reason to fear the power of his enemies yet he trusted much upon the innocency of his own Cause and the Justice of the King and that he could not understand himself in any danger but were he sure to lose his head at his arrival there he would go to throw down himself at his Majesties feet and mercy and rather there die upon a Scaffold then be Duke of Infantada in Spain On the 16th of this moneth there was declared here in Councel a resolution of this King to make a journey to his frontier Towns in Andaluzia with an intention to begin his journey upon the 29. of this moneth Stil Vet. And as I am informed his Majestie will there entertain himself the greatest part of these three moneths following so that his return hither will not be until the beginning of May. My Lord of Bristol hath sent divers to the Conde for leave to dispeed himself of the King but in respect of his Majesties being at the Pardo he hath been hitherto delayed and hath yet no certain day appointed for it But I conceive it will be sometime this week The Cause of the delaying of his Lordships admittance to the King as I understand is that the same day that his Lordship shall declare his revocation to the King they will here in Councel declare the revocation of the Marquesse of Ynoisa Howsoever in respect of the Kings departure at which time they use here to embarge all the mules and means of carriage in this Town I believe his Lordship will not begin his journey so soon as he intended All the relations which are lately come out of England do wish them to entertain themselves herewith no farther hopes that there is any intention to proceed to the Match and this advice comes accompanied with such a report of the state of all things there that hath much irritated all these Ministers and let loose the tongues of the people against the proceedings of his Majestie and Highnesse I labour as much as I can and as far as my directions will give me latitude to give them better understandings of the real intentions of his Majestie and Highnesse but divers of them cleerly tell me That I professe one thing and the actions of his Majestie and Highnesse upon the which they must ground their belief are differing from it I shall therefore here in discharge of my duty advertize your Honour that they do here expect nothing but a War about which they have already held divers Councels and go seriously to work preparing themselves for what may happen Which I desire your Honour to advertize his Majestie being high time as far as I am able to judge that am here upon the place that his Majestie do either resolve upon some course for the allaying of these storms or that he go in hand with equal preparations Having observed in former times the strange rumours that have run in England upon small foundations I have thought it fit to prevent the credit which may be given to idle relations by advertizing your Honour that I cannot conceive how any great attempt can be made from hence this year howsoever businesses should go The Squadron of the Kings Fleet under the Command of Don Fadrique de Toledo is come into Cadiz and joyned with that which Don Juan Taxardo is Captain of And as I am credibly informed this King will have by the end of April between 50. and 60. Gallions at Sea It is true that other years the number commonly falls short of what is expected and their setting forth to Sea some moneths later then the time appointed but there is extraordinary care taken this year that there be no default in neither The chief end that I can understand of this Kings journey being to see the Fleet of Plate come in to take view of his Armado and see them put to Sea That which I understand is onely left alive of the Marriage here is that the Jewels which the Prince left with this King for the Infanta and her Ladies are not yet returned but it is intimated unto me that if the Letters which they shall receive out of England upon the answer they have given to his Majestie about the businesse of the Palatinate be no better then such as they have lately received they will return the Jewels and declare the businesse of the Match for broken I shall therefore intreat your Honour to know his Majesties pleasure how I shall carry my self if they be offered unto me being resolved in the mean time untill I shall know his Majesties pleasure if any such thing happen absolutely to refuse them The Princesse some few daies since fell sick of a Calenturae of which she remaineth still in her bed though it be said she is now somewhat better I will conclude with many thanks for your friendly advertizements concerning my own particular which God willing as far as I can I will observe and do earnestly intreat you that you will please to continue the like favours unto me which I shall highly esteem of And so with a grateful acknowledgment of my obligations I rest Your Honours c. Wa. Aston Sir Walter Aston to the Lord Conway Right Honourable I Have advertized by former dispatches that the Parliament here had granted unto this King 60 millions of Duckats to be paid in 12 years which with 12 millions which remain yet unpaid of what was given the King at the last Session this King was to receive 72 millions in the 12 years next following I shall now acquaint your Honour that there are only 19. Cities that have voice in this Parliament and that each of them do send hither two Provadores as they call them here but these have no power finally to conclude any thing but what is agreed on by them is to be approved of by the said Cities or the greatest number of them before it have the force of an Act of Parliament and that therefore there hath been all possible art used to procure the Cities to confirm what hath been granted by their Procuradores touching the 60. millions and it is here thought that one of the motives of this Kings journey was hoping by the authority of his presence to procure the consent unto the said gift of the 4. Cities which he is to passe by in this journey namely Cordova Sivel Joen and Granado it being here doubted that the said Cities might make great opposition to the said grant notwithstanding his Majestie hath not had such successe as was expected But Cordova which was the first City with which his Majestie began hath absolutely refused to give their Consent letting his Majestie understand though in as fair and respectful terms as they could expresse themselves That it was a demand impossible for them to Comply withal What the success of this may be is doubtful Cordova having given but an ill example to the other Cities and yet it is rather believed here that the greatest number
believe they will hasten to finish this act before I shall hear from your Lordship which if they do God send me patience and as much care to serve him as I have and ever had to serve my Master And then all must needs be well I send your Lordship a Copy of that speech I have thought upon to deliver at London upon Munday next at the Commission of the Subsidies If his Majestie have leisure to cast his eye thereupon and to give direction to have any thing else delivered or any point of this suppressed I would be directed by your Lordship whom I recommend in prayers to Gods good guiding and protection And do rest c. The E. of Southhamptons Letter to the Bishop of Lincolne My Lord I Have found your Lordship already so favourable and affectionate unto me that I shall be still hereafter desirous to acquaint you with what concerns me and bold to ask your advice and councel which makes me to send this bearer to give your Lordship an account of my answer from Court which I cannot better do then by sending unto you the answer it self which you shall receive here enclosed Wherein you may see what is expected from me that I may not onely magnifie his Majesties Gracious dealing with me but cause all my friends to do the like and restrain them from making any extenuation of my errours which if they be disposed to do or not to do is impossible for me to alter that am not likely for a good time to see any other then mine own family For my self I shall ever be ready as is fit to acknowledg his Majesties favour to me but can hardly perswade my self that any errour by me committed deserved more punishment then I have had and hope that his Majestie will not expect that I should not confesse my self to have been subject to a Star-chamber sentence which God forbid I should ever do I have and shall do according to that Part of my Lord of Buckinghams advice to speak of it as little as I can and so shall I do in other things to meddle as little as I can I purpose God willing to go to morrow to Tychfield the place of mine confinement there to stay as long as the King shall please Sir William Parkhurst must go with me who hoped to have been discharged at the return of my Messenger from Court and seemes much troubled that he is not pretending that it is extream inconvenient for him in regard of his own occasions He is fearful he should be forgotten If therefore when your Lordship writes to the Court you would but put my Lord of Buckingham in remembrance of it you shall I think do him a favour For my part it is so little trouble to me and of so small moment as I meane to move no more for it When this bearer returns I beseech you return by him this inclosed Letter and beleive that whatsoever I am I will ever be Your Lordships most assured friend to do you service H. Southampton c. The Lord Keepers answer to the E. of Southhamptons Letter 2. August 1621. My Lord I Have perused your Lordships Letter and that enclosed I return back again And doubt nothing of my Lord Admirals remembring of you upon the first opportunity Great works as I hope this will be a perfect reconciling of his Majesties affections to you of your best studies and endeavours to the service of his Majestie do require some time They are but poore actions and of no continuance that are Slubbered up in an instance I know my Lord mens tongues are their own nor lieth it in your power to prescribe what shall be spoken for you or against you But to avoid that Complacentia as the Divines call it that itching and inviting of any interpretation which shall so add to your innocencie as it shall derogate from the Kings mercie which I speak as I would do before God had a great cloud of jealousies and suspitions to break through before it came to shine upon you This I take it is the effect of my Lords exhortation and I know it ever hath been your Lordships resolution How far you could be questioned in the Star-Chamber is an unseasonable time to resolve The King hath waved off all judgment and left nothing for your meditation but love and favour and the increasing of both these Yet I know upon my late occasions to peruse Presidents in that Court that small offences have been in that Court in former times deeply censured In the sixteenth of Edward the second for the Court is of great antiquity Henry Lord Beaumont running a way of his own about the invading of Scotland and dissenting from the rest of the Kings Councel because of his absenting himself from the Councel Table was fined and imprisoned though otherwies a most worthy and deserving Noble man But God be thanked your Lordship hath no cause to trouble your head about these meditations For if I have any judgment you are in a way to demean your self as you may expect rather more new additions then suspect the least diminution from his Gracious Majestie For mine own part assure your self I am your true and faithful servant and shall never cease so to continue as long as you make good your professions to this Noble Lord. Of whose extraordinary goodnesse your Lordship and my self are remarkable reflections The one of his sweetnesse in forgetting of wrongs the other of his forwardnesse in conferring of courtesies With my best respect to your Lordship and my Noble Lady and my Commendations to Sir William Parkhurst I recommend your Lordship c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke concerning the E. of South-hampton 2. Aug. 1621. My most noble Lord I Humbly crave your pardon for often troubling your Honour with my idle Lines and beseech you to remember that amongst many miseries my sudden greatnesse comes accompanied with this is not the least that I can no otherwaies enjoy the happinesse of your presence God is my witnesse the Lord Keeper hath often not without grief of heart envied the fortunes of a poor Scholar one Dr. VVilliams late Dean of VVestminster who was so much blessed in the free accesses in that kind as his Lordship without a great quantity of goodnesse in your self may scarse hope for This inclosed will let your Lordship understand that somewhat is to be finished in that excellent piece of mercy which his Majestie your hand guiding the Pencil is about to expresse in the E. of Southhampton It is full time his Attendant were revoked in my poor opinion and himself left to the Custody of his own good Angel There is no readier way to stop the mouthes of idle men nor to draw their eyes from this remainder of an object of Justice to behold nothing but goodnesse and mercy And the more breathing time you shall carve out between this total enlargement and the next accesse of the Parliament the better it
rest this world can inflict upon me As your Lordships kindnesse hath begun to ease me so now let the same hand cure and preserve me from a worse relapse wherein I am like to fall if your power prevent it not The motion of his Majesties for my perswading my sons out of their places was the grievousest sound that ever entred me for thereby I still breathed under the heavy weight of all my afflictions not despairing but their Care charged upon them with my blessing might somewhat redeem my errours and assure his Majestie that my will was never tainted with offending him I know my Lord there is little benefit in serving against Masters minds but they are unworthy servants that will leave such Masters upon any conditions Such as make suit to chop or change for their own advantage are better lost then kept But as for mine my curse should follow them if ever I could think they followed his Majestie with such indifferencie My obedience to his Majestie was ever of more force with me then mine own ends any way layed nor ever joyed I more then in running to his Commands But this my Lord rends my heart to think that unfortunate I should bury my sons alive and pronounce that sentence which would make me and them Scorns to posteritie Whilest I have knee to bend eye to lift up or tongue to begg I must implore his Majesties pardon and mercy in this kind As for that more drossie part of my estate it still lies at his Majesties feet and if he now please to recal what he remitted without further condition I must obey and let his Majestie see no change of time or place can change me my love my dutie or my zeal to him My Lord here you may read me in my greatest griefs that ever did fall to me weigh them well and think that one day you may be a father and be as neerly touched as now I am The favour you shall do me herein shall prove no hidden talent for the increase shall not onely be the happinesse of a good work well done but the hearty acknowledgment of a whole family and all theirs that shall as faithfully serve and honour you as the best of those that would succeed them which I hope your Lordship will believe from me who will ever be Yours c. T. Suffolk The Earl of Suffolk to his Majestie Most Gracious Soveraign Your Princely favour in dilivering me and my wife out of the tower must and shall ever be acknowledged of us with all humble thanks And now be pleased to give me leave to be an humble suitor to your Majestie that out of the tender compassion of your Princely heart you will be pleased to cast your eye upon the miserable estate of your distressed afflicted and old Servant now brought into fear of never recovering of your Majesties favour and so wretced my case is as the little hope that remained in me to live in your memorie was by my two sons service to your Gracious self and the Prince It is now required of me to impose upon them the resignation of their places which with all humility I beseech you to give me leave to say I would sooner use my power over them to will them to burie themselves quick then by any other way then enforcement to give up their places of service which onely remaines to me to be either my dying comfort or my living torment Besides they are now past my government being both married and have children onely I have a Paternal Care of them which I humbly beseech your best judging Majestie to weigh respectively how unhappie I must of necessity think my self if I should be the perswader of that misfortune to my children that their children within a few years would curse me for either living or dead Upon all these just considerations most Gracious Master give me leave to turn my cruel unnatural part of perswading them to yield to that for which I should detest my self to my humblest desire upon the Knees of my heart to beg humbly of your Majestie that whatsoever favour you have ever had to me for any service done that your Majestie will be pleased to spare the ruine of these two young men whom I find so honestlie disposed in their desire of spending their fortunes and lives in your Majesties and your Princely son's service as if your displeasure be not fullie satisfyed with what I have suffered already that you lay more upon me and spare them I have written to my Lord of Buckingham to be my mediator to your Majestie in this behalf which I assure my self he will noblie perform as well as he hath formerly done in being my means to your Majestie in obtaining this great begun favour To conclude with my prayer to God that your Majestie may ever find the same zeal and Love to your person in whomsoever you shall imploy that my hearts Sole-affection did and ever shall carrie unto you which God knowes was and is more to your Majestie then to my wife and children and all other worldy things which God measure unto me according to the truth as Yours c. T. Suffolk The Lady Elizabeth Howard to the King VVHen I waited upon you at Theobalds to beseech your Majesty that my Lord of Suffolk might not come into the Star-chamber you protested that you loved the man but that you must shew cause to the world why you took the Staffe from him but for his fortune that your Majestie would not meddle with it the same my Lord of Buckingham told me with this assurance of your promise I went away secure in that poynt Sithence his cause was heard he moved all that heard it with much compassion to him and the people did think that when you sent him to the Tower you would have sent for him to have kissed your hand But your Majestie is abused for they do not let you know what is thought of the proceeding against this good man knowing how truely he loveth you with the truth of his cause that you would not follow him and his children with crueltie Which might have been better spent My Lord hath spent in running a Tylt in Masques and following the Court above 20000. And Sir shall his reward now be to be turned out of his place without any offence committed Sir I am the child of your old Servant and am now great with child I know it will kill me and I shall willingly die rather then desire life to see my unfortunate self and mine thus miserably undone Sir I beseech your Majestie remember my Father that is dead and me his distressed child for if he could know any worldly thing he would wonder to see me and those that shall come of me thus strangly used But my hope is still in your Majesties goodnesse and that you will not be carried away with the malice of other men In this confidence I rest with my daily
