March 30. 1663. Let this Collection of Letters and other Discourses be Printed HENRY BENNET SCRINIA CECILIANA MYSTERIES OF State Government IN LETTERS Of the late Famous Lord Burghley And other Grand Ministers of STATE In the Reigns of Queen ELIZABETH and King JAMES Being a further Additional Supplement of the CABALA AS ALSO Many Remarkable Passages faithfully Revised and no where else Published With two exact Tables The one of the Letters The other of Things most Observable LONDON Printed for G. Bedel and T. Collins and are to be sold at their Shop at the Middle-Temple-gate in Fleetstreet 1663. The Stationers To the READER Courteous Reader ALthough it be a received Position That Merit is worthier than Fame yet duly considered they ought to be inseparable the one being the just Guerdon of the other Upon that account we have presumed to make Publick these ensuing Memorials or Letters being Monuments of some late Eminent Patriots and Hero's of this Nation Who whilst they were Actors in such grand Affairs as suited with their high Service under their Sovereigns were deservedly Dignified here and Renowned abroad The first of these Worthies being Sir William Cecil Lord Burghley who was an unparallel'd Minister of State And as we conceive of the longest continuance that any Prince then or ever since with such Success enjoyed a person alwayes peaceable and moderate free from Covetousness or Ambition in the course of his Service rather willing to endure the Burthen than desiring the fruition of Honour or Profit profound in Judgment assisted with great Experience and therefore worthily celebrated both here and abroad as Pater Patriae and an indefatigable Votary to the Crown And for the matters and designs in the Letters themselves we shall be silent hoping the Fame of the person will be motive sufficient for you to purchase this Jewel Concerning the Times they were wheeled about with new and great Revolutions and Divisions not only at Home but also in France Scotland the Low Countries and generally in most of the other Kingdoms and States abroad Forâs Pugnae intus Timores Conspiracies Invasions and Insurrections amongst our selves War Devastations and Massacres amongst our Neighbours for the most part shadowed with the Vaile of Religion many Princes of the Blood and persons of great Authority being sacrificed on either part turbulent Times and of great mutations proper to try the Ability and Fidelity of a State Atlas wherein with what Wisdom he acquitted himself is referred to you to determine The next is Sir Nicholas Throckmorton Ambassador in France for Queen Elizabeth in the Infancy of her Reign we have nothing here of his remains but only his Letter to Her Majesty touching a free passage for the Queen of Scots through England wherein you will find variety of Politick Reasons pressed on each part with smart Judgment In the third place is Sir Philip Sidney that choice Darling of the Muses whom we suppose you will freely grant to have been Tam Marti quam Mercurio in whom England Netherland the Heavens and the Arts the Souldiers and the World did emulate a share here we have only a dissuasive Letter to the Queen touching Her Marriage with Mounsieur of France fortified with many pressing and effectual Reasons against that match and penned with a Politick and Ingenuous Stile And in the last place we present you with some Pieces of the inimitable Viscount St. Alban some in the Reign of the late glorious Queen and others in the Halcyon dayes of the late King James never before to our best knowledge made Publick deck't with many grateful Flowers of Philosophy History and Policy the Fall of the Earl of Somerset and the immediate Advance of the Duke of Buckingham with many other passages of moment and here you may observe the memorials of other worthy persons although the Title point only at Sir William Cecil for we conceive it not imaginable That such experienced and sure Masters of Knowledge would employ their thoughts in any thing sleight or superficial However we dare not assume that boldness as to write Encomiasticks of such great Personages that Right we suppose is much better performed by more quaint Pens already Lunae Radiis non maturescit Botrus And their Names and Honour still live in fresh memory Here you may safely turn Necromancer and consult with the dead or rather with the living for such Monuments as these survive Marble Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori These are not like Augustus his two infamous Daughters or his unworthy Nephew Posthumus Agrippa Impostumes as he termed them that broke from him but pure and legitimate Issue of the nobler part which is with care exposed to publick View for the better accomodation of those that have been pleased to purchase the two former Volumes of the like Nature and Quality Temple-gate June 18. 1663. G. B. T. C. A TABLE of the LETTERS contained in this COLLECTION B. SIR Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley Pag. 1. Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley p. 2. Sir Francis Bacon in recommendation of his Service to the Earl of Northumberland a few dayes before Queen Elizabeths death p. 4. Sir Francis Bacon to Mr. Robert Kempe upon the death of Queen Elizabeth p. 5. Sir Francis Bacon to Mr. David Foules in Scotland upon the entrance of His Majesties Reign ibid. Sir Francis Bacon to the King upon presenting his Discourse touching the Plantation of Ireland p. 6. Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Chancellor touching the History of Britain p. 7. Sir Francis Bacon to the King upon the sending unto him a beginning of a History of His Majesties time p. 9. Sir Francis Bacon to the Earl of Salisbury upon sending him one of his Books of Advancement of Learning ibid. Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst upon the same occasion of sending his Book of Advancement of Learning p. 10. A Letter of the like Argument to the Lord Chancellor ibid. Sir Francis Bacon of like Argument to the Earl of Northampton with Request to present the Book to His Majesty p. 11. Sir Francis Bacon his Letter of Request to Dr. Plafer to Translate the Book of Advancement of Learning into Latine ibid. Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Thomas Bodley upon sending him his Book of the Advancement of Learning p. 13. Sir Francis Bacon to the Bishop of Ely upon sending his Writing intituled Cogitata visa ibid. Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Thomas Bodley after he had imparted to him a Writing intituled Cogitata visa p. 14. Sir Francis Bacon to Mr. Matthew upon sending him part of Instauratio Magna p. 15. Sir Francis Bacon to Mr. Matthew touching Instauratio Magna p. 16. A Letter to Mr. Matthew upon sending his Book De Sapientia Veterum p. 17. Sir Francis Bacon to Mr. Savill ibid. Sir Francis Bacon to the King touching the Sollicitors place p. 18. Sir Francis Bacon to the King his Suit to succeed in the
Attorneys place p. 20. Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Cary in France upon sending him his Writing In foelicem memoriam Elizabethae p. 21. A Letter to Sir George Villiers touching the difference between the Courts of Chancery and Kings Bench. p. 22. Sir Francis Bacon to the King concerning the Praemunire in the Kings Bench against the Chancery p. 23. A Letter to the King touching matter of Revenue and Profit p. 27. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to the King touching the proceeding with Somerset p. 28. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers concerning the proceeding with Somerset p. 30. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney giving account of an Examination taken of Somerset at the Tower p. 32. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers touching the proceeding with Somerset p. 34. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers of Account and Advice to His Majesty touching Somerset's Arraignment p. 35. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney and some great Lords Commissioners concerning the perswasion used to the Lord of Somerset to a frank Consession p. 36. Sir Francis Bacon to the King upon some inclination of His Majesty signified to him for the Chancellors place p. 38. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney returned with Postils of the Kings own Hand p. 39. The Copy of a Letter conceived to be written to the late Duke of Buckingham when he first became a Favourite to King James by Sir Francis Bacon afterwards Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Alban Containing some Advices to the Duke for his better direction in that eminent place of the Favourite Drawn from him at the intreaty of the Duke himself by much importunity p. 43. Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers of Advice concerning Ireland from Gorambury to Windsor p. 67. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney General to the Master of the Horse upon the sending of his Bill for Viscount sc. p. 69. Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers upon the sending his Pattent for Uiscount Villiers to be Signed p. 70. Sir Francis Bacon to the King about a Certificate of my Lord Coke's p. 72. A Letter to the King touching the Lord Chancellors place ibid. A Letter to the King of my Lord Chancellors amendment and the difference begun between the Chancery and Kings Bench. p. 75. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to the King giving some account touching the Commendams p. 76. Sir Francis Bacon his Advertisement touching an Holy War to the Right Reverend Father in God Lancelot Andrews Lord Bishop of Winchester and Councellor of Estate to His Majesty p. 78. Sir Francis Bacon to the King about the Pardon of the Parliaments Sentence p. 81. Sir Francis Bacon to King James of a Digest to be made of the Laws of England p. 82. Sir Francis Bacon to the Right Honourabl◠〈◊〉 very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire Lord Lieutenant of 〈◊〉 p. 87. A Discourse touching Helps for the intellectual Powers by Sir Francis Bacon p. 97. Sir Francis Bacon to the King p. 101. C. Certain Copies of Letters written by Sir William Cecil Knight Secretary of Estate to Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Norris Knight Ambassador for the said Queen Resident in France Beginning the 10th of February 1566. and ending the 26th of September 15â—0 p. 105. The Lord Coke to King James touching trial of Duels out of England p. 193. H. The History of the Reign of King Henry the Eighth King Edward the Sixth Queen Mary and part of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth p. 194. I. A Copy of a Letter from His Majesty to the Lords read at Board Nov. 21. 1617. touching the abatement of His Majesties Houshold Charge p. 198. A Copy of His Majesties second Letter p. 199. A Letter from the King to his Lordship by occasion of a Book It was the Organon p. 200. To Our Trusty and Well-beloved Thomas Coventry Our Attorney-General ibid. S. A Letter written by Sir Philip Sidney unto Queen Elizabeth touching her Marriage with Mounsieur p. 201. My Lord Sanquir 's Case p. 209. My Lady Shrewsburies Case p. 212. T. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton then Ambassador in France to Queen Elizabeth touching a free Passage for the Queen of Scots through England into Scotland p. 214. Books Printed for and sold by G. Bedell and T. Collins Folio's Compleat AMBASSADOR Letters and Negotiations of the Lord Burleigh and Sir Francis Walsingham in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Collected by Sir Dudly Diggs Bishop Andrews Sermons Halls Politicks Lord Bacons History of King Henry 7th * D'Avila's Civil Wars of France * Bishop Ushers Annals of the World * Titus Livius Roman History in English * Dr. Hammond on the New Testament * Paraphrase on the Psalms * Howe 's Chronicle of England * Lord Hobarts Reports with a large Table by Sir H. Finch * Bulstrodes Reports in Three Parts * Crooks Reports in Three Volumes * Lord Cooks Pleadings in English * Wingats Maxims of the Law * Styles Reports * Leonards Reports Second Part. Quarto's Mountagues Essayes Sennault's Christian Man Potters Number of the Beast 666. Grand Seignieurs Seuaglio Ross against Coparnicus touching the Earths motion French Letters touching His Majesties stedfastness in the Protestant Religion in French and English Character of CHARLES II. Articles or Treaty of Peace betwixt France and Spain Discourse for a King and Parliament Fumi Fugium A Discourse of the Air and Smoak of London by John Evelin Esq Lord Cooks Reading and Denshalls Reading on the Statute of Fines The Judges Arguments on the Liberty of the Subject Three Readings on Wills Jointures and forcible Entry Mr. Durhams Assize Sermon Dr. Thomas his Assize Sermon Playes * D'avenant's Wits * Platonick Lovers * Faithful Shepherdess by Fletcher Marriage of the Arts by Barten Hollyday The Bastard A Tragedy The Martyr A Tragedy The Just General Horratius in English A Tragedy Michaelmas Term. Combate of Love and Friendship Octavo's Gosses Tragedies Lucretius in Latine and English Faushawes La Fida Pastora Duke of Rohans Memoires and Discourses English Hyppolito Isabella Three Romances The Nuptial Lover Triumphant Lady Waterhouse his Apology for Learning Idem His Divine Tracts Idem His Discourse of Arms and Armory Botelers Sermons Compleat on several Subjects Instructions for a Library by Naudeus English Reliquiae Carolinae Dr. Taylors Offices or Liturgy Sheppard of Courts Of Corporations Lambords Archeion White of the Laws Parsons Law the last Edition Claytons Reports Fleetwoods Justice Stones Reading on the Statute of Bankrupts Wingats Body of the Law Noyes Maxims D'avenport's Abridgment of Cook on Littleton Abridgement of Acts. Twelves Compleat Justice Davis's Abridgement of Cooks Reports Tylenus Second Part against Baxter Jacksons Evangelical Temper Of Liberty and Servitude Haywards Edward 6th St. Chrysostom of Education Guuton of External Worship Supplementum Lucani per May. Thuan's Politick Maxims Mayerns Experiments Dr. Stuarts Sermons Ladies Cabinet Gees steps in four and twenties SIR FRANCIS BACON'S Letters c.
of that fame and diligence saw it chiefly because I know not whether it may not serve him for some use in his Story wherein I would be glad he did right to the truth and to the memory of that Lady as I perceive by that he hath already written he is well inclined to do I would be glad also it were some occasion such as absence may permit of some acquaintance or mutual notice between us For though he hath many ways the precedence chiefly in worth yet this is common to us both that we serve our Sovereigns in places of Law eminent and not our selves only but that our Fathers did so before us and lastly that both of us love Learning and Liberal Sciences which was ever a bond of Friendship in the greatest distances of places But of this I make no farther request then your own occasions and respects to me unknown may further or limit my principal purpose being to salute you and to send you this Token whereunto I will add my very kind commendations to my Lady And so commit you both to Gods holy protection A Letter to Sir Geo. Villiers touching the difference between the Courts of Chancery and Kings Bench. Sir I Received this morning from you two Letters by the same bearer the one written before the other both after his Majesty had received my last In this difference between the two Courts of Chancery and Kings Bench for so I had rather take it at this time then between the persons of my Lord Chancellor and my Lord Chief Justice I marvaile not if rumour get way of true Relation for I know Fame hath swift wings specially that which hath black feathers but within these two days for sooner I cannot be ready I will write to his Majesty both the Narrative truly and my opinion sincerely taking much comfort that I serve such a King as hath Gods property in discerning truly of mens hearts I purpose to speak with my Lord Chancellor this day and so to exhibit that Cordial of his Majesties grace as I hope this other accident will rather rowse and raise his spirits then deject him or incline him to a relapse Mean while I commend the wit of a mean man that said this other day Well saith he next Term you shall have an old man come with a besom of Worm-wood in his hand that will sweep away all this For it is my Lord Chancellor his fashion especially towards the Summer to carry a posie of Worm-wood I writ this Letter in haste to return the Messenger with it God keep you and long and happily may you serve his Majesty Your true and affectionate servant Feb. 19. 1615. POST-SCRIPT Sir I humbly thank you for your inward Letter I have burned it as you commanded but the flame it hath kindled in me will never be extinguished Sir Francis Bacon to the King concerning the Praemunire in the Kings Bench against the Chancery It may please your most Excellent Majesty I Was yesterday in the Afternoon with my Lord Chancellor according to Your Commandment which I received by the Master of the Horse and find the old man well comforted both towards God and towards the world And that same middle comfort which is a divine and humane proceeding from your Majesty being Gods Leiutenant on earth I am perswaded hath been a great cause that such a sickness hath been portable to such an age I did not faile in my conjecture that this business of the Chancery hath stirred him He sheweth to despise it but yet he is full of it and almost like a young Duelist that findeth himself behind hand I will now as your Majesty requireth give you a true relation of that which passed neither will I decline your Royall Commandment for delivering my opinion also though it be a tender subject to write on But I that account my being but an accident to my service will neglect no duty upon self-safety First it is necessary I let your Majesty know the ground of the difference between the two Courts that your Majesty may the better understand the Narrative There was a Statute made 27. Ed. 3. Cap. 1. which no doubt in the principal intention thereof was ordained against those that sued to Rome wherein there are words somewhat general against any that questioneth or impeacheth any judgement given in the Kings Courts in any other Courts Upon these doubtfull words other Courts the Controversie groweth For the founder interpretation taketh them to be meant of those Courts which though locally they were not held at Rome or where the Popes Chair was but here within the Realm yet in their jurisdiction had their dependency upon the Court of Rome as were the Court of the Legat here and the Courts of the Arch-bishops and Bishops which were then but subordinate judgement seats to that high Tribunal of Rome And for this Construction the opposition of the words if they be well observed between the Kings Courts and other Courts maketh very much For it importeth as if those other Courts were not the Kings Courts Also the main scope of the Statute sortifieth the same and lastly the practice of many ages The other interpretation which cleaveth to the letter expoundeth the Kings Courts to be the Courts of Law only and other Courts to be Courts of Equity as the Chancery Exchequer-Chamber Dutchy c. though this also flyeth indeed from the letter for that all these are the Kings Courts There is also another Statute which is but a simple Prohibition and not with a penalty of Praemunire as the other is That after judgements given in the Kings Courts the parties shall be in Peace except the judgments be undone by Error or Attaint which is a legall form of reversall And of this also I hold the sounder interpretation to be to settle possessions against disturbances and not to take away remedy in equity where those judgments are obtained ex rigore juris and against good Conscience But upon these two Statutes there hath been a late conceipt in some that if a judgement passe at the Common-Law against any he may not after sue for relief in Chancery and if he do both he and his Councel and his Solicitor yea and the Judge in Equity himself are within the danger of those Statutes There your Majesty hath the true state of the question which I was necessarily to shew you first because your Majesty calleth for this relation not as news but as business Now to the Historical part It is the Course of the Kings Bench that they give in Charge to the Grand Jury offences of all natures to be presented within Middlesex where the said Court is and the manner is to enumerate them as it were in Articles This was done by Justice Crooke the Wednesday before the Term ended and that Article if any man after a judgement given had drawn the said judgement to a new examination in any other Court was by him
bounden Servant July 5. 1616. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney General to the Master of the Horse upon the sending of his Bill for Viscount sc. SIR I Send you the Bill for His Majesties Signature reformed according to His Majesties amendments both in the two places which I assure you were altered with great judgment and in the third place which His Majesty termed a question only But he is an idle body that thinketh His Majesty asketh an idle question and therefore His Majesties questions are to be answered by taking away the cause of the question and not by replying For the name His Majesties Will is a Law in those things and to speak the truth it is a well-sounding and noble name both here and abroad and being your proper name I will take it for a good sign that you shall give honour to your dignity and not your dignity to you Therefore I have made it Viscount Villiers and for your Barony I will keep it for an Earldom For though the other had been more orderly yet that is as usual and both alike good in Law For Ropers place I would have it by all means dispatched and therefore I marvaile it lingreth It were no good manners to take the business out of my Lord Treasurers hands and therefore I purpose to write to his Lordship if I hear not from him first by Mr. Deckome but if I hear of any delay you will give me leave especially since the King named me to deal with Sir Joseph Roper my self for neither I nor my Lord Treasurer can deserve any great thanks in this business of yours considering the King hath spoken to Sir Jo. Roper and he hath promised and besides the thing it self is so reasonable as it ought to be as soon done as said I am now gotten into the Countrey to my house where I have some little liberty to think of that I would think of and not of that which other men hourly break their head withal as it was at London Upon this you may conclude that most of my thoughts are to His Majesty and then you cannot be far off God ever keep you and prosper you I rest always Your true and most dutiful Servant The 5. of August one of the happiest dayes Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers upon the sending his Pattent for Viscount Villiers to be Signed SIR I Have sent you now your Patent of Creation of Lord Bletchly of Bletchly and of Viscount Villiers Beltchly is your own and I liked the sound of the name better then Whaddon but the name will be hid for you will be called Viscount Villiers I have put them in a Patent after the manner of the Patent for Earls where Baronies are joyned but the chief reason was because I would avoid double prefaces which had not been fit nevertheless the Ceremony of Robing and otherwise must be double And now because I am in the Countrey I will send you some of my Countrey fruits which with me are good Meditations which when I am in the City are choked with business After that the King shall have watered your new Dignities with the bounty of the Lands which he intends you and that some other things concerning your Means which are now likewise in intention shall be setled upon you I do not see but you may think your private Fortunes established and therefore it is now time that you should refer your Actions to the good of your Sovereign and your Countrey It is the life of an Oxe or Beast alwayes to eat and never exercise but men are born and specially Christian men not to cramb in their Fortunes but to exercise their Vertues and yet the other hath been the unworthy and thanks be to God sometimes the unlucky humour of great Persons in our times Neither will your future Fortune be the further off for assure your self that Fortune is of a Womans nature and will sooner follow by sleighting than by too much wooing And in this dedication of your self to the Publick I recommend unto you principally that which I think was never done since I was born and which because it is not done hath bred almost a Wilderness and Solitude in the Kings Service which is That you countenance and encourage and advance able men in all kinds degrees and professions For in the time of the Cecils the Father and the Son able men were by design and of purpose suppressed and though of late choice goeth better both in Church and Commonwealth yet money and turn-serving and cunning canvasses and importunity prevaileth too much And in places of moment rather make able and honest men yours than advance those that are otherwise because they are yours As for cunning and corrupt men you must I know sometimes use them but keep them at a distance and let it appear rather that you make use of them than that they lead you Above all depend wholly next unto God upon the King and be ruled as hitherto you have been by His Instructions for that is best for your self For the Kings care and thoughts for you are according to the thoughts of a great King whereas your thoughts concerning your self are and ought to be according to the thoughts of a modest man But let me not weary you the sum is That you think Goodness the best part of Greatness and that you remember whence your rising comes and make return accordingly God keep you August 12. 1616. Sir Francis Bacon to the King about a Certificate of my Lord Coke's It may please Your Excellent Majesty I Send your Majesty inclosed my Lord Coke's answers I will not call them rescripts much less Oracles They are of his own hand and offered to me as they are in writing not required by me to have them set down in writing though I am glad of it for my own discharge I thought it my duty as soon as I received them instantly to send them to Your Majesty and forbear for the present to speak further of them I for my part though this Muscovia-weather be a little too hard for my constitution was ready to have waited upon Your Majesty this day all respects set aside but my Lord Treasurer in respect of the season and much other business was willing to save me I will onely conclude touching these Papers with a Text divided I cannot say Oportuit haec fieri but I may say Finis autem nondum God preserve Your Majesty Your Majesties most humble and devoted Subject and Servant Feb. 14. at 12. a Clock I humbly pray Your Majesty to keep the Papers safe A Letter to the King touching the Lord Chancellors place It may please Your most Excellent Majesty YOur worthy Chancellour I fear goeth his last day God hath hitherto used to weed out such Servants as grew not fit for Your Majesty but now he hath gathered to himself a true sage or salvia out of Your Garden But Your Majesties service must not be mortal
Upon this heavy Accident I pray Your Majesty in all humbleness and sincerity to give me leave to use a few words I must never forget when I moved Your Majesty for the Attorneys place it was your own sole act more then that Somerset when he knew Your Majesty had resolved it thrust himself into the business for a Fee And therefore I have no reason to pray to Saints I shall now again make oblation to your Majesty first of my heart then of my service thirdly of my place of Attorney which I think is honestly worth 16000 l. pound per annum and fourthly of my place of the Star-Chamber which is worth 1600 l. per annum and with the favuor and countenance of a Chancellor much more I hope I may be acquitted of presumption if I think of it both because my Father had the place which is some civil inducement to my desire And I pray God your Majesty may have twenty no worse years in your Greatness then Queen Elizabeth had in her Model after my Fathers placing and chiefly because if the Chancellors place went to the Law it was ever conferred upon some of the Learned Councel and never upon a Judge For Audley was raised from K. Serjeant my Father from Attorney of the Wards Bromley from Sollicitor Puckering from Serjeant Egerton from Master of the Rolls having newly left the Attorneys place Now I beseech Your Majesty let me put you the present case truly If you take my Lord Coke this will follow first Your Majesty shall put an over-ruling nature into an over-ruling place which may breed an extream Next You shall blunt his industries in matter of financies which seemeth to aime at another place And lastly popular men are no sure Mounters for Your Majesties Saddle If you take my Lord Hubbart you shall have a Judge at the upper end of Your Councel-board and another at the lower end Whereby Your Majesty will find your Prerogative pent For though there should be emulation between them yet as Legists they will agree in magnifying that wherein they are best He is no States-man but an Occonomist wholly for himself So as Your Majesty more then an outward form will find little help in him for the business If you take my Lord of Canterbury I will say no more but the Chancellours place requires a whole man And to have both Jurisdictions Spiritual and Temporal in that height is sit but for a King For my self I can only present Your Majesty with Gloria in obsequio yet I dare promise that if I sit in that place Your business shall not make such short turns upon You as it doth but when a direction is once given it shall be pursued and performed and Your Majesty shall only be troubled with the true care of a King which is to think what You would have done in chief and not how for the passages I do presume also in respect of my Fathers memory and that I have been alwayes gracious in the Lower House I have interest in the Gentlemen of England and shall be able to do some good effect in rectifying that Body of Parliament-men which is Cardo rerum For let me tell Your Majesty that that part of the Chancellors place which is to Judge in equity between party and party that same Regnum judiciale which since my Fathers time is but too much enlarged concerneth Your Majesty least more then the acquitting your Conscience for Justice But it is the other part of a Moderator amongst your Councel of an Overseer over your Judges of a planter of fit Justices and Governors in the Country that importeth your affairs and these times most I will add also that I hope by my care the inventive part of your Councel will be strengthned who now commonly do exercise rather their Judgements then their inventions And the inventive part cometh from projectors and private men which cannot be so well In which kinde my Lord of Salisbury had a good method if his ends had been upright To conclude if I were the man I would be I should hope that as Your Majesty hath of late wonne hearts by depressing you should in this leese no hearts by advancing For I see your people can better skill of Concretum then Abstractum and that the waves of their affections flow rather after persons then things So that acts of this nature if this were one do more good then twenty Bills of Grace If God call my Lord the Warrants and Commissions which are requisite for the taking the Seal and for the working with it and for the reviving of Warrants under his hand which dye with him and the like shall be in readiness And in this time presseth more because it is the end of a Term and almost the beginning of the Circuits So that the Seal cannot stand still But this may be done as heretofore by Commission till Your Majesty hath resolved of an Officer God ever preserve Your Majesty Your Majesties most humble Subject and bounden Servant Febr. 12. 1615. A Letter to the King of my Lord Chancellors amendment and the difference begun between the Chancery and Kings Bench. It may please your most Excellent Majesty I Do find God be thanked a sensible amendment in my Lord Chancellor I was with him yesterday in private Conference about half an hour and this day again at such time as he did seal which he endured well almost the space of an hour though the vapour of the wax be offensive to him He is free from a Feaver perfect in his powers of memory and speech and not hollow in his voice nor looks He hath no panting or labouring respiration neither are his Coughs dry or weak But whosoever thinketh his disease to be but Melancholy maketh no true judgment of it for it is plainly a formed and deep Cough with a pectoral surcharge so that at times he doth almost animam agere I forbear to advertise Your Majesty of the care I took to have Commissioners in readiness because Master Secretary Lake hath let me understand he signified as much to Your Majesty But I hope there shall be no use of them for this time And as I am glad to advertise Your Majesty of the amendment of Your Chancellors person so I am sorry to accompany it with an advertisement of the sickness of Your Chancery Court though by the Grace of God that cure will be much easier than the other It is true I did lately write to Your Majesty that for the matter of Habeas corpora which was the third matter in Law you had given me in charge I did think the communion of service between my Lord Chancellor and my Lord Chief Justice in the great business of examination would so join them as they would not square at this time But pardon me I humbly pray Your Majesty if I have too reasonable thoughts And yet that which happened the last day of the Term concerning certain Indictments in the nature
of Praemunire preferred into the Kings Bench but not found is not so much as is noised abroad though I must say it was Omni tempore nimium hoc tempore alienum And therefore I beseech Your Majesty not to give any believing ear to Reports but to receive the Truth from me that am Your Attorney General and ought to stand indifferent for Jurisdictions of all Courts which account I cannot give Your Majesty now because I was then absent and some are now absent which are properly and authentically to inform me touching that which passed Neither let this any way disjoint Your other business for there is a time for all things and this very accident may be turned to good not that I am of opinion that that same cunning Maxim of Separa Impera which sometimes holdeth in persons can well take place in Jurisdictions but because some good occasion by this excess may be taken to settle that which would have been more dangerous if it had gone on by little and little God preserve Your Majesty Your Majesties most humble Subject and most bounden Servant Febr. 15. 1615. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to the King giving some Account touching the Commendams It may please Your most Excellent Majesty I Am not swift to deliver anything to your Majesty before it be well weighed But now that I have informed my self of as much as is necessary touching this proceeding of the Judges to the Argument of the Commendams notwithstanding your Majesties pleasure signified by me upon your Majesties Commandment in presence of my Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of Winchester to the contrary I do think it fit to advertise your Majesty what hath passed the rather because I suppose the Judges since they performed not your Commandment have at least given Your Majesty their reasons of their failing therein I begin to answer for the doing of Your Majesties Commandment and they for the not doing I did conceive that in a cause that concern'd Your Majesty and your Royal power the Judges having heard your Attorney General argue the Saturday before would of themselves have taken further time to be advised And if I fail not in memory my Lord Coke received from Your Majesties self as I take it a precedent commandment in Hillary term That both in the Rege inconsulto and in the Commendams your Attorney should be heard to speak and then stay to be made of further proceeding till my Lord had spoken with your Majesty Nevertheless hearing that the day appointed for the Judges Argument hâ—ld contrary to my expectation I sent on Thursday in the evening having received Your Majesties Commandment but the day before in the afternoon a Letter to my Lord Coke whereby I let him know that upon some Report of my Lord of Winchester who by Your Commandment was present at my Argument of that which passed it was Your Majesties express Pleasure that no further proceeding should be until Your Majesty had confer'd with Your Judges which Your Majesty thought to have done at Your being now last in Town but by reason of Your many and weighty occasions Your Princely times would not serve and that it was Your Pleasure he should signifie so much to the rest of the Judges whereof his Lordship might not fail His answer by word to my Man was That it were good the rest of the Judges understood so much from my self Whereupon I that cannot skill in scruples in matter of Service did write on Friday three several Letters of like Content to the Judges of the Common Pleas and the Barons of the Exchequer and the other three Judges of the Kings Bench mentioning in that last my particular Letter to my Lord Chief Justice This was all I did and thought all had been sure insomuch as the same day being appointed in Chancery for Your Majesties great Cause followed by my Lord Hunsdon I writ two other Letters to both the Chief Justices to put them in mind of assisting my Lord Chancellor at the hearing And when my Lord Chancellor himself took some notice upon that occasion openly in the Chancery that the Commendams could not hold presently after I heard the Judges were gone about the Commendams which I thought at first had been only to adjourn the Court But I heard after that they proceeded to Argument In this their doing I conceive they must either except to the nature of the Commandment or to the credence thereof both which I assure my self Your Majesty will maintain For if they should stand upon the general ground Nulli negabimus nulli differemus Justitiam it receiveth two Answers The one that reasonable and mature advice may not be confounded with delay and that they can well alledge when it pleaseth them The other that there is a great difference between a Case meerly between Subject and Subject and where the Kings interest is in question directly or by consequence At for the Attorneys Place and Commission it is as proper for him to signifie the Kings Pleasure to the Judges as for the Secretary to signifie the same to the Privy Councel and so hath it ever been These things were a little strange if there came not so many of them together as the one maketh the other seem less strange But Your Majesty hath fair occasions to remedy all with small aid I say no more for the present I was a little plain with my Lord Coke in these matters and when his answer was That he knew all these things I said he could never profit too much in knowing himself and his duty Sir Francis Bacon his Advertisement touching an Holy War to the Right Reverend Father in God Lancelot Andrews Lord Bishop of Winchester and Councellor of Estate to His Majesty My Lord AMongst consolations it is not the least to represent a mans self like examples of calamity in others For Example gives a quicker impression then Arguments and besides they certifie us of that which the Scripture also tendereth for satisfaction That no new thing is happened unto us This they do the better by how much the Examples are liker in circumstances to our own case and more especially if they fall upon persons that are greater and worthier then our selves For as it savoureth of vanity to match our selves highly in our own conceit so on the other side it is a good sound conclusion That if our betters have sustained the like events we have the less cause to be grieved In this kind of consolation I have not been wanting to my self though as a Christian I have tasted through Gods great goodness of higher remedies Having therefore through the variety of my reading set before me many examples both of ancient and latter times my thoughts I confess have chiefly stayed upon three particulars as the most eminent and the most resembling all three persons that had held chief place of Authority in their Countreys all three ruined not by war or by any other disaster
