joyned to kisse his Majesties hand recommending me to his Majesties favour said I take God to witnesse that this young mans father was the best friend that ever I had or shall have in this World Whereupon the young Lord resolved to put trust in mee and I fully to addict my self to him to deserve of him as much commendations as my father did of his father This Royall celebration of our friends rooted it self so deep in my minde that to my self I purposed this remembrance giving it to my young Lord and to my famillar friends and set it upon the books of my study Semper Hameltonium c. Always the King and Hamelton Within thy breast conserve What ever be thy actions Let Princes two deserve Neither was it in vain for both our loves increased with our age the Marquesse promising to engage his life and whole estate for me if need were and so share his fortunes with me and not onely promising but also performing when ever there was occasion yea for my sake offering to hazard his life in combat whose mind in wishing me well whose tongue in honouring of me and whose hands and means in defending me both absent and present unto the last period of his life hath ever assisted me I should be more tedious then were fit if I should rehearse every particular favour so manifestly knowne to the whole Court and to the friends of us both who then can justly blame me demanding justice as well for the slaughter of the Marquesse of Hamelton as of my most gracious Sovereigne King Iames seeing I know whom to accuse My profession of Physick nor my education to letters cannot serve to hinder me from undertaking the hardest enterprize that ever any Roman undertook so far as the Law of conscience will give way Why should I stay at the decay Of Hameltons the hope Why shall I see thy foe so free Vnto this joy give scope Rather I pray a dolefull day Set me in cruell fate Then thy death strange without revenge Or him in safe estate This soule to heavens hand to the dead I vow No fraudfull minde nor trembling hand I have If pen it shun the sword revenge shall follow Soule Pen and Sword what thing but just doe crave What affection I bore to the living the same shall accompany the dead for when whose truth and sincerity was well knowne unto me told me that it was better that the chiefest of my friends the Marquesse of Hamelton to be quiet at home in Scotland then eminent in Court of England to whom by the opinion of the wiser sort his being at Court will cost him no lesse then his life sith that I stretching forth mine arme apprehending some plots laid against him answered if no man dare to revenge his death I vow to God this hand of mine shall revenge it scarcely any other cause to be found then the bond of our close friendship why in the scrowle of Noble mens names who were to be killed I should be set down next to the Marquesse of Hamelton and under these words viz. the Marquesse and Doctor Eglisham to embalme him to wit to the end that no discoverer or revenger should be left this roll of names I know not by what destiny was found neere to Westminster about the time of the Duke of Richmond his death and brought to the Lord Marquesse by his cozen the daughter of the Lord Oldbarre one of the privy Councell of Scotland did cause no terror in mee untill I did see the Marquesse poysoned and remembred that the rest therein noted were dead and my selfe next pointed at only surviving why stay I any more the cause requireth no more the pen but the sword I doe not write so boldly because I am amongst the Dukes enemies but I have retired my selfe to his enemies because I was resolved to write and doe earnestly against him as may very well appeare for since the Marquesse of Hameltons death the most noble Marquesse de Fiatta Embassadour for the most Christian King of France and also Buckingham his mother sent on every side to seeke me inviting me to them but I did forsake them knowing certainly the falshood of Buckingham would suffer the Embassador rather to receive an affront then to be unsatisfied of his blood-thirsty desire of my blood to silence me with death for according to the proverb The dead cannot bite if he could have found me for my Lord Duke of Lenox who was often crossed by Buckingham with his brother and the Earle of Southampton now dead was one of the roll found of those that were to be murthered well assured me that where Buckingham once misliked no apologie no submission no reconciliation could keepe him from doing mischiefe Neither doe I write this in this fashion so freely for any entertainment here present which I have not nor for any future which I have no ground to looke for seeing Buckingham hath so much mislead your Majesty that he hath caused not only here but also in all Nations all Britaine Natives to be disgraced and mistrusted your Majesties most royall word which should be inviolable your hand and seal which should be uninfringeable to be most shamefully violated and your selfe to be most ingrate for your kind usage in Spaine which Buckingham maketh to be requited with injuries in a most base manner under protestation of friendship a bloody war being kindled on both sides whereby he hath buried with King Iames the glorious name of Peace-making King who had done much more justly and advisedly if hee had procured peace unto Christendome whereby small hope I have of