t for
such a man as I am to steal a victory, 'Malo me fortunae poeniteat, quam
victoria pudeat.'"--["I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be
ashamed of victory." Quint. Curt, iv. 13]--

"Atque idem fugientem baud est dignatus Oroden
Sternere, nec jacta caecum dare cuspide vulnus
Obvius, adversoque occurrit, seque viro vir
Contulit, haud furto melior, sed fortibus armis."

["He deigned not to throw down Orodes as he fled, or with the darted
spear to give him a wound unseen; but overtaking him, he confronted
him face to face, and encountered man to man: superior, not in
stratagem, but in valiant arms."--AEneid, x. 732.]

CHAPTER VII

THAT THE INTENTION IS JUDGE OF OUR ACTIONS

'Tis a saying, "That death discharges us of all our obligations." I know
some who have taken it in another sense. Henry VII., King of England,
articled with Don Philip, son to Maximilian the emperor, or (to place him
more honourably) father to the Emperor Charles V., that the said Philip
should deliver up the Duke of Suffolk of the White Rose, his enemy, who
was fled into the Low Countries, into his hands; which Philip accordingly
did, but upon condition, nevertheless, that Henry should attempt nothing
against the life of the said Duke; but coming to die, the king in his
last will commanded his son to put him to death immediately after his
decease. And lately, in the tragedy that the Duke of Alva presented to
us in the persons of the Counts Horn and Egmont at Brussels,
--[Decapitated 4th June 1568]--there were very remarkable passages, and
one amongst the rest, that Count Egmont (upon the security of whose word
and faith Count Horn had come and surrendered himself to the Duke of
Alva) earnestly entreated that he might first mount the scaffold, to the
end that death might disengage him from the obligation he had passed to
the other. In which case, methinks, death did not acquit the former of
his promise, and that the second was discharged from it without dying.
We cannot be bound beyond what we are able to perform, by reason that
effect and performance are not at all in our power, and that, indeed, we
are masters of nothing but the will, in which, by necessity, all the
rules and whole duty of mankind are founded and established: therefore
Count Egmont, conceiving his soul and will indebted to his promise,
although he had not the power to make it good, had doubtless been