EUBULUS

Your wonted true regard of faithful hearts, Makes me (Oh king) the bolder to presume To speak what I conceive within my breast, Although the same do not agree at all With that which other here my Lords have said Nor which your self have seemed best to like, Pardon I crave and that my words be deemed To flow from hearty zeal unto your Grace, And to the safety of your continued ̄ mon weal: To part your Realm unto my Lords your so ̄ nes I think not good for you, ne yet for them, But worst of all, for this our Native Land: For with one Land, one single rule is best: Divided Reigns do make divided hearts. But Peace preserves the Country & the Prince. Such is in man the greedy mind to reign, So great is his desire to climb aloft, In worldly Stage the stateliest parts to bear, That faith and Justice and all kindly love, Do yield unto desire of Sovereignty: Where equal state does raise and equal hope To win the thing that either would attain Your grace remember how in passed years The mighty Brutus, first Prince of all this Land Possessed the same and ruled it well in one, He thinking that the compass did suffice For his three sons, three kingdoms eke to make Cut it in three, as you would now in twain: But how much Brutish blood hath since be ̄ spilled To join again the sundered unity? What Princes slain before their timely honour? What wast of towns and people in the Land? What Treasons heaped on murders & on spoils? Whose joust revenge even yet is scarcely ceased, Ruthefull remembrance is yet had in mind: The Gods forbid the Like to chance again And you (Oh king) give not the cause thereof: My Lord Ferrex your elder son, perhaps Whom kind and custom gives a rightful hope To be your Heir and to succeed your Reign, Shall think that he does suffer greater wrong Than he perchance will bear, if power serve Porrex the younger so vnpaised in state, Perhaps in courage will be raised also, If Flattery then which sails not to assail The tender minds of yet unskilful Youth, In one shall kindle and increase disdain: And Envy in the others heart inflame, This fire shall waste their love, their lives, their land, And rutheful ruin shall destroy them both, A wish not this (Oh king) so to befall But fear the thing, that I do most abhor Give no beginning to so dreadful end, Keep them in order and obedience: And let them both by now obeying you, Learn such behaviour as beseems their state. The Older, mildness in his governance, The younger, a yielding contentedness: And keep them near unto your presence still, That they restrained by the awe of you, May live in compass of well tempered stay, And pass the perils of their youthful years, Your aged life draws on to feebler time, Wherein you shall less able be to bear The travails that in youth you have sustained Both in your persons and your Realms defence If planting now your sons in further parts, You send them further from your present reach Less shall you know how they the ̄ selves demand Traitorous corrupters of their pliant youth, Shall have unspied a much more free access, And of ambition and inflamed disdain Shall arm the one, the other, or them both To ryuill war, or to usurping pride. Late shall you rue, that you ne recked before: Good is I grant of all to hope the best, But not to live still dreadless of the worst, So trust the one, that the other be forseen, Arm not unskilfulness with princely power But you that long have wisely ruled the reigns Of royalty within your noble Realm So hold them, while the Gods for our avails Shall stretch the thread of your prolonged dales To soon he cla ̄ me, into the flaming Cart Whose want of skill did set the earth on fire, Time and example of your noble Grace, Shall teach your sons both to obey and rule When time hath taught the ̄ , time shall make the ̄ pace The place that now is full: and so I pray Long it remain, to comfort of us all. What means this? Lo yonder continued ̄ mes in hast Philander from my Lord your younger son. Lo here the peril that was erst forseen When you, (Oh king) did first divide your Land And yield your present reign unto your sons. But now (Oh noble Prince) now is no time To wail and plain, and wast your woeful life, Now is the time for present good advise, Sorrow does dark the Judgement of the wit The Heart unbroken and the courage free From Feeble faintness of booteles despair Does either rise to safety or renown By noble valour of vnuanquisshed mind Or yet does perish in more happy sort Your Grace may send to either of your sons Some one both wise and noble personage, Which with good counsel & with weighty name Of father shall present before their eyes Your hest, your lief, your safety and their own The present mischief of their deadly strife And in the while, assemble you the force Which your Counterfeit ̄ maundement and the speedy hast Of all my Lords here present can prepare: The terror of your mighty power shall steye The rage of both, or yet one at lest. According to your highness hest to me Here have I Porrex brought even in such sort As from his wearied Horse he did alight, For that your Grace did will such haste therein. Patient your Grace, perhaps he lives yet. With wound received, but not of certain death. You all my Lords I see consent in one And I as one consent with you in all: I hold it more than need with the sharpest Law To punish the tumultuous bloody rage For nothing more may