Harry the Fifth is crown'd:-up, vanity! Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence! Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum: Be happy, he will trouble you no more: Oh, thou wilt be a wilderness again, Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants ! Prince. Oh, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears, The moist impediments unto my speech, I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke, Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard [Kneeling. And found no course of breath within your majesty, And never live to show th' incredulous world The noble change that I have purposèd! Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, I spake unto the crown as having sense, And thus upbraided it :-'The care on thee depending Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold: Preserving life in medicine potable; But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd, That had before my face murder'd my father, The quarrel of a true inheritor. But if it did infect my blood with joy, Or swell my thoughts to any strain or pride; If any rebel or vain spirit of mine Did, with the least affection of a welcome, That doth with awe and terror kneel to it. King. O my son ! God put it in thy mind to take it hence, That thou might'st win the more thy father's love, Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed; With me into the earth. It seem'd in me My gain of it by their assistances; Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed, So thou the garland wear'st successively. Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do, I cut them off; and had a purpose now Lest rest, and lying still, might make them look With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me; W. SHAKESPEARE. SPAIN DEFIED. THE Netherlanders, in their dire extremity, sent over a solemn embassy to London, and made anew an offer to the queen, of acknowledging her for their sovereign, on condition of obtaining her protection and assistance. Elizabeth's wisest counsellors were divided in opinion with regard to the conduct which she should hold in this critical and important emergence. Some advised her to reject the offer of the States, and represented imminent dangers, as well as injustice, attending the acceptance of it. They said that the suppression of rebellious subjects was the common cause of all sovereigns; and any encouragement given to the revolt of the Flemings might prove the example of a like pernicious licence to the English: that though princes were bound by the laws of the Supreme Being not to oppress their subjects, the people never were entitled to forget all duty to their sovereign, or transfer, from every fancy or disgust, or even from the justest ground of complaint, their obedience to any other master that the queen, in the succours hitherto afforded the Flemings, had considered them as labouring under oppression, not as entitled to freedom; and had intended only to admonish Philip not to persevere in his tyranny, without any view of ravishing from him those provinces which he enjoyed by hereditary right from his ancestors that her situation in Ireland, and even in England, would afford that powerful monarch sufficient opportunity of retaliating upon her; and she must thenceforth expect that, instead of secretly fomenting faction, he would openly employ his whole force in the protection and defence of the Catholics; that the Pope would undoubtedly unite his spiritual arms to the temporal ones of Spain; and that the queen would soon repent her making so precarious an acquisition in foreign countries, by exposing her own dominions to the most imminent danger. Other counsellors of Elizabeth maintained a contrary opinion. They asserted that the queen had not even from the beginning of her reign, but certainly had not at present, the choice whether she would embrace friendship or hostility with Philip that by the whole tenor of that prince's conduct it appeared that his sole aims were the extending of his empire, and the entire subjection of the Protestants, under the specious pretence of maintaining the Catholic faith: that the provocations which she had already given him, joined to his general scheme of policy, would for ever render him her implacable enemy; and as soon as he had subdued his revolted subjects, he would undoubtedly fall, with the whole force of his united empire, on her defenceless state: that the only question was, whether she would maintain a war abroad, and supported by allies, or wait till the subjection of all the confederates of England should give her enemies leisure to begin their hostilities in the bowels of the kingdom: that the revolted provinces, though in a declining condition, possessed still considerable force, and by the assistance of England, by the advantages of their situation, and by their inveterate antipathy to Philip, might still be enabled to maintain the contest against the Spanish monarchy: that their maritime power, united to the queen's, would give her entire security on the side from which alone she could be assaulted; and would even enable her to make inroads on Philip's dominions, both in Europe and the Indies that a war which was necessary could never be unjust; and selfdefence was concerned as well in preventing certain dangers at a distance, as in repelling any immediate invasion: and that, since hostility with Spain was the unavoidable consequence of the present interests and situations of the two monarchies, it were better to compensate that danger and loss by the acquisition of such important provinces to the English Empire. Amidst these opposite counsels, the Queen, apprehensive of the consequences attending each extreme, was inclined to steer a middle course; and though such conduct is seldom |