all disloyalty as I did that your Lordship knoweth must be ascribed to the superiour duty I did owe to the Queens fame and honour in a publick proceeding and partly to the intention I had to uphold my self in credit and strength with the Queen the better to be able to do my Lord good offices afterwards for assoon as this day was past I lost no time but the very next day following as I remember I attended her Majesty fully resolved to try and put in use my utmost endeavour so far as I in my weakness could give furtherance to bring my Lord speedily again into Court and into favour and knowing as I supposed at least how the Queen was to be used I thought that to make her Conceive that the matter went well then was the way to make her leave off there and I remember well I said to her you have now Madam obtained victory over two things which the greatest Princes in the world cannot at their wills subdue the on is over fame the other is over a great minde for surely the world is now I hope reasonably well satisfied and for my Lord he did shew that humiliation towards Your Majesty as I am perswaded he was never in his life time more fit for Your Majesties favour then he is now therefore if your Majesty will not marr it by lingring but give over at the best and now you have made so good a full point receive him again with tenderness I shall then think that all that is past is for the best Whereat I remember she took exceeding great Contentment and did often iterate and put me in mind that she had ever said that her Proceeding should be ad reparationem and not ad ruinam as who saith that now is the time I should plainly perceive that that saying of hers should prove true And further she willed me to set down in writing all that passed that day I obeyed her Commandment and within some few dayes after brought her again the Narration which I did read unto her in two several Afternoons And when I came to that part that set forth my Lords own Answer which was my principal care I do well bear in mind that she was extraordinarily moved with it with kindness and relenting towards my Lord and told me afterwards speaking how well I had expressed my Lords part that she perceived old love would not be forgotten Whereunto I answered suddenly that I hoped she meant that by her self But in Conclusion I did advise her that now she had taken a representation of the matter to her self that she would let it go no further for Madam said I the Fire blazeth well already what should you tumble it And besides it may please you keep a conveniency with your self in this Case for since your express direction was there should be no Register nor Clerk to take this Sentence nor no Record or Memorial made up of the Proceeding why should you now do that Popularly which you would not admit to be done Judicially Whereupon she did agree that that Writing should be suppressed and I think there were not five persons that ever saw it But from this time forth during the whole latter end of that Summer while the Court was at Non-such and Oatland I made it my task and scope to take and give occasions for my Lords redintegration in his Fortunes Which my intention I did also signifie to my Lord as soon as ever he was at Liberty whereby I might without peril of the Queens indignation write to him and having received from his Lordship a courteous and loving acceptation of my good will and endeavours I did apply it in all my accesses to the Queen which were very many at that time and purposely sought and wrought upon other variable pretences but only and chiefly for that purpose And on the other side I did not forbear to give my Lord from time to time faithful advertisement what I found and what I wished And I drew for him by his appointment some Letters to her Majesty which though I knew well his Lordships gift and stile was far better then mine own yet because he required it alledging that by his long restraint he was grown almost a stranger to the Queens present conceipts I was ready to perform it and sure I am that for the space of six weeks or two moneths it prospered so well as I expected continually his restoring to his attendance And I was never better welcome to the Queen nor more made of then when I spake fullest and boldest for him in which Kind the particulars were exceeding many whereof for an example I will remember to your Lordship one or two as at one time I call to mind her Majesty was speaking of a Fellow that undertook to cure or at least to ease my Brother of his Gout and asked me how it went forwards And I told her Majesty that at first he received good by it but after in the course of his Cure he found himself at a stay or rather worse The Queen said again I will tell you Bacon the Errour of it The manner of these Physitians and especially these Empiricks is to continue one kind of medicine which at the first is proper being to draw out the ill humour but after they have not the discretion to change their medicine but apply still drawing medicines when they should rather intend to cure and corroborate the part Good Lord Madam said I how wisely and aptly can you speak and discern of Physick ministred to the body and consider not that there is the like reason of Physick ministred to the mind as now in the case of my Lord of Essex your Princely word ever was that you intended ever to reform his mind and not ruine his Fortune I know well you cannot but think you have drawn the humour sufficiently and therefore it were more then time and it were but for doubt of mortifying or exulcerating that you did apply and minister strength and comfort unto him for these same gradations of yours are fitter to corrupt than to correct any mind of greatness And another time I remember she told me for News that my Lord had written to her some very dutiful Letters and that she had been moved by them and when she took it to be the abundance of his heart she found it to be but a preparative to a Suit for the renewing of his Farm of sweet Wines Whereto I replied Alas Madam how doth your Majesty construe of these things as if these two could not stand well together which indeed nature hath planted in all Creatures for there are but two sympathies the one towards Perfection the other towards Preservation That to Perfection as the Iron tendeth to the Loadstone that to Preservation as the Vine will creep unto a Stake or Prop that stands by it not for any love to the stake but to uphold it self And therefore Madam you must distinguish my
Lords desire to do you service is as to his perfection that which he thinks himself to be bound for whereas his desire to obtain this thing of you is but for a sustentation and not to trouble your Lordship with many other particulars like unto this it was at the same time that I did draw by my Lords privitie and by his appointment two Letters the one written as from my brother the other as an answer returned from my Lord both to be by me in secret manner shewed to the Queen which it pleased my Lord very strangely to mention at the barr the scope of which were but to represent and picture forth unto her Majesty my Lords minde to be such as I know her Majesty would fainest have had it which Letters whosoever shall see for they cannot now be retracted or altered being by reason of my brother or his Lordships servants delivery long since come into divers hands let him judge specially if he knew the Queen and do remember those times whether they were not the labours of one that sought to bring the Queen about for my Lord of Essex his good The truth is That the issue of all this dealing grew to this that the Queen by some slackness of my Lord as I imagine liked him worse and worse and grew more incensed towards him Then she remembring belike the continual and incessant and confident speeches and courses that I had held on my Lords side became utterly alienated from me and for the space of at least three months which was between Michaelmas and New-years tide following would not so much as look on me but turned away from me with express and purpose-like discountenance wheresoever she saw me and at such time as I desired to speak with Her about Law business ever sent me forth very sleight refusals insomuch as it is most true that immediately after New-years-tide I desired to speak with her and being admitted to Her I dealt with her plainly and said Madam I see you withdraw your favour from me and now I have lost many friends for your sake I must lose you too you have put me like one of those that the French men call Infans perdus that serve on foot before horsemen so have you put me into matters of envy without place or without strength and I know at Chess a pawn before the King is ever much plaid upon a great many love me not because they think I have been against my Lord of Essex and you love me not because you know I have been for him yet will I never repent me that I have dealt in simplicity of heart towards you both without respect of Cautions to my self and therefore vivus vidensque pereo If I do break my neck I shall do it as Dorrington did which walked on the Battlements of the Church many days and took a view and survey where he should fall and so Madam said I I am not so simple but that I take a prospect of my own overthrow only I thought I would tell you so much that you may know it was faith and not folly that brought me into it and so I will pray for you upon which speeches of mine uttered with some Passion it is true Her Majesty was exceedingly moved and accumulated a number of kind and gracious words upon me and willed me to rest upon this Gratia mea sufficit and a number of other sensible and tender words and demonstrations such as more could not be but as touching my Lord of Essex ne verbum quidem Whereupon I departed resting then determined to meddle no more in the matter as that that I saw would overthrow me and not be able to do him any good And thus I made mine own peace with my own Confidence at that time and this was the last time I saw her Majesty before the eighth of February which was the day of my Lord of Essex his misfortune After which time for that I performed at the Bar in my publick service your Lordship knoweth by the rules of duty I was to do it honestly without prevarication but for any putting my self in it I protest before God I never moved the Queen nor any person living concerning my being used in the service either of evidence or of examination but it was meerly laid upon me with the rest of my fellows And for the time that passed between the arraignment and my Lords suffering I well remember I was but once with the Queen at what time though I durst not deal directly for my Lord as things then stood yet generally I did both commend her Majesties mercy terming it to her as an excellent balme that did continually distil from her Sovereign hands and made an excellent odour in the scents of her people and not only so but I took hardiness to extenuate not the fact for that I durst not but the danger telling her that if some base or cruel-minded persons had entred into such an action it might have caused much blood and combustion but it appeared well they were such as knew not how to play the Malefactors and some other words which I now omit And as for the rest of the carriage of my self in that service I have many honourable witnesses that can tell that the next day after my Lords arraignment by my diligence and information touching the quality and nature of the offendors six of nine were stayed which otherwise had been attainted I bringing their Lordships Letter for their stay after the Jury was sworn to pass upon them so near it went and how careful I was and made it my part that whosoever was in trouble about that matter assoon as ever his case was sufficiently known and defined of might not continue in restraint but be set at liberty and many other parts which I am well assured of stood with the duty of an honest man But indeed I will not deny for the case of Sir Thomas Smith of London the Queen demanding my opinion of it I told her I thought it was as hard as many of the rest but what was the reason because at that time I had seen only his accusation and had never been present at any examination of his and the matter so standing I had been very untrue to my service if I had not delivered that opinion But afterwards upon a re-examination of some that charged him who weakned their own testimony and especially hearing himself viva voce I went instantly to the Queen out of the soundness of my Conscience not regarding what opinion I had formerly delivered and told her Majesty I was satisfied and resolved in my Conscience that for the reputation of the Action the Plot was to countenance the Action farther by him in respect of his place then they had indeed any interest or intelligence with him it is very true also about that time her Majesty taking a liking of my Pen upon that which I formerly had done concerning the
sorry that at present I am unfurnished to help you with a Secretary my servant Windebanke is sick Mr. Sommers will not be induced to leave his place So as nevertheless if I can procure you any other meet person by the next Messenger you shall hear I thank you for the Chart of Paris and for a written Book to the Queens Majestie whereof her Majesty would gladly know the Author And so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Richmond 14. July 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AT my last writing by Master Jenny I did not make any mention of answer to your request for the provision of a Secretary Because I heard that you meant to place one Molenenx if he might be recommended by me and truly if he be meet for the place I do well allow thereof for howsoever he did in times past misuse me I have remitted it and wish him well My Lord Keeper prayeth you to use some good means to inquire by the way of Orleans of Sir Ralph Pawlet what is become of him and where he is and how he doth It is certain on the 29. of July the Prince of Scotland was Crowned King at Sterling with all the Ceremonies thereto due and with a general applause of all sorts the Queen yet remaineth where she was Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor 5. Aug. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOu shall perceive by the Queens Majesties Letter to you at this present how earnestly she is bent in the favor of the Queen of Scots and truely since the beginning she hath been greatly offended with the Lords and howsoever her Majesty might make her profit by bearing with the Lords in this Action yet no councel can stay her Majestie from manifesting of her misliking of them So as indeed I think thereby the French may and will easily catch them and make their present profit of them to the damage of England and in this behalf her Majesty had no small misliking of that Book which you sent me written in French whose name yet I know not but howsoever I think him of great Wit and acquaintance in the affairs of the world It is not in my power to procure any reward and therefore you must so use the matter as he neither be discouraged nor think unkindness in me When all is done I think my Lord of Murray will take the Office of Regency and will so band himself with the rest as he will be out of peril at home And as for External power to offend them I think they are so skillful of other Princes causes and needs as I think they will remain without fear We are occupied with no news greater then this of Scotland We begin to doubt of the King of Spains coming out of Spain finding it more likely for his Son to come In Ireland all things proceed smoothly to make the whole Realm obedient the Deputie hath leave to come over to confer with the Queens Majesty upon the affairs My Lord of Sussex wrot from Augusta the 24. of July that he meant to be at Vienna the last of July and also that the Emperor meant to be there at the same time I must heartily pray you to bear with my advice that in your expences you have consideration not to expend so much as by your Bills brought to me by your servant Cartwright it seemeth you do for truely I have no Warrant to allow such several Fees as be therein contained neither did I know any of the like allowed to any of your predecessors and in the paying for your intelligences if you be not well ware you shall for the most part have counterfeited ware for good money In matters of importance or when you are precisely commanded to prosecute matters of weight it is reason your extraordinary charges be born but as to the common Advisees of the Occurrents abroad they are to be commonly had for small value and many times as news for news for at this day the common Advisees from Venice Rome Spain Constantinople Vienna Geneva Naples yea and from Paris are made so currant as every Merchant hath them with their letters from their Factors If I did not know your good Nature I would not thus plainly write and yet if I should not hereof warn you your expences might increase and I know not how to procure your payment and yet hereby I mean to do my best at all times to help you to allowance for all necessary expences and so take my leave Yours assuredly W. Cecil From the Mannor of Guilford 19. Aug. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR I Have had no good Messenger of good time to write unto you the Queens Majesty hath been abroad from Windsor these twenty dayes and returned on Saturday very well Lignerolls is come out of Scotland with very small satisfaction as I think he could not speak with the Queen no more then Sir Nicholas Throckmorton who also is returning The Hambletons hold out the Earl of Murray is now Regent the Queens Majesty our Sovereign remaineth still offended with the Lords for the Queen the example moveth her In Ireland all things prosper and be quiet Sir Henry Sydney shall come onely to confer and shall return to keep a Parliament in Ireland My Lord of Sussex was honorably received the fifth of August lodged and defrayed by the Emperor had his first Audience on the eight the Arch-Duke Charles was looked for within five days and now we daily look for Sir Henry Cobham to come in Post at the least within these ten days All things are quiet within this Realm thanked be Almighty God I have presently a paper sent me from Antwerp in French very strange containing an Edict to compell all Judges Governors all Officers and Councellors to give Attestation of the Catholick Faith if it should be true it should be a hazard to make a plain civil war My Lady your Wife came this night hither to Windsor whom I have warned to write to you by this bearer Yours assuredly W. Cecil Septem 3. 1567. To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOu may perceive by the Queens letter how this noble man is partly of his own minde partly by perswasion stayed and surely if either the French King or the Queen should appear to make any force against them of Scotland for the Queens cause we finde it credibly that it were the next way to make an end of her and for that cause her Majesty is loth to take that way for avoiding of standers that might grow thereby I had provided a young man for you which could have served very well for writing and speaking of French and English but I durst not allow him to serve you in your
Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AFter my hearty commendations the Queens Majesty and my Lords of her Council have been reasonably well satisfied of late by your two dispatches wherein you have largely and well written the last being of the 29. sent hither by the means of Glover of Rohan the other of the 23. brought hither by this bearer your servant before the coming whereof we had plenty of uncertain news brought hither by the means of the passages sometimes from Diep sometime from Bulloigne but comparing them with yours we make them as refuse and yours as clean metal And truely I finde that to be true which you write that you see good cause to forbear writing of every thing there finding by experience that the greater part of reports brought thither proved not the truest I am glad there is no occasion here to requite you with any news for God blesseth us with continuance in our accustomed quietness for the which I wish we might but yield half the thanks The Queens Majesty is in good health and was purposed of late to have gone abroad for her Pastime as she did this time twelve moneths but the foulness of the weather hath letted it There were certain Scots which newly returned into Ireland about November last but they found themselves disappointed of such aide as they looked for and so are gone and scared whereby the Realm remaineth quiet The Earl of Desmond and his brother Sir John be here in the Tower chargeable rather with disorders for private quarrels then for any untruth whereupon some think that whilst they remain here good order may be better stablished there In Scotland things are quietly Governed by the Regent who doth acquit himself very honorably to the advancement of Religion and Justice without respect of persons My Lord of Sussex by his last letters of the 27. of January looked for his resolute answer in such sort at that time as he hoped to be at Antwerp before the end of this moneth What his answer is like to be I assure you on my Faith neither do I know nor can likely conjecture I perceive by some of your letters of late that you were somewhat troubled with light reports of news from hence and therein you thought it strange that you could not hear thereof from me You may be sure that in such a case I would have given you some knowledge if any thing had hapned More as yet I have not at this present but heartily to thank you for the young horse you have bestowed upon me wherein you see my overmuch boldness of your friendship as in many other things and so I heartily take my leave I wish to have a Bill of the names of the principal persons with the place Yours assured W. Cecil Westm. 12. Feb. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters be dated the 10. of Feburary by which they I perceive you did two days before make earnest suit on the behalf of the poor men at Marsciles wherein surely you did very charitably besides that it toucheth the Queens Majesty in honor to have them deliveed and so her Majesty alloweth your doings therein and therefore you may do well to continue it I doubt the former answer will be renewed that is to have the interest of D'Estrill fully remitted which belongeth properly to some of the Queens Subjects who have spent a great deal of money in the pursuit thereof by attendance onely for that purpose upon this Court more then two or three years which of my own knowledge I understand to be true insomuch as they have been forced to be relieved out of prison for very debt grown by this their suite Of late they of Rye took certain Fishers of Diepe which had come upon our shoar in the night and Fished with sundry Netts of unlawful size such as are both by the Ordinances of France and England on both sides condemned and being kept in Ward by them of Rye the Ambassador made earnest suite for them but after the Nets were brought up and some of the parties also and plainly proved before them that they were far unlawful It was agreed by my Lord Steward and the Officers of the houshold here in the favor of them That they should be released and have their Nets with faithful promise never to use the same again upon our Coast Hereof it may be you shall hear but I assure you considering the unreasonableness of their Nets I think they had too much favor in that the Nets were not burned The Queens Majesty this morning willed me to write unto you that you should obtain licence of the French King to send for by safe conduct your Nephew Champernoune which is with the Count Mountgomery whom his father thought to have remained in Normandy with the Countess but now since dinner I perceive by Sir Arthur Champernoune he would be loth to seem to send for him and therefore you may do herein as Sir Arthur Champernoune shall by his letter sent unto you at this time move you for indeed I think the Count Mountgomery would be very loth to part with him for opinion sake The Lord of Arbroth came lately out of Scotland this way and spoke with the Queens Majesty pretending to go into France to sollicite aide for the delivery of the Queen of Scots he came out of Scotland without licence or knowledge of the Regent there this way of late but I trust shortly to hear from of such things as he carryed with him Your admonition of O was well allowed of but about that matter we are otherwise occupied if things may fall out as are meant whereof I cannot write any more because as yet the Iron is not in the Forge I thank you for the Edicts published and printed in Paris which you sent me praying you that you will hereafter continue in the same mauner to send me any thing that is there published Having not heard of any thing from you since the 9. of this moneth this being the 26 I am in some perplexity what to think of matters there for howsoever rumors and news be brought from the Sea coast neither do I believe any for the truth but such as are confirmed by you And hereby you may perceive that the oftner you write the more pleasure you do me Yours assuredly W. Cecil West 26. Feb. 1567. Postscript I hear that Glover of Rohan is very ill used I wish you could help him as you shall understand his grief To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters that have come to my hands were of the 12. of Feb. brought hither by one Bogg of the French Kings Guard who having tarryed as he said fourteen days at Diep for lack of passage by that means came very slowly hither and therefore you must think we be here
it hath been answered untill her cause may appear more probable for her innocency the Queens Majesty cannot with honor receive her personally but if the Queen will by any manner of means honorable let her cause appear to be void of the horrible crime imputed to her for the murthering of her husband she shall be aided and used with all honor whereunto she will give no resolute answer other then that if she may come personally to the Queens Majesty then she will let it appear how she standeth in the cause Hereupon we stand at a brawl she much offended that she hath not her requests and we much troubled with the difficulties finding neither her continuance here good nor her departing hence quiet for us We here speak of one La Mote that should come hither Yours assured W. Cecil From Havering the 13. of July in haste Postscript And for and x I pray you put them in comfort that if extremity should happen they must not be left for it is so universal a cause as none of the Religion can separate themselves one from another we must all pray together and stand fast together and further c. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France AFter my hearty commendations though here be no great cause of present dispatch to you yet for the return of this bearer your servant Darrington having been long here and also to let you understand of the Queens Majesty proceedings with the Queen of Scots since her being in this Realm and since my last letters to you I have taken this occasion to return him to you The Queen of Scots having long laboured the Queens Majesty both by Messages and Letters to have aid of her Majesty against the Lords of Scotland and by force to restore her to her Realm her Majesty could not finde it meet in honor so to do but rather to seek all other good means to compass it with quiet and honor wherein much travailing hath been spent Finally the Queen of Scots hath agreed that her matter shall be heard in this Realm before some good personages to be deputed by the Queens Majesty to meet with some of the Lords of Scotland about New-Castle or Durham or neer this way as shall be found fit and so to be reported to her Majesty This way being now resolved upon and accepted of all parts the Earl of Murray hath offered to come himself in person if her Majesty finde it good accompanyed with others of meet condition to any place and at any time that her Majesty will appoint and because the Lord Herreys having long been here for the Queen of Scots and lately gone to her hath on his Mistrisses behalf required that speed might be used in this matter the Queens Majesty hath by her special letters required the Earle of Murray that all expedition may be made either for his own or else that some others may come chosen to be persons of wisdom and dexterity and void of all particular passion in such a cause as this is and upon his answer of the persons that shall be thus appointed there the Queens Majesty will with all speed send like fit personages from hence to meet with them and in the mean time where they the Lords of Scotland had summoned a Parliament of their three Estates to assemble in this next August her Majesty hath required them to suspend the holding of the Parliament untill the issue of this matter to be heard by her Majesty may come to some end In this meeting the Queens Majesty doth not mean to charge the Queen of Scots but will hear what the Lords can alleadge for themselves to defend all their doings and proceedings for imprisoning and deposing their Queen and other matters published by them and thereof to cause report to be made to her to be answered and likewise to carry such matters as are to come from her against them and upon hearing of all parts as matters shall in truth fall out so doth her Majesty mean to deal further therein as honor will lead and move her to do Whilst these things have been in doing the Queens Majesty hath been advertised though not from the Queen of Scots that she hath deputed the whole Government of her Realm of Scotland to the Duke of Chastilheraulte thereby both to make a party as may be supposed betwixt him and the Earl of Murray and also to be the earnester to procure Forreign aid for his maintenance whereof her Majesty is informed there is a great appearance having obtained of the French King good numbers of Harquebuziers and others ready to embarque for Scotland which being true her Majesty hath good cause to let the said King understand that it is against his promise as your self knoweth best And so hath also the said Queen assured her Majesty that she will not procure any Strangers to come into Scotland for her use untill it may appear what will ensue of this meeting But if the contrary fall out either by her own means or by the procuring of the said Duke of Chastilherault in France the Queens Majesty will not onely forbear to deal any further for the benefit of the Queen of Scots as hitherto her Highness hath done with all honor and sincerity having had as great care of her cause as she her self could have but shall be justly moved to do otherwise then the said Queen or her friends abroad would wish Thus much I thought good to impart unto you of these matters to the end that if you being there finde indeed that the said Duke doth obtain any such aide there to be sent into Scotland you may take occasion to deal therein with the King or with such as you know fittest for the stay thereof The Queen is now removed lately from Carlile to Bolton Castle a house of the Lord Scroops about 30. miles within the land fitter in all respects for her to lye at then Carlile being a Town for Frontier and War the Queens Majesty doth cause her to be very well and honorably used and accompanied And thus having no other present matter to write unto you I thought good herewith to return your servant to you wishing you right heartily well to do From the Court at Endfield the 25. of July 1568. After the end of this letter your servant Wall arrived here with your letters to the Lord Steward the Earl of Leicester and to me for answer to the letter which we wrote to you which letter after I had caused to be deciphered I sent to the Court to them my self being at my house near Waltham not well at ease nor in case to go to Court I long much to hear answer of letters sent by your Lackque touching the matter of an Italian whereof I doubt the Queens Majesty is more careful to hear then she doth here express at this time I have received a letter from an Italian there with you who
and as it seemeth to the advantage of that Queen she took such comfort thereof as she made the Earl of Arguile Lieutenant in one part and the Earl of Huntly in another and the Duke of Chastilherault over all so as they forthwith leavyed Forces and by Proclamation threatned the Regent and all his with fire and sword who upon the Queens request had forborn hostility untill the matter might be heard and upon the 16. day of this moneth the said Regent beginning a Parliament which was appointed six weeks before and quietly holding the same without any Armes about the 19. word came to him that the Earl of Arguile was come to Glasco with 2000. and the Earl of Huntley coming out of the North with a great power to joyn with Arguile and so to come to Sterling to surprise both the place and the King upon which occasion the Earl of Murray brake up the Parliament and sent all the power that he had to stay their joyning together and as I heard the Earl of Huntley is put to the worse and so fled home-ward hereof the Queen of Scots maketh great complaint to the Queens Majesty you may do well when you have done your great Message as you see cause you may charge the Queen Mother with the breach of promise if the Duke of Chastilherault be gone forwards towards Scotland with power Yours assuredly W. Cecil Bissiter 27. Aug. 1568. Postscript I have boldly received from you sundry books and I am bold to pray you to provide for me a book concerning Architecture intituled according to a paper here included which I saw at Sir Smith's or if you think there is any better of a late making of that argument To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight Her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur Lackquey arrived here on Friday in the afternoon and because the Bishop of Reynes hath not yet his audience I stay your servant Wall to bring the knowledge of that shall pass The Ambassador sent his Nephew Willcob to require Audience and that it might be Ordered to have her Majesties Council present at the Bishops Missado Her Majesty answered that they forgot themselves in coming from a King that was but young to think her not able to conceive an answer without her Council and although she could use the advice of her Council as was meet yet she saw no cause why they should thus deal with her being of full years and governing her Realm in better sort then France was so the audience being demanded on Saturday was put off untill Tuesday wherewith I think they are not contented The Cardinal Castillon lyeth at Shene Paris the rather to displease for Callis I think for E London demanded The Duke of Norfolke c. are gone to Yorke where the Dyet shall begin the last of this moneth It is Callice 90 London to the contrary shal be there any 9 7 3 590-0 Dover c. The success of the matters for good Sir I pray advertise me what you may reasonably think of practices what or any like to him I thank you for the book you sent me of Architecture but the Book which I most desired is made by the same Author and yet intituled Novels per bien bastir per Phileont de L'orn I thank you for your Placarts and instruments that you sent me by your Lackquey Yours assuredly as your brother W. Cecil Septem 27. 1568. Postscript And is well used by A the rather to displease all Papists I think he hath or shall shortly have such comfort for E as Steward demanded It is not meant if x shall be proved guilty of the Murther to restore her to V. howsoever her friends may brag to the contrary nor yet shall there be any haste made of her delivery untill the success of the matter of F and F be seen I pray you Sir advertise me what you may reasonably think of Sir Robert Staffords practices with D or any like him To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AFter the letters of the Queens Majesty were closed up at Bissiter her Majesty stayed your Son that he might carry with him a letter for the Marshall Montmorancis wife for thanks for favor to my Lord Chamberlains daughter and for a token which her Majesty now sendeth by your Son being a Ring with a pointed Diamond I beseech you cause the letter to her to be indorsed as you shall think meet for I know not whether she be intituled Madam Lady Duchess of Calsho or Montmorancy or otherwise I write this upon the 20. being Sunday in the afternoon in Rycot where the Queens Majesty is well lodged to her great contentation as she hath commanded me to write to you lacking onely the presence of your self whom she wisheth here untill Thursday that she shall depart from hence of which Message I pray you take knowledge and give her Majesty thanks for she bad me to write thus very earnestly and so fare you well from your own house where also I am better lodged then I was in all this Progress We are truly certified by our own Ambassador from Spain who is on the way thorough France to return that the Prince is suddainly dead but by what occasion it is doubtful Yours assuredly W. Cecil 29. Aug. 1568. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR I Have as I lately signified unto you stayed this bearer John Wall your servant to the time that this Bishop of Rhemes should have his Audience and be answered he was heard on Tuesday and at his departure was required briefly to put in writing the sum of his speech which he did as shall appear by the Copy herewith sent unto you and yet in his speech he touched an offence in the latter end of your Message notingthe Doctrine of Rome to be contrary to Christs wherein he amplified before the Queens Majesty that seeing his Master holdeth the Doctrine of Rome therefore your Majesty should repute him no Christian which speech he said was hardly born by the king in an open Audience whereunto some answer hath been made as you may see to salve the matter by turning the sence that the Doctrine of Rome was contrary to Christs in derogating c. Onely in this was some difference made although indeed your writing was warranted by the Queens Majesties letter and therefore no fault in any wise found in your doings I do send you herewith the copy of the Bishops writing exhibited and the answer of her Majesty thereto which being put in French was yesterday before the Ambassador were admitted to her Majesties presence read unto them by one of the Clarks of the Council in the presence of the Council and afterward they were brought unto her Majesty who did confirm her former answer and so they departed without further debate thereof It was thought they would have used