obtaining justice on my most just complaint unto which my deare affection unto my deare friends murthered and extream detestation of Buckingham his violent proceedings hath brought me Your Ma may finde most just causes to accuse him in my Petition to the Parliament which shall serve for a touchstone to your Majestie and a whetstone to me and many other Scotsmen and which if it be neglected will make your Majesty to incurre a censure amongst all vertuous men in the world that your Majesty will be loath to heare of and I am astonished to expresse at this time A Serpent lurketh in the grasse No other way there is to be found to save your honour but to give way to Justice against that traytor Buckingham by whom manifest danger approacheth to your Majesty no otherwise then death approached to King Iames. If your Majesty will therefore take any course therein the examination upon oath of all those that were about the King and the Marquesse of Hamelton in their sicknesse or at their deaths or after their deaths before indifferent Judges no dependants on Buckingham will serve for sufficient proofe of Buckingham his guiltinesse In the meane time untill I see what will be the issue of my complaint without any more speech I rest Your Majesties daily Suppliant George Eglisham To the most Honourable the Nobilitie Knights
dissembler having heaped so many honours daily upon the Marquesse even to the very last making him Lord high Steward of his Majesties house and Judg of the very Court whom he had made before Vice-roy of Scotland for the time of the Parliament in Scotland Earl of Cambridge privie Councellor in England and Knight of the Garter as if hee had raised him to all these honours that the murthering of him might be the lesse suspected to proceede from him The Kings nature hath alwayes beene observed to have beene so gracious and so free-hearted towards every one that hee would never have wished the Marquesse any harme unlesse that Buckingham had put great jealousies and feaâ—s into as minde for if any other had done it he would have acquainted his favourite therewith And then was it Buckinghams duty to remove from the King such smistrous conceits of the Marquesse as the marquesse hath often done of Buckingham upholding him upon all occasions and keeping the King from giving way to introduce any other favourite wherefore Buckingham in that diversion of the crime from him hath not onely made the King but also himselfe guilty of the Marquesses death But Buckinghams falsehood and ill intention was long before rightly discovered when he did what he could to make the E. of Nethersdale and my Lord Gordan both neere kinsmen of my Lord Marquesse so incensed at him that they had like all three to have killed one another if it had not been that my Lord Marquesse by his wisdome did let them all know how they were abused If any dissimulation be greater then Buckingams let any man judge For when my Lord Marquesse his body was to bee transported from White-hall to his house at Bishops-gate Buckingham came out muffed and furred in his Coach giving out that he was sicke for sorrow of my Lord Marquesse his death but as soone as he went to his house out of London before his comming to the King he triumphed and domineered with his faction so excessively as if he had gained some great victory And the next day comming to the King put on a most lamentable and mournefull countenance for the death of the Marquesse No greater victory could he have gotten in his mind then to have destroyed that man who would have fetched his head off his shoulders if he had out lived King Iames to have knowne his carriage in the poysoning of him in his sicknesse wherefore he thought it necessary to remove the Marquesse beforehand The same day that my Lord Marquesse died Buckingham sent my Lord Marquesse his sonne out of Towne keeping him as prisoner none could have private conference with him untill his marriage of Buckinghams Neece was compleat but either my Lord of Denbigh or my lady of Denbigh or my Lord Duke of Buckingham or the Countesse of Buckingham was present that none could let him understand how his father was murthered Even your petitioner himselfe when he went to see him was intreated not to speake to him of the poysoning of his father which he did conceale at his first meeting because their sorrow was too recent But he was prevented of a second meeting neither would Buckingham suffer the young Lord to go to Scotland to see his Fathers Funerals and to take order with his friends concerning his fathers estate for feare that their intended marriage should be overthrowne This Captivity of the young Lord Marquesse lasted so long untill that Buckingham caused his Majesty King CHARLS to take the young Lord with himselfe and Buckingham into St. Iames his Parke discharging all others from following them and there to perswade and urge the young Lord without any more delay to accomplish the marriage with Buckingham his Neece which instantly was performed so that Buckingham trusteth and presumeth that albeit the young Lord should understand how his father was poysoned by his meanes yet being married to his Neece he would not stirre to revenge it but comport with it To all that is observed before it is wothy to be added that the bruit went through London long before the Lord Duke of Richmonds