X PREFACE. 



&quot; to represent to your majesty, the unworthiness of 

 &quot; the history of England in the main continuance 

 &quot; thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of that of 

 &quot; Scotland, in the latest and largest author that I 

 &quot; have seen ; supposing that it would be honour for 

 &amp;lt;c your majesty, and a work very memorable, if this 

 &quot; island of Great Brittany, as it is now joined in 

 &quot; monarchy for the ages to come : so were joined in 

 &quot; one history for the times passed, after the manner 

 &quot; of the sacred history, which draweth down the 

 &quot; story of the ten tribes, and of the two tribes, as 

 &quot; twins together. And if it shall seem that the 

 &quot; greatness of this work may make it less exactly per- 

 &quot; formed, there is an excellent period of a much 

 u smaller compass of time, as to the story of Eng- 

 &quot; land, that is to say, from the uniting of the roses, 

 &quot; to the uniting of the kingdoms ; a portion of time 

 &quot; wherein, to rny understanding, there hath been 

 &quot; the rarest varieties that in like number of succes- 

 &quot; sions of any hereditary monarchy hath been known : 

 &quot; for it beginneth with the mixed adoption of a crown 

 &quot; by arms and title ; an entry by battle, an esta- 

 &quot; blishment by marriage : and therefore times an- 

 &quot; swerable, like waters after a tempest, full of work- 

 &quot; ing and swelling, though without extremity of 

 fe storm ; but well passed through by the wisdom of 

 &quot; the pilot, being one of the most sufficient kings of 

 &quot; of all the number. Then followeth the reign of a 

 &quot;king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had 

 &quot; much intermixture with the affairs of Europe, ba- 

 &quot; lancing and inclining them variably ; in whose 

 &quot; time also began that great alteration in the state 