they have Priests of their Faction who to please the people thereabouts give them Masses and some such trash of the spoils and wastes where they have been and upon the sudden having levyed of all sorts as it is thought of Footmen about four thousand simply appointed for the wars and of Horsemen about a thousand wherein indeed all their strength is and with these numbers before the Earl of Sussex could gather numbers meet to resist them they came down to Todcaster Ferry-brigs and Doncaster being twelve miles or thereabouts wide from Yorke and were not indeed resisted untill at Doncaster the Lord Darcy of the North with certain numbers which he was leading to Yorke did very valiantly repulse a number of them hereupon they are retired to Richmondshire and know not what to enterprise by their stragling in this sort The Earl of Sussex is at Yorke where Sir Ralph Sadler is and hath levyed the power of York-shire against them the Lord Hunsdon is sent to Berwick and to the Borders to levy the like there Sir John Forster to do the like in his marches the Lord Scroope also in his Wardenry the Earl of Cumberland and the Lord Wharton to joyn with their Forces in Westmerland and that side and besides the Lord Admiral with the Forces of Lincoln-shire and the Earl of Warwick with other numbers of Nottinghamshire Darbyshire Warwick-shire and other parts of the South are appointed Lieutenants of the Army who are to joyn with my Lord of Sussex and to do further as shall be found meet And by this means you shall hear shortly I doubt not of the confusion of this Rebellious enterprise who as you may perceive by the Queens Majesties Proclamation are proclaimed thorough the Realm as they have behaved themselves The Queens Majesty hath besides ready upon all occasions an Army of fifteen thousand near to her own person The Queen of Scots is removed from Tutbery to Coventry where attends on her the Earls of Shrewsbury and Huntington Under the Conduct of the Army of the Southern parts is the Viscount Hereford with the power of Staffordshire very well appointed and divers Gentlemen of credit and service of the Court and other places of themselves are gone thither to serve under the said Lieutenants In company with those said Rebels are not many Gentlemen of name but Norton an old man who carryeth the Cross Markinfield Swynbourne and an Uncle of the Earl of Westmerland named Christopher Nevill all the Realm and all the Nobillity besides these onely two Rebels are as obedient as ever they were and surely so like to be whatsoever our ill-willers may report Yours assured W. Cecil 2 Novemb. 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. SIR I Have forborn these two or three days to write unto you because I could not by occasion of some sickness use my own hand and also because I would not detain here any longer this bearer Mr. Rogers who is both serviceable for you and desirous to be returned thither I have thought good to dispatch him towards you who can inform you of such news as we have here and that he may the better do it I have imparted to him such things as I think meet for you to know and for that I am not well able at present to write any more I trust you will be for this time satisfied with such declaration as this bearer shall make unto you Thus fare you heartily well From Windsor the 10. Nov. 1569. I think long to hear from you because I have not received any letters from you since the tenth of the last month which D'amons brought but I doubt not but some of yours be on the way whereby we may understand how things pass there Since the writing hereof came yesterday your Lackqueywith letters of the of wherein you make mention that Lodowick the Count Nassau should be slain which I trust is not so because of other letters which I have seen that came hither by the way of Rochell that testifie nothing of his death but great praise of his service the day of the battel At this present I am unable to write by reason of some sick ness as this bearer can report Herewith I send you a copy in writing of such things as after long debate betwixt the French Ambassador and us hath been here accorded which I wish may be as well performed on their part as they have promised I pray you Sir commend me to my good Lady and your Sons Yours assuredly W. Cecil 12. Novemb. at night To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. SIR THough I think this bringer will deliver you my letter yet I know not with what readiness he will impart to you our state here and therefore have thought good to advertise you thus much that thanked be God our Northern Rebellion is fallen flat to the ground and scattered away The Earls are fled into Northumberland seeking all ways to escape but they are roundly pursued Sir John Forster and Sir Henry Percy in one company my Lord of Sussex in another The 16. hereof they broke up their sorry Army and the 18. they entred into Northumberland the 19. into the Mountains they scattered all their Footmen willing them to shift for themselves and of a thousand Horsemen there fled but five hundred By this time they be fewer and I trust either taken or fled into Scotland where the Earl of Murray is in good readiness to chase them to their ruine yesternight came Mr. Madder and upon the next letters from my Lord of Sussex I will send away Crips or some other The Queens Majesty hath had a notable Tryal of her whole Realm and subjects in this time wherein she hath had service readily of all sorts without respect of Religion Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor 24. Decemb. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. SIR I Have long time determined to send away this bearer your servant Henry Crips but my delay hath grown of a desire that I had to see some good issue of this Rebellion which as it hath had a time of declination and is now suppressed so could I not well before this time send this bearer away who now bringeth her Majesties letters unto you by which you shall understand how her pleasure is that you should impart the events thereof in that Court and indeed hitherto we have no certain and manifest proofs that it should have any other ground but as it is expressed in her Majesties letters nevertheless we have discovered some tokens and we hear of some words uttered by the Earl of Northumberland that maketh us to think this Rebellion had more Branches both of our own and strangers then did appear and I trust the same will be found out though perchance when all are known in secret manner all may not be notified Of all other Occurrents
flight there was taken a hundred prisoners whereof some were of the petty Lords of the Country but the Lord Maxwell the Lord Carlile the Lord Johnson and the rest before named escaped by the strength of the Lord of Cockpools house and a great Wood and a Mauress that was neer there adjoyning and so the said Simon repaired to me with his Company and so we returned home And thus for this time I commit you to the Almighty Yours assured to command H. Scroop Carlile 21. April 1570. Postscript Drumlangricks servants and Tenants whom I had given charge that they should not be dealt withall for that he favored the Kings faction and the Queens Majesties were as cruel against us as any others Sir I have written to my Lord Lieutentant for 500. men but for fourteen dayes and with them I will undertake to march to Dumfriese and lye in that Town and burn and spoil it if the Queen Majesties think it good for the open receipt of her Majesties Rebels is there manifest SIR MY leasure serveth me as I was wont to have it all my time at command of others and none for my self and little for my private friends by the Queens Majesties letter you may perceive the state of things here God send her Majesty a good issue of this Scotish matter whereinto the entry is easie but the passage within doubtful and I fear the end will be monstrous By your letters of late time it hath seemed that the opinion was for the Queens Majesty to be delivered of the Scottish Queen but surely few here among us conceive it feasible with surety My Lord of Suffex useth his charge very honorably and circumspectly upon the Frontiers where indeed he hath made revenge and that only almost upon the guilty I do send you herewith a printed thing or two sent me from Scotland and so take my leave wishing for your own sake that peace might be seen there so as you might bring it for which purpose I trust surely her Majesty will send one for you Yours most assured W. Cecil 23. May 1570. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. SIR THis bearer came hither with good speed I do send you herewith a note of my Lord of Sussex his last letters from Berwick I do also send you in writing the Copy of that which the French Ambassador lately sent thither containing the sum of that which lately passed here betwixt the Queens Majesty and him wherein truely he hath not much differed from that which was accorded The Bishop of Ross departed on Friday last to the Scotish Queen to deal with her that some of her part might come hither out of Scotland to treat of her cause and that Arms might cease on both sides Since his going thither the Queens Majesty understandeth of a Practice that he had two dayes before his departure with a noble man of this Realm being a professed Papist contrary to his manner of dealing with the Queens Majesty whereupon her Majesty is not a little moved against him and therefore I think she will not deal with him at his return We look daily that peace will there be made though we see not how it shall continue but I trust thereby you shall be revoked and I think Mr. Walfingham shall come in your place I have no more at this present I received yesterday a letter from Paris of the 19. of May but I did before that receive another of the 24. Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court 8. June 1570. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. By Letters from Berwick 3. June THe Marshal of Berwick being at Edenburgh with certain Forces dealt with the Earls of Grange and Liddington to procure a surcease of Arms which taking no effect he went with the Noblemen of Scotland that joyned with him to Glasco from whence the Duke and his Associates fled upon their setting forth from thence the Marshal sent to the Bishop of St. Andrews and the Lords who were in Dumbarton Castle to Parly with them to procure an abstinence of Arms who appointed to meet them the next day at a Village half way betwixt Glasco and Dumbarton where missing them at the time appointed he went neerer to Dumbarton whereof he sent them word and thereupon they returned his Messenger and appointed to meet and speak with him out of the Castle so as he would bring but one or two with him and to put away his company and so soon as he had so done and that he was within their Shot they sent him word to look to himself and that they would not come to him and as he turned his Horse divers Harquebusiers laid for the purpose shot at him and they discharged a Falcon at him out of the Castle but he escaped without hurt hereupon the Noblemen which were with him burnt the Country thereabouts that belonged to the Hambletons burnt the Town of Hambleton and razed the Castle of Hambleton and two other principal houses of the said Dukes one in Lithgo and another called Kennell they have also thrown down the Abbot of Kilwrenings house and in effect all the principal houses of the Hambletons and have dealt with no other persons but with an Hambleton and so the Marshall is returned to Berwick c. SIR YEsterday did Crips arrive with your letters from Argenton and two days before came Rogers The Queens Majesty takes the Kings answer doubtful for his sending of Forces into Scotland and therefore hath caused the French Ambassador to understand and to advervise the King that if the King will send Forces thither she will take her self free from her promise of delivering the Q. of Scots of which matter I think he will advertise the King and as you have occasion you may take knowledge thereof for already her Majesty hath revoked her Forces out of Scotland leaving onely in Hume and Fast Castle a small Garrison where our Rebels were most maintained when they invaded England untill her Majesty may have some amends for her subjects losses My Lord of Sussex hath fully avenged the wrongs but yet our people have not recompence Mr. Drury the Marshall with a thousand Foot and four hundred Horse hath so plagued the Hambletons as they never had such losses in all the wars betwixt England and Scotland these fourty years The Queens Majesty hath hurt her Foot that she is constrained to keep her Bed-chamber and therefore the French Ambassador could not yesterday have Audience when he required but is willed to write that he hath to say I am sorry that your servants when they come tarry so long here as they do for it is not my fault and so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Oatlands 22. June 1570. Postscript The Earl of Southampton lately being known to have met in Lambeth Marsh with the Bishop of Ross is for his foolish audacity committed to the Sheriff of London closely to
abolishing of the priviledges of Sanctuaries in case of Treason and that not before he had obtained it by way of suit from Pope Alexander which Sanctuaries nevertheless had been the forges of most of his troubles In his Government he was led by none scarcely by his Laws and yet he was a great observer of formality in all his proceedings which notwithstanding was no impediment to the working of his will 〈…〉 the suppressing and punishment of the Treasons which during the whole time of his Reign were committed against him he had a very strange kind of interchanging of very large and unexpected pardons with severe executions which his Wisdom considered could not be imputed to any Inconstancy or Inequality but to a discretion or at least to a principle that he had apprehended that it was good not obstinately to pursue one course but to try both ways In his Wars he seemed rather confident than enter prizing by which also he was commonly not the poorer but generally he did seem inclinable to live in peace and made but offers of War to mend the conditions of peace and in the quenching of the commotions of his Subjects he was ever ready to atchieve those Wars in Person sometimes reserving himself but never retiring himself but as ready to second Of nature he coveted to accumulate treasure which the People into whom there is infused for the preservation of Monarchies a natural desire to discharge their Princes though it be with the unjust Charge of their Councellors and Ministers did impute unto Cardinal Morton and Sir Reynold Bray who as it after appeared as Councellors of ancient Authority with him did so second his humour as nevertheless they tempted it and refrained it whereas Empson and Dudley that followed being persons that had no reputation with him otherwise than the servile following of his own humour gave him way and shaped him way to these extremities wherewith himself was touched with remorse at his death and with his Successor disavowed In expending of Treasure he never spared Charge that his Affairs required and in his Foundations was Magnificent enough but his Rewards were very limited so that his Liberality was rather upon his own state and memory than towards the deserts of others He chose commonly to employ cunning persons as he that knew himself sufficient to make use of their uttermost reaches without danger of being abused with them himself The rest is wanting A Copy of a Letter from His Majesty to the Lords read at Board Novemb. 21. 1617. touching the abatement of His Majesties Houshold Charge MY Lords no worldly thing is so precious as Time Ye know what task I gave you to work upon during my absence and what time was limited unto you for the performance thereof This same Chancellor of Scotland was wont to tell me twenty four years ago that my house could not be kept upon Epigrams long discourses and fair tales will never repair my estate Omnis vertus in Actione consistit Remember that I told you the shooe must be made for the foot and let that he the Square of all your proceeding in this business Abate super-fluities in all things and multitudes of unnecessary Officers where ever they be placed But for the houshold Wardrope and Pensions cut and carve as many as may agree with the possibility of my means Exceed not your own rule of 50000 l. for the houshold If you can make it lesse I will account it for good service And that you may see I will not spare mine own person I have sent with this bearer a note of the superfluous charges concerning my mouth having had the happy opportunities of this Messenger in an errand so nearly concerning his place In this I expect no answer in word or writing but only the real performance for a beginning to relieve me out of my miseries For now the Ball is at your feet and the world shall bear me witness that I have put you fairly to it and so praying God to bless your labours I bid you heartily farewell Your own James R. A Copy of His Majesties second Letter MY Lords I received from you yesternight the bluntest Letter that I think ever King received from his Councel Ye write that the Green Cloth will do nothing and ye offer me advice Why are ye Councellors if ye offer no Councel an ordinary Messenger might have brought me such an answer It is my pleasure that my charges be equalled with my Revenue and it is just and necessary so to be For this a project must be made and one of the main branches thereof is my house This Project is but to be offered unto you and how it may be best laid then to agree with my honour and contentment ye are to advise upon and then have my consent If this cannot be performed without diminishing the number of the Tables diminished they must be and if that cannot serve two or three must be thrust into one If the Green Cloth will not make a Project for this some others must do it If ye cannot find them out I must Only remember two things That time must no more be lost and that there are twenty wayes of abatement besides the house if they be well looked into And so farewell James R. A Letter from the King to his Lordship by occasion of a Book It was the Organon MY Lord I have received your Letter and your Book then which ye could not have sent a more acceptable Present unto Me how thankful I am for it cannot better be expressed by Me then by a firm resolution I have taken first to read it through with care and attention though I should steal some houres from My sleep having otherwise as little spare time to read it as ye had to write it and then to use the liberty of a true friend in not sparing to ask you the question in any point thereof I shall stand in doubt Nam ejus est explicare cujus est condere As for the other part I will willingly give a due Commendation to such places as in My Opinion shall deserve it In the mean time I can with Comfort assure you that ye could not make choice of a Subject more befitting your place and your universal and Methodick knowledge and in the general I have already observed that ye jump with me in keeping the middle way between the two extreams as also in some particulars I have found that ye agree fully with my opinion and so praying God to give your work as good success as your heart can wish and your labours deserve I bid you heartily farewell James R. To Our Trusty and Well-beloved Thomas Coventry Our Attorney General TRusty and Well-beloved We greet you well whereas our Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Cosen the Viscount of St. Alban upon a sentence given in the Upper-house of Parliament full three years since and more hath endured loss of his place Imprisonment and Confinement
Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley My Lord WIth as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service and your honorable correspondence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a man do I commend my self unto your Lordship I wax now somewhat ancient one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass My health I thank God I find confirmed and I do not fear that action shall impair it because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful then most parts of action are I ever bear a mind in some middle place that I could discharge to serve her Majesty not as a man born under Sol that loveth Honour nor under Jupiter that loveth business for the contemplative Planet carrieth me away wholly but as a man born under an excellent Sovereign that deserveth the dedication of all mens abilities Besides I do not find in my self so much self-love but that the greater parts of my thoughts are to deserve well if I were able of my friends and namely of your Lordship who being the Atlas of this Common-wealth the Honour of my House and the second founder of my poor estate I am tied by all duties both of a good Patriot and of an unworthy Kinsman and of an obliged servant to imploy whatsoever I am to do you service Again the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me for though I cannot accuse my self that I am either prodigal or sloathful yet my health is not to spend nor my course to get Lastly I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends for I have taken all knowledge to be my providence and if I could purge it of two sorts of Rovers whereof the one with frivolous disputations confutations and verbosities the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures hath committed so many spoils I hope I should bring in industrious Observations grounded Conclusions and profitable Inventions and Discoveries the best state of that providence This whether it be curiosity or vain-glory or nature or if one take it favourably Philanthropia is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed And I do easily see that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits then of a mans own which is the thing I greatly affect And for your Lordship perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other And if your Lordship shall find now or at any time that I do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be concurrent say then that I am a most dishonest man And if your Lordship will not carry me on I will not do as Anaxagoras did who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty But this I will do I will sell the inheritance that I have and purchase some lease of quick revenue or some Office of gain that shall be executed by Deputy and so give over all care of service and become some sorry Book-maker or a true Pioneer in that Mine of Truth which he said lay so deep This which I have writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts then words being set down without all Art disguising or reservation Wherein I have done honour both to your Lordships wisdom in judging that that will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest and to your Lordships good nature in retaining nothing from you And even so I wish your Lordship all happiness and to my self means and occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do you service From my Lodging at Grays-Inn Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley My singular good Lord YOur Lordships comfortable Relation of her Majesties gracious opinion and meaning towards me though at that time your leisure gave me not leave to shew how I was affected therewith yet upon every representation thereof it entreth and striketh more deeply into me as both my Nature and Duty presseth me to return some speech of thankfulness It must be an exceeding comfort and encouragement to me setting forth and putting my self in way towards her Majesties service to encounter with an example so private and domestical of her Majesties gracious goodness and benignity being made good and verified in my father so far forth as it extendeth to his Posterity Accepting them as commended by his service during the Non-age as I may term it of their own deserts I for my part am very well content that I take least part either of his abilities of Mind or of his worldly advancement both which he held and received the one of the gift of God immediately the other of her Majesties Gift Yet in the loyal and earnest Affection which he bear to her Majesties service I trust my portion shall not be with the least nor in proportion with the youngest Birth For methinks his president should be a silent charge upon his blessing unto us all in our degrees to follow him afar off and to dedicate unto her Majesties service both the use and spending of our lives True it is that I must needs acknowledge my self prepared and furnished thereunto with nothing but with a multitude of lacks and imperfections but calling to mind how diversly and in what particular providence God hath declar'd himself to tender the state of her Majesties Affairs I conceive and gather hope that those whom he hath in a manner prest for her Majesties service by working and imprinting in them a single and zealous mind to bestow their duties therein he will see them accordingly appointed of sufficiency convenient for the Rank and standing where they shall be imployed so as under this her Majesties blessing I trust to receive a larger allowance of Gods Graces And as I may hope for this so I can assure and promise for my Endeavour that it shall not be in fault but what diligence can intitle me unto that I doubt not to recover And now seeing it hath pleased her Majesty to take knowledge of this my mind and to vouchsafe to appropriate me unto her service preventing any desert of mine with her Princely liberality first I humbly do beseech your Lordship to present to her Majesty my more than humble thanks for the same And withal having regard to mine own unworthiness to receive such favour and to the small possibility in me to satisfie and answer what her Majesty conceiveth I am moved to become a most humble suitor to her Majesty that this benefit also may be affixed unto the other which is That if there appear in me no such towardness of service as it may be her Majesty doth benignly value and assess me at by reason of my sundry wants and the disadvantage of my nature being unapt to lay forth the simple store of those inferiour gifts which God hath allotted unto me most to view yet that it would please her Excellent Majesty not to
especially given in Charge which had not used to be given in Charge before It is true it was not solemnly dwelt upon but as it were thrown in amongst the rest The last day of the Term and that which all men condemn the supposed last day of my Lord Chancellors life there were two Indictments preferred of Praemunire for suing in Chancery after judgement at Common-Law The one by Richard Glanvile the other by William Allen the former against Courtney the party in Chancery Gibb the Councellor and Deurst the Clerk The latter against Alderman Bowles and Humphry Smith parties in Chancery Serjeant Moor the Councellor Elias Wood Sollicitor in the Cause and Sir John Tindall Master of the Chancery and an Assessor to my Lord Chancellor For the Cases themselves it were too long to trouble Your Majesty with them but this I will say If they were set on that preferred them they were the worst Workmen that ever were that set them on for there could not have been chosen two such Causes to the honour and advantage of the Chancery for the justness of the Decrees and the foulness and scandal both of fact and person in those that impeach the Decrees The Grand Jury consisting as it seemeth of very substantial and intelligent persons would not find the Bills notwithstanding that they were much clamoured by the parties and twice sent back by the Court and in Conclusion resolutely 17 of 19 found an Ignoramus wherein for that time I think Ignoramus was wiser than those that knew too much Your Majesty will pardon me if I be sparing in delivering to You some other circumstances of aggravation and concurrences of some like matters the same day as if it had been some fatal constellation They be not things so sufficiently tryed as I dare put them into Your ear For my opinion I cannot but begin with this Preface That I am infinitely sorry that Your Majesty is thus put to salve and cure not only accidents of time but errors of servants For I account this a kind of sickness of my Lord Cooke's that comes almost in as ill a time as the sickness of my Lord Chancellor And as I think it was one of the wisest parts that ever he plaid when he went down to Your Majesty to Royston and desired to have my Lord Chancellor joined with him So this was one of the weakest parts that ever he plaid to make all the World perceive that my Lord Chancellor is severed from him at this time But for that which may concern Your Service which is my end leaving other men to their own wayes First my opinion is plainly that my Lord Cooke at this time is not to be disgraced both because he is so well habituate for that which remaineth of these capital Causes and also for that which I find is in his breast touching Your Finances and matters of repair of Your Estate And if I might speak it as I think it were good his hopes were at an end in some kind so I could wish they were raised in some other On the other side this great and publick Affront not only to the Reverend and well-deserving person of Your Chancellor and at a time when he was thought to lie a dying which was barbarous but to Your High-Court of Chancery which is the Court of Your absolute power may not in my opinion pass lightly nor end only in some formal atonement but use is to be made thereof for the setling of Your Authority and strengthning of Your Prerogative according to the true Rules of Monarchy Now to accommodate and reconcile these Advices which seem almost opposite First Your Majesty may not see it though I confess it be suspitious that my Lord Cooke was any way aforehand privy to that which was done or that he did set it or animate it but only took the matter as it came before him and that his Error was only that at such a time he did not divert it in some good manner Secondly If it be true as is reported that any of the puisne Judges did stir this business or that they did openly revile and menace the Jury for doing their Conscience as they did honestly and truly I think that Judge is worthy to lose his place And to be plain with Your Majesty I do not think there is any thing a greater Polycreston ad multa utile to Your Affairs than upon a just and fit occasion to make some example against the presumption of a Judge in Causes that concern Your Majesty whereby the whole body of those Magistrates may be contained in better awe and it may be this will light upon no unfit subject of a person that is rude and that no man cares for Thirdly If there be no one so much in fault which I cannot yet affirm either way and there must be a just ground God forbid else yet I should think that the very presumption of going so far in so high a Cause deserveth to have that done which was done in this very case upon the Indictment of Serjeant Heale in Queen Elizabeth's time that the Judges should answer it upon their knees before Your Majesty or Your Councel and receive a sharp admonition at which time also my Lord Wrey being then Chief Justice slipt the Collar and was forborn Fourthly for the persons themselves Glanvile and Allen which are base Fellows and turbulent I think there will be discovered and proved against them besides the preferring of the Bill such combination and contemptuous speeches and behaviour as there will be good ground to call them and perhaps some of their petty Councellors at Law into the Star-Chamber In all this which I have said Your Majesty may be pleased to observe That I do not engage you much in the main point of the Jurisdiction for which I have a great deal of reason which I now forbear But two things I wish to be done the one That Your Majesty take this occasion to redouble unto all Your Judges Your ancient and true Charge and Rule That You will endure no innovating in the point of Jurisdictions but will have every Court impaled within their own Presidents and not assume to themselves new Powers upon conceits and inventions of Law The other That in these high Causes that touch upon State and Monarchy Your Majesty give them strait charge That upon any occasions intervenient hereafter they do not make the vulgar party to their contestations by publick handling them before they have consulted with Your Majesty to whom the reglement of those things appertaineth To conclude I am not without hope That Your Majesties managing this business according to Your great wisdom unto which I acknowledge my self not worthy to be Card-holder or Candle-holder will make profit of this accident as a thing of Gods sending Lastly I may not forget to represent to Your Majesty That there is no thinking of Arraignments until these things be somewhat accommodated and some outward and superficial
Reconciliation at least made between my Lord Chancellor and my Lord Chief Justice for this accident is a Banquet to all Somersets friends But this is a thing that falleth out naturally of it self in respect of the Judges going Circuit and my Lord Chancellors infirmity with hope of recovery And although this protraction of time may breed some doubt of mutability yet I have lately learned out of an excellent Letter of a certain King That the Sun sheweth sometimes watry to our eyes but when the Cloud is gone the Sun is as before God preserve Your Majesty Your Majesties most humble Subject and most bounden Servant Febr. 21. 1615. Your Majesties Commandment speaketh for pardon of so long a Letter which yet I wish may have a short continuance and be punished with fire A Letter to the King touching matter of Revenue and Profit It may please your Majesty I May remember what Tacitus saith by occasion that Tiberius was often and long absent from Rome In Urbe parva magna negotia Imperatorem simul premunt But saith he in recessu dimissis rebus minoris momenti summae rerum magnarum magis agitantur This maketh me think it shall be no incivility to trouble your Majesty with business during your aboad from London knowing your Majesties Meditations are the principal wheel of your estate and being warranted by a former commandment which I received from you I do now only send your Majesty these papers inclosed because I greatly desire so far forth to preserve my Credit with you as thus That whereas lately perhaps out of too much desire which induceth too much belief I was bold to say that I thought it as easie for your Majesty to come out of want as to go forth of your Gallery your Majesty would not take me for a dreamer or a projector I send your Majesty therefore some grounds of my hopes And for that paper which I have gathered of increasments sperate I beseech you to give me leave to think that if any of the particulars do fail it will be rather for want of workmanship in those that shall deal in them than want of materials in the things themselves The other paper hath many discarding cards and I send it chiefly that your Majesty may be the less surprized by projectors who pretend sometimes great discoveries and inventions in things that have been propounded and perhaps after a better fashion long since God Almighty preserve your Majesty Your Majesties most humble and devoted Servant and Subject April 25 1610. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to the King touching the proceeding with Somerset It may please your most excellent Majesty AT my last access to your Majesty it was sit for me to consider the time and your journey which maketh me now trouble your Majesty with a remnant of that I thought then to have said besides your old Warrant and Commission to me to advertise your Majestie when you are aux champs of any thing that concern'd your service and my place I know your Majestie is Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus and I confess in regard of your great judgment unto which nothing ought to be presented but well weighed I could almost wish that the manner of Tiberius were in use again of whom Tacitus saith Mos erat quamvis praesentem scripto adire much more in absence I said to your Majestie that which I do now repeat that the Evidence upon which my Lord of Somerset standeth indicted is of a good strong thred considering impoysoning is the darkest of offences but that the thred must be well spun and woven together For your Majestie knoweth it is one thing to deal with a Jury of Middlesex and Londoners and another to deal with the Peers whose objects perhaps will not be so much what is before them in the present Case which I think is as odious to them as to the vulgar but what may be hereafter Besides there be two disadvantages we that shallgive in evidence shall meet with somewhat considerable the one that the same things often open'd lose their freshness except there be an aspersion of somewhat that is new the other is the expectation raised which makes things seem less then they are because they are less then opinion Therefore I were not your Attorney nor my self if I should not be very careful that in this last part which is the pinacle of your former Justice all things may pass sine offendiculo sine scrupulo Hereupon I did move two things which having now more fully explained my self I do in all humbleness renew First That your Majesty will be careful to chuse a Steward of Judgment that may be able to moderate the Evidence and cut off Digressions for I may interrupt but I cannot silence The other That there may be special care taken for the ordering of the Evidence not only for the knitting but for the list and to use your Majesties own word the confining of it This to do if your Majestie vouchsafe to direct it your self that is the best if not I humbly pray you to require my Lord Chancellor that he together with my Lord Chief Justice will confer with my self and my sellows that shall be used for the marshalling and bounding of the Evidence that we may have the help of his opinion as well as that of my Lord Chief Justice whose great travels as I much commend yet that same Plerophoria or over-confidence doth always subject things to a great deal of chance There is another business proper for me to crave of Your Majesty at this time as one that have in my eye a great deal of Service to be done concerning Your casual Revenue but considering times and persons I desire to be strengthned by some such form of Commandment under Your Royal Hand as I send You here inclosed I most humbly pray Your Majesty to think that I understand my self right well in this which I desire and that it tendeth greatly to the good of Your Service The Warrant I mean not to impart but upon just occasion Thus thirsty to hear of Your Majesties good health I rest Jan. 22. 1615. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers concerning the proceeding with Somerset SIR I Thought it convenient to give His Majesty an account of that which His Majesty gave me in charge in general reserving the particulars for His coming And I find it necessary to know His pleasure in some things ere I could further proceed My Lord Chancellor and my self spent Thursday and Yesterday the whole Forenoons of both dayes in the Examination of Sir Robert Cotton whom we find hitherto but empty save only in the great point of the Treaty with Spain This Examination was taken before His Majesties Warrant came to Mr. Vice-Chamberlain for communicating unto us the Secrets of the Pensions which Warrant I received Yesterday morning being Friday and a meeting was appointed at my Lord Chancellors
