PREFACE. XI 



&quot;ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon 

 &quot; the stage. Then the reign of a minor : then an 

 &quot; offer of an usurpation, though it was but as febris 

 &quot; ephemera : then the reign of a queen matched 

 &quot; with a foreigner : then of a queen that lived solitary 

 &quot; and unmarried, and yet her government so mascu- 

 &quot; line that it had greater impression and operation 

 &quot; upon the states abroad than it any ways received 

 &quot; from thence. And now last, this most happy and 

 &quot; glorious event, that this island of Britain, divided 

 &quot; from all the world, should be thus united in itself: 

 &quot; and that oracle of rest, given to JEneas. Anti- 

 &quot; quam exquirite matrem, should now be performed 

 &quot;and fulfilled upon the nations of England and 

 &quot; Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient mother 

 &quot; name of Britain, as a full period of all instability 

 &quot; and peregrinations : so that as it cometh to pass 

 &quot; in massive bodies, that they have certain trepida- 

 &quot; tions and waverings before they fix and settle ; so 

 &quot; it seemeth that by the providence of God this mo- 

 &quot; narchy, before it was to settle in your majesty and 

 &quot; your generations, (in which, I hope, it is now esta- 

 &quot; blished for ever,) had these preclusive changes and 

 &quot; varieties.&quot; 



And the same passage is repeated in the treatise 

 &quot; De Augmentis,&quot; which was published in the year 

 1623, with the omission of the praise of the reign 

 of Elizabeth. 



HISTORY OF HENRY VII. 



The history of Henry VII. was written in Eng 

 lish, and was the first book which he composed after 



