My lord of Buckhurst was of the noble house of Sackvilles, and of the
Queen’s consanguinity, or as the people then called him _Fill-sacks_, by
reason of his great wealth, and the vast patrimony left to his son,
whereof in his youth he spent the best part, until the Queen, by her
frequent admonitions, diverted the torrent of his profusion; he was a
very fine gentleman, of person and endowments, both of art and nature,
but without measure magnificent, till on the turn of his honour, and the
alloy, that his yearly good counsel had wrought upon those immoderate
courses of his youth, and that height of spirit inherent to his house;
and then did the Queen, as a most judicious, indulgent prince, who, when
she saw the man grown settled and staid, gave him an assistance, and
advanced him to the treasurership, where he made amends to his house for
his mis-spent time, both in the increasement of his estate and honour,
which the Queen conferred upon him, together with the opportunity to
remake himself, and thereby to show that this was a child that should
have a share in her grace.
They much commend his elocution, but more the excellency of his pen, for
he was a scholar, and a person of a quick dispatch, faculties that yet
run in the blood; and they say of him, that his secretaries did little
for him, by the way of indictment, wherein they could seldom please him,
he was so facete and choice in his phrases and style; and for his
dispatches, and for the content he gave to suitors, he had a decorum
seldom put in practice, for he had of his attendance that took into a
roll the names of all suitors, with the date of their first addresses; so
that a fresh man could not leap over his head, that was of a more ancient
edition excepting the urgent affairs of the State.
I find not that he was any way ensnared in the factions of the court,
which were all his times strong, and in every man’s note, the Howards and
the Cecils of the one part, and my Lord of Essex, &c., on the other, for
he held the staff of the treasury fast in his hand, which made them, once
in a year, to be beholden to him; and the truth is, as he was a wise man
and a stout, he had no reason to be a partaker, for he stood sure in
blood and in grace, and was wholly intentive to the Queen’s service; and
such were his abilities, that she might have more cunning instruments,
but none of a more strong judgment and confidence in his ways, which are
symptoms of magnanimity, whereunto methinks this motto hath some kind of
reference, _Aut nunquam tentes_, _aut perfice_. As though he would have
charactered, in a word, the genius of his house, or express somewhat of a
higher inclination, than lay within his compass; that he was a courtier
is apparent, for he stood always in her eye and in her favour.