in the Evening after Councel Upon which Conference we find matter of further Examination for Sir Robert Cotton of some new Articles whereupon to examine Somerset and of entring into Examination of Sir William Mounson Wherefore first for Somerset being now ready to proceed to examine him we stay only upon the Duke of Lenox who it seemeth is fallen sick and keepeth in without whom we neither think it warranted by His Majesties direction nor agreeable to His intention that we should proceed for that will want which should sweeten the Cup of Medicine he being his Countrey man and Friend Herein then we humbly crave His Majesties direction with all convenient speed whether we shall expect the Dukes recovery or proceed by our selves or that His Majesty will think of some other person qualified according to His Majesties just intention to be joined with us I remember we had speech with His Majesty of my Lord Hay and J for my part can think of no other except it should be my Lord Chancellor of Scotland for my Lord Binning may be thought too near allied I am further to know His Majesties pleasure concerning the day For my Lord Chancellor and J conceived His Majesty to have designed the Monday and Tuesday aftet St. Georges Feast and nevertheless we conceived also That His Majesty understood that the Examinations of Somerset about this and otherwise touching the Spanish practices should first be put to a point which will not be possible as time cometh on by reason of this accident of the Dukes sickness and the cause we find of Sir William Mounsons Examination and that divers of the peers are to be sent for from remote places It may please His Majesty therefore to take into consideration whether the days may not well be put off till Wednesday and Thursday after the Term which endeth on the Munday being the Wednesday and Thursday before Whitsontide or if that please not His Majesty in respect it may be His Majesty will be then in Town whereas these Arraignments have been still in His Majesties absence from Town then to take Munday and Tuesday after Trinity-Sunday being the Munday and Tuesday before Trinity Term. Now for Sir William Mounson if it be His Majesties pleasure that my Lord Chancellor and I shall proceed to the examination of him for that of the Duke of Lenox differs in that there is not the like cause as in that of Somerset then His Majesty may be pleased to direct his Commandment and Warrant to my Lord Chief Justice to deliver unto me the examinations he took of Sir William Mounson that those joyned to the information which we have received from Mr. Vice-Chamberlain may be full instructions unto us for his examination Further I pray let His Majesty know that on Thursday in the evening my Lord Chief Justice and my self attended my Lord Chancellor at his house for the setling of that scruple which His Majesty most justly conceived in the Examination of the Lady Somerset at which time resting on His Majesties opinion That that Evidence as it standeth now unclear'd must Secundum leges sanae Conscientiae be laid aside the question was Whether we should leave it out or try what a Re-examination of my Lady Somerset would produce Whereupon we agreed upon a Re-examination of my Lady Somerset which my Lord Chief Justice and I have appointed for Monday morning I was bold at that meeting to put my Lord Chief Justice a posing question which was Whether that opinion which his Brethren had given upon the whole Evidence and he had reported to His Majesty viz. That it was good Evidence in their opinions to convince my Lord of Somerser was not grounded upon this part of the Evidence now to be omitted as well as upon the rest Who answered confidently That no and they never saw the exposition of the Letter but only the Letter The same Thursday evening before we entred into this last matter and in the presence of Mr. Secretary Winwood who left us when we went to the former business we had conference concerning the frauds and abusive Grants passed to the prejudice of His Majesties State of Revenue where my Lord Chief Justice made some relation of his collections which he had made of that kind of which I will say only this that I heard nothing that was new to me and I found my Lord Chancellor in divers particulars more ready then I found him We grew to a distribution both of times and of matters For we agreed what to begin with presently and what should follow and also we had consideration what was to be holpen by Law what by Equity and what by Parliament Wherein I must confess that in the last of these of which my Lord Chief Justice made most accompt I make most doubt But the Conclusion was That upon this entrance I should advise and conferr at large with my Lord Chief Justice and set things on work The particulars I referr till His Majesties coming The learned Councel have attended me now twice at my Chamber to confer upon that which His Majesty gave us in Commandment for our opinions upon the Case set down by my Lord Chancellor whether the Statutes extend to it or no. Wherein we are more and more edified and confirmed that they do not and shall shortly send our Report to His Majesty Sir I hope you will bear me witness I have not been idle but all is nothing to the Duty I owe His Majesty for his singular favours past and present supplying all with love and prayers I rest Your true Friend and devoted Servant April 13. 1616. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney giving account of an Examination taken of Somerset at the Tower SIR I Received from you a Letter of very brief and clear directions and I think it a great blessing of God upon me and my labours that my directions come by so clear a Conduit as they receive no tincture in the passage Yesterday my Lord Chancellor the Duke of Lenox and my self spent the whole afternoon at the Tower in the examination of Somerset upon the Articles sent from his Majesty and some other additionals which were in effect contained in the former but extended to more particularity by occasion of somewhat discovered by Cottons examination and Mr. Vice-Chamberlains information He is full of protestations and would fain keep that quarter toward Spain clear using but this for Argument That he had such fortunes from his Majesty as he could not think of bettering his conditions from Spain because as he said he was no military man He cometh nothing so far on for that which concerneth the Treaty as Cotton which doth much aggravate suspicion against him The further particulars I reserve to his Majesties coming In the end tanquam obiter but very effectually my Lord Chancellor put him in minde of the state he stood in for the imprisonment but he was little moved with it and pretended carelesness of life
since ignominy had made him unfit for his Majesties service I am of opinion that the fair usage of him as it was fit for the Spanish examinations and for the questions touching the Papers and Dispatches and all that so it was no good preparative to make him descend into himself touching his present danger and therefore my Lord Chancellor and my self thought not good to insist upon it at this time I have received from my Lord Chief Justice the examinations of Sir William Mounson with whom we mean to proceed to further examination with all speed My Lord Chief Justice is altered touching the re-examination of the Lady and desired me that we might stay till he spake with his Majesty saying it could be no casting back to the business which I did approve My self with the rest of my fellows upon due and mature advice perfected our Report touching the Chancery for the receiving whereof I pray you put his Majesty in mind at his coming to appoint some time for us to wait upon him all together for the delivery in of the same as we did in our former Certificate For the Revenue matters I reserve them to his Majesties coming and in the mean time I doubt not but Master Secretary Winwood will make some kind of Report thereof to his Majesty For the conclusion of your Letter concerning my own comfort I can say but the Psalm of Quid retribuam God that giveth me favour in his Majesties eyes will strengthen me in his Majesty service I ever rest Your true and devoted Servant April 18. 1616. To requite your Post-script of excuse for scribling I pray you excuse that the Paper is not gilt I writing from Westminster Hall where we are not so fine Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers touching the proceeding with Somerset SIR I Have received my Letter from his Majesty with his marginal notes which shall be my directions being glad to perceive I understand his Majesty so well That little Charm which may be secretly infused into Somersets ear some few hours before his Tryal was excellently well thought of by his Majesty and I do approve it both for matter and time only if it seem good to his Majesty I would wish it a little enlarged For if it be no more but to spare his blood he hath a kind of proud humour which may over-work the Medicine Therefore I could wish it were made a little stronger by giving him some hope that his Majesty will be good to his Lady and child and that time when Justice and his Majesties Honour is once salved and satisfied may produce further fruit of his Majesties compassio which was to be seen in the example of Southampton whom his Majesty after attainder restor d and Cobham and Gray to whom his Majesty notwithstanding they were offendors against his own person yet spared their lives and for Gray his Majesty gave him back some part of his estate and was upon point to deliver him much more he having been so highly in his Majesties favour may hope well if he hurt not himself by his publick misdemeanor For the person that should deliver this message I am not so well seen in the Religion of his friends as to be able to make choice of a particular my Lord Treasurer the Lord Knolles or any of his neerest friends should not be trusted with it for they may go too far and perhaps work contrary to His Majesties ends Those which occur to me are my Lord Hay my Lord Burghley of England I mean and Sir Robert Carr. My Lady of Somerset hath been re-examined and His Majesty is sound both a true Prophet and a most just King in that scruple he made For now she expoundeth the word He that should send the Tarts to Helwish's wife to be of Overbury and not of Somerset But for the person that should bid her she saith it was Northampton or Weston not pitching upon certainty which giveth some advantage to the evidence Yesterday being Wednesday I spent 4 or 5 houres with the Judges whom His Majesty designed to take consideration with the four Judges of the Kings Bench of the Evidence against Somerset They all concurre in opinion that the questioning him and drawing him on to tryal is most honourable and just and that the Evidence is fair and good His Majesties Letter to the Judges concerning the Commendams was full of magnanimity and wisdome I perceive His Majesty is never less alone then when he is alone for I am sure there was no body by him to informe him which made me admire it the more The Judges have given day over till the second Saturday of the next term so as that matter may indure further consideration for His Majesty not only not to lose ground but to win ground To morrow is appointed for the examination of Somerset which by some infirmitie of the Duke of Lenox was put off from this day When this is done I will write more fully ever resting Your true and devoted servant May 2. 1616. Sir Francis Bacon the Kings Attorney to Sir George Villiers of Account and Advice to His Majesty touching Somerset's Arraignment SIR I Am far enough from opinion that the Redintegration or Resuscitation of Somersets fortune can ever stand with his Majesties honour and safety and therein I think I exprest my self fully to his Majesty in one of my former letters and I know well any expectation or thought abroad will do much hurt But yet the glimmering of that which the King hath done to others by way of talke to him cannot hurt as I conceive but I would not have that part of the Message as from the King but added by the Messenger as from himself This I remit to His Majesties Princely judgement For the person though he trust the Lieutenant well yet it must be some new man for in these cases that which is ordinary worketh not so great impressions as that which is new and extraordinary The time I wish to be the Tuesday being the even of his Ladies Arraignment For as His Majesty first conceived I would not have it stay in his stomack too long lest it sowre in the digestion and to be too neer the time may be thought but to tune him for that day I send herewithal the substance of that which I purpose to say nakedly and only in that part which is of tenderness for that I conceive was His Majesties meaning It will be necessary because I have distributed parts to the two Serjeants as that Paper doth express and they understand nothing of His Majesties pleasure of the manner of carrying the Evidence more than they may guess by observation of my Example which they may ascribe as much to my nature as to direction therefore that His Majesty would be pleased to write some few words to us all signed with His own Hand that the matter it self being Tragical enough bitterness and insulting be forborn and that
such directions or significations of Your pleasure as this advertisement may induce and that with speed because the time cometh on Well remembring who is the person whom Your Majesty admitted to this secret I have sent this Letter open unto him that he may take Your Majesties times to report it or shew it unto You assuring my self that nothing is more firm than his Trust tyed to Your Majesties Commandments Your Majesties most humble and most bounden Subject and Servant April 28. 1616. The Copy of a Letter conceived to be written to the late Duke of Buckingham when he first became a Favourite to King James by Sir Francis Bacon afterwards Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Alban Containing some Advices unto the Duke for his better direction in that eminent place of the Favourite Drawn from him at the intreaty of the Duke himself by much importunity Noble SIR WHAT you requested of me by word when I last waited on you you have since renewed by your Letters Your requests are commands unto me and yet the matter is of that nature that I find my self very unable to serve you therein as you desire It hath pleased the King to cast an extraordinary eye of favour upon you and you express your self very desirous to win upon the Judgment of your Master and not upon his Affections only I do very much commend your noble ambition herein for Favour so bottomed is like to be lasting whereas if it be built upon the sandy foundation of personal respects only it cannot be long-lived Yet in this you have erred in applying your self to me the most unworthy of your servants to give assistance upon so weighty a subject You know I am no Courtier nor vers'd in State-affairs my life hitherto hath rather been contemplative then active I have rather studied Books then Men I can but guess at the most at these things in which you desire to be advised Nevertheless to shew my obedience though with the hazard of my discretion I shall yield unto you Sir In the first place I shall be bold to put you in minde of the present condition you are in you are not only a Courtier but a Bed-Chamber man and so are in the eye and eare of Your Master but you are also a favourite The Favourite of the time and so are in his bosome also The world hath so voted you and doth so esteem of you for Kings and great Princes even the wisest of them have had their friends their Favourites their Privadoes in all ages for they have their affections as well as other men of these they make several uses sometimes to communicate and debate their thoughts with them and to upon their judgments thereby sometimes to ease their cares by imparting them and sometimes to interpose them between themselves and the envy or malice of their people for Kings cannot erre that must be discharged upon the shoulders of their Ministers and they who are neerest unto them must be content to bear the greatest load Truly Sir I do not believe or suspect that you are chosen to this eminency out of the last of these considerations for you serve such a Master who by his Wisdom and Goodness is as free from the malice or envy of His Subjects as I think I may say truly ever any King was who hath sate upon His Throne before him But I am confident his Majesty hath cast His eys upon you as finding you to be such as you should be or hoping to make you to be such as he would have you to be for this I may say without flattery your out-side promiseth as much as can be expected from a Gentleman But be it in the one respect or other it belongeth to you to take care of your self and to know well what the name of a Favourite signifies If you be chosen upon the former respects you have reason to take care of your actions and deportment out of your gratitude for the Kings sake but if out of the latter you ought to take the greater care for your own sake You are as a new-risen starre and the eys of all men are upon you let not your own negligence make you fall like a Meteor The contemplation then of your present condition must necessarily prepare you for action what time can be well spar'd from your attendance on Your Master will be taken up by suitors whom you cannot avoid nor decline without reproach for if you do not already you will soon find the throng of suitors attend you for no man almost who hath to do with the King will think himself safe unless you be his good Angel and guide him or at least that you be not a Malus Genius against him so that in respect of the King Your Master you must be very wary that you give him true information and if the matter concern him in his Government that you do not flatter him if you do you are as great a Traytor to him in the Court of Heaven as he that draws his sword against him and in respect of the suitors which shall attend you there is nothing will bring you more honour and more ease then to do them what right in justice you may and with as much speed as you may for believe it Sir next to the obtaining of the suit a speedy and a gentle denial when the case will not bear it is the most acceptable to suitors they will gaine by their dispatch whereas else they shall spend their time and money in attending and you will gaine in the ease you will find being rid of their importunity But if they obtain what they reasonably desired they will be doubly bound to you for your favour Bis dat qui cito dat it multiplies the courtesie to do it with good words and speedily That you may be able to do this with the best advantage my humble advice is this when Suitors come unto you set apart a certain hour in a day to give them Audience If the business be light and easie it may by word only be delivered and in a word be answered but if it be either of weight or of difficulty direct the Suitor to commit it to writing if it be not so already and then direct him to attend for his Answer at a set-time to be appointed which would constantly be observed unless some matter of great moment do interrupt it when you have received the Petitions and it will please the Petitioners well to have access unto you to deliver them into your own hand let your Secretary first read them and draw lines under the material parts thereof for the matter for the most part lies in a narrow room The Petitions being thus prepared do you constantly set apart an hour in a day to peruse those Petitions and after you have ranked them into several Files according to the subject matter make choice of two or three Friends whose judgments and fidelities you believe you may
to mind you of which nearly concerns your self you serve a great and gracious Master and there is a most hopeful young Prince whom you must not desert it behoves you to carry your self wisely and evenly between them both adore not so the rising Son that you forget the Father who raised you to this height nor be you so obsequious to the Father that you give just cause to the Son to suspect that you neglect him But carry your self with that judgment as if it be possible may please and content them both which truly I believe will be no hard matter for you to do so may you live long beloved of both which is the hearty prayer of Your most obliged and devoted Servant Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers of Advice concerning Ireland from Gorambury to Windsor SIR BEcause I am uncertain whether His Majesty will put to a point some Resolutions touching Ireland now at Windsor I thought it my Duty to attend His Majesty by my Letter and thereby to supply my Absence for the renewing of some former Commissions for Ireland and the framing of a new Commission for the Wards and the Alienations which appertain properly to me as His Majesties Attorney and have been accordingly referred by the Lords I will undertake that they are prepared with a greater care and better application to His Majesties Service in that Kingdom than heretofore they have been and therefore of that I say no more And for the Instructions of the new Deputy they have been set down by the two Secretaries and read to the Board and being things of an ordinary nature I do not see but they may pass But there have been three Propositions and Councels which have been stirred which seem to me of very great importance wherein I think my self bound to deliver to His Majesty my Advice and Opinion if they should now come in question The first is touching the Recusant Magistrates of the Towns of Ireland and the Commonalties themselves and their Electors what shall be done which Consultation ariseth from the late Advertisements from the two Lord Justices upon the instance of the two Towns Limrick and Kilkenny in which Advertisements they represent the Danger only without giving any light for the Remedy rather warily for themselves than agreeable to their duties and places In this point I humbly pray His Majesty to remember that the refusal is not of the Oath of Allegiance which is not enacted in Ireland but of the Oath of Supremacy which cutteth deeper into matter of Conscience Also that His Majesty will out of the depth of His Excellent Wisdom and providence think and as it were calculate with himself whether time will make more for the Cause of Religion in Ireland and be still more and more propitious or whether differing remedies will not make the Case more difficult For if time give His Majesty the advantage what needeth precipitation of extream remedies but if the time will make the Case more desperate then His Majesty cannot begin too soon Now in my opinion time will open and facilitate things for Reformation of Religion there and not shut up or lock out the same For first the plantations going on and being principally of Protestants cannot but mate the other party in time Also His Majesties care in placing good Bishops and good Divines in amplifying the Colledge there and looking to the education of Wards and such like as they are the most natural means so are they like to be the most effectual and happy for the weeding out of Popery without using the temporal sword so that I think I may truly conclude that the ripeness of time is not yet come Therefore my advice is in all humbleness that this hazardous course of proceeding to tender the Oath to the Magistrates of Towns proceed not but die by degrees And yet to preserve the authority and reputation of the former Councel I would have somewhat done which is that there be a proceeding to seisure of liberties but not by any act of power but by quo Warranto or Scire Facias which is a legal course and will be the work of three or four Terms by which time the matter will be somewhat cool But I would not in no case that the proceeding should be with both the Towns which stand now in contempt but with one of them only choosing that which shall be most fit For if His Majesty proceed with both then all the Towns that are in the like case will think it a common Cause and that it is but their case to day and their own to morrow But if His Majesty proceed but with one the apprehension and terror will not be so strong for they may think it may be their case to be spared as well as prosecuted And this is the best Advice that I can give to His Majesty in this strait and of this opinion seemed my Lord Chancellor to be The second Proposition is this It may be His Majesty will be moved to reduce the number of His Councel of Ireland which is now almost fifty to twenty or the like number in respect that the greatness of the number doth both imbase the Authority of the Councel and divulge the business Nevertheless I hold this Proposition to be rather specious and solemn than needful at this time for certainly it will fill the State full of discontentment which in a growing and unsetled State ought not to be This I could wish that His Majesty would appoint a select number of Councellors there which might deal in the improvement of His Revenue being a thing not to pass through too many hands and the said selected number should have dayes of sitting by themselves at which the rest of the Councel should not be present which being once setled then other principal business of State may be handled at these sittings and so the rest begin to be disused and yet retain their countenance without murmur or disgrace The third Proposition as it is moved seemeth to be pretty if it can keep promise for it is this That a means may be found to re-enforce His Majesties Army by five hundred or a thousand men and that without any Penny increase of charge And the means should be That there should be a Commandment of a local removing and transferring some Companies from one Province to another whereupon it is supposed that many that are planted in House and Lands will rather lose their entertainment then remove and thereby new men may have their Pay yet the old be mingled in the Countrey for the strength thereof In this Proposition two things may be feared the one discontent of those that shall be put off the other that the Companies shall be stuffed with Novices Tirones instead of Veterani I wish therefore that this Proposition be well debated before it be admitted Thus having performed that which Duty binds me to I commend you to Gods best preservation Your most devoted and
interessed in the care of future times that as well their Progeny as their people may participate of their merit Your Majesty is a great Master in Justice and Judicature and it were pity the fruit of that your vertue should not be transmitted to the ages to come Your Majesty also reigneth in learned times the more no doubt in regard of your own perfection in learning and your Patronage thereof and it hath been the mishap of works that the less learned time hath sometimes wrought upon the more Learned which now will not be so As for my self the Law was my profession to which I am a debtor some little help I have of my Arts which may give form to matter and I have now by Gods merciful chastisement and by his special providence time and leasure to put my Talent or half Talent or what it is to such exchanges as may perhaps exceed the Interest of an active life Therefore as in the beginning of my troubles I made offer to Your Majesty to take pains in the story of England and in compiling a Method and Digest of your Laws so have I performed the first which rested but upon my self in some part And I do in all humbleness renew the offer of this Letter which will require help and assistance to Your Majesty if it shall stand with your good pleasure to imploy my service therein Sir Francis Bacon to the Right Honourable his very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire Lord Lieutenant of Ireland IT may please your good Lordship I cannot be ignorant and ought to be sensible of the wrong which I sustain Common speech as if I had been false or unthankful to that noble but unfortunate Earl the Earl of Essex and for satisfying the vulgar sort I do not so much regard it though I love a good name but yet as a hand-maid and attendant of honesty and vertue For I am of his opinion that said pleasantly that it was a shame to him that was a Suitor to the Mistress to make Love to the Waiting-woman And therefore to Wooe or Court common fame otherwise then it followeth upon honest courses I for my part find not my self fit nor disposed But on the otherside there is no worldly thing that concerneth my self which I hold more dear then the good opinion of certain persons amongst which there is none I would more willingly give satisfaction unto then to your Lordship First because you loved my Lord of Essex and therefore will not be partial towards me which is part of that I desire next because it hath ever pleased you to shew your self to me an honourable friend and so no baseness in me to seek to satisfie you And lastly because I know your Lordship is excellently grounded in the true rules and habits of duties and moralities which must be they which shall decide this matter wherein my Lord my defence needeth to be but simple and brief namely that whatsoever I did concerning that action and proceeding was done in my duty and service to the Queen and her State in which I would not shew my self falshearted nor faint-hearted for any mans sake alive For every honest man that hath his heart well planted will forsake his King rather than forsake God and forsake his Friends than forsake his King and yet will forsake any earthly Commodity yea and his own life in some cases rather than forsake his Friend I hope the world hath not forgotten his degrees else the Heathen saying amicus usque ad aras shall jndge them and if any man shall say that I did officiously intrude my self into that business because I had no ordinary place the like may be said of all the business in effect that passed the hands of the learned Councel either of State or Revenue these many years wherein I was continually used for as your Lordship may remember the Queen knew her strength so well as she looked her word should be a Warrant and after the manner of the choicest Princes before her did not always tye her trust to place but did sometimes divide private favour from office And I for my part though I was not unseen in the world but I knew the condition was subject to envie and peril yet because I knew again she was constant in her favours and made an end where she began and especially because she upheld me with extraordinary access and other demonstrations confidence and Grace I resolved to endure it in expectation of better But my scope and desire is that your Lordship would be pleased to have the honourable patience to know the truth in some particularity of all that passed in this cause wherein I had any part that you may perceive how honest a heart I ever bare to my Sovereign and to my Countrey and to that Nobleman who had so well deserved of me and so well accepted of my deservings whose fortune I cannot remember without much grief But for any action of mine towards him there is nothing that passed me in my life-time that cometh to my remembrance with more clearness and less check of Conscience For it will appear to your Lordship that I was not only not opposite to my Lord of Essex but that I did occupy the utmost of my wits and adventured my Fortune with the Queen to have redintegrated his and so continued faithfully and industriously till his last fatal impatience for so I will call it after which day there was not time to work for him though the same my affection when it could not work upon the subject proper went to the next with no ill effect towards some others who I think do rather not know it than not acknowledge it And this I will assure your Lordship I will leave nothing untold that is truth for any enemy that I have to add and on the other side I must reserve much which makes for me upon many respects of Duty which I esteem above my Credit And what I have here set down to your Lordship I protest as I hope to have any part in Gods favour is true It is well known how I did many years since dedicate my travels and studies to the use and as I may term it service of my Lord of Essex which I protest before God I did not making election of him as the likeliest mean of my own advancement but out of the humour of a man that ever from the time I had any use of Reason whether it were reading upon good Books or upon the example of a good Father or by Nature I loved my Countrey more then was answerable to my Fortune and I held at that time my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the State and therefore I applied my self wholly to him in a manner which I think happeneth rarely amongst men For I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that he set me about whether it were matter of advice or otherwise but neglecting the
