hath sought to compound these bloudy home-quarrels but the King of Great Brittain She most humbly desires the rest of the Princes that they would Commiserate her most afflicted estate her Cities taken her houses spoiled her children murthered her Matrons and Virgins defloured her waies full of Thieves her Seas of Pyrates all the helps of life taken from her in many parts her flocks and herds scattered her Tillage ceased her Trade decayed the Lawes silent Learning fallen good manners ruined neither fear of God left nor care of men that all things seem to tend to the first Chaos c. And therefore she doth beseech the Princes to whose trust God hath committed not to whose power he hath permitted his two Wards two Twins the Common Wealth and the Church as to Guardians that they will look better to their charge And first not suffer the Common Wealth of Christendom by their armes at the Popes secret instigation to be destroyed and to this end she first useth the example of good Heathen Emperours to perswade them as Augustus Vespasian Titus Nerva Trajan Antoninus Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus Probus that they will settle peace at home and by joynt Forces make War abroad upon the Common enemy of their Kingdomes and so make the Common-Wealth to Honour them being made by them rich in wealth strong in power famous in glory honest in manners the felicity of every earthly Common-Wealth Now for the other Ward or Twin the Church the Heavenly Common-Wealth because she hath before professed that as she had been long a Pagan so now by the Grace of God hath long been a Christian and did take this to be her greatest honour to be the harbour of the Christian Church she stirres them up to be more careful by the example of the best Christian Emperours Constantine Jovinian Gratian Theodosius Arcadius Honorius Charlemaign and his Sons Lotharius and Lodovicus to defend her from heresies within and from violence without And now she begins to tell them That as one walking with others in the Sun not thinking on it must needs be Sun-burned so she walking with her reformed children in this new-risen Sun of the Gospel of Christ did feel her self coloured as it were with the Spirit of Christ by observing the differences between the two Churches with great indifferencie Here because she hath before challenged the Pope and the Jesuites of cruelty and perswading first that as men they should spare humane bloud Secondly as Europeans they should spare European blood Thirdly as Christians they should spare Christian blood She is first thus answered by the Pope speaking for himself and his Jesuites That they are not the authors of shedding Christian blood but haeretical blood And that her reformed sonnes as she terms them are not Christians because they be no Catholiques And therefore Hereticks to be taken away by death according to the sentence of St. Paul Haereticum hominem post unam aut alteram admonitionem devita Hoc est de vita tolle as Cardinal Allen doth expound it and according to the Decree of the Councel of Lateran And where I pray you was this your Reformed Church before Luther And as for my Jesuites you call them bloudy even as you call your Physitians bloodie who for driving away a Pestilential Feaver do take more corrupt and putrified blood from the party then they would And thereupon he doth twitt Europe as an old doting Sibylla in her youth being the Concubine of one Taurus whom she feigned to be Jupiter to cover her fault with the greatnesse of her lover who did also give her the name of this divided World that by the honour of her title she might excuse the shame of her fact And bytes the fond Oratour that put this person upon her a whelp of Luthers that makes this Minion to accuse him before the Princes of Homicide or an insensible piece of Earth to plead his Cause To which Europe answereth First for her self Then for the Church This Summe I thought good to present to your Majestie if it please your judgment I shall bring the whole work to your Majestie when I am recovered And thus craving pardon of your Majestie for troubling your greater thoughts though this tend to the good of Christendome which you intend I rest Your Majesties Most humble Chaplain Leonel Sharp Dr. Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham May it please your Grace IT is not my purpose to advise but to attend what others shall determine of the Match of the Palatinate but if that be broken off and this not restored according to promise every one may conceive that Peace must give place to War abroad but with whom and where and how it is to be made it is for an higher Councel then for any private man to resolve Peace were best if it had Nihil infidiarum as Tully saith but it is to be feared that the malice of the Catholique League doth and will hinder the work of the Kings most Noble and Christian heart and then it will be a War wrapt in the name of Peace A just War is the exercise of Faith as Peter Martyr well collects out of those Wars which those Worthie Kings and Princes Heb. 11. fought for their God and his Israel so war is just which is made for the maintenance of Gods true religion and for the safety of the Common Wealth either for the keeping of that we have or recovering of that we have lost Every one therefore doth rejoyce to see the King and his Subjects so joyned in love together and in the purpose of this defence every one I mean that is a true Christian and good subject and do wish that two things presently were added care at home to Coupe up all false-hearted Subjects that are known and provision to meet with the secret and open practises of such forraign Enemies as are like to abet them The good policies of the former reign in such times is the best president for this at this time The heads were then committed liberali Custodiae divided from their inferiour parts the Papists disarmed their clawes pared that they might not hurt us the lawes executed upon the Jesuites and Priests fire-brands of sedition and rebellion withal Or if not blood drawn of them yet close imprisonment or banishment enjoyned them Large subsidies granted to prepare the Navie and pay the armies And a great while no war proclaimed but brave Adventurers sent forth as to Portugal the Groine to the West-Indies c. And before Letters of reprisal granted to the Marchants to make up their losses a Rowland for an Oliver because they had granted Letters of Mart against us By this meanes Carricks were brought in the treasure of their West-Indian mines laid for at their return so to make war upon them with their own mony till they had made the enemie bankerout Ausbâ—ug and to break with their banquers of Auspurg and Genua that he was not able to pay his
duty which you owe unto your most gracious Soveraign a duty imposed upon you not by nature and policie only but by the religious and sacred bond wherein the divine Majesty of Almighty God hath by the rule of Christianity obliged you For the four first your constant resolution may perhaps move you to esteem them as light but being well weighed they are not light nor lightly to be regarded And for the four last it may be that the cleerness of your own conscience may seem to content your self but that is not enough for these duties stand not only in contemplation or inward meditation and cannot be performed but by external actions and where that faileth the substance also faileth This being your present state and condition what is to be done what is the remedy my good Lord I lack judgment and wisdom to advise you but I will never want an honest true heart to wish you well nor being warranted by a good conscience will fear to speak that I think I have begun plainly be not offended if I proceed so Bene cedit qui cedit tempori and Seneca saith Cedendum est fortunae The medicine and remedy is not to contend and strive but humbly to yield submit Have you given cause and yet take a scandal unto you then all you can be is too little to make satisfaction Is cause of scandal given unto you yet policie duty and religion enforce you to sue yield and submit to our Soveraign between whom and you there can be no equal proportion of duty where God requires it as a principal duty and care to himself and when it is evident that great good may ensue of it to your friends your self your Country and your Soveraign and extreme harm by the contrary There can be no dishonour to yield but in denying dishonour and impiety The difficulty my good Lord is to conquer your self which is the height of true valour and fortitude whereunto all your honorable actions have tended Do it in this and God will be pleased her Majesty no doubt well satisfied your Country will take good and your Friends comfort by it and your self I mention you last for that of all these you esteem yourself least shall receive honour and your Enemies if you have any shall be disappointed of their bitter sweet hope I have delivered what I think simply and plainly I leave you to determine according to your own wisdom if I have erred it is error amoris and not amor erroris Construe and accept it I beseech you as I meant it not as an advice but as an opinion to be allowed or cancelled at your pleasure If I might conveniently have conferred with your self in person I would not have troubled you with so many idle blots Whatsoever you judge of this my opinion yet be assured my desire is to further all good means that may tend to your Lordships good And so wishing you all happiness and honour I cease Your Lordships most ready and faithful though unable poor Friend Tho. Egerton Cust Sigil The Earles Answer MY very good Lord though there is not that man this day living whom I would sooner make Judge of any question that might concern me then your selfe yet you must give me leave to tell you that in some cases I must appeal from all earthly Judges And if in any then surely in this when the highest Judge on earth hath imposed upon me the heaviest punishment without triall or hearing Since then I must either answer your Lordships Arguments or else forsake mine own just defence I wil force mine-aking head to do me service for an hour I must first deny my discontentment which was forced to be an humorous discontent and in that it was unseasonable or is so long continuing your Lordship should rather condole with me then expostulate naturall seasons are expected here below but violent and unreasonable storms come from above There is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a Prince nor yet at any time so unseasonable as when it lighteth on those that might expect an harvest of their carefull and painfull labours He that is once wounded must needs feel smart till his hurt be cured or the part hurt become sensless But cure I expect none her Majesties heart being obdurate and be without sense I cannot being of flesh and blood But you may say I may aim at the end I do more then aim for I see an end of all my fortunes I have set an end to all my desires In this course do I any thing for mine enemies when I was present I found them absolute and therefore I had rather they should triumph alone then have me attendant upon their Chariots Or do I leave my friends When I was a Courtier I could sell them no fruit of my love and now that I am an Hermit they shall bear no envie for their love to me Or do I forsake my self because I do not enjoy my self Or do I overthrow my fortunes because I build not a fortune of paper-walls which every puff of wind bloweth down Or do I ruinate mine honor because I leave following the pursuit or wearing the false mark or the shadow of honor Do I give courage or comfort to the enemies because I neglect my self to encounter them or because I keep my heart from business though I cannot keep my fortune from declining No no I give every one of those considerations his due right and the more I weigh them the more I find my self justified from offending in any of them As for the two last objections that I forsake my Countrey when it hath most need of me and fail in that indissoluble duty which I owe to my Soveraign I answer That if my Countrey had at this time any need of my publick service her Majesty that governeth it would not have driven me to a private life I am tied to my Countrey by two bonds one publick to discharge carefully and industriously that trust which is committed to me the other private to sacrifice for it my life and carkasse which hath been nourished in it Of the first I am free being dismissed by her Majesty Of the other nothing can free me but death and therefore no occasion of performance shall sooner offer it self but I will meet it halfe way The indissoluble duty I owe unto her Majesty the service of an Earle and of Marshall of England and I have been content to do her the service of a Clerk but I can never serve her as a villain or a slave But you say I must give way to time So I do for now that I see the storm come I have put my self into harbour Seneca saith we must give way to Fortune I know that Fortune is both blind and strong and therefore I go as far as I can out of the way You say the remedy is not to strive I neither strive nor seek for remedy But you say I must yeild
deal plainly with him I neither found in your Majesty or in the Councel any kind of thought or imagination of any possibility of having any such motion again revived But this I found not to grow from any particular dislike or want of affection in your Majesty to Spain or that many of the greatest or the principallest person in England judged not the neerness and alliance of Spain equally valuable with any other of Christendom but that out of a distastefulness of the former answer given from hence all expectation of any business of this nature was absolutely extinguished and therefore again to revive it there would need more then ordinary endeavours or ordinary assurances But in case that they might be given I know that this Match would neither want well-willers nor assistants and for my own part I would freely make profession that no man more desired it then my self nor would more willingly imploy his endeavours for the furthering thereof when by the descending to particulars I should see both in regard of the conditions and the assurances of sincere proceeding the motion worthy and fit by a discreet and good servant to be offered to his Master neither then should I be wholly out of hope of good success though I would not but esteem it a business of infinite difficulty The Duke replied That any discourse that I thought fit herein should be condescended unto for that all time was lost that was spent in generalities And therefore if I so liked he would move this King that one or two besides himself might be appointed to have conference with me for that if he should only retain it in his hands by reason of his many occupations it would have a slower progress then he wished but if I would by way of conference digest the difficulties into heads and particulars he would as often as he might be present at our meeting But for his own part he said he apprehended few but what would arise out of the difference of Religion I told the Duke that I very well approved of the descending into particulars neither should I refuse conference with any herein whom the King would appoint to speak with me But if his meaning were that these persons should be nominated or joyned by way of Commission I thought fit to let him understand that I neither had any time nor did at present speak of this business either by order or direction no nor so much as by your Majesties privity but as a Minister that desired to lay hold of all occasions for the increasing of further love neerness betwixt his Master and the Prince to whom he is imployed I should be glad to the uttermost of my power to advance and further this cause as that which I apprehended to be the greatest which the world now affordeth for the firm uniting of your Majesties and your estates The Duke told me that the King would make no scruple to declare his good inclination and desire to have this Match proceeded in and that for the accommodating of the difficulties he had already used divers diligences with the Pope as likewise with the greatest Divines of this Kingdom whereof he named some unto me whom he said he found very well inclined to the Match he told me also he would be glad they might speak with me to the end I might truly understand of them all kind of scruples that could be alleadged I answered I desired nothing more and that I could not but approve of those courses he prescribed as the most probable to produce a good effect and that I hoped God would give happy success unto the business But I should be bold in one thing to deliver my opinion which was No wayes to interess our Masters herein unless by the understanding and cleering the difficulties on both sides there should be great appearances and probabilities that the business would take effect For if their names should be herein used and after their Treaty should not be successfull it would but exasperate and breed a greater distaste betwixt your Majesties The Duke told me he himself misliked not my opinion though he said that howsoever that business succeeded yet your Majesty should have reason to accept kindly this Kings good intention for that if it miscarried it should appear not to be their default but that they had stretched as far as honor and conscience would give them leave And thus much he said I might write unto your Majesty if I thought fit or to my confident friends in England upon his word and assurance and so telling me that he would presently appoint those that should confer with me in this business we then parted Within two days after I went to the Duke and after that I had spoken with him about the business of Cleves according to my instruction whereof I gave an account unto Mr. Secretary in a dispatch directed unto him we fell again into the speech of the match The Duke told me had well considered of that which I had said unto him and much approved it not to interest our Masters in the business until we should see some likelihood of good success And for that he supposed the difference of Religion like to prove the onely difficulty of consideration he thought it fit that it should be first cleared and therefore he would break the matter with the Cardinall of Toledo the Kings Confessor and with them he joyned another learned man one Father Frederick who since I understand is a Jesuite but truly hath the report of a moderate man These the Duke said should have order to confer with me as far as might be reserving safe the grounds and sincerity of their Religion I answered the Duke that I was well satisfied herewith and that if their demands were such as might content any other Catholique Prince I should have hope of good success if otherwise I should judge it a happiness to be put out of doubt and suspence and so we passed from this subject I presume to set down to your Majesty all the passages of this business with so much length and fulness for that I no way dare adventure to offer unto your Majesty any opinion or belief of my own either for the fitness of the match or the sincerity of their intention or the possibility of accommodating differences of Religion But your Majesty seeing undisguised all that hath hitherto passed with every circumstance may be pleased out of the consideration and knowledg of those particulars to frame unto your self both such a beliefe of their direct meaning and such a resolution of the further proceeding herein as shall be most suitable to your Majesties wisdom onely I think it fit to set down further unto your Majesty the particular ends which may be conceived they aim at by setting this business afoot at this present in case they should not intend really to perform it The first may be to stagger and divert your Majesties Treaty
give him the Authors of the said Conjuration this being the sole means whereby their own honor might be preserved c. whereby their great zeal and care they had pretended to have of his person might appear But instead of confirming the great zeal they had pretended to bear him all the answer they made him consisted of Arguments against the discovery of the Conspirators So that for the confirmation of the said report there remained no other means then the examination of some of his Councell of State and principall subjects which he put in execution and made them take oath every one particularly in his own presence and commanded that such interrogatories and questions should be propounded unto them that were most pertinent to the accusation so that neither part particle or circumstance remained which was not exactly examined and winnowed and he found in the Duke and the rest that were accused a sincere Innocency touching the accusations and imputation wherewith they were charged This being so he turned to make new instances unto the said Ambassadors that they should not prefer the discovery of the names of the Conspirators to the security of his Royall person and truth and honor of thmeselves and the hazard of an opinion to be held and judged the Traytors of a plot of such malice sedition and danger But the Ambassadors remaining in a knotty kind of obstinacy resolved to conceal the Authors Nevertheless afterterwards he gave them an audience wherein the Marquess of Injiosa took his leave Few days after they demanded new audience pretending that they had somthing to say that concerned the publique good and conduced to the entire restitution of the Palatinate with desire to lose no opportunity that might conduce thereunto and therewith the confirmation and conservation of the friendship with your Majesty having suspended some few days to give them audience thinking that being thereby better advised they would resolve upon a wiser course and declare the Authors of so pernitious an action and having since made many instances and attended the success of so long patience he sent his Secretary and Sir Francis Cottington Secretary to the Prince commanding them that they should signifie unto the Ambassadors that he desired nothing more then the continuance of the friendship 'twixt both the Crowns and if so they had any thing to say they would communicate it to the said Secretaries as persons of so great trust which he sent to that end And if they made difficulty of this that they would chuse amongst his Councell of State those which they liked best and he would command that they should presently repair unto them and if this did not likewise seem best unto them that they would send what they had to say in a Letter sealed up by whom should seem best unto them and he would receive it with his own hands But the Ambassadors misbehaving themselves in all that was propounded the said Secretaries according to the order which they brought told them that they being the Authors of an information so dangerous and seditious had made themselves uncapable to treat further with the King their Master and were it not for the respect to the King his dear and beloved brother and their Master and in contemplation of their condition as Ambassadors of such a Majesty he would and could by the Law of Nations and the right of his own Royall Justice proceed against them with such severity as their offence deserved but for the reasons aforesaid he would leave the reparation hereof to the justice of their King of whom he would demand and require it In conformity whereof the said Ambassador of the King of Great Britain saith that the King his Master hath commanded him to demand reparation satisfaction of your Majesty against the said Marquis de Injiosa and Don Carlos Colomma making your Majesty Judge of the great scandall and enormous offence which they have committed against them and the publick right and expect justice from your Majesty in the demonstrations and chastisements which your Majesty shall inflict upon them which for his proceeding sake with your Majesty and out of your Majesties own uprightness and goodness ought to be expected Furthermore he saith that the King his Master hath commanded him to assure your Majesty that till now he hath not mingled the correspondence and friendship he held with your Majesty with the faults and offences of your Ministers but leaves and restrains them to their own persons and that he remains with your Majesty in the true and ancient friendship and brotherhood as heretofore and that he is ready to give hearing to any thing that shall be reason and to answer thereunto and when your Majesty is pleased to send your Ambassadors thither he will make them all good treaty and receive them with that good love that is due For conclusion the said Ambassador humbly beseecheth your Majesty will be pleased to observe and weigh the care and tenderness wherewith the King his Master proceeded with your Majesties Ambassadors not obliging to precipitate resolutions but giving them much time to prove and give light of that which they had spoken and besides opening unto them many ways that they might comply with their orders if they had any such Which course if they had taken they might well have given satisfaction to the King his Master and moderated the so grounded opinion of their ill proceedings against the peace and so good intelligence and correspondence betwixt both the Crowns Madrid Aug. 5. 1624. The Petition of Francis Philips to King James for the release of Sir Robert Philips Prisoner in the Tower Most dread Soveraign IF the Thrones of Heaven and Earth were to be sollicited one and the same way I should have learned by my often praying to God for your Majesty how to pray to your Majesty for others But the Liturgies of the Church and Court are different as in many other points so especially in this That in the one there is not so poor a friend but may offer his vows immediately to the Almighty whereas in the other a right loyal subject may pour out his soul in vain without an Ora pro nobis Now such is the obscure condition of your humble Suppliant as I know no Saint about your sacred Majesty to whom I can address my orisons or in whose mediation I dare repose the least assurance Let it be therefore lawful for me in this extraordinary occasion to pass the ordinary forms and raising my spirits above uncertainties to fix my intire faith upon your Majesties supreme goodness which is and ever ought to be esteemed both the best Tribunal and the best Sanctuary for a good cause But how good soever my cause be it would be high presumption in me to stand upon it I have therefore chosen rather to cast my self at your Majesties feet from whence I would not willingly rise but remain a monument of sorrow and humility till I have obtained