shake the continued ̄ men state Than sufferance of Uproars without redress Whereby how some kingdoms of mighty power After great Conquests made, and flourishing In fame and wealth have been to ruin brought I pray to Jove that we may rather wail Such happen in them than witness in our selves Eke fully with the Duke my mind agrees That no cause serves, whereby the Subject may Call to account the doings of his Prince. Much less in blood by sword to work revenge No more then may the hand cut of the head, In Act nor speech, no: not in secret thought The Subject may rebel against his Lord Or Judge of him that sits in Caesars Seat. With grudging mind do damn those Hemislikes Though kings forget to govern as they ought, Yet Subjects must obey as they are bound: But now my Lords before you farther wade Or spend your speech, what sharp revenge shall fall By justice plague on these rebellious wights Me thinks you rather should first search the way By which in time the rage of this uproar Might be repressed, & these great tumults ceased Even yet the life of Britain Land does hang. In Traitors Balance of unequal weight Think not my Lords the death of Gorboduc Nor yet Videna's blood will cease their rage: Even our own lives, our wives and children, Our Country dearest of all in danger stands, Now to be spoiled, now, now made desolate, And by our selves a conquest too ensue: For give ones sweye unto the peoples lustest, To rush forth on, and stay them not in time, And as the stream that rolleth down the hill, So will they headlong run w to raging thoughts From blood to blood, from mischief unto more, To ruin of the Realm, them selves and all So giddle are the continued ̄ mon peoples minds, So glad of change, more wavering than the Sea You see (my Lords) what strength these Rebels have, What hugy number is assembled still, For though the traitorous fact, for which their rose Be wrought and done, yet lodge they still in field So that how far their furies yet will stretch Great cause we have to dread, that we may seek By present Battle to repress their power. Speed must we use to levy force therefore, For either they forthwith will mischief work Or their rebellious roars forthwith will cease: These violent things may have no lasting loud Let us therefore use this for present help Persuade by gentle speech, and offer grace With gift of pardon save unto the chief, And that upon condition that forthwith They yield the Captains of their enterprise To bear such querdon of their traitorous fact As may be both endue vengeance to them selves, And wholesome terror to posterity. This shall I think: flatter the greatest part That now are held with desire of home, Wearied in field with could of Winter's nights, And some (no doubt) stricken with dread of Law When this is ones proclaimed, it shall make The Captains to mistrust the multitude Whose safety bids them to betray their heads And so much more because the rascal routs, In things of great and perilous attempts, Are never trusty to the noble raze. And while we treat & scande on terms of grace, We shall both stay their furies rage the while, And eke gain time, whose only help suffices Withouten war to vanquish Rebels power In the mean while, make you in readiness Such band of Horsemen as you may prepare: Horsemen (you know) are not the Commons stre ̄ gth But are the force and store of noble men Whereby the unchosen and unarmed sort Of sk she Rebels, whom none other power But number makes to be of dreadful force With sudden brunt may quickly be oppressed And if this gentle mean of proffered grace With stubborn hearts cannot so far avail As to assuage their desperate courages. Than do I wish such slaughter to be made, As present age and eke posterity May be dreaded with horror of revenge, That justly than shall on these rebels fallen: This is my Lords the so ̄ me of mine advise. Oh Jove, How are these peoples hearts abused what blind Fury, thus headlong caries the ̄ ? That though so many books, so many rolls Of Ancient time record what grievous plagues, Light on these Rebels aye and though so oft Their ears have hard their aged father's tell What joust reward these Traitors still receive. Yea though them selves have seen deep death and blood By strangling cord & slaughter of the sword To such assigned, yet can they not beware: Yet can they not stay their rebellious hands, But suffering to fowl treason to distain Their wretched minds, forget their loyal heart, Reject all truth and rise against their Prince, A ruthefull case that those, whom duties bound Whom grafted Law by nature truth and faith Bound to preserve their Cou ̄ trey and their king Born to defend their Counterfeit ̄ mon wealth & Prince, Even they should give consent thus to subvert The Britain Land, & from the wombeshuld bring (Oh native soil) those, that will needs destroy And ruin thee and eke them selves in fine: For lo, when ones the Duke had offered Grace Of pardon sweet (the multitude mislead By traitorous fraud of their ungracious heads) One sort that saw the dangerous success Of stubborn standing in rebellious war And knew the difference of Princes power From headless number of tumultuous routs, Whom continued ̄ men Countries care and private fear Taught to repent the terror of their rage Laid hands upon the Capatines of their band, And brought them bound unto the mighty Dukes And other sort not trusting yet