OF A WAR WITH SPAIN. 249 



yesterday, how that triumvirate of kings, Henry the 

 eighth of England, Francis the first of France, and 

 Charles the fifth emperor and king of Spain, were in 

 their times so provident, as scarce a palm of ground 

 could be gotten by either of the three, but that the 

 other two would be sure to do their best, to set the 

 balance of Europe upright again. And the like 

 diligence was used in the age before by that league, 

 wherewith Guicciardine beginneth his story, and 

 maketh it, as it were, the calendar of the good days 

 of Italy, which was contracted between Ferdinando 

 king of Naples, Lorenzo of Medici potentate of 

 Florence, and Lodovico Sforza duke of Milan, de 

 signed chiefly against the growing power of the 

 Venetians ; but yet so, as the confederates had a 

 perpetual eye one upon another, that none of them 

 should overtop. To conclude therefore ; howsoever 

 some schoolmen, otherwise reverend men, yet fitter 

 to guide penknives than swords, seem precisely to 

 stand upon it, that every offensive war must be 

 &quot; ultio,&quot; a revenge, that presupposeth a precedent 

 assault or injury ; yet neither do they descend to this 

 point, which we now handle, of a just fear ; neither 

 are they of authority to judge this question against 

 all the precedents of time. For certainly, as long as 

 men are men, the sons, as the poets allude, of Pro 

 metheus, and not of Epimetheus, and as long as 

 reason is reason, a just fear will be a just cause of a 

 preventive war ; but especially if it be part, of the 

 case, that there be a nation that is manifestly de 

 tected to aspire to monarchy and new acquests ; then 



