him
employed in the exercise of the pike: "Tell your king," said he, "in
what occupation you left me engaged."[*] He had conceived great affection
and esteem for the brave Sir Walter Raleigh. It was his saying, "Sure no
king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage."[**]

* The French monarch had given particular orders to his
ministers to cultivate the prince's friendship; who must
soon, said he, have chief authority in England, where the
king and queen are held in so little estimation. See Dep. de
la Boderie, vol. i. p. 402, 415; vol. ii p. 16, 349.

** Coke's Detection, p. 37.

He seems indeed to have nourished too violent a contempt for the king,
on account of his pedantry and pusillanimity; and by that means struck
in with the restless and martial spirit of the English nation. Had he
lived, he had probably promoted the glory, perhaps not the felicity, of
his people. The unhappy prepossession which men commonly entertain
in favor of ambition, courage, enterprise, and other warlike virtues,
engages generous natures, who always love fame, in such pursuits all
destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind.

Violent reports were propagated, as if Henry had been carried off by
poison; but the physicians, on opening his body, found no symptoms to
confirm such an opinion.[*] The bold and criminal malignity of men's
tongues and pens spared not even the king on the occasion. But that
prince's character seems rather to have failed in the extreme of
facility and humanity, than in that of cruelty and violence. His
indulgence to Henry was great, and perhaps imprudent, by giving him a
large and independent settlement, even in so early youth.

* Kennet, p. 690. Coke, p. 37. Welwood, p. 272

{1613.} The marriage of the princess Elizabeth with Frederic, elector
palatine, was finished some time after the death of the prince, and
served to dissipate the grief which arose on that melancholy event. But
this marriage, though celebrated with great joy and festivity, proved
itself an unhappy event to the king, as well as to his son-in-law,
and had ill consequences on the reputation and fortunes of both. The
elector, trusting to so great an alliance, engaged in enterprises
beyond his strength: and the king, not being able to support him in his
distress, lost entirely, in the end of his life, what remained of the
affections and esteem of his own subjects.

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