John Trapp on Esther 9:12

Verſe 12. And the King ſaid unto Eſther the Queen] He would needs be the meſſenger himſelf, as preſuming the newes would be moſt welcome to her, whom he deſired to gratifie; rather out of affection of love, then deſire of juſtice; elſe he would never have ſo little reſpected the ſlaughter of his ſubjects, armed by his own command.

What have they done in the reſt of the Kings Provinces?] This he ſhould have uttered with grief and regret; accounting the blood of his ſubjects dear and precious; and not making light of ſo many mens lives loſt by his default. But many Kings make as little reckoning of their ſubjects lives, as Charles the ninth did of the Huguenots in the French Maſſacre; or as the grand Seignior doth of his Aſapi, a kinde of common ſouldiers, borne for moſt part of Chriſtian Parents, and uſed by him in his wars, for no other end but to blunt the ſwords of his enemies, or to abate the firſt fury, and thereby to give the eaſier victory to his Janizaries and better ſouldiers;Turk. hiſt. 317. This the Turkiſh Tyrants hold for good policy. How much better that Romane General, who ſaid, that he had rather ſave one Citizen, then ſlay twenty enemies? and Edward the Confeſſour, who when his Captains promiſed,Camd. Rem. p. 214. for his ſake they would not leave one Dane alive in his land, thought it better to lead a private and unbloody life, then to be a King by ſuch bloody butcheries?

Now what is thy petition? and it ſhall be granted thee, &c.] An uxorious Prince, not propitious only to his Queen, but morigerous and obſequious. He was only her clay and wax; and had ſhe been an Eve, a Jezabel, or an Eudoxia, what might ſhe not have done with him, or had of him? Our King Edward the third was wholly poſſeſt and ruled by his Miſtris Dame Alice Pierce, an impudent woman, who ſo wrought upon the Kings impotencies, that ſhe cauſed the Speaker of the Parliament, to be committed to perpetual impriſonment at Nottingham. At length ſhe grew ſo inſolent, that ſhe intermedled with Courts of Juſtice, and other offices, where ſhe her ſelf would ſit to effect her deſires. But though holy Eſther was none ſuch: yet it behoveth Kings to be leſſe Prodigal of their Promiſes, and not to leave the lives and eſtates of their liege ſubjects, to the luſts of that weaker ſexe eſpecially; as having leſſe of diſcretion, and more of immoderation.