When he came into the Queen’s presence, she fell into a kind railing, demanding of him how he durst go over without her leave. “Serve me so,” quoth she, “once more, and I will lay you fast enough for running; you will never leave till you are knocked on the head, as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was; you shall go when I send. In the meantime, see that you lodge in the Court” (which was then at Whitehall), “where you may follow your book, read, and discourse of the wars.” But to our purpose. It fell out happily to those, and, as I may say, to these times, that the Queen during the calm time of her reign was not idle, nor rocked asleep with security, for she had been very provident in the reparation and augmentation of her shipping and ammunition, and I know not whether by a foresight of policy, or any instinct, it came about, or whether it was an act of her compassion, but it is most certain she sent no small troops to the revolted States of Holland, before she had received any affront from the King of Spain, that might deserve to tend to a breach of hostility, which the Papists maintain to this day was the provocation to the after-wars; but, omitting what might be said to this point, these Netherland wars were the Queen’s seminaries or nursery of very many brave soldiers, and so likewise were the civil wars of France, whither she sent five several armies.
They were the French scholars that inured the youth and gentry of the kingdom, and it was a militia, where they were daily in acquaintance with the discipline of the Spaniards, who were then turned the Queen’s inveterate enemies.
And thus have I taken in observation her _dies Halcyonii_—_i.e._, these years of hers which were more serene and quiet than those that followed, which, though they were not less propitious, as being touched more with the points of honour and victory, yet were they troubled and loaded ever, both with domestic and foreign machinations; and, as it is already quoted, they were such as awakened her spirits and made her cast about her to defend rather by offending, and by way of provision to prevent all invasions, than to expect them, which was a piece of the cunning of the times; and with this I have noted the causes and _principium_ { 136} of the wars following, and likewise points to the seed-plots from whence she took up these brave men and plants of honour who acted on the theatre of Mars, and on whom she dispersed the rays of her grace; who were persons, in their kinds of care, virtuous, and such as might, out of their merit, pretend interest to her favours, of which rank the number will equal, if not exceed, that of her gown-men, in recount of whom I will proceed with Sir Philip Sidney.