Prince and the Church of England It remains now that I should as I will religiously obey whatsoever I shall be directed in the sequel of this businesse And so I rest c. Postscript MY Lord Mr. Murray since came unto me to whom I shewed this Letter and told him I would send it unto you to be shewed unto the King and the Prince I find him willing to run all courses Priesthood onely excepted If the King will dispence with him my Letter notwithstanding I humbly beseech his Majestie to write a Letter unto me as a warrant to admit him only Ad Curam et Regimen Collegii instead of the other words Ad Curam animarum I schooled him soundly against Puritanisme which he disavowes though somewhat faintly I hope his Highnesse and the King will second it The Lord Keeper to the Duke about the Liberties of Westminster 6. May. 1621. My most Noble Lord I Humbly beseech your Lordship to be a little sensible of those injurious affronts offered without any shew of equity unto this poor Liberty of VVestminster And for Gods sake let me not want that protection which not your Lordship only but the two Cicils and the Earl of Sommerset who neither regarded the Church Learning nor Honour in any measure as you do have ever afforded every Dean of this Church When I had to my thinking given the Knight Marshal full and too much satisfaction this day a Letter was offered to the Table in my presence violently pursued by the Lord Steward and the Earl Marshal to command this liberty which had stood unquestioned these 700 years to shew reason to Mr. Attourney and Mr. Solliciter why they prescribe against the Knight Marshal A Course as my Lord President said openly not to be offered to any subject of England It is our Charter and freehold of inheritance to be shewed only in a Court of Justice and at the Kings Bench which we are very ready to do And we may as well be questioned by a Letter from the Councel for all the Land we have as for this My Lord the jurisdiction of this place brings not a penny to my purse but it hath brought much sorrow to my heart and now teares to my eyes that I should be that unfortunate Contemptible man who for all the King and your Lordships favour and the true pains I take in answer thereunto must be trampled down above all the Deans that lived in this place Nor would it ever grieve me if I had deserved it from these Lords by the least disrespect in all the world I beseech you for the Churches sake and your Honours sake to be sensible hereof and to know of the Bishop of Winchester London Duresme Mr. Packer or Sir Robert Pye whether ever any question hath been made to this liberty in this kind If a Letter had been recorded to question the same when the Lord Admiral was Steward and the Lord Keeper Dean thereof judge you in your Wisdom what would become thereof in future posterity c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke Aug. 23. 1622. My most noble Lord YEsterday upon the receipt of your Lordships Letters of the 19th of this instant concerning the hastning of the businesse of the original Writs I sent presently for Mr. Attourney and Mr. Solliciter who were altogether unprovided for their parts of the dispatch and are casually forced so to be because three several Officers in whose records they are to search are now out of Town and do not return yet these 7. daies But your Lordship shall not fail to have all things concluded 3. weeks before the Term and I will of purpose put off all general sealing until it be effected In the mean time your Lordships Letter notwithstanding it will be nothing for your Lordships case to have Sir George Chaworth any way interested in this office of the originals but I hold it fitter to leave it as it is in Law and Equity forfeited for non-payment of rent in his Majesties hands for upon that issue I do not doubt but my Lord of St. Albons and Sir George will be content to hear reason I have received extraordinary respects and expressions from my Noble Lord the Lord Marquesse Hamilton which doth exceedingly comfort and encourage me to go on with some more alacrity through the difficulties of this restlesse place I beseech your Lordship who is Causa Causarum the first Cause that sets all these other Causes of my Comforts in Going to take notice of the same and to undertake this favour to be placed upon a poor honest hearted man who would if he were any way able requite it Gods blessings and the prayers of a poor Bishop ever attend your Lordship c. Postscript THe Spanish Embassadour took the alarum very speedily of the titulary Romish Bishop and before my departure from his house at Islington whither I went privately to him did write both to Rome and Spain to prevent it Sir Tobie Mathewes But I am afraid that Tobie will prove but an Apocryphal and no Canonical intelligencer acquainting the State with this project for the Jesuites rather then for Jesus sake The Lord Keeper to the Duke about the Lord Treasurer Septemb. 9th 1622. My most Noble Lord THat I neither wrote unto your Lordship nor waited upon your Lordship sithence my intolerable scandalizing by the Lord Treasurer this is the true and only cause I was so moved to have all my diligent service pains and unspotted justice thus rewarded by a Lord who is reputed wise that I have neither slept read written or eaten any thing since that time until the last night that the Ladies sent for me I believe of purpose to VVallingford house and put me out of my humour I have lost the love and affection of my men by seizing upon their Papers perusing all their answers to Petitions casting up their moneys received by way of fees even to half Crowns and two shillings and finding them all to be poor honest Gentlemen that have maintained themselves in my service by the greatnesse of my pains and not the greatnesse of their fees They are most of them landed men that do not serve me for gain but for experience and reputation And desire to be brought to the Test to shew their several books and to be confronted by any one man with whom they contracted or from whom they demanded any Fee at all The greatest summe in their books is five pounds and those very few and sent unto them from Earls and Barons All the rest are some 20 s. 10 s. 5 s. 2 s. 6 d. and 2 s. And this is the oppression in my house that the Kingdom of the Common Lawyers peradventure who have lost I confesse hereby 20000 l. at the least saved in the purses of the Subjects doth now groan under Now I humbly beseech your Lordship to peruse this paper here inclosed and the issue I do joyn with the Lord Treasurer and to acquaint at
who saw and approved all the opinions in this Book and he in his rare wisdom and judgment would never have allowed them if they had Crossed with truth and the Church of England 4. Fourthly we must be bold to say that we cannot conceive what use there can be of Civil Government in the common Wealth or of preaching and external ministrie in the Church if such fatall opinions as some which are opposite and contrarie to these delivered by Mr. Mountague are shall be Publiquely taught and maintained 5. Fiftly we are certain that all or most of the contrarie opinions were treated of at Lambeth and ready to be published but then Queen Elizabeth of famous memorie upon notice given how little they agreed with the Practice of pietie and obedience to all Government caused them to be suppressed and so they have continued ever since till of late some of them have received countenance at the Synod of Dort Now this was a Synod of that nation and can be of no authority in any other National Church till it be received there by Publique authority And our hope is that the Church of England will be well advised and more then once over before Shee admit a forraign Synod especiallie of such a Church as condemneth her discipline and manner of Government to say no more And further we are bold to commend to your Graces wisdom this one particular His Majestie as we have been informed hath already taken this businesse into his own care and most worthily referred it in a right course to Church-consideration And we well hoped that without further trouble to the state or breach of unity in the Church it might so have been well and orderly composed as we still pray it may These things considered we have little to say for Mr. Mountagues person onely thus much we know He is a very good Scholler and a right honest man A man every way able to do God his Majestie and the Church of England great service We fear he may receive great discouragement and which is far worse we have some cause to doubt this may bred a great backwardnesse in able men to write in the defence of the Church of England against either home or forraign adversaries if they shall see him sink in fortunes reputation or health upon his book occasion And this we most humbly submit to your Graces judgment and care of the Churches peace and welfare So recommending your Grace to the protection of Almighty God We shall ever rest At your Graces service Jo. Roffens Jo. Oxon. Guil Meneven 2. August 1625. Doctor Field Bishop of Landaffe to the Duke My Gracious Good Lord IN the great Library of men that I have studied these many yeares your Grace is the best Book and most Classick authour that I have read in whom I find so much goodnesse sweetnesse and noblenesse of nature such an Heroick spirit for boundlesse bounty as I never did in any I could instance in many some of whom you have made Deanes some Bishops some Lords and Privy Councellours None that ever looked toward your Grace did ever go empty away I need go no farther then my self a gum of the Earth whom some 8. years ago you raised out of the dust for raysing but a thought so high as to serve your Highnesse Since that I have not played the Truant but more diligently studied you then ever before And yet Dunce that I am I stand at a stay and am a Non-proficient the book being the same that ever it was as may appear by the great proficiencie of others This wonderfully poseth me and sure there is some guile some wile in some of my fellow Students who hide my book from me or some part of it All the fault is not in mine own blockishnesse that I thrive no better I once feared this before that some did me ill offices Your Grace was pleased to protest no man had and to assure me no man could My heart tels me it hath been alwaies upright and is still most faithful unto you I have examined my actions my words and my very thoughts and found all of them ever since most sound unto your Grace Give me leave after so long Patience for which vertue you were once pleased to commend me to my old Master King James and I have not yet lost it now that for these 12 Months almost I have been not onely upon the Stage but upon the rack of expectations even distracted between hope and fear to comfort my self with recordation of your Loving kindnesses of old when on that great feast day of your being inaugured our Chancellour my look was your booke wherein you read sadnesse to which I was bold to answer I trusted your Grace would give me no cause You replyed with losse of blood rather that was your noble expression But God forbid so precious an effusion I would emptie all my veins rather then you should bleed one drop when as one blast of your breath is able to bring me to the haven where I would be My Lord I am grown an old man and am like old Househouldstuffe apt to be broke upon often removing I desire it therefore but once for all be it Eli or Bathe and Wells and I will spend the remainder of my dayes in writing an History of your good deeds to me and others whereby I may vindicate you from the envie and obloquy of this present wicked age wherein we live and whilest I live in praying for your Grace Whose I am totallie and finallie Theophilus Landaven The Bishop of Landaffe to the Duke My most honourable good Lord IT is meet before I beg a new that I should first acknowledge those benefits and more specially give thanks for the last noble favour your Lordship did me in standing up the last day of Parliament and pleading my cause Never was poor man more bound to a gracious Lord for protecting his innocencie and it came seasonable like a showr of rain in the time of drouth My very heart was parched with grief till it came and it had ere this been broken had not your Lordships speech then dropt comfort in strength whereof it yet lives For an abortive thought which never came into act some 2. or 3. years ago conceived and that tending to a work of mercy and charitie a deed of justice and due thankfulnesse how far how foulie have I been traduced your Honour cannot imagine how deeply I have been wounded in my good name as if I had deserved deprivation degradation yea to be hanged drawn and quartered This can none cure but God or the King Deus in monte God hath done his part in providing an occasion Besides London which is too high for me to look after and the removes which may be thereby Hertford the next Seat to mine whither my Predecessors have oft been removed is said to be now void Now good my Lord speak once more seasonably It is a doubled and
prayers for your health and happinesse as Yours c. E. H. The Lady Elizabeth Norris to the Duke My Lord EVer since your Lordships first recommendation of my husband to me I have thought my self much ingaged to your Lordship for I must confesse after he had taken his leave of me I did love him never the lesse for immediately after my fathers death when in my Conscience he least expected to hear from me I did both send and write to him which he might interpret an incouragement or rather an invitation I did it the rather because I did not believe those which did him ill offices for those which were most for him on a sudden were most against him I must confesse that pitie did confirm my affection and I trust your Lordship will commiserate his estate as you do the fall of all mankind for I was the Eva and he was the Adam and I pray God the King and your Lordship may forgive us as I am confident God will pardon us Your Lordship may imagine my Mother was of the plot but I take God to witnesse that she was not only against it but contrarily I did believe she was wholly for your Brother And for your Brother my Mother recommended him to me whom I used like a Gentleman of high worth and qualitie But I did by no means abuse him by promise or taking guifts which I falsely suffer for in the opinion of the world I only took a ring by my mothers appointment which came as a token from my Lady your mother which was of very small value My husband and I am resolved rather to suffer in the opinion of the world then contradict any thing which shall be aggravated against us We must both honour you and think our selves much ingaged to your Lordship After God I protest you are the onely authour of it for by your means I first settled my affection I know there are those which do my husband and me ill offices I have reason to be jealous of the Lord Montgomery for he would have put tricks upon me in making me deny the Contract and when he failed in that he went about to make me believe Mr. Wray had denied his And to tell your Lordship true his violence and over-earnestnesse made me the more averse If my husband had not fetched me I would have come to him and so I sent him word Thus humbly beseeching your Lordship as you are happie in your wife that you would be pleased to make our peace with the King and seeing it is Gods act that you would honour us with your favour We shall be both bound to joyn in prayer that you may be ever happie in your Wife and in your Childrens Children And so with my humble respect to your Lordship I rest Your Lordships humble servant Elizabeth Norris Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke My very good Lord HOw much my affection and ambition hath been to serve your Lordship before other men I hope I shall not need now to expresse considering it hath been clear and manifest to your own trial whereof I do bear still the testimonie and the continuance in mine own heart But in your noblenesse it will not appear impertinent to your Lordship that I put you in mind how much I suffered in the disgrace my enemies cast upon me about the imployment for the Palatinate when I was under your protection whether I suffered for mine own sake or for your Lordship I know not howsoever of this I am assured the greatest cause I gave them that had least reason was because I sought not them but your Lordship only And for the successe you may see by the miracles the imployment hath brought forth that it was carried another way rather for private malice then for any great zeal to the advancement of the publique Cause Now my Lord for your own honour and for the upholding of your servant make me so happie if there be any imployment for men of my profession as there is opinion that I may be the man by your Lordships means wherein you shall make me your obliged as I am now your affectionate servant For which you shall be assured of as thankful heart as any breathes in the whole world In the enjoying of which kind of service though you are accounted the most happie among great men yet you cannot have too much of it I could remember your Lordship of his Majesties gracious promise for my imployment before any other in the presence of the Prince and your Lordship and that I am the first General his Majestie ever made and that I had no ill successe in the perfecting of that service yet for all this I will onely trust in your Noblenesse if you resolve to make me your Creature And if it shall please his Majestie to hold me worthy of this honour I will undertake to save his Coffers as I have heretofore done the sixth part of the imployments charge and cost that any other man shall require who makes not a computation for the managing of it by a sufficient expence of his own I will not write more at this time but to wish your Lordship as much happinesse as your heart can desire and that you will give me an occasion to shew how much I am and will be Your Lordships most faithful and affectionate servant Ed. Cecil From our Army this 20. of Novemb. Sir Edward Cecil to the Duke May it please your Excellency THis Gentleman Sir George Blundel hath now cleerly quitted the service of the States for this especial reason as he assures me to be the more absolutely imployed in your Excellencies service This I know his friends here that love him which are many are very sorrie to part with him for there is no melancholy where he goes And therefore considering the condition of this place we shall be great losers being upon a melancholy place and service ill payed sick of all diseases in the world in a place that is next neighbour to hell if the book printed say true which saith that the Low-Countriemen are next neighbours to the devil And I am sure we are now seated lower then any part of these Countries for the waters are above us and about us and we live in more fear of them then of the enemy for we may be drowned at an hours warning if we do not continually work against it and yet and it shall please your Excellencie this is the Seat for a Winter War Many more inconveniencies we are daily sensible of of which I have endured so much as I dare say without vanitie that few of my rank and fortune have suffered more or longer then I have done in these Countries having served these 27. years together without intermission and all this for no other end for I am 900 l. a year the worse for the Wars then to make me able to serve my Prince and Countrie when occasion should be offered But since the time is
of his Majesties Person in all happinesse and prosperity in all humility I take leave And rest Your Honours Most faithfully to command Isaac Wake Turin 5 15 of Octob. 1619. Sir Isaac Wake to the Duke Right Honourable and my very singular good Lord IN these parts we have nothing of moment worthy the relating the storms which do vex our neighbours round about us keeping us here in calme and quiet as it were per antiperistasin Howsoever I am of opinion that we shall enter into the Dance either actively or passively before the next summer passe over All over Italy there doth raign a great dearth which did lately cause in Naples a dangerous Cullevation of the people against the Cardinal Zappata Vice-Roy who had somewhat to do to save himself from the fury of the Popolarzo In the State of Millan likewise some insurrections were beginning to be made in Novarra Allessandria and Cremona both for want of bread and for the insolencie of the Garrison Souldiers who having had no pay for many moneths did commit many violent excesses upon the people which did drive them into despair but those Commotions were appeased betimes and no great matter of Consideration hath ensued although there are some neighbour Princes who did stand aux Escoutes and would be ready to have acted a troublesome part if the scene had been ready The Duke of Parma hath imprisoned his natural son Don Octavio the mysterie whereof is not well known but it must needs be for some great matter because he did make shew to love him passionately The Infanta Isabella of Modena hath been in danger of her life by being surprized with a violent feaver neer the time of her child-birth from hence the Duke of Savoy sent his Physitians to help her and we hear now that she hath escaped that danger and is safely delivered of a daughter Count Mansfelt is grown formidable and doth daily increase in strength and reputation Although he hath hitherto intitled his armes unto the service of the King of Bohemia yet I believe he will neither disarm nor suspend his arms when he shall be commanded so to do by that King For being now intertained by the State of Venice with an honourable provision of 12000 Crowns per annum in peace during his life and the pay of 10000 Foot and 2000 horse in the time of War he will try what he can do for the infranchising of the Grisons when the affairs of the Palatinate shall be accommodated And if the Austriaci do not bend all their forces against him very speedily and break his Armie before it grow more strong he is like to give them a greater blow then they have had these many yeares That which he hath gotten already in Alsatia is much more worth then the lower Palatinate and although he hath hitherto made those people to swear Allegiance unto the King of Bohemia yet when the said King shall make his peace with the Emperour it may be doubted whether Count Mansfelt will resign up what he hath conquered and it is thought that he will either keep it for himself or intitle some other Prince thereunto The Austriaci were never so matched as with Count Mansfelt for he is a perpetual motion and doth not stand upon the defensive as others have done hitherto and lost by the bargain hut he is alwaies setting upon them and doth make War at their cost let them take heed how they proceed with him for he who hath nothing to lose is ready to hazard the Paquet upon all occasions And if he do chance to overthrow them once in battel they will run danger or lose all that they have in Germany Let me in all humility beseech your Lordship to continue me in the honor of your good opinion and to favour me with your honourable protection especially with a good word to my Lord Treasurer for the sending me some relief without which I cannot possibly subsist having for want of my pay consumed all that I had in the world God Almighty increase upon your Lordship all happinesse and prosperity as is unfainedly wished unto you by him that is Your Lordships most humble obliged Creature and Servant Isaac Wake Turin 13 23. of Febr. 1621. Sir Isaac VVakes Proposition for the King of Denmark IT seemeth that the Glorie of this State which at all times was great doth shine brighter now adayes since that besides so many Neighbouring Kings and Princes whereof some are in a made league with us and some do keep a good correspondence and all a good intelligence with us Now the friendship of your Highnesse is sought by the mighty King of Denmark a monarch of those nations that in time past have left their remembrance of their prowesse in Italie France Spain and in whole Europe behind them This Great King of the North who like a Second Atlas holds up the Artick-pole rich in treasure numerous in men dreadful for his invincible generosity and Courage doth here offer himself unto your Highnesse And acquainting you of his actions doth confidently promise you to stand firm and stout in the defence of the common cause if so be that he receive that assistance as he hath reason to expect from those that are interested in the same cause His Majestie of Denmark hath had from the King my Master as much as can be given and it is no small matter that his Majestie of great Brittain doth still continue the same assistance having withall still those great expences that are required for the surety of his Realmes and for the offence of the common enemie His Majestie of France hath also contributed to this good work somewhat and there is great hope that he will bring forth in a short time some fit remedie against this evill The Lords States do as much as they are able And the Princes of Low Saxonie do not want in their duties There remaineth now that your Highnesse put also your powerful hand to this work and with a vigorous succour worthie of your great heart do incourage all the rest to continue their Emprese The two Kings are not ignorant of the great sincerity wherewith this most Excellent State doth observe the capitulations made with Allies of the league and that rather then to be wanting in things agreed upon you have surpassed in necessarie provisions for the advancement of the designs and that you have not been partakers nor agreers of the treaty made at Moncon But that you do continue to keep some forces in your Dominions and likewise some troops in the Valtoline for the effecting as much as is in you of what was first thought fit and of the agreement of the League And as that generous resolution and constancie of this State is never enough praised so there is great hope that you will not bring this same in the reckoning of the two Kings who never will misse to praise the wisdome and generositie of this State though not obliged for
