THE Translation of certain latin verses written upon her majesties death, called A Comforting Complaint.  
This onely way I could declare my thankful mind.  
 Woodcut printer's device featuring two squirrels and an ornamented head (not in McKerrow).  
❧ Printed at London for Edward Aggas dwelling in long lane at the sign of the oaken three. Anno Dom. 1603.   

❧ The Translation of certain latin verses written vpon her majesties death; called A comforting Complaint.  

HOw sore had mournful death shaked th'english soil,  
If God had not afforded present help?  
Who though he took our queen, a King he gave  
To play the fathers part in mothers loss.  
He took away our queen, whose match no age  
Hath ever seen before, or after shall.  
The Kings most royal virtues feed our hope  
That he will prove so good the time he reigns,  
As when our dying queen pronounced him heir  
She did sorewarne her State that he would be.  
Most noble King with happy course and long  
Stand to thy stern, our hope is under sail.  
My queen, though dead, now calls me: not to tears  
For countreys heavy loss by fatal stroke,  
But unto joy, for that her happy life here spent  
She rests in heaven, in bosom of her God,  
Of whom when I haue said what I shall say,  
The world shall see how great a good we lost.  
No sooner was this royal infant born,  
And left her mothers womb to enter light,  
But Gods foreseing care, by many signs,  
accompanying her first cradle-time, bewraid  
What rate he held her at, how he loved her,  
And in her sex how rare she was to prove.  
Then he first shew'd his word unto this land:  
Then he commanded Pope to part the realm,  
Who though as then he were not quiter cut off,  
His superstitious rights remaining still,  
Yet he then shew'd the way how being queen  
She might in time make him avoid the land:  
And that she might with greater famed and wit  
Thereafter rule the reins of royal state,  
How tried he her with change and choice of chance  
Not onely in her first, but after yeares?  
What greater sign of Gods great love to her,  
What stronger proof that once she should be great,  
Than to all other youth such special things,  
Whereby to prove a wise and godly Prince?  
Now when she 'gan to be of riper yeares,  
Her parsonage appeared for beauty rare,  
Her carriage full of majesty and state,  
Whereby she wan the love of every look:  
But that which wrought in her the greatest grace,  
Was truth in store bestowed in her heart,  
The great endowments of her royal mind,  
Which she did learn as fast as princely brain  
With judgement fraught, could possibly conceive.  
All this she learned so as it appeared  
That God had bread her up to be a queen,  
Which gifts of princely mind then beam'd abroad,  
When having got her fathers crown on head,  
She did show forth the treasures of her heart.  
When she first took the sceptre in her hand,  
even then professing here the heavenly truth,  
How quietly entred she, and with what peace?  
All the Romish rout, which swarming here  
With open throats, did thirst to see her fall:  
Though all our neighbour lands, then priestly slaves,  
Though foreign Kings and princes threw out threats,  
because they were bewitched with Romish rags,  
Yet she with hope in God, and check to fear,  
What truth did teach, that she did still defend:  
And England of itself now free from fear  
Of foreign princes yoke, was glad of her,  
Who being stayed in throne and princely seat,  
How mighty things, how born to live did she?  
Still constant, still the same, still in one course  
Directing all the time that she did reign.  
What she enacted once, she held it fast,  
as well what touched the Church, as civil state:  
No change of hands, from right unto the left  
Was she acquainted with, but still forth right.  
Her gracious God so favoured this her reign,  
Which she religiously maintained thus,  
As if she did not quiter surpass all those  
Which heretofore had reigned in this land:  
At least she matched the bravest of them all.  
In all her great attempts victorious still.  
If she with armed hand bared foreign foes:  
If with the like she daunted stirs at home:  
If with assisting aid she sought to free  
Her neighbours, craving help from servile yoke,  
The God of heaven did guide her still to gain.  
Oft times assailed by false and treacherous mean,  
Wherewith the Iesuites sought to suck her blood,  
She felt her God to save her with his shield,  
Which taking edge from sword, and charge from dag,  
From poison strength to do her any harm,  
Bad her go on, bad her abandon fear,  
That he would be both guide and guard to his.  
