with them what course of Government upon due consideration had of the present estate of the said Realm may be held so as Justice may take place our Charges be lessened our Revenues increased and our Subjects there not oppressed You shall also consider what Forces are meet to be continued in pay and how the rest chargeable unto us and burthensom unto the Country may be discharged and also how the Horsmen and Footmen serving there may be reduced to their old pay which by reason of the general Rebellion in that Realm the Country being wasted we were driven to increase And therefore we see no reason but the Band residing in those Countries that are not wasted may live well enough of the old pay especially being victualled by us and for the ease and diminishing of our charges in that behalf We do think it meet that you should treat with those Countries that are not wasted as well in Munster or elswhere in that Realm to see if you can draw them with good contentment to contribute somthing towards the finding of that Garrison at Carberrie heretofore hath done And for that our Subjects in that Realm c. To advise of the inhabiting of Munster the attainted Lands to be let out at easie rents Survey certifie what States Statute of Vsus 5. Port-Corn 6. Th' attainted Lands to be bestowed in reward upon Servitors 7. Younger Brothers of Noblemen Diminish Pensioners 9. Review former Instructions 10 11. Renewing of forfeited Leases for three years Beef Port-Corn Remittal of Arrearages 12. Reversion of Lands to the Governours 13. Lands of the attainted to be appointed to house-keeping 14. Reservation of Timber-woods 15. Residence of Officers 16. Report to the State outrages of disloyal Subjects 17. Profits of Customs Escheats c. 19. Establishment for Connaught 20. President for Munster allowance begin at May Transportation 21. Councellors B. of Meath John Norris Richard Biâ—gham Tho. Strange 22. Refer the choice of a person to the Chancellor and others 23. Certificate of the last Treasurers Receipts and Expences Every one of these Articles doth contain half a side of Paper and therefore I have rather thought fit to abbreviate them then to transcribe them at large the whole Contents being contained in this Abbreviation Sir John Perrot to the Lords of the Councel Jan. 31. 1585. May it please your good Lordships ALthough I and this Councel have by our joynt-Letters truly declared unto you the dutifull state of things here and the causes both foraign and domestical whereupon we gather it and withall have shewed our extreme wants and what supplies are desired Yet understanding thence but not from your Lordships for I have had no kind of advertisements answer or resolution from the same these twelve moneths that there is a great preparation made by the Spanish King against the Realm and that your Lordships have intelligence thereof I cannot but as one whose chief charge and care it is importune your Lordships to cast your eye more carefully this way humbly praying you to consider what case we are in to try with a most mighty Prince whether this Realm shall be still her Majesties or his if there be any such matters as your Lordships know best then I beseech your Lordships to think whether it be more safety to say that we have sent provision to encounter the danger or else you will send when perhaps it will be too late And withall for mine own discharge if I shall tarry and have nothing wherewith I have but a life to yield for her Majesty and my Country for the loss thereof I grieve not but rather for the harm that through defects I fear may come to her Majesty and the State and the shame I shall leave behind me This foreign preparation if there be any such thing is likely to be spent against Munster to seise upon and to spoil the Cities and Towns of the same which in truth are very weak If I shall go thither what for the late wars and this last bad season there is not so much to be had there as will maintain that one Band of 200. that is under Mr. Thomas Norris the Vice-President there but that I am inforced to shift them from Town to Town who by reason of their extreme penury do receive them with great grief and grudge And though I had men sufficient to encounter the Enemy that should come yet for want of victuals I should be driven to abandon the place with danger and shame where they that are to come over are like to bring their provision with them and to settle it in some Town that they will soon seise upon for that purpose whereof what may ensue amongst this unconstant people naturally delighting in change your Lordships may soon gather Besides this that I have said of the bare estate of Munster where there is not so much to be had as will serve for mine own family or yet to feed my horses till grass grow I refer you to understand not only the same more fully but also the great wants of the rest of the Realm by the declaration here inclosed which as Beverley the Victualler maketh it so I know it to be true And therefore I most humbly beseech your Lordships to send speedy order that such a Staple of victuals may be provided and be sent over as your Lordships shall think requisite to serve as well for the numbers here already as also for those that are to be sent over to encounter such an accident as may fall out And herein I would wish your Lordships to consider the winds and weather how untowardly they have framed this year for as some have lain at Chester nine weeks to come over hither so hath there been no passage since this six weeks Moreover if there be such purposes in hand it were good some shipping were dispatcht for the guard of the Coasts And to all these and other difficulties may I with your Lordships favour adde one more to be considered of How weakly I am seconded if need fall out by those forein attempts whereof I would say little for any other cause The Marshal is old and not able either to ride or go the Master of the Ordnance is both absent and old and I wish there were a more sufficient man in his place The Lord President and Sir William Stanley who are men of good conduct are drawn away Sir H. Harrington Mr. Edward Barkley and the Senescal Dantry are suffered to remain still there but I humbly pray they may be sped away together with all other that are Servitors by any manner of pay there And so having herein discharged my duty I humbly end From the Castle of Dublin the last of January 1585. Your Lordships most humble at commandment JOHN PERROT Earl of Desmond to the Earl of Ormond Iune 5. 1583. My Lord GReat is my grief when I think how heavily her Majesty is bent to disfavour me and howbeit I carry
Keeper to the Duke concerning the Countesse of South-hampton 17. Novemb. 1624. 96 The Lord Keeper to the Duke 24. Decemb. 1624. 99 The Lord Keeper to the Duke concerning Dr. Scot the 4. of Jan. 1624 100 The Lord Keeper to the Duke 2. March 1624. 101 The Lord Keeper to the Duke about Sir Robert Howard 11. March 1624. 103 The Lord Keeper to the Duke 13. March 1624. 104 The Lord Keeper to the Duke 22. March 1624. 106 The Bishop of Lincoln to the Duke the 7. of January 1625. 107 The Bishop of Lincoln to his Majestie 108 The Lord Keeper to the Viscount Annan the 17. of September 1622. 109 The Bishop of St. Davids to the Duke the 18. of November 1624. 113 The Bishop of St. Davids to the Duke 114 The Bishop of Chichester to the Duke 114 The Bishops of Rochester Oxford and St. Davids to the Duke concerning Mr. Mountague 2. Aug. 1625. 116 Dr. Field Bishop of Landaffe to the Duke 118 Bishop of Landaffe to the Duke 119 Dr. Corbet to the Duke 121 Earles of Worcester Arundel and Surrey and Montgomery to the King 121 The Earl of Suffolk to his Majestie 122 The Earl of Suffolk to the Duke 123 The Earl of Suffolk to his Majestie 124 The Lady Elizabeth Howard to the King 126 The Lady Elizabeth Norris to the Duke ibid. Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke 128 Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke 129 Sir Edward Cecyl to the Lord Conway Secretary 2. of June 1625. 130 Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke 3. June 1625. 132 Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke 19. July 1625. 134 The Lord Wimbledon to the Duke 28. April 1626. 135 The Lord Wimbledon to the Duke 137 Sir John Ogle to the Duke 3. June 1625. 138 Sir Robert Mansel to the Duke 9. June 1621. 140 Sir Robert Mansel to the Duke 10. July 1621. 143 Sir John Pennington to the Duke 27. July 1625. 144 Captain Pennington to the Duke 150 Mr. Trumbal to the Secretary 31. March 1619. 151 Mr. Trumbal to the Secretary 23. Octob. 1619. 156 Sir Thomas Roe to the Marquesse of Buckingham Lord Admiral 17. Decemb. 1621. 158 L. R. H. to the Duke of Buckingham 159 Sir George Carie to the Marquesse of Buckingham the 8. of Decem. 1619. 162 To King James ab ignoto 163 Archbishop Abbot to Secretary Nanton 12. of September 1619. 169 The Lord Brook to the Duke 11. Novemb. 1623. 170 Dr. Belcanquel to Secretary Nanton 26. March 173 Sir William Beecher to his Majestie 4. Febr. 176 To King James ab ignoto 178 Sir Isaac Wake to the Secretary the 27. of September 1619. 180 Sir Isaac Wake to the Secretary the 5th of October 1619. 184 Sir Isaac Wake to the Duke 13. Febr. 1621. 188 Sir Isaac Wake 's Proposition for the King of Denmark 190 Sir Henry Wotton to the Duke 25. Jan. 1619. 192 Sir Henry Wotton to the Duke 29. July 1622. 193 Sir Henry Wotton to the Duke the 2d. of December 1622. 194 Sir Henry Wotton to the Duke 196 Sir Henry Wotton to the Duke 197 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke 26. June 1622. 200 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke Bruxels 3. of September 1622. 201 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke 17. July 1623. 202 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke 20 May 1624. 203 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke Chelsey the 23 of July 1624. 204 Sir Richard Weston to the Duke Chelsey 12. of August 1624. 206 Sir Francis Cottington to the Duke Madrid 1. October 1616. 206 Viscount Rochfort to the Duke of Buckingham 209 King James to Pope Gregorie the 15. the 10. of September 1622. 211 Pope Gregory the 15. to the Prince of Wales Rome 20. of April 1623. 212 The Prince of Wales his Reply to the Popes Letter 214 The Pope to the Duke of Buckingham Rome the 19 of May 1623. 216 To King James ab ignoto 217 To King James ab ignoto 222 Mr. Ch. Th. to the Duke 228 To Count Gondomar 233 Conde de Gondomar to the Duke 13. Febr. 1625. 237 Padre Maestre at Rome to the Spanish Embassadour in England 12. June 1621. 238 Don Carlos to the Lord Conway 3. Septem 239 Marquesse Ynoiosa to the Lord Conway 5. of September 1623. 242 Collections of Passages and Discourses betwixt the Spanish Embassadours and Sir Arthur Chichester 18 Jan. 1623. 244 Sir Arthur Chichester to the Duke 25. Jan. 1623. 243 Passages betwixt the Lord Nithisdale and the Spanish Embassadours 22. May 1624. 247 The Lord Nithisdale to the Duke 22 June 1624. 249 Sir Tobie Mathew to the King of Spain 251 Sir Tobie Mathew to the Dutchesse of Buckingham From Bulloign 9. June 1625. 253 Dr. Sharp to King James 255 Dr. Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham 257 The Lord Cromwell to the Duke 8. Sept. 1625. 262 Sir Robert Philips to the Duke of Buckingham 21. of Aug. 1624. 264 The Earl of Middlesex to the Duke 266 The Earl of Middlesex to his Majestie the 26. April 1624. 267 The Earl of Carlile to his Majestie 14. Febr. 1623. 269 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 273 The Lord Kensington to the Prince the 26. of February 1624. 276 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 274 The Lord Kensington to the Prince 26 Febr. 1624. 276 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 278 The Lord Kensington to the Prince 280 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 4. March 1924. 282 The Lord Kensington to the Secretary Lord Conway 284 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 288 The Lord Kensington to the Duke 291 The Lord Kensington Earl of Holland to the Duke 292 The Earl of Holland to his Majestie Paris 13 March 1625. 294 The Earl of Holland to the Duke 296 Mr. Lorkin to the Duke 30. August 1625. 299 Mr. Lorkin to the Duke 17 Sept. 1625. 301 The Lord Herbert to his Majestie From Merton Castle 13 Octob. 1623. 304 Mr. Edward Clerk to the Duke Madrid 6. Sept. 1623. 306 Mr. Edward Clerk to the Duke Madrid the 1. of October 1623. 307 Sir Anthony Ashley to the Duke 12 May. 1621. 307 Sir Walter Rawleigh to the Duke 12. Aug. 308 Sir Henry Yelverton to the Duke the 15. of March 1623. 310 Sir John Eliot to the Duke 8. Novemb. 1623. 311 The Earl of Oxford to the Duke 311 The Lady Purbeck to the Duke 313 Dr. Donne to the Marquesse of Buckingham 13. September 1621. 314 Dr. Donne to the Duke 315 Sir John Hipsley to the Duke London the 1. of September 1623. 316 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Marquesse of Buckingham Hague 24. Febr. 1616. 317 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke of Buckingham Hague 10. June 1620. 322 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke Hague 31. of January 1622. 325 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke Hague 23. of August 1622. 327 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke Hague 9. of December 1623. 334 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke Hague 13. Decemb. 1623. 334 Sir Dudley Carleton to the Duke Hague 18 of December 1623. 337 Sir Dudley Carleton to the
Toledo who is under age swore to all the Capitulations so that the Prince seemed to depart well satisfied The King brought him to the Escurial and a little before his departure the King and he went into a close Coach and had a large discourse together my Lord of Bristol being in another Coach hard by to interpret some hard words when he was called And so they parted with many tender demonstrations of love A Trophy of Marble is erected in the place where they parted Many rich Presents were given on both sides The Prince bestowed upon the Queen the biggest Crown Pearl in the world between two Diamonds He gave the Infanta a rope of Pearl and an anchor of great Diamonds with many other Jewels He hath been very bountiful to every one of the Kings house and all the Guard Never Prince parted with such an universal love of all He left every mouth filled with his Commendations every one reporting him to be a truly Noble discreet and well deserving Prince I write what I hear and know and that without passion for all he is the Prince of my Countrey My Lord of Buckingham at first was much esteemed but it lasted little his French garb with his stout hastinesse in negotiating and over-familiarity with the Prince was not liked Moreover the Councel of Spain took it ill that a green head should come with such a superintendent power to treat of an affair of such Consequence among so many grave Ministers of State to the prejudice of so able and well-deserving a Minister as my Lord of Bristol who laid the first stone of this building Hereupon his power was called in question and found imperfect in regard it was not confirmed by the Councel Thus the businesse began to gather ill bloud between Olivarez and him and grew so far out of square that unlesse there had been good heads to peece them together again all might have fallen quite off the hinges He did not take his leave of the Countesse of Olivarez and the farewel he took of the Conde himself was harsh for he told him he would be an everlasting servant to the King of Spain the Queen and the Infanta and would endeavour to do the best offices he could for the concluding of this businesse and strengthening the amity between the two Kingdomes but for himself he had so far disobliged him that he could make no profession of friendship to him at all The Conde turned about and said he accepted of what he had spoken and so parted Since his Highnesse departure my Lord of Bristol negotiates closely he is daily at the Palace to attend the Infanta and he treats by means of the Countesse of Olivarez There is a new Junto appointed for the disposing of the Infanta's affairs and we hope here that all things will be ripe against the next Spring to bring her over And so I rest c. From Madrid 30. Septemb. 1623. His Majesties to the Earl of Bristol Jan. 21. 1625. VVEE have read your Letter addressed to us by Buckingham and We cannot but wonder that you should through forgetfulnesse make such a request to us of favour as if you stood eavenly capable of it when you know what your behaviour in Spain deserved of Us which you are to examine by the observations We made and know you will remember how at our first coming into Spain taking upon you to be so wise as to foresee our intentions to change our Religion you were so far from disswading us that you offered your service and secresie to concur in it and in many other open Conferences pressing to shew how convenient it was for us to be a Roman Catholique it being impossible in your opinion to do any great action otherwise how much wrong disadvantage and disservice you did to the Treaty and to the right and interest of our dear Brother and Sister and their Children what disadvantage inconvenience and hazard you intangled us in by your artifices putting off and delaying our return home The great estimation you made of that State and the vile price you set this Kingdome at still maintaining that we under colour of friendship to Spain did what was in our power against them which you said they knew very well And last of all your approving of those Conditions that our Nephew should be brought up in the Emperours Court to which Sir Walter Aston then said he durst not give his Consent for fear of his head you replying to him that without some such great action neither marriage nor peace could be had c. Lord Conway to the Earl of Bristol March 21. 1625. My Lord I Received a Letter from your Lordship dated the 4th of this month written in answer to a former which I directed to your Lordship by his Majesties Commandment This last Letter according to my duty I have shewed unto his Majestie who hath perused it and hath commanded me to write back this unto you again That he finds himself nothing satisfied therewith the question propounded to your Lordship from his Majestie was plain and clear Whether you did rather choose to sit still without being question'd for any errours past in your negotiation in Spain and enjoy the benefit of the late gratious pardon granted in Parliament whereof you may have the benefit or whether for the clearing of your innocency whereof your self your friends and your followers are so confident you will be contented to wave the advantage of that pardon and put your self into a legal way of examination for the tryal thereof His Majesties purpose hereby is not to prevent you of any favours the Law hath given but if your assurance be such as your words and letter import he conceiveth it stands not with that publique and resolute profession of your integrity to decline your tryal His Majestie leaves the choyce to your self and requires from you a direct answer without Circumlocution or bargaining with him for future favours before hand But if you have a desire to make use of that pardon which cannot be denyed to you nor is it any way desired to be taken from you His Majestie expects that you should at least forbear to magnifie your service and out of the opinion of your own innocency cast an aspersion upon his Majesties Justice in not affording you that present fulnesse of liberty and favour which cannot be drawn from him but in his own good time and according to his own good pleasure Thus much I have in command to write unto your Lordship and to require your answer cleerly and plainly by this Messenger sent on purpose for it And so c. The E. of Bristol to the Lord Conway 4. March 1625. My Lord I Received your Letter of the 25. of February and therein a Commandment from his Majestie and in his Majesties name to make a cleer and plain answer Whether I desire or rest in the security I am now in and to acknowledge the gratious favour of his