prize which he carrieth to be a good Servant will kiss Your hands with joy for any work of Piety You shall do for me And as all commiserating persons specially such as find their hearts void of malice are apt to think that all men pity them I assure my self that the Lords of the Council who out of their Wisdom and Nobleness cannot but be sensible of humane Events will in this way which I go for the Relief of my Estate further and advance Your Majesties goodness towards me for there is as I conceive a kind of Fraternity between great men that are and those that have been being but the several Tenses of one Verb Nay I do further presume that both Houses of Parliament will love their Justice the better if it end not in my Ruine for I have been often told by many of my Lords as it were in excusing the severity of the Sentence that they knew they left me in good hands And Your Majesty knoweth well I have been all my life long acceptable to those Assemblies not by Flattery but by Moderation and by honest expressing of a desire to have all things go fairly and well But if it may please Your Majesty for Saints I shall give them Reverence but no Adoration my Address is to Your Majesty the Fountain of Goodness Your Majesty shall by the Grace of God not feel that in Gift which I shall extreamly feel in Help for my Desires are moderate and my Courses measured to a life orderly and reserved hoping still to do Your Majesty Honour in my way Only I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to give me leave to conclude with those words which Necessity speaketh Help me dear Sovereign Lord and Master and pity me so far as I that have born a Bagge be not now in my Age forced in effect to bear a Wallett nor I that desire to live to study may not be driven to study to live I most humbly crave pardon of a long Letter after a long silence God of Heaven ever bless preserve and prosper Your Majesty Your Majesties poor Ancient Servant and Beadsman Fr. St. Alban Certain Copies of Letters written by Sir William Cecil Knight Secretary of Estate to Queen Elizabeth to Sir Hen. Norris Knight Ambassador for the said Queen Resident in France SIR I Am constrained to use the hand of my servant in writing unto you because I find it somewhat grievous to use mine own at this present The Queens Majesty hath received your letters with very good contentation and alloweth your manner of beginning and proceeding as well I dare assure you as your self could devise which I do not in words onely speak but wish you to take them for as good a truth as I can inform The rare manner of your entertainment hath moved the Queens Majesty to Muze upon what course it should be being more then hath been used in like cases to her Ambassadors and such as besides your own report hath been by others very largely advertised and for that in such things guesses be but doubtful I pray you by your next advertise me what your self doth think of it and in the mean time I know you are not untaught to judge of the difference of fair words from good deeds as the sayingis Fortuna cum adblanditur captum advenit The Queens Majesty meaneth to require this Ambassador expresly to write unto the King there in how good part she taketh this manner of gratefull acceptation of you her servant there giving him to understand how good report you have made thereof and how much comforted you are by this manner to proceed in her service there I would have had her Majesty to have written her own letters to the King hereof But her Majesty made choice rather to speak with the Ambassador which she will do tomorrow who cometh hither and La Croq which cometh out of Scotland and departeth shortly from hence thither into France having been a good time in manner as an Ambassador with the Scotish Queen Monsieur Moret is I think on the way coming hither out of Scotland my Lord of Bedford who came long ago out of Scotland arrived here but of late and hath brought us good report from the Scotish Queen of her good disposition to keep peace and amity with the Queens Majesty Of late Shane Oneal hath made means to the Lord Deputy of Ireland to be received into Grace pretending that he hath not meant any manner of unlawfulness unto the Queen by which is gathered that he groweth weary of his lewdness and yet I think he is not otherwise to be reformed then by sharp prosecution which is intended to be followed no whit the less for any his fair writings as reason is Of the troubles of the Low Countries I think you be as well advertised there as we can be here and of the likelihood of the Kings not coming into the Low Countries I cannot tell whether you are yet acquainted with Captain Cockburne whose humor when you know as I think Barnaby can shew you I doubt not but you shall have of his hand no lack of intelligence which you must credit as you shall see cause by proof of the event he writeth almost weekly to me and looketh for as many answers which I cannot have leisure to make him but I pray let him understand that I accept his writing in very good part The manner of the dealing with them there for the particular causes contained in your instructions is very well to be liked and I wish the success of the answers to prove as good as the beginning hath appearance and especially for the relief of the poor Prisoners in the Gallies whose stay I fear will grow indirectly by Monsieur de Foix to get thereby the acquital of Lestrille whom surely he is bound in honor to see restored Since I had written thus much by my servants hand and meant yester-night to have ended the letter I thought good to stay untill this present that I knew by the French Ambassador what De la Crocq should do here and amongst other things the Queens Majesty hath very earnestly expressed to the Ambassador her good liking and estimation of your Honorable entertainment whereof you did advertise her Majesty and contrary to her former determination did tell La Crocq that he should carry her Majesties letters to the French King of special thanks for the same besides words of visitation nothing passed this day otherwise and therefore meaning not to keep your servant any longer I end with my very hearty commendations to your self and my Lady and wish as well to you and all yours as to my self Yours assuredly W. Cecil Feb. 10. 1566. To the Right Honorable Sir Hen. Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador in France SIR THe Queens Majesty continueth her good liking of your manner of negotiation and your advertisements to her Majesty which she wisheth you to continue She also alloweth your discretion
in writing apart to me in matters containing trouble and business and to her of Advice of all other things she most marvelleth at the answer sent you by Monsieur De Foix who seemeth not disposed to perform his promise made to the Queens Majesty by a cavillation alledging it to have been for his Master wherefore you shall do well to say to him That upon his answer reported hither the Queens Majesty seemeth to make doubt that you have not rightly conceived it and therefore she hath re-charged you to speak with himself and to require his answer for you may say her Majesty advertised you that she cannot be well perswaded that you will forget your promise firmly made to her self for the safe delivery of Lestrille and when he was escaped of your advertisement that he was taken and that he should be returned into England and if such a promise be no otherwise kept being made unto her you may say her Majesty shall finde it strange how to credit an Ambassador and so her Majesty would that you should charge him in fair words and good manners the best you can to obtain Lestrille You may do well to learn how many prisoners do remain in the Gallies The strange news of the death of the King of Scots will be come thither before these letters but by your son you shall know as much as I have The Queens Majesty would fain have a Taylor that had skill to make her Apparel both after the French and Italian manner and she thinketh that you might use some means to obtain some one such there as serveth that Queen without mentioning any manner of request in the Queen Majesties name First to cause my Lady your wife to use some such means to get one as thereof knowledge might not come to the Queen Mothers ears of whom the Queens Majesty thinketh thus That if she did understand that it were a matter wherein her Majesty might be pleasured she would offer to send one to the Queens Majesty Nevertheless if it cannot be so obtained by this indirect means then her Majesty would have you devise some other good means to obtain one that were skillful I have staid your Son from going hence now these two days upon the Queens Majesties Commandment for that she would have him to have as much of the truth of the circumstances of the murther of the King of Scots as might be and hitherto the same is hard to come by otherwise then in a generality that he was strangled and his lodging razed with Gunpowder his Father was first said to have been slain but it is not true for he was at Glasco at that time It is constantly affirmed that there were thirty at the killing of him We look hourely for Robert Melvin from the Queen of Scots by whom we must have that which he hath order to report The Queens Majesty sent yesterday my Lady Howard and my wife to the Lady Lenox to the Tower to open this matter unto her who could not be by any means kept from such passions of minde as the horriblness of the fact did require And this last night were with the said Lady the Dean of Westminster and Doctor Huick and I hope her Majesty will shew some favourable compassion of the said Lady whom any humane nature must needs pity After I had written thus far Master Melvin came hither from Scotland by whom we looked that we should have heard many of the circumstances of this murther but he cannot or may not tell us any more then we heard before the most suspition that I can hear is of the Earl Bothwell but yet I would not be the Author of any such report but onely do mean to inform you as I hear and as I mean when I shall have more The Queens Majesty caused the French Ambassador to be informed of the answer made to you by Monsieur de Foix concerning Lestrille who saith when he hath spoken with the Queens Majesty here he will advertise the King then thereof He seemed to understand first how some bargain might be made for Lestrille Secondly whether the Queens Majesty could not be pleased to have him delivered to you but the messenger answered him that he knew no other but to have him returned hither according to the promise and so you may do well therein to persist Now seeing I am come to no more knowledge from Scotland I will stay your Son no longer wishing him well to come to you and long to enjoy both you and my Lady Yours assuredly W. Cecill From Westminster 20. Feb. 1566. Postscript I thank you for your offer to send me the Book de translation ' de Religion ' which I have but if there be any particular Charts newly printed I pray you send me a Callender thereof and of any new Books where upon I may chance crave of you some To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France AFter my very hearty commendations I send you herewith a Letter from the Queens Majesty by which you shall understand what her pleasure is for you to deal with the French King whereunto you may add as you see occasion That you are informed very credibly that Monlues Company now at their return are suffered to make Port sale of all that they have brought home from the Isles of Medera And therefore if it might please his Majesty to give direct order and charge for due restitution of that which was spoiled from the Queens Subjects It is likely the parties shall be able enough to make recompence my meaning herein is that the French King and his Council may perceive that it is well known how these Pirates are suffered to do what they will notwithstanding contrary Proclamations and yet you shall so utter this matter as not that you finde fault with this manner of sufferance for that ought properly to be to the Spanish or Portugal Ambassador with whom you may sometime deal to understand how they do know what is done and how they do interpret it You shall shortly hear of some special person that shall be sent thither in Ambassage to joyn with you for the demanding of Callis which is due by the Treaty of Cambray to be restored to the Queens Majesty the second day of April next but who it is that shall come as yet I cannot advertise The manner of the death of the King of Scots is not yet discovered to us for the knowledge of the Author thereof but there hath been Proclamation made that whosoever would reveal the offendors shall have two thousand pound Scotish and if he were a party should have his pardon and five hundred pounds the day after a Bill was set up in Edenburgh in this sort I according to the Proclamation have made inquisition for the slaughter of the King and do finde the Earle Bothwell Mr. James Bafour Parson of Flisk Mr. David Chamber and Black Mr. John Spence the
principal devisers thereof and if this be not true spir at Gilbert Bafour There were also words added which I am loth to report that touched the Queen of Scots which I hold best to be supprest Further such persons anointed are not to be thought ill of without manifest proof The next day following a second Proclamation was made repeating the former Bill willing the party to subscribe his name and he should be pardoned and have the money according to the first Proclamation The next day being the nineteenth of February a second Bill was set up in the former place offering to compear and avow the matter so as the money might be put into indifferent hands and that Sir Francis Bastine Joseph and Moses Mishe be taken and then he the exhibitor of the Bill would avow the whole matter and declare every mans act Thus far things passed till that day and since that I hear that much unquietness is like to grow about that matter and the common speech toucheth the Earles Bothwell and Huntly who remain with the Queen but how true the accusations are I will not take upon me to affirm the one or the other neither would I have you to utter any of these things to make condemnation of any of them but as reports not doubting but shortly God will cause the truth to be revealed There do adhere together with the Earl of Lenox the Earles of Argile Morton Athell Morrey Catness and Glencarne who mean to be at Edenburgh very shortly as they pretend to search out the malefactors Of late you wrote unto me of one King an Euglishman who doth misuse himself very much of whom if you would write unto me somewhat more particularly for the proof his Traiterous speeches whereby there might be some good ground made how to have him demanded you shall hear more thereof and so shall percase by the next though I do not hear from you and so fare you heartily well Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 5. March 1566. Postscript Because I have not presently leisure to write to Mr. Man Ambassador in Spain I pray you to let him understand of such advertisments as I send you and such other things as you shall think meet And to convey the letters by the Spanish Ambassadors means Resident there in that Court To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR I wrote of late to you that Sir Thomas Smith should come shortly thither but I think he shall not be there now so speedily as was meant for he shall first secretly pass over to Callis to be there the 3. April to demand the Town not that we think the Governour will deliver it But to avoid all Cavillation which they might invent for by Law it must be demanded at the very place and being not delivered the sum of five hundred thousand pounds is forfeited Master Winter shall pass secretly with him to take possession thereof if they shall deceive our expectation but not past three of the Council knoweth of Winters going The common fame in Scotland continueth upon the Earl Bothwell to be the principal Murtherer of the King and the Queens name is not well spoken of God amend all that is amiss We heard before your writing of the French attempt for the Prince We have no news but all well here the matters of Flanders go very hard for the Protestants and if God do not provide for their safety I look for their ruine I heard this day that Danvile should be slain fare you well Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 21. March 1566. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY the Queens Majesties letters and by this bearer you shall understand how earnestly her Majesty is inclined to help the Count Rocandolse and since the writing of her Majesties letters she hath commanded me that you should make it a principal part of your request to the King and the Queen mother that considering the Count is a stranger born and is of the Order of France that his cause might be heard and ordered by the King and the others of the same order and to that end you shall prosecute your request that the whole cause may be removed from the Court of Parliament at Paris wherein her Majesty would have you by all good means to persist as in a request that of it self is honorable and sometimes as she thinketh usual At the least such as if any the like person being a stranger in her Realm and being honored with the Order of the Garter if he would require to have his causes wherein his life or honor were touched to be heard by her Majesty and her Knights of her Order he should not be denyed nor should be by any other Judges molested Thus I report to you her Majesties good pleasure and thereto do add my poor private request to beseech you not to be weary in the prosecution of this suit Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 9. March 1567. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight Her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YEsterday Mr. Smiths Son arrived with some Letters from you and him containing your troublesome negotiation whereof we hear thought very long He saith he was constrained to tarry six days at Hull and that his Father would be here this night you shall hereafter hear of some ill news out of Ireland and though it be not of great moment thanks be to God yet by report of ill friends they wil be amplified Indeed the 21. of April a Fire happened in a little Fort upon the Sea side at a place called the Dirrye which Mr. Randolphe first took in such sort as the houses being all covered with Straw the soldiers were forced to abandon it being two hundred and with their Captain Mr. Sentlo came by Sea to Knockvergus a Castle of the Queens but for all this it is meant to take again the place or a better and to prosecute the Rebel who is in declination The Queen of Scots I think will be wooed to marry the Earl Bothwell the principal of the Nobility are against it and are at Sterling with the Prince Fare ye well and as I wrot by Mr. Shute so assure your self of me as you mean your self to me Yours assuredly W. Cecil May 12. 1567. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY your last Letter of I understand of the intelligence was given unto you of preparation of eight Ships to be set out to the Seas which seemeth very strange and therefore the Ambassador here who could not get Audience of the Queens Majesty although he often demanded it since Mr. Smiths return was sent for to come to the Council and was roundly charged with certain depredations committed upon English Merchants in the West and also with this new preparation and therewith warned to advertise his Master
that we could not long suffer such attempts unrevenged and being somewhat amazed with the charge he denyed the things very flatly and promised to write very earnestly therein to the King his Master And for conclusion we said that we would write unto you to move the King to make restitution and to prohibit the going to the Seas of any other but of those that were good Merchants in this time of peace according to the Treaty of which our negotiation you shall hear more shortly by Letters from the Council although I thought it good by this my private Letter somewhat to touch it unto you This speech with the Ambassador was on Saturday the fourth of this present and upon importunity of the Ambassador he had Audience of the Queens Majesty this day to whom he shewed a Letter from the King that Percivall coming over with Letters of late thither was stayed at Deip and the King hearing that he had Letters from the Queens Majesty ordered to dismiss him and willed the Ambassador to pray the Queen to think no offence in it for the said Percivall was to be Arrested in France for great debts which he ow'd there besides that as the Ambassador saith he is to be charged there with a murther After he shewed this Letter to her Majesty she called the Lord Chamberlain and me to her in his presence being no more of her Council then and in very round speeches told the Ambassador that she did not take the French Kings answer for the matter of Callis in good part and so much the worse because the Queen Mother by her Letters sent by Mr. Smith wrote that her Son had given very benign Audience and so reasonable an answer as ought well to content her Majesty In which manner of speech she saith she is not well used considering the answer was altogether unjust and unreasonable and if hereof the Ambassador shall make any sinister report you may as you see cause well maintain the Queens answer to be very reasonable as having cause to mislike the manner of writing of the Queen thereon which nevertheless you may impute to the unadvisedness of the Secretaries for so the Queens Majesty here did impute it Upon Sunday last I received Letters from Barnaby your Secretary who therein did very well advertise me of the staying of Percival at Deip and indeed I do finde that the cause hath grown from the Ambassador here either of displeasure or of suspition that he hath against the State Ro. Condulphe for whom he knew Percival was specially sent and finding this day the Ambassador very earnest in private speech with my Lord of Leicester and my self that Percivall would be Arrested in France after that he had delivered the Queens Letters I advised him to write to the contrary for otherwise he might provoke us to do the like with his Messengers and surely if I may be suffered so will I use them I have no more to write unto you But I can assure you that the Queen of Scots was married the 15. of this May and the Nobility therewith so offended as they remain with the Prince and keep apart from her what will follow I know not My Lady your Wife is safely arrived and was long with the Queen on Sunday I thank you for the little French Book which she brought me the like whereof I had before Yours assuredly W. Cecil May 27. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THe matters of Scotland grow so great as they draw us to be very careful thereof I think not but you do hear of them by the reports but briefly these they be The best part of the Nobility hath confederated themselves to follow by way of Justice the condemnation of Bothwell and his Complices for the murther of the King Bothwell defends himself by the Queens maintenance and the Hambletons so as he hath some party though it be not great The 15. of this moneth he brought the Queen into the field with her power which was so small as he escaped himself without fighting and left the Queen in the field and she yielding her self to the Lords flatly denyed to grant Justice against Bothwell so as they have restrained her in Lothleven untill they may come unto the end of their pursuit against Bothwell The French Ambassador and Villeroy who is there pretend to favour the Lords with very great offers and it may be they do as much on the other side At this time I send unto you certain Packets of Letters left here by Mr. Melvin who lately came hither from the Queen of Scots the sending of those to my Lord of Murray requireth great haste whereof you may not make the Scotish Ambassador privy but I think you may make Robert Steward privy with whom you may confer for the speedy sending away of the same letters His return into Scotland is much desired of them and for the Weal both of England and Scotland I wish he were here and for his manner of returning touching his safety I pray require Mr. Steward to have good care Our Wars in Ireland are come to a good pass for the Arch-Traytor Shane-Oneale is slain by certain Scots in Ireland of whom he sought aid one murtherer killed by many murtherers hereby the whole Realm I trust will become quiet I pray you of those things that our Ambassador in Spain by your letters may be advertised whereof I cannot at this time make anyspecial letter unto him for lack of leisure and so I pray advertise him from me I am pitifully overwhelmed with business Sir Nicholas Throckmorton is shortly to pass into Scotland to negotiate there for the pacification of those troubles Yours assuredly W. Cecil Richmond 26. June 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THis your Lackquey brought me letters from you and also from your servant Mr. whom he left at Rye for such business asby his letter he hath certified me whereof I have informed the Queens Majesty wherein she also well alloweth of your circumspection and I wish all to succeed as you advise for otherwise the peril were great Sir Nicholas Throckmorton hath been somewhat long in going into Scotland and entred by Berwick on Munday last I think the two Factions of the Hambletons and the Lenox's shall better accord then your neighbors where you now live would if Bothwell might be apprehended I think the Queen there shall be at good liberty for the Nobility My Lord of Pembrooke perceiving likelihood of troubles there in that Country would gladly have his Son Mr. Edward Herbert to return home and so I pray with my hearty commendations to him declare my Lord his Fathers minde and if my Lord of Murray should lack credit for money my Lord Steward would have his Son give him such credit as he hath for my Lord alloweth well of his friendship I am
negotiations although I know no thing in him to the contrary but hearing that you have men that can both speak and write French and perceiving by the superscription of your letters that you have one who writeth a good Secretary hand I have thought fit to forbear to deal further with the said party I thank you for your offer to send me any Charts that I should name and if you would send me a note of the names of the Charts that are thought newest and of the Author of their setting forth and the places where they be printed I may chance to trouble you with craving of some I would be glad to have from you a note of the names of the chiefest Nobility of France and with whom they be married adding thereto any other thing that may belong to the knowledge of their Lineage and Degrees as you shall think meet And so for this time I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor 27 Sept. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AFter my very hearty Commendations with my like thanks for all your courteous letters to me and specially for the friendly trust which I see you put in me to the due answering whereof you shall never finde me wanting My Lady your good Wife can sufficiently report to you all things from hence so as I need write nothing presently but my hearty commendations And where it seemeth you think some hardness in not allowance of your expences expressed in sundry your Bills surely it is not lack of my good will that stayeth me but power for truly I never subscribed so many extraordinary Bills for any as I have done for you and as I understand by your servant Cartwright I have subscribed more in some of them then will be as yet paid Generally I will subscribe all charges reasonable for carriage of Letters but concerning entertainment of men to continue at the Court or for rewards given extraordinarily I never did nor could allow them and yet I wish them paid being laid out in the service of her Majesty And in this manner I heartily pray you to interpret my good will to the best for surely if you were either my Brother or Son I have no more power to shew you and yours good will then I do The Duke of Chastilherant is at Deip and meaneth within these ten days to be here as his servants report I think he shall not be able to annoy the Lowth as he and his I see do desire Bothwell is not yet taken to our knowledge though it be said he should should be taken on the Seas by a Ship of Breme And so I end as I began Yours as your own W. Cecil Windsor 2. Octob. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur servant Jenny arrived here yester-day with your Letters of the first day of September by which the Queen was greatly satisfied for that we had received divers brutes of the troubles of France whereunto we know not what credit to give and now considering the Ice is thus broken you must think we shall daily be molested with uncertain reports The Queens Majesty advertised the French Ambassador and Monsieur de Pasquiers of as much as she heard from you who were not a little troubled before by reason of strangers news spread abroad and more dangerous for otherwise they had heard no manner of thing of credit out of France although of late time they had sent three several Messengers so as I do guess that the passages be stopped to them and I wish they be not also to you too I finde her Majesty disposed upon the next hearing from thence to send some special Gentlemen thither before which time her Majesty being moved by me according to your desire yet will not agree to send to you any Currier My Lady your Wife was ready to depart towards you upon Wednesday last and would not be stayed from her journey by any perswasion what she will do now upon your servants coming I know not but in my opinion she shall do well to forbear the venture This Letter which I do write I do send by your Footman wherein I dare as the time is write nothing but that which may be seen of all sorts That which you wrote of late to me touching Jenny your servant I assure you ought not to be imputed to him but to such in Scotland to whom being uttered for their good they could not use it as was meet We have nothing in Scotland but all things therein be quiet since the last of September at which time the Castle of Dunbar was rendred to the Earl of Murray and one name the Lord Wawghton follower of the Earl Bothwell which kept the Castle as long as he could was adjudged to pay for the charges of them which besieged it and the charge of the Carriage of the Ordnance back to Edenburgh a new kind of punishment sufficient enough for such a beggar And so wishing that we may hear often from you I end with this also that it shall behove you to take good heed whose reports you credit in this variety Yours assuredly W. Cecil 9. Oct. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR I Heartily thank you for your gentle letters sent to me by your two last Messengers William Wade and Crips both which persons come to me being at London because it was Term time where I am for the more part saving Sundays and Holidays by which occasion I have at both times sent your letters to the Queens Majesty so as I have not had the commodity to see your advertisements nevertheless you shall do well to continue your accustomed manner of advertising her Majestie as fully as you can for in these troublesome times the accidents being so diversly reported as they are it is meet that her Majesty should be largely advertised and because it may be that your letters may come in this Term time whiles I am at London I pray let me have some repetition of your advises in such letters as you shall write to me This bearer your servant Crips can make full report to you of all matters here My Lady your Wife also hath been very careful to have him return to you and would have some other of more weight but the Queens Majestie forbeareth to send any because of the uncertainty of the time Dover A 1 in misliking oâ— and of F wherein all is done that can be by B to cover the same and as I think the principal is for that A is 42 91 and doubtful of giving 25. 5 subjects nevertheless you shall do well as occasion shall serve 5 For this we here well perceive that is we look daily to hear a certainty of the howsoever percase they there mean to let it In Scotland all
is quiet the Queen continueth in Lough-Levin in very good health and the Earle of Murray ruleth quietly as Regent and so I end Yours assuredly as your own W. Cecil Hampton Court 3. Nov. 1567 To the Right Honorable Sir Hen. Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BEfore Mr. Bridges came who arrived here on Saturday last with your letters dated the 16. We were much troubled with variety of reports of the encounter betwixt the Constable and the Prince and by him we are well satisfied to hear that we think to be truth although otherwise men report on the other side Your servant Crips was sent hence and as I hear was stayed for lack of winde to pass six or seven days at Rye but seeing Mr. Bridges met him so neer Paris I think he came in safety to you And now for your further satisfaction I send this Bearer Mr. Jenny whom truly I think honest and careful and in the matter imputed unto him I take him to be cleer Mr. Bridges shews himself towards you very friendly and in his reports very wise and discreet surely I do like him well The oftner you can send the better it is in this busie time The French Ambassador perswadeth us that all our Merchants at Rohan are by his means at good liberty to use their Trade which if they be I know the thanks belong to you I wish to have a Callender of them which are with the Prince and also to see the Edicts that have lately passed from the King against them Yours assuredly to command W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France AFter my very hearty commendations my Lady your Bedfellow having not heard from you this good while hath thought good to send over one of hers purposely to see you and to bring her word again from you by whom I would not fail to write these few words unto you not having any thing to write at this time but of the prosperous state of all things on this side The last letters from you hither were by your servant Henry Crips who was dispatched home again towards you the fourth of this moneth the want whereof is not imputed to be in you for lack of diligence and good will to write but partly to the dangerous time and hard means to send when you would and partly for lack of knowledge of the doings of the contrary part which in such a time are not easily known but as you may you shall do well to advertise how things pass there at the full The French Ambassador was with the Queens Majesty on Wednes the 12. of this present who had no great news to impart to her Majesty but came onely as he said to see her Majesty His last letters out of France he said were of the 27. of October In talk with me he told me that by his letters he understood that the King had sent for you at the time of the sending away of his dispatch whereby he judged that you might have occasion to write hither shortly and that your Messenger was in likelihood on the way hitherwards so as if he be not hindred by the way your letters are looked for very shortly or for lack of his coming it will be indeed thought that he is stayed your next advertisement will shew it which is daily looked for And thus I wish you in this dangererous time all safety and health Your very assured loving friend W. Cecil From the Court at Hampton-Court 15. Nov. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOu must think that seeing all the parts of Christendom are intentive to hear of the maters of France we cannot be careless to whom the same belongeth next of all whatsoever the end thereof shall be Your last letters brought hither came with good speed being dated the 28. of December they came the fourth of this January Of the news therein contained mentioning the encounter betwixt Mountgomery and the Kings Vantguard about the 23. of December I had letters dated in Paris the 20. which did express the same more particularly but I dare not credit them Your good advice given to her Majesty in the said letter is well to be commended Of the state of our things here there is no new thing to write all things thanked be God are quiet In Scotland they have ended their Parliament wherein as I hear they have Enacted the Coronation of the King the Authority of the Regent to be good and have noted the Queen to be privy to the murther of her husband My Lady your wife hath been a little sick but is now well recovered and hath instantly required me to send away this bearer because she had writings to send you otherwise I would have had him stayed two days to have heard some more news from thence I thank you for the Articles which you last sent me but lacking the Articles of the other side I could not well understand those which you sent me And so I end Westm. 8. Jan. 1567. Yours assuredly to use or command W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR IT is to us here thought very long since we heard from you your last being of the fourth of this moneth sent by young Cornwallis specially because we are troubled with such diversity of reports that what may be taken for truth is uncertain Beside this I cannot but let you understand that the Lords of the Council are desirous to hear more largely and particularly how things do pass wherein they seem to require such a dilligence as Sir Tho. Smith was wont to use who sought to understand and so continually did write what was done almost every other day making as it were a Journal or a Diarium But in my opinion I have shewed them that it is not so easie for you to do it in this time considering the Armies and their accidents are far from Paris and as I think very great heed given that no advertisements should be given you but such as you should not think worthy of writing Nevertheless for their contentations I wish you would write of as many things as you can whereby they shall both be content and what they hear from other places of the same things they shall better discern what to think true 5. m. 3. to the disadvantage of R. All things here are in quietness I think Master Vice-Chamberlain shall be Deputy of Ireland for that Sir H. Sydney is sore vexed with the Stone in the Bladder and so I take my leave thanking you for the offer you have made me to provide for me certain Charts of the which I am bold to name nine as I have noted them in the paper included Yours assured W. Cecil 26. January 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the
