by night, they go with their long Rapiers or picked Bastinadoes under their cloaks, out into the Town to seek Spaniards in the stews, or any other place where they think they are likely to find any of them: unto whom they give as many stabs and blows that they can lay upon them, insomuch that the Spaniards dare not for their ears abide out of the castle after shutting in of the gates. As for his dealing in Portugal, who knows not his cruel tyranny, and the hatred they bear him?  
But now come to her MAJESTY, & you shall find another manner of state of matters, her realm plentifully abounding in men of warlike disposition, of whom she is loved & adored: her wars are just, charitable, godly, & defensive, for maintenance of which, besides the trust that she reposeth in God, who hath hitherto mightily and miraculously defended her, she is allied in strait league, friendship & confederation with the most victorious & christian king of France, with the kings of Denmark & Scotland, with the Swissers, and with sundry princes and states of the Empire, all being her neighbours dominions united with hers, and thereby ready to assist, aid, & succour one another in all such occasions as shall or may happen. All this then considered, tell me, I pray you what occasion of fear or misdoubt you have. If you think the English valour not to be compared with that of the Spaniard, read but the Chronicles, and you shall find how much you are deceived: you shall find that a small army of Englishmen, under the conduct of that worthy prince of Wales, eldest son to Edward the third, passed in despite of them through Cavarre into Spain, and there in the midst and bowels of their own country, overthrew at Nadres their usurping king, Henry the bastard (of whose race this man is descended by his grandmother) being accompanied with the nobility of the country, and 60000. of the bravest fight men in Spain, & so utterly overthrew him, that they erected king in his place Don Pedro, their just & lawful prince of that kingdom, whom by main force they constrained all their cities and noble men of the country to receive. Read beside the valorous conquests achieved by john Duke of Lancaster, brother unto the said prince, in Callicia, against Don john, son of the said Henry, the usurping bastard: beside, the chronicles of Portugal are full of the material prowess of the English, & glorious victories obtained in service of their king, to whose aid they were called against the said king of Castilo.  
But what need I run back into the passed ages to seek examples? Look but into the encounters that have been of late days between them and us, either by sea or land, and you shall find that they have always carried the blows. As by land, at the encountering of Grain, and that of Sutphen, where the honour of the world and ornament of England, sir P. Sidney by his adventurous valour was slain, besides many other bicker and skirmishes of less moment needles to recite. Of sea matters, I account it bootless to speak, so greatly and above measure glorious is the same, & bruited through the world: of the worthy voyages of sir F. Drake, sir I. Haukins, sir M. Frobisher, C. Raiman, and the rest of the brave and courageous Gentlemen, who for the benefit of their country, have not spared to make adventure of their lives and fortunes.  
But if you desire one example of all, let that then serve of his huge late fleet, with which, Golyas like, he threatened heaven and earth, & with which he thought to have circumvented and surprised at unawares her Majesty, whilst falsely, wickedly, and abusively, he entertained her Grace's Commissioners in Flanders with a treaty of peace. To which her Highness like a Christian princess, and for to avoid the effussion of Christian blood, was very unclinable. But God, as he hath always done, so at this time did he miraculously protect her Majesty in such sort, that through the great, careful, and exceeding valorous resolution of that most worthy and renowned Gentleman the Lord Admiral of England, of whose courageous behaviour and terror, with which he amazed them, the very enemy himself, though against his will, makes worthy mention. They were with a small number of English so fiercely and vigorously encountered, that their resistance not prevailing them, they were scattered, chased, and utterly discomfited, in such sort as the whole world knoweth, so that Lucan's verse, me thinks, may very fitly be applied unto them, Territa quaesitis ostendunt terga Britannis.  
Besides, what better trial can you have of the valour of their nation than this, being thirty thousand, the cream of all their forces, and about the assembling of which he had been three years busied, yet when they came upon the coast of England, dared not to land a man: whereas we the next year following with a little Navy, containing not above eleven thousand men, under the conduct of the two most renowned Captains, sir john Norris and sir Frances Drake, landed in Spain, burnt his shipping, put his people to the sword, & his towns to the fire, and coasted thence along into Portugal, and there landing, marched in his country, even to his gates of Leisbone, with drums sounding, and ensigns displayed: from whence we returned unfought withal by any of his forces either by sea or land.  
These things well considered, me thinks you have greater reason to hope one day to see English Ensigns displayed in Madrill, together with the utter ruin of that proud tyrant of Spain and his holy father the pope, with all their rabble, than any way to fear him or his proceed. And yet there is one point besides all the above rehearsed, out of which we may receive singular comfort, as that which of all other most deeply vexeth and afflicteth his cogitations, and which, no doubt, before it be long, will give us a great advantage against him, and that is, the contention which he seethe to spring up in his own house, of which I will briefly discourse unto you the occasions, because you shall understand the same the better.  
He hath by several wives three children living, two Daughters and one son, the Son young of years, sickly of body, pale and weak of complexion, of wit poor and unfurnished, in a manner a very idiot.  