But were it not a mighty fault to hid  
The royal gifts wherewith she was endowed?  
Her knowledge and her skill, the only mean  
Which doth adorn a noble royal wit?  
Her learning did surmount her sex and kind.  
She had obtained the chief and learned tongues,  
Whereby she knew what things were to be known.  
Vpon these grounds and learning of her own,  
She fauour'd so all people that were learned,  
As both th'Vniuersities felt by royal grant  
The benefits wherewith she privileged them:  
As every shire so warranted from her,  
Found many a school well founded for their youth  
To bring them up at first, whom afterward  
The universities were to feed with stronger meats.  
These qualities of hers so rare in woman kind  
She did not hid, but shew'd them to the sun.  
In all her time so governing her estate,  
As all the world did wonder at her wit.  
Which kind of government and blessed course  
Great potentates abroad in foreign parts  
Did so admire, as they forthwith did sand  
Their Embassies to her with true desire,  
To crave and haue her friendship and her love:  
Whose answer was return'd insort so wise,  
And in that tongue which they themselves did use:  
( A thing for wonder rare, beyond belief,  
To find in that weak sex so strong a gift,  
But that herself past wonder, past belief)  
As they were all amazed, and coming home  
Reported to their Lords the thing they scant believed,  
So strange a prince had God given to this world  
Truth to maintain and falsehood for to mate.  
Besides all these, great troops of noble men  
Rapt with the famed and honour of her name,  
Desiring to see whereof they heard so much,  
With gladsome hearts repaired to this realm:  
And as they came with gladness for to see,  
So they departed glad when they had seen.  
Her entertainment was in such a sort,  
For majesty of state and princely cheer,  
As in all points she did content them all.  
Nay, diuers noble Dames whom like desire,  
Enflamed for to see the object of their ears,  
Did undertake the way though nere so long  
By sea, by land to see that they did seek:  
What honour were these things to this our Isle?  
What glory to all those of that her sex?  
That foreign lands should sand both Ladies and Lords  
To hear our princes voice, to see her face,  
To kiss her faire and tender royal hand.  
This was her public course in case of state,  
Whereof the world each where eye witness was.  
Now as she was addicted still to hear,  
Or privately to red some learned book,  
She never brook't, nor could with patience bear  
What she perceiu'd vnseeming for a Prince,  
But as her choice was ever of the best  
And chiefest that did writ in any tongue,  
So what she found to be sincere and pure,  
That did she note and laid it up in store,  
What was not such, as sorry she had read  
That she exiled both from her eye and ear.  
If ought came by the way while she did red,  
Which smelled of blood or cruel tyrants hand,  
herself rejected strait, and willed him  
That read with her, to red the same alone,  
And after tell it her in milder phrase.  
Nay farther, if the laws by force of right  
Condemned any one for crime to die,  
None was more loathe to yield to such a death,  
None more desired to respite time for life  
Her nature was so mildred, her heart so kind,  
As pain or death deserved could hardly win,  
Though law and justice both did bid her strike.  
Besides when any of her private train  
Did painfully perform his charge in truth,  
How would she cherish him with courteous terms,  
Alluring every heart to yield her love,  
Of which her gentle course well fitting her.  
This may be brought for proof, that being sick,  
No lady of her svit refused pains  
By night, by day, to save their princes health,  
But every one with danger of their own,  
Did seek to save her life whom they so loved:  
And as the women did, so did the men  
With earnest care in duty to perform  
That sorrowful service, with loss of prince to live.  
By nature such she was, by virtue such  
As none denied her love, where she did like.  
To knit the last with least, whatsoever thing,  
She undertook, to dance, to play, to sing,  
Or what so else a modest queen might do,  
That she perfourm'd with majesty and grace,  
That it became the place, that it beseem'd a queen.  