much troubled for lack of certain advertisements from you whilst we hear from other parts reports so diversly Nevertheless I do think and affirm that there be some letters dispatched from you since the date aforesaid Those which you wrote last to the Queens Highness were well and amply written and so I wish you should do with the rest hereafter You may perceive by the Queens Majesties letter which I send at this time her sincere meaning which if it be well taken it is well bestowed and yet I think she should not finde the like courtesie and good meaning if she had need of the like from the which I pray God long keep her Her Majesty is well disposed to send some thither if she thought she might do good towards the peace against which I think plainly all Ambassadors but your self are vehemently disposed and so it appeareth by the fruits of their Councils and if you told the Queen mother so as of your own head as a thing you hear spread abroad in the world I think you might do well and speak truely for as for the Popes Ministers their profession is to prefer the State of their corrupted Church before the Weal of any Kingdom in the earth and whatsoever come of any thing they look onely to the continuance of their own ambitious ruling and as for other Ministers of Princes or for men of War it is a truth infallible the more they do impoverish that Monarchy of France the better they think their own estates and if the Queen-mother and other good Councellors of the King do not understand this you may say if you can in good terms Oculos Habent non vident Our matters here in England remain as hitherto they have long done by the goodness of God in great quietness This day I had letters from my Lord of Sussex of the first of this moneth from Antwerp who I perceive meaneth to pass over the Seas hitherwards this night so as I think he will be here by Munday what he bringeth I know not at all Bredrood is dead at Collen the Count of Berry eldest son to the Prince of Orange is in Zealand ready to be carryed into Spain it is doubted that the Counts of Egmond and Horne shall follow Yours assuredly W. Cecil March 6. 1567. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOu have done very well in this doubtful time to write so often hither as you have done for that the Queens Majesty hath been in great expectation what to judge to be the truth in the middest of so many divers advertisements for howsoever we be from other places advertised we measure the same even by yours The last letters which you sent were dated the 30. of March which came hither yesterday being the 7. And considering the last accident hapned the 29. by a treachery to have supplanted the good meaning of the peace I am in opinion that the Prince and his should have a reasonable occasion offered unto them to mend their bargain in certain points tending to their own surety which surely if they do not better foresee me thinks their danger wil not be far off I pray you to continue your vigilancy in exploring of wherein you may do very well to procure that the R may be induced to withstand that enterprize as being a matter very prejudicial to the whole London 2 Paris c. Here hath been of good long time one Emmanuel Tremelius who heretofore in King Edwards time read the Hebrew Lecture in Cambridge and hath now been sent hither by the Count Palatine the Elector to inform the Queens Majesty of the proceedings of the said Elector in sending his son into France without intention to offend the King and the Realm or to assist the Prince of Conde in any thing but onely in the defence of the common cause of Religion who now upon the ending of these causes in France will depart hence and truely in my opinion the said Elector hath shewed himself to be a Prince of great honor in this Action The Prince of Orange hath also sent hither a special Gentleman to declare unto her Majesty his innocency in such causes as are objected against him touching any part of his duty towards the King of Spain And further also to shew good cause why he doth not return into the Low Countries to appear before the Duke of Alva whom he noteth to be a Judge not competent because he hath already notorionsly broken the Laws and ancient priviledges of the same Countries Out of Scotland I hear that the Hambletons continue in that Faction against the Regent and I believe they be nourished out of France by means of the Abbot of Arbroth who lately came thorough this way Of my Lady your wifes dangerous sickness out of the which she was newly escaping when your Son arrived here I doubt not but you are well advertised so as I need not to write any other thing but onely to rejoyce with you that she is so well amended You see by my writing that this Country thanked be God is as barren of news as that of France is plenteous Sir Ambrose Cave is departed this life and as yet it is not known who shall succeed him some name Mr Vice-Chamberlaine some Sir Henry Sydney some Sir Ralph Sadler some Sir Nic. Throckmorton her Majesty can make no ill choice of any of these And so trusting ere this letter can come to your hands I shall receive some of yours containing the resolution of this long lingring peace Yours assuredly W. Cecil April 8. 1568. SIR THis evening Harcourte arrived here with your letters which were long looked for and be now welcome for your satisfaction by this bearer you shall understand of the recovery of my Lady your Wife The Gentleman that lately came hither named Monsieur de Beamont one of the late disorder of France passeth into Scotland which is not much to be liked The book which you sent of the peace hath not printed in it certain Articles by way of request made to the King by the Commissaries on the Princes part what answers Marginal of the King I fear much the surety of the Prince and his Colleagues I hear by him that came last now of strange news at Diep of the King and Prince of Spain I pray you if there be any of moment send us word Here is an Ambassador arrived from Portugal for to brawle about Merchants and Maritime matters For haste I can write no more Yours assuredly W. Cecil April 14. 1568. Postscript I send you the beginning of the Parliament of Scotland when I have more you shall have more sent you To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters brought hither are of the 18. of April which came hither the 29. of the same moneth by which I looked to have heard where the
Prince and the Admiral was and what they did and how they intended to prosecute the enjoying of the peace for here we are troubled with very many fond tales and I never make good resolution of doubts without your advertisment and therefore I pray write from time to time what is done on both parts You shall do well to give good respect to the pretending to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein surely may be seen the very intent of the practicers I heartily thank you Sir for your plentiful present of so many Countries as you lately sent by Harcourte who indeed did in former times serve me and with my good favor departed from me but if he may serve you I am glad for I never knew but good honesty by him 2 π 5. oVʒʒ is not a little afraid of these G and H. We hear newly of great attempts towards Flanders and so having nothing more to write I am by business forced to end being assured that both by your Son and otherwise you are advertised of all our seen matters here From Greenwich the first of May which is become a very cold day 1568. Yours assured at all times W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY the Queens Majesties letter you may perceive what is her pleasure at this time Beaton is passing thither so as I think he will be at the Court before the coming of this bearer In your speaking with the King you may not by your speech seem to utter that you know of Beatons coming for aid there upon advertisement given from hence for he being advised not to seek aid there and promised aid here for his Mistris hath in words allowed thereof and saith that he will forbear to require aide from thence and will onely but notifie the Queens liberty But yet surely I am not bound to believe him but he hath required us here to say nothing of that which he at his first coming told us That the Queen his Mistris sent him to France to require aide of one thousand Harquebusiers and a sum of money with some Ordnance Wherefore except you shall learn there that he demandeth aid you shall not speak thereof but if he do then shall ye do well to make mention thereof to the King I hear daily of the evil observation of the last peace towards the Protestants In Flanders and the Low Countries I see things will prosper too well in hurt of the Religion and onely for lack that the Prince of Orange his party hath of money Yours assuredly W. Cecil Greenwich 16. of May 1568. Postscript And I think Mr. Vice-Chamberlaine shall be Controller Mr. Sydney Treasurer Mr. Throckmorton Vice-Chamberlain and Sir Ralph Sadler Chancellor of the Duchy To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France AAfter our very hearty commendations we being made privy to such Letters and Message as you lately sent by this bearer your Secretary to me Sir William Cecil have well considered the same and do well allow of the good because the And do not mislike the overture made to you by Paris for the diverting of the Low good Callis and Dover and although there is no likelyhood of the sequel of this overture for sundry respects yet we do allow so well thereof as we wish you would make such answer to the said party as And to that end we are content that you may if need so require the giving him to understand that we will gladly if the matter shall the to us use our credit towards xx the A who we hope surely neither can nor will but accept the good will of in every good part and so we require you to further that matter with all that you can and on our part you may assure the party that it shall be also xx low the And so far ye well heartily Your assured loving friends Pembroke R. Leicester W. Cecil From the Court at Greenwich 28. of June 1568. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YEsterday being the 12. of this month Mr. Bridges came to the Court as we were going from London towards Havering in such sort as the Queens Majesty her self seeing him and knowing that you would not have sent him but with matter of some importance commanded me forthwith to decipher your letter which I did and shewed her Majesty whereupon she comfortably and constantly seemed not to fear any such Devillish practice but yet she is earnest in the further discovery of the matter and liketh well of your advertisement But she marvelleth that you did not advise more particularly of more special means to know the for as he is described to be of chiefest with the as also with we cannot truly hit of no man for as there be 4. or 5. that do sometime accompany the so are there men of that Nation but they do resort to the wherefore it is necessary that you speak again with the party that gave you this intelligence and if the matter be of truth and disguising to some other purpose he can as well obtain you the knowledge of the party in certainty as this to give a guess at him for as he hath his intelligence of the matter which he uttered to you if it be true so may he attain to a more perfect knowledge and if the matter be true and shall be discovered by his means you may promise him reward of the Queens Majesty as of a Prince of honor and so indeed shall he have it on the other side if the matter be not true but a device surely he and they that do participate with him are much too blame wherefore Sir I earnestly require you to use all the speed you can herein and advertise as plentifully as you can to the satisfaction of her Majesty For though her Highness words have comfort yet it cannot be but she shall rest perplexed untill more certainty be had Likewise her Majesty would have you cause diligent inquisition to be made of the other matter concerning the vi prepared by where and when and to what end the prepation shall be We marvail that you write nothing at this time of the Prince of Conde c. For the French Ambassador reporteth that he shall come to the King to Gallian the Cardinal Burbous house and that the Cardinal of Lorrein shall depart from the Court which to me is unlikely for truth The Scotish Queen is ordered to remove from Carlile to a Castle of the Lord Scroops in the edge of York-shire next Cumberland called Bolton for where she was appointed to come to Tutbury the Queens Majesty finding her great misliking therein hath forborn the same Her desires are these in sundry degrees First to come to the Queens Majesties person and to have present aid to be restored Secondly if that cannot be to have licence to pass into France and to these
subscribed his name who seemeth very importune to have answer because he may be entertained and if he be the party of whom you writ about a moneth past surely as I did advertise you the Queens Majesty will in no wise hear of any such offers which she thinketh are but chargeable without fruit although I had earnestly moved her Majesty to have adventured some small piece of money upon such a man therefore I see no remedy but to pay him as well as may be with goods words And thus I wish you better to fare then I did at the writing here Your assured loving friend W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY yours of the 23. of the last moneth for answer of mine of the 13. of the same I finde that you have very diligently and circumspectly travailled in the great dangerous matter to satisfie the Queens Majesty whereof you gave before that intelligence and though I perceive that you can come to no more understanding therein for further satisfaction of her Majesty yet she is very well satisfied with your diligence and care and so hath specially willed me to give you knowledge of her allowance of your doings therein Methinketh the parties which tell you such pieces of tales if the whole were true might as well tell you the whole as such obscure parts which if they do not you might well alleadge them to be but devices to breed unquietness and suspition and as I wrote before unto you they might be tempted with offer of rewards that the troth of the matter might be disclosed The Queens Majesty as I am informed for presently I am not at the Court by reason of my sickness meaneth to have the matter between the Queen of Scots and her subjects heard in this Realm and compounded as I think with a certain manner of restitution of the Queen and that limited with certain conditions which how they shall be afterwards performed wise men may doubt the Queen of Scots her self at length seemeth content to commit the order of this cause to her Majesty wherein if her Majesty 's own interest should not be provided for the world might think great want in her self which I trust she will regard I am willed by her Majesty to require you to continue your diligence in inquisition what preparations are meant or intended in that Country to sent into Scotland and as you shall finde any to give speedy knowledge thereof as I know you would do if you were not thus advertised There is coming out of Spain a new person to be Resident Ambassador here who is a Commendatory of an Order in whom I wish no worse conditions then I have found in this man for maintenance of amity Our whole expectation as yours there is resteth upon the event and success of these matters in the Low Countries which as they shall fall out so are like to produce consequences to the greater part of Christendom and therefore I beseech God it may please him to direct them to his honor and quietness if it may be of his universal Church here in earth and so I end being occasioned to use the hand of another my self being very unable to write and fully wearied with inditing thus much Fare you heartily well from my house in Cheston the 3. of August 1568. Sir This bearer Mr. Hudleston acknowledgeth himself so much be-holden to you as he is desirous to return thither to spend his time where he may shew himself thankful to you and to that end hath requested me to write to you by him he hath required to be accepted into my service but I think him worthy of some better Master and my self am overburthened with numbers or else I would gladly have accepted him Yours assured W. Cecil SIR MY late sickness hath been cause of my rare writing and I am sorry to hear of your lack of health which I trust you have ere this time recovered Your letters sent by the Frenchman of Southwark came one day only before Cockborne who came also safely with your letters on Saturday last I have made the Queens Majesty privy to both your letters and as to the unhappy news of Flanders we had the same worse reported by the Spanish Ambassador here then yours did there who hath made a triumphant story thereof as far uncredible as any in Amadis de Gaule for in the fighting continually one whole day there were on Lodowicks part slain and devoured 8000. and on the other part but eight so every one of them killed ten hundred I understand that within these three days we shall have the report more reasonable for I also hear that the greater number of the men slain were of the Dukes part which I wish to be true is in words content to commit Dover A but yet x doth not omit to stir new troubles in v. Touching the whereof you have often writ order is taken to deal with Paris and surely me-thinks still since the informers will not be known of the particulars in more certainty that these things are intended to bring us into their play but yet no diligence is to be omitted I think the Duke of Norfolk my Lord of Sussex and Sir Walter Mildmay shall be Commissioners to treat in the North betwixt the Queen of Scots and her subjects And so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Dunstable 10. August 1568. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THe sufficiency of the bringer hereof is such as I need not to write any thing to you by him of importance to whom any thing may be well committed He can best tell you upon what occasion the Queens Majesty sendeth this Message to the French King at this time which because it is long and of great importance the Queens Majesty would have you first translate it into French and well digest it with your self so as you may very perfectly and readily express it in such sort as it is conceived And I think if you would in the translating thereof distribute it into sundry members by way of Articles you should the better carry it in your minde making thereby an account with your self of the better delivery thereof and you shall do well to let some such as favor the intention of the Queens Message to see the Copy of the letter whereby they may per-case being called to give advice to the King further the cause to the benefit of them of the Religion This day I received your letters of the date of the 20. of this moneth by Glover who of late time dwelt in Roan whom I take to be a good honest person but of the matter of the Jewels whereof you wrote upon his report I my self know no certainty As for the occurrents of Scotland you shall understand that where the Queens Majesty hath determined with the Queen of Scots to hear the whole matter
some speeches concerning the Cardinal Castillon whom they finde very well and courteously used here by the Queens Majesties order but they have not hitherto spoken a word of him At their first being here on Tuesday they told the Queens Majesty that they had newly received letters out of France by which they were given to understand that Martignes pursued Dandelot and overthrew all his force and made him to flye which news was onely heard and not credited insomuch as the next day following we heard credibly that Martignes had indeed pursued certain followers of Dandelot at the passage of Leyer which Dandelot had before safely passed with all his Forces Footmen and Horsemen and perceiving that Martignes had used some cruelty upon a small number of simple people that followed Dandelot he returned over the water with his Horsemen and avenged the former injury upon Martignes and from thence went to Rhemes where finding certain of the Presidents or Judges which had given order to destroy all that could be found of the Religion he executed their own Law upon some of them and hanged some of the Judges which news being brought unto us the day after he had given us the other for a farewell he was this day welcomed with these the rather because they touched his own Town of Reynes and I wish them to be true to cool their heating of lying The Cardinal Castillons wife is come over whom I think the Queen means to use very well The Duke of Chastilherault comes hither to morrow to the Queens Majesty but I think he shall not be permitted to go to the Queen of Scots very hastily If by the next letters it shall not appear that you can have Rowland delivered and your letters restored I perceive the Queens Majesty will be well content that some one of theirs shall be stayed in the like manner And so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor 1. Oct. 1568. Postscript I pray send me word whether you thought diot to be suspected of the matter concerning the or no. By the next which shall be by my Lady your wise I will change my Cipher To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THis present being the 18. your servant came with your letters of the 12. which I longed much for not having of a great time heard from you The Prince of Orange passing the and his proceeding cannot be unknown to you and therefore I leave to write thereof The French Ambassador promised once to write favorably in this poor mans behalf but this morning he sent his Nephew to me declaring that considering he perceived much favor shewed by us to the King his Masters Rebels he could not without some misliking write in favor of our Countrimen I required of him whom in particular he could name as Rebels that had favor of us he would name none I told him we accepted the Cardinal Chastillon as a Nobleman and a good faithful subject and Councellor to the King for that upon pride and inveterate malice done to him by the Cardinal of Lorrein he was by him and his so persecuted as he could not live in France without danger of his life and I told him we had the more cause to favor him and all such because the said Cardinal Lorrein was well known to be an open enemy to the Queens Majesty our Sovereign So he departed with no small misliking and I well contented to utter some round speeches The Queens Majesty is resolved to set out certain of our Ships to Britain and Guyen to preserve our Burdeaux Fleets from depredations whereupon I think there will be some misliking uttered there to you But considering the frequent Piracies already committed and the menacing of the Pyrats to our Burdeaux Fleet we can do no other and so you may answer I think this Ambassador will advertise many devices of suspitions of our aiding of the Prince with Money Shot and Powder but the King shall never finde her Majesty to do any thing therein to be reprehended If in case of Merchandize for Salt or Wine the Princes Ministers can borrow things of our Merchants I know not how to remedy secret bargains where Merchandize is in use The Treaty of York shall cease for a while for that some of the Commissioners on either side are sent for hither to confer with her Majesty The Queen of Scots case appeareth not defensible by her own In so much as they intend another course to make the Duke of Chastilherault their head and provide for themselves And so having no more at this present I end with my hearty thanks for your kind accepting of my friendly good will that I bear you Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 28. Oct. 1568. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR IT seemeth long since I heard from you trusting that my Lady and your Son came safely to you although their passage was very hard at Rye We hear many divers news of the matters in France But I give no credit untill you shall play the Bishop and confirm them Our Commissioners at York have heard the Queen of Scots complaint and the answer of the other part wherein they have forborn to charge the Queen with the murther upon some reasonable respects not knowing what end they will make if they should charge and prove her guilty hereupon the Queens Majesty hath sent for some on either part Sir Ra Sadler came hither yesterday and the Bishop of Ross and the Lord Harris for the Scotish Queen came this day and so shall Liddington and Mackgill for the Prince It is mentioned to have a composition whereto the Scotish Queen as they say is very willing Dover But A and B for the more part are earnestly disposed and if as it is thought very probable then so to be 7 for other wise quietness will never long continue The Queens Majesty finding her subjects continually spoiled by the French upon the Seas is forced to send Mr. Winter to the Seas with 4. Ships of her Majesties and two Barks I know how many tales will be spred of his going but truly you may avow that his going is wholly to preserve our Fleet at Burdeaux from Piracy and therefore he is appointed to go towards Burdeaux with A hath agreed and for the son to have I hear say that some of our Merchants in London have bargained with certain Merchants of Rochell and thereabout to buy a quantity of Salt wherewith it is likely that the King there when he shall hear thereof will be very suspicious but in such cases Merchants must be permitted to make their bargains and so you shall have reason to maintain their doings The Cardinal Chastillion sheweth himself so quiet a person and in all his languages so faithful a servant to the King his Master as he meriteth great commendations he medleth in nothing here but wholly occupyed
in exercise of his Religion he continually lamenteth that grave Councellors perswading peace are not of more power and credit in the Court. Whatsoever this French Ambassador shall report of him he cannot truly report any evil of him I hear La Mot is on his way at Callis to come hither I think surely some of yours are on the way I pray send me a Register or List of the Chieftains on the Kings part and also on the contrary Sir I do send you herewith a new Cipher Yours assuredly W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters that came to my hands were of the 29. of the last moneth by which you signified to me the advertisements which you then had of the taking of Angulesme since which time sundry reports are brought hither of Battels that should be betwixt the parties whereof lacking advertisements from your self I do give credit unto none by reason of the diversities of the reports On Sunday last La Mot was presented by Mounsieur de la Forest the former Ambassador whom the Queens Majesty hath admitted as Ambassador for the French King and seemeth to like well of his wisdom whereof hitherto for mine own part I have not had any proof The cause of the Queen of Scots is now to be heard here for which purpose the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Sussex are sent for from York and are to be here within these two days and presently the Earl of Murray the Earl Morton with certain other Noble men of his part are already come and on the Queens part the Bishop of Ross and the Lord Herryes be at London and do daily look for some other Commissioners to joyn with them because her Majesty meaneth to have the whole matter advisedly heard she hath appointed an Assembly not onely of her whole Council but of all the Earls of the Realm to be here the 18. of this moneth at which time her Majesty meaneth to have this cause of the Queen of Scots fully heard and therein to take such resolution and end as she shall be advised unto by her said Council and Estates The last letters which you sent unto the Queen wherein as her Majesty saith you made declaration of your Message done to that King concerning the Cardinal Chastillons being here was by her Majesty casually let fall in the fire and so burnt whereupon her Majesty being sorry for that she had not advisedly perused it willed me to write unto you for the copy of the same letter again which I pray you to send me by the next I would be glad to hear a brief or as they call it a list of the names of the principal persons that have a charge now in these wars in France on both parts with the contents as near as you can of their numbers After the writing hereof this present evening as the bearer hereof can tell Mr. Edmonds came hither with your letters to the Queens Majesty by which I am satisfied for those reports that were made of the great sights at Angulesme and of that which hath been here reported by the French Ambassador of the overthrow of Mouvans which I am glad is not true as he reported and so finding nothing else to be answered I thought good to dispatch this bearer with this my letter to the intent we might the sooner hear of your news whereupon dependeth the whole expectation of the Christian world Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court 16. Nov. 1566. Postscript Before Mr. Edmonds came you may see what I wrote of the To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY your last letter sent to me by this bearer your servant I perceived how good hap it was for our satisfaction here that your letters came not away with the report of the victory whereof the King there advertised you by a special Messenger untill you had also knowledge of the truth thereof by Villeroys coming from the Camp after the first message for like as the former part of your letters made mention of a great Victory for the King and an overthrow of the Princes whole Infantry So have many letters been written hither from Paris and other places according to the partial affections of the Writers in affirmance thereof adding for their confirmation certain solemnities by Processions and such like used at Paris for the same nevertheless I account the truth to be as in the latter part of your letter you write that there was no such manner of battel but certain skirmishes wherein there was no great inequality and yet because I hear it also credibly reported that the Prince of Conde lodged and kept the field where the skirmishes were I think his losses were less then the others whereof I think within a while to know the truth more particularly This matter of the Queen of Scots began to be heard and treated on at Westminster the 25. of the last moneth since which time there hath been sittings five or six several days and yesterday the Queen of Scots Commissioners having matter to answer whereby the Queen their Mistriss was charged with the murther of her husband they alleadged that they would go no further being so commanded by letters from her received since the beginning of this Commission and have required to speak with the Queens Majesty of whom they pretend they will desire to have the Queen their Mistriss to come to the presence of her Majesty and answer these causes her self whereunto how they shall be answered I cannot tell but for that purpose and others her Majesty hath presently sent for her Council who be here at present and so shall the Queen of Scots Commissioners be to morrow and hereafterward as matters shall fall out I will advertise you further and so take my leave Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court 2. Decem. 1568. To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR SInce my last writing by your servant Buffin I have forborn to write because I thought both to hear somewhat more from you and to have also somewhat here to write unto you Since which time I have received no letters from you but such as the poor Merchants of Ireland brought me being dated the 25. of the last moneth which came hither on Saturday last being the 11. of this moneth and considering the multitude of tales reported here to us of the conflict about the 18. I was nothing satisfied with the said last letters because touching that matter they did refer me to your former against which the French Ambassador here hath precisely given unto us news in the name of the King his Master wholly to the disadvantage of the Prince and therefore I wish you had written thereof now at the latter time somewhat more particularly I did of late write to you for the copy of the letter
which you wrote unto the Queens Majesty touching the speech that was uttered unto you by the King there concerning the Cardinal Chastillon for that as I wrote unto you the same letter by casualty was burned before it was thoroughly read and perused and hitherto I have not heard your answer to the same We have been here of late much occupied in the conference with the Commissioners of Scotland wherein there hath been eight or nine several Sessions the sum of the matter is this the Queens party began at York to accuse the Regent and his party whereunto they made their answer and defence after which the Queens party by replication maintained their accusation and then the conference there stayed whereupon the Regent being here with the Queens Majesty vehemently charged was driven for his defence to disclose a full Fardel of the naughty matter tending to convince the Queen as devisor of the murther and the Earl of Bothwell her Executor and now tâ—e Queens party finding the burthen so great refuse to make any answer and press that their Mistriss may come in person to answer the matter her self before the Queens Majesty which is thought not sit to be granted untill the great Blots of the marriage with her husband the murtherer and the evident charges by letters of her own to be the deviser of the murther be somewhat razed out or recovered for that as the matters are exhibited against her it is far unseemly for any Prince or chaste ears to be annoyed with the silthy noise thereof and yet as being a Commissioner I must and will sorbear to pronounce anything herein certainly although as a private person I cannot but with horror and trembling think thereof In your letters of the 25. you recommended unto me a cause of your own between you and one Brabrook wherein you write that one Tettersall your Atturney should have informed me but herein I have not a good while now dealt withall but whensoever any shall I shall be glad to shew you my friendship to my power sic de caeteris I am sorry to understand of the sickness of your Son Mr. William Norris and therefore I would be glad to hear from you of his recovery for indeed I do heartily like him and his condition I have also dealt with my Lord of Norfolks grace in your matter for your right to the Lord Dacres Lands wherein his Grace at the Council-table openly promised his favor I pray you Sir commend me to my good Lady your wife if there be any good Charte of France made since Mr. Oliver Trunkets impression having no date I would be glad to have one to behold therein the particular voyages and passages of these contrary powers And so I end Yours as your own W. Cecil Hampton-Court 14. Decemb. 1568. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambessador resident in France SIR THis bearer your servant came hither the last of December with your letters of the 25. and 26. of the same wherein he used good diligence and for the contents thereof her Majesty is very well satisfied with the diligence of your advertising being before by reason of contrarious reports in great suspence what to think for this French Ambassdor now being here useth an ordinary manner to write unto her Majesty in a certain general sort of the news of that Country as favorably as he may on the Kings behalf as reason is he should but yet not without danger of discrediting himself by reporting untruths As I conjecture by your advertisements it is likely that God hath already permitted some great effect to be wrought about this Christmas time by some Battail stricken betwixt the two Armies and howsoever it is I do not doubt but you will advertise and therein the will of God is to be obeyed with thanks or with patience as it pleaseth him to give his grace or to chastise By your letters also it appeared that the Prince of Orange at the writing thereof was still in the French Kings Dominions and yet the common report at the same time was that he was departed towards Germany whereof the Duke of Alva's friends in the Low Countries began to make some triumph The matter of the Queen of Scots remains in these termes upon the accusation produced by her Commissioners against the Earl of Murray they have for their defence shewed so much matter to charge her with the procuring of the murther of her husband as thereupon motion is made on her behalf for covering of her honor to have some appointment betwixt her and her subjects which is communed of secretly by two or three manner of wayes that is to say That she should affirm her resignation of her Crown to her Son as it hath been made and live here in England Or else her self and her Son to joyn in Title and the Earl of Murray to remain Regent Or thirdly her self to remain in Title Queen and to live here in England secluded and the Earl of Murray to continue Regent which matters have so many pikes as the venture is great to take hold of any one of them nevertheless in the mean time outwardly she offereth to prove her self innocent so she may be permitted to come to the Queens presence and answer for her self which is thought to be the more earnestly required because it is also thought assured it will be denyed and now what is like to grow to be the end thereof surely I cannot well guess for as for my self I finde my insufficiency to wade so deep and the violence of the stream so great as without good company assisting in Council I dare not venture to make any passage and so wishing you and my Lady and yours a fortunate good year I end Here is a stay made of certain treasure that came out of Spain to pass into Flanders which we take to be Merchants and not the Kings as is alleadged if it shall prove Merchants we may be bolder to take the use of it upon good Bonds for an interest Yours assuredly W. Cecil Jan. 3. 1568. SIR I Heartily thank you for the last letters of the first of this moneth wherein you did well deliver us from some perplexity being by the French Ambassador here otherwise advertised to the advantage of the Cardinalists his letters are dated the 30 of December from the King and I marvel to perceive by your letters that the skirmish should be the 23. and the advise should not come to you before the 28. for thereby it seemeth the Camp should be so far off as in four or five days tidings could not come but this I think may be said that evil news are brought to that Court slowly at the least they are uttered slowly Of this accident of Arrest you shall be by her Majesties letters fully advertised at the signing whereof her Majesty said that she would have sent a Gentle-man expresly to the King but she considered that being sent