I know not how my Lord of Essex can take any thing ill from your Excellencie unlesse it be to have you do injustice or against all reason He may rather give your Excellencie many thanks that his Lordship is not called into question for letting passe the King of Spain's ships that offered him fight which would have been the chief service having instructions not to let any flie or break out without fighting with them Now my Lord I humbly beseech your Excellencie to consider my Case that hath been so severely examined and no body else and that after my Examination I have lingred so long in my wrongs and disgraces and by the ill offices your Grace doth see are done me to his Majestie which will rather increase then diminish so long as I shall be kept from the presence of his Majestie that is I know of himself the justest Prince in the world and yet to be in your Excellencies favour And I hold my self clear of all imputations in despight of all malice and practice that hath been against me to obscure all my endeavours which my adversaries in their consciences can best witnesse that when they slept I waked when they made good chear I fasted and when they rested I toyled And besides when they went about to hinder the journey at Plimouth by railing on the beggerlinesse of it and discrediting of it I was content to take it upon me though against my judgment as I did secretly deliver both to his Majestie and your Grace before I departed from the Coast Nominating in my Letter to his Majestie all the inconveniencies that did after happen unto the Fleet for had it not been in my obedience to his Majestie and my good affection to your Excellencie that I did see so much affect it and was so far ingaged I would have been rather torn in pieces then to have gone with so many ignorant and malicious people that did shew so little affection or courage to his Majesties service or any affection at all to your Excellencie Yet for all this all hath been laid upon me having had rather hard courses taken against me then any way maintained in my Commission which was given me which no State that I have ever heard of did before I pray God his Majesties future service do not suffer for it for where his Majesties Officers are not obeyed he can never be served Wherefore my suit is that if I have any ill offices done me to his Majestie that I may clear my self before him by your favour which I have so long attended after or by way of Petition which the meanest Subject is not to be hindred in for as I continue now I have not onely wrong done to me but I suffer as much punishment without any fault as if I had been condemned And that your Excellencie will do me the favour to deal plainly with me to let me know why I am deferred from his Majesties presence which is not denied to any having received so much wrong If my suffering be to adde any service to your affaires in these troublesome times let but this honest friend of mine know so much and I will suffer any inconvenience as I have misery danger and decay of my fortunes for your Excellencies sake And so I rest Your Excellencies most devoted and faithful and thankful servant and Creature Wimbledon 28th Apr. 1626. My Lord Wimbledon to the Duke My Gracious Lord I Understand that it pleased the Lords to grant the Colonels leave to accuse me a new and they have taken to them the most discontented Seamen they could get to help their malice forward I had thought that before my coming they should have had time and advantage sufficiently to have shewen all their envie And I was perswaded that they could not have desired more then to have been present when I should be examined and my journal read At the reading whereof they took all the exceptions that might be and I did answer them all in your Excellencies presence as I thought fully whereupon they seemed to be so content as they had no more to say neither did they at that time desire to make a journal or to say any more Then the Lords resolutions were only to hear the Seamen speak upon whom all the businesse did lie If they may be suffered upon new Combinations to bring new slanders upon me I cannot tell what to think of it But this I can say that if this course be taken his Majestie will never be without a mutinous Armie which all States in policy do shun For when the Common Souldiers shall see their Chiefs give them such examples they will soon follow being that all Armies are subject to it especially a new Armie I had thought that one Trial had been sufficient being it was before such an Assembly But if I should be accused I should desire to have new accusers and not the same that have already accused me for so there would be no end that upon their Petition I might have been heard what I could justly say why they should not have leave to make a journal and not to give them leave before I were heard I am afraid there was never any such president before and what inconveniencies may come of it time will shew I have sought to none of the Lords as I fear my enemies have done I know not whether I shall suffer for it or no but my trust hath only been in your Excellencie and the justnesse of my Cause I have been your Excellencies Officer in as difficult and as miserable an action as ever any one hath undertaken and with as little assistance as ever any one had For many of those that should have assisted me were more careful in betraying me then in forwarding his Majesties service And if this course be held to encourage them there is no man shall suffer more then his Majesties service will For it will be folly for any man to look to his Majesties service or to take any pains to prevent or hinder that which may be committed against it But to let every man do what he will so all will be pleased and he that Commands shall have no man to slander him which is the way to live in quiet Thus much I thought was fit for me to let your Excellencie understand and withal that I held it a great unhappinesse for me that have taken such toyl and pains and suffered so many slanders to be kept back by my enemies from that honour that never any one of my rank and place was hindered in which is from kissing the hand of my Soveraign Lord the King All Power is in your Lordships hands whether you will uphold me in my just cause or no or let me be ruinated for want of it So that I can say no more but that if I suffer I shall be your Excellencies Martyr if not I shall all my life rest Your Excellencies most humble and most thankful
We give it known unto thee That We by the sufferance of the great God named the Perpetuall and Universall God in earth most mighty Emperour Soldan in Babylon Lord of Armenia the most mightiest in Persipolis and Numidia the great helper of God Prince from the Rode of Barbary unto the mountains of Achaia King of Kings from the Meridian to the Septentrian of the earth from the rising place of the Sun to the setting of it the first and chiefest placed in the Paradise of Mahomet the destroyer of all Christendom and of all Christians and that do profess Christianity the keeper and defender of the Sepulcher of thy God crucified the onely victorious and triumphant Lord of all the world and of all Circuits and Provinces thereof Thou Maximilian which writest thy selfe King of our Kingdom of Hungary which is under our Crown and obeysance We will visit thee for that cause and also perswade thee that with our strength and force of thirteen Kingdoms with might and strength to the number of one hundred thousand as well Horsemen as Footmen prepared for war with all the power and strength of Turkish munition and with such power as thou nor none of thy servants have seen heard or had knowledge of even before thy chief Citie Vienna and the Countrey thereabouts We Solyman God on earth against thee with all thy assisters and helpers with our Warlike strength do pronounce protest your uttermost destruction and depopulation as we can by all means possible devise it And this we we will signifie unto thee to the which thou and thy miserable people may prepare your selves With us it is determined with our men appointed thee and all thy German Kingdoms and Provinces altogether to spoyl This misery we have consented unto against thee and thy Princes and have thou no doubt but we will come Dated in the City of Constantinople out of the which we did expulse your predecessors their wives children and friends and made them most miserable slaves and captives the year of our reign fourty seven Sir John Perrots Commission for Lord Deputy of Ireland ELizabetha Dei gratia c. omnibus ad quos presentes literae pervenerint salut Sciatis quod nos certis urgentibus causis considerationibus nos specialiter movendis de provida circumspectione industria praedilecti fidelis nobis Johannis Perrot milit plenius confidentes dejadvisamento Concilii nostri assignavimus fecimus ordinavimus constituimus deputavimus per praesentes assignavimus c. eundem Johannem Perrot milit Deputat nostrum Generalem Regni nostri Hiberniae habend tenend gaudend exercend occupand officium praedict eidem Johanni Perrot milit durante beneplacito nostro dantes concedentes eidem Deputat nostro Generali plenam tenore praesentium potestatem ad pacem nostram ac ad leges consuetudines regni nostri praedict custodiend custodiri faciend ad omnes singulas leges nostras c. The whole Contents of the Commission for the Lord Deputy TO conserve the peace to punish offenders to make Orders and Proclamations to receive offenders to grace to give pardons and impose fines to levy forces to fight and make peace to dispose Rebels lands to pardon all treasons saving touching the Queens person and counterfeiting of coyn to give offices saving the Chancellor Treasurer two chief Justices chief Baron and Master of the Rolls to dispose of Ecclesiasticall livings except Archbishops and Bishops to receive homage and the oath to make provision for his houshold according to the ancient custome to assemble the Parliament with her Majesties privity to receive the account of Officers saving the Treasurers to exercise martiall law The Queens Warrant to the Lords c. of Ireland for ministring the Oath and delivery of the Sword to him 31 Ian. 1583. RIght Reverend Father in God right trusty welbeloved and trusty and right welbeloved we greet you wel Whereas upon the departure from thence of our right trusty and welbeloved the Lord Gray of Wilton late our Deputy there we thought it meet for our government there to appoint you joyntly to have the place of our Justices until such time as we should resolve to send another thither to be our Deputy there We let you wit that meaning now no longer to burthen you with such a charge wherein you have according to the trust imposed in you very wisely behaved your selves greatly to our contentation we have chosen and appointed our right trusty and welbeloved Sir Jo. Perrot Knight this bearer to be our Deputy of that our said Realm that for that purpose to send him presently thither Wherefore our will and pleasure is and by vertue of these our Letters we authorize you upon the view of our letters Patents made and delivered unto him in that behalf both to minister unto him the oath accustomed to be given unto the Deputy there also to deliver unto him the Sword as heretofore hath been used And further that you communicate unto him amply the present estate of that our Realm and of all our affairs there for his better instruction at his entrance into that Government and the advancement of our service And these our Letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalf Given under our Signet c. the last of January 1583. the 26 year of our reign Another for his Entertainment there TRusty and welbeloved we greet you well Whereas we have now appointed our right trusty and welbeloved Sir John Perrot Knight to be our Deputy in that our Realm of Ireland for which Office allowance aswell of dyets as of entertainments for certain Horsmen is to be given him These be therefore to let you wit that we allow unto him for his ordinary dyet one hundred pounds sterling according to the last Establishment in March 1589. and for his Retinue fifty Horsmen and fifty Footmen with such wages for every Horsman and Footman and for their Officers as was allowed to Sir William Fitzwilliams and Sir Henry Sydney Knights in the late times of their Governments in that Realm After which rates as well for his own dyet as for the said fifty Horsmen and fifty Footmen and for their Officers We will and command you to make payment to him during his imployment and service in that place from the date of our Letters-Patents authorising him to that government And these our Letters shall be sufficient Warrant as well to you as to any Treasurer or Vice-treasurer there for the time being and to your and their Substitutes as also to the Auditor or his Deputies and to all other Commissioners to be appointed over your Accompts to pass and allow the same payments to you accordingly Given c. the fourth of April 1583. in the 26. year of our Reign of England c. The Queens Instructions to him YOU shall see immediately upon your arrival into that Realm assembled our Councel there and confer
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
my Lord Duke can be truly instanced in by any man I will be contented to incur his Majesties high displeasure and your Lordships Censure For the present Newes here it is that the ninth of this Moneth the Prince intendeth God willing to begin his journey for England And the day before I conceive the Contract will be The Infanta is to follow in the Spring and the Prince hath commanded my stay here I know not how things may be reconciled here before my Lord Dukes departure but at present they are in all extremity ill betwixt this King and his Ministers and the Duke and they stick not to professe that they will rather put the Infanta headlong into a Well then into his hands I write unto your Lordship you see with much freenesse and I intreat you let it remain with you And so in much haste I onely intreat your Lordship to believe that you have not living an honester nor a true hearteder a friend and servant then Your Lordships ever to be commanded Bristol The E of Bristol to the Lord Bishop of Lincoln 24. of Septemb. 1623. My singular Lord I Have dispatched this Bearer my servant Greislie with the draught of the temporal Articles which I hope will be to the King and Prince his satisfaction and he will let your Lordship have a sight of them Since the departure of the Prince there have every day passed Letters of extraordinary affection between the King and the Prince and the love that is here generally born unto the Prince is such as cannot be well believed by those that daily hear not what passeth both from the King and his chief Ministers And to say the truth his Highnesse hath well deserved it for in the whole time of his being here he hath carried himself with the greatest affability patience and constancie and at his departure with the greatest bountie and liberality that I think hath been known in any Prince in our times And I protest unto your Lordship as a Christian that I never heard in all the time of his being here nor since any one exception taken against him unlesse it were for being supposed to be too much guided by my Lord Duke of Buckingham who is indeed very little beholding to the Spaniards for their good opinion of him and departed from hence with so little satisfaction that the Spaniards are in doubt that he will endeavour all that shall be possible to crosse the Marriage Wherein certainly they are very much mistaken For my Lord cannot but be obliged a servant for any particular distastes of his own to crosse the advancement of his Majestie and the Prince's service especially in a businesse of so high Consequence as this It may be your Lordship will hear many Complaints and that the Match never was nor yet is intended I beseech your Lordship to give little belief in that kind and the effects will now speedily declare the truth if the fault be not on our side It is true that the Spaniards have committed many errours in their proceedings with the Prince but the businesse is now by the Prince overcome if we our selves draw not back For which I confesse I should be heartily sorry and so I conceive would most honest men for if this match and the alliance with Spain hath been so long desired by his Majestie and that for it he hath heen pleased to do so much and the Prince to take so hazardous a voyage if all the same reasons are yet on foot which have ever moved the King and Prince to wish the match if to this may be added that his Majestie hath overcome all the difficulties on his part and that both he and the Prince do stand ingaged for the performance of it as far as Princes can be God forbid that any particular distastes or misunderstandings which God knoweth have little relation to the businesse should be of power to disturb it especially now when the Match is past all danger of miscarrying the portion and all temporal Articles settled and I hope to the Kings Content and all other good effects that could be expected by this allyance in a very fair way I hope there will be no cause of doubt in this kind if there should be I am sure that your Lordship would put to a helping hand to keep the businesse from being overthrown since you have done so much for the overcoming of former difficulties and the bringing it to the passe 't is now in If there be no cause of writing this I beseech your Lordship to impute it to my zeal to the businesse and my freenesse with your Lordship upon whose true love and friendship I so much rely as I shall not forbear to tell you any of my fears I hope within 3. daies Sir Francis Cottington will be able to begin his journey towards your Lordship He will tell you many truths being on my knowledge as hearty a servant and friend as 't is possible for your Lordship to have He hath told me how much I am bound to your Lordship for your love and favour and truly I will deserve it the best I can and that I think will be onely by loving you for otherwise I conceive I am like to have little means of meriting at any bodies hands yet at your Lordships it may be I may by being a man of honesty and honour And such an one I will labour to be and your affectionate friend and servant And so I kisse your Lordships hands Madrid c. The E. of Bristols Letter to the Prince touching the delivery of his Proxie to the King of Spain May it please your Highnesse IN this Letter I shall onely speak unto your Highnesse concerning that particular whereof you were pleased to write unto me after your departure from St. Lorenzo and have presumed to set down exactly the case as it stands In what sort a woman betrothed and post Matrimonium ratum may before the Consummation of marriage betake her self unto a religious life I have likewise set down unto your Highnesse all sorts of security that may be taken before the betrothing for the preventing of any such course in the parties that are to be betrothed To this your Highnesse may adde any other you can think of for that the King and his Sister and all the Ministers professe so really the punctual and present performance of all that is capitulated with your Highnesse That they will refuse no kind of security that in reason can be demanded in this behalf so that your Highnesse may set down whatsoever you think this King and his Sister may do with decencie and honour and they will be ready to perform it I must now crave leave to speak unto your Highnesse like a faithful plain servant which is if your Highnesse pleasure be to have use made of the Powers you have left in my hands I no way doubt but in this particular such satisfaction will be given as will appear
