It will be out of doubt that my Lord of Leicester was one of the first
whom she made Master of the Horse; he was the youngest son then living of
the Duke of Northumberland, beheaded _primo Mariæ_, {122c} and his father
was that Dudley which our histories couple with Empson, and both be much
infamed for the caterpillars of the commonwealth during the reign of
Henry VII., who, being of a noble extract, was executed the first year of
Henry VIII., but not thereby so extinct but that he left a plentiful
estate, and such a son who, as the vulgar speaks it, would live without a
teat. For, out of the ashes of his father’s infamy, he rose to be a
duke, and as high as subjection could permit or sovereignty endure. And
though he could not find out any appellation to assume the crown in his
own person, yet he projected, and very nearly effected it, for his son
Gilbert, by intermarriage with the Lady Jane Grey, and so, by that way,
to bring it into his loins. Observations which, though they lie beyond
us, and seem impertinent to the text, yet are they not much extravagant,
for they must lead us and show us how the after-passages were brought
about, with the dependences on the line of a collateral workmanship; and
surely it may amaze a well-settled judgment to look back into these times
and to consider how the duke could attain to such a pitch of greatness,
his father dying in ignominy, and at the gallows, his estate confiscated
for pilling and polling the people.
But, when we better think upon it, we find that he was given up but as a
sacrifice to please the people, not for any offence committed against the
person of the King; so that upon the matter he was a martyr of the
prerogative, and the King in honour could do no less than give back to
his son the privilege of his blood, with the acquiring of his father’s
profession, for he was a lawyer, and of the King’s Council at Law, before
he came to be _ex interioribus consiliis_, {124a} where, besides the
licking of his own fingers, he got the King a mass of riches, and that
not with hazard, but with the loss of his life and fame, for the King’s
father’s sake.
Certain it is that his son was left rich in purse and brain, which are
good foundations, and fuel to ambition; and, it may be supposed, he was
on all occasions well heard of the King as a person of mark and
compassion in his eye, but I find not that he did put up for advancement
during Henry VIII.’s time, although a vast aspirer and a provident
stayer.
It seems he thought the King’s reign was much given to the
falling-sickness, but espying his time fitting, and the sovereignty in
the hands of a pupil prince, he then thought he might as well put up, for
it was the best; for having the possession of blood, and of purse, with a
head-piece of a vast extent, he soon got to honour, and no sooner there
but he began to side it with the best, even with the Protector, {124b}
and, in conclusion, got his and his brother’s heads; still aspiring till
he expired in the loss of his own, so that posterity may, by reading of
the father and grandfather, make judgment of the son; for we shall find
that this Robert, whose original we have now traced the better to present
him, was inheritor to the genius and craft of his father, and Ambrose of
the estate, of whom hereafter we shall make some short mention.
We took him now as he was admitted into the Court and the Queen’s
favours, and here he was not to seek to play his part well and
dexterously; but his play was chiefly at the fore-game, not that he was a
learner at the latter, but he loved not the after-wit, for the report is
(and I think not unjustly) that he was seldom behind-hand with his
gamesters, and that they always went with the loss.
He was a very goodly person, tall, and singularly well-featured, and all
his youth well-favoured, of a sweet aspect, but high-foreheaded, which
(as I should take it) was of no discommendation; but towards his latter,
and which with old men was but a middle age, he grew high-coloured, so
that the Queen had much of her father, for, expecting some of her
kindred, and some few that had handsome wits in crooked bodies, she
always took personage in the way of election, for the people hath it to
this day, _King Henry loved a man_.
Being thus in her grace, she called to mind the sufferings of _his_
ancestors, both in her father’s and sister’s reigns, and restored his and
his brother’s blood, creating Ambrose, the elder, Earl of Warwick, and
himself Earl of Leicester; and, as he was _ex primitis_, or, _of her
first choice_, so he rested not there, but long enjoyed her favour, and
therewith what he listed, till time and emulation, the companions of
greatness, resolved of his period, and to colour him at his setting in a
cloud (at Conebury) not by so violent a death, or by the fatal sentence
of a judicature, as that of his father and grandfather was, but, as is
supposed, by that poison which he had prepared for others, wherein they
report him a rare artist. I am not bound to give credit to all vulgar
relations, or the libels of his time, which are commonly forced and
falsified suitable to the words and honours {126} of men in passion and
discontent; but what blinds me to think him no good man, amongst other
things of known truth, is that of my Lord of Essex’s {127a} death in
Ireland and the marriage of his lady, which I forbear to press in regard
he is long since dead, and others are living whom it may concern.
To take him in the observation of his letters and writings, which should
best set him off, for such as have fallen into my hands, I never yet saw
a style or phrase more seemingly religious and fuller of the strains of
devotion; and, were they not sincere, I doubt much of his well-being,
{127b} and, I fear, he was too well seen in the aphorisms and principles
of Nicholas the Florentine, and in the reaches {127c} of Cesare Borgia.
And hereto I have only touched him in his courtships. I conclude him in
his lance; {127d} he was sent Governor by the Queen to the revolted
States of Holland, where we read not of his wonders, for they say he had
more of Mercury than he had of Mars, and that his device might have been,
without prejudice to the great Cæsar, _Veni_, _vidi_, _redivi_.