Now drawing near to death, she stayed on still,  
The faith she held in life she kept in death,  
That though they which were near her when she dyed,  
Were for her death in pain and extreme grief,  
And could haue wished her longer time to live:  
Yet they rejoiced to see her so depart  
As in her death they saw a present life:  
For at her death she did remember well  
Both what concerned her soul, her heavenly state,  
And how she must depart without delay,  
As when her soul her mortal body left  
With triumph she did mount strait into heaven.  
Nor when she died, she did forget hers here,  
As many mothers do forget their babes,  
But left us such a King whose virtues might  
Abridge the grief which lack of her might breed.  
This was her end, this was her lives last act  
With clap of hands for sorrow, but not for joy,  
For who can but bewail the loss of such a prince?  
What time can serve to stint the stream of woeful tears?  
For who is't we haue lost? a prince whom man did not,  
But God alone did choose protector of his word,  
The trumpet of his truth, a mother to us all,  
A pillar to all peace, a death to all debate.  
The honour of her sex, a queen surmounting match,  
Of whom when all is said, all is not enough.  
I must confess we haue just cause to grieve,  
But yet two greater grounds rebate our grief  
The first because her age, her twenty yeares  
Had made her ripe, and ready for to die.  
If she had been before a married queen,  
Or not haue used a diet low and spare,  
Her life had not endured in strength so long.  
She died in happy reign, not feeling cross  
beloved at home, admired abroad, a matchless prince,  
So that it seems she changed onely place  
By such a blessed death called up to heaven,  
Where here on earth she raignd in fits of care.  
Now who so shall bewail one dying so,  
So thoroughly bles'd, in state so perfect good,  
He shall not seem to mourn for her he moans,  
But to lament for loss of private gain.  
And yet an earnest love cannot but mourn,  
When cause whence love did rise hath his recourse  
Which bread and born on ground that bears it up,  
Cannot be tried at all with  shed of tears.  
The second cause which ought to stay our grief,  
And that may seem the proper cure to care  
Is, that the queen, when death approached her,  
Did stint where all our grief for her should stay,  
By pointing us a King, and that a man  
accustomend to rule: one of our English blood,  
Which all his time hath fostered up Gods truth,  
A friend to peace, a prince of mighty skill,  
To whom our queen, our good Elizabeth  
Did yield, as to a prince her peer each way,  
So that although we grieve for loss of her,  
Yet this one close should knit up all our grief,  
For that by her own choice and right of blood,  
We haue a King to turn our grief to joy.  
Now my liege Lord, successor to my queen,  
The greatest King that british soil hath seen,  
Thou seest a mighty pattern in thine eye  
A maiden prince which ruled so this state,  
As to match her tis much, to pass her more.  
Wherefore thy charge is doubled in our eyes,  
Which are in hope that thou wilt follow her steps,  
And rule as she did reign with equal praise,  
Which thing that thou mayst do both long, and safe, and sound,  
Thou must of force with Iesuites be at war,  
Whose doctrine is to spare no princes blood,  
To rob them of their state, to rob them of their lives,  
With fire and sword to force them for to yield:  
If they,( though God himself forbid the same)  
yield not their royal necks to popish foot,  
The blood of Kings is Iesuites ink to writ,  
That liquor is it must make their rubrics read.  
Will he spare james our King, which spared not our Queen?  
Will he forbear a man, which preyed vpon a maid?  
She though she caught him oft, yet spared him oft,  
Which hope in him is dead through such a King,  
Who hath from Gods own mouth commandement given,  
With double pain the bloody babylon to pine:  
That is his will that gave King james a triple crown:  
A triple crown? what's that? a fatal term, that is  
The triple british crown, the Romish bane.  
As good Elizabeth reigns most happy now in heaven,  
So happy may King james reign long with us in earth:  
And as she did avoid the Iesuites treacherous trains,  
Whereby she gather grave in dry and quiet death,  
So good King james go late to God and slip their snares,  
For if thou stick'st to God, they'l not stick to stick thee.   
R. M.