reasonable to all the world But if your Highnesse desire that these Powers should not be used they may be detained upon other just reasons which will arise in the treatie of the temporal articles And I doubt not but the Deposorio's may be deferred for some few daies upon other fair pretexts But these inconveniencies I conceive will follow First it will be of great discomfort to the Infanta who until the Deposorio's are past is not her own woman but must be governed by the pleasure of the Junto which I think she is very wearie of neither till then may she declare her self to be yours nor Comply with your Highesse in answering of your Letters and Messages and giving you those respects and Comforts which I know she would be glad to do But if she should any way judge that the delay of the Deposorios should arise from your Highnes part I conceive she would take it most heavily Secondly it will certainly raise great jealousies in this King and his Ministers and retard the resolutions that are fit to be taken with speed for the putting in execution that which is capitulated I therefore offer it unto your Highnes wisdom whether upon the satisfaction which they will give in this particular which will be whatsoever you can desire and upon the agreement of the temporal articles your Highnesse would upon the coming of the Popes approbation make any farther scruple in the delivering of your Highnesse powers If I shall I am confident they will not presse it as not decent for the womans part to urge the hasting of the Marriage But I conceive it will cast such a cloud of Jealousie and distrust upon the businesse that besides the discontent and affliction which I know it will give the Infanta which most worketh upon me it will so disorder the businesse that it will make a stand in your whole proceedings and preparations wherein they now go on chearfully and confidently and I conceive will punctually perform all that they have capitulated with your Highnesse I dare not so much as give my self leave once to question your Highnesse intentions of proceeding to the real effecting of the match which makes me desirous that all things may be executed that may any way retard or disturb it Only I shall like a faithful poor servant presume to say thus much to your Highnesse That for divers years past I know the King your father and your self have held this the fittest Match in the World and by a desire of effecting it your Highnesse was induced to undertake that hazardous journey of coming to this Court in person In the time of your being here admitting that their proceedings have been in many things unworthy of you And that divers distastes have grown by intervenient accidents Now things are reduced to those terms that the Match it self is sure the portion and the temporal Articles settled I hope to the Kings liking and yours And all other good effects that could be hoped for by this alliance are in a fair way If to these reasons may be added That on his Majestie and your Highnesse part you have already passed by and overcome the main difficulties and your Highnesse by your journey hath satisfied your self of the person of the Infanta God forbid that either any personal distastes of Ministers or any indiscreet or passionate carriage of businesses should hazard that which his Majestie and your Highnesse have done so much to obtain and whereby doubtlesse so much good and peace is to accrew to Christendom by the effecting of it and contrariwise so much trouble and mischief by the miscarrying of it Besides the individual happinesse of your Highnesse in such a Wife which the World supposeth you infinitely esteem for her person And for her Birth and Portion is no where to be matched And questionlesse for her vertue and settled affection to your Highnesse deserveth you better then any woman in the World I humbly crave pardon for writing unto your Highnesse in this manner which I hope your Highnesse well enough knowes neither the benefits I have received from Spain nor their grateful usage of me upon occasions nor I protest unto your Highnesse any other earthly respect moveth me unto it but the zeal and love I bear to your service for which I shall ever undervalue any thing that may concern my self And therefore I shall conclude by intreating your Highnesse that if you would have things go well that a Post may instantly be dispatched back unto me authorizing me to deliver the said power upon the arrival of the dispensation and having taken fitting securitie in this particular point And this I earnestly beseech your Highnesse may be done with all possible speed and secresie and that the Spanish Ambassadours may not know that ever there was any suspension made of the delivery of the powers In the interim I will find means if the dispensation come for 20 or 24 daies to alledge some other fair pretexts for the deferring of the Deposorios But herein I desire I may know your Highnesse resolution with all possible speed c. And so with c. Bristol Madrid The E. of Bristol to the Prince his Highnesse Septemb. 24. 1623. VVHen your Highnesse shall remember that your Highnesse being here in person it was not possible in lesse then a moneth to get that dispatcht which you were promised Mr. Secretary Cottington should have carried with him if your Highnesse would have but stayed him 24 hours I hope you will pardon your servants although they sometimes mistake in the time which they limit for the procuring of the dispatch of businesse especially if they depend upon the dispatches that are to be procured from them I have these 10. daies had Greisly in a readinesse to depart having every day expected a resolution from the Junto First in point of the portion and since in the daies of payment and at last I have received their answer in them both in such sort as your Highnesse will see in the paper inclosed which is an extract of the heads of the temporal Articles that we have agreed although I have onely consented unto them de bene esse until I shall receive his Majesties approbation and yours In the point of the portion I have had a tough and a knotty piece of work by reason that not onely the Conde de Olivarez but all the Junto were absolutely ignorant of what had passed in the late Kings time which I foresaw and that was the cause that I moved so earnestly at the Escurial to have the Conde de Gondomar remain here They made many presidents to be searched and found that the two millions demanded was four times as much as ever was given with any daughter of Spain in money They alledged that it would be said that the King of Spain was fain to purchase the friendship and alliance of England that this would be such a president as that Spain hereafter must marrie no
little and little by reason of favours done to particular Catholiques The former course might breed a general impression if not a mutinie This Letter will but loosen the tongues but of some few particulars who understand of their neighbours pardon and having vented their dislikes when they have not many to Sympathise with them they grow coole again so as his majestie afterwards may enlarge these favours without any danger at all Secondly to forbid Iudges against their oaths and Justices of the Peace sworn likewise to execute the law of the Land is a thing unpresidented in this Kingdom et Durus Sermo a very harsh and bitter pill to be digested upon a suddain and without some preparation But to grant a pardon even for a thing that is Malum in se and a dispensation with Penal Lawes in the profit whereof the King onely is interested is usual and full of presidents and examples And yet is this Letter onely tending to the safety the former but to the glory and insolencie of the Papists and the magnifying the service of the Embassadors ends too dearly purchased with the indangering of a tumult in three Kingdomes Thirdly and Lastly his Maiestie useth to speak to his Bishops Judges and Justices of the peace by his Chancelour or Keeper as your Grace well knoweth and by his Great Seal and I can signify his Majesties pleasure unto them with lesse noise and danger which I mean to do hereafter if the Embassadors shall presse it to this effect unlesse your Grace shall from his Highnesse or your own judgment direct otherwise That whereas his Majestie being at this time to mediate for favour to many Protestants in forraign parts with Princes of another religion and to sweeten the entertainment of the Princess into this Kingdom who is as yet a Roman Catholique doth hold a mitigation of the rigour of those lawes made against Recusants to be a necessary inducement to both those purposes and hath therefore issued forth some pardons of Grace and favour to such Roman Catholiques of whose faithfulnesse and fidelity to the state he rests assured That therefore you the Lords Bishops Judges and Justices each of those to be written unto by themselves do take notice of this his Majesties pardon and dispensation with all such penal Lawes and demean your selves accordingly c. Thus have I been too tedious and troublesome unto your Grace and Crave your pardon therefore and some directions which you may cause Sir Francis Cottington or some other to write without your Graces trouble if there shall apeare any cause of alteration Doctor Bishop the new Bishop of Calcedon is come to London privately and I am much troubled thereabouts not knowing what to advise his Majestie in this posture as things stand at this present If you were shipped with the Infanta the onely Councel were to let the Judges proceed with them presently hang him out of the way and the King to Blame my Lord of Cantuar or my self for it But before you be shipped in such form and manner I dare not assent or Connive at such a course It is my gracious Lord a most insolent Part and an offence as I take it Against our common Law and not the statutes onely which are dispensed withall for an English man to take such a consecration without the Kings consent and especially to use any Episcopal Jurisdiction in this Kingdom without the royal assent and Bishops have been in this State put to their fine and ransom for doing so three hundred years ago I will cease to to be further troublesome and pray to Almighty God to blesse your Grace and in all humblenesse take my leave and rest c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke 14th of October 1621. My most Noble Lord I Humbly thank your Lordship for your most sweet and loving Letter which as Sir George Goring could not but observe hath much revived me drooping under the unusual weight of so many businesses Let God suffer me no longer to be then I shall be true plain faithful and affectionately respectful of your Lordship as being most bound unto your Lordship for these so many fruits but far more for the tree that bore them your love and affection If your Lordship shall not think it inconvenient I do beseech your Lordship to present this Petition inclosed either by word or writing unto his Majestie and to procure a speedy dispatch thereof because we are to meet on Thursday next Also to acquaint his Majestie that I stumble at the Proclamation now coming to the Seal against any that shall draw or present any bill for his Majesties signature besides those Clarks which usually draw them up by virtue of their places It is most prejudicial to my place the Lord Treasurer and the Judges itinerant who are often occasioned to draw up and present to his Majestie divers matters and especially pardons of Course It is also too strong a tie upon your Lordships hands being intended by his Majestie against Projectors and Scriveners only If it shall please his Majestie therefore to make an exception of the Lords of his Councel and Judges of Assize it may passe to the contentment of all men Mr. Attourney saith he meant this exception but I find it not sufficiently expressed in the Proclamation Also I humbly beseech your Lordship to meddle with no pardon for the Lord of St. Albons until I shall have the happinesse to confer with your Lordship the pardoning of his fine is much spoken against not for the matter for no man objects to that but for the manner which is full of knavery and a wicked president For by this assignation of his fine he is protected from all his Creditors which I dare say was neither his Majesties nor your Lordships meaning I have presumed to send your Lordship a true Copy of that speech which I made at VVestminster Hall at my entrance upon this office because somewhat was to be spoken at so great a change and alteration in so high a Court And I was never so much troubled in my life not how but what to speak I humbly crave pardon if I have failed in points of discretion which a wiser man in such a case might easily do With my heartiest prayers unto God to continue all his blessings upon your Lordship I rest deservedly c. Postscript MY Lord I find my Lord Treasurer affectionately touched with removing from the Court of Wards and do wish with all my heart he may have contentment in that or any thing else but orderly and in a right method Let him hold it but by your Lordships favour not his own power or wilfulnesse And this must be apparent and visible Let all our greatnesse depend as it ought upon yours the true original Let the King be Pharaoh your self Joseph and let us come after as your half-brethren God blesse you c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke concerning Sir John Michel 8. Aug. 1622. My most noble
Lord IN the cause of Sir John Michel which hath so often wearied this Court vexed my Lady your Mother and now flieth as it seemeth unto your Lordship I have made an order the last day of the Tearm assisted by the Master of the Rolls and Mr. Baron Bromley in the presence and with the full consent of Sir John Michel who then objected nothing against the same but now in a dead vacation when both the adverse party and his Councel are out of Town and that I cannot possible hear otherwise then with one ear he clamours against me most uncivilly and would have me contrary to all conscience and honesty reverse the same The substance of the order is not so difficult and intricate but your Lordship will easily find out the equity or harshnesse thereof Sir Lawrence Hide makes a motion in behalf of one Strelley a party whose face I never saw that whereas Sir John Michel had put a bill into this Court against him and one Sayers five years ago for certain Lands and Woods determinable properly at the Common Law and having upon a certificate betwixt himself and Sayers without the knowledge of the said Strelley procured an injunction from the last Lord Chancellour for the possession of the same locks up the said Strelley with the said injunction and never proceeds to bring his cause to hearing within five years It was moved therefore that either Sir Johns bill might be dismissed to a tryal at the Common Law or else that he might be ordered to bring it to hearing in this Court with a direction to save all wastes of Timber trees in favour of either party that should prove the true owner until the cause should receive hearing Sir John being present in Court made choice of this last offer and so it was ordered accordingly And this is that order that this strange man hath so often of late complained of to your Mother and now as it seemeth to your Lordship God is my witnesse I have never denyed either justice or favour which was to be justified to this man or any other that had the least relation to your good and most noble Mother And I hope your Lordship is perswaded thereof If your Lordship will give me leave without your Lordships trouble to wait upon you at any time this day your Lordship shall appoint I would impart two or three words unto your Lordship concerning your Lordships own businesse Remaining ever c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke May it please your Grace NOw that I understand by Sir John Hipsley how things stand between your Grace and the Earl of Bristol I have done with that Lord and will never think of him otherwise then as your Grace shall direct Nor did I ever write one syllable to that effect but in contemplation of performing true service to your Grace I was much abused in the Lady Hennage her Vice-Counteship being made to believe it was your Grace's act or else I had stayed it finally until the Princes return as I did for a time If your Grace will give any directions in matters of that nature I can pursue them My Lord Treasurers sons Wardship is a thing of no moment at all and not worthy your Graces thinking of And in good faith as far as getting and Covetousnesse will give him leave I do not see but that Lord is since your absence very respective of your Grace especially in your own person and affairs I never received any answer from your Grace concerning the Provostship of Aeton nor was it good manners for me to presse for the same because in my Letters I did presume to name my self The place is mine to bestow for this time and not his Majesties nor the Colledges But I do very willingly reserve the Collation of the same to be disposed as your Grace shall please Yet this will be a sufficient answer to any former promise or any reasonable Competitor His Majestie as your Grace best knoweth promised me at the delivery of the Seal a better Bishoprick and intended it certainly if any such had fallen My Charge is exceeding great my Bribes are very little my Bishoprick Deanery and other Commendams do not clear unto me above one thousand pounds a year at the uppermost It hath pleased God that the casualties of my office which is all the benefit of the same and enriched my Lord Elsmor hath not been worth to me these two years past one shilling It may mend when it pleaseth God I leave all these and my self who am your Vassal at your Lordships feet and do rest c. Your Graces c. J. L. C. S. Postscript MAy it please your Grace I troubled his Highnesse with a long relation of the Consulto we had about his Majesties taking of the Oath Which I had written to your Grace and not to his Highnesse but that I was frighted by great men that I had done his Highnesse a displeasure in pressing his Majesties assent unto the same And I protest I was so poorly accompanied in my opinion that I was truly afraid I had not done well And therefore I took occasion to write my reasons at large unto the Prince Which I heard by Sir John Hipsley from your Grace was well taken I humbly thank your Grace who I know forwarded the same And so I perceive by a Letter from his Highnesse so full of sweetnesse as I am overwhelmed J. L. C. S. The Lord Keeper to the Duke 6. January 1623. May it please your Grace DOn Francisco being with me this night about a pardon for a poor Irish man whom I reprieved from execution at the suit of those Gentlemen of Navarra which are here with the Marquesse let fall by a kind of supposition affirming the matter to be as yet in the womb and not fully shaped and digested words to this effect That if the King of Spain should make a double marriage with the second Brother of France and his Sister and bestow the Palatinate as a Dower upon his sister in what case were we then I answered That we should be then in no worse case for ought I knew then we are now but that Germany might be in a far better case Peradventure it was but a word let fall to terrifie me withal But your Grace may make that use of it as to understand the language if your Grace shall hear any mention thereof hereafter I am very glad and do give God thanks par le mejora de su hijucla hermosissima And do rest c. Surely the French Embassadour is secret and more suspected then formerly by the People Mr. John Packer to the Lord Keeper 21. January 1623. May it please your Lordship SInce my coming hither finding my Lord at good opportunity I have acquainted him in what perplexity I found your Lordship at my coming from Westminster and upon what reason And though I am sorrie I can make no comfortable relation of his answer yet because
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