England being clamorous upon me for some satisfaction I leave all to your Graces care and favour Ever resting Your Graces humblest and most bound servant Wa Aston Postscript THe Condessa of Olivarez bids me tell you that she kisses your Graces hands and doth every day recommend you particularly by name in her prayers to God May it please your Grace MY Lord of Bristol intended to have dispatched away a Post unto his Majestie this night with the advice of the arrival of the dispensation which came to this Town the 12th of this moneth hoping that he should have been likewise able to have given to his Majestie and his Highnesse a clear account of all things concerning it But the deliverie of the Queen this morning who is brought to bed of a daughter hath stopped all negotiation and I believe it will be these two daies before he can be ready to send him away There is no noveltie as I yet understand that is come with the dispensation there will be something desired for better explanation of his Majesties and his Highnesse intentions and some omissions there are which as they understand was his Highnesse intention should have been in the Capitulation they being promised by his Highnesse But I do not find that these will be any stop to the businesse For they do presse my Lord of Bristol very much to proceed presently to the Deposoriâ—s Your Grace shall understand all things more particularly by the next Post I do now make the more haste forbearing to trouble you with other occurrences lest my Letters come short of the departure of the Post as they did of his who was last dispatched from hence I do most humbly desire your Grace to continue the doing me those offices that may continue me in his Majesties and his Highnesse good opinion and I doubt not but I shall be ever able to let your Grace see that you have not a more faithful servant then he which your Grace hath most bound to be so and that shall ever remain Yours c. W.A. The Lord Duke of Buckingham to Sir Walter Aston IN your Letter of the 5th of December you desire me to give you my opinion my ancient acquaintance long custome of loving you with constancie of friendship invites me to do you this office of good will and to serve you according to your request And for your more intire satisfaction I will deliver the things in the past and present You in all the beginning of the treaty won to your self a good estimation while you were onely at large in the treaty and had communication of the passages from the Lord of Bristol as by courtesy and in his absence handled no farther in the treaty of marriage then by direction from him When the Prince was there your carriage gave his Highnesse and my self all satisfaction Now you must give me leave to put you in mind of the freedom used with you whilest we were at Madrid and of the explanation the Prince made of himself to you by his Letters from St. Anderas From which you might observe the resentment the Prince had of their proceedings with him And by his Highnesse declaration to you from thence you might see both his care and resolution not to ingage himself into the marriage without good conditions for the Pallatinate and Conservation of his honour every way My care and my intentions were to move increase of honour to you and to recompence by a good understanding to be layed in his Majestie towards you which I pursued so soon as I came to the Kings presence And the Princes confidence was so great in you as he joyned you in the Commission besides he declared himself to you by his Letters not leaving you thereby to guesse at his Majesties directions to the E. of Bristol which he was to communicate to you Now you may think how strange it was to the Prince and how much I was troubled not being able to make your excuse when your joynt Letters made known how you had concurred with the Earle of Bristol to ingage his Highnesse by prefixing a day for the Deposorios without making certain the restitution of the Palatinate and Electoral dignity the portion and temporal articles Which proceeding of yours with the Earl of Bristol was so understood by the Lords of the Committee as they took resolution once to advise his Majestie to revoke both the Lord of Bristol and you upon those grounds which you will understand by his Majesties own Letters and Secretarie Conwayes Letters written to you with this dispatch I was not able at first by any endeavour to oppose the resolution of your revocation so far had you cast your self into misconstruction and given stop to the progresse of your own advancement But with constant industry and time I have won this point of qualifying all ill opinion of you and sufferance of your continuing there So as it will be now in your power by your Carriage to come off without reproof And I shall hope to overcome the rest with time to to bring you again to the condition of honour and recompence Being confident that since you see your own errour and acknowledge it you will be careful by a stiff and judicious carriage to warrant all your present and succeding actions If you think at first sight I presse you a little hard upon this point you may be pleased to interpret it to be a faithful way of satisfying your request and expression of my affection to have you to do all things suitable to your wisdome virtue and honour and according to the wishes of Yours c. G. Buckingham The Duke of Buckingham to Sir Wa. Aston I Had not leisure in my former dispatch being hastie to write the reason why I wondered at the errour you commited in the last dispatch of my Lord of Bristols and yours for the matter is that his Majestie having plainely written unto you both in his former dispatch that he desired to be assured of the restitution of the Palatinate before the Deposorium was made seeing he would be sorrie to welcome home one Daughter with a smiling cheer and leave his own onely Daughter at the same time weeping and disconsolate And the Prince having also written unto you that he never meant to match there and be frustrated of the restitution of the Palatinate so often promised that notwithstanding this clear Language you should have joyned with my Lord of Bristol in a resolution of so hastie a delivery of the Prince's Proxie before you had received his Majesties answer to your former dispatch wherein my Lord of Bristol urged of his Majestie a harsh answer and direction and his Majestie cannot but take it for a kind of Scorn that within 4. dayes after ye had urged his Majesties answer ye should in the mean time take resolutions of your own heads You may do well because there is no leisure in this hastie dispatch for his Majestie to answer my
him too unsufferably God from Heaven blesse you Remember your Deanerie and Dean of Westminster c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke concerning the Earl Marshals place 1. Septemb. 1621. My most Noble Lord I Beseech your Lordship to interpret this Letter well and fairly which no malice though never so provoked but my duty to his Majestie and love to your Lordship hath drawn from me both which respects as long as I keep inviolably I will not omit for the fear of any man or the losse of any thing in this world to do any act which my Conscience shall inform me to belong unto that place wherein the King by your favour hath intrusted me I received this morning two Commands from his Majestie the one about a Pension of 2000 l. yearly and the other concerning the office of the Earle Marshal both conferred on the Right Honourable the Earle of Arundel For the former although this is a very unseasonable time to receive such large Pensions from so bountiful a King and that the Parliament so soon approaching is very like to take notice thereof and that this pension might under the correction of your better judgment have been conveniently deferred until that Assembly had been over Yet who am I that should question the wisedom and bounty of my Master I have therefore sealed the same praying secretly unto God to make his Majestie as abounding in wealth as he is in goodnesse But the latter I dare not seale my good Lord until I heare your Lordships resolution to these few Questions Whether his Majestie by expressing himself in the delivery of the staffe to my Lord of Arundel that he was moved thereunto for the easing of the rest of the Comissioners who had before the execution of that office did not imply that his Majestie intended to impart unto my Lord no greater power then was formerly granted to the Lords Comissioners If it were so this Pattent should not have exceeded their Pattent whereas it doth inlarge it self beyond that by many dimensions Whether it is his Majesties meaning that the Pattent leaping over the powers of the three last Earles Essex Shrewsbery and Sommerset should refer onely to my Lords own Ancestors Howards and Mowbrayes Dukes of Norfolk who clamed this place by a way of inheritance The usual reference of Pattents being unto the last and immediate predecessour and not unto the remote whose powers in those unsettled and troublesome times are vage uncertain and unpossible to be limited Whether it is his Majesties meaning that this great Lord should bestow those offices settled of a long time in the Crown Sir Edward Zouch his in the Court Sir George Reinel's in the Kings Bench and divers others All which this new Pattent doth sweep away being places of great worth and dignity Whether that his Majesties meaning and your Lordships that my Lord Stewards place shall be for all his power of Judicature in the Verge either altogether extinguished or at leastwise subordinated unto this new Office A point considerable because of the greatnesse of that person and his neernesse in bloud to his Majestie and the Prince his Highnesse Lastly Whether it be intended that the offices of the Earl Marshal of England and the Marshal of the Kings house which seem in former times to have been distinct offices shall be now united in this great Lord A power limited by no Law or Record but to be searcht out from Chronicles Antiquaries Heralds and such obsolete Monuments and thereupon held these 60 years for my Lord of Essex his power was clearly bounded and limited unfit to be revived by the policy of this State These Questions if his Majestie intended onely the renewing of this Commission of the Earl Marshals in my Lord of Arundel are material and to the purpose But if his Majestie aymed withal at the reviving of this old office A la ventura whose face is unknown to the people of this age upon the least intimation from your Lordship I will seal the Patent And I beseech your Lordship to pardon my discretion in this doubt and irresolution It is my place to be wary what innovation passeth the Seal I may offend that great Lord in this small stay but your Lordship cannot but know how little I lose when I lose but him whom without the least cause in the world I have irreconcileably lost already All that I desire is that you may know what is done and I will ever do what your Lordship being once informed shall direct as becometh c. That there is a difference betwixt the Earl Marshal and the Marshall of the Kings house See Lamberts Archiron or of the High Courts of Justice in England Circa Medium The Marshal of England and the Constable are united in a Court which handleth onely Duels out of the Realm matters within the Realm as Combats Blazon Armorie c. but it may meddle with nothing tryable by the Lawes of the Land The Marshal of the Kings Houshold is united in a Court with the Seneschal or Steward which holds plea of Trespasses Contracts and Covenants made within the Verge and that according to the Lawes of the Land Vid. Artic. Super Cart. C. 3. 4. 5. We do all of us conceive the King intended the first place only for this great Lord and the second to remain in the Lord Stewards managing But this new Patent hath comprehended them both This was fit to be presented to your Lordship The Lord Keeper to the Duke 16. Decemb. 1621. Most Noble Lord I Have seen many expressions of your love in other mens Letters where it doth most naturally and purely declare it self since I received any of mine own It is much your Lordship should spare me those thoughts which pour out themselves in my occasions But to have me and my affaires in a kind of affectionate remembrance when your Lordship is saluting of other Noble men is more then ever I shall be able otherwaies to requite then with true prayers and best wishes I received this afternoon by Sir John Brook a most loving Letter from your Lordship but dated the 26th of Novemb. imparting your care over me for the committing of one Beeston for breach of a Decree My Noble Lord Decrees once made must be put in execution or else I will confesse this Court to be the greatest imposture and Grievance in this Kingdom The damned in Hell do never cease repining at the Justice of God nor the prisoners in the Fleet at the Decrees in Chancery of the which hell of prisoners this one for antiquity and obstinacy may passe for a Lucifer I neither know him nor his cause but as long as he stands in Contempt he is not like to have any more liberty His Majesties last Letter though never so full of honey as I find by passages reported out of the same being as yet not so happy as to have a sight thereof hath notwithstanding afforded those Spiders which infest that noble
redoubled an infinitely multiplied benefit which is so given Never had I more need of the Cordial his Majestie gave me at my going into Wales which was that I should not stay long there It would be a restorative too not onely of my Credit so cruelly crackt with the sharp teeth of the wide mouth of vulgar lying fame but of my estate also alwaies poor but lately much more impoverished and made crazie by occasions of the Church which drew me to London a place of great expences as the busie times were to little purpose And the Parliament overtaking me which have held me long and longer yet are like to hold me here even to the undoing of my self my wife and six children from whom I have now lived 6. or 7. moneths And what shall I carry home with me but disgrace and infamie Yet my good Lord at least procure me of my Lord the King a Nunc dimittis leave to depart I shall be further out of the reach of pursuing malice there in the Countrie do his Majestie better service in gathering up his Subsidies praying and teaching my children whilest I read a Lecture to them my self was never yet able to get by heart of parcimony which must be to them instead of a patrimonie to pray for his Majesties long life health and happinesse In which prayer shall your Lordship ever be duly remembred by Your Lordships daily devote Beadsman Theophilus Landavensis Dr. Corbet to the Duke May it please your Grace TO consider my two great losses this week one in respect of his Majestie to whom I was to preach the other in respect of my Patron whom I was to visit If this be not the way to repair the latter of my losses I fear I am in danger to be utterly undone To presse too near a great man is a means to be put by and to stand too far off is the way to be forgotten so Ecclesiasticus In which mediocrity could I hit it would I live and die My Lord I would neither presse near nor stand far off choosing rather the name of an ill Courtier then a saucie Scholar From your Graces most humble servant Rich. Corbet Postscript HEre is news my noble Lord about us that in the point of Allegiance now in hand all the Papists are exceeding Orthodox the onely Recusants are the Puritanes The E. of Worcester Arundel and Surrey Montgomery to the King May it please your most excellent Majestie ACcording to the Orders and Constitutions made and established by your Majestie and all the Companions of the Order at the last general Chapter held at White-Hall the 21. of May last past we are bold to inform your Majestie that we having diligently viewed divers of the Records of the said Order do in the black book find that the keeping of the little Park at VVindsor next adjoyning unto the Castle is in direct words annexed for ever to the Office of the Usher for the said Order So humbly kissing your Royal hands We rest Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects and servants E. Worcester Arundel and Surrey Montgomery White-Hall 1. July 1622. The Lord Chancellour Bacon to the Duke My very good Lord MY Lord of Suffolk's cause is this day sentenced My Lord and his Lady fined at 30000 l. with imprisonment in the Tower at their own charges Bingley at 2000 l. and committed to the Fleet. Sir Edward Cook did his part I have not heard him do better and began with a sine of an 100000 l. But the Judges first and most of the rest reduced it as before I do not dislike that things passe moderately and all things considered it is not amisse and might easily have been worse There was much speaking of interceding for the Kings mercie which in my opinion was not so proper for a sentence I said in conclusion that mercy was to come ex mero motu and so left it I took some other occasion pertinent to do the King honour by shewing how happy he was in all other parts of his Government save only in the manage of his treasure by these Officers I have sent the King a new Bill for Sussex for my Lord of Nottingham's Certificate was true and I told the Judges of it before but they neglected it I conceive the first man which is newly set down is the fittest God ever preserve and keep you c. The Earl of Suffolk to his Majestie Gratious Soveraign IN this grievous time of my being barred from your presence which to me is the greatest affliction that can lie upon me and knowing by my former service to you the sweet and Princely disposition that is in you naturally together with that unmatchable judgement which the world knoweth you have is the occasion that I presume at this time to lay before your Majestie my most humble suit which is that you would be pleased to look upon the Case of your poor servant who after so many faithful desires of mine to do you service I do not say that successe hath fallen out as I wished should now not only have suffered for my weaknesse and errours but must be further questioned to my disgrace I would to God your Majestie did truly understand the thoughts of my heart and if there you could find one the least of ill affections to you I wish it pulled out of my body Now to adde to my miseries give me leave to let your Majestie know the hard estate I am in for I do owe at this present I dare avow upon my fidelitie to you little lesse then 40000 l. which I well know will make me and mine poor and miserable for ever All this I do not lay down to your Majesties best judging eyes that I mean this by way of complaint For I do acknowledge the reason that your Majestie had to do what you did neither do I go about to excuse errours to have escaped me but will now and ever acknowledge your Gracious favourable dealing with me if you will be pleased now to receive me again to your favour after this just correction without which I desire not to enjoy fortune of Goods or life in this world which in the humblest manner that I can I beg at your Princely feet as Your c. T. Suffolk The E. of Suffolk to the Duke My Honourable good Lord AT the first minute of mine and my wives delivery out of the Tower I had returned such acknowledgment due for so great a favour but that Sir George Coring only desired to be the Messenger as well as he was of the other Let not my Lord my late misfortunes make me or mine more unable to serve and thank you then any hee that thus takes advantage thereby to wrong me in your belief for what I have both received in abatement of my fine and speedy libertie I must confesse to come from your Noble mediation to his Majestie whose displeasure hath been more grievous to my soul then all the
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
the head directing and your people as the hands and feet obeying and co-operating for the honour safety and welfare of the bodie of the State This will revive and reunite your friends abroad and dismay and disappoint the hopes of your enemies secure your Majesties person assure your estate and make your memorie glorious to posterity Pardon I most humbly beseech your Majestie this licentious freedome which the zeal of your safetie and service hath extorted from a tongue-tyed man who putteth his heart into his Majesties hand and humbly prostrateth himself at your Royal feet as being Your Majesties Most humble most obedient obliged Creature Subject and Servant Carlile The Earl of Carlile to the Duke the 20. of November 1625. My most Noble dear Lord SInce my Last to your Lordship by Mr. Endimion Porter there hath not happened any matter of great moment or alteration here saving the resolution which his Majestie hath taken by the advice of his Councel for the disarming of all the Popish Lords In the execution whereof there fell out a brabble at the Lord Vaux his house in North-hamptonshire wherein there were some blowes exchanged between the said Lord and Mr. Knightly a Justice of the Peace who assisted the Deputie Lievtenant in that action Whereof complaint being made his Majestie was pleased himself in Councel to have the hearing of the businesse and upon examination to refer the judgement thereof to the Star-Chamber the next Term. But at the issuing out of the Councel Chamber the Lord Vaux taking occasion to speak to Sir William Spencer who with the rest had given information in favour of Mr. Knightly told him that though he neglected his reputation before the Lords yet he doubted not but he would have more care of his oath when the businesse should come to Examination in the Star-Chamber Herewith Sir VVilliam Spencer finding his reputation challenged presently complained and thereupon the words being acknowledged the Lord Vaux was committed prisoner to the Fleet. In the disarming of the Lords-Recusants there was as much respect had of some who have relation to your Lordship as you your self would desire The Papists in general here do give some cause of jealousie by their Combinations and Murmurings wherein it is suspected that they are as fondly as busily encouraged by the pragmatical Mounsieurs But his Majesties temper and wisdom will be sufficient to prevent all inconveniencie which their follie or passion may contrive There is one Sir Thomas Gerrard a Recusant brought up hither out of Lancashire being accused of some treacherous design against his Majesties Person Rochel is so straightly blocked by Sea and Land as no Intelligence can be sent into the Town We have not as yet any clear Categorical answers touching the restitution of our ships As soon as any thing more worthy of your Lordships knowledge shall occur you shall not fail to be advertised from him that is eternally vowed Your Graces Most faithful friend and most humble servant Carlile The Earl of Carlile to the Duke My most Noble dear Lord I Must ever acknowledge my self infinitely obliged to your Lordship for many Noble favours but for none more then the freedome and true cordial friendship expressed in your last Letter touching my son And I shall humbly beseech your Lordship in all occasions to continue that free and friendly manner of proceeding which I shall ever justly esteem as the most real testimonie of your favour towards me Your Lordship will now be pleased to give me leave with the same freedom and sinceritie to give your Lordship an account that it is now 4. moneths since the Count of Mansfelt made the proposition to me to nominate my son to be one of his Colonels as he did likewise to my Lord of Holland for his Brother Sir Charles Rich which at the first I must deal plainly with your Lordship I took for a piece of art as if he knowing that next to the benefit and assistance he received from your Lordships favour and protection we were the most active instruments imployed in his businesse and therefore he sought to ingage us so much the farther by this interest But afterwards I found that under the shadow of this Complement put upon me he had a desire to gratifie Sir James Ramsey whom he designed to be my sons Lievtenant having regard to his former deserts and the courage and sufficiencie he hath found in him I professe unto your Lordship sincerely that he received no other encouragement or acceptance from me then a bare negative Insomuch as he afterwards sent a Gentleman to tell me That he perceived whatsoever he should expect from me in the furtherance of his businesse must be onely for the respect I bare to my Masters service and nothing for love of his person since I accepted not the proffer of his service My Lord of Holland can justifie the truth of this assertion who alone was acquainted with that which passed for I protest upon my salvation that I neither spake of it to any creature living not so much as to my son neither have I written one word thereof to the Count Mansfelt neither knew I any thing of his proceedings till by the last Currier Mr. Secretarie was pleased to acquaint me with the nomination of my son If I had seriously intended any such thing I want not so much judgment and discretion as not first to discover my desire to my gracious Master humbly craving his leave and allowance And I should not have failed to have recourse to your Lordships favourable assistance therein And thus my Noble Lord have I given you an account what entertainment I gave to the Count Mansfelts Complement And I will be bold also to give your Lordship this further assurance that no particular interest or consideration of mine own shall have power to alter my constant course of serving my gracious Master faithfully and industriously And so humbly submitting all to his Majesties good pleasure and your Lordships wisdom I remain eternally Your Graces most faithful friend and humble servant Carlile Postscript I Most humbly beseech your Lordship that this unfortunate Complement put upon my son may be no prejudice to the deserts of Sir James Ramsey The Lord Kensington to the Duke My Noblest Lord I Find the Queen Mother hath the onely power of governing in this State and I am glad to find it so since she promises and professes to use it to do careful and good offices in the way of increasing the friendship that is between us and this State and likewise to relieve and assist the united provinces the which they are preparing to do fullie and bravely for she hath now a clear sight of the pretentions of the King of Spain unto the Monarchie of Christendom during the absence of the King who went out of this town earlie the next day after I arrived here before I was prepared to attend him I have been often at the Louure where I had the