by Sea the journey in this Winter time will be very dangerous and uncertain and to send him thorow France where the troubles are such as she could not either without mistrust of the French King because the party should pass thorow Gascoigne and the Queen of Navarrs ountry or without certain danger by souldiers and thereupon you shall so advertise that Ambassador of Spain and require him to make advertisement accordingly whereunto you may add that her Majesty hath thought of three or four meet persons to be sent thither for one of them to be an Ambassador Resident but none will be gotten that with good will will serve in respect of Mr. Mans strange and hard handling which things her Majesty would have you set out more plainly to him that the King may finde that onely to be the cause why there is no Resident Ambassador there And thus I end having willed Harcourte to take some of the Proclamations if they be ready printed in French Yours assuredly W. Cecil Jan. 8. 1568. Postscript I finde in a Bill of Petitions beginning from the 28. of August to December sundry sums of money pressed by you for carriage of Packets to whom I have not answered and therefore hereafter I pray you write expresly of what you do there for avoiding of double charge To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR SInce the writing the other letter dated the 8. of January my Lady caused her servant to stay for a Pasport for two Geldings and sithence my other letter we have here news from Flanders 5. V. touching R and therefore we are in a continual expectation what were the very news of a matter that was reported to have hapned the 23. of December The more particulars you write hither and the oftner the more thankful is your service and surely I see nothing so meet for us to understand as to be often advertised from you which considering you may write in your Cipher the oftner you hazard your letters the less is the peril We have no news from Scotland but that their Parliament is ended and amongst other things they have all assented by Act to decline the Queen of Scots obtaining to be lawful because she was privy to the murther of her husband There were none of the Nobillity absent but such as were of the Hambletons And thus I end my suddain letter being in a great longing to hear from you Yours assuredly W. Cecil January 10. 1568. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight Her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AFter I had written my other letters sent in this Packet unto you which I was to have sent away by one of your Footmen your servant this bearer Henry Crispe came hither upon Thursday last with your letters dated the 22. of this moneth and perceiving him earnestly disposed to return unto you I thought best to stay the sending away of your Footman and to send as I do this dispatch by this bearer which is partly because my former letters shall seem to bear so old a date And herewith I send unto you which was not ready before a memorial in the Spanish tongue of the matters passed concerning this late Arrest which memorial her Majesty would have you procure with her letters to the King of Spain and therefore after you have perused it I wish you should retain a Copy thereof either in Spanish or in French for your better instruction and that done to use all the expedition you may for the conveyance of her Majesties letters and the said Memorial to the King of Spain Since the finishing of the said memorial you shall understand that D' Assondeville hath been here a good time being not as yet accepted as an Ambassador for that he hath no special letters nor Commission from the King but from the Duke of Alva And all that he can say for himself is That he cometh in the Kings name as one of his Privy Council and whatsoever he shall do shall be confirmed by the King before he will depart out of the Realm He would also privately confer with the Spanish Ambassador which hath been hitherto denyed for that it is meant that the misbehaviors of the said Ambassadors should be openly disclosed to D' Assonleville thereby to let it appear how unmeet a man he is to be a Minister for Amity here which yesterday was declared to D' Assonleville at my Lord Keepers house where he came to these of the Council following my Lord Keeper the Duke of Norfolk the Earl of Leicester the Lord Admiral my self Mr. Sadler and Mr. Mildmay and that done he seemed sorry for things past and yet pressed still to speak with the Ambassador which was not then granted by us for that we did intend that resolution should grow from her Majesty which though it be not yet known I think he shall not be denyed In these matters we have cause to be somewhat slow to satisfie them lest they should according to their accustomed manner grow too audacious what will be the end thereof I cannot judge but I trust it will appear that they have begun upon a wrong ground and as it falleth out I think they shall be found to be behinde hand with us Yesterday word came to London that all the English Fleet which were feared should have been Arrested in Spain came home safe and this day I have heard for certainty that Hawkins is arrived at Mounts Bay with the Queens Ship the Minnion having in her the Treasure which he hath gotten by his Trade in the Indies and by rigor of the Spaniards near Mexico was forced to leave the Jesus of Lubeck upon a Leek which also he destroyed that they took no profit thereof hereafter I will write unto you as I shall learn the further truth of this matter with what cruelty he was used under pretence of friendship and of a compact made betwixt him and the Vice-Roy of the Indies and Pledges delivered on both sides for the performance thereof The Queen of Scots was removed from Bolton by my Lord Scrope and Mr. Vice-chamberlain on Wednesday last so as I think on Monday or Tuesday she shall be at Tetbury where the Earl of Shrewsbury is already and there shall take the charge of her and with him shall Mr. Hen. Knollis brother to Mr. Vice-Chamberlain remain to assist him Of late the Queens Majesty understanding out of Scotland that the Queen of Scots faction there had published sundry things being very false and slanderous meaning thereby to withdraw the Earl of Murrays friends from him and to bring the Queens Majesty doings into some question whereof we also be credibly informed the Queen of Scots by her letters was the very cause thereupon her Majesty ordered to have the contrary notified upon her Frontiers for maintenance of the truth as by the same you shall understand which I send you herewith in Print The advertisements
which you gave both to my Lord of Leicester and me of the secret cause of the Kings going to Metz seemeth to be of such importance as it is found very needful to provide with speed some remedy and so we here for our part will do our best as serve which you may consider considering the and therefore I pray you attempt all the means you can to advise all parts that shall take the harm I have no more to write to you meaning to expect within three or four days somewhat from you and then I will write by one of your Footmen and so I take my leave The French Ambassador hath been informed of the stay of our Ships at Rhoan and on Thursday last my Lords of the Council sent Mr. Hampton to him to move him that they might be released within 15. days or else we must do the like his answer was that he would do his best and he trusted they should be imputing the cause to our sufferance of the Prince of Conde his party on the Sea to make Portsale in our Havens which surely is not by us permitted and therefore for his satisfaction we did yesterday write letters to all Officers of Ports to prohibit utterly the vent of any Commodities brought in by such men and besides this the Ambassador hath required that you would be earnest with the King for the release of our Ships which we told him was not neglected by you and so I doubt not but you do your best therein This day the Ambassador sent his Secretary unto me to complain that the Currier of Callis carrying his Packet from hence should be searched and certain Packets of letters taken from him which I told him was true and the cause thereof such as we had more reason to complain thereof then he For true it is that the said Currier having but one small Packet of the French Ambassadors under pretence thereof had carryed with him two great Fardels of letters of the Merchants of the Low Countries who were here Arrested with their goods a matter also whereof the said Ambassador was forewarned and so is the matter to be proved by the letters of the said strangers which I at present have in my custody and so the Post was permitted freely to depart with all mańner of letters which he had of the said Ambassador And so I pray you to make answer therein as you shall see cause for so is the truth and no otherwise Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court Jan. 30. 1568. To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR OF late I have received three several letters from you the first of the 11. the second of the 13. and the last of the 15. of February although that of the 13 of February was written to be in January but I am sure to be mistaken By the first it appeared that you could not obtain of Mounsieur Morviller the names of any Ships or Merchants of that party which were stayed here although they pretended the stay of ours at Rhoan to be for that cause In the same letter you make mention of two dis-courtesies or as I may rather say injuries done unto you the one by taking Rogers your servant the other by imprisoning the Physician to my Lady your wife of which two matters you may see by the answer made to the French Ambassador I have made mention The second letter of the 13. which was brought to me by this bearer containeth matter of burthening you by the Queen Mother for solliciting the Queens Majesty to take some enterprize for Callis or Rochel wherein I think your wisdom sufficient to satisfie your self what to think for if you had so done as I know not that you have it were not unlike but they there would invent and set abroach for their advantage the like matter if the circumstances were theirs as they be ours And where you are charged with conveyance of the Rebels letters as they call them in your Packets I think the same and the former part are fed with one humor which is that though you do not in this sort yet they surely would so do in the like wherefore I wish you to be no ways troubled herewith but as the end of the verse is Contra audentior ito and yet to hold this rule to be a Minister of good amity betwixt the Princes usque ad aras that is as far forth as it be not against the honor of God and the safety of the Queen our Sovereign By your letter of the 15. which was written after you had closed up the Packet brought by this bearer you advertised me of the news which you had of Monsieur Gengez and of the joyning together of the Prince of Orange and the Duke Pipantine whereof saving your advertisements otherwise we hear nothing but rather the contrary being spred so by the French Ambassador here with affirmations of great credit In the latter end of your letter of the 13. it appeareth you had not then sent away the Queens Majesties letters to the King of Spain whereof I am very sorry for her majesty maketh an assured account that they had been in Spain by this time which I see you did not because the Spanish Ambassador was not at Court but at Paris for remedy whereof all speed possible would be used to send them by a special man to the Ambassador at Paris with some excuse to him of sending the same so late You shall understand that Monsieur D' Assenleville who came onely from the Duke of Alva hath been here of long time hovering to have had access to the Queen as an Ambassador which her Majesty would not allow of nor would so much prejudice her self in respect of the unkinde usage of the Duke of Alva and yet nevertheless allowed unto him as much conference as he would with her Council to whom although he did open as we think the sum of his negotiation yet he pretended to have somewhat more to her Majesty if he might have audience of her which otherwise he said he could open to no body As to that which he opened to the Council which was a request to have the money released and the Arrest set at liberty It was answered That the money belonged to Merchants and that he could not deny but added that it was meant to have been lent unto the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries and so as they termed it designed to the Kings use as to the restitution of the money and putting the Arrest at liberty she would neither deny nor grant the same to him considering he lacked authority to make sufficient contract thereupon but when the King himself should send one sufficiently authorized both to understand and to redress the injuries done by the Duke of Alva to her Majesties subjects it should well appear that the King should be reasonably satisfied on her Majesties behalf and amity and peace
should be conserved according to the Treaties And besides this it was added that seeing the Duke of Alva began the Arrest first it was reason they should also begin the release and so in the end D'Assonle ville appearing to be much miscontented was licensed to depart and so is gone having used all good gentle speech that could be during his being here notwithstanding the report of his great bravery made at Callis before his coming which either was not true or else purged his choler upon the Seas coming hither Thus having as time could serve me enlarged my letter I end with my hearty thanks to you for the Charts of France which I perceive are of the like as I had seen before so as I think there is no newer printed Yours assuredly as your own W. Cecil Westm. March 7. 1568. Postscript I would gladly know whether the paper you sent me containing the Emperors answer to the French Kings demand be to be allowed as true To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight c SIR BY the Queens Majesties letters you shall perceive in what sort the French Ambassador hath sought to frame a tale of slander against you her Majesty hath answered for you and as long as no other thing can be produced to touch you it is reason that her Majesty should answer as she doth Your servant Madder came safely hither four days past and I have heard from my Lady of Harts taking and the Queens Majesties letters from him Whereof as I know upon her advertisement to you you will use some roundness of speech by way of complaint there so have we here not forborn to charge the Ambassador with these dis-courteous dealings who promises earnestly to write to the King thereof The French Ambassador giveth out store of News of the overthrow of Montgomery the taking of his brother of Gonliss death of the Duke of Bipots sickness of his want of money to go to the Feild but we heard of many contraries to these and so I wish you your hearts desire Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 14. March 1568. To the Right Honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight her Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur servant Crips came hither yesternight as I perceive constrained to follow and accompany Monsieur de Montassyer who this day was brought to the Queens Majesties presence to report the Victory which God had given to the French King by a Battail as he termed it wherein was slain the Prince of Conde whereunto as I could conceive her Majesty answered that of any good Fortune hapning to the King she was glad but she thought it also to be condoled with the King that it should be counted a Victory to have a Prince of his blood slain and so with such like speech not fully to their contentation Before the coming of your letters we could not firmly believe the reports of the Prince of Conde's death but now the will of God is to be interpreted in this and all things to the best I am sorry to see you so troubled whereof her Majesty is so informed as she told the French Ambassador that if he will not procure the King his Master to cause you and yours to be otherwise entreated she will revoke you In the mean season I pray you keep your former courage contra audentior ito I have been and yet am not in sure health as your Son can inform you whereby I am not able to write any long letter when Madder was here I gave him a Memorial of sundry things of which I trust he hath by this time informed you at length We have heard nothing from Rochel since this re-encounter at Cognac but from Paris we hear that saving the loss of the Princes person the other part hath the greater loss in numbers and that the Admiral did defeat fourty Ensigns of Mounsieurs Army that offered to besiege him in Cognac hereof shortly the truth will be known I note that this 13. of March last past had two sundry great effects for upon that day when the Regent of Scotland should have fought with the Duke of Chastilherault they did notably accord the same day in this sort that the Duke acknowledged the young King and went with the Regent to Sterling and with him besides other Noblemen the Lord Herryes who had been here a vehement Commissioner for the Queen of Scots Besides it is accorded that for redress of all private quarrels there were four Noblemen named of either part to end all who should come to Edenburgh the tenth of April to treat thereupon and this was unwilling to the Queen of Scots who must needs be greatly perplexed therewith what will follow I know not but the Regent is now well obeyed the same day we see what was done in Poytiers wherein Gods judgements are not to be over much searched I send you within the Queens Majesties letter a paper in a new Cipher to which he desireth forasmuch as all power egal to be which I pray you do And thus I finde my self not able to indure any longer writing and therefore end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 6. April 1568. SIR AFter I had closed up this other Packet I had occasion to stay the bearer partly by indisposition of my health and also within a day after by reason of the coming of your Son John Norris with your letters of the 15. of this moneth who gave us here to understand of certain discomfortable news which were told him at Abeville and as it appeareth were in great haste sent before him by the Marshal de Cosse to the French Ambassador containing an absolute Victory by the Kings brother in a battail besides Cognac in which it was written that the Prince of Conde and the rest of the Nobility with him saving the Admiral and Dandelot who were fled were all slain and this news being here dispersed abroad I thought good to stay the sending away of this bearer until we might better understand what to think truth herein which being now four days and therein no confirmation of the aforesaid news but a doubtful maintenance of them whereby it is thought that either no part was true or not in such sort as was reported and therefore knowing the necessity of your mans service I do return him unto you We understand certainly out of Scotland that there hath been an accord by certain Articles made betwixt the Regent and the Duke of Chastilherault and his party wherein the obedience to the King is acknowledged and a Surcease untill the tenth of April at which time the Duke and eight more chosen on both parts shall meet at Edenburgh to confer of the estate of the Queen of Scots how she shall be reputed and likewise of recompences for the losses on both parts sustained in these civil wars and for performance of this Treaty the Duke the Earle of Cassels and the Lord Herryes remain with the Regent untill they put in their Sons for
Hostages and the Regent in the mean time intendeth to use his force to subdue the Out-laws upon our Frontiers I received letters even now out of Ireland by which it is written of the defeat of four hundred Irish and Scots onely by sixscore Englishmen I shall continually hearken for your letters to declare to us the truth of this great tale of the Battail of Cognac We hear that the Count Meighen is newly departed and fled into Germany upon fear Yours assuredly W. Cecil 27. March 1568. Postscrip The time serveth me not to write to you of your self for your motion of leaving that place To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight c. SIR SInce the coming hither of Harcourt who came hither on St. George his day as it seemeth with good haste we here have been much unsatisfied for that we could not imagine what to conceive to be the cause that in so long space we heard not from you having in the mean time so many divers tales as we were more troubled with the uncertainty then glad of the news and toadd more grief we could not hear from Rochel since the Re-encounter untill now by a Merchant that came hither within these two dayes past by whom we are more ascertained then before by him we understand that the loss of the Prince is more in reputation then in deed for that now the whole Army is reduced to better Order then it was before The Vidame of Charles is come to Plimouth and his wife as it is thought not being well liked of amongst the Nobility because he married so meanly indeed it must needs be some reproof to him to come away when service is requisite Since the accord made in Scotland the 13. of March at Easter last the Duke of Chastil-herault and his part hearing as it is thought of the death of the Prince of Conde and by brute that the Admiral and all that party were utterly subverted did go back from their agreement which was to acknowledge the young King and the Regent whereupon as we hear the Duke himself the Archbishop of St. Andrew the Lord Herryes and the Lord Rosbim are committed to the Castle of Edenburgh what will follow I know not God stay these troubles that increase so near us I think you do hear from Mr. Killigrew who is sent to the Palsgrave of Rheine and so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil April 27. 1569. Postscript Sir to avoid some length of my own writing I do send you herewith the sum of the Negotiation lately with the French Ambassador and thereto have adjoyned the Copy of the Proclamation that is meant to be made by the Queens Majesty which is mentioned in the other writing and a Copy also of a clause contained in the French Kings Proclamation by all means you may well understand that which hath passed in this matter and shape your own speech there accordingly > W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight Ambassador in France SIR YOu have much satisfied us here with your letters sent by Madder who is able to explicate the affairs very sensibly and now I have thought good to address to you Hartcourte knowing that he is very serviceable unto you And as for any news to make recompence to you I have not and glad I am that our Country doth not yeild any such as France and yet in the way of Christian charity I do lament the misfortune of France marvailling that a Country that hath had so many wise men able to offend other Countries hath none to devise help for themselves I wish that you would learn of the Spanish Ambassador there whether he sent the letters which you delivered to him from the Queens Majesty There is some secret means made hither to come to accord with the Low Countries and therein I see the most doubt will be in devising assurance how to continue the accords Our Navy hath been ready these fourteen days at Harwich to go with the Merchants Fleet of Wooll and Cloth to Hamburgh and our Fleet that was appointed to Rochel is as we think there by means of the Easterly winds that hâ—th hindred and stayed the other Fleet. God send them both a good return for they are no small offence to our neighbors that to Hamburgh to the Duke of Alva and the other to the French The French Ambassador continueth a suitor that no Ambassador be sent to Rochell and that our Merchants cannot forbear specially for Salt which cannot be had in other places although even now great likelihood is of sufficiency to be had within these 12. moneths in England The Earl of Murray proceedeth still in uniting to him the Lords that were divorced from him and specially of late the Earl of Arguile is reconciled to him and the like is looked for of the Earl of Huntley I have no more but to end with my commendations Yours assured at command W. Cecil Greenwich 15. May 1569. SIR YOur last letters that came hither to my hands were written the 27. by which amongst other things you wrote of the brute of the impoisoning Dandelot by the means of an Italian of which matter we were here advertised almost ten days before the report was in part before he was sick such assurance have these Artizans of their works the will of God be fulfilled to the confusion and shame of such as work them and such great iniquities We have certain news from Rochell that Dandelot being opened the very poison was manifestly found in him The Queens Majesty of late was very credibly advertised by sight of original letters of persons of no small reputation in that Kings Court which have entreated of the matter whereof heretofore your self hath advertised concerning the D and for the transterring 3. And now her Majesty would have you use all good means that you can possible to learn some more truth hereof and thereof with speed to advise her Majesty for it is so precisely denyed on the other part here as nothing can be more The French Ambassador continueth complaining of lack of restitution in general yet I assure you he never is refused restitution upon any particular demand where contrarywise our Merchants are daily evil used at Rhoan and specially Callis and as it seemeth the Governor of Callis regardeth not the Ambassadors speeches or promises here or else it is Covenanted betwixt them to Boulster out their doings Mr. Winter departed from Harwich the 19. of May and came to Hamburgh the 23. remained there untill the 28. and returned safe to Harwich the first of June all in good safety with the Queens Ships leaving two there to return with our Merchants It is found that all the Ships in the Country dare not deal with six of the Queens being armed as they are motion is made of accord betwixt us and the Low Countries The Earl of Murray hath no resistance in Scotland Yours assuredly W. Cecil Greenwich 4. June
1569. Postscript SIR IT is now accorded that three of the Merchants shall pass over to Rohan to prove what restitution the French will make there and the like shall be here Because I doubt your slack servants I do presently send away this bearer otherwise I would have staid him to have seen what manner of news this Ambassador hath to declare upon Tuesday next at which time he hath required to be heard I am ready as I told your Son Mr. William Norris to do any thing in my power to pleasure you in your particular causes or suites here as the last Term I did deal for you in such as I was required Yours assuredly W. Cecil To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters are of the 8 of June brought by a Merchant residing at Rhoan and now our daily expectation is to hear either of the joyning of the Duke Vypont with the Admiral or else that they have been kept asunder by sight we have no news here being contented with continuance of quietness which we think to possess except the motions of the contrary shall come from thence whereof we have great cause to fear and the like to prevent Upon a Reprizal made by Mr. Winter here of certain Portugals goods We hear for certainty that King of Portugal hath Arrested the goods of our Merchants there whereof will follow some jaâ—â— which we think our foes will increase The Queen of Scots hath sent one Borthick by whom at his request I wrot yesterday and her Secretary Rowlye into France co procure from the King and his brother 〈◊〉 some satisfaction to the Queens Majesty for avoiding of the opinion conceived of her transaction with Mounsieur D' Anjou how they shall well satisfie her Majesty I cannot tell but as of late I wrote to you her Majesty would have you explore by all means that you can what hath been in truth done heretofore in that case besides the advertisement for her Majesty hath seen letters passed betwixt no mean persons of Authority there being adversaries to the Religion by which it manifestly appeareth that such matters have been secretly concluded and yet the more tryals are made hereof the better it is We have at length accorded with the French Ambassador here as as you shall see by a Copy of writing herewith sent you and so I take my leave of you I wish that you would always when you send any with your letters write what you imprest to them for their charges for I make full allowance to them all And so with my hearty commendations to you and my Lord I end Our Progress is like to be to Southampton Your assured friend at command W. Cecil Greenwich 18 June 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henrry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THis bearer Mr Borthick servant to the Queen of Scots hath required me to have my letters unto you to signifie the cause of his coming wherein I can certifie of my knowledge no other than thus the Queen of Scots of late time amongst other things to move the Queens Majesty to be favoureble unto her in her causes offered to do any thing reasonable to satisfie her Majesty concerning her surety in the right of this Crown as she now possesseth it to her self and her issue whereupon answer was given that though there was no need for the Queens Majesties assurance to have any Act pass from her yet as things were understood the Queen of Scots was not now a person able or meet to contract therein for it was understood that she had made a Concession of all her Title to this Crown to the Duke of Anjou with which answer we finde the Queen of Scots much moved as a thing devised by her enemies in France and thereupon she advertiseth the cause to be of the sending of her 〈◊〉 into France to the King his Brother Uncles c. to make perfect testimony in what sort this surmise is untrue and so as I am informed this is the occasion of the coming of Mr. Borthick this Bearer who truly I have found always a good servant to the Queen his Mistriss and a tractable Gentleman at all times and so I pray you accept him upon my commendations Yours assuredly W. Cecil Westm. 16. June 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur advertisement of the Duke of Bipont came hither so speedily as untill seven days after the French Ambassador could not understand thereof but when he did he used no sparing to divulge it abroad where the Count Ernest of Mansfelt is we cannot as yet understand but from Rochell we hear that he is well allowed of the Army and not inferior in knowledge to the Duke The will of God must be patiently received and obeyed and what shall ensue hereof to his glory we must if it be good affirm it to be beyond our deserts if otherwise not so evil as we have deserved Of late about the 15. of June a Rebellion began in the West part of Ireland about Cork wherein we care not for the force of the inhabitants so they be not aided with some Spainards or Portugals whereof we are not void of suspicion and therefore we do presently send certain Captains with a Force by Sea from Bristoll to Cork meaning to provide for the worst as reason is Our Rochell Fleet is safely returned with Salt and I think the Merchants have not as yet brought their whole accomplement Upon your last advertisement of the delays used in giving you Pasports I did peremptorily admonish the French Ambassador That if he did not procure you some better expedition at the Kings hands there he should have the like measure there and therefore I think you shall hear some what whereof I pray you advertise me And so I take my leave Yours assuredly W. Cecil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Postscript An unfortunate Accident is befaln to my Lord of Shrewsbury being first stricken with a Palsey and now stricken lamentably with a Phrensie God comfort him It is likely the Queen of Scots shall remove to Belvoir in the charge of my Lord of Bedford To the right honorable Sir Henrry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AS my leisure is small to write much so have I not much matter to write unto you at this time but onely to send away this bearer your servant unto you because I think in this time you have cause to use them all Your Son Mr. John Norris I think shall be the next by whom you shall understand all our matters here better then I can express in my letters and therefore I do forbear to write divers things at this present unto you which by him you shall more certainly understand onely at this time I wish that you could find the means to send some trusty person
a matter to be pitied to have any such disorder to be begun yet with Gods goodness there is great likelihood of due avenge to be had of them all and no small profit to grow to the Queens Majestie by the forfeitures and escheats of their Lands wherewith the better subjects may be rewarded The French Ambassador hath been here this day and shewed the Queens Majesty that the King is come to Paris to levy mony for increase of his Army and that there are coming six thousand more Switzers to his service The 25. of the last the Earl of Murray began a convention at St. Iohns Town and meaneth to send as I think the Lord Lydlington hither with his minde concerning the Queen of Scots and so I end with my hearty commendations both to your self and my Lady Yours assuredly W. Cecil Otlands 3. Aug. 1569. Postscript here is very desirous that might be hither To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters brought hither to my hands came by Mr. Huddleston whom surely I think you shall finde an honest servitor I have no matter presently to write of but to take occasion to send away this bearer your servant and I wish to hear from you of some good success at Pcictiers I do lye in wait for the Italian of whom you lately made mention in your letters that is sent hither to attempt his devillish conclusions Out of Ireland since my last I have heard nothing of any moment but I trust all shall be in quiet there and so is the state of this Realm also howsoever any other shall report having a disposition of malicious prophesying In Suffolk a lewd Varlet not disposed to get his living by labor moved a number of light persons to have made a rout in manner of Rebellion to have spoiled the richer sort but the matter was discovered and the offenders taken before they did attempt any thing more then had passed by words so as thereby they are punishable but as conspirers by words and not as actual Rebels The convention of St. Johns-Town in Scotland was dissolved about the second of this moneth and one Wednesday last came hither one Alexander Hume from the Regent with letters declaring that he had an universal obedience in Scotland and that the States there would not consent to any thing concerning the Queen of Scots restitution by any manner of Degree wherewith her Majesty is not well pleased because she hath a disposition to have her out of the Realm with some tollerable conditions to avoid perill which is a matter very hard at the least to me to compass I think you shall hear someways of an intention of and Certainly if the Queens Majesty may or shall be thereto perswaded I think it likely to succeed it hath so many weighty circumstances in it as I wish my self as free from the consideration thereof as I have been from the intelligence of the devising hereof I thought not good to have you ignorant I know Ê’ hath not allowed of it Sir I thank you for the French story which you lately sent me by Huddleston the next that shall come to you I think will be Mr. William Norris Yours assuredly W. Cecil Fernham 13. August 1569. Postscript Immediately after your last servant departed with letters to you making mention of our accord with the French Ambassador came the two Merchants Patrick and Offly to London with an accord propounded by the Marshall de Cross but not accepted for that thereby was required a general restitution of all things which on our part indeed cannot be and now the French Ambassador will not be here on Wednesday to eater into a new communication I send you a late Proclamation which you may impart there as you list SIR ALthough the bearer hereof Mr. Norris your Son is well able to satisfie you of all our Occurrents here both because of his continual attendance about the Court and for his understanding yet in one onely thing I am most fit to inform you That his stay here of long time hath been principally by my occasion whom I have at all times of late when he hath desired to come over unto you moved to stay upon expectation to have some matter of more weight to be by him imparted unto you but finding the same not so to fall out and perceiving him the more importune to resort unto you since the repair of Harcourte by whom he understood of your sickness I have thought it good no longer to defer him and therefore without any other great matter but to send him where he would be he now cometh and if I should enter into writing of any particular things here past he is as well able to express the same of his own knowledge as I am by writing and therefore you shall justly hold me excused if I forbear my writing having so sufficient a person to make report of all things as well such as are meet for letters as also not meet for some respects Of the matters of Ireland he shall make you full report Of Scotland he can do the like of our Trade to Hamburgh he is not ignorant of the matters betwixt us and France for Arrests of Merchandizes I have made him Privy and for the matters in this Court he hath seen and understands as much thereof as I doubt not but shall satisfie so as he shall serve you at this time in stead of many long letters And so I end with a good hope that he shall finde you well amended whereof I shall also be glad to hear wishing that the same might be joyned with the winning of Poictiers of which we here live on all sides in no small expectation though with sundry meanings Your assured friend at command W. Cecil Southampton 9. Sept. 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR SInce your Sons departing from Southampton I have deferred to write untill this time perceiving some likelihood of some greater matters to ensue and yet the event thereof draws out at some length which hath moved me to defer the same untill now and doubting that otherwise rumors may be brought unto you I have thought good to send away this bearer You shall understand that according as your Son was able to inform you the Duke of Norfolk departed towards London about the 16. of this moneth promising to return to the Court within 8. days the Queens Majesty having shewed her self towards him offended with his dealing in the marriage was newly offended with his departure but being by me assured as I earnestly thought that he would return her Majesty was quieted contrary hereunto notwithstanding that he wrote on Thursday the 23. that he would be at the Court before Munday yet he went away secretly from London to Reninghale that same night whereof we had no knowledge untill Sunday in the morning that his own
