his account in it, and that he ought to communicate
counsels with them, and give them some share of the
spoil till his success makes him need or fear them
less, and then it will be easily taken out of their
hands; another proposes the hiring the Germans and
the securing the Switzers by pensions; another proposes
the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent
with him; another proposes a peace with the King of
Arragon, and, in order to cement it, the yielding
up the King of Navarre’s pretensions; another
thinks that the Prince of Castile is to be wrought
on by the hope of an alliance, and that some of his
courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by
pensions. The hardest point of all is, what to
do with England; a treaty of peace is to be set on
foot, and, if their alliance is not to be depended
on, yet it is to be made as firm as possible, and they
are to be called friends, but suspected as enemies:
therefore the Scots are to be kept in readiness to
be let loose upon England on every occasion; and some
banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for
by the League it cannot be done avowedly) who has
a pretension to the crown, by which means that suspected
prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are
in so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men
are joining counsels how to carry on the war, if so
mean a man as I should stand up and wish them to change
all their counsels—to let Italy alone and
stay at home, since the kingdom of France was indeed
greater than could be well governed by one man; that
therefore he ought not to think of adding others to
it; and if, after this, I should propose to them the
resolutions of the Achorians, a people that lie on
the south-east of Utopia, who long ago engaged in
war in order to add to the dominions of their prince
another kingdom, to which he had some pretensions
by an ancient alliance: this they conquered,
but found that the trouble of keeping it was equal
to that by which it was gained; that the conquered
people were always either in rebellion or exposed
to foreign invasions, while they were obliged to be
incessantly at war, either for or against them, and
consequently could never disband their army; that
in the meantime they were oppressed with taxes, their
money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt
for the glory of their king without procuring the
least advantage to the people, who received not the
smallest benefit from it even in time of peace; and
that, their manners being corrupted by a long war,
robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their
laws fell into contempt; while their king, distracted
with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to
apply his mind to the interest of either. When
they saw this, and that there would be no end to these
evils, they by joint counsels made an humble address
to their king, desiring him to choose which of the
two kingdoms he had the greatest mind to keep, since
he could not hold both; for they were too great a
people to be governed by a divided king, since no man