His eldest daughter, whom they call La Infante of Spain, a woman as by birth great, so proud exceedingly, haughty minded, and above measure aspiring, prudent, in her speeches majestical, in her countenance and actions courageous: her he hath always nourished under his own wing, acquainting her even from her cradle, with matters of state and government. In which now by reason of her long train and experience therein, she is exceedingly practised and ripe. With her what weighty matter so ever he undertaketh, he participateth the same before, demanding her advice and counsel, spending sometimes whole half days they two in communication together. Upon her (the youth's weakness & simplicity of the young prince considered) are the eyes of all men thrown, upon her depend the nobility, gentility, and commons, and innumerable troops of suitors, into whose hearts she hath so insinuated herself, that they do bear an exceeding love and reverence towards her, many mighty men have been offered her in marriage, as the Emperor Rodolph, the king of Scotland, and divers other, but she until she see what will become of her father, whom she seethe old, oppressed with infinite cares, and not likely long to live, upon whose death, her actions and manner of life doth assuredly show, that she is not of metal sufficient to give place to the young idiother brother, but at least she means to part stakes with him.  
In Spain she knows there is no law Salic, to bridle her ambitious thoughts, but women may succeed as men, for so grandmother jovina did Ferdinando her father. Having these examples before her eyes, she feedeth her mind with high and ambitious desires, of which she hath made so clear and evident demonstrations, that her father to prevent this mischief that he feareth, was forced this last year to assemble the whole estates of Spain, & to make them swear to be true unto his son, whom he presently caused to keep his court a part, sending him sundry of his council, and commanding the nobility to be attendant on him, acquainting him, as much as in them lieth, with managing of matters of weight, estate, and government. Besides, it is here bruited for certain amongst us, that the precedent of Artois Richardol, whom the Duke of Parma had sent into Spain, to make his excuses and justifications against certain points of treason, of which he was by the Duke of Pastravia and prince of Ascoly accused to the king, is now returned with commission to assemble the nobles & states of these Countries, and to cause them to take the like oath to his son, thereby to prevent as well his daughter as the Duke of Parma of their conceived hopes.  
But now to come to his second daughter, whom he hath long sithence bestowed in marriage upon the Duke of Savoy, with absolute promise & solemn vow between him and her, to leave her a kingdom for her dowry. She is a princess in ambition and high desire nothing ynequall to her sister, but in wit & courage far her inferior, she & her husband both already take upon them in their manner, style, and usage, a state and title far beyond their dignity, convenient only unto kings. Altessa is the meanest phrase they will be spoken in unto, refusing any letters that are not so entitled, for such is the will and pleasure of the king her father. Naples & the Duchy of Milan they have already devoured in their hopes, which if her father at his death leave not quietly unto them, they will be so bold as strain courtesy with his son, to get them perforce if he can. On the other side, the states of Italy like not such a mighty neighbour amongst them, and therefore to prevent both him and his father in laws desseignment, have made a most strait secret league & alliance among themselves, terming the same Ragoyne de Stato: in which are comprised the pope, the Venetians, the Duke of Florence, the Duke of Parma, the Dukes of Urbine, Mantua, and Ferrara: the duke of Parma dared not to enter in among them, but is forced, though none more agreed, to dissemble and temporize than he for a while, he knoweth that the king hath been exceeding jealous, and seeketh, though slily and dissemblingly, his life, honour, and reputation. But above all, the dissension of Portugal, to which he persuadeth himself to have right, as in truth his title is better than that of the king of Spain's, sticketh deep in his stomach, Manet alta monte repostum, and we doubt not but one day, when occasion shall serve, he will make the world witness of his discontentment, which the king well knoweth and greatly feareth, but he must have patience, for he can hardly remedy it, unless the duke will wittingly overthrow himself, especially having these means in his hands which he hath, not only to work his own security, but to cry quittance also when time shall serve.  
But having now exceeded the limits of a Letter, it is time I refrain my pen, hoping that these alleged demonstrations shall, if not to work the good effect which I desire in you & other Gentlemen of my Country, yet at the least to manifest the dutiful zeal and love I bear to the state of my Country, as to all faithful members thereof, in participating unto them such things as by painful and dangerous experience I have gathered, and do think necessary to be known, wherein I have used such truth, that I hope no man living shall be able to disprove me, though I doubt not but the same shall be by some maliciously censured, and myself subject to abide the brunt of their malice, being assured that I shall not avoid the poisoned rancour of their infamous defaming tongues and pens. For seeing they spare not in their traitorous speeches and infamous pamphlets, princes, noblemen, & counsellors, men of great authority & virtue, it were folly for me to look to scape scotfree. But such is the joy I conceive in my good meaning, that I shall receive comfort thereof, as a thing greatly redounding to my credit, of such men as they are to be ill spoken of.  
