Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/512

384 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. pleasures, as great princes do by banquets, come and look a little upon them, and turn away. For never prince was more wholly given to his affairs, nor in them more of himself: insomuch as in triumphs of justs and tourneys, and balls, and masks, which they then called disguises, he was rather a princely and gentle spectator, than seemed much to be delighted. No doubt, in him, as in all men, and most of all in kings, his fortune wrought upon his nature, and his nature upon his fortune. He attained to the crown, not only from a private fortune, which might endow him with moderation; but also from the fortune of an exiled man, which had quickened in him all seeds of observation and industry. And his times being rather prosperous than calm, had raised his confidence by success, but almost marred his nature by troubles. His wisdom, by often evading from perils, was turned rather into a dexterity to deliver himself from dangers, when they pressed him, than into a providence to prevent and remove them afar off. And even in nature, the sight of his mind was like some sights of eyes ; rather strong at hand, than to carry afar off. For his wit increased upon the occasion : and so much the more, if the occasion were sharpened by danger. Again, whether it were the shortness of his fore sight, or the strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what it was, certain it is, that tha perpetual troubles of his fortunes, there being no more matter out of which they grew, could not have been without some great defects and main errors in his nature, customs, and proceedings, which he had enough to do to save and help with a thousand little industries and watches. But those do best appear in the story itself. Yet take him with all his defects, if a man should compare him with the kings his concurrents in France and Spain, he shall find him more politic than Lewis the Twelfth of France, and more entire and sin cere than Ferdinando of Spain. But if you shall cliange Lewis the Twelfth for Lewis the Eleventh who lived a little before, then the consort is moro perfect. For that Lewis the Eleventh, Ferdinan do, and Henry, may be esteemed for the "trea magi" of kings of those ages. To conclude, if this king did no greater matters, it was long of himself: for what he minded he compassed. He was a comely personage, a little above just stature, well and straight limbed, but slender. His countenance was reverend, and a little like a churchman : and as it was not strange or dark, so neither was it winning or pleasing, but as the face of one well disposed. But it was to the disad vantage of the painter, for it was best when he spake. His worth may bear a tale or two, that may put upon him somewhat that may seem divine. When the Lady Margaret, his mother, had divers great suitors for marriage, she dreamed one night, that one in the likeness of a bishop in pontifical habit did tender her Edmund, Earl of Richmond, I the king s father, for her husband, neither had she ever any child but the king, though she had three husbands. One day when King Henry the Sixth, whose innocency gave him holiness, was washing his hands at a great feast, and cast his eye upon King Henry, then a young youth, he said ; " This is the lad that shall possess quietly that, that we now strive for." But that, that was truly divine in him, was that he had the fortune of a true Christian, as well as of a great king, in living ex ercised, and dying repentant : so as he had a happy warfare in both conflicts, both of sin and the cross. He was born at Pembroke castle, and lieth buried at Westminster, in one of the stateliest and daintiest monuments of Europe, both for the chapel and for the sepulchre. So that he dwelleth more richly dead, in the monument of his tomb, than he did alive in Richmond, or any of his palaces. I could wish he did the like in this monument of his fame.