the increase of Gods Worship and by not only defending but propagating the jurisdiction of the Pontifical authority There have been many and shall be hereafter whom the bountie of Kings hath enriched with fading riches and advanced to envied titles and yet mindful posterity will not celebrate your name with eternal Prayses for having attayned these but if your Councels should reduce those most powerful Kings and people unto the bosom of the Romane Church the name of your Noblenesse would be written in the book of the living whom the torment of Death toucheth not and the Monuments of Histories shall place you amongst those wise men in whose splendor Kings walked but with what comforts in this life and what rewards in the life to come God who is rich in mercy would reward you they easily see who know the art and force by which the Kingdom of heaven is conquered It is not only our Pontifical charity to whose care the salvation of mankind pertaineth but also the piety of your Mother who as she brought you into the world so she desireth to bear you again to the Romane Church which she acknowledgeth for her mother that moved us to desire that you were made Partakers of so great felicity Therefore when our beloved son the religious man Didacus de la Fuente who hath wisely administred the affaires of your Princes in this City prepared his journie for Spain we commanded him to come unto your Noblenesse and present these our Apostolical Letters by which the Greatnesse of our Pontifical charity and the desire of your salvation may be declared Your Noblenesse may therefore heare him as the interpreter of our mind and as one indued with these virtues which have won him the love of forraign nations being a Catholique and religious priest He certainely hath reported those things of you in these parts of the world that he is worthie to be imbraced of you with singular affection and defended by your authority being a servant to the Glorie and salvation of the Brittish Kings and people This thing truly will we pray for to the father of mercies that he will open to your Noblenesse the gates of his Coelestial kingdom and afford you frequent Documents of his Clemency Given at Rome at St. Marie the Greater under the Ring of the Fisherman the 19. of May. 1623. and of our Popedom the third John Champolus To his Sacred Majestie ab ignoto My most Gratious King THese things which your Majestie did lately command to be spoken unto you and now to be repeated in writing are not such as they can be made by legal and Judicial proofes both because they by whose testimony they may be confirmed do for fear of a most potent adversarie withdraw themselves And also because they think it a crime to come into the Embassadours house yea even they are afraid to do it who have commandement from your Majestie but neither was it lawful for the Embassadours themselves to speak these things especially not to such as they directed when the order of the affaires required it because they had never the freedom to speak unto your Majestie and no audience was given or granted them in the absence of tht Duke of Buckingham An example certainly unusual with other Kings and never to be taken in good part unlesse it be perhaps when the King himself wanting experience and being of weak judgment and no wisedom some one that is familiar and inward with the King a man wise and circumspect of great judgment and no lesse experience supplies the Kings place But here when all things go preposterously and the King himself being a most prudent and experienced Prince he that is familiar or favorite doth in all things shew himself a rash headie young man a Novice in managing of businesse and to the Crown of Spain most offensive Certainly by all just right this man was to be kept away from the audience of the Embassadour of the State We may also be bold to say that his presence so earnestly desired of him doth argue a great fear in him and a great distrust in him as well of his own upright conscience as also the Kings wisdom Hence therefore it is come to passe that your Majesties most faithful Vassals dare not so much as indirectly disclose their minds to the King though they take it in very ill part that a very good King should be driven into such streights And that a man pleasing himself in his own designs should use the favours of Princes so sinisterly that he doth of set purpose stir up breach of friendship and enmity between most Mighty Kings Besides who can without a discontented mind endure that the greatest affaires and of greatest moment if any in the Christian world can be so tearmed shall be ordered or concluded at the pleasure of your Parliament and from thence all things carried on with a headlong violence at his will and pleasure and a most deadly war to be preferred before a most happie Peace When as neverthelesse I am not ignorant that not so much the restitution of the Palatinate as the very claime to it will very difficultly be obtained or recovered by force of armes Let your Majestie exactly consider as it useth to do whether this be not an evident argument of that I have said that the conference or treatie about the Palatinate was taken from the Councel of State a society of most prudent men only for this cause that almost everie one of them had with one consent approved the proposition of the most Catholique King and did not find in it any cause of dissolving that treaty Hereupon the Parliament of this Kingdom was procured by the Duke because he thought his plots would be most acceptable to the Puritans not without great injury to your Councel of State from which he fled and disclaimed by way of an appeale and with such successe that we may be bold to say that the Parliament is now above the King Nay which is more that this daring Duke propounded many things to the Parliament in the Kings name your Majestie being neither acquainted with them nor willing to them Yea and that he propounded many things contrary to your Majesties service Who is there that doth not see and commend the royal disposition of the Prince adorned with so great endowments of his mind that he doth not in them all shew and approve himself to be a very good son of a very good King And yet neverthelesse that the Duke doth so much presume upon his favour that he contemneth all men as knowing that those who are obedient to his Highnesse will also subject themselves to his will I would to God he did direct those his actions to the good of the Prince But that is a thing so far from the opinion of good men that they rather believe that he who hath overthrown the marriage with Spain will be of no lesse power to the breaking of any other marriage
man though I have said justly seeming guiltie yet in mine own knowledge innocent and free as I have delivered it will you then deny the King to savour whom he please which the King hath never denyed you that are his subjects will you controle me your Head and Governor in things wherein your selves have taken liberty uncontroled would you that I should require accompt of your liberalitie nay of all your failings which are liable to my authority well commend me to my Lords and tell them that if any thing had been formerly done amisse by others I have power and will to redresse it and to prevent the like I speak it in the word of a King neither Lords nor Commons can desire of me any thing that is honest which I am not ready to give them Let not therefore the world by these mistakings make Table-talk any longer of your King and his negotiations nay of his secrets and necessities for alas what great wrong or indignity can the Glorie of the State receive then that the private grudges of subjects accusing to the ignorant when in their consciences they could excuse should be the businesse of our Parliament and that the King himself should be forced to appear us a partie No doubt this is a Cocatrice egge that craftie heads of our enemies seek to hatch whilest the weightie affaires that in present concern the Honour and welfare of the King and State and the peace of all Christendome are by us utterly neglected I end hoping your Lordship now privy to these things will be tender of your Soveraigns honour and will so satisfie and treat with the rest that those particular janglings may be by some other course and in some other place and time discussed and determined that so our minds and time may be employed in the care of better things which earnestly invoke our ayd at this instant Thus much spoken or written or the like for I seek but to awaken your Lordships higher spirit and invention I conceive it may get this effect That these 6. Lords won by these reasons and by other the Kings invitations may deliver to the House that for their parts they have received unexpected satisfaction in those greatest points of the accusation against your Lordship and of such secret nature as are not fit to be published without further deliberation Wherefore since it pleased their Lordships to have made choyce of them to be trusted in this imployment they have faithfully served accordingly and do upon their Honours freely and without any ingagement or respect protest the same And therefore humbly desire their Lordships that they would intreat his Majestie to be President in advice with their Lordships What further were to be done in this private Contention betwixt your Lordship and the Lord Digbie which obtained something may then follow for your Lordships good by yeelding up that Cause into the Kings hands And his Majestie hath great reason to bend it that way because it is conceived that the Lords will be loath to admit the King to be supream Judge and Accuser which point will much touch his Majestie And his Majestie were better give some ease to the Lord Digbie then permit that dispute And now for my self I beseech your Lordship to pardon my strange boldnesse I know I am a mere stranger to you and if ever you have heard of me it must be as of a friend of such you then did not love I know it shewes me a medler in businesse or an insinuator which are suspitions that may distast you and make you suspect my pretences though they were not altogether witlesse I know this disadvantage and am in my own nature offended for putting my self thus into your notions But yet I resolved to undergo all this First because you made my Brother a Captain in Ireland who had otherwise perished Next for the favour you did to my Lord of Northumberland and the retiring of disfavour from my Lord of Sommerset And lastly for your firm hand that advanced the now Lord Treasurer To all which Lords I am familiarly known and bound But neerest to you your Lordship may hear of me from the Lord Treasurer I am confident of your Lordships noble interpretation since I seek no ends no acquaintance no other thanks being one that have no Court-suits to your Lordship but being one that loves not ruines which my friends have tasted nor that the publique should wrestle with a private Inturn of Spleen And I offer it but as a simplicity yet with good will enough for what can a man that is not privy to the Elements of State demonstrate any conclusion thereof yet I hear sometimes how the world goes as other men do I conceive I have said something to your Lordship and though perhaps short yet enough to occasion and stir up your deeper thoughts I also may have deeper but also I know that little pinnes of wood do sustain the whole building More I could have said touching the other points but these greatest elided the fall of the others may be easily directed What I have said against those objections I touched doth arise from grounds of truth and they must win and prevail and my conceit is fitted to the Kings part and to the occasions now on foot I humbly cease your Lordship further trouble and with you all good desiring your Lordship also to pardon my tedious and hasty scribled hand Your Lordships unknown servant Ch. Th. Postscript YOur Lordship shall be pleased to take off some part of my boldnesse and impute it to the obligation and service I owe this worthy Lady the Bearer To Count Gondomar My Lord I Thought my hands bound that I could no sooner have occasion to write unto you being forced against my will to delay my writing from day to day in expectation of the news of your arrival at that Court assuring my self that I should then receive from you some ground whereupon to write But after a long expence of time before that I could hear of your arrival and in the Pacquet that his Majesties Embassadour sent thereafter receiving no Letters nor word from you as I expected I do now by these break my long silence unto you As for news from hence I can in a word assure you that they are in all points as your heart could wish for here is a King a a Prince and a faithful friend and servant unto you besides a number of your other good friends that long so much for the happy accomplishment of this match as every day seems a year unto us and I can assure you in the word of your honest friend that we have a Prince here that is so sharp set upon the businesse as it would much comfort you to see it and her there to hear it Here are all things prepared upon our parts Priests and Recusants all at liberty all the Roman Catholiques well satisfied and which will seem a wonder unto you our Prisons are
way of admiration of the person of Madam for the impressions I had of her were but ordinary but the amazement extraordinary to find her as I protest to God I did the sweetest Creature in France Her growth is very little short of her age and her wisdom infinitely beyond it I heard her discourse with her Mother and the Ladies about her with extraordinary discretion and quicknesse She dances the which I am a witnesse of as well as ever I saw any Creature They say she sings most sweetly I am sure she looks so Sir you have thousands of servants here that desire to be commanded by you but most particularly the D. of Chevereux and Mounsieur Le Grand who seek all opportunities to do you service and have Credit and power to do so Sir if these that are strangers are thus ambitious of your Commands with what infinite passion have I cause to beg them that am your Vassal and have no other glory but to serve you as your Highnesse c. Kensington Postscript SIr The obligations you have unto this young Queen are strange for with that same affection that the Queen your sister would do she asks of you with all the expressions that are possible of joy for your safe return out of Spain and told me that she durst say you were wearie with being there and so should she though she be a Spaniard yet I find she gives over all thought of your Alliance with her sister Sir you have the fortune to have respects put upon you unlookt for for as in Spain the Queen there did you good offices so I find will this sweet Qeeen do Who said She was sorry when you saw them practise their Masques that Madam her sister whom she dearly loves was seen at so much disadvantage by you to be seen afar off and in a dark room whose person and face hath most lovelinesse to be considered neerly She made me shew her your Picture the which she let the Ladies see with infinite Commendations of your Person saying She hoped some good occasion might bring you hither that they might see you like your self The Lord Kensington to the Duke My Lord YEsternight being Sunday I arrived safe here at Paris I was informed as soon as I came that the King was resolved after sight of the Queens Masque that was to be performed that same night that he would go a private journey for 5. or 6. daies to Shautelie a house of Mounsieur de Memorancies Being desirous therefore to kisse his hands before his going and to see the Court in that glory and lustre as must for certain be found upon such an extraordinary occasion I went to the Louure to the D. of Chevereux Chamber where I found him and his Ladie apparrelling themselves for the Masque and in such infinite riches of Jewels as I shall never be a beholder of the like worn by Subjects I had not been there above an hour but the Queen and Madam came thither where they staid a great while And it was observed that Madam hath seldom put on a more cheerful then that night There were some that told me I might guesse at the cause of it My Lord I protest to God she is a lovely sweet young Creature Her growth is not great yet but her shape is perfect and they all swear that her sister the Princesse of Piemount who is now grown a tall and a goodly Ladie was not taller then she is at her age I thought the Queen would have put a fashion of reservation upon me as not pleased with the breach and disorder of the Spanish Treatie but I found it far otherwise She is so truly French as it is imagined she rather wishes this alliance then with her own sister The King that was so early to go out of the Town took his rest while the Ladies were making themselves ready but as soon as he waked he sent for me and purposed to have received me as an Embassadour But I intreated the D. of Chevereux before I went to let him understand that I came as an humble and thankful servant onely to kisse his Majesties hands and had no other end then to do him service He then received me with much freedom and cheerfulnesse with many questions how the King is satisfied with his Present by Mounsieur de Bonevan who when I related the Kings liking and value of it he was infinitely pleased He commanded me to attend him to the Masque which was danced by 16. of the greatest Princesses of France St. Luke only being by the Queen received amongst them to put a singular honour and value upon her The King with his Brother had danced a Masque the last Tuesday with the same number of persons of the best quality who this night were to cast Lots who should dance with the sixteen Ladies they onely being allowed to dance with them And all those were so infinitely rich in Jewels embroiderie of gold and silver being here forbidden as they had almost all imbroidered their cloathes as thick with Diamonds as usually with purle I cannot give your Lordship any particular account of my service in any thing yesternight being an unproper time for any such thing But I am advised by the Prince Jenvile to stay here till the Kings return and I shall understand how all things stand and that no mans affection is so straight and true for the service of the King and Prince as his is who of himself falls into passionate wishes for an Alliance but tells me in much libertie they have been informed the cause and plot of my journey was to set an edge upon Spain rather to cut off their delaies then to cut the throat of the businesse But I gave him great satisfaction in that point My Lord these are passages of my first nights being here matters of ceremonie and yet I omit much of that I thought these too slight to trouble his Majestie or the Prince with yet I thought it fit since this Messenger goes to let you see this outward show and face of this Court to have as much sweetnesse smoothnesse and clearnesse towards our designs as is possible My next Letters shall inform you of a further search made by me the which I am confident will be of the same nature And I conceive it the rather because I find them in a great alarum at the newes that they have received from Leige that the King of Spain makes a Fort upon the ruine there to command both that and the Town This they say hath made them more clearly see his vast ambition to inlarge his Monarchie and do all speak the careful and honest language of our Lower house men how it may be prevented I have said enough the Messenger I dare say thinks too much yet this I will add That I will study to make it appear to the world and your self by a thankful heart and to God himself in my prayers for your Lordship that