scrupulous that she had written a very sharp Letter full of good lessons and instructions to her that she had as clear a heart to your Grace as was possible had sent for Blanvil expressely to alter his instructions and that howsoever he like a hollow-hearted man had uttered in confidence to a friend of his That he would perswade the Queen of England to put on a reconciled countenance for a time till the way should be better prepared to give your Grace a dead lift yet the Queen Mothers intentions were assuredly sincere and good The Savoyards Embassadours voyage was not then resolved but his Secretarie prepared to make it in his room Of whom Pocheres by the way gave this touch That there was a great correspondence between Madamoiselle de Truges and him contracted upon occasions of frequent visits that had passed betwixt her Mother and the Embassadour and that therefore a careful eye was to be had of him Another who must be namelesse sent for me yesterday in the forenoone to tell me that Pore Berule's errand hither was only to make out-cries against the decree or proclamation against the Catholiques and to accuse your Grace as the Principal if not the only author who was now of a seeming friend become a deadly foe That the Earl of Arundel had out of his respect unto this State purposely absented himself that he might not be guilty of so pernicious a Councel That your Grace and my Lord of Holland had both but very slippery hold in his Majesties affections that if this King would imploy his credit as he might it would be no hard matter to root you both out thence that there were good preparatives for it alreadie and that my Lords Arundel and Pembroke would joyn hands and heads together to accomplish the effect Whereupon Blainville was sent for back to be more particularly instructed in the waies how to compasse it and would speedily post away in diligence The same party added that the propositions which the Marquesse de Fiatt had made bout the League and Fleet were before Brule's arrival somewhat well tasted but since slighted as those that became cheap by their offer to divers others as well as them that the said Marquesse should have visited Blainville at Paris and sounded him about his errand after this manner First whether he had order to disnestle Madam de St. George Whereto the answer was No and that it was against all reason of State so to do and when the other replyed that the world was come to a bad passe if reason of State descended as low as her Blainville remained silent Secondly whether he had commission to introduce the Dutchesse of Buckingham and the Countesse of Denbigh into the Queenes bed-chamber Answer was made that it was a nice and tender point and if that were once condescended to they would be continually whispering in the Queenes ear how dear she would be to the King her Husband how plausible and powerful among the people how beloved of all if she would change her religion against which they were in conscience here bound to provide and therefore conclude with a refusal of that likewise Thirdly whether he carried any good instructions about an offensive or defensive league whereunto the negative was still repeated but that he carried brave offers for the entertainment of Mansfelt And when the Marquesse replied that if that were all the contentment he carried he feared she would find but a very cold welcome the other added that perhaps he might be an Instrument to make the Queen and Duke friends This were good quoth the Marquesse if the Queen had not as much need of the Dukes friendship as the Duke of hers and upon these terms they parted The same lips that utterred all this gave caution likewise against the Savoyard Embassadour as a cunning deep hollow-hearted man And being felt by me how his pulse beat towards Porcheres told me he was a mercenarie man and no wayes to be trusted In the issue of all this his Councel was That your Grace would consider well your own strength and what ground you have in his Majesties favour If it be solid and good then a Bravado will not do amisse may be powerful here to make them to see their own errour and to walk upright so it end with a good close but if your station be not sure then he Counsels to prevent the storm for to break with all Spain France Puritanes Papists were not wisdom And desires that by any meanes you instantly dispatch a Currier to me to represent the true state of things at home and how you desire matters should be ordered for your service here abroad so that there may be fabriqued a more solid contentment to your Grace whose hands I most humbly kisse in quality of Your Graces Most humble most faithful most obeent and most obliged Servant Tho. Lorkin Postscript IF my stay be intended long it will be necessary that I use a Cypher which I humbly beseech your Grace to send me or to give me leave to frame one as I can As I was closing up my Letter Mr. Gerbier arrived who hath been somewhat indisposed in his health by the way but now is reasonably well God be thanked His coming is very seasonable and I assure my self will be useful By the discourse I have had with Mr. Gerbier I see a little clearer into the state of things here and think Porcheres his advertisement may be truer as being perhaps grounded upon knowledge the other springing only upon conjecture built upon Berule's clamours and overtures and the suddain sending for Mounsieur Blanville back Your Grace will see day in all shortly But assuredly the latter advice comes from a heart that is affectionately devoted to your Graces service This Bearer will kisse your Graces hands from the Authour and thereby you will know his name which he stipulated might not come in writing The Lord Herbert to his Majestie My most Gracious Soveraign NOw that I thank God for it his Highnesse according to my continual prayers hath made a safe and happie return unto your Sacred Majesties presence I think my self bound by way of Compleat obedience to these Commandements I received from your Majestie both by Mr. Secretary Calvert and my Brother Henry to give your Majestie an account of that sense which the general sort of people doth entertain here concerning the whole frame and Context of his Highnesse voyage It is agreed on all parts that his Highnesse must have received much contentment in seeing two great Kingdomes and consequently in enjoyning that satisfaction which Princes but rarely and not without great peril obtain His Highnesse discretion diligence and Princely behaviour every where likewise is much praised Lastly since his Highnesse journey hath fallen out so well that his Highnesse is come back without any prejudice to his person or dignity they say the successe hath sufficiently commended the Councel This is the most common censure
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
Lord Keeper Lo. Archb. of York Lord Treasurer Lord President Lord Privie Seal Lord high Chamberlain Earl Marshal Lord Steward Lord Chamberlain Earl of Suffolk Earl of Dorset Earl of Salisbury Earl of Bridgewater Earl of Holland Earl of Danby Earl of Kelly Lord Visc Dorchester Lord Visc Grandison Lord Bish of Winton Master of the Wards Master Chamberlain Mr. Secretary Cook THis day his Majestie sitting in Councel did hear at large the controversie between the University of Cambridge and certain Burgers of the Town concerning the rating and setting the price of Victualia and particularly of Candles and other necessaries comprised under the terms of Focalia and of the consequences lately fallen out upon the controversie which having been long debated by Counsel learned on both sides his Majestie finally ordered by advice of the Boord That as well the late Maior and Bayliff and William Bridges as Edward Almond John Ball Jonas Scott and Thomas Oliver shall acknowledge and submit themselves by setting their hands to this Order in the Councel-book to the Jurisdiction and Priviledges of the University as well for the rating and setting the price of all manner of Victualia and of Candles and all other necessaries under the term of Focalia as for the correcting and punishing of all such inhabitants of the Town as shall break and exceed the said rates and prices so set by the Vicechancellor or such Officers of the University as are in that behalf authorized And it is further ordered That all the parties fined by the Vicechancellor shall pay the Fines and such charges of the Court as were set upon them by the Vicechancellor and shall make publike confession in the Vicechancellors Court of their fault in breaking the said rates and prices so set and refusing to pay the fines so assessed upon them and questioning the priviledges of the University And as touching the discommuning of any of the said persons in this Order mentioned It is ordered That peace and agreement shall be setled between the parties according to the performance of that respect and submission which is due from the inhabitants of the said Town of Cambridge to the said University Ex. Will. Becher The University of Cambridge to the Archbishop of York Reverendissimo in Christo Patri summo Archi-praesuli Samueli Dei gratia Archiepiscopo Eborazensi Patrono nostro aeternum colendo Reverendissime in Christo Pater Archi-praeful amplissime NIsi perspecta esset Paternitatis tuae in Academiam gratia favor supra quam meremur immensius vereremur sine multis ambagibus ad tam illustre in Ecclesia caput accedere verum ea semper fuit indulgentia tua stabile nobis patrocinium ut in difficultatibus nostris ultro fueris magis ad accurendum alacer quam nos esse potuimus ad implorandum temerarii incidimus in veterem controversiae lacunam cum nostris Oppidanis Novit sat Paternitas tua ab experientia multiplici quas illi erga nos mentes gerant quam atra lolligine invidiae succo a teneris unguiculis pasti fuerint neque jam incipiunt ferocire nec unquam credimus desinent homines insulsi tam dignitatis nostrae immemores quam rationis suae nonnullis eorum commercium cum nostris interdiximus dum procacius quam parerat fasces nostros videbantur contemnere sed grave est permolestum quicquid cadit in praecipites animos ira impotentes Illi tanquam fulmine perculsi ad publica judicium subsellia Lymphatice festinant cum possent consultius forsan in domibus suis Nos autem veriti ne Majestas Reipub. Literariae minueretur si in foro publico prostituta Academia de privilegiis summa rerum trepidaret Senatus Regis tribunali appellavimus In quo cum jam auspicatissime consedisse tuam Paternitatem intelligeret Almae Mater de honore tua sua foelicitate eximie triumphabat nunquam oblita virtutis tuae magnanimitatis invictae qua solebas hic toties Vicecancellarius ad immortalem nominis tui laudem istiusmodi perduelles contundere humillime rogamus Paternitatem tuam pro suo summo in nos affectu pietate ut quemadmodum semper Academiam ornare studuit ita nunc dignetur eidem periclitanti succurrere Pat ' tuae devotiss Procanc ' Senat. The University of Cambridg to the Earl of Manchester Illustrissimo nobilissimo nostroque amantissimo Domino Comiti Manchestriae Privati Sigilli Custodi Regiae Majestati à Sanctioribus Consiliis Patrono nostro plurimum colendo HOnoratissime nostrumque amantissime Domine Montacute Nescimus an ipsi nobis vanâ credulitate blandiamur sed cum singula tua pro nobis gesta perpendimus fruimur hâc opinione vix quenquam vivere qui nostram salutem literarum incrementum tranquillitatem Academiae magis ex animo velit quam nobilissimus Montacutus tot indies apparent indubitata testimonia amoris tui erga nos integerrimi et profusissimae benevolentiae Quid dicemus de Typographis quos tandem aliquando post varios casus et tot discrimina subegimus quamvis nodum controversiae Gordianum consuerant non nisi Alexandri gladio explicabilem et tanquam sepia piscis longa perplexae litis caligine capita involverant ne caperentur Ac haec ultima sententia vestra momento beneficii favoris magnitudine celeritate conficiendi trajecit quicquid ulla spes nobis dictare potuit aut suggerere sententia celebris sancta memorabilis ad opprimendam in perpetuam morosam oppidanorum insolentiam sententia quam quo penitus contemplamur eo magis sub stupore bonitatis vestrae et admirationis onere laboramus Noli nec enim fas est metiri observantiae nostae rationem ex nostro scribendi modulo Majora de te sentimus quam verba nostra expedire valent multo minus rependere Illud nostrum erga te tantum est et tam firmum ut nulla novae opportunitatis accessione augere queat aut temporum injuria diminui Honori tuo aeternum obligati Procanc ' Senatus reliquus Academiae The University of Cambridg to Sir Humphrey May. Clarissimo spectatissimo Domino Humphredo May Equiti Aurato Regiae Majestatis Procamerario amico fautori nostro aeternum observando AETernas agimus tibi gratias Clarissime Domine Procamerarie quod favore tam subito tam propensâ inclinatâ benevolentiâ ad nostram causam ultro accesseris subiit forsan pupugit clarissime Domine conditionis nostrae pia commiseratio cum videret Musas litibus implicatas circa Tribunalia tremere quas aequius erat inter lauros virgulta pacifica in veritatis disquisitione occupari Verum est in hac aetate improba sic vivimus ut frequenter depositâ togâ calamo pallia Clientum soccos induere cogamur Maximè vero nos ad incommoda pellunt opidani nostri qui hoc à natura principium mordicus tenent nullo
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
England will do nothing 136 138 141 143 151. Dismembred 147 Parliaments tumultuous 229 230 Pastrana Duke 142 Patent for the Admiralty of Ireland 90 Perez Don Antonio Secretary to Philip the Second of Spain 100 Perrot Sir John Deputy of Ireland 13. His care of that Kingdome 17 Philip the Second of Spain transplants whole Families of the Portugese 51 Philip the Third of Spain upon his death-bed 125 c. Philips Sir Robert 155. Francis his brother ibid. Physick modern 75 Pius Quintus his Excommunication of the Queen because of the Rebellion in the North 39 Polander defeats the Turks 198 Pope not more holy then S. Peter 8 Tyranny of Popes 39 Powder plot 67 Pretence of conscience 38 Preachers Licences to preach 183 Directions for preaching 184 Presbytery as mischievous to private men as to Princes 41. See Puritans Priesthood how to be honoured 45 Princes to be obeyed and by whom ibid. by Christs Law 7. Supreme Heads 5. Driven out must not give their Vsurpers too long time to establish themselves 147 Privy Seal for transporting of Horse 217 Puritans in the time of Queen Elizabeth 40. Would bring Democracie into the Church promise impossible wonders of the Discipline 41. Fiery Rebellious contemn the Magistrate ibid. Feared not without cause by King James 193 Q Quadrivials 75 R Ranelagh in Ireland 237 Rawleigh Sir Walter 85 86 Ree Iland 203 Rich Baronness sister to Essex writes to the dishonour of the Queen and advantage of the Earl 32 Richardson Chief Justice of the Bench 228 Richer forced by Richlieu recants his opinions against the Papal Supremacy over Kings 196 Richlieu Cardinal greatly solicitous for the English Romane Catholicks 197 Rochel 200. in what condition at the surrender 202 â—03 Fifteen thousand dye of the famine ibid. Rohan Dutchess in Rochel during the siege 202. Dukâ— 204 206 208 210 Romish Priests seduce the subjects from their obidience their practices against the Queens sacred person 39 40 Roman Catholicks sue to King James at his entrance for toleration 82 83. great lovers of him the only g od subjects witness the Mine then plotted 82 their Religion upon their own words 83 84 Russel Sir William 237 Ruthuen after Lord Ruthuen unhandsomely used by the Earl of Northumberland 106 107 S St. John Oliver against Taxes contrary to Magna Charta c. would not have Oathes violated in which the divine Majesty is invocated fearful of the Arch-Bishops Excommunication 160 Saxonie Elector 114 Scandal what 97 Scriptures how to be expounded 23 Seminaries blossom 39 in Ireland seditious appear in their habits 240 241 Serita Don John 125 Sin immortal to respect any of the English Church 101 Southampton Earl 58 Spaniards designe upon Ireland 17 spoil base Bologne 37. lose their Apostles 47. wrong and oppress the English Merchants 97 98 99 102 103. suits in Spain immortal ibid. give pensions to the Irish renegadoes 100 101. unreasonable in the businesse of the Match 127 137 146. swear and damn themselves yet never intended it 132 c. their unworthy sleights to make K James jealous of the Prince and others 152 153 oppose the rights and successiâ—n of the Duke of Nevers to Maâ—tua and Mâ—ntferrat 234 lose their silver Fleet poor 240 Spencer Edmund see Fairy Queen his worth and Learning 245 252 Spinola Marquess 198 199 Spiritualia how to be taken 56 Stanley Sir William 18 Superstition worse the Atheisme 160 Supreme Head the Kings Title 1â—2 c. 39 T Tilly Count 131 Toirax Governor of the Fort in the I le of Ree 201 Toledo Cardinal 123 Toleration of Religion in Ireland necessary 52 Treason of the Papists in the clouds 40 cannot beget fâ—ir passions 86 Treaty with Tyrone 43 44. of Bruxels 127 128 Trimouille Duke 37 Turks against the Pander 198 Tyrone 43 44 101 V Valette Cardinal 197 Venetians side with the Mantouan 239 240 Villeroye Secretary of France 195 Urban the Eight encourages Louis the Thirteenth to fall upon the Hugonots 211 212. against the Spaniards 240 Usurpers exhalations 37 W Wallop Sir Henry has ill Offices done him to the Queen 19 Walsingham Sir Francis his reasons why the Queene sometimes restrains and punishes the Puritans 38 Warham Archbishop of Canterbury 98 Warrants of the Queen to the Lords of Ireland at the going over of Sir John Petot 14 15 Weston Sir Ridhard Chancellour of the Exchequer after L. Treasurer and Earl of Portland 128 Wilks Sir Thomas 36 37 Willoughby Lord 90 Winchester Bishop 189 Words are to be construed to make truth 8 Y. Yelverton Sir Henry censured in the Starchamber 107 108 109 Ynoiosa Marquesse 152. his base carriage to King James 153 Z. Zunige Don Balthazar 109 112 c. 130 FINIS