death or his brothers or my Lord of Southamptons or of the Marquess that all the Noble men that were not of the Dukes faction should be poysoned and so removed out of his way Also a Paper was found in Kings Street about the time of the Duke of Richmonds death wherein the Names of all those Noblemen who have dyed since were expressed and your Petitioners Name also set next to my Lord Marquess of Hameltons Name with these words to embalme him This Paper was brought by my Lord Oldbarrs Daughter Cousin german to the Lord Marquess Likewise a Mountebanke about that time was greatly countenanced by the Duke of Buckingham and by his means procured Letters Patents and Recommendations from the King to practise his skill in Physick through all England who comming to London to sell Poyson to kill man or beast within a yeare or half a yeare or two yeares or a moneth or two or what time prefixed any man desired in such sort that they could not be helped nor discovered Moreover the Christmas before my Lord Marquess his death one of the Prince his footmen said That some of the great ones at Court had gotten Poyson in theis belly but he could not tell who it was Here your Honours considering the premisses of my Lord Duke of Buckingham his ambitious and most vindicative nature his frequent quarrels with my Lord Marquesse after so many reconciliations his threatning of the Physitians not to speak of the poyson his triumphing after my Lord Marquesse his death his detaining of his son almost prisoner untill the Marriage was compleat with his Neece the preceding bruit of poysoning Buckingham his Adversaries the Paper of their Names found with sufficient intimation of their death by the conclusion of the word embalming the Poyson-monger Mountebank graced by Buckingham may suffice for ground to take him and torture him if he were a private man And herein your Petitioner most earnestly demandeth Justice against that Traitor seeing by Act of Parliament it is made Treason to conspire the death of a Privie Councellor Out of this Declaration Interrogatories may be drawne for Examination of Witnesses wherein more is discovered to begin withall then was laid open at the beginning of the Discoverie of the poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury Concerning the poysoning of King JAMES of happy memory KING of GREAT BRITAINE THe Duke of Buckingham being in Spaine advertised by Letters how that the King began to censure him in his absence freely and that many spake boldly to the King against him and how the King had intelligence from Spaine of his unworthy carryage in Spaine and how the Marquesse Hamelton upon the sudden news of the Princes departure had nobly reprehended the King for sending the Prince with such a young man without experience and in such a private and sudden manner without acquainting the Nobility or Councell
The Fore-Runner OF REVENGE Being two Petitions THE ONE To the KINGS most Excellent Majesty THE OTHER To the most Honourable Houses of Parliament Wherein is expressed divers actions of the late Earle of Buckingham especially concerning the death of King Iames and the Marquesse Hamelton supposed by poyson Also may be observed the inconveniences befalling a State where the Noble disposition of the Prince is mis-led by a Favourite By George Eglisham Doctor of Physick and one of the Pysicians to King Iames of happy memory for his Majesties person above ten yeers space Printed at London in the yeer 1642. To the most Potent Monarch CHARLES King of great Britaine The humble Petition of George Eglisham Doctor of Physick lately one of King IAMES his Physicians for his Majesties person above the space of ten yeeres SIR NO better motive there is for a safe government then the safe meditation of death equalling Kings with Beggars and the exact justice of God requiring of them that the good suffring inmisery this life should receive joy in the other and the wicked flourishing securely in this might be punished in the other That which pleaseth lasteth but a moment which tormenteth is everlasting Many things we see unrewarded or unpunished in this inferiour World which in the universall weight of Gods justice must be counterpoised elswhere But wilfull and secret murther hath seldom been observed to undiscovered or unpunished even in this life such a particular and notable revenge perpetually followeth it to the end that they who are either Atheists or Matchiavelists may not trust too much to their wits in doing so horrible injustice Would to God your Majesty would well consider what I have often said to my Master King Iames the greatest policy is honesty and howsoever any man seeme to himself wise in compassing his desires by tricks yet in the end he will prove a foole for falshood ever deceiveth her own master at length as the Devill author of all falshood always doth leaving his adherents desolate when they have the greatest need of his help No falshood without injustice no injustice without falshood albeit it were in the person of a King There is no Judge in the World more tied to do justice then a King whose coronation tyeth him unto it by solemne oath which if he violate he is false and perjured It is justice that maketh Kings justice that mayntains Kings and injustice that brings Kings and Kingdomes to destruction to fall into misery to die like Asses