AROSTUS

Your good acceptance so (most noble king) Of such your faithfulness as heretofore We have employed in duties to your Grace, And to this Realm whose worthy head you are, Well proves that neither you mistrust at all, Nor we shall need no boasting wise to show, Our truth to you, nor yet our wakeful care For you, for yours, and for our native Land, Wherefore (Oh King) I speak for one as all, Sith all as one do bear you equal faith: Doubt not to use their Counsels and their aides Whose honours, goods & lives are whole avowed To serve, to aid, and to defend your Grace. And this is much, and asks great advise, But for my part my Sovereign Lord and king This do I think your Majesty does know, How under you in Justice and in peace, Great wealth and Honour, long we have enjoyed So as we can not seem with greedy minds To wish for change of Prince or governance, But if you like your purpose and devise, Our liking must be deemed to proceed, Of rightful reason, and of heedful care, Not for our selves, but for our continued ̄ men state: Sith our own state does need no better change I think in all as erst your Grace hath said: First when you shall unload your aged mind, Of heavy care and troubles manifold, And say the same upon my Lords your sons Whose growing years may bear the burden long And long I pray the Gods to grant it so: And in your life while you shall so behold Their rule, their virtues and their noble deeds, Such as their kind behighteth to us all, Great be the profits that shall grow thereof, Your age in quiet shall the longer last, Your lasting age shall be their longer stay, For cares of kings, that rule as you have ruled For public wealth and not for private joy, Do wast man's life and hasten crooked age, With furrowed face and with enfeebled limbs, To draw on creeping Death a swifter pace. They two yet young shall bear the party reign With greater ease, than one now old alone Can weld the whole, for whom much harder is with lessened strength the double weight to bear Your eye, your counsel, and the graven regard Of Father's, yea of such a father's name, Now at beginning of their sundered reign, When it is hazard of their whole success, Shall bridle so their force of youthful heats, And so restrain the rage of insolence, Which most assails the young and noble minds, And so shall guide and train in tempered stay Their yet green bending wits w to reverent awe And now inured with virtues at the first. Custom (Oh king) shall bring delightfulness By use of Virtue, Vice shall grow in hate, But if you so dispose it, that the day, Which ends your life, shall first begin their reign Great is the peril, what will be the end, When such beginning of such liberties Void of such states as in your lief do lie, Shall leave them to free random of their will And open pray to traitorous flattery, The greatest pestilence of noble youth: Which peril shall be passed, if in your life, Their tempered youth with aged father's awe Be brought in use of skilful staidness And in your life, their lives disposed so, Shall length your noble lief in ioyfulnes. Thus think I y to your grace hath wisely thought And that your tender care of continued ̄ men weal, Hath bred this thought, so to divide your Land And plant your sons to bear the present rule While you yet live to see their ruling well, That you may longer live by joy therein. What further means behooveful are and meet At great leisure may your Grace devise, When all have said, and when we be agreed If this be best to part the Realm in twain, And place your sons in present government Whereof as I have plamely said my mind, So would I here the rest of all my Lords. You, nor your sons, our sovereign Lord shall want Our faith & service while our lives do last. Your Grace should now in these graven years of Have found ere this the price of mortal Joys, How short they be, how fading hear in earth How full of change, how Brittle our estate, Of nothing sure, save only of the Death, To whom both man and all the world does owe Their end at last, neither shall nature's power In other sort against your heart prevail, Than as the naked hand whose stroke assays The Armed breast where force does light in vain Never did age bring forth so vile a fact. Madame, alas, in vain these plaints are shed. Rather with me depart and help to assuage, The thoughtful griefs that in the aged kings Must needs by nature grow by death of this His only son, whom he did hold so deer. A joust reward such as all times before Have ever lotted to those wretched folks. That you (my Lords) do so agree in one To save your Country from the violent reign And wrongfully usurped Tirrannie Oh him that threatens conquest of you all To save your realm, & in this realm your selves From foreign thraldom of so proud a Prince, Much do I praise, and I beseech the Gods, With happy honour to requite it you. But (Oh my Lords) sith now the Heavens wrath Hath reft this Land the issue of their Prince: Sith of the body of our late Sovereign Lord Remains no more, since the young kings be slain And of the Title of the descended Crown, Uncertainly the diverse minds do think Even of the Learned sort, and more uncertainly Will perciall fancy and affection deem: But most vncertenlye will climbing pride And hope of Reign withdraw from ̄ sundry parts The doubtful right and hopeful lust to reign. When ones this noble service is achieved For Britain Land the Mother of you all, When ones you have with armed force repressed, The proud attempts of this Albanyan Prince, That threatens thraldom to your Native Land, When you shall vanquishers return from field And find the Princely state and open pray. To greedy lust and to usurping power, Then, then (my Lords) if ever kindly care Of ancient Honour of your auncestoures, Of present wealth and noblesse of your stocks: Yea of the lives and safety yet to come Of your deer wives, your children & your selves, Might move your noble hactes with gentle ruth, Then, then have pity on the torn estate, Then help to salve the well near hopeless soar Which you shall do, if you your selves with hold The slaying knife from your own mother's throat Her shall you save, and you, and yours in her If you shall all with one assent forbear Ones to say hand or take unto your selves The Crown by colour of tended right, Or by what other means so ever it be Till first by continued ̄ men counsel of you all In Parliament the Regal Diadem Be set in certain place of governance, In which your Parliament and in your choice, Preserve the right (my Lords,) without respect Of strength of friends, or what so ever cause That may set forward any others part, For right will last, and wrong can not endure, Right mean I his or hers, upon whose name The people rest by mean of Native line, Or by the virtue of some former Law, Already made their title to advance: Such one (my Lords) let be your chosen King Such one so born within your Native Land Such one prefer, and in no wise adinitte. The heavy yoke of foreign governance, Let foreign Titles yield to Public wealth, And with that heart wherewith you now prepare Thus to withstand the proud invading foe, With that same heart (my Lords) keep out also Unnatural thraldom of strangers reign, Ne suffer you against the rules of kind Your Mother Land to serve a Foreign Prince. Oh King, appease your grief & stay your plaint Great is the matter and a woeful case But timely knowledge may bring timely help Send for the ̄ both unto your presence here The reverence of your honour age and state Your graven advise, the awe of father's name Shall quickly knit again this broken piece: And if in either of my Lords your sons Be such untamed and unyielding pride As will not bend unto your noble Hests. If Ferrex the elder son can bear no peer. Or Porrex not content, aspires to more Then you him gave, above his Native right: Join with the juster side, so shall you force Them to agree: and bold the Land in state. Lo where he continued ̄ mes and Eubulus with him. Oh dampened deed.