fear the Protestants may imagine we have had a hand in it For our Confederation made by you at the Hague they speak so of it as they will do something in it but not so really or friendly as we could wish But for these things you allow me I trust to refer you to the general Dispatch I come now to other particulars I have been a careful Spie how to observe intentions and affections towards you I find many things to be feared and none to be assured of a safe and real welcome For the continues in his suspects making as they say very often discourses of it and is willing to hear Villanes say That hath infinite affections you imagine which way They say there is whispered amongst the foolish young Bravado's of the Court That he is not a good Frenchman that suffers to return out of France considering the reports that are raised many such bruits flie up and down I have since my coming given Queen Mother by way of discourse occasion to say somewhat concerning your coming as the other night when she complained to me That things were carried harshly in England towards France I then said That the greatest unkindnesse and harshnesse came from hence even to forbid your coming hither a thing so strange and so unjust as our Master had cause and was infinitely sensible of it She fell into discourse of you desiring you would respect and love her daughter and likewise that she had and would ever command her to respect you above all men and follow all your Councels the matter of her Religion excepted with many professions of value and respect unto your Person but would never either excuse what I complained of or invite you to come upon that occasion But though neither the businesse gives me cause to perswade your coming nor my reason for the matter of your safetie yet know you are the most happie unhappie man alive for is beyond imagination right and would do things to destroy her fortune rather then want satisfaction in her mind I dare not speak as I would I have ventured I fear too much considering what practises accompany the malice of the people here I tremble to think whether this will find a safe conveyance unto you Do what you will I dare not advise you to come is dangerous not to come is unfortunate As I have lived with you and only in that enjoy my happinesse so I will die with you and I protest to God for you to do you the least service c. Postscript HAve no doubt of the partie that accompanied me for he is yours with his soul and dares not now as things go advise your coming Mr. Lorkin to the Duke the 30. of August 1625. May it please your Grace FRom an honest and truly devoted heart to receive the sacrifice of most humble thanks which come here offered for that excesse of favour which I behold in those gracious lines that you are so nobly pleased to honour me withal and which derive unto me farther the height of all contentment his Majesties gracious acceptance of my poor endeavours which howsoever they cannot shoot up to any high matter from so low an earth yet in their greatest force are eternally vowed with the price of my dearest blood as to his Masters faithful service in the first place so to your Graces in the next who have received I doubt not ere this what my former promised in the Savoyard Embassadours behalf and that as well from his own pen as mine But this State is very Euripus that flowes and reflowes 7. times a day and in whose waies is neither constancie nor truth The changes your Grace will find in my Letters to my Lord Conway whereunto I therefore make reference because I suppose there will be but one Lecture thereof to his Majestie and your self Therein likewise your Grace will see a suddain comandement laid upon Mounsieur de Blanvile premire Gentilhome de la chambre du Roy speedily to provide himself to go extraordinary Embassadour into England The cause thereof I rove at in my dispatch taking my aime from two darke speeches to Queen Mother and the Cardinal I have since learned the interpretation of the riddle not from the Cardinals lips who yet being sounded by me pretended a further end then Ville-aux-cleres had done viz to entertain good intelligence betwixt the Queen of England and your Grace and to do you all the best offices and services that are possible but from the Duke de Chevereux who whatsoever pretexts may be taken makes the true ends of that Voyage to be first to try whether this man can mend what they conceive here the Duke hath marred in shewing himself more a servant to the King of England then to his own King and Master Secondly to spie and discover what he can and according as he shall find cause to frame Cabals and factions whereunto he is esteemed very proper being charactarized with the marks of a most subtile prying penetrating and dangerous man And therefore as an Antidote against the poison he brings the Duke gives this Caveat aforehand That every one keep close and covert towards him and avoid familiaritie with him though otherwise he wishes a kind and honourable entertainment Thus much I received from the Dukes own lips yesternight Bonocil being witnesse perhaps Counsellour of all that passed he promised a memorial in writing this day which I have attended till this evening and even now receive it I have not touched the least syllable hereof to my Lord Conway because I think both your Graces and the Duke de Chevereux's will may concur in this that these things be not subject to many eyes Even now the Savoyard Embassadour sends an expresse Messenger unto me to hasten to Fountain-Bleau Perhaps it may be to facilitate the Treatie with Rochel by either some Letter or Journey of mine thither But upon the conference I have had with the Duke de Chevereux I shall temporise till I hear his Majesties pleasure or see good evidences of generous effects like to ensue Being desirous to shape my course so as may be most acceptable to his Majestie and pleasing to your Grace whose virtues I adore in qualitie of Your Graces Most humble most faithful and most obedient servant Tho. Lorkin Postscript THe Duke de Chevereux expects the Cypher from your Grace if I be not deceived Mr. Lorkin to the Duke 17. September 1625. May it please your Grace TO read and consider two contrary advertisements the one given me on Munday evening by des Porches who repeating what he had told me before D'avoir destrompé la Royne mere en mil et mil choses assured me that her thoughts were now so far changed from what they were as she remitted every thing to his Majesties pleasure to do what he list provided that he attempted not upon the conscience of the Queen her Daughter which was the only point she was tender in and
nourished betwixt his Majestie and this State sprang originally from them First by Barnevelt and his faction of Arminians carrying the State to new Alliances with the Hans-Townes and otherwise by themselves refusing so much as the knowledge of them to my Predecessour in this place Sir Ralph Wynwood with much scorn and contempt Next by a harsh and peremptorie stile used in all we had then to do with them savouring rather of Pride and presumption then any due respect or desire of friendship Lastly by a precipitate course taken at Sea by their ships of war and Merchants against his Majesties Subjects making prize of some shouldering others out of their places of trade and entring in the East-Indies into open hostilitie avowed by a publique Act of the States General This ill course begun and pursued for some yeares continuance breeding a deserved distaste in his Majestie on this side and on the Spanish part fair overtures of friendship being continuallie made and confirmed by the tender of a Match of a potent Prince None can marvel that his Majestie did imbrace the same unlesse it should be expected of him that for love of this State how ill soever deserving he should lend a deaf eare to all other friendships that did not concurre with the interest of this State And the remembrance of these things not being so old as to be worn out they might here very well conceive that the suspition of Alienation and disaffection is as strong on our side for their giving the cause of our leaning another way as on theirs for the effect which hath since followed And now the cause is removed the effect may possibly cease in like manner if we may have good assurance that breaking with our new friends upon the occasions now presented we might fasten after the wonted manner with an old and the King be satisfied in such doubts he may upon good reason cast and know certainly what to trust to To this conclusion he answered confessing first their many obligations to his Majestie both for his favour and sufferance that nothing could be more certain then the affection of this State to a Prince embracing their cause of opposition to Spain And if his Majestie could take that resolution he might dispose of them their lives and their fortunes I told him that more in a case of this importance when there was question of alteration of the whole course of a great Princes affaires would be required then bare professions and protestations and the rather because he knew I was not ignorant how many Billets and Papers have been heretofore brought hither by * An old Popish Gentlewoman of this towne who by passeport on both sides trots so often to and fro betwixt this and Bruxells where she hath private accesse to the Infanta that she is known by the title of la Maquerelle de la Tresur Madam Serclaus and others tending to Truce or peace and how much such a matter was thirsted after by their Frontier Provinces which being free for them to take or leave after their own humours it was not likely his Majestie would discharge them of their burthen to pull it upon his own Shoulders But to enter into the common cause of defence and add a powerful hand in supporting them might be faisable in the present conjuncture upon good assurance he should never be left single in the quarrel Whereunto he answered that true it was the woman I named and divers others had been tampering heretofore about such Treaties that he had continually put their Papers into his Pocket and so suppressed them with consent of some of the States of whom he was most confident lest such propositions being brought into their publique Assemblies might have driven them into distraction and dispute one with another according to their several affections either to Peace or War and thereby slacken their Contributions wherewith they pay their Army and by consequence expose them to the mercie of the enemy And that this course of his being finally discovered by the Merquesse Spinola and Peckius their purpose now was as he is privately advertized from Bruxels to steal over some person hither by the usual meanes of Passe-ports for Merchants and Travailers to make some such like Proposition at the several Assemblies of the States of these united Provinces which it should be his studie to prevent because of the mischief may be bred thereby amongst them And this he assured me for conclusion That as their affections and affairs now stand nothing but despair can bring these Provinces to Peace or Truce with Spain To this I yielded but said That was not enough because of such changes to which the world was daily subject Neither did Queen Elizabeth undertake their protection upon such bare presumptions wherefore some further assurance must be thought on which he consented unto as a thing requisite on both sides and joyned issue with me in this point That when the King would be to this State as Queen Elizabeth was this State would be to him as it was to Queen Elizabeth This being opus unius diei not unlike the first day of the Creation of the world in distinguishing light and darknesse I will give your Grace this further light of what belongs to negotiation with this State The present opportunitie of the Prince of Orange's good affection and strength of these Provinces both by Sea and Land as it yet stands but not possible so long to continue being seasonably laid hold of his Majestie may have with this State a firm and fruitful alliance But if the Prince of Orange should die as he is much broken and the last year at this time we did not think he could live till May or the enemy break into the borders of this State as this last Summer if the Imperialists had joyned with the Spaniards they had undoubtedly done and unlesse some Change or Alteration happen as is feared will do this next year the best link we have for a bond of friendship would fail and as much difference be betwixt this State as it now is and what it is like to be upon any such ill accident as was now feared and still hangs over them as betwixt a strong Staffe and a broken Reed So I cease to give your Grace any further trouble Your Graces Most humble and most faithful servant Dudley Carleton Hague 9. Decemb. 1623. Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke May it please your Grace WHat Comfort and Contentment the Queen of Bohemia receives in your Graces Message and Letter by my Nephew I leave to her own expression which never failes her when her heart goeth with her hand as I can assure your Grace it doth in this subject And this I will say more who can say nothing but truth I never knew your Grace ill with this good and gracious Princesse but now you are so well settled in her good opinion and favour that I know none hath more interest therein
with them what course of Government upon due consideration had of the present estate of the said Realm may be held so as Justice may take place our Charges be lessened our Revenues increased and our Subjects there not oppressed You shall also consider what Forces are meet to be continued in pay and how the rest chargeable unto us and burthensom unto the Country may be discharged and also how the Horsmen and Footmen serving there may be reduced to their old pay which by reason of the general Rebellion in that Realm the Country being wasted we were driven to increase And therefore we see no reason but the Band residing in those Countries that are not wasted may live well enough of the old pay especially being victualled by us and for the ease and diminishing of our charges in that behalf We do think it meet that you should treat with those Countries that are not wasted as well in Munster or elswhere in that Realm to see if you can draw them with good contentment to contribute somthing towards the finding of that Garrison at Carberrie heretofore hath done And for that our Subjects in that Realm c. To advise of the inhabiting of Munster the attainted Lands to be let out at easie rents Survey certifie what States Statute of Vsus 5. Port-Corn 6. Th' attainted Lands to be bestowed in reward upon Servitors 7. Younger Brothers of Noblemen Diminish Pensioners 9. Review former Instructions 10 11. Renewing of forfeited Leases for three years Beef Port-Corn Remittal of Arrearages 12. Reversion of Lands to the Governours 13. Lands of the attainted to be appointed to house-keeping 14. Reservation of Timber-woods 15. Residence of Officers 16. Report to the State outrages of disloyal Subjects 17. Profits of Customs Escheats c. 19. Establishment for Connaught 20. President for Munster allowance begin at May Transportation 21. Councellors B. of Meath John Norris Richard Biâ—gham Tho. Strange 22. Refer the choice of a person to the Chancellor and others 23. Certificate of the last Treasurers Receipts and Expences Every one of these Articles doth contain half a side of Paper and therefore I have rather thought fit to abbreviate them then to transcribe them at large the whole Contents being contained in this Abbreviation Sir John Perrot to the Lords of the Councel Jan. 31. 1585. May it please your good Lordships ALthough I and this Councel have by our joynt-Letters truly declared unto you the dutifull state of things here and the causes both foraign and domestical whereupon we gather it and withall have shewed our extreme wants and what supplies are desired Yet understanding thence but not from your Lordships for I have had no kind of advertisements answer or resolution from the same these twelve moneths that there is a great preparation made by the Spanish King against the Realm and that your Lordships have intelligence thereof I cannot but as one whose chief charge and care it is importune your Lordships to cast your eye more carefully this way humbly praying you to consider what case we are in to try with a most mighty Prince whether this Realm shall be still her Majesties or his if there be any such matters as your Lordships know best then I beseech your Lordships to think whether it be more safety to say that we have sent provision to encounter the danger or else you will send when perhaps it will be too late And withall for mine own discharge if I shall tarry and have nothing wherewith I have but a life to yield for her Majesty and my Country for the loss thereof I grieve not but rather for the harm that through defects I fear may come to her Majesty and the State and the shame I shall leave behind me This foreign preparation if there be any such thing is likely to be spent against Munster to seise upon and to spoil the Cities and Towns of the same which in truth are very weak If I shall go thither what for the late wars and this last bad season there is not so much to be had there as will maintain that one Band of 200. that is under Mr. Thomas Norris the Vice-President there but that I am inforced to shift them from Town to Town who by reason of their extreme penury do receive them with great grief and grudge And though I had men sufficient to encounter the Enemy that should come yet for want of victuals I should be driven to abandon the place with danger and shame where they that are to come over are like to bring their provision with them and to settle it in some Town that they will soon seise upon for that purpose whereof what may ensue amongst this unconstant people naturally delighting in change your Lordships may soon gather Besides this that I have said of the bare estate of Munster where there is not so much to be had as will serve for mine own family or yet to feed my horses till grass grow I refer you to understand not only the same more fully but also the great wants of the rest of the Realm by the declaration here inclosed which as Beverley the Victualler maketh it so I know it to be true And therefore I most humbly beseech your Lordships to send speedy order that such a Staple of victuals may be provided and be sent over as your Lordships shall think requisite to serve as well for the numbers here already as also for those that are to be sent over to encounter such an accident as may fall out And herein I would wish your Lordships to consider the winds and weather how untowardly they have framed this year for as some have lain at Chester nine weeks to come over hither so hath there been no passage since this six weeks Moreover if there be such purposes in hand it were good some shipping were dispatcht for the guard of the Coasts And to all these and other difficulties may I with your Lordships favour adde one more to be considered of How weakly I am seconded if need fall out by those forein attempts whereof I would say little for any other cause The Marshal is old and not able either to ride or go the Master of the Ordnance is both absent and old and I wish there were a more sufficient man in his place The Lord President and Sir William Stanley who are men of good conduct are drawn away Sir H. Harrington Mr. Edward Barkley and the Senescal Dantry are suffered to remain still there but I humbly pray they may be sped away together with all other that are Servitors by any manner of pay there And so having herein discharged my duty I humbly end From the Castle of Dublin the last of January 1585. Your Lordships most humble at commandment JOHN PERROT Earl of Desmond to the Earl of Ormond Iune 5. 1583. My Lord GReat is my grief when I think how heavily her Majesty is bent to disfavour me and howbeit I carry
death of Mr. Secretary Walsingham SIR VPon this unhappy accident I have tryed to the bottom what the Queen will do for you and what the credit of your Sollicitor is worth I urged not the comparison between you and any other But in my duty to her and zeal to her service I did assure her that she had not any other in England that would for these three or four years know how to settle himself to support so great a burthen She gave me leave to speak heard me with patience confessed with me that none was so sufficient and could not deny but that which she lays to your charge was done without hope fear malice envy or any respect of your own but meerly for her safety both of state and person In the end she absolutely denied to let you enjoy that place and willed me to rest satisfied for she was resolved Thus much I write to let you know I am more honest to my friends then happy in their cases What you will have me do for your suit I will as far as my credit is any thing worth I have told most of the Councel of my manner of dealing with the Queen my Lord Chamberlain tells me he hath dealt for you also and they all say they wish as I do but in this world that is enough I will commit you to God for this time and rest Your constant and true friend R. ESSEX Earl of Essex to the Queen MY dutiful affections to your Majesty always overweighed all other worldly respects that seeking in all particulars to manifest my truth I have maimed my estate in general as I dare in the heat of my thoughts compare with the greatest that ever vowed for faithful service so is there not the meanest that hath overslipped me I will not say in recompence but in some gracious estate of service Thus whilst my faith wrestleth with my fortune the one winns breath to beat th' other down Though I have no hope to repair the ruines of my oversight yet I cannot but presume your Majesty will suffer me to preserve them from blowing up and what youth and forward belief hath undermined in mine estate providence by a retired life may underlay In which discontinuance from Court there shall be added if any thing be added increase of loyalty Nor so solitary shall be my course as it shall seem to proceed of discontentment but of necessity and all actions both with living and my life so forward as though some may have overrun me in fortunes none shall in duty Next my allegiance to your Majesty which shall be held most sacred and inviolable the report of mine Honour challengeth chief interest which that I may preserve in my wonted state reason draws me to stay my self slipping from falling That of late by what secret and venemous blow I know not my faith hath received some wounds your Majesties wonted grace withdrawn assures me But truth and my patience in this case were one with me and time in your Princely thoughts did wear it out from me Let time be Judge I will leave you with as great lothness as I were to lose what I love best But your favour failing in which I have placed all my hopes and my self less graced after seven years then when I had served but seven dayes may be a reason to excuse if there were no other reason These things pressed out of a distressed mind and offered in all humility I hope it shall not be offensive if I choose this wearisom course rather to be retired then tired If any of envy take advantage of absence seeking by cunning to draw me into suspition of discontentment my conscience is setled in your never erring Judgment that if he come with Esau's hands and Jacob's voice your Highness will censure it a wrought malice under such simplicity It is true that grief cannot speak but this grief hath made me write lest when I leave you I should so far forsake my self as to leave this unsaid To your gracious acceptance I commit it and with all humble and reverent thoughts that may be rest ever to be commanded to die at your Majesties feet RO. ESSEX Again to the Queen FRom a mind delighting in sorrow from spirits wasted with passion from a heart torne in pieces with care grief and travel from a man that hateth himself and all things that keepeth him alive what service can your Majesty expect since your service past deserves no more then banishment or prescription in the cursed'st of all other Countries Nay nay it is your Rebels pride and success that must give me leave to ransom my life out of this hatefull prison of my loathed body which if it happen so your Majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death since the course of my life could never please you Your Majesties exiled Servant RO. ESSEX Sir Thomas Egerton Lord Chancellor to the Earl of Essex My very good Lord IT is often seen that he that stands by seeth more then he that playeth the game and for the most part every one in his own cause standeth in his own light and seeth not so cleerly as he should Your Lordship hath dealt in other mens causes and in great and weighty affairs with great wisdom and judgment now your own is in hand you are not to contemn or refuse the advice of any that love you how simple soever In this order I rank my self among others that love you none more simple and none that love you with more true and honest affection which shall plead my excuse if you shall either mistake or mistrust my words or meaning but in your Lordships honorable wisdom I neither doubt nor suspect the one nor the other I will not presume to advise you but shoot my bolt and tell you what I think The beginning and long continuance of this so unseasonable discontentment you have seen and proved by which you aim at the end If you hold still this course which hitherto you find to be worse and worse and the longer you go the further you go out of the way there is little hope or likelihood the end will be better You are not yet gone so far but that you may well return The return is safe but the progress is dangerous and desperate in this course you hold If you have any enemies you do that for them which they could never do for themselves Your friends you leave to scorn and contempt you forsake your self and overthrow your fortunes and ruinate your honour and reputation You give that comfort and courage to the foreign enemies as greater they cannot have for what can be more welcome and pleasing news then to hear that her Majesty and the Realm are maimed of so worthy a Member who hath so often and so valiantly quailed and daunted them You forsake your Country when it hath most need of your Councel and aid And lastly you fail in your indissoluble