wholly upon Spain so that this King will protect him in his Electoral dignity and what he hath lately possessed himself of in those parts This offer of the Dukes hath been several dayes debated in Councel where the Marquesse Ynoiosa hath been busie in the behalf of the Duke but the wiser part of this Councel seeing how prejudicial the increase of the Dukes greatnesse may prove to the Empire do no way favour his pretentions They likewise hold fit to continue the state of things in a possibility of an accommodation without our Master The Arch-Duke Don Carlos hath brought power from the Emperour to proceed to the consummation of a marriage betwixt the Emperours son and the Infanta Donna Maria wherein he sayes he hath nothing to Capitulate but brings them a blanck paper and hath power and order to confirm what conditions they shall here set down The Emperour's Embassadour doth much presse to proceed to the Capitulations but there is yet nothing done The Infanta of Brussels hath lately written hither importing this King to admit of a treaty of marriage betwixt the Prince of Polonia and the Infanta his Sister extolling with many expressions the worth and parts of that Prince There hath been some moneths a general stop of their proceedings here in all suites of English Merchants depending in this Court but I have at last procured a Junto to be assigned for the hearing of all English Causes wherein I am promised there shall be a speedy Resolution taken of whatsoever is at present in Question The Duke of Feria hath lately advertised hither from Millain that the French King and the Duke of Savoy do minister much occasion of jealousie that they intend to attempt some novelty in those parts and doth therefore desire that his Troops may be augmented whereupon above the ordinary charge there was instantly remitted unto him 2000. Duckets The great annual Assiento which this King makes with the Genoueses is newly concluded it is for 7. millions whereof 4. are remitted for Flanders to be paid by monethly portions In a late meeting of the Councel of State upon a discourse that passed amongst them taking into consideration this Kings wants and the present distemper of his affairs the Inquisidor General expressing how necessary a time it was for his Majesties Subjects to assist his present occasions made offer of 100 Duckets for his part which the Conde of Olivares followed with a tender of 300 the Conde of Monterrey of 100 all the rest of the Councel of State following their example gave according to their quality Notice being taken of this abroad the Condestable wrote a Letter unto this King wherein he made tender of 200 Duckets the Marquesse of Castel Rodrigo of 100 the Marquesse of Carpio of the like summe Divers others have likewise declared themselves in this donative and it is hoped that it will go over the whole Kingdome and bring in an extraordinary Treasure into the Kings purse Thus with the remembrance of my duty I rest Your Graces c. W A. Archbishop Abbots to Secretarie Nanton 12. Septemb. 1619. Good Mr. Secretarie I Have never more desired to be present at any Consultation then that which is this day to be handled for my heart and all my heart goeth with it But my Foot is worse then it was on Friday so that by advice of my Physitian I have sweat this whole night past and am directed to keep my bed this day But for the matter my humble advice is That there is no going back but a countenancing of it against all the world yea so far as with ringing of Bells and making of Bon-fires in London so soon as it shall be certainly understood that the Coronation is past I am satisfied in my Conscience that the Cause is just wherefore they have rejected that proud and bloody man and so much the rather because he hath taken a course to make that Kingdom not elective but to take it from the donation of another man And when God hath set up the Prince that is chosen to be a mark of honor through all Christendom to propagate his Gospel and to protect the oppressed I dare not for my part give advice but to follow where God leads It is a great honour to the King our Master that he hath such a Son whose virtues have made him thought sit to be made a King And me thinks I do in this and that of Hungary foresee the work of God that by piece and piece the Kings of the earth that gave their power unto the beast all the Word of God must be fulfilled shall now tear the Whore and make her desolate as St. John in his Revelation hath foretold I pray you therefore with all the spirits you have to put life into this businesse and let a return be made into Germany with speed and with comfort and let it really be prosecuted that it may appear to the World that we are awake when God in this sort calleth us If I had time to expresse it I could be very angry at the shuffling which was used toward my Lord of Doncaster and the slighting of his Embassage so which cannot but touch upon our Great Master who did send him and therefore I would never have a Noble Sonne forsaken for respect of them who truly aym at nothing but their own purposes Our striking in will comfort the Bohemians will honour the Palsgrave will strengthen the Union will bring on the States of the Low Countries will stirre up the King of Denmark and will move his two uncles the Prince of Orange and the Duke of Bovillon to-together with Tremoville a rich Prince in France to cast in their shares And Hungarie as I hope being in that same cause will run the same fortune for the meanes to support the war I hope Providebit Deus The Parliament is the old and honourable way but how assured at this time I know not yet I will hope the best certainly if countenance be given to the action many brave spirits will voluntarily go Our great Master in sufficient want of mony gave some ayde to the Duke Savoy and furnished out a prettie army in the cause of Cleve We must trie once again what we can be done in this businesse of a higher nature and all the mony that may be spared is to be turned that way And perhaps God provided the Jewels that were layd up in the Tower to be gathered by the Mother for the preservation of her Daughter who like a noble Princesse hath professed to her Husband not to leave her self one Jewel rather then not to maintain so religious and righteous a cause You see that lying on my bed I have gone too far but if I were with you this should be my language which I pray you humbly and heartily to represent to the King my Master telling him that when I can stand I hope to do his Majestie some service herein So commending me unto you I
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
King of Spain touching the affaires of Holland the secresie whereof neverthelesse your Majestie had so recommended that besides the King and the Conde of Olivares no man in Spain knew of it If the Duke do not appear guilty of all these things let him be still your Majesties most faithful servant and let your Majestie yet confer upon him greater Honours if you can For I would have these things conceived to be spoken for the securitie of your Majestie not for the hurt of him to whom I wish prosperitie if by him the Christian world might be in prosperitie It onely remaineth that your Majestie will be pleased to take in good part this my service and obedience shewed to your Commandements To the King ab ignoto Best and most excellent King YOu will wonder that he who at first protesteth to be neither Papist nor Puritan Spaniard nor Hollander or yet in any delirium fit should presume in this Libel-like way to lay down to your Majestie the strong zeal he beareth to the safetie of your Majestie and his Countrie by shewing in this dark Tablet drawn by the worst Painter the common opinion of all those which are not possessed as above They say the businesse of greatest consequence that ever your Majestie handled is now at point to go well or ill The marriage or none and as it is carried a present War or a continued Peace The match of your son they wish you may perfect in your own time and think that for the quiet of your self and Kingdomes the shortest time the best And that this already traced will far sooner piece then any new one have beginning and accomplishment They fear this suspension carried by Killegrew was brought by Buckingham not for what he pretends and plainly say It was not onely to prevent his Highnesse marriage there but any where Whereby 1. His particular greatnesse may still stand absolute 2. His Wife and Tribe still present the Princesse person 3. And your Majestie be and remain their Pupil The Parliament so much urged they say is to be a marrying his Mightinesse unto the Common Weal that as your Majestie is his good Father It may be his Mother and so he stand not only by the King but by the People and popular humour that he hath lately so earnestly courted and especially from those who are noted to be of the most troubled humour How your Majestie should gain upon a Parliament they cannot imagine seeing all are resolved to sell your Courtesies at the dearest rate both by ill words and for double as much again the humour of it being so inconstant that twenty to one but those very tongues which in the last did cry War War War will now curse him that urgeth for one poor Subsidie to raise a War And miserable is he that is to make a War or to defend against it with money that is to be given and gathered from them They say our Great Duke hath certainly a brave desire to War but in that also he hath some great end of enriching himself which he too well loveth being carried away with that sweet sound how Nottingham gained yearly during that sicknesse 40000 l. by his Admirals place but what his Majestie gained they find not in the Exchequer or Kingdome Somewhat also they fear this his Graces precipitate humour and change of humour hath of pride to shew his power as great here as is Olivares his there as also of revenge against him in particular For were it love to his now much beloved Countrie they say there was as much reason for breach both of the Match and Peace when the Parliament urged it as there is now They say There is a rumour of his Graces a match for his Mary with the young Palatine It is no Gorgon and will concern his Highnesse if they that are now our best friends the Hollanders should change their Copie In this his Highnesse coming off from Spain they say He hath advised him to no worse then he did himself for how many did he deflour abuse and cousen with marriage by his grace in Court and power with your Majestie In short your Subjects that have sence of your estate do most earnestly beseech your Majestie to have more especial care of your own preservation then ordinarily you have both in respect of the desperate staggering which their Priests now stand in and of your own Phaeton himself who in truth wanteth nothing of man enough but a good nature and being in custome to carry all with a high hand must be desperate if he fail in any Punto of his violent will We know your Majestie according to the sweetnesse and virtue of your Nature agreeing with Gods blessed Will hath long preserved your people in all peace and plentie And all good and sensible people pray you even for Gods sake not to be cousened of your own life and liberty Oh be not mislead to trouble your own Kingdoms quiet but that after many and many a happie year you may die happily in peace To his Sacred Majestie ab ignoto May it please his most excellent Majestie to consider THat this great opposition against the Duke of Buckingham is stirred up and maintained by such who either malitiously or ignorantly and concurrently seek the debasing of this free Monarchie which because they find not yet ripe to attempt against the King himself they endeavour it through the Dukes side These men though agreeing in one mischief yet are of divers sorts and humours viz. 1. Medling and busie persons who took their first hint at the beginning of King James when the union was treated of in Parliament That learned King gave too much way to those popular speeches by the frequent proof he had of his great abilities in that kind Since the time of H. 6. these Parliamentary discoursings were never suffered as being the certain symptomes of subsequent rebellions civil Wars and the dethroning of our Kings But these last 20 years most of the Parliament men seek to improve the reputation of their wisdomes by these Declamations and no honest Patriot dare oppose them lest he incur the reputation of a Fool or a Coward in his Countries Cause 2. Covetous Landlords Inclosers Depopulators and Justices of the Peace who have got a habit of Omniregencie and an hope to extend the same against the King in Parliament as they do on his Subjects in the Countrey Hereby the King loseth 24000 l. in every whole Subsidie for Anno 1600. it was 80000 l. and now it is but 56000 l. which cometh by the decay of the yeomandry who were three and four pound men And these Gentlemen most of them of the Parliament do ease themselves to afflict those who are the true Commons and yet perswade them that the grievances are caused by the Duke and the ill government of the King 3. Recusants and Church Papists whose hatred is irreconcileable against the Duke for the breach of the Spanish Match The
able and experienced Ministers as he had any and therefore his Majestie might peradventure think fit not to hear them alone They said his Majestie might alone hear a thousand Ministers of any Kings but if he should be otherwise pleased they well liked of the Princes being present but they said there were also other great Ministers of the Kings who wished not well to their Masters affairs I said There might therein be a mistaking or misunderstanding on their part for if the King their Master mean so really as they said I conceived that no body would be willing to remove his Majestie from those purposes and that good affection which he bore unto his dear Brother the King of Spain The Marquesse said in English The King was a good King and the Prince a good Prince but some of their Ministers they doubted were ill willers to them I asked if greater demonstrations of reality could be devised then had been given on the part of the King and Prince instancing in the Prince his going in Person into Spain They confessed it but as the times now were they said ill offices were done them I assured them That I neither knew nor understood of any neither did I ever hear them spoken of but with due respect had unto them as to the Ministers of a great King and his Majesties dear Brother They said their meaning was not that the ill offices were done to their Persons but to the great Businesses which a certain Person had shewed a willingnesse to disturb but they hoped that the intended amity between our Masters would hold and proceed neverthelesse I professed that I knew nothing to the contrary neither understood I the particular at which they aymed The Marquesse swore as he was a Christian he knew that the King his Master did so truly and really esteem his dear Brother the King of England and the Prince of Wales that if they needed part of his blood they should have it for their good But he complained that they could not have their Messages delivered nor returned from the King of late but qualified according to the pleasures of others I said They misconceived it for I thought they had no cause to complain seeing they now had or might have as I supposed the Kings Ear when they craved it in due and befitting times They seemed to deny it alledging That they could not get their Messages and Papers answered as aforetime I said When the Prince was in Spain they had free accesse to his Majestie whensoever they desired it Yea said the Marquesse in Latine Tunc but now he said the case was altered I said the King had given many testimonies to the world of his willingnesse to comply with their Master and Them And if either his Majestie or the Prince seemed now more reserved and deliberate in their actions then heretofore it might be that his Highnesse had learned that wary and circumspect proceeding in Spain where they are said to use it in matters of far lesse moment They smiled hereat and prayed me to continue my good intentions and respects towards them and to the joynt affairs of both our Masters I said I would alwaies serve the King my Master with a true and faithful heart and so far as should be agreeable to his desires and good liking I would to my small power be ready to serve them In Conclusion they said They came but to visit me but being come they could not choose but say something and touch upon businesse Arthur Chichester 22. of May 1624. Having made visits at sundry times to the Spanish Embassadours I do here under my hand declare what passed betwixt them and me so neer as my memory serveth lest in my absence any such ma ter should fall in question I now intending to travel for a space VVHen his Highnesse was in Spain being upon my journy in Scotland I went to Elie-House to take my leave of Don Carlos where Vanvail was present I expressing much joy of the match which in my mind would without all question be perfected did find no such humour nor inclination on their part which did much astonish me for they grumblingly did alleadge that the King my Master did perform nothing that he promised or how could any thing be expected the Infanta being here whereas nothing was performed the Prince being in Spain I besought them to do better offices then without reason to put jealousies betwixt my Master and theirs who would never have sent his son to Spain without a real intention Which onely act was reason sufficient to remove all doubts Yet did they still continue their challenge of divers Bracks specially anent the sending of ships to Scotland to bring away the two Dunkirkers and not perfecting such conditions as were promised to Catholiques I did intreat them again that such conceits of my Master might be removed for they might be confident of full performance of what he had promised by reason he had never broke his promise to any I desired them likewise to consider with what love our Prince was gone and what a stain it should be to the State of Spain if uncourteously he should return with distast Besides it might fall out to be the worst act that ever they committed where anent if they had love to their Master they would prove good Instruments What was spoke by me in English was related in Spanish to Don Carlo so was it to me what they spoke in Spanish Sometimes Don Carlo spoke in French so that not a word passed which each man did not know I went again after the Treaties were given up and did remember Don Carlo of what I had forespoke when the Marquesse was present and took the speech they did demand of me whether I was come of my self or by Commission for they professed to account me their friend I answered that I came meeâ—ly of my self and was sorrie that by their own deserving they had procured such alterations and I thought strange of such demands as they had made at Hampton Court which did both expresse much spleen and lack of good intelligence They did avow their demands were reasonable but from that time they would make visits to the Duke and love him better then before because they were in doubt before but now they know him to be an Enemie I did answer that I was sorrie for their proceeding and was their friend so long as they were friends to my Master After a few haughty words such as it was a wrong waie to deal with their Master by threatnings who gave pay daily to 300000. Souldiers that they had followed the wars a long time and had seen men killed by the Cannon Musket Pike and sword but never saw men killed with words they desired me to speak to his Majestie that they might either be dismissed or have freedome to go about their businesse with security They did desire me likewise to speak to his Majestie that the treatie
