Читать книгу The First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne онлайн

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“But Sir to fall back again to your reverence at Prayers, so farr as concernes reason and your advantage is my duty to tell you; then I say S^r. were there no Heaven or Hell you shall see the disadvantage, for your government; if you have no reverence at prayers, what will the people have, think you? They go according to the example of the Prince; if they have none, then they have no obedience to God; then they will easily have none to your Highness; no obedience, no subjects.... Of the other side, if any be bible madd, over much burn’t with fiery zeal, they may think it a service to God to destroy you and say the Spirit moved them and bring some example of a King with a hard name in the Old Testament. Thus one way you may have a civil war, the other a private treason.”

There is something decidedly Machiavellian in this advice to the Prince to worship God in order that he may himself in turn be worshipped by his people, and in the warning against any excess of piety, lest his people should fall into the terrible error of worshipping their God so much as to neglect to worship their King. Later on, Newcastle says:—