of Master of the Horse doth in my understanding point at this that her Majesty meant to use your Lordships attendance in Court while the exercises of other places stood suspended 5. I have heard and your Lordship knoweth better that now since you were in your own custody her Majesty in verbo Regio and by his mouth to whom she committeth her Royal grants and Decrees hath assured your Lordship she will forbid and not suffer your ruine 6. As I have heard her Majesty to be a Prince of that magnanimity that she will spare the service of the ablest Subject or Peer where she shall be thought to stand in need of it so she is of that policie as she will not blaze the service of a meaner then your Lordship where it shall depend meerly upon her choice and will 7. I held it for a principle That those diseases are hardest to cure whereof the cause is obscure and those easiest whereof the cause is manifest Whereupon I conclude that since it hath been your errors in your lowness towards her Majesty which have prejudiced you that your reforming and conformity will restore you so as you may be Faber fortunae propriae Lastly Considering your Lordship is removed from dealing in Causes of State and left only to a place of Attendance methinks the Ambition of any which can endure no Partners in State-matters may be so quenched as they should not laboriously oppose themselves to your being in Court So as upon the whole matter I cannot find neither in her Majesties person nor in your own person nor in any third person neither in former precedents nor in your own case any cause of peremptory despair Neither do I speak this but that if her Majesty out of her resolution should design you to a private life you should be as willing upon the appointment to go into the wilderness as into the land of promise only I wish that your Lordship will not despair but put trust next to God in her Majesties grace and not be wanting to your self I know your Lordship may justly interpret that this which I perswade may have some reference to my particular because I may truly say testante non virebo for I am withered in my self but manebo or tenebo I should in some sort be or hold out But though your Lordships years and health may expect return of grace and fortune yet your Ecclipse for a time is an ultimum vale to my fortune And were it not that I desired and hope to see my Brother established by her Majesties favour as I think him well worthy for that he hath done and suffered it were time I did take that course from which I disswade your Lordship Now in the mean time I cannot choose but perform those honest duties unto you to whom I have been so deeply bound c. The Earl of Essex his Answer to Mr. Anthony Bacons Letter Mr. Bacon I Thank you for your kind and carefull letter it perswadeth that which I wish for strongly and hope for weakly that is possibility of restitution to her Majesties favour Your arguments that would cherish hope turn into dispair You say the Queen never meant to call me to publick censure which sheweth her goodness but you see I passed it which sheweth others power I believe most stedfastly her Majesty never intended to bring my cause to a publick censure and I believe as verily that since the sentence she meant to restore me to tend upon her person but those which could use occasions which it was not in me to let and amplifie and practise occasions to represent to her Majesty a necessity to bring me to the one can and will do the like to stop me from the other You say my errors were my prejudice and therefore I can mend my self It is true but they that know that I can mend my self and that if I ever recover the Queen that I will never lose her again will never suffer me to obtain interest in her favour and you say the Queen never forsook utterly where she hath inwardly favoured but know not whether the hour-glass of time hath altered her but sure I am the false glasse of others informations must alter her when I want access to plead mine own cause I know I ought doubly infinitely to be her Majesties both jure creationis for I am her creature and jure redemptionis for I know she hath saved me from overthrow But for her first love and for her last protection and all her great benefits I can but pray for her Majesty my endevour is now to make my prayers for her and my self better heard For thanks be to God that they which can make her Majesty believe I counterfeit with her cannot make God believe that I counterfeit with him and they that can let me from coming near to her cannot let me from drawing nearer to him as I hope I do daily For your brother I hold him an honest Gentleman and wish him all good much rather for your sake your self I know hath suffered more for me and with me then any friend that I have But I can but lament freely as you see I do and advise you not to do that I do which is to despair You know Letters what hurt they have done me and therefore make sure of this and yet I could not as having no other pledge of my love but communicate openly with you for the ease of my heart and yours Your loving friend R. ESSEX Lord Mountjoy to the Earle of Essex MOst noble Lord the Queen is now removing towards a Progress wherein after I have somwhat waited upon her I shall have a desire to write to your Lordship of some things more at large which I will do as safely as I can your Lordships vertue and your clear conscience must be your own brazen wall for we that are not of the Councell do see no hope to keep long together this State from assured ruine I pray God the Queen may with all prosperity out-live their negligence and your care to be a just Judge if not a rewarder thereof In the mean time you owe unto her and your own vertue extraordinary patience Your Lordships mind I do protest cannot labour more in the storm wherein you are then mine doth in this dangerous and miserable calm For it is some comfort to perish doing somewhat and yet my Lord why should we despair since there is a Providence that looks beyond and concludes contrary to the practices of the world which Providence hath shewed us ways how rugged soever they be which will bring unto true happiness and though we lose these mortall Barkes we sail in yet he will assuredly save the passengers Noble Lord in respect of that great Haven contemn these tempests and shipwracks at sea Your Lordships servant Mr. Bushel doth fear to have you impute his slow dispatch unto any want of his diligence and hath shewed his fear in
and that Soveraign Princes ought distinctly to punish the practice in contempt though coloured with the pretence of Conscience and Religion According to these principles her Majesty at her coming to the Crown utterly disliking the tyranny of Rome which had used by terror and rigor to settle commandments of mens faiths and consciences though as a Prince of great wisdom and magnanimity she suffered but the exercise of one Religion yet her proceedings towards the Papists was with great lenity expecting the good effects which time might work in them And therefore her Majesty revived not the Laws made in the 28. and 35. of her Fathers reign whereby the Oath of Supremacie might have been offered at the Kings pleasure to any Subject though he kept his conscience never so modestly to himself and the refusal to take the same oath without further circumstance was made Treason But contrariwise her Majesty not liking to make windows into mens hearts secret thoughts except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts or affirmations tempered her Laws so as it restraineth every manifest disobedience in impugning and impeaching advisedly and maliciously her Majesties supreme power maintaining and extolling a foraign jurisdiction And as for the Oath it was altered by her Majesty into a more gratefull form the hardness of the name and appellation of Supreme Head was removed and the penalty of the refusal thereof turned only into disablement to take any promotion or to exercise any charge and yet with liberty of being reinvested therein if any man should accept thereof during his life But after when Pius Quintus had excommunicated her Majesty and the Bulls of Excommunication were published in London whereby her Majesty was in a sort proscribed and that thereupon as upon a principal motive or preparative followed the Rebellion in the North yet because the ill humours of the Realm were by that Rebellion partly purged and that she feared at that time no foreign invasion and much less the attempt of any within the Realm not backed by some potent succour from without she contented herself to make a Law against that special case of bringing and publishing of any Bulls or the like Instruments whereunto was added a prohibition upon pain not of treason but of an inferior degree of punishment against the bringing in of Agnus Dei hallowed bread and such other merchandise of Rome as are well known not to be any essential part of the Romish religion but only to be used in practise as Love-tokens to inchant the peoples affections from their allegiance to their natural Soveraign In all other points her Majesty continued her former lenity but when about the 20. year of her reign she had discovered in the King of Spain an intention to invade her Dominions and that a principal point of the plot was to prepare a party within the Realm that might adhere to the Foreigner and that the Seminaries began to blossom and to send forth daily Priests and professed men who should by vow taken at Shrift reconcile her Subjects from their obedience yea bind many of them to attempt against her Majesties sacred person and that by the poyson which they spread the humours of most Papists were altered and that they were no more Papists in conscience and of softness but Papists in faction then were there new Laws made for the punishment of such as should submit themselves to such reconcilements or renunciations of obedience And because it was a Treason carried in the clouds and in wonderfull secresie and came seldom to light and that there was no presuspition thereof so great as the Recusants to come to Divine Service because it was set down by their Decrees that to come to Church before reconcilement was absolutely heretical and damnable Therefore there were added Laws containing punishment pecuniary against such Recusants not to enforce Conscience but to enfeeble and impoverish the means of those of whom it resteth indifferent and ambiguous whether they were reconciled or no. And when notwithstanding all this provision this poyson was dispersed so secretly as that there was no means to stay it but by restraining the Merchants that brought it in then lastly there was added another Law whereby such seditious Priests of new erection were exiled and those that were at that time within the Land shipped over and so commanded to keep hence upon pain of Treason This hath been the proceeding though intermingled not only with sundry examples of her Majesties grace towards such as in her wisdom she knew to be Papists in conscience and not in faction and singularity but also with an ordinary mitigation towards the offenders in the highest degree committed by Law if they would but protest that in case this Realm should be invaded with a foreign Army by the Popes authority for the Catholique cause as they term it they would take party with her Majesty and not adhere to her enemies For the other part which have been offensive to this State though in other degree which named themselves Reformers and we commonly call Puritans this hath been the proceeding towards them a great while When they inveighed against such abuses in the Church as Pluralities Non-residence and the like their zeal was not condemned only their violence was sometimes censured When they refused the use of some Ceremonies and Rites as superstitious they were tolerated with much connivencie and gentleness yea when they called in question the Superiority of Bishops and pretended to bring a Democracie into the Church yet their Propositions were heard considered and by contrary writings debated and discussed Yet all this while it was perceived that their course was dangerous and very popular As because Papistry was odious therefore it was ever in their mouths that they sought to purge the Church from the reliques of Popery a thing acceptable to the People who love ever to run from one extreme to another Because multitudes of Rogues and Poverty were an eye-sore and dislike to every man therefore they put it into the Peoples head that if Discipline were plaintive there should be no Beggers nor Vagabonds a thing very plausible And in like manner they promise the people many other impossible wonders of their Discipline Besides they opened the People a way to Government by their Consistory Presbytery a thing though in consequence no less prejudicial to the liberties of private men then to the soveraignty of Princes yet in the first shew very popular Nevertheless this except it were in some few that entred into extreme contempt was borne with because they pretended but in dutifull manner to make Propositions and to leave it to the Providence of God and the authority of the Magistrate But now of late years when there issued from them a Colony of those that affirmed the consent of the Magistrate was not to be attended when under pretence of a Confession to avoid slanders and imputations they combined themselves by Classes
and Subscriptions when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquils when they began to make many Subjects in doubt to take an Oath which is one of the fundamental points of Justice in this Land and in all places when they began both to vaunt of their strength and number of their partizans and followers and to use the communications that their Cause would prevail though with uprore and violence then it appeared to be no more zeal no more conscience but meer faction and division And therefore though the State were compelled to hold somwhat a harder hand to restrain them then before yet it was with as great moderation as the peace of the Church and State could permit And therefore to conclude consider uprightly of these matters and you shall see her Majesty is no Temporizer in Religion It is not the success abroad nor the change of servants here at home can alter her only as the things themselves alter so she applied her religious wisdom to correspond unto them still retaining the two rules before mentioned in dealing tenderly with consciences and yet in discovering Faction from Conscience Farewell Your loving Friend Francis Walsingham Sir Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex when Sir Robert Cecil was in France My singular good Lord I Do write because I have not yet had time fully to express my conceit nor now to attend you touching Irish matters considering them as they may concern the State that it is one of the aptest particulars that hath come or can come upon the stage for your Lordship to purchase honour upon I am moved to think for three reasons Because it is ingenerate in your House in respect of my Lord your Fathers noble attempts because of all the accidents of State at this time the labour resteth most upon that and because the world will make a kind of comparison between those that set it out of frame and those that shall bring it into frame which kind of honour giveth the quickest kind of reflection The transferring this honour upon your self consisteth in two points The one if the principal persons imployed come in by you and depend upon you the other if your Lordship declare your self to undertake a care of that matter For the persons it falleth out well that your Lordship hath had no interest in the persons of imputation For neither Sir William Fitz-Williams nor Sir John Norris was yours Sir William Russel was conceived yours but was curbed Sir Coniers Clifford as I conceive it dependeth upon you who is said to do well and if my Lord of Ormond in this interim do accommodate well I take it he hath always had good understanding with your Lordship So as all things are not only whole and entire but of favourable aspect towards your Lordship if you now chuse well wherein in your wisdom you will remember there is a great difference in choice of the persons as you shall think the affairs to incline to composition or to war For your care-taking popular conceit hath been that Irish causes have been much neglected whereby the very reputation of better care will be a strength And I am sure her Majesty and my Lords of the Councel do not think their care dissolved when they have chosen whom to imploy but that they will proceed in a spirit of State and not leave the main point to discretion Then if a Resolution be taken a Consultation must proceed and the Consultation must be governed upon Information to be had from such as know the place and matters in fact And in taking of information I have always noted there is a skill and a wisdom For I cannot tell what accompt or inquiry hath been taken of Sir William Russel of Sir Ralph Bingham of the Earl of Tomond of Mr. Wilbraham but I am of opinion much more would be had of them if your Lordship shall be pleased severally to confer not obiter but expresly upon some Caveat given them to think of it before for bene docet qui prudenter interrogat For the points of opposing them I am too much a stranger to the business to deduce them but in a Topique methinks the pertinent interrogations must be either of the possibility and means of Accord or of the nature of the War or of the reformation of the particular abuses or of the joyning of practice with force in the disunion of the Rebels If your Lordship doubt to put your sickle in others mens harvests yet consider you have these advantages First Time being fit to you in Mr. Secretaries absence Next Vis unita fortior Thirdly â—he business being mixt with matters of war it is fittest for you Lastly I know your Lordship will carry it with that modesty and respect towards aged Dignity and that good correspondencie towards my dear Ally and your good friend now abroad as no inconveniencie may grow that way Thus have I plaid the ignorant Statesman which I do to no body but your Lordship except I do it to the Queen sometimes when she trains me on But your Lordship will accept my duty and good meaning and secure me touching the privateness of that I write Your Lordships to be commanded FR. BACON Sir Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex concerning the Earl of Tyrone THose advertisements which your Lordship imparted to me and the like I hold to be no more certain to make judgment upon then a Patients water to a Physitian Therefore for me upon one water to make a judgment were indeed like a foolish bold Mountebank or Doctor Birket Yet for willing duties sake I will set down to your Lordship what opinion sprung in my mind upon that I read The Letter from the Councel there leaning to distrust I do not much rely upon for three causes First because it is always both the grace and the safety from blame of such a Councel to erre in caution whereunto add that it may be they or some of them are not without envy towards the person who is used in treating the Accord Next because the time of this Treaty hath no shew of dissimulation for that Tyrone is now in no straits but like a Gamester that will give over because he is a winner not because he hath no more mony in his purse Lastly I do not see but those Articles whereupon they ground their suspition may as well proceed out of fear as out of falshood for the reteining of the dependance of the protracting the admission of a Sheriffe the refusing to give his son for hostage the holding from present repair to Dublin the refusing to go presently to accord without including O Donell and others his associates may very well come of a guilty reservation in case he should receive hard measure and not out of treachery so as if the great person be faithfull and that you have not here some present intelligence of present succours from Spain
fault that you were too open in your proceedings and so taught them whereby to defend themselves so you gave them time to undermine Justice and to work upon all advantages both of affections and honor and opportunity and breach of friendship which they have so wel followed sparing neither pains nor cost that it almost seemeth an offence in you to have done so much indeed then that you have done no more you stopt the confessions accusations of some who perhaps had they been suffered would have spoken enough to have removed some stumbling-blocks out of your way and that you did not this in the favour of any one but of I know not what present unadvised humours supposing enough behind to discover all which fel not out so Howsoever as the Apostle saith in another case you went not rightly to the truth and therefore though you were to be commended for what you did yet you were to be reprehended for many circumstances in the doing and doubtless God hath an eye in this cross to your negligence and the briers are left to be pricks in your sides and thorns in your eyes But that which we commend you for are those excellent parts of Nature and knowledge in the Law which you are indued withall but these are only good in their good use wherefore we thank you heartily for standing stoutly in the Commonwealths behalfe hoping it proceedeth not from a disposition to oppose Greatness as your enemies say but to do justice and deliver truth indifferently without respect of persons and in this we pray for your prosperity and are sorry that your good actions should not always succeed happily But in the carriage of this you were faulty for you took it in hand in an evill time both in respect of the present business which it interrupted and in regard of his present sickness whom it concerned whereby you disunited your strength and made a gap for the enemies to pass out at and to return and assault you But now since the case so standeth we desire you to give way to power and so to fight that you be not utterly broken but reserved intirely to serve the Commonwealth again and do what good you can since you cannot do all the good you would and since you are fallen upon this work cast out the goods to save the bottom stop the leaks and make towards land learn of the Steward to make friends of the unrighteous Mammon Those Spaniards in Mexico who were chased of the Indians tell us what to do with our goods in our extremities they being to passe over a râ—ver in their flight as many as cast away their gold swam over safe but some more covetous keeping their gold were either drowned with it or overtaken and slain by the Savages you have received now learn to give The Beaver learns us this lesson who being hunted for his stones bites them off You cannot but have much of your estate pardon my plainnesse ill got think how much of that you never spake for how much by speaking unjustly or in unjust causes Account it then a blessing of God if thus it may be laid out for your good and not left for your heir to hasten the wasting of much of the rest perhaps of all for so we see God oftentimes proceeds in judgement with many hasty gatherers you have enough to spare being well laid to turn the Tide and fetch all things again But if you escape I suppose it worthy of an if since you know the old use that none called in question must go away uncensured yet consider that accusations make wounds and leave scarres and though you see your tale behind your back your self free and the Covert before yet remember there are stands trust not reconciled enemies but think the peace is but to secure you for further advantage expect a second and a third encounter the main battell the wings are yet unbroken they may charge you at an instant or death before them walk therefore circumspectly and if at length by means of our good endeavours and yours you recover the favour that you have lost give God the glory in action not in words onely and remember us with sense of your past misfortune whose estate hath doth and may hereafter lye in the power of your breath There is a great mercy in dispatch delays are tortures wherewith we are by degrees rent out of our estates do not you if you be restored as some others do fly from the service of vertue to serve the time as if they repented their goodness or meant not to make a second hazard in Gods House but rather let this cross make you zealous in Gods cause sensible in ours and more sensible in all which express thus You have been a great enemy to Papists if you love God be so still but more indeed then heretofore for much of your zeal was heretofore wasted in words call to remembrance that they were the persons that prophesied of that cross of yours long before it hapned they saw the storm coming being the principall contrivers and furtherers of the plot the men that blew the coals heat the Iron and made all things ready they owe you a good turn and will if they can pay it you you see their hearts by their deeds prove then your faith so too The best good work you can do is to do the best you can against them that is to see the Law severely justly and diligently executed And now we beseech you my Lord be sensible both of the stroak and hand that striketh learn of David to leave Shimei and call upon God he hath some great work to do and he prepareth you for it he would neither have you faint nor yet bear this cross with a Stoical resolution There is a Christian mediocrity worthy of your greatness I must be plain perhaps rash Had some notes which you have taken at Sermons been written in your heart to practise this work had been done long ago without the envy of your enemies But when we will not mind our selves God if we belong to him takes us in hand and because he seeth that we have unbridled stomacks therefore he sends outward crosses which while they cause us to mourn do comfort us being assured testimonies of his love that sends them to humble our selves therefore before God is the part of a Christian but for the world and our enemies the counsell of the Poet is apt Tune cede malis sed contra andentior ito The last part of this counsell you forget yet none need be asham'd to make use of it that so being armed against casualties you may stand firm against the assaults on the right hand and on the left For this is certain the mind that is most prone to be puft up with prosperity is most weak and apt to be dejected with the least puff of adversity Indeed she is strong enough to make an able man stagger striking