will be for his Majesties service Onely remember this that now you are left to be your own Remembrancer Of all actions forget not those of mercy and Goodnesse wherein men draw nighest to God himself Nor of all Persons prisoners and afflicted Josephs Celerity doth redouble an act of mercy But why do I turn a Preacher of goodnesse unto him who in my own particular hath shewed himself to be composed of nothing else Remember your Noble Self and forget the aggravations of malice and envy and then forget if you can the E. of Southhampton God blesse you and your royal Guest and bring you both after many years yet most happily run over here upon earth to be his blessed guests in the Kingdom of Heaven The Lord Keeper to the Duke concerning the Lord of St. Albons October 27th 1621. My most noble Lord I Have received your Lorships expression concerning the Pause I made upon the two Patents The Proclamation of writing to the Kings hand and my Lord of St. Albons pardon The former I have sealed this morning in duty and obedience to your Lordships intimation The latter I have not yet sealed but do represent in all lowlinesse and humility these few Considerations by your Lordship to his sacred Majestie wherein let your Lordship make no question but I have advised with the best Lawyers in the Kingdom And after this representation I will perform whatsoever your Lordship shall direct His Majestie and your Lordship do conceive that my Lord of St. Albons pardon and grant of his fine came both together to my hands and so your Lordship directs me to passe the one and the other But his Lordship was too cunning for me He passed his fine whereby he hath deceived his Creditors ten dayes before he presented his pardon to the Seal So as now in his pardon I find his Parliament fine excepted which he hath before the sealing of the same obtained and procured And whether the house of Parliament will not hold themselves mocked and derided with such an exception I leave to your Lordships wisdom These two Grants are opposite and contradictory in this point the one to the other The King pardons in particular words All sums of money and rewards taken for false judgments or decrees And therefore the exception of the Parliamentary Censure being inflicted but for the same taking of moneys and rewards coming a good way after falleth too late in Law and is of no force to satisfie the Lords as I am informed and I believe this clause was never seen in any other pardon The King pardoneth in my Lord of St. Albon the stealing away altering rasing and interlining of his Majesties Rowles Records Briefs c. which are more in a Lord Chancellors pardon then the imbezeling of his Majesties jewels in a Lord Chamberlains And yet the Lord Chancellour Elsmore could not indure that clause in my Lord of Sommersets Pardon unlesse he would name the jewels in particular I will not meddle or touch upon those mistakings which may fall between the Parliament and his Majestie or the mis-interpretation that enemies may make hereof to your Lordships prejudice because I see in his Majesties great wisdom these are not regarded Onely I could have wished the Pardon had been referred to the Councel board and so passed I have now discharged my self of those poor scruples which in respect onely to his Majesties service and your Lordships honour have wrought this short stay of my Lord of St. Albons Pardon Whatsoever your Lordship shall now direct I will most readily craving pardon for this not undutiful boldnesse put in execution Because some speech may fall of this dayes speech which I had occasion to make in the Common Pleas where a Bishop was never seen sitting there these 70. years I have presumed to inclose a Copy thereof because it was a very short one Your Lordship shall not need to take that great pains which your Lordship to my unexpressible comfort hath so often done in writing What Command soever your Lordship shall impose upon me as touching this pardon your Lordships expression to Mr. Packer or the bearer shall deliver it sufficiently God from heaven continue the showring and heaping of his blessings upon your Lordship c. The Lord Keeper to the Duke 22. July 1621. My noble Lord VVIth my truest affections and thankfulnesse premised I do not doubt but his Majestie and your Lordship do now enjoy the general applause of your goodnesse to the Earl of South-hampton Saturday last he came and dined with me and I find him more cordially affected to the service of the King and your Lordships love and friendship then ever he was when he lay a prisoner in my house Yet the Sunshine of his Majesties favour though most bright upon others more open offenders is noted to be somewhat eclipsed towards him What directions soever his Majestie gave the order is somewhat tart upon the Earl The word of Confinement spread about the City though I observed not one syllable so quick to fall from his Majestie his Keeper much wondred at The act of the Councel published in our names who were neither present thereat or heard one word of the same yet upon my credit the Earl takes all things patiently and thankfully though others wonder at the same Mr. Secretary signed a Petition of one Rookwood a Papist and prisoner in the Fleet upon five several executions that I should grant him his liberty The Kings name is used and the mediation of the Spanish Embassadour If I breaking rules so fouly in favour of a Papist which I am resolved to keep straight against all men whatsoever I shall infame my self in the very beginning If his Majestie will have any special indulgence in this kind I expect intimation immediately from the King or your Lordship and no third Person Your Lordship will not expect from me any account of Councel businesse nor the setting at liberty of the late prisoners Mr. Secretary is secret enough for imparting any thing unto me so as I must remain in a necessary ignorance There is a Country man of mine one Griffith a suiter unto the Court for the reversion of an Auditors place recommended thereunto by his Master the Lord Treasurer The place is of great Consequence for the disposing of his Majesties revenewes The man is unfit for this as presumptuous and daring for any place Sir Robert Pye saith he hath already written to your Lordship and I doubt not of your care thereof Doctour Lamb the bearer is a very sufficient and for ought I ever heard of him an honest man The King hath imployed him in discovery of counterfeit Witchcrafts in reforming of no ounterfeit but hearty Puritanes and he hath done good service therein If his Majestie now in our pure ayr of Northhamptonshire do not shew him some favor or grace either by Knighting or by using him courteously The Brethren having gotten out their Yelverton again will neglect and molest
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
of things then I have yet little reason to change my opinion And if your Lordship please to know the state of things now I have sent this Gentleman the Bearer hereof especially to do your Lordship reverence in my name and to give you full information For my return or stay I humbly submit it to his Majesties pleasure Though this Negotiation be like to spin it self out into much length I weigh not my own interest I shall willingly be there where I shall be thought most able to do his Majestie service And so intreating that I may be continued in that good opinion and grace wherein your Lordships own affection not any merit of mine hath placed me I humbly kisse your hands And remain Your Lordships Faithful and devoted servant Rich. Weston Bruxels 26. June 1622. Sir Richard Weston to the Duke My very good Lord I Have understood by my Lord Treasurer the way you have made with his Majestie for my calliing home for which this present doth give your Lordship most humble thanks though I have forborn to presse or sollicit it because I would approve my obedience to his Majestie and take away from them all occasion who otherwise might have accused my departure and imputed the want of successe here to my want of patience to expect an answer I have almost in all my Dispatches since we entred into this Treaty signified what opinion I had of their proceedings here and my chief comfort was that whatsoever the successe were that the clearnesse of his Majesties intentions would appear to the whole world and that the failing is not of his side which I think is manifest enough for notwithstanding that his Majestie hath followed them in all their desires and the Prince Electour hath conformed himself to what was demanded that the Count Mansfelt and Duke of Brunswick the pretended obstacles of the Treatie are now with all their Forces removed No face of an enemy in the Palatinate but his Majesties power in the Garrisons All other places repossessed which Mansfelt had taken No cause of continuing any War now nor any cause of jealousie or fear for the future considering his Majesties fair and honourable offers yet are they so far from a cessation that they are fallen upon Heidelbergh and either want the will or power to remove the siege And all I can get is two Letters of intreatie from her Highnesse to the chiefs of the Emperour to proceed no further and after some 18. daies since I made my proposition for the Cessation I have yet no answer so that being able to raise no more doubts they make use of delayes I have said and done and used all diligences within my power to bring forth better effects and can go no farther and therefore I humbly beseech your Lordship that I may have leave to return when I shall hear that they will not remove the siege at Heidelbergh For their pretending to restore all when all is taken is a poor comfort to me and as little honour to his Majestie and how far they are to be believed in that is to be examined more exactly then by writing by weighing how the weak hopes given me here agree with the strong assurances given by my Lord Digbie out of Spain I hope therefore his Majestie will be pleased to think it reasonable to speak with me and as your Lordship hath ever been a happie and gentle star to me so have I now more need of your favourable aspect then ever that his Majestie may receive my obedience as a sacrifice and interpret well of all my endeavours what successe so ever I bring home with me Wherein humbly intreating your Lordships wonted grace and favour I humbly kisse your hands and vow unto you the faithful observance of Your Lordships Most humble and devoted Servant Richard Weston Bruxels 3d. of Septemb. 1622. Sir Richard Weston to the Duke May it please your Grace YOur Grace shall adde much to the infinite favours I have received from you to read a few lines from me much more to vouchsafe them an answer which I am the more bold to begg and the more hopeful to obtain because I understand by Sir George Goring that howsoever I have had many ill offices done me your Grace will not easily depart from that opinion you have hitherto conceived of me for which I humbly thank your Grace and intreat the continuance of it no longer then I shall be able to make good the integritie of my heart unto you But that which with all humilitie and importunitie I sue for at your Graces hands is to let me know my Accuser and if your Grace think it unseasonable now that I may have a promise to know him at your return Whatsoever or how great soever he be though respect and reverence of those eyes which shall read these lines make me forbear ill language now I shall dare to tell him whatsoever becomes a wronged innocence to say In the mean time I despise him if there be any such that hath accused me since your Graces departure to have done or said or given way to the hearing of any thing that may be wrested to the impeachment of my faith and sincere professions towards your Grace and yet till it come to the tryal I relie as I wrote to Sir George Goring no lesse upon your Graces wisdome and goodnesse then my own innocencie that such Calumnies shall not lessen the estimation I had with you wherein being most confident praying for the continuance and increase of your Graces honour and happinesse I remain Your Graces Most humble and devoted servant Richard Weston 17. July 1623. Sir Richard Weston to the Duke May it please your Grace I Humbly thank your Grace for the Message I received from you yesterday by Mr. Packer And withal I humbly beseech your Grace to believe that no man shall condemn me more then I would my self if I had omitted any possible diligence either to interest or acquaint your Grace with the Commission of the Treasurie Wherein I appeal to Mr. Secretarie Conway who first declared his Majesties pleasure unto me which I could not ascribe more to any Cause then your Graces favour and good opinion of me And at my last being with your Grace I began to speak with you of it but finding your Grace to grow into some indisposition I forbore thinking it not only incivilitie but a violence to have spoken any thing of my self to your Grace at that time This I intreated Sir George Goring to relate unto your Grace and withal to renew the professions of my love and reverence to your Graces person which I had rather make good by real performances then by words and therefore I will trouble your Grace no longer upon this subject I am now extreamly importuned by the Earl of Middlesex to sollicite his Majestie for the first testimonie of his gracious disposition towards him And your Grace remembers that in the beginning of his Lordships
troubles his Majestie commanded me to deliver unto his Majestie whatsoever his Lordship should petition of him Now I humbly beseech your Grace to direct me what to do His Lordship sues for his enlargement and I know desires to derive that favour from his Majestie by your Graces mediation And I am careful to perform all duties my obedience to his Majestie my respect to your Grace and my care of him that relieth upon me being in affliction And therefore I humbly beseech your Grace to vouchsafe me an answer to this particular because his Majestie goeth from hence to morrow and the Earl of Middlesex will languish with expectation till he receive some comfort from him And so continually praying for the increase of your Graces health I remain Your Graces Most humble servant Richard Weston 29. May 1624. Sir Richard Weston to the Duke May it please your Grace I Have according to his Majesties Command signified to me by Mr. Secretarie Conway delivered to the Earl of Middlesex his Majesties pleasure concerning his Fine The news of it did extreamly dismay him as being far contrary to his expectation He used not many words but thereof I having given Mr. Secretarie a particular account in answer of the charge I received from his Majestie I will not trouble your Grace with the repetition of them The chief cause of this unto your Grace is to acquaint your Grace with a short Dialogue that passed between Mr. Brett and me touching his Pension He sent his man to me this week to demand it to whom I made this answer That the charge of the Progresse being settled I would consider of the payment of his Masters pension amongst others before which time I could not in that case give satisfaction to any He went away with this answer and immediately after within less then a quarter of an hour Mr. Brett himself came to me and asked me at the first word Whether I had any Command to stay his Pension I replied No other command then the want of money He told me That the rest of his fellowes were paid I said it was true I was to have care of them that immediately followed his Majestie when I was forced to intreat others to have patience till more moneyes came in He asked me again Whether I had any Command to stay his I answered as before wherewith he parted from me as it seemed not pleased This peradventure is not worth troubling your Grace withal but that because his Majestie was pleased to acquaint me with his just indignation against him at VVansteed I would be glad to receive some direction what answer I shall make upon his next importunitie And so humbly intreating your Grace ever to number me amongst those that do most honour and pray for you I remain Your Graces Most humble and faithful servant Richard VVeston Chelsey 23. July 1624. Sir Richard Weston to the Duke May it please your Grace I did scarce esteem my Letter worthie your Graces reading much lesse worthie your paines to answer it It is my duty upon all occasions great and small to pay unto your Grace those observances I owe you And when your Grace vouchsafes to take knowledge of them it is your favour and therefore I humbly thanke your Grace for vouchsafing an answer I have according to his Majesties commandement signified by your Grace unto me taking the best order I can about the Wardship of the Ladie Cravens Son The most of the Officers of the Court of Wardes being out of the town I have spoken with Sir Benjamin Ruddier who assured me that there is nothing yet done nor can be till there be a master or that the Officers meet together and that he will take care that nothing shall be done to the prejudice of his Majestie And for the more Caution I have commanded the Clerk of Court if any man petition or sue about the Wardship that there be no proceeding till he acquaint me with it This is all can be done for the present and thereof I think fit to give your Grace account in answer of the charge I have received from his Majestie And so humbly craving leave to kisse your Graces hands I wish your Grace continuall increase of honour and happinesse and remain Your Graces Most humble and faithful Servant Richard Weston Chelsey 12th August 1624. Sir Francis Cottington to the Duke May it please your Honour MY last unto you was of the 23. of September by Mr. Berrie who that day departed from hence towards England with intention to take passage by Sea from St. Sebastians and although I conceive that this conveyance will be much speedier it being by an extraordinarie dispatched for Flanders yet for that I hold the other to be sure I will not forbear to trouble your Honour with any repetition of that dispatch The strength and boldnesse of the Pyrats or rather of the Turks is now grown to that hieght both in the Ocean Mediterranean seas as I have never known any thing to have wrought a greater sadnesse and distraction in the Court then the daily advice thereof Their whole Fleet consists of 40. Sail of tall ships of between 200. and 400 tuns a piece Their Admiral of 500. tuns They are divided into 2. Squadrons the one of 18. Sail remaining before Malaga in sight of the Citie the other about the Cape St. Marie which is between Lisbone and Sevil. That Squadron within the Straights entred the rode of Mostil a Town by Malaga wherewith their ordnance they beat down a part of the Castle and had doubtlesse taken the town but that from Granado there came Souldiers to succor it yet they took there divers ships and amongst them 3. or 4. of the west part of England Two bigg English ships they drave on shoar not past four Leagues from Malaga and after they went on shoar also and burnt them and to this day they remain before Malaga intercepting all ships that passe that way and absolutely prohibiting all trade into those parts of Spain The other Squadron at the Cape St. Marie doth there the like intercepting all shipping whatsoever They lately met with seven sail of English ships all of London as I take it but loaden only with pipestaves which they had taken on the Coast of Ireland by the way Five of these viz. the Marie Anne the Marie and John the Rebecca and Gibbs of Sandwich and one John Cheyney of London they took and the other two escaped They robb'd them onely of their victuals their Ordnance and of some sayls and so let them go but in their company was also taken a great Ship of Lubeck sayd to be very rich which they still keep with all the men They have few or no Christians aboard them but all either Turks or Moores and the most part are of those which of late years were turned out of Spain for Moriscos They attend as it seems and as themselves report to them that have been aboard
out in general that which the Prince hath cryed and your Grace hath uttered in Parliament in special that Colloquia de Contractibus are with them Mera ludibria parata tantum Regum animis Ne noceant distinendis dum ea quae ipsi intendunt perficiantur Which Guicciardine also doth in general affirm That the Spaniards bring more things to passe by Treaties and subtilties then by force of Armes And that you may truly understand the full intention of the Spaniard to the state of this Kingdom and Church I would your Grace would read a notable Discourse of the late most Noble Earl of Essex made by the Commandment of Queen Elizabeth and debated before her Majestie and her Councel concerning this point Whether Peace or War was to be treated with Spain The Lord Buckhurst speaking for a Treatie of Peace to the which the Noble Queen and her old Lord Treasurer inclined The Earl speaking for War because no safe peace could be made with that State for 3. special Reasons which are in that Treatise set down at large which is not fit for me yet to deliver by writing but there you shall find them Your Grace may have the book of divers Noblemen your friends If you have it not if I may understand your pleasure I will get it for you It was of that effect that it brought the Queen and Treasurer contrary to their purpose to his side for the very necessity of the common safetie Your Lordship having angred them and endeared your self to us you had need to look to your self you are as odious to them as ever the Earl of Essex was The Jesuite Walpool set on one of the stable Squire one well affected to my Lord to poyson the rests of his Chair And seeing they strike at the Ministers which deal effectually for his Church witnesse worthy Doctor White what will they do to such Pillars of State as you are The Lord preserve your Grace and watch over you And thus I rest Your Grace his most humble at Commandment Leonel Sharp The Lord Cromwell to the Duke 8. Septemb. 1625. May it please your Grace I Am now returned from mine own home and am here at Fulham neer Mr. Burlemachi making my self ready to attend your Command in the best manner my poor fortunes will give me leave and with what speed I may Some things I have sent to Plymouth and some Gentlemen so as when I come there I hope to find that your Lordship hath appointed me a good sailing ship and one that shall be able to play her part with the best and proudest enemy that dare look danger in the face Though your Grace hath placed a Noble Gentleman in the Regiment was intended to my Lord of Essex yet I will not despair of your favour or that you will not give me some taste of it as well as to any other I will study to be a deserving Creature and whether you will please to look on me with an affectionate eye or no I will love honour and serve you with no lesse truth and faith then those you have most obliged What concerns me I will not here speak of for fear I offend My prayers shall ever attend you and my curses those that wish you worse then their own soules Divers I do meet that say your Grace hath parted with your place of the Mastership of the Horse which makes the world suspect that some disfavour your Lordship is growing into And that this prime feather of yours being lost or parted with be it as it will it will not be long ere the rest follow They offer to lay wagers the Fleet goes not this year and that of necessitie shortly a Parliament must be which when it comes sure it will much discontent you It is wondered at that since the King did give such great gifts to the Dutchesse of Chevereux and those that then went how now a small summe in the Parliament should be called for at such an unseasonable time And let the Parliament sit when it will begin they will where they ended They say the best Lords of the Councel knew nothing of Count Mansfelts journey or this Fleet which discontents even the best sort if not all They say it is a very great burthen your Grace takes upon you since none knowes any thing but you It is conceived that not letting others bears part of the burthen you now bear it may ruine you which heaven forbid Much discourse there is of your Lordship here and there as I passed home and back and nothing is more wondered at then that one Grave man is not known to have your Ear except my good and Noble Lord Conway All men say if you go not with the Fleet you will suffer in it because if it prosper it will be thought no act of yours and if it succeed ill they say it might have been better had not you guided the King They say your undertakings in the Kingdom and your Engagements for the Kingdome will much prejudice your Grace And if God blesse you not with goodnesse as to accept kindly what in dutie and love I here offer questionlesse my freedom in letting you know the discourse of the world may much prejudice me But if I must lose your favour I had rather lose it for striving to do you good in letting you know the talk of the wicked world then for any thing else so much I heartily desire your prosperitie and to see you trample the ignorant multitude under foot All I have said is the discourse of the world and when I am able to judge of your actions I will freely tell your Lordship my mind Which when it shall not be alwaies really inclined to serve you may all noble thoughts forsake me Because I seldom am honoured with your Ear I thus make bold with your all-discerning eye which I pray God may be inabled with power and strength daily to see into them that desire your ruine Which if it once be I will never believe but so good a King will constantly inable you daily with power to confound them Many men would not be thus bold and saucie If I find you distaste me for my respect to you I will respect my poor self who ever hath honoured you so much as hereafter to be silent So I kisse the noble hands of your Grace Your Lordships servant during life Tho. Cromwell Sir Robert Philips to the Duke of Buckingham 21. August 1624. May it please your Grace BEfore the receipt of that Dispatch with which you were pleased to honour me from Apthorp dated the last of July I was fully determined at your return to Woodstock to have presented your Grace my most humble and faithful service and by that means to have obtained the knowledge in what state and condition of health you had passed this part of the progresse Your former weaknesse together with the dangerous temper of the season giving me cause both to doubt and
