30 ESSAYS CIVIL AND MORAL. 



when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them 

 aloof. But this is but to try masteries with fortune : and let men 

 beware how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared ; 

 for no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The 

 difficulties in princes business are many and great ; but the greatest 

 difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes, 

 saith Tacitus, to will contradictories. &quot; Sunt plerumquc regum volun- 

 tates, vehementes, ct inter se contrarine.&quot; For it is the solecism of 

 power, to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean. 



Kings have to deal with their neighbours ; their wives ; their 

 children; their prelates or clergy; their nobles; their second nobles 

 or gentlemen ; their merchants ; their commons ; and their men of 

 war ; and from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be 

 not used. 



First for their neighbours, there can no general rule be given, the 

 occasions are so variable, save one, which ever holdeth; which is, that 

 princes do keep due sentinel, that none of their neighbours do over 

 grow so, by increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by approaches, 

 or the like, as they become more able to annoy them, than they were. 

 And this is generally the work of standing counsels, to foresee and to 

 hinder it. During that triumvirate of kings, King Henry the Eighth, 

 of England ; Francis the First, king of France ; and Charles the Fifth, 

 emperor, there was such a watch kept that none of the three could 

 win a palm of ground, but the other two would straightways balance it, 

 either by confederation, or if need were by a war : and would not in 

 any wise take up peace at interest. And the like was done by that 

 league, which, Guicciardinc saith, was the security of Italy, made 

 between Fcrdinando, king of Naples ; Lorcnzius Medices, and Ludo- 

 vicus Sforza, potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. 

 Neither is the opinion of some of the schoolmen to be received, that a 

 war cannot justly be made but upon a precedent injury or provocation. 

 For there is no question but a just fear of an imminent danger, though 

 there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of a war. 



For their wives, there are cruel examples of them. Livia is infamed 

 for the poisoning of her husband ; Roxolana, Solyman s wife, was the 

 destruction of that renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha; and otherwise 

 troubled his house and succession : Edward the second of England, 

 his queen had the principal hand in the deposing and murder of her 

 husband. This kind of danger is then to be feared, chiefly, when the 

 wives have plots for the raising their own children, or else that they bc- 

 advowtresses. 



For their children : the tragedies likewise of the dangers from them 

 have been many : and generally, the entering of the fathers into sus 

 picion of their children hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction 

 of Mustapha, that we named before, was so fatal to Solyman s line, as 

 the succession of the Turks, from Solyman until this day, is suspected 

 mtruc, and of strange blood ; for that Selymus the second was 

 thought to be supposititious. The destruction of Crispus, a youn&quot; 

 pnnce of rare towardness, by Constantine the Great, his father, was in 