so well The truth of Pardon or mistrusting more Their own offence than that they could conceive Such hope of pardon for so foul misdeed: Or for that they their Captains could not yield Who fearing to be yielded, flayed before, Stale home by silence of the secret night, The third unhappy and vnraged sort Of desperate hearts, who stained in Princes blood From traitorous furor could not be withdrawn By love, by law, by grace, ne yet by fear, By proffered life, ne yet by threatened Death, With minds hopeless of lief, dreadless of Death, Careless of Country, and aweles of God: Stood bent to fight as Furies did them move With violent death to close their traitorous life: These all by power of Horsemen were oppressed And with revenging sword slain in the field, Or with the strangling Cord hanged on the trees Where yet the carryen Carcases do proche The fruits that Rebels reap of their uproars, And of the murder of their sacred Prince, But lo, where do approach the noble Dukes, By whom these tumults have been thus appeased. ¶Lo here the end of Brutus royal Line, And lo the entry to the woeful wrack And utter ruin of this noble Realm. The royal king, and eke his sons are slain, No Ruler rests within the Regal Seat: The Heir, to who ̄ the Sceptre longs, unknown That to eke force of Foreign Princes power Whom vantage of your wretched state By sudden Arms to gain so rich a Realm And to the proud and greedy mind at home Whom blinded lust to reign leads to aspire. Lo Brittaiue Realm is left and open pray, A present spoil by Conquest to ensue, Who sees not now how many rising minds Do feed their thoughts, w to hope to reach a Realm And who will not by force attempt to win So great a gain that hope persuades to have: A simple colour shall for title serve. Who wins the Royal crown will want no right Nor such as shall display by long dissent A lyneall raze to prove him self a King, In the mean while these ciuyll arms shall rage, And thus a thousand mischiefs shall unfold And far & near spread thee (Oh Britain Land) All right and Law shall cease, and he that had Nothing to day, to morrow shall enjoy Great heaps of good, & he that flowed in wealth, Leo he shall be reft of life and all, And happiest he that than possesses least. The wives shall suffer rape, the maids deflowered And children fatherless shall weep and wail: With fire & sword thy Native folk shall perish. One kinsman shall bereave and other life, The father shall unwitting slay the son, The son shall slay the sire and know it not: Women and maids the cruel Soldiers sword Shall pierce to death, and silly children lo That playing in the strea es & fields are found By violent hand shall close their latter day. Whom shall the fierce and bloody Soldier Reserve to lief, whom shall he space from death Even thou (Oh wretched mother) half alive Thou shalt behold thy deer and only child Slain w to the sword while he yet sucks thy breast: Lo, guiltless blood shall thus eke where be shed: Thus shall the wasted soil yield forth no fruit But dearth and famine shall possess the Land. The Towns shall be consumed & brent with fire, The peopled Cities shall beware desolate, And thou (Oh Britain Land) whilom in renown Whilom in wealth and fame shalt thus be torn, Dismembered thus, and thus be rend in twain, Thus wasted and defaced, spoiled and destroyed: These be the fruits your civil wars will bring. Heretost continued ̄ mes when kings will not consent, To graven advise, but follow wilful will: This is the end, when in young Princes hearts Flattery prevails, and sage rede hath no place: These are the plagues, when murder is the mean To make new Heirs unto the Royal Crown. Thus wreke the Gods, when ̄ y e the mother's wrath Nought but y blood of her own child may suage. These mischiefs springs when ̄ Rebels will arise, To work revenge and judge their Princes fact: This, this ensues when noble men do fail In loyal truth, and subjects will be kings. And this does grow when lo unto the Prince, Whom death or sodene happen of lief bereaves, No certain Heir remains, such certainty As not all only is the rightful Heir, But to the Realm is so made unknown to be And troth thereby vested in Subjects hearts, To owe faith there, where right is known to rest Alas, in Parliament what hope can be, When is of Parliament no hope at all, Which though it be assembled by consent, Yet is it not likely with consent to end: While eke one for him self, or for his friend Against his foe, shall travail what he may, While now the state left open to the man, That shall with greatest force invade the same, Shall fill ambitious minds with gaping hope: When will they ones with yielding hearts agree? Or in the while, how shall the Realm he used? No, no: then Parliament should have been held And certain Heirs appointed to the Crown To stay their title of established right: And plant the people in obedience While yet the Prince did live, whose name and power By lawful So ̄ mons and auctorytie Might make a Parliament to be of force, And might have set the state in quiet stay: But now (Oh happy man) whom speedy death Deprives of life, ne is inforced to see These hugy mischiefs and these Misery's, These ciuyll wars, these murders & these wrongs Of Justice, yet must Jove in fine restore This noble Crown unto the lawful Heir: For right will always live, and rise at length, But wrong can never take deep root to last.