that I may ow your Majesty my life it self then which there cannot be a greater debt Limit me at least my Soveraign Lord that I may pay it for your service when your Majesty shall please If the Law destroy me your Majesty shall put me out of your power and I shall have none to fear but the King of Kings WALTER RALEIGH Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Car after Earl of Somerset SIR AFter many losses and many years sorrows of both which I have cause to fear I was mistaken in their ends It is come to my knowledge that your self whom I know not but by an honorable favour hath been perswaded to give me and mine my last fatal blow by obtaining from his Majesty the Inheritance of my Children and Nephews lost in Law for want of a word This done there remaineth nothing with me but the name of life His Majesty whom I never offended for I hold it unnatural and unmanlike to hate goodness staid me at the graves brink not that I thought his Majesty thought me worthy of many deaths and to behold mine cast out of the world with my self but as a King that knoweth the poor in truth hath received a promise from God that his Throne shall be established And for you Sir seeing your fair day is but in the dawn mine drawn to the setting your own vertues and the Kings grace assuring you of many fortunes and much honour I beseech you begin not your first building upon the ruines of the innocent and let not mine and their sorrows attend your first plantation I have ever been bound to your Nation as well for many other graces as for the true report of my trial to the Kings Majesty against whom had I been malignant the hearing of my cause would not have changed enemies into friends malice into compassion and the minds of the greatest number then present into the commiseration of mine estate It is not the nature of foul Treason to beget such fair passions neither could it agree with the duty and love of faithfull Subjects especially of your Nation to bewail his overthrow that had conspired against their most natural and liberal Lord. I therefore trust that you will not be the first that shall kill us outright cut down the tree with the fruit and undergo the curse of them that enter the fields of the fatherless which if it please you to know the truth is far less in value then in fame But that so worthy a Gentleman as your self will rather bind us to you being sixe Gentlemen not base in birth and alliance which have interest therein And my self with my uttermost thankfulness will remain ready to obey your commandments WALTER RALEIGH Sir Thomas Egerton Chancellor after Lord Ellesmere to the Earl of Essex SIR HOw things proceed here touching your self you shall partly understand by these inclosed Her Majesty is gracious towards you and you want not friends to remember and commend your former services Of these particulars you shall know more when we meet In the mean time by way of caution take this from me There are sharp eyes upon you your actions publique and private are observed It behoveth you therefore to carry your self with all integrity and sincerity both of hands and heart lest you overthrow your own fortunes and discredit your friends that are tender and carefull of your reputation and well-doing So in haste I commit you to God with my very hearty commendations and rest Your assured loving Friend THO. EGERTON C. S. At the Court at Richmond 21 Octob. 1599. Lord Chancellor Ellesmere to King James Most gracious Soveraign I Find through my great age accompanied with griefs and infirmities my sense and conceipt is become dull and heavy my memory decayed my judgment weak my hearing imperfect my voice and speech failing and faltering and in all the powers faculties of my mind body great debility Wherefore conscientia imbecilitatis my humble suit to your most sacred Majesty is to be discharged of this great Place wherein I have long served and to have some comfortable Testimony under your Royal hand that I leave it at this humble suit with your gracious favour So shall I with comfort number and spend the few dayes I have to live in meditation and prayers to Almighty God to preserve your Majesty and all yours in all heavenly and earthly felicity and happiness This suit I intended some years past ex dictamine rationis conscientiae Love and fear stayed it now Necessity constrains me to it I am utterly unable to sustain the burthen of this great service for I am come to St. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo Wherefore I most humbly beseech your Majesty most favourably to grant it Your Majesties most humble and loyal poor Subject and Servant THO. ELLESMERE Cane Again to the same King Most gracious Soveraign YOur royal favour hath placed and continued me many years in the highest place of ordinary Justice in this your Kingdom and hath most graciously borne with my many but unwilling errors and defects accepting in stead of sufficiencie my zeal and fidelity which never failed This doth encourage and stir in me an earnest desire to serve still But when I remember St. Pauls rule Let him that hath an office wait on his office and do consider withall my great age and many infirmities I am dejected and do utterly faint For I see and feel sensibly that I am not able to perform those duties as I ought and the place requires and thereupon I do seriously examine my self what excuse or answer I shall make to the King of Kings and Judge of all Judges when he shall call me to accompt and then my conscience shall accuse me that I have presumed so long to undergo and weild so mighty and great a charge and burthen and I behold a great Cloud of witnesses ready to give evidence against me 1. Reason telleth me and by experience I find Senectus est tarda obliviosa insanabilis morbus 2. I heard the precepts and councel of many reverend sage and learned men Senectuti debitur otium solve senectutem mature c. 3. I read in former Laws that old men were made temeriti rudè donati And one severe Law that saith Sexagenarius de ponte whereupon they are called Depontanei And Plato lib. 6. de legibus speaking of a great Magistrate which was Praefectus legibus servandis determineth thus Minor annis 50 non admittatur nec major annis 70 permittatur in eo perseverare And to this Law respecting both mine office and my years I cannot but yeeld But leaving foreign Laws the Stat. anno 13. E. 1. speaketh plainly Homines excedentes aetatem 70 annorum non ponantur in Assissis Juratis So as it appeareth that men of that age are by that Law discharged of greater painfull and carefull especially Judiciall Offices 4. Besides I find many examples of men
Kingly munificence and Christian charity and to deceive your Ministers with their falsified genealogies and with putting the Don upon many whose fathers and Ancestors were so base and beggerly as they never arrived to be owners of so much as convenient apparell to cover their nakedness it were much more tolerable but when having here tasted the warmth of your Majesties liberall and pious hand they become furnished in such ample and abundant manner as their poor and miserable ancestors durst never so much as dream of like Aesops serpent they turn their venemous stings towards the bosoms that gave them heat and life and endeavour with all the force and Art they have to give cause of distaste and by consequence of division between your Majesty and your faithfullest and most powerful Confederate in uneven paiment for your Majesties so great and gracious favour With generalities for the present I will not deal as he whose cares and desires have ever been to soften and not to sharpen Two Irish in your Court the one a son as by his own Countreymen is generally reported either to a vagabond Rimer a generation of people in that Countrey of the worst account or to give him his best title of a poore Mechanicall Surgeon The other descended rather of more base and beggerly parents neglecting what by the Laws of God they ow to their own Soveraign and as little regarding their obligation to your Majesty who from the dust of the earth and miserable estate hath made them what they are notwithstanding that they cannot be ignorant of the strait charge and commandements your Majesty hath given that all due respect be had to the King my Master and his Ministers and subjects the first in irreverend and irrespective behaviour towards my self and some of mine the other in obstinate defending his companions unmannerliness delivering by way of direct asseveration that I am an heretique and such an one as to whom it is not lawfull under the pain of deadly sin to use any courtesie or reverence whatsoever have of late miscarried themselves as I hold it not agreeable either with what I ow to the King I serve or the honor I have to represent his person to passe over with silence but to present it instantly to your Majesty The names of the parties are Magg Ogg a Sollicitor as here is said for the fugitive Earle of Tyrone condemned by the verdict of his own Contreymen besides his delict of Treason of thirteen several murders The other names himselfe Condio Mauricio and is here as I am informed allowed for a for his vagabonding Countreymen hath put on the habit of a Priest and hath of your Majesty thirty crowns a moneth in Pension The parties and the offences I have made known unto your Secretary of State and I cannot doubt your Majesty in conformity of what the King my master hath by so many arguments demonstrated towards your Majesty and your Ministers will command such exemplary punishment to be made of them as a behaviour so undecent a slander and reproach so intolerable and an opinion so desperate and dangerous and so contrary to what your Majesty and all those of your Councell Nobility and Clergy do practise do worthily merit c. Feb. 1608. Sir Charls Cornwallis to the Spanish King YOur Majesty to whom God hath given so large an Empire so much exceeding that of other Princes and whom he hath blessed with so great an inclination to piety clemency and other vertues becoming your Royall dignity and Person will I know hold it evil beseeming so rare a greatness to come behind any King how pious vertuous soever either in the observance of the laws of mutual charity and friendship or in love or zeal to justice which to all Kingdoms and Governments gives the assuredst foundation and in defect whereof by the Spirit of God himself Kingdoms are said to be translated from one Nation to another The first King that God gave unto his people he elected of higher stature then the rest by the shoulders upwards signifying thereby how much Kings are to strive to exceed and excell in the height and measure of vertue and justice also how fit it is for them to over-look with their authorities and providences the highest head of their Ministers and to observe how they guide themselves By the content of this paper inclosed your Majesty shall perceive the Christian and Kingly care the King my Master hath had not onely of the observances of the Articles of Peace since the same between your Majesties were concluded but of the punctuall accomplishment of the true Laws of amity and friendship which are more surely and expressively imprinted in Royall and Noble hearts then possibly they can be written or charactered by any pen in paper In your Majesties Kingdoms pardon I humbly beseech you if I speak plainly much contrary to that example the King my Masters subjects suffer all manner of spoils oppressions and miseries and are as well I may term them made a very prey to the hungry and greedy your Viceroyes and others enter their ships under cover and colour of Peace and Justice finding them rich they lay crimes to their charge whereof there appears neither proof nor probability yet serve their pretences to possess them of their goods to put the poor Merchants to a demand in Law wherein were truth alone the ballance they should be weighed by though that form of redress were far short of the immediate remedy provided by the King my Soveraign for your Majesties subjects yet were it much more allowable and to be endured but having here complained two whole years without any course at all taken for redress as in the cause with the Duke of Feria three intire years as in that with the Viceroy of Sardinia one year and more as in that of his Majesties servant Adrian Thihaut taken and spoiled by your Majesties Generall Don Luis as in that of Estry and Bispich imprisoned and bereaved of their goods by Iuan de Vendoza Alcalde of Madrid we are after so long a time spent in misery and charge countervailing a great part of the value of the goods taken from us inforced still to all punctualities and extremities of forms of law and to abide the uttermost perill of all advantages that by the inventions wits tongues of Lawyers can be devised to obscure and hide the light and right of truth The false colour given by every of these and the barbarous cruelty used to the parties would require too long and tedious a declaration It satisfieth that none of their pretences are proved nay which is more they are so false and fabulous as to no indifferent understanding they appear so much as probable My humble desire is your Majesty would be pleased to pass your own Royal eyes upon this paper and therefore to affect all possible brevity I will pass unto your Majesties other inferior ministers of your Ports of which few
cautions sufficient in such a business then to drive him where he cannot hurt all other means are frail and he which once believed is despised It is likewise a consideration of no less moment that the Palatine being restored will draw all his power and policie as hitherto so hereafter where he thinks he can do most hurt and that most easily to wit to Bethlem-Gabor and the Turks whom he hath already incited to hostility against me and will never cease hereafter to instigate the Calvinists intire hopes in them These untill they recover breath and recollect their forces they endeavour to disarm and exhaust me of monies ranging in my territories as they have done hitherto by fire and sword But if with them also whom notwithstanding I cannot trust alike I should make peace what conditions will Gabor who remains yet unconquerd require if I should restore the Palatine already conquered to his Electorall dignity Therefore since long before God granted me that famous victory I firmly forecast with my self that the Palatine could not be restored to his Electoral dignity without the extreme danger of the Catholiques and my house I offered freely on my own motion but being directed questionless by God the Electorship to the Duke of Bavaria a most eager Defender of the Catholique cause whose territories on the other side lie as a Rampire between me and other Princes of Germany and since I made so good use of his help and so profitable in the recovery of my Kingdoms and Provinces and continue yet to this day time it self more then the said Duke doth cry out that I should accomplish my promise without further delay and by translation of the Electorship take away quite all hopes from the Palatine and them that sollicite us so importunately for a restitution that we may be freed from all molestation which thing since it needs the help of his Majesty of Spain although I know his Majesty be propense enough of himself to all things which appertain to the honor of God and the security of our House yet I thought good to admonish you of this occasion lest this opportunity of establishing of our Religion and Family escape which I conceive might conveniently be done by you Neither do I suppose his Majesty to be ignorant that it was alwayes judged of our Ancestors that the House of Austria which by Gods permission doth now signiorize far and neer upon the earth to have its chief foundation here in Germany which is the more to be defended the nearer its ruine depends thereupon In times past this House hath had proof of many adversaries to its greatness as the Histories under Maximilian the first Charles the fift Ferdinand the second and Rodulf the second do shew the perfidiousness of Holland against his Majesties Grandfather Philip the second fetcht her food from the Palatinate neither can his Majesty ever reduce the rebellious Hollanders to obedience unlesse his root be pluckt up which onely motive besides these which I alledged before might justly induce him not to suffer a fallen enemy to rise and resume as his stomack will never fail him strength again But albeit it is not to be dissembled that the Lutheran Princes especially the Elector of Saxony will not approve haply of this translation because they fear it conduceth too much to the corroborating of the Catholique Cause Nevertheless since he cannot accuse that act of Charls the fifth who for a far lighter cause deprived John Frederick of the Electorship and confer'd it on Maurice this Dukes great Uncle and perceiving that all the Councels of the Calvinists do aim to bring in the Turk he will not condemn his translation For no less is the Lutherans hatred against the Calvinists as the Catholiques and they think less danger do proceed from the later It is to be hoped therefore that the Elector of Saxony and other Lutheran Princes when they see the business brought to this point will not so far disapprove thereof as to put themselves in Arms which I shall shortly understand of the most excellent Archduke Charls my brother who is for this cause to treat with the Elector of Saxony And these motives as they are of great consequence so I imagine you which are daily of his Majesties Councell have pondered them as diligently as my self and therefore that you will omit nothing that is pertinent to establish this business whereby we obtain the long and wished fruit thereof which is the propagation of the honor of Almighty God through the Empire and the augmentation of the common safety Family and Dignity Beloved Don Balthazar I understand that there was a motive of great consideration omitted in my Letter to wit that if we had more countenance of his Catholique Majesty then we have at this present the Empire should always remain in the hands of Catholiques and so according to reason in our House to whose advancement the Duke of Bavaria will willingly concur in recognition of such a benefit being promoted by an Emperour of that House to so eminent and high a dignity as in our letters Vienna Octob. 15. 1621. King James to Ferdinand the Emperour concerning the Palatinate Novemb. 12. 1621. IAmes by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. wisheth health and constant peace unto the most mighty and invincible Prince Ferdinando by the same grace elected Roman Emperour King of Germany Hungary and Bohemia Archduke of Austria c. our loving friend and cousin Most mighty and invincible Prince Brother Cousin and speciall loving Friend It is not unknown unto the whole world much less to your Imperiall Majesty how earnestly we have hitherto sought and endeavoured as well by the diligence of our Ambassadors whom we have sent as by the intercession of the chief German Princes the appeasing of those Bohemian wars ever since they first began and with what ardent zeal and affection we have so much hunted after the desire of peace Let it not therefore seem strange unto any man that we take it ill that all the very time when we were to the uttermost of our power treating of peace and giving our best furtherance for the overture of wholsome means to effect it even then notwithstanding we found clean contrary effects to ensue thereupon whereat we much marvelled seeing the Treaty was in hand and already begun on all sides as namely among the rest that our son-in-law was wholly despoiled and robbed of his hereditary patrimony that remained unto him excepting the lower Palatinate which was all by commandment of your Imperiall Majesty taken and possessed by the Duke of Bavaria according as himself confessed with strong hand and force of Arms and that for such reasons as are meerly new and such as the like were never hitherto once heard of That notwithstanding it plainly appeareth by the answer given unto our Ambassador that your Imperial Majesty had caused the suspension of that Ban or
with France The second for entertaining your Majesty with fair hopes and promises thereby to keep you from declaring your self opposite unto them in the present business of Juliers and Cleves which remaineth still uncompounded But this being so your Majesty may be pleased to understand that they serve themselves with this occasion not that there could be any such thing primarily in their intention for that the expression of their desire to the match was the last year long before these differences happened Further the Duke of Lerma should be the most fals and dishonorable man living without Christianity or soul if he should voluntarily damn himself with oathes and protestations of a thing that he sincerely meant not and truly he should deal contrarily to the wisdom of his other proceedings wherein he layeth all occasions of distaste or discourtesie upon other inferior Ministers labouring still to clear himself of the imputation of them if in this he should make himself the author and instrument of so unjust and indirect proceeding between Princes But the course of most security and caution is that your Majesty suffer none of your other resolutions to be interrupted by this overture onely if your Majesty be pleased for a while to entertain and suspend the conclusion of the match with France I conceive it can be little to your Majesties disadvantage It lastly now remaineth that I become an humble suiter unto your Majesty for your clear and full directions in this business desiring if your Majesty will have it further entertained that I may have ample instructions from your Majesty both that I may intimate what may be expected in point of Dowry and in all other things to be required by your Majesty as likewise how far I may proceed in satisfying in point of Religion For it is not to be supposed that they wil proceed with that freeness and directness which is to be wished unless in a fitting measure they shall see me likewise able and willing to declare my self in such points wherein they may expect satisfaction I intend not hereby to move for a formall Commission to treat but onely a private instruction for my direction and warrant how to behave my self as may be most advantagious to the cause and your Majesties ends So humbly desiring your Majesty to command this Bearer to be dispatched back with all convenient speed I commend your Majesty to the holy protection of God Your Majesties faithfull subject and servant BRISTOL Abignoto to Conde Gondomar concerning the death of Philip the third VPon the last day of February being Sunday 1620. his Catholique Majesty after he had heard Mass and the Sermon in the Chappel was taken with a Feaver which continued with him eight dayes with a ruddiness and pimples which appeared plainly in his face which afterwards began to diminish but he was suddenly taken with a vomiting and a great feaver which continued with him till the 21. day and the Physitians were of opinion to have him rise out of his bed which was accordingly done both that day and the next but about dinner-time happened unto him a great swouning which much astonisht him and the 23. day in the night his feaver did redouble upon him with a vomiting and a flux in the belly and a great melancholy and an opinion that he should die which feaver continued with divers reduplications the Physitians having an ill opinion of him till on Saturday night the 27. when his reduplications were more violent his water bad and the King persevered in saying how he saw well that he should die he commanded that the Image of our Lady of Antiochia should be carried about which was performed on Sunday the 28. in a solemn Procession wherein the Councellors of Spain assisted In the evening commandment was given to the Churches that the blessed Sacrament should be set upon the Altar and the body of S. Isidore should be placed in the Court. On Munday the 29. about four of the clock in the evening his disease then grew violent and some ulcers appeared on his belly on his reins and on his thighs and the King still assuring himself that he should die the Physitians then feeling his pulse affirmed that undoubtedly they assented unto the King in the opinion he conceived of his infirmity At the same time the President of Castile was sent for and the Confessor who having had some speech with the King and the Duke of Ossuna they went and fetcht the Councellors before whom and the Grandees of Spain who were present the King sealed his Testament which John de Serita Secretary of State had set down in writing in his presence Afterwards they caused him to eat somewhat and being advised how it would be good for him to sleep he made this answer in Spanish En jornada tan longa y tiempe tan bréve ne conviéue reposar Upon so long a journey and so short a time to perform it I must not rest Then he sent for the Prince and the young Child Don Carlo to whom having spoken for a good while at length in particular to the Prince he said aloud how he recommended unto him the Child and that he grieved that he should have been unprovided but he hoped he left him in the hands of a good loving brother Then said he to the Prince that he requested him that he would not do as he did at his coming to the Crown in removing his Fathers old Officers and Servants but that he would imploy those who were experienced in affairs of the Commonwealth he then commended unto him particularly John de Luenza Secretary of the Memorials and his Confessor and afterwards the Duke of Ossuna Then was presently brought in the Infanta Maria and the Infante-Cardinal He cryed out when he saw the Infanta and said Maria I am full sorry that I must die before I have married thee but this thy brother shall have care of He then turned towards her brother and said unto him Prince do not forsake her till you have made her an Empress Then he spake unto the Cardinal Infant whom he appointed to be a Priest so soon as he should come to be of fit age and said that he should be much grieved if he thought he would not undertake this profession He had sent for Madam the Princess but she swouned upon her entry at the chamber-door which was the cause that she was conducted back again unto her own chamber fearing lest it might be prejudicial unto her being great with child Which being reported to the King he shewed great compassion thereat and said that he ever constantly believed that Madam the Princess loved him as well as any of his own children After that he began to speak of the Queen saying how she should lose a good Husband and that he had always loved her dearly Afterwards he distributed between the Prince and the Infanta the Reliques and other memorials he had except one Crucifix which hung at the
