In the original, "A ung tas de cerveaulx si legieres."
The word in the original is insistance; an expressive word as used by the French ambassador; but which Boyer, in his Dictionary, doubts whether it be French, although he gives a modern authority; the present is much more ancient.
The Duke of Norfolk was, "without comparison, the first subject in England; and the qualities of his mind corresponded with his high station," says Hume. He closed his career, at length, the victim of love and ambition, in his attempt to marry the Scottish Mary. So great and honourable a man could only be a criminal by halves; and, to such, the scaffold, and not the throne, is reserved, when they engage in enterprises, which, by their secrecy, in the eyes of a jealous sovereign, assume the form and the guilt of a conspiracy.
Hume, vol, v. c. 39; at the close of 1566.
Dr. Birch's Life of this Prince.
Harleian MS., 6391.
La Vie de Card. Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le Clerc, 1695, vol. i. pp. 116-125.
"A Detection of the Court and State of England," vol. i. p. 13.
Stowe's Annals, p. 824.
I give the title of this rare volume. "Finetti Philoxensis: Some choice Observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings; touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the punctilios and contests of forren ambassadors in England. Legati ligant Mumdum. 1656." This very curious diary was published after the author's death by his friend James Howell, the well-known writer; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity scarcely anything in our domestic literature has escaped, has analysed the volume with his accustomed care. He mentions that there was a manuscript in being, more full than the one published, of which I have not been able to learn farther.—British Librarian, p. 163.