pray against the worst But I found my self then to be more strictly obliged to the performance of this dutie when I received from your Grace so clear and abundant a testimonie as well of your good opinion as of the trust you reposed in me Obligations certainly of that nature and of so large an extent as do with reason deprive me of all degree of libertie and justly subject me to a perpetual state of servitude and obedience to all your Graces Commandements I have diligently perused my Lord of Bristols answer which it pleased your Grace to communicate unto me And although it become me not neither will I presume to give my opinion of the strength or weaknesse thereof yet will I take the liberty to say thus much That I find in his case that to be verified which I have observed at other times to wit That when able and prudent men come to act their own Parts they are then for the most part not of the clearest sight and do commonly commit such errours as are both discernable and avoidable even by men of mean abilities Being now fallen to speak of this Lord I humbly beseech your Lordship to give me leave plainly and briefly to set before you some Cogitations of mine own touching his present occasion First that it may be maturely considered Whether the tendring him any further charge unto which he may be able to frame a probable satisfactorie answer will not rather serve to declare his innocencie then to prepare his Condemnation and so instead of pressing him reflect back with disadvantage upon the proceeding against him Secondly That your Grace would be pleased to consult with your self whether you may not desist from having him further questioned without either blemish to your Honour or manifest prejudice to the service Considering that you have to your perpetual glory already dissolved and broken the Spanish partie and rendred them without either the means or the hope of ever conjoyning in such sort together again as may probably give the least disturbance or impediment to your Graces waies and designs And lastly Although his Lordship in sundry places of his answer especially in the latter part doth seem directly to violate the rule of the * Provident prudent Marriner who in foul weather and in a storm is accustomed to prevent shipwrack rather to pull down then to set up his sailes Neverthelesse as this case stands it deserves to be thorowly pondered which of the two waies will most conduce to your Graces purpose and is likely to receive the best interpretation and success either to have him dealt with after a quick and round manner or otherwise to proceed slowly and moderately with him permiting him for a time to remain where he is as a man laid aside and in the way to be forgotten A state of being if I mistake not his complexion which will be by him apprehended equivalent to the severest and sharpest censure that possibly can be inflicted on him Thus have I over-boldly adventured to present unto your Grace these few Queries and Proposals which they might be both inlarged and more forcibly urged yet to avoid the being too tedious I have chosen to omit the further insisting upon them till such time as I may have the honour and felicitie of being neer your person At this present it shall suffice humbly to beseech your Grace to be assuredly perswaded that what I have now delivered in this subject doth not proceed from any over indulgent respect I bear either to the person or fortune of my Lord of Bristol though I should not be sorry that like a prudent man he might by his discreet application to your Grace render himself capable to be again readmitted to your love and favour But the motive which hath induced me principally to use this plainnesse and libertie is the Consideration how importantly as I conceive the well ordering and disposing this particular doth concern your Graces service Unto the advancement and furtherance whereof if I may be able now or at any time to contribute the least proportion I shall esteem my self most happie and more then abundantly rewarded in case that my right humble endeavours in that kind may receive from your Grace a favourable and acceptable construction I will conclude this Letter with a twofold prayer first to you for my self that your Grace will be pleased to pardon this boldnesse Next to God for you that he will give you health and length of daies for his Majesties service and the good and honour of this Common-wealth I humbly crave leave to remain Your Graces Most obedient and devoted servant Rob. Philips The Earl of Middlesex to the Duke Right Noble and my most honoured Lord I Have received divers Letters from your Lordship since your going from Theobalds which though they concern several men and in sundry kinds yet they all conclude upon diminution of his Majesties estate contrary to your general ground when his Majestie delivered me the Staffe and contrary to your Lordships private directions given me at Theobalds with which I did your Lordship the right to acquaint the King I have of late had cause to take into consideration the miserable condition of my present estate who since I received the staffe have led such a life as my very enemies pity me which I foresaw the distraction of the Kings estate and burthen of that place would of necessitie throw upon me Yet my dutie love and thankfulnesse to his Majestie and my love and thankfulnesse to you contrary to my own judgment and advice of my friends made me undertake it little expecting these Crosse accidents which have lyen heavy upon me and more troubled me then the continual cares and vexations of my place I do most freely and willingly acknowledge one man cannot be more bound unto another then I am to your Lordship and if I do not make a thankful return let me be held an ungrateful Monster which is the worst of Villains I have been so ambitious as to desire to extend my gratitude so far as that the King may have cause to thank you for preferring me and that your Lordship may blesse the time you did it To effect that I shall delight to live a miserable life for a time The course which must of necessitie be held to do it I will acquaint your Lordship with very shortly which I hope you will be pleased to approve and assist me in And then I will expresse my thankfulnesse to you that way If that course shall not like you I will not onely deliver you up my places but whatsoever I hold from the King and live privately upon mine own estate For I will never sell so good and gracious a Master nor so noble and constant a friend ruined and undone God blesse you and send you your hearts desire As for my self I never desired to quit the World and all the fooleries in it till now Your Lordships Faithfullest servant
honour to entertain the Queen Mother She was willing to know upon what terms stood our Spanish alliance I told her that their delayes had been so tedious that they had somewhat discouraged the King and had so wearied the Prince and State which the dilatorie proceedings in it as that Treatie I thought would soon have an end She streight said of marriage taking it that way I told her I believed the contrarie and I did so the rather because the Spanish Embassadour hath given it out since my comming that the Alliance is fully concluded and that my journey had no other end then to hasten his Master unto it only to give them Jealousies of me because he at this time feares their dispositions stand too well prepared to desire and affect a conjunction with us And truly his report and instruments have given some jealousies to the persons of power in this State especially since they find I can say nothing directly unto them yet thus much I have directly from them Mounsieur de Vievielle and others but he is the chief guider of all affaires here That never was the affection of any State so prepared to accept all offers of amitie and alliance so we will cleerly and as disingaged persons seek it as is this but as a wise minister he saies that until we have whollie and truly abandoned the treatie with Spain they may lose the friendship of a brother in law that is alreadie so in hope of gaining another that they may fail of But when we shall see it reallie by a publique Commission that may declare all dissolved that touches upon the way of Spain we shall then understand their hearts not to be capable of more joy then that will bring them And the Queen Mother told me she had not lost those inclinations that she hath heretofore expressed to desire her Daughter may be given to the Prince with many words of value unto the King and person of the Prince and more then this she could not she thought well say it being most natural for the woman to be demanded and sought It is most certain that under-hand Spain hath done all that is possible to procure this State to listen to a crosse-marriage but here they are now so well understood as this baite will not be swallowed by them This I have from a grave and honest man that would not be brought to justifie it therefore he must not hear of it It is the Savoy Embassadour that is resident here a wise and a Gallant Gentleman who vowes this to be most true So general a desire was never expressed as is here for alliance with us and if the King and Prince have as many reasons of State at this time besides their infinite affection here to have it so continued let it be roundly and clearly pursued and then I dare promise as respective and satisfactorie a reception as can be imagined or desired And if it were not too much saucinesse for me to advise I could wish that the propositions of a league and marriage may not come together but may be treated a part For I doubt whether it may not be thought a little dishonourable for this King to give his sister conditionallie that if he will make war upon the King of Spain his brother we will make the alliance with him on the other part if the league should be propounded here with all those reasons of State that are now pressing for them to make it they have causes to doubt and so have we too that we may both be interrupted in that for certainly the King of Spain will if he can possibly please one side the which they think here may be us with the restitution of the Palatinate and we may likewise fear may be them with the rendring of the Valtoline these being the only open quarrels we must ground upon Now as long as these doubts may possesse us both this will prove a tedious and jealous work of both sides But if we fall speedily upon a treatie and conclusion of a marriage the which will find I am perswaded no long delayes here neither will they strain us to any unreasonablenesse in conditions for our Catholiques as far as I can find then will it be a fit time for to couclude a league the which they will then for certain do when all doubts and feares of fallings off are by this conjunction taken away and the necessity of their own affaires and safety will then make them more desire it then we and so would they now if they could think it so sure and so honourable for them For the King of Spain hath so imbraced them of all sides as they fear and justly that he will one day crush them to their destruction My Lord I do not presume to say any thing immediately to the King thorough your hands this I know will passe unto him and if he should find any weaknesse in this that I have presumed to say let the strength of your favour exercise those accustomed Noblenesses that you have alwayes expressed unto Your Graces most humble and obliged Servant Kensington Postscript VVIthin these few dayes your Grace shall hear again from me for as yet I have not seen the King no otherwise then the first night I arrived here This night he is come unto the Town again The Lord Kensington to the Prince 26. February 1624. May it please your Highnesse I Find here so infinite a value of your Person and virtue as what Instrument so ever my self the very weakest having some commands as they imagine from you shall receive excesse of honours from them They will not conceive me scarce receive me but as a publique Instrument for the service of an Alliance that above all the things in this world they do so earnestly desire The Queen Mother hath expressed as far as she thinks is fit for the honour of her Daughter great favour and good will in it I took the boldnesse to tell her the which she took extreamly well that if such a proposition should be made your Highnesse could not believe that she had lost her former inclinations and desires in it She said your trust of her should find great respect there is no preparation I find towards this businesse but by her and all perswasions of amitie made light that look not towards this end And Sir if your intentions proceed this way as by many reasons of State and wisdom there is cause now rather to presse it then slacken it you will find a Ladie of as much Lovelinesse and Sweetnesse to deserve your affection as any creature under Heaven can do And Sir by all her fashions since my being here and by what I hear from the Ladies it is most visible to me her infinite value and respect unto you Sir I say not this to betray your belief but from a true observation and knowledge of this to be so I tell you this and must somewhat more in
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
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
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
And this use your Grace may make thereof to his Majesties service that now this King and Queen are both of them no lesse confident of your affection then they are of your sinceritie what you advise them in their affairs will be of much weight to sway them in the ballance of their judgment Which now a Proposition is made unto them on which their whole estate doth depend as well for themselves as their posteritie full of doubtful circumstances on both sides the choice not being as they conceive betwixt one thing certain and another uncertain but betwixt two unequal uncertainties it is hard to say which way they incline but if they be left to themselves I perceive they will rather stand to the hazard of the latter with preservation of their honour and lawful pretensions then submit themselves to the former with shame and disgrace and no assurance of better dealing then was used to the deported House of Saxe by a better Emperour then this accounted of which we have the Heir one of the worthiest Princes in Germanie here in hard Conditions amongst us And he serves as a spectacle to these Princes of their fortunes by the same way as his Predecessors took of submission Yet other things being before agreed of and settled in that sort as his Majestie hath alwaies assured these Princes to be his full intention of restitution to their Patrimonial Honours and estate This King I find will conform himself to what his Majestie shall think fit touching a due submission But this being a matter of ceremony the other of substance he judgeth that if this precede that is the Submission the other of restitution will never follow Neither can it be well seen how in possibility it may be effected considering that whilest things have been held sometimes in terms alwaies in talk of accommodation the Electoral is given to Bavier by the Emperour and avowed by a Congratulatory Embassage from Bruxels the upper Palatinate setled in his possession with some portion to Newburgh for his Contentation and ingagement A principal part of the lower Palatinate the Bergstrate given to the Elector of Mentz with the consent of those of Bruxels where he was lately in person to obtain it though they grossely dissemble it and promises of parts of the rest made to other Princes So as what is now pretended I must deal plainly with your Grace is no otherwaies interpreted then as experience doth teach of these three former years proceedings Ever new Overtures in Winter and new Ruptures in the Summer And as of two former Treaties with this Prince which passed my hands one a Consent to a Submission sent to Vienna the other a Ratification of a Suspension oftentimes sent to Bruxels no other use was made but with the first to accelerate Bethlem Gabor in his Treatie of Peace with the Emperour as then on foot and with the second to intimidate both the Electours Saxe and Brandenburgh with the Princes of the Nethes Saxe and Creyes from entring into Armes to which they were well disposed upon the discontentment they received of the preposterous courses that were taken in the Diet at Ratisbone and to this effect Copies of the very projects of the said Treaties were dispersed by the Imperialists before the Instruments themselves were perfected so it is here believed that now Gabor is again in armes and other Princes ready to imbrace any good occasion of redresse of affaires time is onely sought to be gained by this new Overture and the King of Bohemin's Credit with his friends and well wishers in Germanie to be weakned if not lost for if once he submit himself allowing the translation of the Electoral he shall thereby avow the Emperours undue procedings in that cause which have been protested against by Saxe and Brandenbergh and all the other Germane Princes excepting those onely of the Catholique league and by whom afterwards upon any ill dealing can he expect to be befriended who forsakes himself and his own cause This is the discourse of these Princes upon this occasion but when they are asked What then can you trust unto their recourse is to his Majestie who they hope knoweth the meanes to effect in their behalf what he hath so long and so constantly undertaken for them And though for these three or four years past affaires on this side have gone in a continual decadence and now threaten a final ruine unlesse it be withstood by some Princelie Resolution not of pettie but of great Princes yet here is no such discouragement but that it is thought there is yet strength and vigour enough left in the good Party not onely to subsist but to rise and flourish again as well as ever And in this cogitation the King and Queen remain not prescribing any thing to his Majestie nor willing to submit themselves anew to the same rod with which they have been so often scourged Your Grace was lately invited with my Lord of Richmond to christen their young Son which being excused by my Lord of Richmond in both your names And the King of France undertaking that office it was performed by that King and the King of Swede yesterday was seven-night represented by the French Embassadour here resident and the Prince of Orange in the same manner and the same Church as the Princesse Louise bearing the same name was christned the last year when the Duke Christien of Brunswick being invited to be Godfather though absent and for some respects of precedence could not have a Deputie was understood notwithstanding to be one of the Parrins and so do the King and Queen hold both your Grace and my Lord of Richmond I must now render your Grace my humble thanks for your manifestation of your favour to my self which you are pleased to do in such ample manner as to tell me farther for my Comfort who are my friends And a farther effect of friendship I could not expect of them then to procure me the assurance I now receive from your Grace who have won the reputation by your Constancie to those you take into your Care that your word is taken for your deed And though that which I thought fittest for my self failes me if your Grace can think me fit for any thing else towards the amendment of my poor fortune I shall attend the same with much patience of mind though great extreamitie otherwise by reason of a small estate charged with great debts which are no small burthen to an honest mind And ever remain Your Graces Most faithful devoted servant Dudley Carleton Hague 13th Decemb. 1623. Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke May it please your Grace THe Queen of Bohemia desirous to draw the Prince of Orange to more then general professions of service to his Majestie hath sometimes in my presence when I waited on her highnesse given occasion of discourse her self and at other times I have spoken in her name with his Excellencie to the like effect as in my