testern of the bed and said unto the Prince that he could not give it him then because it was the same with which his Grandfather and Father had dyed but he commended it to him to be held with great reverence after his death and that the Popes had given unto it special Indulgences Afterwards giving them all his blessing he caused them to go forth and so calling for the blessed Sacrament which was administred unto him about midnight he received the Extreme unction at two of the clock in the morning and so commended himself unto God Yet did he not for all this forbear to seal to a great number of papers which were brought him And complaining very much he refused such meat as they would have had him take About noon the Body of St. Isidore was placed neer unto his bed his Confessor and Father Florence perswading him to make a vow for his health and that he would build a Chappel to the same Saint which he did but withall said Peró ya es tárde But now it is very late He continued all the rest of the day speaking continually to the Father Confessor Father Florence and Rochas Many processions of penance were solemnized in the Town and the Councel assembled twice About the evening his infirmity renewed with violence and having languished the whole night in the morning his departure was published though indeed it was not till about nine of the clock in the morning the last of March the self same day of our return Which will inform you of all things passed at least of such as came any ways to our knowledge The Queen stir'd not out of her bed all that day for fear lest either trouble or grief of mind whereof she gave plentiful testimony by her tears might prejudice her health or the fruit of her body which she hath passed over thanks be to God whereof we send you word that the good news may shut up the discourse of an accident so lamentable and unlooked for King James to the Earl of Bristoll Ambassador in Spain Octob. 3. 1622. Right trusty and right well beloved Cousin and Councellor we greet you well THere is none knowes better then your self how we have laboured ever since the beginning of these infortunate troubles of the Empire notwithstanding all opposition to the contrary to merit well of our good brother the King of Spain and the whole House of Austria by a long and lingring patience grounded still upon his friendship and promises That care should be had of our honour and of our Childrens patrimony and inheritance We have acquainted you also from time to time since the beginning of the Treaty at Bruxels how crossly things have there proceeded notwithstanding the fair professions made unto us both by the King of Spain the Infanta all his Ministers and the Letters written by him unto the Emperor and them effectually at the least as they endeavoured to make us believe but what fruits have we of all these other then dishonour and scorn Whilst we are treating the Town and Castle of Heidilbergh taken by force our Garrison put to the sword Manheim besieged and all the hostility used that is within the power of an Enemy as you will see by the relation which we have commanded our Secretary to send you Our pleasure therefore is That you shall immediatly as soon as you can get audience let the King understand how sensible we are of those proceedings of the Emperour towards us and withall are not a little troubled to see that the Infanta having an absolute commission to conclude a suspension and cessation of Arms should now at last when all objections were answered and the former solely pretended obstacles remained not onely delay the conclusion of the Treaty but refuse to lay her command upon the Emperours Generals for abstaining from the siege of our Garrisons during the Treaty upon pretext of want of authority So as for avoyding of further dishonor we have been enforced to recall both our Ambassadors as well the Chancellor of the Exchequer who is already returned to our presence as also the Lord Chichester whom we intended to have sent unto the Emperour to the Dyet at Ratisbone Seeing therefore that out of our extraordinary respect meerly to the King of Spain and the firm confidence we ever put in the hopes and promises which he did give us desiring nothing more then for his cause principally to avoid all occasions that might put us into ill understanding with any of the House of Austria We have hitherto proceeded with a stedfast patience trusting to the treaties and neglecting all other means which might probably have secured the remainder of our childrens inheritance Those Garrisons which we maintained in the Palatinate being rather for honor sake to keep a footing untill the generall accommodation then that we did rely so much upon their strength as upon his friendship and by the confidence security of ours are thus exposed to dishonor reproach you shal tell that King that seeing all those endeavours and good offices which he hath used towards the Emperour in this business on the behalf of our son-in-law upon confidence whereof that our security depended which he continually by his Letters and Ministers here laboured to beget and confirm in us have not sorted to any other issue then to a plain abuse both of his trust and ours whereby we are both of us highly injured in our honour though in a different degree we hope desire that out of a true sense of this wrong offered unto us he will as our deer and loving brother faithfully promise and undertake upon his honor confirming the same also under his hand and seal either that the Castle and Town of Heidelbergh shall within threescore and ten dayes after this your audience and demand made be rendred into our hands with all things therein belonging to our son-in-law or our daughter as neer as maybe in the state wheirn they were taken and the like for Manheim and Frankindale if both or eithe of them shall be taken by the enemy whilst these things are in treating as also that there shall be within the said term of threescore and ten days a cessation or suspension of Arms in the Palatinate for the future upon the severall Articles and Conditions last propounded by our Ambassador Sir Richard Weston and that the generall treaty shall be set on foot again upon such honorable terms and conditions as were propounded unto the Emperour in a letter written unto him in November last and with which the King of Spain then as we understand seemed satisfied or else in case all these particulars be not yeilded unto and performed by the Emperour as is here propounded but be refused or delayed beyond the time afore mentioned that then the King of Spain do joyn his forces with ours for the recovery of our childrens honors and patrimony which upon this trust hath been thus lost Or if
profitable order Secondly that every Bishop ordain in his Diocess that every Lecturer do read Divine Service according to the Liturgy printed by authority in his Surplice and Hood before the Lecture Thirdly That where a Lecture is set up in a Market Town it may be read by a company of grave and Orthodox Divines neer adjoyning and in the same Diocess and that they preach in Gowns not in Cloaks as too many use to do Fourthly That if a Corporation do maintain a single Lecturer he be not suffered to preach till he professe his willingnesse to take upon him a living with cure of souls within that Incorporation and that he actually take such Benefice or Cure so soon as it shall be fairly procured for him Fifthly That the Bishops do countenance and encourage the grave Orthodox Divines of their Clergy and that they use means by some of the Clergy or others that they may have knowledge how both Lecturers and Preachers within their Diocess do behave themselves in their Sermons that so they may take order for any abuse accordingly Sixthly That the Bishops suffer none under Noblemen or men qualified by Law to have any private Chaplain in his house Seventhly That they take speciall care that Divine Service be diligently frequented as well for Prayers and Catechismes as for Sermons and take particular note of all such as absent themselves as Recusants or others Eighthly That every Bishop that by our grace and favour and good opinion of his service shall be nominated by us to another Bishoprick shall from that day of nomination not presume to make any Lease for three lives or one and twenty years or concurrent Lease or any way renew any estate or cut any Wood or Timber but meerly receive his Rents due and to quit the place For we think it an hatefull thing that any man leaving the Bishoprick should almost undo his Successor And if any man shall presume to break this Order We will refuse him Our Royall assent and keep him at the place he hath so abused Ninthly and lastly We command you to give us an account every year the second of January of the performance of these our commands Subscribed at Dorchester I. R. Bishop of Winchester to his Archdeacon to the same effect SAlutem iu Christo I have received Letters from the most Reverend Father in God the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury the tenor whereof foloweth Right reverend Father in God my very good Lord and brother I have received from the Kings most excellent Majesty a Letter the tenor whereof here ensueth Most reverend Father in God right trusty and right entirely beloved Councellor we greet you well For as much as the abuses and extravagancies of Preachers in the Pulpit have been c. According to the tenor of these Letters you are to see that these limitations and cautions herewith sent unto you be duly and strictly from henceforth observed and put in practice and that several Copies of those Directions be speedily communicated to every one of those whom they shall concern and that you may imploy your uttermost endeavors in the performance of so important a business considering that his Majesty will have a special eye over you and me and expect a strict accompt at both our hands whereof praying you to have all possible care I commend your endeavours therein to the blessing of God Your very loving friend Lan. Winton From Farnham Aug. 15. 1622. The Bishop of Lincoln L. Keeper to the Bishop of London concerning Preaching and Catechising My very good Lord I Doubt not before this time you have received from me the directions of his most excellent Majesty concerning Preaching and Preachers which are so graciously set down that no godly or discreet man can otherwise then acknowledge that they do much tend to edification if he take them not up upon report but do punctually consider the tenor of the words as they lie and doth not give an ill construction to that which may receive a fair interpretation Notwithstanding because some few Church-men and many of the people have sinisterly conceived as we here find that those Instructions do tend to the restraint of the exercise of Preaching and do in some sort abate the number of Sermons and so consequently by degrees do make a breach to ignorance and superstition his Majesty in his Princely wisdom hath thought fit that I should advertise your Lordship of the grave and weighty reasons which induced his Highness to prescribe that which was done You are therefore to know that his Majesty being much troubled and grieved at the heart to hear every day of so many defections from our Religion both to Popery and Anabaptism or other points of Separation in some parts of this Kingdom and considering with much admiration what might be the cause thereof especially in the reign of such a King who doth so constantly profess himself an open adversary to the superstition of the one and madness of the other his Princely wisdom could fall upon no one greater probability then the lightness affectedness and unprofitableness of that kind of Preaching which hath been of late years too much taken up in Court University City and Country The usuall scope of very many Preachers is noted to be soaring up in points of Divinity too deep for the capacity of the people or mustering up of so much reading or a displaying of their own wit or an ignorant medling with Civill matters as well in the private severall Parishes and Corporations as in the publique of the Kingdom or a venting of their own distastes or a smoothing up those idle fancies which when the Text shall occasion the same is not onely approved but much commended by his Royall Majesty both against the persons of Papists and Puritans Now the people bred up with this kind of teaching and never instructed in the Catechism and fundamentall grounds of Religion are for all this airy nourishment no better then a brass Tabret new Table-books to be filled up either with Manuals and Catechismes of the Popish Priests or the papers and pamphlets of Anabaptists Brownists and Puritans His Majesty therefore calling to mind the saying of Tertullian Id verum quod primum and remembring with what doctrine the Church of England in her first and most happy Reformation did drive out the one and keep out the other from poysoning and infecting the people of this Kingdom doth find that the whole scope of this doctrine is contained in the Articles of Religion the two books of Homilies the lesser and the greater Catechism which his Majesty doth therefore recommend again in these Directions as the theams and proper subjects of all sound and edifying preaching And so far are these Directions from abridging that his Majesty doth expect at our hands that it should increase the number of Sermons by renewing every Sunday in the afternoon in all Parish-Churches throughout the Kingdom that primitive and most profitable exposition of the
Contempts of sacred persons And having also observed that this so long continence of ours at so manifold injuries hath served to no other purpose but to make our enemies more audacious and insolent and that the compassion we have had of France hath drawn on the ruine of those whom God had put under the obedience of their Majesties For these considerations according to the power which we have received from his Imperiall Majestie we have commanded our Armies to enter into France with no other purpose then to oblige the King of France to come to a good secure Peace for removing those impediments which may hinder this so great a good And for as much as it principally concerneth France to give end to these disorders we are willing to believe that all the Estates of that Kingdome will contribute not only their remonstrances but also if need be their forces to dispose their King to Chastise those who have been the Authors of all these Warrs which these seven or eight years past have beene in Christendome and who after they have provoked and assayled all their neighbours have brought upon France all those evils which she doth now suffer and draw on her those other which do now threaten her And although we are well informed of the weaknesse and devisions into which these great disorders and evil counsels have cast her yet we declare that the intentions of their Mastjesties are not to serve themselves of this occasion to ruine her or to draw from thence any other profit then by that means to work a Peace in Christendom which may be stable and permanent For these reasons and withal to shew what Estimation their Majesties do make of the prayers of the Queene Mother of the most Christian King wee doe give to understand that we wil protect and treat as friends all those of the French Nation who either joyntly or severally shall second these our good designes and have given Order that Neutrality shal be held with those of the Nobility and with the Townes which shal desire it and which shal refuse to assist those who shal oppose the good of Christendome and their own safety against whom shall be used all manner of hostility without giving quarter to their persons or sparing either their houses or goods And our further wil is that all men take notice that it is the resolution of their Majesties not to lay down Arms til the Queene Mother of the most Christian King be satisfied and contented til the Princes unjustly driven out of their estates be restored til they see the assurances of peace more certain then to be disturbed by him who hath violated the treaties of Ratisbone others made before and sithence he hath had the managing of the affairs of France Neither do we pretend to draw any other advantage from the good successe which it shal please God to give unto our just prosecutions then to preserve augment the Catholick Religion to pacifie Europe to relieve the oppressed and to restore to every one that which of right belongeth unto him Given at Ments the fifth of July 1636. FINIS An Alphabeticall Table of the most Remarkable Things A AGnus Dei 38 Alchimie 75 Alchoran false because not to be disputed 194 Alfons d'Este turns Capuchin 243 Ancre Marquesse would get the Dutchy of Alanson and Constables Office into his hands in arere to the Crown of France for 80000 pounds 195 Anderson Edmund 73 Anne of Bullen Queen of England sues to King Henry that her enemies may not be her accusers and Judges protests her innocence declares the cause of the Kings change begs the lives of her brother and the other Gentlemen 9 10 Archbishop of Dublin affronted by the Friars 241 Ashton Sir Walter 130 132 138 139 Austria House 114 B. Bacon Sir Nicholas Lord Keeper 69. Antony Francis friends to the Earl of Essex 32. Francis after Lord Verulam Viscount St. Alban his discourses to the Earl concerning Ireland 42 43 c. concerning Tyrone 44. his huge opinion of the Earl of Essex 45 46 47. against the Subsidie in Parliament how 54 68. makes wayes to get into King James his favour 56 58. expostulates with and advises Sir Edward Cook 60 61. expostulates with Sir Vincent Skinner 66. would be Sollicitor 68 69 71. his good services to the Crown 72 See Bodley Sir Thomas Balsac impudently abuseth King James and Qu. Elizabeth 198 199. flatters the French King grosly 200 201 Barbarians of old placed justice and felicity in the sharpnesse of their swords 47 Bavaria Duke linked with the House of Austria 135. designed Elector of Rhine 113. seiseth part of the Palatinate 131 Bevayr Chancellour of France discharged complains to the King of the Government 193 194 195 196. Commanded to discharge an account for 80000 li. 195. has no other fault but that he is an honest man 196 Bishops in what manner parts of the Common-wealth 5. submitted to Kings 6. chief against the Mass 233. too remiss 185 Bodeley Sir Thomas against Sir Francis Bacons new Philosophie 74 75 76. For setled opinions and Theoremes 76 77 78 Bouillon Duke 37 198 Bristol Earl See Digby Lord. Brograve Atturney of the Dutchy 69 Broke George 79 80 Brunswic Christian Duke 148 Buckingham Duke chosen Chancellor of Cambridg 213. unkindness between him and Bristol 151. and Olivarez ibid. murthered 220. See Charles King Burleigh Lord for Kings and against usurpation 136 C Caecil Sir Robert after Earl of Salisbury in France 36. a friend to Sir Francis Bacon 69 70 Caesar d' Este Du. of Modena 243 Calvinists dangerous 112 Cambridg differences betwixt the Town and Vniversity 223 Car Earl of Somerset 86 Carlo Don Infant of Spain 126 Carlo Alessandro of Modena 243 Carlton Sir Dudley Embassadour in the Low Countries 145 Caron Sir Noel Embassadour in England from the Low Countries 92 93 Cassal S. Vas beleaguered by the Spaniard 239 Causes of conscience growing to be faction 38 Charles King of great Brittain ingagement of his person in Spain cause why things were not carryed on to the height 151 See Gregory Pope His piety and care toward the Hugonots of France 206. acknowledged by them after the losse of Rochel 208 209. his opinion of the Duke of Buckingham 214 215. A great lover of the Vniversity of Cambridg 220 223. will rule according to the Laws wil give the Judges leave to deliver and bail prisoners according to Magna Charta and the Statutes 231. forbids hearing of Mass 232. careful to root out Papistry in Ireland 242. commands the house in Dublin to be pulled down where the Friars appeared in their habits 241 Charles the Fifth 145 Church Orders by K. James 193 of England its service damnable by the Popes decree 40 Clergy where punished 6 Cleves and Juliers pretended to 123 124 Clifford Sir Coniers 42 Coeur Marquess 240 Coke Sir Edward disgraces Sir Francis Bacon 60. described 62 63 Colledg of Dublin 52 Colomma Don