Now lastly for conclusion, whereas you writ that if there were no other benefit to be gotten in these parts, but attaining the languages of foreign nations, with the knowledge of military discipline and assayres of matter of state, wherein you hear myself & others your countrymen have in these parts greatly profited themselves, it were a motion sufficient not only to make you leave your country for a time, but to hazard yourself to any dangers in foreign parts, I have thought good therein to let you understand, that albeit I must confess, that I have in those things profited more perchance, (without ostentation be it spoken) then others of our nation, for the most part have done: yet as the time now serveth, and the case now standeth at this present, there is no possibility that you or any other may in far longer time than I have spent, attain to the like: and if you could, yet the dangers that in adventuring the same you should endure, were far greater than the benefits you could possibly reap, might in any wise countervail, were they such as might answer your expectation. In which respect, I pray you first consider, that when I came first over hither, the wars then here undertaken seemed & were in appearance to all the manner sort of men in the world. But intestine wars between the prince and his subjects, such as no other foreign prince, and most especially our most noble Queen & Sovereign, was then nothing interessed: whereas since it hath been made manifest to the world, that these wars and injuries offered by the king of Spain to those of the Low countries, whose laws, customs and privileges, he hath most violently, tyrannously, wrongfully, and periuredly broken, whereby he hath freed them from his subjection, yoke, and tyranny, and justly and deservedly for ever lost all such pre-eminences, prerogatives, authority, and jurisdiction as he pretended over them, as more amply appeareth in the ancient records of the privileges of these nations, which both he & his predecessors at their entry of government into these provinces have solemnly vowed and sworn to maintain all in general, and every in particular inviolate, & upon that covenant and condition they have reciprocally sworn to him due fidelity and obeisance, he failing in the one, they to be exempted from the other. Noreover, her Majesty seeing the lamentable and most pitiful cause of her distressed neighbours and allies, finding no other possible means by labourers, suits, messages, & sundry Ambassadors which she most honourably sent to the king of Spain for pacifying the said troubles, and reconciling the said king and those: sometimes his said subjects have been enforced to take pity and commiseration of their most miserable and afflicted estate and distress, and for their relief, to her excessive & almost importable charges, to undertake a most just, godly, and charitable defensive war against those that daily seek the blood, lives, goods, lands and liberties of the inhabitants of the said distressed nations. Since which being published, I think it not only unlawful, but also a most heinous and capital crime and offence for any her majesties subjects to serve on the contrary part.  
Besides, it shall be good for you & all other good subjects of her Majesties, to remember that consideration being had by her Majesty and her most honourable prudent council, of the looseness of many of her subjects, and small respect they had to her Highness & country, & as little to their own safety, his Majesty hath caused to be published & set forth diverse laws, ordinances, proclamations, and inhibitions, whereby all her subjects, (except known merchants and strangers) are straightly forbidden to pass the seas into any foreign parts without especial licence of her Majesty at this time. Therefore if you or any other her Grace's subjects, shall now attempt to pass the seas without lawful licence, there is no reason why you should expect any other than the rigour of the laws and justice, & to be holden guilty of cases capital, especially such as shall serve under so open and professed an enemy to the crown and state.  
Further, I pray you to have in consideration, that when I came over hither, the case so stood, as all Gentlemen of any quality or merit, were gratefully received, and employed in good & honourable services: whereas since the Spaniard hath professed himself open enemy to her Majesty and the state of her Realm, he hath had all Englishmen in very base account, being jealous & extremely suspicious of those that be most inward with him, & who for his sake have made shipwreck not only of their honour and credit, but also of their loyalty, duty, & allegiance to her Majesty and their native country. Examples whereof are infinite, & partly touched in my Discourse before set down.  
Besides, there is of late crept into that nation a viperous brood of jesuits & priests, most dangerous & malicious enemies to her Majesty, and to their own country vile and pernicious, instruments of the pope and his adherents, who daily (as it is manifest to them that have knowledge and experience of them & their actions) seek nothing more than the utter ruin, pulling down, and destruction of her Majesty and their country, which bred and nourished them, & all true professors of the Gospel and christian religion throughout christendom, he therefore that thinketh to live amongst these pernicious people in any credit or account, let him, as he worthily doth deserve, be accounted besides his wits, or else disobedient and traitorous to God, her Majesty, & his country.  
As for my part, seeing the impiety of this place and the wicked and detestable end whereto their drifts & practices are directed, I have long since retired myself, living aloof from them, abandoning and utterly rejecting the merit of my long service, & all such hopes and preferments, which I might as well as any man else of my quality of my nation have pretended and should have as soon obtained. And have ever since by all possible means, as well by myself as by my friends, laboured with her majesties most honourable privy council about my return, which by the special grace & benignity of my Sovereign, I am in comfort shortly to obtain, desiring to spend my poor talon, and the residue of my life in the service of her Majesty, my most honourable princess & sovereign Lady, whom God of his everlasting goodness bless with many years, & endless prosperity, to the joy of her subjects, and all faithful christians dispersed throughout the whole world.  
Finis.