at Interest.[1] And the like was done by that League (which, Guicciardine saith, was the Security of Italy) made betwene Ferdinando King of Naples, Lorenzius Medices, and Ludovicus Sforza, Potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Millaine. Neither is the Opinion of some of the Schoole-Men to be received, That a warre cannot iustly be made but upon a precedent Iniury, or Provocation. For there is no Question but a iust Feare of an Imminent danger, though there be no Blow given, is a lawfull Cause of a Warre.
For[2] their Wives; There are Quell Examples of them. Livia is infamed[3] for the poysoning of her husband; Roxolana, Solyman's Wife, was the destruction of that renowned Prince, Sultan Mustapha, And otherwise troubled his House and Succession; Edward the Second of England his Queen had the principall hand in the Deposing and Murther of her Husband. This kinde of danger is then to be feared, chiefly, when the Wives have Plots for the Raising of their owne Children, Or else that[4] they be Advoutresses.[5]
For[2] their Children: The Tragedies, likewise, of[6] dangers from them, have been many. And generally, the Entring of Fathers into Suspicion of their Children hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction of Mustapha (that we named before) was so fatall to Solyman's Line, as[7] the Succession of the Turks, from Solyman untill this day, is suspected to be untrue and of strange Bloud; For that[8] Selymus the Second was thought to be Supposititious. The destruction of Crispus, a young Prince of rare Towardnesse,[9] by Constantinus the Great his Father, was in like manner fatall to his House; For both Constantinus and Constance, his Sonnes, died violent deaths; And Constantius his other Sonne did little better; who died, indeed, of Sicknesse, but after that Iulianus had taken Armes against him. The destruction of Demetrius, Sonne to Philip the Second, of Macedon, turned upon the Father, who died of Repentance.