it so much importeth your Lordship to know in what terms you stand I could not conceal it from you being agreeable to those reports your Lordship hath already heard saving that his Grace told me he doth not seek your ruine as some others had related but onely will hereafter cease to study your fortune as formerly he hath done and withal added the reason that your Lordship hath run a course opposite to him which though he had cause to take ill at your hands yet he could have passed it over if it had been out of conscience or affection to his Majesties service or the Publique good but being both dangerous to your countrie and prejudicial to the cause of religion which your Lordship above all other men should have laboured to uphold he thought he could not with reason continue that strictnesse of friendship where your Lordship had made such a separation especially having divers times out of his love to you assayd to bring you into the right way which once you promised to follow but the two last times you met in Councel he found that you took your kue just as other men did and joyned with them in their opinions whose aim was to tax his proceedings in the managing of the Princes businesse But instead of laying it upon him they did no lesse then throw dirt in the Princes teeth For either they would make him a minor or put the refusal of the Ladie upon his Highnesse and to lay an aspersion upon his carriage there His Lordships Conclusion with me was that for any carriage of his he desireth no other favour but that the greatest Councel in England may be judge of it and the like he wisheth for other mens actions Yet I did what I could to perswade his Grace to expostulate the matter with your Lordship which he told me he would no more do having done it already but found no other satifaction but that by your practise you rejected what he had said and besides divulged what had passed between you as he evidently perceived meeting with it among others Whereby you gained onely thus much that they esteemed of you as of a man fit by reason of your passion to set all on fire but held you not worthy of trust because you that would not be true to him would never be so to them My Lord this is a part I would never have chosen but being imposed by your Lordship I could do you no better service then faithfully and plainely to discharge it leaving the use to your Lordships wisedom and ever resting Your Lordships most humbly at command J. P. The Lord Keeper to the Duke 2. Feburary 1623. May it please your Grace NOt presuming to write unto your Grace being so offended at me but resolved with sorrow and Patience to try what I was able to suffer without the least thought of opposition against your absolute pleasure his Hignesse hath encouraged and commanded the contrary assuring me which I cannot repeat again without teares that upon his credit your Grace neither did nor doth conceive any such real distast against me but did onely suspect I had conceived his Highnesses mind in that full manner which his Highnesse himself is now fully satisfied I did not In the which errour and mistake of the Prince his resolution for want of conference with your Grace or some other I did as I freely confessed offend his Highnesse but not your Grace at all Being ever resolved to stand or fall though diversified in opinion Your Graces most faithful and constant servant I humbly therefore beseech your Grace first to receive back this enclosed Letter of Mr. Packers and to burn the same then to receive my soule in gage and pawn 1. That I never harboured in this breast one thought of opposition to hurt your Grace from the first hour I saw your face 2. I never consulted much lesse practised with any Lord of that Commitee to vote on the one or the other side 3. I do not know that Lord in England that hath any design against your Grace and when I shall know any such whosoever it be I shall be his enemy as long as he continueth so unto your Grace 4. I do not know nor do I believe but that your Grace stands as firm in his Majesties favour and in his Highnesse as ever you did in all your life 5. I never made the least shew of siding with any opposite Lord unto your Grace and I defie any man that shall avow it 6. I never divulged your Graces or the secrets of any man In the next place I do most humbly and heartily crave your Graces pardon for suspecting that is the utmost of my offence so true real and Noble a friend Yet that I may not appear a very beast give me leave once to remember and ever after to forget the motives which drew me so to do And I will do it in the same order they came into my head 1. Your Graces charge upon me at York house that I was a man odious to all the world 2. Michels Voluntary Confession that my Lord Mandevil shewed him a Letter from Spain avowing that the first action your Grace would imbarque your self in should be to remove me out of this place which the least word of your mouth unto me is able to do 3. A report of the Venetian Embassador that amongst others your Grace intended to sacrifice me this Parliament to appease the dislike of immunities exercised towards the Catholiques 4. Your Graces motion unto my self concerning my place which now I absolutely know proceeded out of love at White-hall 5. A most wicked lie that one told he heard your Grace move his Highnesse to speake unto me to quit my place after your Graces professions of friendship to me 6. Mr. Secretarie Conwaies and my Lord Carlile's estrangednesse from me which I suspected could not be for I ever loved them both but true copies of your Graces displeasure I have opened to my truest friend all my former thoughts and being fully satisfyed by his Highnesse how false they are in every particular do humbly crave your Graces pardon that I gave a nights lodging to any of them all Although they never transported me a jott further then to look about how to defend my self being resolved as God shall be my protector to suffer all the obloquie of the world before I would be drawn to the least ingratitude against your Grace All that I beg is an assurance of your Graces former Love and I will plainely professe what I do not in the least beg or desire from your Grace 1. No Patronage of any corrupt or unjust act which shall be objected against me this Parliament 2. No defence of me if it shall appear I betrayed my King or my Religion in favour of the Papist or did them any real respect at all besides ordinary complements 3. No refuge in any of my causes or clamours against me which upon a
false supposal of your Graces displeasure may be many otherwise then according to justice and fair proceeding And let this paper bear record against me at the great Parliament of all if I be not in my heart and soul your Graces most faithful and constant poor friend and Servant His Highnesse desires your Grace to move his Majestie to accept of my Lord Sayes commission and to procure me leave to send for him Also to move his Majestie that my Lord of Hartford may be in the house accepting his fathers place and making his protestation to sue for his Grandfathers according to his Majesties Lawes when the King shall give him leave His Highnesse and my Lords do hold this a modest and submissive Petition His Highnesse upon very deep reasons doubts whether it be safe to put all upon the Parliament for fear they should fall to examine particular Dispatches wherein they cannot but find many Contradictions And would have the proposition onely to ayd for the recovery of the Palatinate To draw on an engagement I propound it might be to advise his Majestie how this recovery shall be effected by reconquering the same or by a War of diversion This will draw on a breach with Spain without ripping up of private dispatches His Highnesse seemed to like well hereof and commanded me to acquaint your Grace therewith and to receive your opinion I humbly crave again two lines of assurance that I am in your Grace's opinion as I will ever be indeed c. The Heads of that Discourse which fell from Don Francisco 7. Die Aprilis 1624. at 11. of the clock at night This Relation was sent by the Lord Keeper to the Duke HOw he came to procure his accesses to the King The Marquesse putting Don Carlos upon the Prince and Duke in a discourse thrust a Letter into the Kings hand which he desired the King to read in private The King said he would thrust it into his pocket and went on with his discourse as if he had received none The effect was to procure private accesse for Don Francisco to come and speak with the King which his Majestie appointed by my Lord of Kelley and he by his secresie who designed for Don Francisco time and place At his first accesse he told the King That his Majestie was a prisoner or at leastwise besieged so as no man could be admitted to come at him And then made a complaint against the Duke that he aggravated and pretended accusations against Spain whereas its onely offence was that they refused to give unto him equal honour and observance as they did unto his Highnesse And that this was the only cause of his hatred against them At the last accesse which was some 4. dayes ago he made a long invective and remonstrance unto the King which he had put into writing in Spanish which he read unto me corrected with the hand of Don Carlos which I do know It was somewhat general and very rhetorical if not tragical for the stile The heads of what I read were these viz. 1. That the King was no more a freeman at this time then King John of France when he was prisoner in England or King Francis when he was at Madrid Being besieged and closed up with the servants and vassals of Buckingham 2. That the Embassadours knew very well and were informed 4. moneths ago that his Majestie was to be restrained and confined to his Country house and pastimes and the Government of the State to be assumed and disposed of by others and that this was not concealed by Buckinghams followers 3. That the Duke had reconciled himself to all the popular men of the State and drawn them forth out of prisons restraints and confinements to alter the Government of the State at this Parliament as Oxford South-hampton Say and others whom he met at Suppers and Ordinaries to strengthen his popularity 4. That the Duke to breed an opinion of his own greatnesse and to make the King grow lesse hath oftentimes brag'd openly in Parliament that he had made the King yield to this and that which was pleasure unto them And that he mentioned openly before the Houses his Majesties private oath which the Embassadors have never spoken of to any creature to this hour 5. That these Kingdomes are not now governed by a Monarch but by a Triumviri whereof Buckingham was the first and chiefest the Prince the second and the King the last and that all look towards Solem Orientem 6. That his Majestie should shew himself to be as he was reputed the oldest and wisest King in Europe by freeing himself from this Captivity and eminent danger wherein he was by cutting off so dangerous and ungrateful an affecter of greatnesse and popularity as the Duke was 7. That he desired his Majestie to conceal this his free dealing with him because it might breed him much peril and danger And yet if it were any way available for his service to reveal it to whom he pleased because he was ready to sacrifice his life to do him acceptable service And this was the effect of so much of the penned speech as I remember was read unto me out of the Spanish Copy His Majestie was much troubled in the time of this speech His Offer to the King for the restitution of the Palatinate TO have a Treaty for three moneths for the restitution and that money was now given in Spain to satisfie Bavaria That in the mean time because the people were so distrustful of the Spaniard the King might fortifie himself at home and assist the Hollanders with men or money at his pleasure And the King of Spain should not be offended therewith His opinion of our preparing of this Navie IT was a design of the Duke to go to the Ports of Sevil and there to burn all the Ships in the Harbour which he laught at Speeches which he said fell from his Majestie concerning the Prince 1. THat when he told the King that his greatnesse with the Duke was such as might hinder his Majestie from taking a course to represse him His Majestie replyed He doubted nothing of the Prince or his own power to sever them two when he pleased 2. His Majestie said That when his Highnesse went to Spain he was as well affected to that Nation as heart could desire and as well disposed as any son in Europe but now he was strangely carried away with rash and youthful Councels and followed the humour of Buckingham who had he knew not how many Devils within him since that journey Concerning the Duke 1. THat he could not believe yet that he affected popularity to his disadvantage Because he had tryed him of purpose and commanded him to make disaffecting motions to the houses which he performed whereby his Majestie concluded he was not popular 2. That he desired Don Francisco and the Embassadours and renewed this request unto them by Padre Maestro two dayes ago to get him any ground to
I am Your Lordships Most devoted and most humble servant Kensington Postscript IF the French Embassadour or my Lord of Carlile wonders I have not written unto them I beseech your Lordship let them know this Messenger is not of my sending and in such haste as he cannot be stayed The Lord Kensington to the Prince May it please your Highnesse I Cannot but make you continual repetitions of the value you have here to be as justly we know you the most Compleat young Prince and person in the world This reputation hath begotten in the sweet Princesse Madam so infinite an affection to your fame as she could not contain her self from a passionate desiring to see your Picture the shadow of that person so honoured and knowing not by what means to compasse it it being worn about my neck for though others as the Queen and Princesses would open it and consider it the which ever brought forth admiration from them yet durst not this poor young Ladie look any otherwise on it then afar off whose heart was nearer it then any of the others that did most gaze upon it But at the last rather then want that sight the which she was so impatient of she desired the Gentlewoman of the house where I am lodged that had been her servant to borrow of me the picture in all the secresie that may be and to bring it unto her saying She could not want that Curiositie as well as others towards a person of his infinite reputation As soon as she saw the party that brought it she retired into her Cabinet calling onely her in where she opened the picture in such haste as shewed a true picture of her passion blushing in the instant at her own guiltinesse She kept it an hour in her hands and when she returned it she gave with it many praises of your person Sir this is a businesse so fit for your secresie as I know it shall never go farther then unto the King your Father my Lord Duke of Buckingham and my Lord of Carliles knowledge A tendernesse in this is honourable for I would rather die a thousand times then it should be published since I am by this young Lady trusted that is for beautie and goodnesse an Angel I have received from my Lord of Buckingham an advertisement that your Highnesse opinion is to treat of the General league first that will prepare the other Sir whatsoever shall be propounded will have a noble acceptation though this give me leave to tell you when you are free as by the next newes we shall know you to be they will expect that upon those declarations they have here already made towards that particularitie of the Alliance that your Highnesse will go that readier and nearer way to unite and fasten by that knot the affection of these Kingdomes Sir for the general they all here speak just that language that I should and do unto them of the power and usurpation of the Spaniards of the approaches they make to this Kingdom the danger of the Low-Countries the direct Conquest of Germany and the Valtoline By which means we have cause to joyn in opposition of the Ambitions and mightinesse of this King The which they all here say cannot be so certainly done as by an Alliance with us This they speak perpetuallie and urge it unto my consideration Sir unlesse we proceed very roundly though they be never so well affected we may have interruptions by the arts of Spain that make offers infinite to the advantage of this State at this time But they hearken to none of them untill they see our intentions towards them The which if they find to be real indeed they will give us brave satisfaction But Sir your Fathers and your will not my opinion must be followed and what Commandments your Highnesse shall give me shall be most strictly obeyed by the most devoted Your Highnesse Most dutiful and humblest servant Kensington The Lord Kensington to the Duke the 14. of March 1624. My Lord I Have already acquainted your Grace how generally our desires are met with here much more cannot be said then I have already for that purpose There was never known in this Kingdome so intire an agreement for any thing as for an Alliance with England the Count of Soysons onely excepted who hath had some pretensions unto Madam but those are now much discouraged upon a free discourse the Cardinal of Rochfalcout made unto the Countesse his Mother telling her That if she or her son believed or could expect the King would give him his sister in marriage they would as he conceived deceive themselves for he imagined upon good grounds that the King would bestow his Sister that way that might be most for her honour and advancement and likewise for the advantage of his Crown and Kingdom and he professed for his part although he much honoured the Count as a great Prince of the bloud yet was he so faithful unto his Master as he would advise him to that purpose The Queen Mother and Mounsieur Le Grand have advised me to say something unto the King concerning my businesse I told them I could say nothing very directly unto him and yet would I not so much as deliver my opinion of the King my Masters inclinations to wish an alliance with him unlesse I were assured his answers might make me see his value and respect unto him They then spake unto him and assured me I should in that be satisfied Having that promise from them I told the King that I had made this journey of purpose to declare unto him my humble service and thankfulnesse for all his Honours and favours the which I thought I could not better expresse then by informing his Majestie that our Prince whom he had ever so much valued would be as I conceived free and dis-ingaged from our Spanish Treatie by reason that the King could not find them answer his expectation in those things that made him principally desire their Conjunction the which your Lordship seeing you have exercised your interest and credit with the King your Master and the Prince to convert those thoughts towards his Majestie from whom you were perswaded nothing but truth and honour would be returned the which at this time more then ever would be an infinite advantage to both these Kingdoms and that I believed if his Majestie would shew a disposition as affectionate to receive Propositions to this purpose as the King my Master had to make them a long time would not passe before the effects of this might appear the which would shew the report raised here of the ends of my coming to be false and me to be free of all other designs then those which I had expressed unto him He told me that he had not heard that the Spanish Match was yet broken the which justly might give him cause to be reserved yet thus far he would assure me in the general That whatsoever should be
propounded unto him from the King of Great Brittain he would most heartily and affectionately receive it but this was with such a fashion of Courtesie as shewed that he desired cause to have said more and I am fully satisfied not onely from him but the Queens and most of all of Madam her self who shewes all the sweetnesse and contentment that may be and likewise from all the Officers of the Crown and State that they can desire nothing equal with this alliance A better and more large preparation then this my instructions cannot make and I wonder to see it thus fair considering the hinderances and defacings the Spanish Embassadour desires to cast upon it who besides the Rodomontado's and threatenings of the preparations of his Master doth here take a contrary but cunning way letting them know that the Prince cannot have two Wives for their Infanta is surely his onely to create a jealousie and shienesse in them towards me that he suspects labours to do offices that are not to his liking You will therefore I hope speedily put this State out of these doubts and clearly and freely proceed with them Upon my credit and reputation they are all of that disposition that we can wish them to be and it appears by their tender care of the States and their resolution to ayd them And likewise in sending Captain Coborn that came from the Duke of Brunswick to demand a supplie of men who is returned with answer unto him that he shall have double what he required and great satisfaction to the Count Mansfelt that sent a Gentleman hither to let the King know he was not yet in such disorder but that he could assemble his Troops to such a number as might do his Majestie good service if he would be pleased to take him into his protection and favour And the King hath sent a Gentleman of the Religion a Sedanois to Leige to give information to this State of the proceedings of the Spaniards there and to be ready to receive if the Town shall seek it the protection of them But these passages I am sure you continually understand from our Embassadour the which makes me omit many particularities in this kind that I could inform you of I have sent this Bearer of purpose the which I beseech your Grace return with some speed and with him the resolutions of our dear and Sacred Master whom God ever blesse and keep to our glorie and comfort My Lord I am The humblest and most obliged of all your Graces servants Kensington The Lord Kensington to the Secretary the Lord Conway Right Honourable ACcording to his Majesties order which your last of April the 14. derived unto me I have represented such reasons to the King and his ministers of State here against the sending of any person in what quality soever to the Duke of Baviers as they acquiesce in them speciallie for that they come commanded under his Majesties desire which they professe to be very willing to comply with not only in this but in any other occasion wherein his Majestie may directly or indirectly be any way interessed I took the same opportunity of preparing the way a little farther to a formal treaty of alliance by feeling once again their pulse in matters of religion and find that it beats so temperately as promises a very good Crisis of any thing that may concern that particular I dealt plainely with the Marquesse de la Veiville touching the course that his Majestie may be driven to hold against Jesuites and Priests of banishing them the Kingdom and of quickning the lawes against the other Catholiques as well out of necessity of reducing them within the bounds of sobriety and obedience as of keeping good intelligence with his Parliament without which he could not possibly go thorough with such a weighty work as he is now to undertake He approved of the course for the ends sake under hope notwithstanding that his Majestie would not tie his own hands from some moderate favour hereafter which is all they pretend unto and desire it may flow from the mediation of this State upon an alliance here for the saving of their honour who otherwise will be hardly reputed Catholiques In representing a facility in these things I leave no other difficulties to be imagined Their good inclination to the match in general they are willing to demonstrate as by many other evidences so by the care they are now under of lodging and defraying my Lord of Carlile and my self in a more splendid and Magnifique manner then ever yet they did any Embassadour whatsoever for such is the language that Ville-aux Cleres holds to me upon that subject The Count of Soissons sees it and stormes and manifests his discontent towards me who am the instrument more fellie then discreetly I encountred him the other day and gave him the due that belonged to his rank but instead of returning me my salute he disdainfullie turned back his head I was somewhat sensible thereof and I told Mounsieur de Grandmont of it and as he and I were discoursing of it the day following Soissons offered himself full butt upon us a second time I again repeated my courtesie and he is childish in civility Grandmont found it strange and intimated to the Marquesse de la Valette a familiar and confident of the Counts both my observation and his own distaste of such an uncivil kind of proceeding Valette conveyes the same to Soissons himself who answered that he could not afford me a better countenance not for any ill will he bore unto my person but to my errand and negotiation which were it not in the behalf of so great a Prince went so near his heart as he professed he would cut my throat if he could Nay were any Prince of Savoy Mantova or Germany here in person to sollicit for themselves in the like nature he would hazard his life in the cause Such is the language that despaire brings forth which put me into an expectation of no lesse then a challenge to decide the quarrel And I once verily believed it sent for the Count de Lude came very soberly to me and told me he had a message to deliver me from a great Personage which he intreated he might do without offence I desired him to speak freely what it was and from whom He told me he was sent by the Count of Soissons and I presently replyed that nothing should come amisse from him In conclusion the errand was to signifie an extream liking that the Count took to one of my Horses which he was desirous to buy of me upon any rate I answered that if the Count would expresse to me his desire himself and receive him of guift he should be at his service otherwise he should remain still as he was Since that I have met him been prevented with a very courteous salute from him I have been thus ample in these particular passages betwixt the Count and