and Kinsman Middlesex The Earl of Middlesex to his Majestie 26. April 1624. Sacred Majestie and my most gracious Master YOur goodnesse is such to me your oppressed servant in this my time of persecution as I know not how to expresse my thankfulnesse otherwise then by pouring forth my humble and heartie prayers to the great God of heaven and earth to grant your Majestie all happinesse here and everlasting happinesse hereafter Between 5. and 6. of the clock upon Saturday in the evening I received my Charge from the Lords assembled in Parliament with an Order by which I am commanded to make my appearance at the Bar upon Thursday next by 9. of the clock in the morning with my answer And in the mean time to examine my witnesses This Charge of mine hath been in preparing by examining of witnesses upon oath and otherwise 23. daies And hath been weighed by the Wisdom of both Houses and doth concern me so neerly in point of honour and faith to your Majestie to answer well as I value my life at nothing in comparison of it I may grieve though I will not complain of any thing my Lords shall be pleased to Command but do hope that upon a second consideration they will not think three daies a fitting time for me to make my Answer and to examine witnesses in a cause of such importance and so neerly concerning me when twenty three daies hath been spent almost from morning until night in preparing my Charge I know the House whose Judgment I shall never desire to wave is the proper place for me to move to be resolved herein and therefore shall upon Wednesday morning make my humble motion there to have 7. daies longer time as well to make my answer and apparance as to examine my witnesses which are many and upon several heads But because the Prince his Highnesse and many of the Principal Lords are now with your Majestie at VVindsor my most humble suit to your Majestie is That you would be pleased to move them on my behalf to yield me so much further time that my Cause may not suffer prejudice for want of time to make my just defence that which I have propounded being as moderate as is possible With my most humble and heartie prayer to Almightie God for continuance of your health with all happinesse I humbly kisse your Royal hands and will ever rest Your Majesties most humble c. Middelsex The Earl of Carlile to his Majestie 14. February 1623. My it please your most Excellent Majestie THough my present indisposition deprives me of the Honour to attend your Majestie with the rest of the Commissioners with whom your Majesty was pleased to associate me yet I most humbly beseech your Majestie to give me leave in all humility to represent unto your Majestie what my heart conceiveth to be most for your Majesties service in the present conjuncture of your affaires During this time of my distemper I have been visited by divers Gentlemen of quality who are Parliament-men none of those popular and plausible Oratours but solid and judicious good patriots who fear God and honour the King Out of their discourses I collect That there are three things which do chiefly trouble your people The first that for the subsidies granted the two last Parliaments they have received no retribution by any bills of Grace The second that some of their Burgesses were proceeded against after the Parliament were dissolved And the third that they misdoubt that when they shall have satisfied your Majesties demands and desires you will neverthelesse proceed to the conclusion of the Spanish match It would be too much importunity to trouble your Majestie with the several answers which I made to their objections and would be too great presumption in mee to advise your Majesties incomparable wisdome what should be fittest to be done for your Majesties honour and the contentment of the people yet if it would please my Lord the King to give his humblest Creature leave to give vent to the loyal fervour of his heart restlesse and indefatigable in continual meditation of his Gracious Masters honour and service I would thus with all humble submission explain my self That there is nothing which either the enemies of this State or the perverse industry of false-hearted servants could invent more mischievous then the misunderstandings which have grown between your Majestie and your people nothing that will more dishearten the envious Maligners of your Majesties felicity and incourage your true hearted friends and Servants then the removing of those false feares and jealousies which are meer imaginarie Phantasmes and bodies of ayr easily dissipated whensoever it shall please the sun of your Majestie to shew it self clearly in its native brightnesse lustre and goodnesse God and the World do know the scope and the end of all your Majesties pious affections and endeavours to have been no other then the setling of an universal peace in Christendom a felicity only proper for your Majesties time and only possible to be procured by your incomparable goodnesse and wisdom but since the malice of the Divel and deceitful men have crossed those fair wayes wherein your Majestie was proceeding abusing your trust and goodnesse as Innocencie and goodnesse are alwayes more easily betrayed then wilinesse and malice you must now cast about again and sail by another point of the compasse and I am confident your Majestie will more securely and easily attain your Noble and pious end though the way be different The meanes are briefly these three First let your Majesties enemies see that the Lion hath teeth and clawes 2. Next imbrace and invite a strict and sincere friendship and association with those whom neighbourhood and alliance and common interest of state and religion have joyned unto you 3. And last of all cast off and remove jealousies which are between your Majestie and your people Your Majestie must begin with the last for upon that foundation you may afterwards set what frame of building you please And when should you begin Sir but at this overture of your Parliament by a gracious clear and confident discovery of your intentions to your People Fear them not Sir never was there a better King that had better subjects if your Majestie would trust them Let them but see that you love them and constantly rely upon their humble advice and readie assistance and your Majestie will see how they will tear open their breasts to give you their hearts and having them your Majestie is sure of their hands and purses Cast but away some crums of your Crown amongst them and your Majestie will see those crums will make a miracle they will satisfie many thousands Give them assurance that your heart was alwayes at home though your eyes were abroad invite them to looke forward and not backward and constantly maintain that with confidence you undertake and your majestie will find admirable effects of this harmonious concord Your Majestie as
friendship and alliance He is very free to me telling me That to prevent this the King of Spain offers now the largest conditions of satisfaction and friendship that can be imagined but their thoughts here are wholly bent towards us And although as yet the King cannot with honour or wisdom say more then he hath done yet we may be assured when we are free to be satisfied in all we can desire This day I understand the Earl of Argile is like lightning passed by for Spain and by a special Command from the King it is to put us in more terrour That he will use his service in Scotland where I believe he hath little credit and power to offend us But howsoever they omit nothing that may dishearten us but we are of too noble and constant a temper either to fear their cunning or power My Lord give me leave to beseech you not to defer our businesse for never can this State be found so rightly and truly inclined in love and affection towards us And the rather hasten it because all the art that may be is daily used from Spain to prevent us and if we go not roundly and clearly with them here they may have jealousies and discouragements that may change them Take them therefore now when I dare promise they are free very free from those thoughts My Lord pardon the haste of this Letter that hath no more time given me but to tell you that you never can have any servant more devotedly yours then is Your Graces Most obliged and most humble servant Kensington The Earl of Holland to the Duke My dearest Lord VVEE have made a final conclusion of this great Treatie Upon what terms the dispatch at large will shew your Grace We have concluded honourably that which we could not do safely for to receive words that obliged not would have appeared an unwise and unperfect Treatie of our part and no way worthy of the greatnesse of our Master nor the passion of his Highnesse the which now hath a brave expression since his Mistresse is only considered and desired and the only object of our Treatie But I must tell you that since we have proceeded thus they say they will out-go us in the like braverie doing ten times more then we expect or they durst promise fearing the World would conceive all their doings conditionally the which would be dishonourable for Madam But that being safe they now say their interest is greater then ours for the recovering of the Palatinate and they will never abandon us in that action I hope we shall shortly have the honour and happinesse to see your Grace here where you will be as justly you deserve adored You must make haste for we are promised our sweet Princesse within six weeks I beseech you let me know your resolution that I may contrive which way I may best serve you against your coming I have carefully laboured according unto your Commands in that which the Marquesse de Fiat You may assure him of a speedie and good successe in it the which he will more fully understand when Mounsieur de la Ville-aux-Cleres shall be in England He begins his journey from hence within 3. daies He is worthy of the best reception that can be given him having throughout all this Treatie carried himself discreetly and affectionately I beseech you put the Prince in mind to send his Mistris a Letter And though I might as the first Instrument imployed in his amours expect the honour to deliver it yet will I not give my Colleague that cause of envie But if his Highnesse will write a private Letter unto Madam and in it expresse some particular trust of me And that my relations of her have increased his passion and affection unto her service I shall receive much honour and some right since I onely have expressed what concerned his passion and affection towards her If you think me worthy of this honour procure a Letter to this purpose and send it me to deliver unto her and likewise your Commands the which I will receive for my greatest comforts living in unhappinesse untill I may by my services expresse how infinitely and eternally I am Your Graces Most humble and most obliged and devoted servant Holland Postscript THe Presents that the Prince will send unto Madam I beseech you hasten The Earl of Holland to his Majestie May it please your most excellent Majestie VVE are in all the pain that may be to know what to answer to the malicious and continual complaints made by Blanvile of wrongs and violences done him even to the assaulting of him in his own lodging the which he hath represented with so much bitternesse as it took great impression here in the hearts of all especially of the Queen Mother whom yesterday I saw in the accustomed priviledge hath ever been given me to have at all times my entrance free into the Louure And I the rather went because I would not shrink at all their furies and clamours and it came to such a height as Petitions were given by Madam de Blanvile that she might for the injuries done to her husband his Embassadour have satisfaction upon our persons But she was as she deserved despised for so passionate a follie yet was it in consideration as I suspect by a word that the Queen Mother uttered in her passion to me who with tears before all the World being accompanied by all the Princesses and Ladies told me but softlie That if your Majestie continued to affront and suffer such indignities to be done to the Embassadour of the King her Son your Majestie must look that your Embassadours shall be used a la pareylie I confesse this stirred me so much as I told her That if the intentions of your Majestie were no better considered by the King here your Majestie commanding us for the good and happinesse of his Kingdom to endeavour to bring and give him the which we have done the greatest blessing in this World Peace in his Countrie then to be ballanced with a person that in requital hath stirred up and dailie desires to do it disputes and jarres even between your Majestie and the Queen we had reason to believe your Majestie most unjustly and most unworthily requited And it might take away upon any such occasion the care that otherwise you would have had to do the like And for my part it took from me all desire ever to be imployed upon any occasion hither where our Actions that their acknowledgments have been acceptable but a few daies past are now of so little consideration as we are of no more weight then the unworthiest Minister that ever was imployed Upon that I found she was sorrie for having expressed so much But this day we had from her a more favourable audience and from the King the effects and circumstances of that which we have in our Dispatch presented unto my Lord Conway Sir the malice of this Blanvile is so great
can my return since I know no other then to be Your Graces faithful servant Edw. Clark Madrid 6. Sept. 1623. Sir Anthony Ashley to the Duke May it please your good Lordship IF any thing had happened worth your knowledge I had either come or sent to Theobalds in your absence being ascertained that your Lordship had been already particularly informed of what passed in the Higher House betwixt the Earl of A. and the L. S. which is the onely thing of note and is thought will beget some noveltie Your Lordship may be most assured that your Adversaries continue their meetings and conferences here in Holborn how to give his Majestie some foul distaste of you as making you the onely authour of all grievances and oppressions whatsoever for your private ends And I hope to be able within few daies if promise be kept to give you good overture of a mutual oath taken to this purpose amongst them The rumour lately spread touching his Majesties untimely pardon of the late Lord Chancellours Fine and Imprisonment with some other favours intended towards him said to be procured by your Lordships only intimation hath exceedingly exasperated the rancor of the ill affected which albeit it be false and unlikely because very unseasonably It doth yet serve the present turn for the increase of malice against you I can but inform your Lordship of what I understand you may please to make use thereof as your self thinketh best I most humbly intreat your good Lordship to keep Letters of this nature either in your own Cabinet or to make Hereticks of them for I am well acquainted with the disposition of some Pen-men in Court. Upon Message even now received of my poor Daughters suddain dangerous sicknesse I am constrained unmannerly to post unto her being the onely comfort I have in this world and do purpose God willing a speedie return In the mean time and even with my heartie prayer I commend your good Lordship to Gods merciful and safe keeping This 12th of May 1621. Your honourable good Lordships faithfully devoted A. A. Sir Wa. Rawleigh to the Duke 12. Aug. IF I presume too much I humbly beseech your Lordship to pardon me especially in presuming to write to so great and worthie a person who hath been told that I have done him wrong I heard it but of late but most happie had I been if I might have disproved that villanie against me when there had been no suspition that the desire to save my life had presented my excuse But my worthie Lord it is not to excuse my self that I now write I cannot for I have now offended my Soveraign Lord for all past even all the world and my very enemies have lamented my losse whom now if his Majesties mercie alone do not lament I am lost Howsoever that which doth comfort my soul in this offence is that even in the offence it self I had no other intent then his Majesties service and to make his Majestie know That my late enterprise was grounded upon a truth and which with one Ship speedily set out I meant to have assured or to have died being resolved as it is well known to have done it from Plymouth had I not been restrained Hereby I hoped not onely to recover his Majesties gracious opinion but to have destroyed all those malignant reports which had been spread of me That this is true that Gentleman whom I so much trusted my Keeper and to whom I opened my heart cannot but testifie and wherein if I cannot be believed living my death shall witnesse Yea that Gentleman cannot but avow it that when we came back towards London I desired to save no other Treasure then the exact description of those places in the Indies That I meant to go hence as a discontented man God I trust and mine own Actions will disswade his Majestie Whom neither the losse of my estate thirteen years imprisonment and the denial of my pardon could beat from his service nor the opinion of being accounted a fool or rather distract by returning as I did ballanced with my love to his Majesties person and estate had no place at all in my heart It was that last severe Letter from my Lords for the speedie bringing of me up and the impatience of dishonour that first put me in fear of my life or enjoying it in a perpetual imprisonment never to recover my reputation lost which strengthened me in my late and too late lamented resolution if his Majesties mercie do not abound if his Majestie do not pitie my age and scorn to take the extreamest and utmost advantage of my errours if his Majestie in his great charitie do not make a difference between offences proceeding from a life-saving-natural impulsion without all ill intent and those of an ill heart and that your Lordship remarkable in the world for the Noblenesse of your disposition do not vouchsafe to become my Intercessour whereby your Lordship shall bind an hundred Gentlemen of my kindred to honour your memorie and bind me for all the time of that life which your Lordship shall beg for me to pray to God that you may ever prosper and over-bind me to remain Your most humble servant W. Rawleigh Sir Henry Yelverton to the Duke 15. March 1623. May it please your Grace MY humble heart and affection hath wrote many lines and presented many Petitions to your Grace before this time though none legible but one sent by my Lord Rochford within five daies after your most welcomed arrival from Spain I have learned the plain phrase of honest speech My Lord I have honoured your name long and your own virtue much I never found misfortune greater then this that still sailing after you in all humble desires of dutie I was still cast behind you I excuse nothing wherein your Grace may judge me faultie but will be glad to expiate my errours at any price Your noble heart I hope harbours no memorie of what did then distaste you Your own merits which have so much ennobled you will be the more compleat if I may but merit your forgetfulnesse of wrongs past If I seek your Grace before I deserve it enable me I beseech you to Deserve that I may seek If any on whom you have cast your eye most endear himself more to your service then I shall let me not follow the vintage at all Till this day I feared the rellish of sowr Grapes though I have sought you with many broken sleeps But this Noble Earl whose honour for this work shall ever with me be second to yours hath revived me with the assurance of your gracious pardon and libertie to hope I may be deemed your servant I protest to God it is not the affluence of your honour makes me joy in it nor the power of your Grace that trains me on to seek it but let the trial of all your fortunes speak thus much for me that I will follow you not as Cyrus his Captains and