in ditches or a more beastly death eternall infamy after death as all Histories from time to time do cleerly manifest What need hath mankind of Kings but for justice Men are not born for them but they for men what greater what more royall occasion in the World could be offered to your Ma. to shew your impartiall disposition in matters of justice at the first entry of your Reign then this which I offer in my just complaint against Buckingham by whom your Majesty suffereth your self so far to be led that your best subjects are in doubt whether he is your King or you his If your Majesty know and consider how he hath tyrannized over his Lord and Master King Iames the worldly Creatour of his fortunes how insolent how ingrate an Oppressor what a murtherer and traytor he hath proved himself towards him how treacherous to his upholding friends the Marquess of Hamelton and others your Majesty may think giving way to the Laws demanded against him to yield a most glorious field for your Majesty to walk in and display the banner of your Royall vertues Your Majesty may perhaps demand what interest I have therein what have I to doe therewith that I should stir all others being quiet Sir the quietnesse or stirring of others expecteth only a beginning from mee whom they know so much obliged to stirre as none can be more both in respect of knowledge of passages and in regard of humane obligation and of my independancy from the accused or any other that his power or credit can reach unto many know not what I know therein others are little or nothing beholding to the dead others albeit they know it as well as I and are obliged as deep as I yet dare not complain so safely as I being out of their reach who are inseparable from him by his inchantments and all to obscure my selfe untill the power of just revenge upon him be obtained from God What I know sufficient against him I have set downe in my petition against him to the Parliament to which if your Majesty dismisse him sequestred from your Majesty chiefly in an accusation of treason you shall doe what is just and deliver your self and your Kingdome from the captivity in which hee holdeth them and your Majesty oppressed How easily I may eclipse my selfe from his power to do mee harme unlesse hee hath legions of infernall spirits at his command to pursue mee your Majesty may well know I being ultra mare to these Dominions where he ruleth and rageth How far I am obliged to complain more then others I will in few words expresse that neither your Majesty nor any man may think otherwise but that I have most just reason not to be silent in a wrong so intolerable the interest of bloud which I have to any of them of whose death I complaine either by the House of Balgony Lunday or Silverton-Hill albeit it is easie to be made manifest and sufficient to move me yet it is not the sole motive of my breach of silence but the interest of received courtesie and the heap of infallible tokens of true affection is more then suffient to stir me thereto unlesse I would prove the most ingrate in the World and senselesse of the greatest injuries that can be done unto my self for who killed King James and Marquesse Hamelton in that part of the injury which is done unto me therein hee hath done as much as robbed me of my life and all my fortunes and friends With such constant and loving impressions of me as are neither to be recovered not duly valued for his Majesty from the third yeer of my age did practise honorable tokens of singular favour towards me daily augmented them in word in writ in deed accompanied them with gifts patents offices recommendations both in private and publike at home and abroad graced so far that I could scarce aske any thing but I could have obtained it How much honour he hath done unto me there needs no witnesse unto your Majesty who is sufficient for many no lesse is my Lord Marquesse Hameltons friendship established by mutuall obligation of most acceptable offices continued by our ancestoâ— these three generations ingraven in the tender minds and yeers of the Marquesse and me in the presence of our Sovereigne King Iames. For when the Marquesse his Father who with the right hand on his head and the left on mine did offer us young in yeers so
poyson was such and so farre gone that none could help it Nevertheles to have the matter concealed Buckingham would have him buried that same night in Westminster Church and the Ceremonies of his buriall to be kept afterwards saying that such delicate bodies as his could not be kept But his friends taking hold of the cavet before given by your Petitioner refused so to doe and replied that they would have him as became him to bee buried in Scotland in his owne Chappell where all his Ancesters have beene butied for more then these four hundred yeares and that his body mustbee visited by his Physitians No sooner was he dead when the force of the poysou had overcome the force of his body but it began to swell in such sort that his Thighes were swolne sixe times as bigge as their naturall proportion his Belly became as the belly of an Oxe his Arins as the natural quantity of Thighs his Neck so broad as his Shoulders his Cheekes over the top of his Nose that his Nose could not be seen or distinguished the skin of his fore-head two fingers high swolled the haire of his beard eye-browes