OBSERVATIONS ON A LJBEL. 443 



to preserve their authority by the union of their sub 

 jects ; which counsel, if it had been as happily fol 

 lowed as it was prudently and sincerely given, France 

 had been at this day a most flourishing kingdom, 

 which is now a theatre of misery : and now in the 

 end, after that the ambitious practices of the same 

 house of Guise had grown to that ripeness, that 

 gathering farther strength upon the weakness and 

 mis-government of the said king Henry III. he was 

 fain to execute the duke of Guise without ceremony 

 at Blois. And yet, nevertheless, so many men were 

 embarked and engaged in that conspiracy, as the 

 flame thereof was nothing assuaged ; but, contrari 

 wise, that king Henry grew distressed, so as he was 

 enforced to implore the succours of England from 

 her majesty, though no way interested in that quar 

 rel, nor any way obliged for any good offices she had 

 received of that king, yet she accorded to the same : 

 before the arrival of which forces, the king being by 

 a sacrilegious Jacobine murdered in his camp near 

 Paris, yet they went on, and came in good time for 

 the assistance of the king which now reigneth ; the 

 justice of whose quarrel, together with the long con 

 tinued amity and good intelligence, which her ma 

 jesty had with him, hath moved her majesty from 

 time to time to supply with great aids ; and yet she 

 never, by any demand, urged upon him the putting 

 into her hands of any town or place : so as upon this 

 that hath been said let the reader judge, whether 

 hath been the more just and honourable proceeding, 

 and the more free from ambition and passion towards 