death of Mr. Secretary Walsingham SIR VPon this unhappy accident I have tryed to the bottom what the Queen will do for you and what the credit of your Sollicitor is worth I urged not the comparison between you and any other But in my duty to her and zeal to her service I did assure her that she had not any other in England that would for these three or four years know how to settle himself to support so great a burthen She gave me leave to speak heard me with patience confessed with me that none was so sufficient and could not deny but that which she lays to your charge was done without hope fear malice envy or any respect of your own but meerly for her safety both of state and person In the end she absolutely denied to let you enjoy that place and willed me to rest satisfied for she was resolved Thus much I write to let you know I am more honest to my friends then happy in their cases What you will have me do for your suit I will as far as my credit is any thing worth I have told most of the Councel of my manner of dealing with the Queen my Lord Chamberlain tells me he hath dealt for you also and they all say they wish as I do but in this world that is enough I will commit you to God for this time and rest Your constant and true friend R. ESSEX Earl of Essex to the Queen MY dutiful affections to your Majesty always overweighed all other worldly respects that seeking in all particulars to manifest my truth I have maimed my estate in general as I dare in the heat of my thoughts compare with the greatest that ever vowed for faithful service so is there not the meanest that hath overslipped me I will not say in recompence but in some gracious estate of service Thus whilst my faith wrestleth with my fortune the one winns breath to beat th' other down Though I have no hope to repair the ruines of my oversight yet I cannot but presume your Majesty will suffer me to preserve them from blowing up and what youth and forward belief hath undermined in mine estate providence by a retired life may underlay In which discontinuance from Court there shall be added if any thing be added increase of loyalty Nor so solitary shall be my course as it shall seem to proceed of discontentment but of necessity and all actions both with living and my life so forward as though some may have overrun me in fortunes none shall in duty Next my allegiance to your Majesty which shall be held most sacred and inviolable the report of mine Honour challengeth chief interest which that I may preserve in my wonted state reason draws me to stay my self slipping from falling That of late by what secret and venemous blow I know not my faith hath received some wounds your Majesties wonted grace withdrawn assures me But truth and my patience in this case were one with me and time in your Princely thoughts did wear it out from me Let time be Judge I will leave you with as great lothness as I were to lose what I love best But your favour failing in which I have placed all my hopes and my self less graced after seven years then when I had served but seven dayes may be a reason to excuse if there were no other reason These things pressed out of a distressed mind and offered in all humility I hope it shall not be offensive if I choose this wearisom course rather to be retired then tired If any of envy take advantage of absence seeking by cunning to draw me into suspition of discontentment my conscience is setled in your never erring Judgment that if he come with Esau's hands and Jacob's voice your Highness will censure it a wrought malice under such simplicity It is true that grief cannot speak but this grief hath made me write lest when I leave you I should so far forsake my self as to leave this unsaid To your gracious acceptance I commit it and with all humble and reverent thoughts that may be rest ever to be commanded to die at your Majesties feet RO. ESSEX Again to the Queen FRom a mind delighting in sorrow from spirits wasted with passion from a heart torne in pieces with care grief and travel from a man that hateth himself and all things that keepeth him alive what service can your Majesty expect since your service past deserves no more then banishment or prescription in the cursed'st of all other Countries Nay nay it is your Rebels pride and success that must give me leave to ransom my life out of this hatefull prison of my loathed body which if it happen so your Majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death since the course of my life could never please you Your Majesties exiled Servant RO. ESSEX Sir Thomas Egerton Lord Chancellor to the Earl of Essex My very good Lord IT is often seen that he that stands by seeth more then he that playeth the game and for the most part every one in his own cause standeth in his own light and seeth not so cleerly as he should Your Lordship hath dealt in other mens causes and in great and weighty affairs with great wisdom and judgment now your own is in hand you are not to contemn or refuse the advice of any that love you how simple soever In this order I rank my self among others that love you none more simple and none that love you with more true and honest affection which shall plead my excuse if you shall either mistake or mistrust my words or meaning but in your Lordships honorable wisdom I neither doubt nor suspect the one nor the other I will not presume to advise you but shoot my bolt and tell you what I think The beginning and long continuance of this so unseasonable discontentment you have seen and proved by which you aim at the end If you hold still this course which hitherto you find to be worse and worse and the longer you go the further you go out of the way there is little hope or likelihood the end will be better You are not yet gone so far but that you may well return The return is safe but the progress is dangerous and desperate in this course you hold If you have any enemies you do that for them which they could never do for themselves Your friends you leave to scorn and contempt you forsake your self and overthrow your fortunes and ruinate your honour and reputation You give that comfort and courage to the foreign enemies as greater they cannot have for what can be more welcome and pleasing news then to hear that her Majesty and the Realm are maimed of so worthy a Member who hath so often and so valiantly quailed and daunted them You forsake your Country when it hath most need of your Councel and aid And lastly you fail in your indissoluble
of Master of the Horse doth in my understanding point at this that her Majesty meant to use your Lordships attendance in Court while the exercises of other places stood suspended 5. I have heard and your Lordship knoweth better that now since you were in your own custody her Majesty in verbo Regio and by his mouth to whom she committeth her Royal grants and Decrees hath assured your Lordship she will forbid and not suffer your ruine 6. As I have heard her Majesty to be a Prince of that magnanimity that she will spare the service of the ablest Subject or Peer where she shall be thought to stand in need of it so she is of that policie as she will not blaze the service of a meaner then your Lordship where it shall depend meerly upon her choice and will 7. I held it for a principle That those diseases are hardest to cure whereof the cause is obscure and those easiest whereof the cause is manifest Whereupon I conclude that since it hath been your errors in your lowness towards her Majesty which have prejudiced you that your reforming and conformity will restore you so as you may be Faber fortunae propriae Lastly Considering your Lordship is removed from dealing in Causes of State and left only to a place of Attendance methinks the Ambition of any which can endure no Partners in State-matters may be so quenched as they should not laboriously oppose themselves to your being in Court So as upon the whole matter I cannot find neither in her Majesties person nor in your own person nor in any third person neither in former precedents nor in your own case any cause of peremptory despair Neither do I speak this but that if her Majesty out of her resolution should design you to a private life you should be as willing upon the appointment to go into the wilderness as into the land of promise only I wish that your Lordship will not despair but put trust next to God in her Majesties grace and not be wanting to your self I know your Lordship may justly interpret that this which I perswade may have some reference to my particular because I may truly say testante non virebo for I am withered in my self but manebo or tenebo I should in some sort be or hold out But though your Lordships years and health may expect return of grace and fortune yet your Ecclipse for a time is an ultimum vale to my fortune And were it not that I desired and hope to see my Brother established by her Majesties favour as I think him well worthy for that he hath done and suffered it were time I did take that course from which I disswade your Lordship Now in the mean time I cannot choose but perform those honest duties unto you to whom I have been so deeply bound c. The Earl of Essex his Answer to Mr. Anthony Bacons Letter Mr. Bacon I Thank you for your kind and carefull letter it perswadeth that which I wish for strongly and hope for weakly that is possibility of restitution to her Majesties favour Your arguments that would cherish hope turn into dispair You say the Queen never meant to call me to publick censure which sheweth her goodness but you see I passed it which sheweth others power I believe most stedfastly her Majesty never intended to bring my cause to a publick censure and I believe as verily that since the sentence she meant to restore me to tend upon her person but those which could use occasions which it was not in me to let and amplifie and practise occasions to represent to her Majesty a necessity to bring me to the one can and will do the like to stop me from the other You say my errors were my prejudice and therefore I can mend my self It is true but they that know that I can mend my self and that if I ever recover the Queen that I will never lose her again will never suffer me to obtain interest in her favour and you say the Queen never forsook utterly where she hath inwardly favoured but know not whether the hour-glass of time hath altered her but sure I am the false glasse of others informations must alter her when I want access to plead mine own cause I know I ought doubly infinitely to be her Majesties both jure creationis for I am her creature and jure redemptionis for I know she hath saved me from overthrow But for her first love and for her last protection and all her great benefits I can but pray for her Majesty my endevour is now to make my prayers for her and my self better heard For thanks be to God that they which can make her Majesty believe I counterfeit with her cannot make God believe that I counterfeit with him and they that can let me from coming near to her cannot let me from drawing nearer to him as I hope I do daily For your brother I hold him an honest Gentleman and wish him all good much rather for your sake your self I know hath suffered more for me and with me then any friend that I have But I can but lament freely as you see I do and advise you not to do that I do which is to despair You know Letters what hurt they have done me and therefore make sure of this and yet I could not as having no other pledge of my love but communicate openly with you for the ease of my heart and yours Your loving friend R. ESSEX Lord Mountjoy to the Earle of Essex MOst noble Lord the Queen is now removing towards a Progress wherein after I have somwhat waited upon her I shall have a desire to write to your Lordship of some things more at large which I will do as safely as I can your Lordships vertue and your clear conscience must be your own brazen wall for we that are not of the Councell do see no hope to keep long together this State from assured ruine I pray God the Queen may with all prosperity out-live their negligence and your care to be a just Judge if not a rewarder thereof In the mean time you owe unto her and your own vertue extraordinary patience Your Lordships mind I do protest cannot labour more in the storm wherein you are then mine doth in this dangerous and miserable calm For it is some comfort to perish doing somewhat and yet my Lord why should we despair since there is a Providence that looks beyond and concludes contrary to the practices of the world which Providence hath shewed us ways how rugged soever they be which will bring unto true happiness and though we lose these mortall Barkes we sail in yet he will assuredly save the passengers Noble Lord in respect of that great Haven contemn these tempests and shipwracks at sea Your Lordships servant Mr. Bushel doth fear to have you impute his slow dispatch unto any want of his diligence and hath shewed his fear in
for the expectation whereof Tyrone would win time I see no deep cause of distrusting the cause if it be good And for the question her Majesty seemeth to me a winner three ways First her purse shall have rest Next it will divert the foreign designes upon that place Thirdly though her Majesty is like for a time to govern Precario in the North and be not in true command in better state there then before yet besides the two respects of ease of charge and advantage of opinion abroad before mentioned she shall have a time to use her Princely policy in two points In the one to weaken by division and disunion of the heads the other by recovering and winning the people by justice which of all other causes is the best Now for the Athenian question you discourse well Quid igitur agendum est I will shoot my fools bolt since you will have it so The Earle of Ormond to be encouraged and comforted above all things the Garrisons to be instantly provided for For opportunity makes a thief and if he should mean never so well now yet such an advantage as the breaking of her Majesties Garrisons might tempt a true man And because he may as well waver upon his own inconstancy as upon occasion and wont of variableness is never restrained but with fear I hold it necessary he be menaced with a strong war not by words but by Musters and preparations of forces here in case the Accord proceed not but none to be sent over lest it disturb the Treaty and make him look to be over-run as soon as he hath laid down Arms. And but that your Lordship is too easie to passe in such cases from dissimulation to verity I think if your Lordship lent your reputation in this case it is to pretend that if not a defensive war as in times past but a full reconquest of those parts of the Countrey be resolved on you would accept the charge I think it would help to settle him and win you a great deal of honor gratis And that which most properly concerneth this action if it prove a peace I think her majesty shall do well to cure the root of the disease and to profess by a commission of peaceable men chiefly of respect and countenance and reformation of abuses extortions and injustices there and to plant a stronger and surer government then heretofore for the ease and protection of the subject for the removing of the sword or government in Arms from the Earle of Ormond or the sending of a Deputy which will ecclipse it if peace follow I think unseasonable Lastly I hold still my opinion both for your better information and your fuller declaration of your care and medling and meriting service that your Lordship have a set conference with the persons I named in my former writing I rest At your Lordships service FR. BACON Another to the Earl before his going to Ireland MY singular good Lord your note of my silence in your occasions hath made me set down these few wandring lines as one that would say somwhat and can say nothing touching your Lordships intended charge for Ireland which my endeavour I know your Lordship will accept graciously and well whether your Lordship take it by the handle of th' occasion ministred from your self or of th' affection from which it proceedeth your Lordship is designed to a service of great merit and great perill and as the greatness of the peril must needs include no small consequence of perill if it be not temperately governed for all immoderate successe extinguisheth merit and seareth up distaste and envy the assured fore-runner of whole changes of peril But I am at the last point first some good spirit leading my pen to presage to your Lordships success wherein it is true I am not without my Oracle and Divinations none of them superstitious and yet not all naturall For first looking into the course of Gods providence in things now depending and calling into consideration how great things God hath done by her Majesty and for her collect he hath disposed of this great dissection in Ireland whereby to give an urgent occasion to the reduction of that whole kingdom as upon the rebellion of Desmond there ensued the reduction of that Province Next your Lordship goeth against three of the unluckiest vices of all other Disloyalty Ingratitude Insosolence which three offences in all examples have seldome their doom adjourned to the world to come Lastly he that shall have had the honor to know your Lordship inwardly as I have had shall find bona extra whereby he may better ground a divination of good then upon the dissection of a Sacrifice But that part I leave for it is fit for others to be confident upon you you to be confident upon the cause the goodnesse justice whereof is such as can hardly be matched in any example it being no ambitious war of Foreigns but a recovery of subjects and that after lenity of conditions often tried and a recovery of them not onely to obedience but to humanity and policy from more then Indian Barbarism There is yet another kind of divination familiar in matters of State being that which Demosthenes so often relieth upon in his time where he saith That which for the time past is worst of all is for the time to come the best which is that things go ill not by accident but by error wherein if your Lordship have been a waking Censor but must look for no other now but Medice cura teipsum And although your Lordship shal not be the blessed Physician that cometh to the declination of the disease yet you imbrace that condition which many Noble Spirits have accepted for advantage which is that you go upon the greater perill of your fortune and the less of your reputation and so the honor countervaileth the adventure of which honor your Lordship is in no small possession when that her Majesty known to be one of the most judicious Princes in discerning of spirits that ever governed hath made choyce of you meerly out of her Royall judgement her affection inclining rather to continue your attendance into whose hands trust to put the commandement conduct of so great forces the gathering in the fruit of so great charge the execution of so many Councels the redeeming of the defaults of so many former Governors and the clearing of the glory of so many happy years reign onely in this part excepted Nay further how far forth the perill of that State is interlaced with the perill of England and therefore how great the honor is to keep and defend the approaches of this kingdom I hear many discourse and indeed there is a great difference whether the Tortoise gather her selfe into her shell hurt or unhurt And if any man be of opinion that the nature of an enemy doth extenuate the honour of a service being but a Rebell and a Savage I
