“May it Please your Highness ...
“for your education Sir, It is fitt you should have some languages, though I confess I would rather have you study things then words, matter, then language; for seldom a Critick in many languages hath time to study sense, for words; and at best he is or can be but a living dictionary. Besides I would not have you too studious, for too much contemplation spoiles action, and Virtue consists in that. What you read, I woud have it History and the best chosen Histories, that so you might compare the dead with the living, ... and thus you shall see the excellency and errors both of Kings and subjects, and tho’ you are young in years, yet living by your wading in all those times, be older in wisdom and judgement then Nature can afford any man to be without this help.
“For the Arts I wou’d have you know them so far as they are of use, and especially those that are most proper for war and use; but whensoever you are too studious, your contemplation will spoile your government, for you cannot be a good contemplative man and a good commonwealth’s man; therefore take heed of too much book.”
Presently we find this instructor of youth also warning his pupil against too much religious devotion.
“Beware of too much devotion for a King, for one may be a good man but a bad King; and how many will History represente to you that in seeming to gain the kingdome of Heaven, have lost their owne;”—unquestionably a very serious loss! But it seems to have escaped the notice of Newcastle that to keep a kingdom on earth and to lose the kingdom of heaven might also possibly entail certain inconveniences. Newcastle continues: “and the old saying is, that short prayers pierce the heaven’s gates; but if you be not religious, and not only seeme so..., God will not prosper you; and if you have no reverence to him, why should your subjects have any to you. At the best you are accounted for your greatest honour his servant, his deputy, his anointed, and you owe as much reverence and duty to him as we owe to you; and why, nay justly may not he punishe you for want of reverence and service to Him, if you fail in it, as well as you to punish us; but this subject I leave to the right reverend father in God, Lord Bishop of Chichester, your worthy tutor.
“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 Sr. 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:—