with wisdome and integrity, that greate person would have committed
as few faults, and done as transcendant worthy actions, as any man
who shyned in such a sphere in that age, in Europe, for he was of
an excellent nature, and of a capacity very capable of advice and
councell; he was in his nature just and candid, liberall, generous,
and bountifull, nor was it ever knowne that the temptation of money
swayed him to do an unjust, or unkinde thinge, and though he left a
very greate inheritance to his heyres, consideringe the vast fortune
he inherited by his wife (the sole daughter and Heyre of Francis
Earle of Rutlande,) he owed no parte of it to his owne industry or
sollicitation, but to the impatient humour of two kings his masters,
who would make his fortune æquall to his titles, and the one above
other men, as the other was, and he considered it no otherwise then
as thers, and left it at his death ingaged for the crowne, almost to
the valew of it, as is touched upon before. If he had an immoderate
ambition, with which he was charged, and is a weede (if it be a weede)
apt to grow in the best soyles, it does not appeare that it was in
his nature, or that he brought it with him to the Courte, but rather
founde it ther, and was a garment necessary for that ayre; nor was
it more in his power to be without promotion, and titles, and wealth,
then for a healthy man to sitt in the sunn, in the brightest dogge
dayes, and remayne without any warmth: he needed no ambition who was
so seated in the hartes of two such masters.




4.

SIR THOMAS COVENTRY.