A LETTER FROM SIR HENRY SIDNEY, TO HIS SON, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, Consisting of RULES, IN HIS CONDUCT IN LIFE. MS. I Son Philip, HAVE received two letters from you, the one written in Latin, the other in French, which I take in good part, and will you to exercise that practice of learning often, for it will stand you in stead, in that profession of life which you are born to live in; and now, since that this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not, that it be all empty of some advices, which my natural care of you provoketh me to with you, to follow as documents to you in this tender age. Let your first action be the lifting up of your hands and mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer, and feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer with continual meditations and thinking of him to whom you pray, and use this at an ordinary hour, whereby, the time itself will put you in remembrance to do that thing which you are accustomed in that time. 2. Apply your study such hours as your discreet master doth assign you earnestly, and the time I know he will so limit, as shall be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for your health; and mark the sense and matter of that you read, as well as the words; so shall you both inrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow, as years grow on you. 3. Be humble and obedient to your master, for unless you frame yourself to obey, yea, and to feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others, how to obey you hereafter. 4. Be courteous of gesture, and affable to all men with universality of reverence, according to the dignity of the person; there is nothing that winneth so much with so little cost. ....5. Use moderate diet, so as after your meat you may find your wit fresher, and not duller; and your body more lively, and not more heavy. 6. Seldom drink wines, and yet sometimes do, lest being forced to drink upon the sudden, you should find yourself inflamed. 7. Use exercise of body, but such as is without peril of your bones or joints; it will much increase your force, and inlarge your breath. 8. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body, as in your garments; it shall make you grateful in each company, and otherwise loathsome. 9. Give yourself to be merry, for you degenerate from your father, if you find not yourself most able in wit and body to do any thing, when you be most merry; but let your mirth be ever void of all scurrility and biting words to any man, for a wound given by a word is harder to be cured than that which is given by a sword. 10. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk than a beginner, or procurer of speech, otherwise you will be accounted to delight to hear yourself speak. 11. Be modest in each assembly, and rather be rebuffed of light fellows for a maiden shamefacedness, than of your sober friends, for pert boldness. 12. Think of every word you will speak before you utter it, and remember how nature hath, as it were, rampired up the tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all betoken reins and bridles to the restraining the use of that member. 13. Above all things tell no untruth, no not in trifles, the custom of it is naught; and let it not satisfy you, that the hearers for a time take it for a truth, for afterwards it will be known as it is to shame, and there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be ac counted a lyar. 14. Study and endeavour yourself to be virtuously occupied, so shall you make such a habit of well doing, as you shall not know how to do evil though you would. 15. Remember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of by your mother's side, and think, that only by a virtuous life, and good actions, you may be an ornament to your illustrious family, and otherwise through vice and sloth you may be esteemed Labes Generis, one of the greatest curses that can happen to a man; well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and I fear too much for you at this time, but yet if I find that this light meat of digestion do nourish any thing the weak stomach of your young capacity, I will, as I find the same grow stronger feed it with tougher food. Farewel; your mother and I send you our blessing, and Almighty God grant you his; nourish you with his fear guide you with his grace, and make you a good servant to your prince and country. Your loving Father, HENRY SIDNEY. THE COPIE OF A LETTER, WRITTEN BY ONE IN LONDON TO HIS FREND, Concernyng the CREDIT OF THE LATE PUBLISHED DETECTION OF THE DOYNGES OF THE LADIE MARIE OF SCOTLAND. Without date, black letter, 12mo. containing fourteen pages; and, by some, thought to have been written by the learned Buchanan, MANY are the practises of Papistes, and other false and hollow harted subiectes; and wonder it is, what they dare do and say, as if they had the Maiesty of our Prince in contempt, or did still beare them selues bold vpon the successe of some mightie treason, the bottome whereof hath not yet bene throughly searched. Of late hath bene published, out of Scotland, a treasise, detectyng the foule doynges of some that haue bene daungerous to our noble Queene; by which detection, is induced a very excellent comparison for all Englishmen to judge whether it be good to chaunge Queenes or no, and, therewith, a necessary enforcement, to euery honest man, to pray hartely for the long continuaunce of our good mother to rule ouer vs, that our pos teritie may not see her place left empty for a perilous stepedame. Some caryed with popishe affection, that regardeth neither naturalĮ prince nor contrey, and puffed with the dropsey of a trayterous humor, labour what they can to discredit the same detection, as vntrue. Some of them, whyle they, lyke good sincere men forsoth, would fayne seme very indifferent judges, say they will credit nothing, till they heare both parties, not remembryng, that, in the same one booke, are both parties to be heard, the one in the former parte, both in the declaration and oration of euidence; the other in the latter parte, in the par ties owne contractes, songes, letters, iudicial procedynges, protestations, examinations, and confessions. Some other more open fellowes say flatly that all is false, the booke hath no credit, the authour is vnknowne, obscure, the mater eounterfaite, and all is nothing. If any such rumors come to youre eare, first, I think verely, in truth you may be bold to say to the partic, Et tu ex illis es, thou art also one of them, And, for the matter, I haue thought good to enforme you of so much as I know, for profe of the same treatise to be of credite, wherewith you may aunswere and stoppe the mouthes of such rumor spreaders. The booke it selfe, with the oration of euidence, is written in