Petition of Francis Philips to King Iames for the release of Sir Robert Philips prisoner in the Tower P. 155 Oliver St. John to the Major of Marlborough against the Benevolence P. 159 The Justices of Peace in Com. Devon to the Lords of the Councel P. 182 The Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bishops concerning K. James his Directions for Preachers with the Directions Aug. 14. 1622. P. 183 King James his Instructions to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning Orders to be observed by Bishops in their Dioceses 1622. P. 187 Bishop of Winchester to his Archdeacon to the same effect P. 189 The Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper to the Bishop of London concerning Preaching and Catechising P. 190 Instructions for the Ministers and Churchwardens of London P. 193 Mons Bevayr Chancellor of France discharged to the French King ibid. Mons Richere forced recants his opinions against the Papal supremacie over Kings P. 196 Car. Richlieu to the Roman Catholicks of Great Britain Aug. 25. 1624. P. 197 Mons Balsac to the Cardinal de la Valette ibid. Mons Balsac to the King Louis P. 200 Mons Toyrax to the Duke of Buckingham P. 201 Ab ignoto concerning the estate of Rochel after the surrender P. 202 The Protestants of France to Charles King of Great-Britain P. 204 The Duke of Rohan to his Majesty of Great-Britain Mar. 12. 1628. P. 208 Pope Greg. 15. to the Inquisitor-general of Spain April 19. 1623. P. 210 Pope Urban to Lewis the 13. Aug. 4. 1629. P. 211 The Duke of Buckingham Chancellor Elect to the Vniversity of Cambridge Iune 5. 1626. P. 213 King Charles to the Vniversity of Cambridge in approbation of their election Iune 6. 1626. P. 214 The Vniversity of Cambridge its answer to the Duke Iune 6. 1626. P. 215 The Vniversity of Cambridge its answer to the King P. 216 A Privy-Seal for transporting of Horse Iune 6. 1624. P. 217 The Vniversity of Cambridge to the Duke P. 218 The Dukes answer P. 219 The Vice-chancellor of Cambridge to the King upon the Dukes death ib. King Charles to the Vniversity of Cambridge for a new election P. 220 The Earl of Holland to the Vniversity P. 221 The Vnimersity of Cambridge to the King P. 222 An Order made at Whitehall betwixt the Vniversity and Town of Cambridge Decemb. 4. 1629. P. 223 The Vniversity of Cambridge to the Archbishop of York P. 224 The Vniversity of Cambridge to the Earl of Manchester P. 225 The Vniversity of Cambridge to Sir Humphrey May P. 226 Instructions by K. Charles to the Vicechancellor and Heads of Cambridge for Government c. Mar. 4. 1629. P. 127 The Vniversity of Cambridge to the Lord chief Iustice Richardson P. 228 The Bishop of Exeter to the Lower-House of Parliament P. 229 King Charles to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal P. 230 A Councel-Table Order against hearing Mass at Ambassadors houses March 10. 1629. P. 232 The King of Spain to Pope Urban Sept. 11. 1629. P. 234 The Councel of Ireland to King Charls in defence of the Lord Deputy Faulkland Aug. 28. 1629. P. 235 Ab ignoto Of the affairs of Spain France and Italy June 5. 1629. P. 239 The Lords of the Councel of England to the Lords of the Councel of Ireland Jan. 31. 1629. P. 240 The Lord Faulklands Petition to the King P. 242 The Duke of Modena to the Duke of Savoy July 30. 1629. P. 243 Sir Kenelm Digby to Sir Edward Stradling P. 244 Mr. Gargrave to the Lord Davers P. 253 A Declaration of Ferdinand Infanta of Spain July 5. 1636. P. 257 FINIS King HENRY the 8. to the Clergie of the Province of York An. 1533. Touching his Title of Supreme Head of the Church of England RIght Reverend Father in God Right trusty and welbeloved We greet you well and have received your Letters dated at York the 6. of May containing a long discourse of your mind and opinion concerning such words as hath passed the Clergie of the Province of Canterbury in the Proeme of their Grant made unto us the like whereof should now pass in that Province Albeit ye interlace such words of submission of your Judgment and discharge of your duty towards us with humble fashion and behaviour as we cannot conceive displeasure nor be miscontent with you considering what you have said to us in times past in other matters and what ye confess in your Letters your self to have heard and known noting also the effect of the same We cannot but marvail at sundry points and Articles which we shall open unto you as hereafter followeth First ye have heard as ye say ye have the said words to have passed in the Convocation of Canterbury where were present so many learned in Divinity and Law as the Bishops of Rochester London S. Assaph Abbots of Hyde S. Bennets and many other and in the Law the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Bath and in the Lower House of the Clergie so many notable and great Clerks whose persons and learning you know well enough Why do ye not in this case with your self as you willed us in our great matter conform your conscience to the conscience and opinion of a great number Such was your advice to us in the same our great matter which now we perceive ye take for no sure counsel for ye search the grounds not regarding their sayings Nevertheless forasmuch as ye examine their grounds causes and reasons in doing whereof ye seem rather to seek and examine that thing which might disprove their doings then that which might maintain the same We shall answer you briefly without long discourse to the chief points of your said Letters wherein taking for a ground that words were ordained to signifie things and cannot therefore by sinister interpretation alter the truth of them but only in the wits of perverse persons that would blind or colour the same by reason whereof to good men they signifie that they mean only doing their office and to men of worse sort they serve for maintenance of such meaning as they would imagine so in using words we ought only to regard and consider the expression of the truth in convenient speech and sentences without overmuch scruple of super-perverse interpretations as the malice of men may excogitate wherein both overmuch negligence is not to be commended and too much diligence is not only by daily experience in mens writings and laws shewed frustrate and void insomuch as nothing can be so cleerly and plainly written spoken and ordered but that subtile wit hath been able to subvert the same but also the Spirit of God which in his Scripture taught us the contrary as in the places which ye bring in reherse if the Holy Ghost had had regard to that which might have been perversly construed of these words Pater major me est and the other Ego Pater unum sumus there should have been added to the first humanitas to the second substantia And
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
Warden of our Cinque-Ports William Lord Knowls Treasurer of our houshold John Lord Stanhop and Tho. Lord Bannings and to our right trusty and welbeloved Councellors Sir John Digby Knight our Vice-Chamberlain Sir John Herbert Knight one of our principal Secretaries of State Sir Fulk Grevil Knight Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of our Exchequer Sir Tho. Parry Knight Chancellor of our Dutchy of Lancaster Sir Edward Coke Knight Chief Justice of our Bench and Sir Julius Cesar Knight Master of our Rolls greeting Whereas the States-Generall of the United Provinces of the Low-Countries have divers times sollicited us by their resident Ambassador Sir Noel Caron Knight that we would be pleased to render into their hands the Towns of Flushing in Zeland with the Castle of Ramakins and of Bril in Holland with the Forts and sconces thereunto belonging which we hold by way of caution untill such sums of money as tney owe unto us be reimbursed upon such reasonable conditions as should be agreed on between us and them for the reimbursing and repayments of the said monies And whereas we have recommended the consideration of this so mighty and important an affair to the judgment and discretion of you the Lords of our Privy-Councel and have received from you after long and mature deliberation and examination of the circumstances an advice That as the present condition of our State now standeth and as the nature of those Towns is meer cautionary wherein we can challenge no interest of propriety it would be much better for our service upon fair and advantagious conditions to render them then longer to hold them at so heavy a charge Now forasmuch as in our Princely wisdom we have resolved to yield up our said Town with the said Castle and Sconces belonging unto them upon such conditions as shall be most for our advantage as well in point of honour as of profit Know ye therefore that we have assigned and appointed you the said Archbishop L. Treasurer L. Privy-Seal L. Steward L. Admiral L. Chamberlain E. of Exeter E. of Mar E. of Dunfermlin Vicount Fintons L. Bishop of Winton L. Zouch L. Knowls L. Stanhop L. Banning Sir John Digby Sir John Herbert Sir Ralph Winwood Sir Tho. Lake Sir Fulk Grevil Sir Tho. Parry Sir Edw. Coke Sir Julius Cesar our Commissioners and do by these presents give full power authority unto you or the more part of you for us and in our name to treat and conclude with the said Sir Noel Caron Knight Ambassador from the States of the United Provinces being likewise for that purpose sufficiently authorized from the said States his superiors touching the rendition and yielding up of the said Town of Flushing with the Castle of Ramakins in Zeland and of the Town of Bril in Holland with the Forts and Sconces thereto belonging and of the Artillery and Munition formerly delivered by the States with the same which are now remaining in them or any of them and have not been spent and consumed And for the delivery of them into the hands of the said States on such terms as by you shall be thought fit for our most honour and profit and for the manner thereof to give instructions to our said several Governours of the said Garrisons according to such your conclusion And this our Commission or the enrollment or exemplification thereof shall be unto you and every of you a sufficient warrant and discharge in that behalf In witness c. Witness our self at Westminster the 31 day of May in the 14 year of our Reign c. and of Scotland the 49. A Commission to Viscount Lisle Governour to deliver them up 22 May 14. Jac. IAMES by the grace of God c. To our right trusty and welbebeloved Cozen Robert Lord Viscount Lisle Lord Chamberlain to our dear Consort the Queen and our Governour of our Town of Vlushing and of the Castle of Ramakins greeting Whereas we by Our Letters Patents sealed with Our great Seal of England bearing date at Westminster the 22. day of April in the fifth year of Out reign of England France and Ireland of Scotland the 36. for the consideration therein expressed did make ordain and constitute you the said Viscount Lisle by the name of Sir Robert Sydney Knight for Us to be the Governour and Captain of the said Town of Vlushing and of the Castle of Ramakins in the Low-Countries and of all the Garrisons and Souldiers that then were or hereafter should be there placed for Our service and guard of the said Town and Castle to have hold exercise and occupy the Office of the said Governor and Captain of the said Town and Castle by your self or your sufficient Deputie or Deputies to be allowed by Us during Our pleasure giving unto you full power and authority by your said Letters Patents to take the Oath and Oaths of all Captains Souldiers then serving or that hereafter should serve in the same Town and Castle as in like causes was requisite with divers other powers therein mentioned as by Our said Letters Patents at large appeareth And whereas the States generall of the United Provinces of the Low-Countries have divers and sundry times for many years together sollicited Us by their Resident Ambassador Sir Noel Caron Knight that We would be pleased to render into their hands the said Town of Vlushing in Zealand with the said Castle of Ramakins and the Town of Brill in Holland with the Forts Sconces thereunto belonging which We hold by way of Caution until such sums of mony as they owe unto Us be reimbursed upon such reasonable conditions as should be agreed upon between Us them for the reimbursing and repaiment of the said monies And whereas thereupon We recommended the consideration of this so weighty and important an affair to the judgement and discretion of the Lords of the Privy Councell and have received from them after long and mature deliberation and examination of Circumstances an advice that as the present condition of Our State now standeth and as the nature of those towns is lying onely Cautionary wherein we can challenge no interest of propriety it should be much better for our service upon fair and advantangious conditions to render them then longer to hold them at so heavy a charge Now forasmuch as in Our Princely Wisdom We have resolved to yeild up Our said Towns with the said Castle and Sconces belonging unto them upon such conditions as shall be most sit for Our advantage as well in point of honor as of profit And to that end by Our Commission under Our great Seal of England have assigned and appointed the Lords and others of Our Privy Councell Our Commissioners and thereby give full power and authority unto them or the more part of them for Us and in Our name to treat and conclude with the said Sir Noell Caron Knight Ambassador from the States of the United Provinces being likewise for that purpose sufficiently authorized from the
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
there are those in Biscay and some in Portugal only excepted where we have not divers oppressions imprisonments and unjust imbargements in Sivil especially whereof forty several suits and as many false sentences given raised and pursued by a man now dead and therefore in charity left unnamed We have hitherto in your Majesties Councel of war where before those noble Lords all passed by the equal line of Justice not failed in my remembrance in the overthrowing of any save one mistaken that passed in a wrong name and another concerning merchandise that had their manufacture in Embden whereof I suppose those Lords were not rightly informed only excepted In that Court I must acknowledge we have had redress but yet with your Majesties favour a miserable one our gain being whether we shall be owners of our own or not our expences and charges certain and the time without measure large whereby many have been undone some dead in prison in England for want of what was unjustly detained from them here Yet neither the false Judges in Sivil nor Promoters ever chastised or for any thing that I yet have understood so much as ever reprehended or found fault with I haste to a conclusion fearing lest I should dwell too long in a matter so unsavoury and unpleasing to your Majesties pittifull ears and Christian heart so much of it self disposed to all clemency and piety I will for the next resort to the ships cordage corn and other victuals and provisions taken from the King my Soveraigns subjects for your Majesties own services and the relief of the extreme necessity in your Gallies and Garrisons of the Navy of whom some have been enforced for want of payment of their monies to send their ships home unfreighted a loss extreme to poor Merchants that live by trade and time to repair to this Court and here remain some of them 14 moneths and others two years and more till their very charges had eaten out a great part of what was due unto them and in the end recover only their own without any relief or recompence either for their expences times lost or damages I will only instance two because their causes are most strange and pittifull and yet unsatisfied the one named Thomas Harrison and the other Richard Morris The first served your Majesty with his ship till the same with one of his sons and all of his men were swallowed with the seas and hath been here more then four years suing for his recompence and salary recommended by the King my Soveraign by Letters from your Majesties Ambassadors in England and by my self all that long time furthered with my earnest sollicitation which hath begot infinite promises but to this day no manner of payment or performance The other who sometimes hath been a man of wealth and reputation and falling into great poverty served your Majesty with all that in the world he was worth and all that in value above 6000 Ryals I blush I protest to think of it and my heart is grieved to mention it to so great a King of whose liberality and magnificence the world taketh so much notice His right and his necessity being well known unto your Officers he hath been more then three years and a half fed with hopes and put off with schedules and sending from one Port to another for the receipt of his mony till he hath indebted himself the most part of the sum and at present wanteth wherewith both to feed and cover him Now at last he is promised payment out here of your Royal chests but after so many ceremonies and circumstances to be performed with your Officers in other parts as God knows hunger may end the poor man before they begin to satisfie him By all this will plainly appear to your Majesty that your Majesties subjects are by the favour and Christian justice of the King my master entred into the new Testament and law of Grace having restitution and remedy without the delayes of ceremony and formality and we still remain under the old and tyed in all things to the hand-writing of the Law to the burthenous circumstances and intolerable dilatory formalities of proceeding in this your Kingdom and what else your unpittifull Ministers will out of uncharitable and unsensible minds of other mens harms charge and impose upon us Well doth your Majesty conceive that would the King my Master wink at the like courses to be taken by his subjects and ministers with such of yours as they might meet upon the seas the English are not of so little invention but they could devise as good colours and pretences nor their Lawyers of so small skill and so much conscience but they could form and protract suits nor the ships of England so weakened and lessened but they could equal and surmount their losses I have out of mine own humble affection to your Majesty out of my generall and ever continuing desire to hold firm the ancient amity so necessary for your own estates and utile for the whole common-weal of Christendom out of the force of duty I owe to my King and Country thus far adventured to unburthen my soul and thoughts not doubting but your Majesties magnanimous and Christian heart will be moved as well in desire to equal the pious and immutable example of the King my Master as in a just compassion of a Nation now confederate with you and that so gladly would entertain any cause to love and serve you to give present remedy to those wofull and intolerable oppressions and that since you have firmed and consented by your Articles of Peace of new orders which being confirmed by your oath stand now in force of Laws you would be pleased in like manner to give them a new form of indilatory execution conformable to that of the King my Soveraign c. King James to the University of Cambridge Mar. 4. 1616. JACOBVS Dei gratia Magnae Britanniae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei defensor c. Academiae Cantabrigiae communi salutem SI jus civitatis impetret à nobis Cantabrigia veremur ne aemula urbis potentia crescente minuatur Academiae securitas sat erit apud nos metus vestri judicium fecisse nec enim tam vobis convenit Academiae periculum deprecari quam nobis sponte nostra quicquid in speciem illi noxium sit avertere Glorietur urbs illa se à Majoribus nostris electam doctrinarum sedem ingeniorum officium sapientiae palestram Quicquid his titulis addi potest nimis non honestatur plebeia Civitatis appellatione Musarum domicilium vel sane literatorum dicatur Civitas vel quod in villa nostrae villae in incolitarum tegitur celebritate Haec ejus fuerint privilegia Academiae dignitatem comiter observare cujus frequentia facta seipsa major affluentia bonarum artium studiosos amicè excipere quorum congressu dislata est Literatorum deinque honori ancillari unde haec illa nata
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