and head so farre distant one from another as if an hundred had been taken oat bet weene each one and when one did touch the haire it came away with the skin as easily as if one had pulled hay out of an heap of hay He was all over his neck breast shoulders armes and browes I say of divers colours full of waters of the same colour some white some blacke some red some yellow some greene some blew and that as well within the body as without Also the concavities of his Liver greene his ftomach in some places a little purpurated with a blew clammy water adhering to the sides of it His Mouth and Nose foaming blood mixt with froth mightily of divers colours a yard high Your Petitioner being sent for to visit his body and his servants flocking about him saying See see presently weeping said he was poysoned and that it was a thing not be suffered Moreover he said that albeit his speech might cost him his life yet seeing his sorrow had extorted that speech out he would make it manifest and would have a Jury of Physitians Presently some of my Lord Marquess of Hameltons friends said we must send to my Lord Duke that he may send his Physitlans but your Petitioner replied what have we to doe with the Dukes Physitians Let us have indifferent men Captaine Hamelton hearing your Petitioner so boldly take exceptions at Buckingham and juding that he had good reason for what he had spoken said for all that let us send to the Duke and signifie that they all who have seen the Marquess his body both Physitians Chyrurgeons and others may see that hee is poysoned and that his friends desire more Physitians out of the Colledge of London besides the Dukes Physitians to beare witnesse in what case the Marquess his body is in and then if the Dukes conscience be guilty said the Captain it will shew it self as indeed it did for the Duke being advertised hereof sent for his owne Physitians and others out of London whom he caused first to be brought unto him before they went to see the Marquess his body giving them his directions in these words viz. My Masters there is a bruit spread abroad that the Marquesse of Hamelton is poysoned Goe see but beware what you speak of poyson which he said in a hreatning forme of delivery for every Noble man that dieth must be poysoned If his conscience had not been guilty should not he have commanded the Phyâ—itians to enquire by all meanes possible and made it knowne rather then to uppresse the speech of poysoning so worthy a man These Physitians being come your Petitioner with one hand leading Doctor More to the Table where the Marquess his body was layd and with the oher hand throwing off the cloth from the body said to him Look you here upon his spectacle At the sight whereof Doctor More lifting up both his hands heart and eyes â—o the Heavens agonished said Jesus blesse me I never saw the like I cannot â—istinguish a face upon him and in like manner all the rest of the Doctors and so the Chirurgjons affirmed that they never saw the like albeit that they have â—…availed and practised through the greatest part of Eorope onely one that said â—…y Lo of Southampton was blistered all within the brest as my Lo marquesses was Doctor Leicester one of Buckinghams creature seeing Doctor More others so amazed at the sight of my Lords body drew first him aside and then the others one after another and whispered them in the eare to silence them Whereupon many went away without speaking one word the other who remained acknowledged that those accidents of the dead body could not bee without poyson but they said they could not know how such a subtile art of poysoning could be brought into England your Petitioner replyed that money would bring both the Art and the Artist from the furthest part of the World into England from whence since your Petitioners departure he hath conferred with the skilfullest Pestmasters that could be found who visite the bodies of those that die of the venome of the pest They all admired the description of my Lo Marques his body and testifie that never any of the pest have such accidents but Carbuncles Rubons or Spots no such huge blisters with waters and such a huge uniforme swelling to such dimentions above six times the naturall proportion But he hath met with some who have practised the poysoning of dogs to try the forces of some Antidotes and they have round that some poysons have made the dogs sick for a fortnight or more without any swelling untill they were dead and then they swelled above measure and became blistered with waters of divers colours and the haire came away with the skin when it was touched The Phisitians then who remained were willing to certifie under their hands that my Lo Marquesse was poysoned But your petitioner told them it was not needefull seeing we must needes attend Gods leasure to discover the author the manner being so apparant and so many hundreds having seen the body to witnesse it for the doores were kept open for every man to behold and to bee witnesse who would The Duke of Buckingham making some counterfeit shew of sorrow two men of great quality found no other shift to divert the suspition of the poysoning of the Marquesse from him but to lay it upon his master the King saying that the marquesse for his person spirit and carriage was such as he was born worthy to reigne but the King his Master hated him to death because he had a spirit too much for the commonwealth whereby the Duke did shew himselfe no good subject to the King who made the Kings honour to be tyranicall and the King a blood-thirsty murtherer and a most vile
