im, that he seemed afterwards to
resolve to make an equal return to them all; and finding it not easy
to reward them all as they deserved, he forgot them all alike. Most
princes seem to have this pretty deep in them, and to think that they
ought not to remember past services, but that their acceptance of them
is a full reward. He, of all in our age, exerted this piece of
prerogative in the amplest manner; for he never seemed to charge his
memory, or to trouble his thoughts, with the sense of any of the
services that had been done him.

While he was abroad at Paris, Cologne, or Brussels, he never seemed to
lay anything to heart. He pursued all his diversions and irregular
pleasures in a free career, and seemed to be as serene under the loss
of a crown as the greatest philosopher could have been. Nor did he
willingly hearken to any of those projects with which he often
complained that his chancellor persecuted him. That in which he seemed
most concerned was, to find money for supporting his expense. And it
was often said, that if Cromwell would have compounded the matter, and
have given him a good round pension, that he might have been induced
to resign his title to him. During his exile, he delivered himself so
entirely to his pleasures, that he became incapable of application. He
spent little of his time in reading or study, and yet less in
thinking. And in the state his affairs were then in, he accustomed
himself to say to every person, and upon all occasions, that which he
thought would please most; so that words or promises went very easily
from him. And he had so ill an opinion of mankind, that he thought,
the great art of living and governing was, to manage all things and
all persons with a depth of craft and dissimulation. And in that few
men in the world could put on the appearances of sincerity better than
he could; under which so much artifice was usually hid, that in
conclusion he could deceive none, for all were become mistrustful of
him.

He had great vices, but scarce any virtues to correct them. He had in
him some vices that were less hurtful, which corrected his more
hurtful ones. He was, during the active part of life, given up to
sloth and lewdness to such a degree, that he hated business, and could
not bear the engaging in anything that gave him much trouble, or put
him under any constraint. And tho he desired to become absolute, and
to overturn both our religion and our laws, yet he would neither ru