soules of three Kingdomes A while agoe he sent a Gentleman expresly to this Court that it might not be contrary with the Marriage which he treated with Spaine and to endeavour to make the Romans think well of it and that one of these daies it may be he will call his Holinesse and the sacred Colledge of Cardinals but hitherto these are terms of a tongue unknowne to him Furthermore in this Country we imagine that there will be no lack of warrs till Rochel be reâ—uced to extremity It is very true that the forces which the King hath left before it are not great but for how many men think you they count the Captaine into whose hands he hath put them It is not permitted to judg of that which he will doe by the ordinary course of the things of this world his actions cannot be drawn into example and though he be infinitely wise notwithstanding it is certaine that in what he undertakes it alwaies appears somewhat greater then mans wisdome Yet truly my Lord after having considered the motion of the Stars which are so just the order of the seasons whâ—ch are so governed the beauties of nature which are so divers I find in the end that there is nothing in the world where God sheweth himself so admirable as in the guiding of the life of my Lord your Father But to the purpose behold this that I added yesterday to the great discourse which I made by your Commandment and which you much praised the first time Monsr. Balsac to the King Louis SIR The late King your father hath not done more and neverthelesse not to speak of the Actions of his life your Majesty knowes that his last thoughts made all the Kings of the earth to tremble and his memorie untill this day is reverenced to the uttermost ends of the world Notwithstanding Sir be it that you are come in a better time then he be it that God hath destinated your Majesty for higher things the glory which you have gotten at the going out of your infancy is not lesse then that which that great Prince deserved when he was was growne old in Armes and in affaires as he so you make your selfe redoubted without tyranny as he so you governe your people But I am constrained to avow that your Majesty must needs yeild to him in one thing which is that you have not yet begot a Sonne that resembles you But certainly Sir wee cannot any longer time have this advantage over you All Europe requires Princes and princesses of you and it is certaine that the world ought not to end but when your race shall faile if you will then that the beauty of the things we see passe to another age If you wil that the publick tranquillity have an assured foundation and that your victories may be eternal you must talke no more of working powerfully nor of doing greate Acts of State but with the Queen Mons r Toyrax to the Duke of Buckingham MY Lord your curtesies are sufficiently known to all the world and you place them with so much judgment that those only may hope after them that make themselves worthy by their actions Now I know no action so worthy of that merit as for a man to imploy himself if in the defence of this place he vanquish not all difficulties so that no despair of succor nor fear of rigor in case of extreamity can ever make me quit a design so generous as also I shall esteeme my self unworthy of any your favours if in this action I omit the least point of my duty the issue whereof cannot be but honourable and by how much you adde to this glory by your valour and carriage by so much I am more bound to remaine during my life your Lordships humble and most obedient servant Toirax Ab ignoto concerning the estate of Rochel after the surrender SIR I presume you have long since heard the particulars of Roâ—hel and that by farre better relations then mine notwithstanding you may be pleased to know what I observed and learned there my selfe eight daies after the Kings entrance whither curiosity and some other causes drew me For the siege and Dike they prae caeteris excellens were in all parts most royall and farre more perfect and uniforme then relation could make me conceive The misery of the siege almost incredible but to such only as have seene it or some part thereof Corn was worth after the rate of 800 Franks the bushel an Oxe or Cow sold after the rate of 2000 Franks The host where I lay sold a Jade horse worth it may be four or five pounds for 800 Franks and for five and twenty weeks tasted no bread of twelve persons in his family only he and his wife are living who also within two daies had dyed if the Town had not been rendred He and his wife made a Collation the day before the Town was rendred which cost him about six or seven pound sterling their chear was a pound of bread made of Straw Sugar and other Spices halfe a pound of horse flesh three or foure ounces of Comfits and a pint of Wine which they imagin'd was the last good chear they should make together and in like case were all the rest of the Towne only two or three families of the better sort excepted by which you may conjecture what rates such kind of provision were at There were eaten between 3000 or 4000 Cow-hides all the dogs cats mice and rats they could get not a horse left alive which was food for the better sort only Madam Rohan after having eaten her Coach horse and her servants the Leather of her Coach removed though full sore against her will her lodging from Rochel to the Castle of Mooke or Nioeul where she is under guard and since it is said to the Bastile in Paris God send her and hers to heaven There died for want of food in Rochel 15000 and rested living when the King entred betweene three and four thousand of which there are since very many dead they dayly discover new miseries which when I was there were not spoken of the mother and the child at the brest both dead the child having eaten most part of the mothers brest a souldier was found dead with a piece of his fellows flesh in his mouth a Burger having a servant killed powdred her which fed him and his wife a long time and dainty meat too many languishing and finding themselves draw neer their ends caused their coffins to be carried into the Churches laid them down in them and so dyed these were of the better sort The common sort laid themselves down in Coffins in the Church yards and there dyed others in the streets others not able to go out of their houses dyed and remained there their friends being not able to remove them thence So that when the first Forces of the King entered there were in the Town of Corps unburied some in the
Church-yards others in the streets some in their houses some on the floore others in their beds besides them that died without the Gates under hedges and in ditches round about the Towne which I saw my selfe when I was there halfe devoured with Ravens and other beasts and fowls of the aire In fine the like misery hath not been seene nor heard of The King on All-Saints day which was the day of his entry with a wax Candle in his hand together with the Cardinall and all the Nobility in like manner went all over the Town in procession with the B. Sacrament The chiefe Temple of the Hugonots shall be converted into a Church Cathedral and Rochel to be a Bishoprick All the fortifications and walls to Landwards to be razed and the Fosses filled so that a plough may passe as in arable Land The Maior with some of the chiefest are banish'd for ever others for a certaine time limited though quietly to possesse their goods moveable and immoveable and a general remission of all crimes past and all others that were in the Towne before the descent of the English into Rhee and when the Town was rendred shall likewise enjoy the same priviledge though no child or heir absent is or shall be capable to inherit the goods or lands of his parents or friends deceased but all is at the Kings disposing The King hath granted them free liberty of their Religion in the Town of Rochel which in short time will all be rooted out for no Forrainer though naturalized shall be admitted to repair and inhabit in Rochel nor French but Roman Catholicks The King hath added to the revenues of his Crown 20000 Franks per annum which was a rent belonging to the Town-house for the maintenance of the fortifications and State of Rochel The Town-house is to be razed and a pillar or pyramids with an ample inscription of the particulars of the siege and rebellion there to be erected The forts of the Isle of Rhee and Oleron to be razed as it is said most of all the chief forts of France except on the frontiers Four Regiments are yet in Rochel the rest of the Army at least the most part are gon to winter in those parts of France towards the coasts of Italy to be ready on all occasions to succor the Duke of Mantua as it is thought The Fathers of the society have very faire buildings given them for their establishing there and 1000 Franks to begin to build to which is added a revenue which I know not the place is said to be where the Hereticks kept their schools of Divinity and Councel of warre or rebellion And where the English had their Church the Oratorians are likewise established with large augmentations The Capuchins are where was the chiefest Fort called Le Bastion de Levangile The Minors are where the Dike was and divers other elsewhere There are at least 8000 houses in Rochel which are faine to fall to the King to dispose of for want of heirs The Parisians are preparing a most sumptuous and magnificent receipt for the King which is the cause he hath not been at Paris since his return from Rochel but is at St. Germins and thereabouts till all things are ready for his entry which is thought will exceede in bravery and magnificence all the presidents of many years The Jesuits are by the body of Paris imployed to make the speeches and inscriptions for that purpose which the body of the Sorbon take ill The Prince of Conde doth daily get ground of Rohan and hath lately taken prisoners as it is said thirty Captaines and eight hundred souldiers Those of Montauban boast as it is said that they have provision for three or four years and will stand out til the last though some of the best esteeme think it is only to draw the King to the best composition they can The Protestants of France to Charles King of Great Britain SIR the knowledg and resentment which it hath pleased your Majesty to take of the misery of the afflicted Churches of France hath given us the boldnesse to awaken your Compassion in such measure as our calamities are aggravated by the unmercifull rigour of our persecutors and as the present storme doth threaten neer at hand the total ruine and lamentable destruction of that which the mercy of God had yet kept intire unto us since the desolation of Rochel and as we have adored with humility the judgment of God in this bad successe which we impute only to his wrath justly kindled against us for our sins so our silence could be thought no lesse then ingratitude if we had not at the beginning of our Assembly resolved the most humble and most affectionate acknowledgment which wee now render to your Majesty for the great succour which you have sent us interessing your self so far in the grief of our oppression and in the means of our deliverance The most humble supplication which we do offer to your Majesty next after this our thansgiving is that your Majesty according to the sweet inclination of your goodnesse would permit us stil to present our complaints and discover our wounds before the eyes of your royall charity protesting unto your Majesty that we see none other hand under heaven by which we may be healed but your Majesties in case your Majesty will still vouchsafe to lift it up on the behalfe of oppressed innocents and of the Church of our Lord outragiously persecuted by the most invenom'd passion that our age or any age preceedent hath seen we most humbly beseech your Majesty to read this letter which is written with our tears and with our blood and according to your exquisite judgement your incomparable wisdome and the devotion of your zeale to the glory of God to consider our estate which is such that our persecutors upon the losse of Rochel supposing we had been put to utter discomfiture and into a weaknesse without recovery or resistance and boasting themselves that now there remained no more any eyes unto us but to bewaile our selves nor any sense but to feel the smart thereof without further imploying our hands or our arms for our defence have made use of this advantage with so much fiercenesse insultation and cruelty that they have not only sacked the houses and with an unheard of rudenesse and barbarisme rifled the goods of our poore brethren of this Province of Languedock relying themselves upon publick faith and the benefits of the edicts of pacification especially of the last which your Majesty had favourably procured and confirmed unto us dissipating whole families and exiling them with perfidious inhumanity but also they have laid wast and destroyed almost all the Churches of the sâ—me whâ—ch are at their command and discretion under the liberty of edicts imploying Monkes the Pâ—pes Emâ—ssaries assisted with force of souldiers and of the tyrannicall Authâ—rity of Governours to ravish mens souls and to draw the most constant with violence to
dimittunt fato turbare semper pacem literarum et bonis Academiae quovis modo insidiari O quam magna merces est prudentia et sobria mens aequa in utriusque sortis importunitate sunt quos ipsum foelicitatis taedium fatigat ad mortem dira contentionis ambitio fanatico quodam aestro impellit ad suam perniciem Post triginta annos simulatae pacis induciarum oppidulani nostri quietis impatientiâ invidiae aculeis acti nuper tentare voluerunt quantum possent calcibus contra spinas aut contra Solem jaculis at praeter poenitentiam ac suspiria nihil domum reportarunt Ita Musas in aeternum sibi devinxit Senatus ille tremendus gloriosus in quo majores dii gentis nostrae sedent Tu in illa scena splendida Regiae Majestati adstare maluisti quam tuam inter divos reliquos classem retinere ut nostro momento inservires illud pectus sacrum proprius attingeres in quo omnes gratiae nidificant nostra beatitudo reconditur Magna sunt haec amoris tui testimonia nolis vero messem sementi parem à nobis expectare Musae non sunt solvendo Et tamen si preces vota laudes encomia pro nobis sufficere possint Nihil nos tuis meritis debituros confidenter promittimus Dignitati tuae devinctiss Procanc ' Senat ' vel Academ Cantabrigiens Instructions by King Charles to the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Cambridge for Government c. March 4. 1629. CHARLES REX FIrst that all those directions and orders of our Father of blessed memory which at any time were sent to our said University be duly observed and put in execution 2. Whereas we have been informed that of late years many Students of that our University not regarding their own birth degree and quality have made divers contracts of marriage with women of meane estate and of no good fame in that Town to their great disparagement the discontent of their parents and friends and the dishonour of the Government of that our University we wil and command you that at all times hereafter if any Taverner Inholder or Victualer or any other inhabitant of the Towne or within the Jurisdiction of the University shall keep any daughter or other woman in his house to whom there shall resort any Scholars of that University of what condition so ever to mispend their time or otherwise to misbehave themselves in marriage without the consent of those that have the Gardiance and tuition of them that upon notice thereof you doe presently convent the said Scholars or Scholar and the said woman or women thus suspected before you and upon due examination if you find cause therefore that you command the said woman or women according to the forme of your Charter against women de malo suspectas to remove out of the University and foure miles of the same And if any refuse presently to obey your commands and to be ordered by you herein that you then bind them over with sureties to appeare before the Lords of our Privy Counsel to answer their contempt and such matters as shall be objected against them And if any refuse presently to obey to imprison them til they either remove or put in such bonds with sureties 3. That you be careful that all the statutes of our University be duly executed especially those de vestitu Scholarium et de modestia et morum urbanitate And whereas we are informed that Batchelors of Law Physick and Masters of Arts and others of higher degree pretend they are not subject to your censure if they resort to such houses and places as are mentioned in the said statutes to eat drink play or take Tobacco to the mispending of their time and corrupting of others by their ill example and to the scandalizing of the government of our said University Our will and pleasure is by these presents that you doe also command them and every of them to forbeare coming to any such houses otherwise or at other times then by the said statute others of inferiour order and degree are allowed to doe any statute or concession whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding And if any refuse to obey you herein that you proceed against them as contumacious and if there be cause that you also signifie their names to us or the Lords of our privy Counsel 4. That you doe severely punish all such of your body of what degree or condition soever as shall contemne their superiors or misbehave themselves either in word or deed towards the Vice-Chancellour or Proctors or any other officers of our University especially in the executing of their office 5. Lastly we will and command that a Copy of these our directions be delivered to the Master of every Colledge and that he cause the same to be published to those of his Colledge and then to be Registred in the Registers of their Colledges and duly observed and kept by all persons whom they concern Examinatur et concordat cum Originali Ita attestor Jacobus Fabor Registrarius The University of Cambridg to the Lord Chief Justice Richardson Honoratissimo Domino Thomae Richardson Commmunium Placitorum Proto Justiciario Proedro amico Academiae Patrono singulari AMplissime et honoratissime Domine superiori et Termino et Anno te nostris literis negotiis graviter defatigavimus nunc novas afferre molestias neutiquam dubitamus sed tu pro candore quo polles maximo hanc nostram morositatem benignè interpretare da veniam impatienti nostrae occasioni ad Sacerdotium Hallingburii quod de cujusdam papicolae lapsu in manus nostras ex diplomate serenissimi Regis Jacobi nobis indulto et per Senatum Regni solennem confirmato venit Hunc Magistrum Love Collegii divi Petri promovimus virum fide doctrinâ integritate sanctimoniâ praeclarum qui Procuratoris Officium magistratum apud nos amplissimum insigniter administravit et non sine magna laude fasces ante biennium deposuit unde liquido constet dominationi tuae quibus opulentiis abundat Alma mater cum virum consularem et de republica nostra tam bene meritum tali sacerdotiolo auctum remuneratum dimittimus Vtinam tamen vel tantillum hoc quod est beneficii homini nostro placidè concederent mortales Dii et se precibus ad aequanimitatem flecti paterentur Enim vero nescimus quo malo fato nostro id comparatum sit et inter sacrum sacrum semper haereamus quemadmodum in proverbio est Inter sacrum quod ambinius et hominum praecordia saxo duriora nihil nos sine controversia impetrare possumus sed cogimur virtute nostrâ nos involvere probam pauperiem sine dote quaerere cum Poeta Horatio nam in tanta dominorum et captatorum turba difficile est ad omnes articulos sic excubare ut qui modeste prensat in lutum non