Latine by a learned man of Scotland, M, George Buchanan, one priuie to the procedynges of the Lordes of the Kynges secret Counsell there, well able to vnderstand and disclose the truth, hauyng easie accesse also to all the recordes of that contrey that might helpe hym. Besides that the booke was written by hym, not as of hym selfe, nor in hys owne name, but accordyng to the instructions to hym genen by common conference of the Lordes of the Priuie Counsel of Scotland; by hym onely for hys learnyng penned, but by them the mater ministred, the booke ouerseen and allowed, and exhibited by them as mater that they haue offred, and do continue in offeryng, to stand to and justifie before our soucraigne ladie, or her Highnesses commissioners in that behalfe apointed. And what profe they haue made of it already, when they were here for that purpose, and the sayd authour of the sayd booke one among them, when both parties, or their sufficient procurators, were here present, indifferently to be heard, and so were heard in deede; all good subiectes may easely gather, by our sayd soueraigne ladyes procedyng, sins the sayd hearyng of the cause, who, no dout, would neuer haue so stayed her request, but rather would haue added enforcement, by ministring of aide to the Ladie Marie of Scotland, for her restitution (the president and honor of princes, and her Maiesties own former example of sinceritie, vsed in defense of the Scottish Queene, her selfe in Scotland against France, and her maintenance of the French Kinges honour and libertie, against the hye attemptes of some of his Popish subiectes, considered) nor would haue lyued in such good amitie with the yong Kyng of Scotland, the Regentes, and the true lordes main teiners of that side*; if these haynous offenses, alleged on that part, had not bene prouable, or if the yong Kyng had bene an vsurper, or hys Regentes, and other lordes of that faction, traytors, as they must haue bene, if all be false that is obiected against the sayd Ladie Marie. Į recite not what subscriptions and assentes haue bene to confirme the booke, and the maters in it conteined; byside that I do you to wyte, that one written copie thereof, in Latine, was now, vpon hys late apprehension, found in one of the Duke of Norfolkes mens houses, and the ther sent, by his commaundement, a little before his apprehension, to be secretlie kept there, with diuers other pamphelets and writynges; whiche thyng not onely addeth credit to this booke, that it was not counterfait, but also geueth shrewed suspicions, that the Duke could not so well lyke the woman, beyng such a woman, as, for her persons sake, to venture the ouerthrow of such a florishing state, wherein he stode before; but that some other greater thing, it might be, that he lyked, the gredynesse whereof myght temper his abhorryng of so foule conditions, and of so great a danger to hym selfe, to be sent after his predecessours. The Bysshop of Rosse || lykewise doth both knowe, that the duke had this booke, and can tell how the duke came by it. The other mater of the contractes, letters, songes, &c. haue, among other, these proues. Liuely witnesses, of great honor and credit, can tell, that the very casket, there described, was here in England shewed; the letters, See Ane Admonition to Lordis. Boheaded for treason. + Viz. the Crown of England and Scotland. Agent for the Queen of Scots. and other monumentes, opened and exhibited; and so much, as is there sayd, to haue bene written or subscribed by the sayd Ladie Marie, the Erle Bothwell, or other, hath bene, by testimonies and othes of men of honor and credite of that contrey, testified and auowed, in presence of persones of most honorable state and authoritie, to haue bene written and subscribed, as is there alleged, and so deliuered without rasure, diminution, addition, falsifieng, or alteration, in any point. And a nomber there be in England, of very good and worshypfull calling, byside the commissioners thereto apoynted, that haue seene the origi nals them selues, of the same handes whoes this book doth say them to be. Whiche thinges haue been heard and vnderstoode by those that can tell, and those whoes truth, in reporting, is above all exception. Wherefore sithe the Scottishemen haue, for satisfaction of vs, their good neyghbours, among whom the sayd Ladie Marie remayneth, to the perill of both Princes as the Scottishemen say, published these maters, to the intent that the impudencie of the sayd Ladie Maries fautors, in denyeng those truthes, may not seduce Englishe subjectes to the vnderminyng of the estate, honor, and noble procedyng of our most gracious Soueraigne, and diuertyng of affections to vndue places, and to the great perill of both realmes, which the aduersaries call, beneficiall vnityng,' but is in deede most maleficiall confoundyng, intended to ioyne the realmes in other persones, excluding the person of our sayd Soueraigne Lady: Let vs receiue this admonishment thankefully, and gather the frute thereof, to the stablishment of our loyaltie to our owne Queene, agaynst whom the fauorers of the other side haue banded them selues in hostilitie and treason. This I haue thought good to write to you, for your satisfaction in knowledge of the case; whom I know alreadie sufficiently satisfied in good and dutifull affection, God disclose these hollow hartes, or rather God graunt her Maiestie, and those that be in authoritie vnder her, an earnest will to see them, for they will disclose them selues fast enough. And God send her Maiestie so to remoue the groundes of her perill, that not onely we, which by open thrustyng our selues agaynst her enemyes, haue set vp our rest vpon our Queene Elizabeth, and shall neuer be admitted to fauour on the other side, but also all wise and honest men may know that it shal be safe to be true, and daungerous to be false. Otherwise the mischief is euident. For men in nature and in policie will seke for their own safeties, which if they may not finde in truth, it is a great auauncement of falsehode. God long preserue our good and gracious Queene Elizabeth, and make her enemyes know, that there is sure perill in treason, and her true subiectes bold to sticke to her without dread of any reuenge or displeasure. So fare ye well. For further profe, that the sayd letters, written by the said Ladie Marie, and mentioned in the sayd booke, are not counterfait but her owne, I haue herewith also sent you the most autentike testimonie of the three estates of Scotland, assembled in Parliament. The copie of which 'acte you shall receiue word for word, as it was enacted in Scotland in December 1567, and remaineth publikely in print, sauyng, that I haue for your more easy vnderstanding changed the Scottishe orthography, which I would to God had been done for Englishemens better satisfac |