a Proclamation upon the Kings entry It may please your Lordship I Do hold it a thing formal and necessary for the King to forerun his coming be it never so speedy with some gracious Declaration for the cherishing entertaining and preparing of mens affections For which purpose I have conceived a draught it being a thing to me familiar in my Mistress her times to have my pen used in politique writings of satisfaction The use of this may be in two sorts First properly if your Lordship think convenient to shew the King any such draught because the veins and pulses of this State cannot but be known here which if your Lordship should then I would desire your Lordship to withdraw my name and only signifie that you gave some heads of direction of such a matter to one of whose stile and pen you had some opinion The other collateral that though your Lordship make no other use of it yet it is a kind of pourtraicture of that which I think worthy to be advised to the King to express himself according to those points which are therein conceived and perhaps more compendious and significant then if I had set them down in Articles I would have attended your Lordship but for some little Physick I took To morrow morning I will wait on you So I ever continue c. FR. BACON To the Earl of Southampton It may please your Lordship I Would have been very glad to have presented my humble service to your Lordship by my attendance if I could have foreseen that it should not have been unpleasing unto you And therefore because I would commit no error I chose to write assuring your Lordship how credible soever yet it is as true as a thing that God knoweth that this great change in me hath wrought no other change towards your Lordship then this that I may safely be now that which I was truly before And so craving no other pardon then for troubling you with this letter I do not now begin to be but continue to be Your Lordships most humble and devoted FR. BACON To the Earl of Northumberland It may please your Lordship I Would not have lost this journey and yet I have not that I went for For I have had no private conference to purpose with the King no more hath almost any other English for the speech his Majesty admitteth with some Noblemen is rather matter of grace then matter of businesse with the Attorney he spake urged by the Treasurer of Scotland but no more then needs must After I had received his Majesties first welcome and was promised private accesse yet not knowing what matter of service your Lordship carried for I saw it not and knowing that priviness in advertisement is much I chose rather to deliver it to Sir Thomas Hoskins then to let it cool in my hands upon expectation of accesse Your Lordship shall find a Prince the furthest from vain-glory that may be and rather like a Prince of the ancient form then of the latter time his speeches swift an cursory and in the full Dialect of his Nation and in speeeh of businesse short in speech of discourse large he affecteth popularity by gracing them that are popular and not by any fashions of his own he is thought somewhat generall in his favours and his vertue of accesse is rather because he is much abroad and in presse then that he giveth easie audience he hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and nations faster perhaps then policy will well bear I told your Lordship once before my opinion that methought his Majesty rather asked counsell of the time past then of the time to come But it is yet early to be found in any setled opinion For other particularities I refer to conference having in these generals gone further in these tender arguments then I would have done were not the bearer hereof so assured So I continue your c. FR. BACON To Sir Edward Coke expostulatory Mr. Attorney I Thought best once for all to let you know in plainness what I find of you and what you shal find of me To take to your self a liberty to disgrace and disable my Law experience discretion what it pleases you I pray think of me I am one that know both mine own wants and other mens and it may be perchance that mine may mend when others stand at a stay And surely I may not in publike place endure to be wronged without repelling the same to my best advantage to right myself You are great and therefore have the more enviers which would be glad to have you paid at anothers cost Since the time I missed the Sollicitors place the rather I think by your means I cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Sollicitor but either to serve with another upon your remove or to step into some other course So as I am more free then ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming my self to you more then generall good manners or your particular good usage shall provoke And if you had not been short-sighted in your own fortune as I think you might have had more use of me but that tide is past I write not this to shew any friends what a brave Letter I have writ to Mr. Attorney I have none of those humours but that I have written is to a good end that is to the more decent carriage of my Masters service and to our particular better understanding one another This Letter if it shall be answered by you in deed and not in word I suppose it will not be worse for us both else it is but a few lines lost which for a much smaller matter I would adventure So this being to your self I for my part rest Your c. FR. BACON To the same after L. Chief Justice and in disgrace My very good Lord THough it be true that who considereth the wind and the rain shall neither sow nor reap Eccles 9.15 yet there is a season for every action And so there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence there is a time when the words of a poor simple man may profit and that poor man in the Preacher which delivered the City by his wisdom found that without this opportunity the power both of wisdom and eloquence lose but their labour and cannot charm the deaf Adder God therefore before his Son that bringeth mercy sent his servant the Trumpeter of repentance to level a very high hill to prepare the way before him making it smooth and streight And as it is in spiritual things where Christ never comes before his Way-maker hath laid even the heart with sorrow and repentance since self-conceited and proud persons think themselves too good and too wise to learn of their inferior and therefore need not the Physitian so in the rules of earthly wisdom it is not possible for nature to attain any mediocrity of perfection before she
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
salvisque Imperii legibus libenter tribuamus qui pro innata nobis benignitate aequisque conditionibus Arma poni optatam afflictissimae Germaniae pacem restitui quam legitime executiones insisti per caedes sanguinem Christianum gloriosa nomini nostro trophaea figi nunquam non maluimus In gratiam itaque Serenitatis vestrae ut res ipsa deprehendat quanti nobis sit perpetuum cum eadem amicitia cultum novo fomite subinde revocari licet hactenus prosperos militiae nostrae successus divina benignitas tribuit acquiescimus ut benevolo tractatu almae pacis redintigrandae rationes opportunae incantur eumque in finem ad evitandum viarum temporumque dispendia nunc in eo sumus ut serenissimae Principi Dominae Elizabethae Clarae Eugeniae natae Infanti Hispaniarum Archiducissae Austriae Ducissae Burgundiae Stiriae Carinthiae Carniolae Wirtinburgiae Provinciarum Belgii Burgundiarumque Dominae Consobrinae ac sorori nostrae charissimae ut istic in aula sua quorsum vestra quoque Serenitas si ita libuerit suos cum plena facultate ablegare poterit primum eumque proximum assequendae pacis gradum cessationem ab armis aequis conditionibus nomine nostro Caesari stabiliendum permittemus prope diem expedituri Legatum nostrum virum nobilem qui diligentissime in gravissimo hoc negotio mentem nostram plenius aperiet atque inde ad Serenitatem vestram animum nostrum ad redintegrandae pacis studia proclivem qui non aliter quam quibuscunque benevolentiae officiis cum Serenitate vestra certare studet magis magisque testificetur cujus interim consilia generosa praepotens Deus publico orbis commodo in faelicissimos eventus disponat Dat. Viennae 14 Jan. 1621. Earl of Bristol to King James MOst gracious Soveraign it may please your Majesty to remember that at my coming out of Spain I signified unto your Majesty how far the Duke of Lerma had upon severall occasions intimated unto me an extraordinary desire of this King and State not onely to maintain peace and amity with your Majesty but to lay hold of all things that may be offered for the nearer uniting of your Majesty and your Crowns and that from this generality he had descended often to have discourse with me of a match for the Princes Highness with the second daughter of Spain assuring me that in this King and his Ministers there was a forward disposition thereunto But from me he received no other answer but to this effect That I in the treaty of the former match for the late Prince had received so strange and unexpected answer firom them that their demands seemed so improper and unworthy that I conceived that your Majesty had little reason to be induced again to give eate to any such overture or that I should again enter into any such treaty much less to be the motioner thereof Although I would confess that if I were fully perswaded of the sincerity of their intentions and of a possibility of having the said match effected I know not any thing wherein I would more willingly imploy my endeavours but as the case now stood I was certain that if I should but make any such motion in England I should but draw imputation of much weakness upon me there and no whit advance the cause for that your Majesty and your Ministers would make no other construction of the motion but as construed to divert the Match of France which was treated of for that your Majesty who but the year before had received so unpleasing and unequal an answer should now be perswaded that there was here so great a change as that a match was really desired there would now need more then ordinary assurance But the Duke of Lerma continuing severall times the same profession and telling me besides that the greatest Cases might be altered by circumstances and that the Age of this Prince was much more proper then that of his brother I freely let the Duke know that in case I might see that it was really desired here and that I might be able to propound unto my Master conditions of so much advantage and certainty â—s might put him and his ministers out of doubt that this overture was not again revived from hence either for diversion or winning of time I would then willingly intimate unto your Majesty the inclination and desire I found here of having a proposition for this match once again set on foot The Duke told me he would have a further conference with me and that he then no ways doubted to give such satisfaction as might well assure your Majesty and your Ministers that they sincerly desired the match in generall and would omit nothing on their side for the accomodating of particulars that might give furtherance unto it But the very night before the Duke had appointed a meeting with me there came a Post dispatcht out of England from the Spanish Ambassador upon the arrivall of Sir Thomas Edmonds into England who brought word that the match with France was absolutely concluded and that within few days it was to be published Whereupon the Duke at our meeting the next morning told me that it would be needless now to descend to any particulars in the business whereof we are to treat since that they had newly received advertisement that the match with France was fully concluded And thus for the present the matter rested untill some five or six weeks after about which time my self was to go into England and so taking leave of the Duke he asked me whether I had not received advertisement that the match with France was published I told him no but I had certainly heard that it was not as yet fully concluded Whreupon he intreated me that in case I found not the French match in such forwardness as it could not be stayed I would let him know of it and that if I should see any kind of possibility that the business we had spoken of might be set on foot I would advertise him and that thereupon he would proceed to those particulars which he formerly intended for my satisfaction Herewith I acquainted your Majesty and finding the Spanish Ambassador in England had notice from the Duke of our former proceedings and order to further them by all possible means he could especially if he should understand that your Majesty were not fully resolved of the French match I thought it fit by this means to let the Duke understand in what estate I found those businesses in England and thereupon with your Majesties permission I wrote a letter unto him to this effect That although it were true that the Match with France had been treated of with much earnestness on both sides and with great likelihood of being concluded yet there daily arose so many difficulties and new cases of delay that I judged it far from any perfect conclusion neither did I see cause absolutely to despair of the businesses
so be his forces at this present be otherwise so imployed as that they cannot give us that assistance which we here desire and as we think we have deserved yet at the least he will permit us a free and friendly passage through his Territories and Dominions for such forces as we shall send and imploy into Germany for this service of all which disjunctively if you receive not of the King of Spain within ten days at the furthest after your audience and proposition made a direct assurance under his hand and seal without delay or putting us off to further Treaties and Conferences that is to say of such restitution cessation of Arms and proceeding to a generall treaty as is before mentioned or else of assistance and joyning his forces with ours against the Emperour or at least permission of passage for our forces through his said Dominions that then you take your leave and return unto our Presence without further stay otherwise to proceed in the negotiation of the marriage of our Son according to the instruction we have given you Given c. at Hampton Court Octob. 3. 1622. Earl of Bristol to King James Octob. 21. 1622. MAy it please your most excellent Majesty I received your Majesties Letter of the 9. of Septemb the 23. of the same moneth by them understand that your Majesty hath received much satisfaction by what I had formerly written unto your Majesty both concerning the restitution of the Prince Palatine as likewise of this Kings resolution to proceed to the conclusion of the Match but that your Majesty findeth the effects very unsuitable both by the proceeding at Bruxels in the Palatinate as also by what you understand from Rome by Mr. Gage of the Popes demands I hope by the arrival of Mr. Cottington your Majesty will have received satisfaction in some measure at least that there hath been no diligence or time omitted either for the redressing of any thing that hath been amiss or for the advancing of yâ—ur Majesties affairs The very day I received your Letters I sent a Gentleman post unto the King who was gone into the Escurial to demand audience which he presently granted me and I repaired thither unto him upon the third of October the Conde de Gondomar being likewise commanded to wait upon the King I was there well received and presently upon my arrival the Conde de Olivarez came to me to the lodgings which were appointed for me to rest in To him I delivered fully in the presence of Sir Walter Ashton and the Conde de Gondomar what I had to negotiate with the King both in the business of the Match and of the Palatinate In the Match I represented how much it imported your Majesty that a speedy resolution might be taken therein both in regard of the Prince being your Majesties onely son now arrived to the age of 22 years and for the setling of your affairs in England I repeated unto him all the passages in this Treaty how many years had been already spent in it that after so long an expectation the diligences used in Rome for the obtaining of the Dispensation had wrought but small effect since the Pope had lately made such demands as were altogether impossible for your Majesty to condescend unto and therefore your Majesty seeing the business still delayed held it fit that some such course might be taken that both your Majesties might speedily know what you were to trust unto and therfore had comanded me to signifie unto this King your uttermost resolution how far you would condescend in point of Religion towards what the Pope had demanded if herewith this King could be satisfied your Maj. desire that we might proceed to a final and speedy conclusion otherwise that this King would likewise cleerly declare himself that your Majesty might lose no more time in the disposing of the Prince your son Hereunto the Conde de Olivarez answer'd with some length the substance I shall only presume to set down briefly to your Majesty He proposed a sincere intention and resolution in the King to make the Match and that there should not be one day lost for the speedy dispatch thereof imported them as much as your Majesty and to the end that no time may be lost this King had the next day after for Don Balthazar de Zuniga appointed Don Ferdinando de Giron in his place in the Commission That for the going of Mr. Gage from Rome and the Popes demands they were absolutely ignorant of them That the King had done all that I my self desired for the redress of this error That I might assure your Majesty that you shall find all sincerity and cleer proceeding without any houres delay more then of necessity the nature of the business required As for the business of the Palatinate I presented at large the merits of your Majesties proceeding the many promises made from hence yet notwithstanding the whilst your Majesty was treating at Bruxels Heidelberg one of the three places which were only left and where your Majesty had Garrisons was besieged by the Archduke Leopold and Monsieur Tilly that this King had withdrawn his Forces and so exposed the Palatinate absolutely to the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria The Conde de Olivarez answered me by acknowledging how much your Majesties proceedings had deserved at the Emperor and this Kings hands That whatsoever your Majesty could expect or had been at any time promised should by this King be really performed That the Prince Palatines own courses hitherto had been the only hinderance of the effecting of it That he referred it unto your Majesties own just judgment whether the calling of this Kings forces out of the Palatinate were with any ill intention or meerly for the defence of Flanders which otherwise had been put in great hazard by Count Mansfield as your Majesty saw by what had really passed That the siege of Heidelbergh was no way by the consent or knowledge of this King or any of his Ministers but was generally disapproved by them all I told them I conceived that was not enough for that your Majesty had engaged your self to this King that in case your Son-in-law would not conform himself you would not only forsake him but would declare your self against him and give the Emperor assistance for the reducing of him to reason and that your Majesty could not but expect a like reciprocal proceeding from the King He answered your Majesty should see the Kings sincerity by the effects and that if Heidelbergh should be taken and the Emperor refuse to restore it or to condescend to such accommodation as should be held reasonable this King would infallibly assist your Majesty with his Forces And this he spake with great assurance and wished me to desire your Majesty to be confident you would find nothing but real and sinc ere proceedings from hence I was â—hen presently called for to the King to whom I spake first in the
you as a good ground for you to work on that our Son did write us out of Spain That that King would give us a Blank in which we might form our own Conditions concerning the Palatinate and the same our Son confirms to us now What observation and performance that King will make we require you to express and give us a speedy account c. Given c. Earl of Bristol in answer to King James Octob. 29. 1623. MAy it please your most excellent Majesty I have received your Majesties Letters of the 8. of October on the 21. of the same moneth some houres within night and have thought fit to dispatch back unto your Majesty with all possible speed referring the answer to what your Majesty hath by these Letters commanded me to a Post that I shall purposely dispatch when I shall have negotiated the particulars with this King and his Ministers wherein God willing all possible diligence shall be used But forasmuch as I find both by your Majesties Letter as likewise by Letters which I have received from the Prince his Highness that you continue your desires of having the Match proceeded in I held it my duty that your Majesty should be informed that although I am set free in as much as concerneth the doubt of the Infanta's entring into Religion for the delivering of the powers left with me by his Highness yet by this new direction I now received from your Majesty that the Deposories should be deferr'd till Christmas the said powers are made altogether useless and invalid it being a clause in the bodies of the said powers that they shall onely remain in force till Christmas and no longer as your Majesty may see by the copie I send herewith inclosed Your Majesty I conceive will be of opinion that the suspending of the execution of the powers untill the force and validity of them be expired is a direct and effectuall revoking of them which not to do how far his Highness is in his Honor ingaged your Majesty will be best able to judge by viewing the powers themselves Further if the date of these powers do expire besides the breach of the Capitulations although the match it self jealousies and mistrusts be hazarded yet the Princes coming at the Spring will be almost impossible For by that time new Commissions and Powers shall be after Christmas granted by the Prince which must be to the satisfaction of both parties I conceive so much of the year will be spent that it will be impossible for the Fleets and other preparations to be in a readiness against the Spring for it is not to be imagined that they will here proceed effectually with their preparations untill they shall be sure of the Desposorios especially when they shall have seen them severall times deferred on the Prince his part and that upon pretexts that are not new or grown since the granting of the Powers but were before in being and often under debate and yet were never insisted upon to make stay of the business so that it will seem that they might better have hindered the granting of them then the execution of them Now if there were not staggering in former resolutions the which although really there is not yet can it not but be suspected and the clearing of it between Spain and England will cost much time I most humbly crave your Majesties pardon if I write unto you with the plainness of a true-hearted and faithfull servant who ever hath cooperated honestly unto your Majesties ends I knew them I know your Majesty hath been long time of opinion that the greatest assurance you could get that the King of Spain would effectually labour the intire restitution of the Palatinate was that he really proceeded to the effecting of the match and my instructions under your Majesties hands were to insist upon the restoring the Prince Palatine but not to annex it to the treaty of the match as that therby the match should be hazarded for that your Majesty seemed confident that here it would never grow to a perfect conclusion without a setled resolution to give your Majesty satisfaction in the business of the Palatinate The same course I observed in the carriage of the business by his Highness and my Lord Duke at their being here who though they insisted on the business of the Palatinate yet they held it fit to treat of them distinctly and that the marriage should proceed as a good pawn for the other Since their departure my Lord Ambassador Sir Walter Ashton and my self have been pressed to have this Kings resolution in writing concerning the Palatinate and the dispatches which your Majesty will receive herewith concerning that business were writ before the receit of your Majesties Letters and doubtless it is now a great part of their care that that business may be well entred before the Infanta's coming into England And his Highness will well often remember that the Conde dé Olivarez often protested a necessity of having this business compounded and setled before the marriage saying otherwise they might give a Daughter and a War within three moneths after if this ground and subject of quarrell should still be left on foot The same language he hath ever held with Sir Walter Ashton and my self and that it was a firm peace and amity as much as an allyance which they sought with his Majesty So that it is not to be doubted but that this King concluding the match resolveth to imploy his uttermost power for your satisfaction in the restitution of the Prince Palatine The question now will be whether the business of the Prince Palatine having relation to many great Princes that are interessed therein living at distance and being indeed for the condition and nature of the business it self impossible to be ended but by a formall treaty which of necessity will require great length whether the conclusion of the match shall any way depend upon the issue of this business which I conceive to be far from your Majesties intention for so the Prince might be long kept unbestowed by any aversness of those which might have particular interest in the Princes remaining unmarried or dislike with his matching with Spain But that which I understand to be your Majesties aim is onely to have the conclusion of this match accompanied with a strong engagement as can be procured from this King for the joyning with your Majesty not onely in all good Offices for the entire restitution of the Palatinate but otherwise if need require of his Majesties assistance herein These days past I have laboured with all earnestness and procured this Kings publique answer which I am told is resolved of and I shall within these few days have it to send to your Majesty as also a private Proposition which will be put into your hands and shall not fail further to pursue your Majesties present directions of procuring this Kings Declaration in what sort your Maiesty may rely
