THE 



BEGINNING 



or THE 



HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



BY the decease of Elizabeth, Queen of England, the 

 issues of King Henry the Eighth failed, being spent 

 in one generation and three successions. For that 

 king, though he were one of the goodliest persons of 

 his time, yet he left only by his six wives three chil 

 dren ; who reigning successively, and dying childless, 

 made place to the line of Margaret, his eldest sister, 

 married to James the Fourth, King of Scotland, 

 descended of the same Margaret both by father and 

 mother : so that by a rare event in the pedigrees of 

 kings, it seemed as if the divine Providence, to 

 extinguish and take away all envy and note of a 

 stranger, had doubled upon his person, within the 

 circle of one age, the royal blood of England by both 

 parents. This succession drew towards it the eyes 

 of all men, being one of the most memorable acci 

 dents that had happened a long time in the Christian 

 world. For the kingdom of France having been 

 reunited in the age before in all the provinces 

 thereof formerly dismembered : and the kingdom of 

 Spain being, of more fresh memory, united and made 

 entire, by the annexing of Portugal in the person of 



