UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 



sembling this event in your state ; namely, earth 

 quakes, which many of them bring- ever much terror 

 and wonder, but no actual hurt ; the earth trembling 

 for a moment, and suddenly stablishing in perfect 

 quiet as it was before. 



This knowledge then of making the government 

 of the world a mirror for the government of a state, 

 being a wisdom almost lost, whereof the reason I 

 take to be because of the difficulty for one man to 

 embrace both philosophies, I have thought good to 

 make some proof, as far as my weakness and the 

 straits of time will suffer, to revive in the handling of 

 one particular, wherewith now I most humbly pre 

 sent your majesty : for surely, as hath been said, it is 

 a form of discourse anciently used towards kings ; 

 and to what king should it be more proper than to a 

 king that is studious to conjoin contemplative virtue 

 and active virtue together ? 



Your majesty is the first king that had the 

 honour to be &quot; lapis angularis,&quot; to unite these two 

 mighty and warlike nations of England and Scotland 

 under one sovereignty and monarchy. It doth not ap 

 pear by the records and memoirs of any true history, 

 or scarcely by the fiction and pleasure of any fabulous 

 narration or tradition, that ever, of any antiquity, 

 this island of Great Britain was united under one 

 king before this day. And yet there be no moun 

 tains nor races of hills, there be no seas or great 

 rivers, there is no diversity of tongue or language 

 that hath invited or provoked this ancient separation 

 or divorce. The lot of Spain was to have the several 