upon this Kings assistance in case the Emperour or the Duke of Bavaria hinder the entire restitution of the Prince Palatine But I conceive if it be your intention that I should first here procure this Kings peremptory answer in the whole business and how he will be assistant unto your Maiesty in case of the Emperours or the Duke of Bavaria's aversness And that I should send it to your Maiesty and receive again your answer before I deliver the Powers for the Deposorios the match would thereby if not be hazarded yet I conceive the Infanta's going at Spring would be rendred altogether impossible For if upon the arrival of the Approbation I cannot refuse them but upon some grounds if I alleadge your Majesties desire of having the Deposories deferred untill Christmass they know as well as my self that his Highness Proxy is then out of date besides the infringing of the Capitulations and they will judge it is a great scorn put upon this King who ever since the Princes granting of the powers hath called himself the Infanta's Desposado and to that effect the Prince hath writ unto him in some of his Letters Besides it will be held here a point of great dishonour unto the Infanta if the powers called for by her friends should be detained by the Prince his part and whosoever else may have deserved it she certainly hath not deserved disrespect nor discomfort Further upon my refusal to deliver the powers all preparations which now go on cheerfully and apace will be stayed and there will enter in so much distrust and so many troubles and jealousies that if the main business run not hazard by them at least much time will be spent to cleer them I must therefore in discharge of my duty tell your Majesty that all your Majesties businesses here are in a fair way the Match and all that is capitulated therein they profess punctually to perform In the business of the Palatinate I continue my earnest and faithfull endeavours and they protest they infinitely desire and will to the utmost of their powers endeavour to procure your Majesties satisfaction The Prince is like to have a most worthy and vertuous Lady and who much loveth him and all things else depending upon this match are in good and hopefull way This is now the present estate of your Majesties affairs as it appeareth unto me and to Sir Walter Ashton with whom I have communicated this Dispatch as I do all things else concerning your Majesties service And I must cleerly let your Majesty understand that I conceive by the retaining of the powers when this King shall call for them and offering to defer the Deposories untill Christmass that your Majesties business will run a hazard what by the distaste and disgust that will be raised here and what by the art and industry of those which are enemies to the match whereof every Court hath plenty in Christendom That therefore which I presume with all humility is That you would be pleased to give me order with all possible speed that when the busines shall come cleered from Rome and that the powers of the marriage shall be demanded of me in the behalf of this King that I may deliver them and no ways seek to interrupt or suspend the Deposorios but assist and help to a perfect conclusion of the match And for the business of the Palatinate I continue my earnest and faithfull endeavours to engage this King as far as shall be possible both for the doing of all good offices for the Palatines entire restitution herein I will not fail as likewise for this Kings declaration of assistance in case the Emperor or Duke of Bavaria shall oppose the said restitution to use all possible means and I conceive the dispatch of the Match will be a good pawn in the business and the help and assistance which the Princes being once betrothed would be able to give in this Court to all your Majesties businesses would be of good consideration So fearing I have already presumed too far upon your Majesties patience I humbly crave your Majesties pardon and recommend you to the holy protection of God resting Your Majesties most humble and faithful subject and servant BRISTOL Madrid Octob. 29. 1623. Earl of Bristol to King James Novemb. 1. 1623. MAy it please your most excellent Majesty I find that upon the news that is now come from the Duke of Pastrava that the Pope hath cleerly passed the Dispensation which is now hourly expected here There is an intention to call presently upon me for the Princes powers for the marriage left in my hands the which I know not upon what ground or reason to detain the Prince having engaged in the said powers the faith and word of a Prince no way to revoke and retract from them but that they should remain in full force till Christmass and delivered unto me a politique declaration of his pleasure that upon the coming of the Dispensation I should deliver them unto this King that they might be put in execution and hereof likewise was there by Secretary Serita as a publique Notary an Instrument drawn attested by all the witnesses present If I shall alleadge your Majesties pleasure of having the marriage deferred untill one of the Holidays although they should condescend thereunto that is impossible for the powers will be then expired If I shall insist upon the restitution of the Palatinate this King hath therein declared his answer and it would be much wondred why that should be now added for a condition of the marriage having ever hitherto been treated of as a business apart and was in being at the granting of the said powers and hath been often under debate but never specified nor the powers delivered upon any condition of having any such point first cleered and I must confess unto your Majesty I understand not how with honour and that exact dealing which hath ever been observed in all your Majesties actions the powers can be detained unless there should appear some new and emergent cause since the granting of them whereof as yet I hear none specified Therefore being loath to be the instrument by whose hands any thing should pass that might have the least reflection upon your Majesties or the Princes honour which I shall ever value more then my life or safety and judging it likewise to conduce more to your service and assuring my self that your Majesties late direction to have the marriage upon one of the holidays in Christmass was for want of due information that the powers will be then expired I have thought it fit with the advice of Sir Walter Ashton to raise no scruple in the delivery of the said powers but do intend when they shall be required to pass on to the nominating of a prefixed day for the Deposorio's but I shall endeavour to defer the time untill I may be advertised of your Majesties pleasure if it may be within the space of 24 dayes and
the said restitution may be intire and totall as well in that which concerneth the Electorall dignity as the Palatinates and that the Propositions which your Majesty makes by your Letter to content my self to be Administrator to my son and he to be invested with the said dignity and put into present possession of the Palatinate is but in all events if so be your Majesty could not attain to the totall restitution the desired effect of your intentions leaving me nevertheless to be at liberty to chuse the lesser of the two evils if I may be permitted to term them so the one by the totall restitution of my Estates but with diminution or rather annihilation for so in effect it wil be in respect of my person of the Electorall dignity th' other of the recovery of both by war the events whereof are uncertain First I most humbly thank your Majesty for the paternall care which you continue and shew in this occasion and which doth more comfort me and my dear wife in our afflictions then the fear of humane events can grieve or incline us to be willing to recover the loss of goods with the loss of honors I will therefore use the liberty which your Majesty is pleased to give me in answering every particular point of your Letter In the first whereof I observe the proceeding of my enemies who require a personall submission intended to precede all other things under the safe conduct of the Emperour whereas by natural order used in these occasions the restitution which is materiall and substantiall ought by reason to precede the other being but a point of ceremony at the least it is necessary that all things be resolved and concluded under such assurances as shall be held convenient and then if the intentions on the Emperours part be reall and sincere and without any aim to take advantage upon my person as the Emperour Charls 5. did upon the Lantgrave of Hessen under the subtilty of a distinction of a syllable in safe conduct Ewis for Einis the said submission may as well be made by a Deputy as otherwise whereby I shall be freed from the apprehensions which the execution at Prague other cruelties exercised by the Imperialists may easily impress in the mind of him who is unwilling to lose himselfe by a quiete de Coeur Besides a simple consent to such a submission under the specified condition to yeild the Electorate to the Duke of Bavaria will be sufficient to prejudice my cause for ever For the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburgh who have always protested against the translation of the Electorate and the other Princes of Germany who have like feeling will disavow their protestations in regard of him who shall abandon his own pretentions and in stead of favouring me upon some breach of the Treaty or otherwise may be my opposites Moreover the experience of things past teach us what issue we may hereafter expect of the like conditions consented to on our part The Emperour having manifestly abused us in two already First in the instrument which I signed for the conditionall resignation of the Crown of Bohemia in the year 1621. Then in my ratification of the suspension of Arms this last Summer The first having served the Emperour to accelerate his Treaty then on foot with Bethlem Gabor The second to intimidate the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburgh that they might not undertake any thing against the Emperour both the one and the other being divulged to the same effect according to the knowledge which the Emperour had of these designes before any thing was therin resolved and concluded And so will the Emperour in all appearance make his profit of this present proposition and strike with one stone two blows by hindering the progress of Gabor on the one side and by continuing on the other the intimidation of the Princes of Germany who may with reason excuse themselves if they move not for him who hath bound himself hand and foot and consented to a submission which being yeilded to it will be always in the Emperours power to break or go on as he shall hold it expedient for himself I do also promise my self that your Majesty will have regard that by such submission and intreaty my undue proscription and banishment which being done in prejudice of the constitutions of the Empire are therefore held by the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburgh of no validity be not approved and thereby a mark of infamy set upon me and my posterity Touching the second point your Majesty may be pleased to remember that on the part of Spain hope hath alwayes been given me from the beginning of a totall and intire restitution to my own person yea the Earl of Bristol hath assured me by his Letters from Madrid in November 1622. when the marriage was not so much advanced at this time That the King of Spain in case of refusall of the totall restitution would joyn his forces with those of your Majesty against the Emperor to constrain him thereunto And yet in stead of the said restitution the translation of my Electorate to the Duke of Bavaria was since at Ratisbone agreed and congratulated unto him from Bruxels the inferior Palatinate dismembred by the grant of the Bergstreat one of the best peeces thereof to the Elector of Mentz the superior with the Bailywicks granted to the Duke of Nuburgh thereby to engage them further in the quarrel by the particular defence of that which generally the Imperialists have usurped upon me they confiscate and seise the goods of my subjects and those that follow my party sparing neither widow nor orphans It seems therefore necessary above all things to have sufficient assurance for the total restitution of my Electorate and Palatinates before any new treaty of marriage be proposed Of the which treaties as they are ordinarily handled and managed by the house of Austria and drawn to length and delays with the onely aim to the augmentation of their greatness without respect to civil honesty word or promise I have a dolefull experience in my own house in the person of one of my predecessors Frederick the second who contributed more to the first foundation which was laid for the greatness of the said house of Austria then any other German Prince and for recompence was allured and drawn by the space of many years with treaties and promises of marriage without any real intention as was seen by the effect ever to bring them to execution Seeing therefore that he who had so well deserved of the house of Austria which in all external appearance held him in greater estimation then any other German Prince was nevertheless so unworthily used by them in a treaty of marriage I who have been unduly put into the Ban of the Empire and spoiled of all my honours and goods by the eagerness hatred and usurpation of the Emperor himself whose daughter is propounded for the marriage in question know
detrudatur et certe usque adeo praeclusus est industriae nostrae ad eadem honoris et emolumenti aditus ut multi repudia literis in aeternum renunciare mallent quam post tot laboribus consumptam juventutem et senectam studiis immature acceleratam vanae spei cassa nuce ludificari cum non solum sua nobis negare beneficia sed et nostra abripere terrarum Domini flagitiosè contendant Quid ad te haec verba spectant facile conjicias Nos te Patronum appellamus quem adversarii nostri Judicem et per omnia patrocinia tua nobis ante hac gnaviter concessa per omnia sacra clementiae tuae et amoris in Academiam te obtestamur ut huic Alumno nostro jus suum et Academiae dignitatem sarctam tectam authoritate tuâ conservare velis et cum tua merita non aliâ re consequi valeamus quam debiti agnitione cui sumus impares memorisque animi gratâ testificatione utramque tibi sempiternam religiosè pollicemur Dat' è frequenti Senatu nostro ê‘ridie Calend. Maii 1630. Honoris tui Clientes assidui Procancel ' et Senatus integer Academ ' Cantabrig Bishop of Excester to the lower House of Parliament Gentlemen FOR Gods sake be wise in your well meant zeale why doe we argue away precious time that can never be revoked or repaired Wo is me whilst we dispute our friends perish and we must follow them Where are we if we break and I tremble to thinke it we cannot but break if we hold too stiffe Our Liberties and properties are sufficiently declared to be sure and legal our remedies are cleare and irrefragable what do we fear Every subject now sees the way chalked out before him for future Justice and who dares henceforth tread besides it certainly whilst Parliaments live we need not misdoubt the like violation of our freedomes and rights may we bee but where the loanes found us we shall sufficiently enjoy our selves and ours It is now no season to reach for more O let us not whilst we over rigidly plead for a higher straine of safety put our selves into a necessity of ruine and utter despair of redresse let us not in a suspicion of evil that may be cast our selves into a present confusion if you love your selves and your Country remit something of your owne Terms and since the substance is yeilded by your noble compatriots stand not too curiously upon points of circumstance fear not to trust a good King who after the strictest Law made must be trusted with the execution think that your Country yea Christendom lyeth in the mercy of your present resolution relent or farewell Farewell from him whose faithful heart bleeds in a vowed sacrifice for his King and Country King Charles to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal WEE being desirous of nothing more then the advancing of the good peace and prosperity of our people have given leave to free debates of higest point of our prerogative Royal which in the times of our Predecessors Kings and Queens of this Realm were ever restrained as matter they would not have disputed and in other things we have been willing so farre to descend to the desires of our good subjects as might fully satisfie all moderate minds and free them from all just feares and jealousies which those messages we have sent unto the Commons House wil well demonstrate to the world and yet we find it stil insisted on That in no case whatsoever should it never so neerly concerne matters of State and Government we or our privy Counsel have power to commit any man without the cause be shewed The service it selfe would be thereby destroyed and defeated and the cause it selfe must be such as may be determined by our Judges of our causes at Westminster in a legal and ordinary way of Justice whereas the cause may be such as these Judges have not capacity of Judicature nor rules of Law to direct and guide their Judgments in cases of transcedent nature which happening so often the very intermitting of the constant rules of Government for so many ages within this Kingdome practised would soone dissolve the very frame and foundation of our Monarchy wherefore as to our Commons we made faire propositions which might equally preserve the just liberties of the subject So my Lords we have thought good to let you know that without the overthrow of our soveraignty we cannot suffer this power to be impeached yet notwithstanding to clear our conscience and intentions this we publish that it is not in our heart or will ever to extend our Royal power lent unto us from God beyond the just rule of moderationin any thing which shall be contrary to our Lawes and Customes wherein the safety of our people shal be our only aime And we do hereby declare our Royal pleasure and resolution to be which God willing we wil ever constantly continue and mantaine that neither we nor our Privy Counsel shall or will at any time hereafter commit or command to prison or otherwise restraine the person of any for not lending mony unto us or for any other cause which in our conscience doth concern the publick good and safety of us and our people we wil not be drawn to pretend any cause which in our conscience is not or is not expressed which base thought we hope no man can imagine can fall into our Royal brest and that in all causes of this nature which shall hereafter happen we shall upon the humble Petition of the party or addresse of our Judges unto us readily and really expresse the true cause of their Commitment or restraint so soone as with conveniency or safety the same is fit to be disclosed and expressed and that in all causes Criminal of ordinary Jurisdiction our Judges shall proceede to the deliverance and bailment of the Prisoner according to the known and ordinary rules of the Lawes of this Land and according to the Statute of Magna charta and those other six statutes insisted on which we do take knowledge stand in full force and which we intend not to weaken or abrogate against the true intent thereof This we have thought fit to signifie unto you the rather for the shortning of any long debate upon this question the season of the year being so far advanced and our great occasions of State not lending us many daies of long continuance of this Session of Parliament Given under our signet at our Pallace at Westminster the twelfth day of May in the Fourth Year of our Reigne CAROLUS REX A Counsel Table Order against hearing Mass at Embassadors houses March 10. 1629 At White-hall the tenth of March 1629. PRESENT Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer Lord President Lord Privy Seale Lord Steward Lord Chamberlaine Earl of Suffolk Earl of Dorset Earl of Salisbury Lord Wimbleton Lord Viscount Dorchester Lord Viscount Wentworth Lord Viscount Grandison Lord Viscount Faulkland Lord Savile Lord Newbergh Mr.