therewith wrot a very kitter letter to the Marquesse of Hamelton conceived new ambitious courses of his owne and used all the devices he could to disgust the Princes mind of the match with Spain so far intended by the King made haste home where when he came he so carryed himselfe that whatsoever the King commanded in his Bed-chamber he controlled in the next yea received Packets to the King from forraigne Princes and dispatched Answers without acquainting the King therewith in a long time after Whereat perceiving the King highly offended and that the Kings mind was beginning to alter towards him suffering him to be quarrelled and affronted in His Majesties presence and observing that the King reserved my Lord of Bristol to be a rod for him urging daily his dispatch for France and expecting the Earle of Gondâ—mor who as it seemed was greatly esteemed and wonderfully credited by the King and would second my Lord of Bristol his accusations against him He knew also the King had vowed that in spight of all the Devils in hell he would bring the Spanish match about againe and that the Marquesse of Inicosa had given the King bad impressions of him by whose articles of accusation the King himselfe had examined some of the Nobility and Privie Councel and found out in the examination that Buckingham had said after his comming from Spaine that the King was now an old man it was now time for him to be at rest and to be confined to some Parke to passe the rest of his time in hunting and the Prince to be crowned The more the King urged him to be gone to France the more shifts he made to stay for he did evidently see that the King was fully resolved to rid himself of the oppression wherein he held him The King being sick of a certaine Ague and that in the Spring was of it selfe never found deadly the Duke took his opportunity when all the Kings Doctors of Physick were at dinner upon the Munday before the King dyed without their knowledge or consent offered to him a white powder to take the which he a long time refused but overcome with his flattering importunity at length took it in wine and immediately became worse and worse falling into many swounings and paines and violent fluxes of the belly so tormented that His Majesty cryed out aloud of this white powder Would to God I had never taken it it will cost me my life In like manner also the Countesse of Buckingham my Lord of Buckinghams mother upon the Friday after the Physitians also being absent and at Dinner not made acquainted with her doings applyed a plaister to the Kings heart breaâ—… whereupon he grew faint short breathed and in a great Agony Some of the Physitians after dinner returning to see the King by the offensive smell of the plaister percâ—…ved something to be about him hurtfull unto him and searched what it should be fouâ—… it out and exclaimed that the King was poysoned Then Buckingham entring commanded the Physitians out of the room caused one of them to be committed prisoner his own house and another to be removed from Court quarrelled with others of Kings servants in his sick Majesties own presence so far that he offered to draw sword against them in his Majesties sight And Buckinghams mother kneeling doâ—… before His Majesty cryed out with a brazen face Iustice Iustice Sir I demand-stice of your Majesty His Majesty asked her for what For that which their liâ—… are no wayes sufficient to satisfie for saying that my sonne and I have poysoned yâ—… Majestie Poysoned me said he with that turning himselfe swounded and she 〈◊〉 removed The Sunday after His Majestie dyed and Buckingham desired the Physitians 〈◊〉 attended his Majestie to signe with their hands a writ of testimonie that the powâ—… which he gave him was a good and safe medicine which they refused Buckinghams creatures did spread abroad a rumor in London that Buckingham was so srrry for his Majesties death that he would have dyed that he would have led himselfe if they had not hindred him which your Petitioner purposely enquiâ—… after of them that were neere him at that time who said that neither in the timâ—… His Majesties sicknesse nor after his death he was more moved then if there happened either sicknesse or death to His Majestie One day when his Majesty was in great extremity he rode post to London to pâ—…sue his sister in law to have her stand in sackcloth in S. Pauls for adultery And other time in his Majesties Agonie he was busie in contriving and concluding a mâ—…riage for one of his cousins Immediately after his Majesties death the Physitian who was commanded to chamber was set at liberty with a caveat to hold his peace the others threatnâ—… they kept not good tongues in their heads But in the mean time the Kings body and head swelled above measure his hâ—… with the skin of his head stuck to the pillow his nailes became loose upon his fin and toes Your Petitioner needeth to say no more to understanding men only one thing beseecheth That taking the Traytor who ought to be taken without any feare of greatnesse the other waters may be examined and the Accessaries with the Gâ—… punished FINIS