Vice Chamberlaine Mr. Secretary Cooke AT this Sitting the Lord Viscount Dorchester declared that his Majesty being informed of the bold and open repaire made to several places and specially to the houses of forraine Ambassadors for the hearing of Masse which the Lawes and Statutes of this Kingdome do expresly forbid his Subjects to frequent and considering in his Princely wisdome both the publick Scandals and dangerous consequence thereof is resolved to take present order for the stopping of this evil before it spread it selfe any further and for this purpose had commanded him to acquaint the Board with his pleasure in that behalfe and what course he thinketh fit to be held therein and withal to demand the opinion and advice of their Lordships concerning the same his Majesty being desirous to use the best and most effectuall expedient that can be found Hereupon his Lordship proceeding did further declare that his Majesty to shew the clearnesse and earnestnesse of his intention herein hath begun at his owne house viz. Wheresoever the Queens Majesty hath any Chappel being intended for the only service of her and for those French who attend her for which the Earl of Dorset Lord Chamberlaine to her Majesty hath been commanded to take special care according to such directions as he hath received from his Majesty That for so much as concerneth the repaire to the houses of Forraine Embassadors at the time of Masse his Majesty thinks fit that some messengers of the Chamber or other officers or persons fit for that service shall be appointed to watch all the several passages to their houses and without entring into the said houses or infringing the freedoms and priviledges belonging unto them observe such persons as go thither but at their coming from thence they are to apprehend them and bring them to the Board and such as they cannot apprehend to bring their names But to the end that the said Forraine Embassadours may have no cause to complaine of this proceeding as if there were any intention to wrong or disrespect them his Majesty doth likewise think fit that for the preventing of any such mistaking and sinister Interpretation the said Embassadors shall be acquainted with the truth of this businesse and likewise assured in his Majesties name that he is and wil be as careful to conserve all priviledges and rights belonging to the quality of their places as any of his Progenitors have been and in the same manner as himselfe expecteth that their Princes shall use towards his Embassadors Lastly That it is his Majesties expresse pleasure that the like diligence be used for the apprehending of all such as repaire to Masse in prisons or other places The Board having heard this declaration did unanimously conclude that there could not be taken a more effectuall course for the preventing of these evils then this which his Majesty in his wisedome hath set downe and therefore did order that the same be immediately put in strict and careful execution And it was likewise thought fit that the Lord Viscount Dorchester and Mr. Secretary Cooke should be sent to the forraine Embassadours severally to acquaint them with his Majesties intention as is before mentioned and that the messengers of the Chamber to be imployed in the service before specified shall be appointed and receive their charge from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Lord Bishop of London and the Secretaries who are to take a speciall care to see this put in execution King of Spaine to Pope Urban Sept. 21. 1629. MOst Holy Father I condescended that my forces should be imployed in the execution of Mountferrat to divert the introduction of strangers into Italie with so evident danger of Religion I suffered the siege of Cassal to run on so slowly to give time that by way of negotiation those differences might be composed with the reciprocal satisfaction of the parties interessed and to shew in effect what little reason all Italy had to be jealous of the Arms of my Crown for having possessed many places of importance some I have freely given away and others after I had defended them in a time the owners had need I presently restored with much liberality Upon this moderation the Duke of Nivers being hardned against the Emperor my Uncle and he perhaps and other Princes calling thither the most Christian King who not contenting himselfe to have attained that which he publickly professed to desire and having left Garrison in Mount-ferrat and in Suza and as I am told having fortified some places hath thereby given occasion to the Emperour my Uncle to give order his Army should passe into Italy to maintaine the Authority Jurisdiction and preheminency of the Empire with whom I can doe no lesse then concurre and give him assistance in respect of the great and strict obligation of Blood of Honour and of Conveniency which I hold with his imperial Majesty and for the which I doe acknowledge from the sacred Empire declaring now as I have done heretofore and as my Embassadours have told your Holinesse that in this businesse I do neither directly nor indirectly aim at any other end of mine own particular interest But beholding the numerous Armies of the Emperour in Italy and with extreme griefe foreseeing the harmes inconveniences and dangers that Italy must thereby suffer in matter of Religion being that which most importeth I doe not only resent it in respect of that portion which God hath given me in Christendome but especially as a King and Prince of Italy the peace of those Provinces being disturbed which my Progenitors with so much Judgment and providence and with so much Authority and benefit of the Natives had so many years preserved Wherefore I thought it my duty to present unto your beatitude that experience hath demonstrated that to oppose and straighten the Jurisdiction of the Emperour and to resist his commandments hath brought matters to these difficult terms and this way being still persisted in there must needs follow those mischiefs which we desire to shun Now the most convenient manner how to compose these businesses is that your Holinesse doe effectually perswade the Duke of Nivers to accomodate himself to the Justice and obedience of the Emperour and the King of France to recall his Armies out of Italy and the Princes that doe aid Nivers no more to interest themselves in the businesse even as from the beginning my Ministers have propounded to your Beatitude because this difference being ended juridically all the persons interessed shall come off with honour and reputation and so all of them shall have a ground to beseech the Emperour that out of his wonted clemency he wil take off that impression which he justly might have conceived against the Duke of Nivers whereupon things inclining to this issue I shal with a very good will imploy my best offices to the end that speedy and exact justice may be administred and also that his Caesarian Majesty may give experimental effects of his
magnanimity and stability desiring with a most sincere affection that so much Christian blood may be spared as would be spilt in this war and that those forces might be imployed to the service and not to the prejudice of Christendome Thus have I cleerly and sincerely delivered my meaning unto your Holinesse to the end that knowing my intention you may do those offices which your manifold wisedome shall find proper for the place whereto God hath advanced you and if God for our sins have decreed to chastise Christendome by continuing the war let this dispatch be a testimony of my good wil and real intention towards peace for the prosecuting whereof I on my part will alwaies imbrace any reasonable and proportionable meanes Oar Lord God preserve your Beatitude a thousand yeares The Councel of Ireland to King Charles in defence of the Lord Deputie Faulkland April 28. 1629 MAy it please your most excellent Majesty we stand so bounden to your royall Self and your most blessed Father our late deceased Soveraigne Lord and Master as we are urged in duty to prostrate this act of our faith at your Majesties feet as an assay to cleer some things wherein misinformation may seem to have approached your high Wisdome We understand that it is collected out of some late Dispatches from hence that there are such disorders in the Government here as by the present Governors are remedilesse all which is ascribed to the differences between persons of chief place We do in all humility testifiie and declare that we have not seen or known any inconvenience to the publick service by the difference between your Majesties Deputy and Chancellor neither have of late seen or heard any act or speech of contention between them Other difference between persons of any eminent Action wee understand none neither are any disorders here yet so overgrown as to surpasse the redresse of the present Governour especially so long as he hath such a standing English Army as your Majesty now alloweth if only we may receive some supply of Armes and munition which we have often written for do daily expect and which shall be no losse to your Majesty It is true most gracious Soveraign that in some late dispatches we mentioned three grievances in this government which in extent may threaten much if we be not timely directed from thence concerning them viz. the insolence and excrescence of the Popish pretended Clergie the disorder and offence of the Irish Regiment and the late outragious presumption of the unsetled Irish in some parts towards all which being parties perhaps otherwise conceived of there then understood here your Deputy and Councel have of late used particular abstinence holding themselves somewhat limited concerning them by late Instructions Letters and directions from thence And therefore lest countenance of that course might turn to greater damage we make choice seasonably to crave expression of the good pleasure of your Highnesse and the most Honourable Lords of your Councel lest our actions and zeal therein might vary from the purposes on that side and so want of unanimity in both States breake the progresse of the Reformation not that we any way make doubt to give your Majesty a good accompt of our selves therein and of the ful eviction of those evils in due time so we might be assured of your Majestys and their Lordships good allowance of our endeavours being confident in all humility to declare and affirme to your Sacred Majesty that the rest of this great body as to the civil part thereof is in far better order at this time then ever it was in the memory of man as wel in the current and general execution of Justice according to the Lawes in the freedome of mens persons and estates the present charge of the Army excepted and in the Universal outward subjection of all sorts of setled inhabitants to the Crowne and Lawes of England and also in the advancement of the Crowne Revenues and lastly in the competent number of Bishops and other able and Learned Ministers of the Church of England of all sorts which we especially attribute to the blessednesse of your time and to the Industryes Zeale Judgment and moderation of your Deputy as well in your Majesty service as towards this people having now well learned this great office and to the good beginnings of the two last precedent Deputies under direction of your most Renowned Father Secondly we understand that your Deputy and Councel are blamed for the present surcharge of your Revenues here far beyond the support thereof Herein your Royal Majesty may be pleased to cause a review of our dispatch from hence in August 1627. wherein it wil appear that their part in that offence hath been only obedience to extraordinary warrants from thence and that if those warrants had not beene fully performed out of your Revenues you had had about 40000 pound Irish to pay pensioners in your Coffers and answer other necessities which have since increased So as we humbly crave pardon freely to affirme that the fault hath not been here and further also to say for your Majesties honour and our comfort that during 200 years last past England hath never been so free of the charge of Ireland as now it is Thirdly we understand that your Deputy is accused for miscarriage in the legal prosecution of Phelim Mach Frogh and others adhering to him in certain treasonable Acts and Practises Herein we most humbly beseech your Majesty that a review may be of a declaration sent from hence about the beginning of your Deputies government signed by him and all the Counsel then here whereby wil appear how the parts of Lemster at least have been from age to age infested by him and his predecessors and the inhabitants of the territory of Ranelagh wherein he tooke upon him a Chiefery and therein will also appeare that it was the special affection and endeavour of several worthy Deputies here to have cleared that offensive plot which no wise State could suffer so neer the seat thereof and that they also severally attempted it by force the said Phelims Father being slain by actuall Rebellion by Sir William Russels prosecution but the generall Rebellion of the Kingdome alwaies interrupted the settlement thereof This being at that time the declaration of the State moved your Deputy being a stranger to have a wary aspect upon the people for the Common peace which he hath carefully performed Afterwards at the time when the general voice was amongst the Irish that the Spaniards would be here your Deputie had cause to examine several persons and causes concerning that Rumour wherby fell out to be discovered to him among others that this Phelim had confederated for raising a Commotion in Lemster and murthering a Scottish Minister and Justice of peace a ready instrument in Crown Causes inhabiting about the border of the said territory Before which time we never heard of any displeasure or hard measure born by your
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
the bitterest storms threatening betwixt these Crowns that have been these many ages I have therefore no hope to save my self without I be guided by his Highnesse and your Graces trusts and care of me The Marquesse of Ynoisa hath lately advertised hither That he hath several times desired to have private audience with his Majestie and hath not been able to procure any but what your Grace assists at It is likewise advertised unto this King and his Ministers that your Grace hath many meetings with the Sea Captains and that your Counsels are how the War is to be made against Spain For the avoiding of unnecessarie repetitions I do here inclosed send your Grace a Copie of my Letter to Mr. Secretarie Conway wherein you will find a relation of all things that are come to my hands at this present that may any way have reflection unto his Majesties service And this is the course which I intend and conceive most convenient to hold hereafter with your Grace without you command me the contrary In the said Copie your Grace will find a discourse of what hath lately passed betwixt my Lord of Bristol and the Conde of Olivarez in the Pardo Now that I may more fully discharge my dutie I have thought fit here to acquaint your Grace that since the putting off of the Deposorios at a meeting that my Lord and my self had with the Conde he did make a solemn protestation that if the Treatie of the Match did ever come on again with effect it should onely be by his Lordships hands and no other I then understood it and still do but for a frothy protestation yet have held it my dutie to advertize it having passed in my hearing the truth is that my Lords answer was in Conformitie to his last in the Pardo every way rejecting it saying That he had rather be confined to any Town in Afrique then that his person should be any hinderance to the Match Thus forbearing to trouble your Grace any farther with my hearty prayers unto God for the continuance of his blessings unto you I rest Your Graces c. W. A. Sir Walter Aston to Secretary Conway 22. Jan. 1623. Right Honourable BY the return of this Bearer Mr. Greisley you will understand of the safe coming to my hands of your dispatch of the 30th of the last moneth with his Majesties Letters therein inclosed I do now herewithal send an account unto his Majestie of my proceedings upon his Commands which I do intreat your Honour to be pleased to present unto him as also farther to acquaint his Majestie that I have already spoken with divers of these Ministers and given them such a declaration of his Majesties good intentions in the pressing at this season for the restitutions of the Palatinate and Electoral dignity unto the Prince his Son in Law as I have order to do by the said Letter but do find they are here so possessed with the ill relations they receive out of England that I with much difficultie can scarce give them any kind of satisfaction I have acquainted the Conde Olivarez with the answer which your honour and Mr. Secretarie Calvert had received from their Embassadours touching their audiences the Conde himself having formerly acquainted me with their Complaint His answer now was That he understood they had acknowledged unto your Honours to have received from his Majestie in that point all kind of satisfaction but that after you were gone the Marquesse of Ynoisa wrote a Letter to Secretarie Calvert telling him that he did not well remember himself of what had passed at his being there but had since called to mind that he had procured some audiences with the Prince with much difficultie To which I answered the Conde That it seemed the Marquesse was very light of his advertisements to give such informations as might breed ill understandings betwixt Princes and esteem them of no more Consequence then to forget what he had advertised with so much ease Concerning that malitious report here raised of the Prince's treating a marriage in France I desire your Honour to let his Majestie know that it is advertised hither out of England as a thing so certain that there is not a Minister of State excepting the Conde of Gondomar that hath not given some credit unto it I have therefore according to his Majesties directions given such declarations touching the author and believers of it as your Honour in his Majesties name hath commanded me I have likewise received by Mr. Greisly your Letter of the 31. of the last In answer of which all that I shall need to say here unto your Honour is that my Lord of Bristol hath received your former Letter acquainting him with his Majesties pleasure concerning the same businesse from whom his Majestie will receive an account thereof This is all that I have to say to your Honour at this present touching those particulars mentioned in your Letter I shall now here further acquaint you with such advertisements as I conceive may any waies have reference unto his Majesties service My Lord of Bristol and my self repairing some few daies since unto the Pardo having conference with the Conde of Olivarez his Lordship acquainted the Conde with the Letters of revocation which he had received from his Majestie and withal desired that he would procure him licence to take his leave of the King The Conde answered his Lordship That he had much to say unto him by order from his Majestie the substance of his speech was That they had received large advertisements out of England by which they understood the hard measure that he was there likely to suffer by the power of his enemies and that the onely crime which they could impute unto him was for labouring to effect the marriage which his Master could not but take much to heart and held himself obliged to publish to the world the good service that my Lord had done unto the King of great Brittain and therefore for the better encouragement likewise of his own and all other Ministers that should truly serve their Masters he was to offer him a blank paper signed by the King wherein his Lordship might set down his own Conditions and demands which he said he did not propound to corrupt any servant of his Majesties but for a publique declaration of what was due unto his Lordships proceedings He said further that in that offer he laid before him the Lands and Dignities that were in his Masters power to dispose of out of which he left it at his pleasure to choose what estate or honour he should think good adding thereunto some other extravagant and disproportionable offers My Lords answer was That he was very sorry to hear this language used unto him telling the Conde that his Catholique Majestie did owe him nothing but that what he had done was upon the King his Masters Commands and without any intention to serve Spain And that howsoever he might have