letters written on Friday at night at Reninghale came hither by which he signified the cause of his departure to be a vehement fear that he conceived by reports made to him that he should be committed to the Tower and therefore he did withdraw himself to have means to seek the Queens Majesties favor which he offered to do as a quiet humble subject Hereupon the same Sunday Mr. Edmund Garret was sent to him who found him at Reninghale on Munday at night in a servent Ague so as the Duke required respite untill Friday with which answer Mr. Garret returned and therewith the Queens Majesty was offended and began by reason also of other lewd tales brought to her Majesty to enter into no small jealousie and therefore sent again Mr. Garret with a peremptory commandment that he should come notwithstanding his Ague and so even now whilst I am writing I have word that Mr. Garret coming on Thursday at night found him ready to come of his own disposition and surely is now on the way whereof I am glad First for the respect of the State and next for the Duke himself whom of all subjects I honored and loved above the rest and surely found in him always matter so deserving Whilst this matter hath been in passing you must not think but the Queen of Scots was nearer looked to then before and though evil willers to our State would have gladly seen some troublesome issue of this matter yet God be thanked I trust they shall be deceived The Queens Majesty hath willed my Lord of Arundel and my Lord of Pembroke to keep their lodgings here for that they were privy of this marriage intended and did not reveal it to her Majesty but I think none of them so did with any evil meaning and of my Lord of Pembroke's intent herein I can witness that he meant nothing but well to the Queens Majesty my Lord Lumly also is restrained the Queens Majesty hath also been grievously offended with my Lord Leicester but considering he hath revealed all that he saith he knoweth of himself her Majesty spareth her displeasure the more towards him some disquiets must arise but I trust not hurtful for that her Majesty saith she will know the truth so as every one shall see his own fault and so stay Thus have I briefly run over a troublesome passage full of fears and jealousies God send her Majesty the quietness that she of her goodness desireth My Lord of Huntington is joyned with the Earl of Shrewsbury in charge for the Scotish Queens safety This 3. of October the Duke is come to Mr. Paul WentWorths house where Sir Henry Nevill hath charge to attend upon him I hope as I know no offence of untruth in him so the event of things will be moderate and so for my part I will endeavor all my power even for the Queens Majesties service I know there will be in that Court large discourses hereupon but I trust they shall lack their hope The Plague continueth in London the Term is prorogued untill All-halloutide All the former part of this letter hath been written these three days and stayed untill the Dukes coming Yours assuredly W. Cecil 3. Octob. 1569. To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR EVen when this bearer was departing I heard that Crips your servant was come from you as far as Amiens or Abberville and there was faln sick but whether he hath any letters of yours or no I cannot tell I do mean to send one thither to see his estate and to bring your letters which will come very late and therefore I think we shall also have some later from you as soon as they shall come to my hands This bearer seemeth to be in Religion good enough but yet you know how he politickly serveth the French King Howsoever any evil bouts shall come thither at this present all the Realm is as yet as at any time it hath been and no doubt of the contrary and yet the Duke of Norfok is in custody and so are the Earl of Arundel and Lord Lumley but the Lord Steward onely keepeth his Chamber in the Court and I trust shall shortly do well And so I end Your assured friend W. Cecil Windsor-Castle 10. Oct. 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR AS you have with grief written your advises so have they with grief been received of us and yet in all these accidents of the world we must accept with humbleness the Ordinances of Almighty God and expect his further favor with patience and with prayer and intercession to move the Majesty of God to draw his heavy hand over us which is provoked by our sins Of our late matters here by the Queens Majesties letter you shall further understand which being as you see long I know you will well consider and advise how to express the same to the French King in the French tongue wherein we have this disadvantage that their Ministers speak in their own tongue and we in theirs Whatsoever you shall hear by lewd reports from hence assure your self that I know no cause to doubt but that all things are and will continue quiet The Queen of Scots I trust is and shall be so regarded as no trouble will arise thereof the Duke of Norfolk doth humbly accept the Queens Majesties dealings with him and I know of none that are thought to have favored his part but either they plainly alter their opinions and follow the Queens or if they do not so inwardly yet outwardly they yield to serve and follow her Majesty order Before you sent us your letters which you received from Spain concerning Ireland we had knowledge of the same from the same place and much more and have made provision to our power These your sinister accidents in France will cause some that were in a slumber here to awake and so beseeching you to pardon me if my letter be hasty and very short Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor-Castle 26. Oct. 1566. To the Right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR THis bearer your Footman having brought your letters hither a good while since is desirous to return though I think both the season of the year and the weather will not suffer him to make much haste yet I have thought good to let you partly to understand of the state of things here About the midst of the last moneth the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland assembling themselves with some Companies after refusall to come in to the Lord President came to Duresme where they have made Proclamations in their own names for reformations of the disorders of the Realm as they termed it and for restitution of the ancient Customes and liberties of the Church and so directed the same generally to all of the old and Catholike Religion In their Companies
I know your Son Mr. William and other your servants hereto doth advertise you and therefore I pray you to bear with my shortness for I am almost smothered with business We look to hear of the apprehension of more of the Rebels I send you extracts of our letters out of the North as of late time they have come Yours assuredly W. Cecil Windsor-Castle 7. Jan. 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. Advertisements from Lyexham 22. Decemb. 1569. THe two Rebellious Rebels went into Liddesdale in Scotland yester-night where Martin Elwood and others that have given pledges to the Regent of Scotland did raise their forces against them being conducted by black Ormeston an Out-law of Scotland that was a principal murtherer of the King of Scots where the fight was offered and both parties lighted from their horses and in the end Elwood said to Ormeston he would be sorry to enter deadly send with him by bloodshed but he would charge him and the rest before the Regent for keeping of the Rebels and it he did not put them out of the Country the next day he would do his worst against them whereupon the two Earls were driven to leave Liddesdale and to flye to one of the Armestronges a Scot upon the batable on the borders between Liddesdale and England the same day the Liddesdale men stole the horses of the Countess of Northumberland and her two women and ten others of their Company so as the Earls being gone the Lady of Northumberland was left there on foot at John of the Sides house in a Cottage not to be compared to many a Dog-kennel in England at their departing from her they went not above fifty horse and the Earl of Westmerland to be the more unknown changed his Coat of Plate and sword with John of the Sides and departed like a Scotish Borderer The rest of the Rebels are partly taken in the West Borders of England and partly spoiled by the English and Scotish Borderers By letters of the 24 The Rebels be driven to change their names their Horses and apparel and to ride like Liddesdale men The Regent of Scotland will be this night upon the Borders of Liddesdale The Earl of Cumberland the Lord Scroop and Mr. Leonard Dacre have shewed themselves very Honorable and diligent in their service at the Rebels entring into the West Marches and upon the scaling of the Rebels there be great numbers of them taken there There be in every of the Marches against Scotland sundry Bands of Horsemen and shot laid if they shall enter into the Realm again By letters of the last of December The Regent of Scotland is gone from Jedworth to Edenburgh and hath taken the Earl of Northumberland and six of his men with him Before his departure from Jedworth he sent for the Gentlemen of Tividale to come before him where all came saving the Lord of Farnehurst and the Lord of Bucklugh whereupon the Regent rode towards them but they hearing thereof suddainly rode away Robert Collingwood Ralph Swynton with others of their company were taken in East Tividale and delivered to the Regent who re-delivered them to their takers and charged them for their safe keeping Egremont Ratcliff with certain with him remain about Liddesdale And it is thought the Countess of Northumberland the Earl of West-merland Norton Markenfield Swynborne and Tempest are removed out Liddesdale to the Lords of Fernhurst and Buckclugh SIR I Doubt not but the report of the cruel murther of the Regent in Scotland will be diversly reported in those parts and diversly also received by some with gladness and by some with grief as I am sure it shall be of you the manner of it was thus as I have been advertised the 22. of the last moneth the Regent coming thorough the Town of Lithgo which is in the midway between Sterling and Edenburgh having in his company about a hundred persons was stricken with a Courrier about the Navell with the Pellet coming out about his Hucklebone which also slew a horse behinde him and of this wound he dyed the next day afterward within night the murtherer was one Hambleton of Bothwell-Hall who lay secretly in a house to attempt this mischief having shut the doors towards the street in such sort as no man could enter on the foreside to take him and so he escaped on the backside where he had a horse to serve his turn although he was pursued what is like to follow miserably to that Land I dare not judge but do fear that the death of so good a man will prove Initium multorum malorum At the writing hereof I know not what is done or intended but some write from thence That the Earls of Marr and Morton and other friends to the young King are come to Edenburgh and do in the Kings name preserve the State and do purpose to have the Land ruled by four Regents and one to be a Lieutenant for the wars to execute their directions a matter more probable in talk than in effect as I shall hereafter understand more so will I write It happend that at this time Sir Henry Gates and the Marshal of Berwick were at Edenburgh having been at Sterling with the Regent the Fryday before for the demanding in the Queens Majesties name of the Earl of Northumberland and other the Rebels and by direction of the Regent they attended at Edenburgh for answer to be given the day of his death which now is as our Lawyers call it sine die Mr. Randolph went from hence towards Scotland the 29. upon knowledge of the hurt and doubt of his life The same day also came Montlnet to her Majesties presence with the French Ambassador bringing his letters dated the 27. of December at which time I think they understand not of the stay of our Rebellion The sum of Montlnets message consisted upon these two heads request for restitution and liberty of the Queen of Scots and a declaration of the Kings inclination to peace with his subjects and their disguising with him by treating and suing for peace and yet amassing of new Forces in Almaine and seeking also to surprise the Kings Towns as Burdeaux and otherlike whereupon the King requireth the Queens Majesty not to favor his Rebels if they should seek any further succours from hence as they have done as persons unworthy of any favor They have made great instance to be answered for the first matter but the Queens Majesty hath hitherto deferred them but I think upon Monday next they shall have audience I forgat to shew you that in the request for the Queen of Scots he desired liberty to go to her and from thence to pass into Scotland which thing would not be granted unto him Upon the death of the Regent the Earl of Sussex and Mr. Sadler were admonished to stay there for that it was thought good that Mr. Sadler should have gone from thence into Scotland
be there kept The fond Lord Morley without any cause offered him is gone like a noddy to Lorrein SIR I Stayed this bearer two days longer then first I intended because the French Ambassador required Audience affirming that he had answer from the French King wherewith the Queens Majesty would be satisfied and yesterday he was here and shewed her Majesty the French Kings letters to him and thereof gave her Majesty a copy which I have and do send to you herewith an extract of a clause tending to the matter the letter being of it self long and full of good words purporting his desire to have the Scotish Queen restored and concord established betwixt the two Queens the letter is dated the 10. of June and I note that your letter is dated the 15. and by his aforesaid letter King writeth that he will within two days speak with you at Alansen Now how the Kings promise will be kept a short time will declare or how if he break it there shall be some â—avillations found wherein I doubt that they will seek illusions for that we do yet keep Hume Castle and Fast Castle which are kept with not past fourscore men and being the houses of the Lord Hume the Warden who aided our Rebels with his Forces to invade burn and spoil England and therefore is by the Laws of the Borders answerable to the subjects of England it is reason they be kept untill he will return or authorize some for him to make answer or to take order with the complainants which being done the Queen Majesty will readily restore them Thus much I have thought meet to impart Yours assuredly W. Cecil Oatlands 25. Inne 1570 To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador c. SIR I Am thrown into a Maze at this time that Iknow not how to walk from dangers Sir Walter Mildmay and I are sent to the Scotish Queen as by the Queens Majesties letters you may see God be our guide for neither of us like the Message I trust at my return when Mr. Walsingham shall be returned to help you home your sufficient is sufficient to impart unto you all our Occurrents and so I end Your assured friend W. Cecil Reading 26. Sept. 1570. To the right honorable Sir Henry Notris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France The Lord Coke to King James touching trial of Duels out of England May it please your most excellent Majesty I Have received a commandment by Mr. Sollicitor from your Majesty consisting upon two parts First to answer whether I informed not your Majesty that if two of your Subjects should go over beyond Sea to fight in a Forreign Kingdom and there in fight the one killeth the other that in this case the same might be punished by appeal before the Constable and Marshal of England Secondly if I made any such information what authority and reason I had to maintain it To the first the truth is that I did inform your Majesty so and I well remember I said then that it was Dowties Case your Majesty then speaking of Duels To the second this is by authority of an Act of Parliament made in the first year of King Henry the Fourth the 14th Chapter in these words For many Inconveniencies and Mischiefs that have oftentimes happened by many Appeals made within the Realm before this time It is ordained and established from henceforth That all Appeals to be made of things done within the Realm shall be tryed and determined by the good Laws of this Realm made and used in the time of the Kings noble Progenitors And that all Appeals to be made of things done out of the Realm shall be tryed before the Constable and Marshal of England for the time being And that no Appeals be from henceforth made or in any wise pursued in Parliament in any time to come In the late Queens time a Case fell out upon this Statute Sir Francis Drake having put Dowtie to death beyond Sea the Brother and Heir of Dowtie sued by Petition to the Queen that she would be pleased to appoint a Constable hac vice to the end he might have an Appeal against Sir Francis Drake for the death of his Brother This Petition the Queen referred to Sir Thomas Bromley and the two chief Justices and others And it was resolved of by them which I being of Council with Dowtie set down briefly for my Learning That if two Englishmen go beyond Sea and in Combate the one killeth the other this offence may be determined before the Constable and Marshal of England and so was the Statute of 1 Henr. 4. to be intended But after upon the true circumstance of the Case the Queen would not constitute a Constable of England without whom no Proceeding could be And I take this resolution to be well warranted by the Statute and no small inconvenience should follow and a great defect should be in the Law if such bloody offences should not be punished and Your Majesty should lose a flower of Your Crown in losing this Power to punish these growing and dangerous offences I shewed to Mr. Sollicitor my Report and Memorial of Dowtie's Case and I shall ever remain Your Majesties Loyal and Faithful Subject Edw. Coke 19. Febr. 1616. The History of the Reign of King Henry the Eighth King Edward the Sixth Queen Mary and part of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth THE books which are written do in their kinds represent the faculties of the mind of man Poesie his Imaginations Philosophy his Reason and History his Memory of which three facuities least exception is commonly taken to memory because Imagination is often times idle and Reason litigious So likewise History of all writings deserveth least taxation as that which holdeth least of the Author and most of the things themselves Again the use which it holdeth to mans life if it be not the greatest yet assuredly it is the freest from ill accident or quality For those that are conversant much in Poets as they attain to greater variety so withall they become concieted and those that are brought up in Philosophy and Sciences do wax according as their nature is some of them too stiff and opinionative and some others too perplexed and confused whereas History possesseth the mind with conceits which are nearest allied unto action and imprinteth them so as it doth not alter the complexion of the minde neither to irresolution nor pertinacity But this is true that in no sort of writings there is a greater distance between the good and the bad no not between the most excellent Poet and the vainest Rimer nor between the deepest Philosopher and the most frivolous School-men then there is between good Histories and those that unworthily bear the same or the like title In which regard having purposed to write the History of England from the beginning of the Reign of King H. 8. of that name near unto the present time
a Prince but in one thing as a Prisoner for he forced upon him a Promise to restore the Earl of Suffolk that was fled into Flanders and yet this I note was in the 21. year of his Reign when the King had a goodly Prince at mans estate besides his daughters nay and the whole line of Clarence nearer in title for that Earl of Suffolk was Descended of a Sister of Edward 4. so far off did that King take his aim To this action of so deep consequence it appeareth you my Lady of Shrewsbury were privy not upon Forreign suspitions or strained inferences but upon vehement presumptions now clear and particular testimony as hath been opened to you so as the King had not only Reason to examine you upon it but to have proceeded with you upon it as for a great contempt which if it be reserved for the present your Ladiship is to understand it aright that it is not defect of proof but abundance of grace that is the cause of this proceeding And your Lady-ship shall do well to see into what danger you have brought your self All offences consist of the fact which is open and the intent which is secret this fact of Conspiring in the flight of this Lady may bear a hard and gentler construction if upon over much affection to your Kinswoman gentler if upon practice or other end harder you must take heed how you enter into such actions whereof if the hidden part be drawn unto that which is open it may be your overthrow which I speak not by way of charge but by way of caution For that which you are properly charged with you must know that all subjects without distinction of degrees owe to the King tribute and service not only of their deed and hand but of their knowledge and discoverie If there be any thing that imports the Kings service they ought themselves undemanded to impart it much more if they be called and examined whether it be of their own fact or of anothers they ought to make direct answer Neither was there ever any subject brought into causes of estate to trial judicial but first he passed examination for examination is the entrance of Justice in criminal causes it is one of the eyes of the Kings politique bodie there are but two Information and Examination it may not be endured that one of the lights be put out by your example Your excuses are not worthie your own judgment rash vowes of lawful things are to be kept but unlawful vowes not your own Divines will tell you so For your examples they are some erroneous traditions My Lord of Pembrook spake somewhat that he was unlettered and it was but when he was examined by one private Councellor to whom he took exception That of my Lord Lumley is a fiction the preheminences of Nobility I would hold with to the last graine but every dayes experience is to the contrary Nay you may learn dutie of my Lady Arbella her self a Lady of the Blood of an higher Rank than your self who declining and yet that but by request neither to declare of your fact yieldeth ingenuously to be examined of her own I do not doubt but by this time you see both your own error and the Kings grace in proceeding with you in this manner Sir Nicholas Throckmorton then Ambassadour in France to Queen Elizabeth touching a free Passage for the Queen of Scots through England into Scotland IT may please your Majesty to understand that the 17 of July I received your letters at Poisey of the 14 of the same by Francisco this bearer and for that I could not according to your Majesties instructions in the same letters accomplish the contents of them until Mounsieur d' Oysell had delivered your letters to the French King the Queen of Scotland and the Queen Mother who did not arrive at this Court till the 20th of this present I did defer to treat with any of the Princes of your Majesties answer to the said Mounsieur d' Oysell Nevertheless the 18th of this moneth I required Audience of the French King which was granted me the same day in the after-noon I repaired to his Court being at Saint Germanes and there the Queen-Mother accompanied with the King of Navarre and sundry other great personages was in the place of State to hear what I had to say to the King her son who was absent unto her I declared your Majesties pleasure according to my instructions concerning your acceptation of the Hostages already received and hereafter to be received signified to me by your Majesties letters of the 17 of June and as I wrote to your Majesty lately brought to me by Mounsieur de Noailles the 16 of July for answer whereunto the Queen Mother said Mounsieur l' Ambassadour we marvail greatly how it cometh to pass that the Queen your Mistress doth not make more stay to receive the King my sons Hostages than she hath done heretofore for from the beginning since the Hostages were sent into England neither the King my late Lord and Husband nor the late King my Son did either recommend the sufficiency of their Hostages by their Letters or cause their names to be recommended unto you the Ambassador but the presentation of them by our Ambassador in England did suffice thereunto I said Madam you know they be Hostages for a matter of some moment and if they should neither have the Kings assurance for their Validity nor the Queen my Mistris Ambassadours allowance of their sufficiency some personages might be sent which were neither meet for the King to send nor for the Queen my Mistris to receive and yet Madam the Queen my Mistris doth not require the manner of recommending the sufficiency of the Hostages for any doubt she hath that unmeet persons should be sent but rather because a friendly and sincere fashion of dealing should be betwixt her good Brother and her with whom her Majesty is so desirous to have a perfect assured Amity I said also That the King her Son hath notified both to my Lord of Bedford at his being here and unto me the names of some of the Hostages as the Count of Benon before his going into England as Mounsieur de Sualt who had the charge so to do could well inform her so as this motion need not seem strange for the newness The Queen answered Mounsieur l' Ambassadour we be well-pleased seeing your Mistriss doth require it that from henceforth either the Hostages shall have the King my Sons Letters of Recommendation or else their names should be notified unto you or any other her Ambassadour here and I pray you Mounsieur l' Ambassadour quoth she give the Queen your Mistris my good Sister to understand from me That if there be any thing in this Countrey that may please her she shall have it if I may know her liking I told the said Queen That I was sure your Majesty was of the same mind
Mistriss shall have me in her hands to do her will of me and if she be so hard-hearted as to desire my end she may then do her pleasure and make sacrifice of me peradventure that casualty might be better for me than to live in this matter quoth she Gods will be fulfilled I answered she might amend all this matter if she would and find more Amity of your Majesty and your Realm than of any other Prince or Countrey The Queen answered I have me thinketh offered and spoken that that might suffice the Queen my Sister if she will take any thing well at my hand I trust said she for all this we shall agree better than some would have us and for my part I will not take all things to the worst I hope also said she the Queen my Sister and Cosin will do the like whereof quoth she I doubt not if Ministers do no harm betwixt us and so the said Queen embraced me This is the sum of my Negotiations at these my last Audiences with the French King the Queen-Mother the King of Navarre the Queen of Scotland and the Constable whereof I have thought meet to enlarge to your Majesty in such fort as the same passed and was uttered betwixt us As far as I can perceive the said Queen of Scotland continueth her Voyage still and I hear that Villageigmon and Octavian have the principal order of her said Voyage and mean to sail along the Coast of Flanders and so to strike over to the North-part of Scotland as the wind shall serve she did once mean to use the West-passage but now she dares not trust the Duke of Chastillerault nor the Earl of Arguile and therefore dareth not to pass by the West-Seas The said Queen as I hear desireth to borrow of the French King a hundred thousand Crowns the same to be received again of her Dowry which is twenty eight thousand Crowns by the year the Queen-Mother is willing to help her the King of Navarre doth not further the matter but seeketh to abridge the sum After I had done my Negotiations at the Court I was constrained to dislodge from Poissey for the Assembly of the Clergy who meet there to the end of this month and the Ambassadours are now appointed to lodge at Paris The Queen of Scotland departed from St. Germanes yesterday 25. of July towards her Voyage as she bruiteth it she sendeth most of her Train strait to New-haven to embark and she herself goeth such a way between both as she will be at her choice to go to New-Haven or to Callis upon the sudden what she will do or where she will embark she will be acknown to never a Scotch man and but to few French And for all these shews and boasts some think she will not go at all and yet all her stuff is sent down to the Sea and none other bruit in her house but of her hasty going if it would please your Majesty to cause some to be sent privily to all the Ports on this side the certainty shall be better known to your Majesty that way by the laying of her vessels than I can advertise it hence She hath said that at her coming into Scotland she will forthwith rid the Realm of all the English men there namely of your Majesties Agent there and forbid mutual Traffick with your Majesties Subjects if she make the haste to embark that she seemeth to do she will be almost ready to embark by that time this shall come to your Majesties hands Two or three dayes ago the French King was troubled with a pain in his head and the same beginneth to break from him by bleeding at the nose and running at his ear it is taken to be the same disease in his head whereof his brother died but by voiding it which the other could not do that organ being stopped this King is well amended At the dispatch hereof the King of Navarre was unquieted by a flux and a vomit and the Queen Mother with a Fever I hear that in Gascony the people stir apace for Religion as they do in many other places and being there assembled to the number of four thousand have entred a Town thrown down the Images and put out the Priests and will suffer no Masse to be said there My Lord of Levistou being ready to go homewards into Scotland through England went to the Queen of Scotland for his leave so to do but she hath commanded him to tarry and wait on her and to meet her at Abevillo without letting him know any thing else he in doubt what she will do is content to expect her coming thither and to do then as she shall command him and seeing no likelihood of her short passing which he sath is uncertain but that she will go to Callis there to hover and hearken what your Majesty doth to stop her and according thereunto to go or stay he mindeth to get him home he hath required my Letters of recommendations to your Majesties Officers at his landing in England which for his good devotion towards your Majesty and for that he is one that wisheth the same well I have not refused him and so humbly beseech your Majesties good favour towards him at his coming to your Majesty for his Pass-port Here is a bruit that the Turk is greatly impeached both by a sort of Jewes within his own Countrey and also by the Sophy And thus I pray God long to preserve your Majesty in health honour and all felicity from Paris July 26. 1561. Your Majesties most humble and most obedient Subject and Servant N. Throckmorton FINIS The ALPHABETICAL TABLE B. BAcon Sir Francis not a man born under Sol that loves Honour nor under Jupiter that loves Business place of any reasonable countenance commands more wits than a mans own Pag. 1 2. Assures the Lord Burleigh that his endeavours shall not be in fault if diligence can intitle him unto it and wishes to shew his Service with as good proof as he can say it in good faith 3 4. Caresses the Earl of Northumberland 4 5. The entrance of King James a fair morning before the Sun rising This State performed the part of good Attorneys in delivering the King quiet possession 5 6. No Reason the World should reject Truth in Philosophy although the Author dissents in Religion 1â— Advice to the King touching his Revenue 27. The Kings Attorneys place and the value of it honestly The Chancellors placo usually conferred upon the Kings Council and not upon a Judge Reasons against the Lords Cook and Hubbart and the Archbishop The Body of Parliament men is Cardo rerum Part of the Chancellors place is Regnum Judiciale and since his Fathers time but too much inlarged Pag. 73 74. A Narration in several Letters of the differences between the Chancery and Kings Bench and the grounds thereof stated to the King 22 23 75. The Proceedings against Somerset and divers private Transactions touching
but they both being come upon former licence near the City on the way upon desire to see her Majesty came hither yesterday unlooked for and although in the beginning of this Northern Rebellion her Majesty sometimes uttered some misliking of the Earl yet this day she meaning to deal very Princely with him in presence of her Council charged him with such things as she had heard to cause her misliking without any note of mistrust towards him for his fidelity whereupon he did with such humbleness wisdom plainness and dexterity answer her Majesty as both she and all the rest were fully satisfied and he adjudged by good proofs to have served in all this time faithfully and so circumspectly as it manifestly appeareth that if he had not so used himself in the beginning the whole North part had entred into the Rebellion Vsque ad 3. Febr. We have now letters out of Scotland that the Nobility which favoreth the young King have assembled themselves and made a reconciliation of divers persons that had particular quarrels one against another and as they pretend they will all joyn firmely in the revenge of the Murther and defence of their King the Lord Grange who keepeth the Castle of Edenburgh is reconciled to the Earl Moreton and become one of this Bonde and so doth Leddington also offer to be another The Duke of Chastilherault is streighter kept then he was before and it is commonly reportd that the Hambletons were the workers of this murther thus much being known of certain that the murtherer was a neer kinsman of the Dukes and that the Peece wherewith he murthered the Regent and the spare horses whereupon he escaped did all belong to the Abbot of Arbroth the Dukes second Son and the murtherer was received into Hambleton the Dukes house all which I trust God will see revenged The Rebellion moved in the West parts of Ireland this last Summer being also cherished with comfort out of Spaine is fully suppressed and the Country reduced to such quietness and obedience as the like hath not been in those parts these many yeers the heads being all taken and reduced to obedience saving one onely named Fitz Maurice who wandreth in the deserts without any succor making means to be received to mercy but he is of so little value as it is refused unto him For your own revocation from thence I am not unmindful but have attempted the same and so mean to continue it as I hope you shall shortly receive comfort Vsque ad 5. Febr. This day the 6. of Febr. the French Ambassador came with Montlovet to her Majesty to require answer to their demands which were three First to have the Queen of Scots delivered and restored Secondly that Montlovet might repair to the Queen of Scots Thirdly that he might repair into Scotland To all these her Majesty having her whole Council in her presence That for the first she said she had used the Queen of Scots with more honor and favor then any Prince having like cause would have done and though she was not bound to make account to any Prince of her doings yet she would impart to the King her good brother some reasonable consideration of her doings and so she ended her answer to that The other two requests depended so upon the first as she said she could not accord thereunto and so though she used good loving speech to satisfie him yet in brief they departed without obtaining their requests as shortly you shall understand more at length by the next Messenger and letters which in this behalf shall be sent unto you We hear that two Ships of war of St. Malloes under the conduct of the Lord Flemings brother arrived in Don Brittons Frith the tenth of January and have as I think victualled the Castle of Don Britton whereof will follow some further annoyance to Scotland And thus I am forced to end for the present by reason of multitude of other affairs Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court Feb. 7. 1568. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident with the French King SIR AFter all the other letters in this Packet were sealed up your honest servant Mr. Rogers arrived here with your letters of the contents whereof concerning the crazed shaken Treaty of peace betwixt the King and his subjects I had plainly heard four or five days past from Rochel Your intelligences accord with the like as I have received from Rochel and as you do express to us the dangerous practices of our Adversaries there so I assure you the same are not by Councellors here neglected although I can give no assurance how they shall be avoided and yet I would not doubt but with Gods goodness their whole designs should prove frustrate if our Councels might take place I have named to the Queens Majesty two to be your successors both to be well liked if their livelihoods were answerable to their other qualities the one is Mr. Francis Walsingham the other is Mr. Hen. Killigrew who is indeed in livelihood much inferrior If I can procure that either of them or some other might relieve you I assure you there shall not lack any good will in me Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court 7. Febr. 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR YOur last letters are thus come to my hands Crips came with those of yours the 9. then Neal with those of the 25. of the last month and yesterday came the French Ambassadors Secretary with those of the first of March by all which is manifest the inward natural care that you take for the Queens Majesty and therein her Highness accepteth your zeal and duty most thankfully And yet I know not by what means her Majesty is not much troubled with the opinion of danger nevertheless I and others cannot be but greatly fearful for her and do and will do that in us may lye to understand thorough Gods assistance the attempts as for D many here and the most of this Council think the peril no less but rather greater if D forasmuch should Since the death of the Regent the Borderers have maintained our Rebels and invaded England wherefore for which purpose my Lord of Suffev is now ordered with an Army to invade them and make revenge whereof the Scots hearing do make all means they can to be reconciled but they must feel the sword and the fire-brand and because I will end my letter I will deliver to this bearer a short memorial of words to serve him for informing of you of the things of our State and so with my most hearty commendations I end being sorry that as yet I cannot perfect my intent for your return Your assured friend W. Cecil Hampton-Court 22. March 1569. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident in France SIR BY the Queens Majesty long letter you shall perceive her
Majesties meaning in such sort as I need not to repeat or enlarge the same and the sooner that her Majesty may have answer hereof the better she will be content especially if the answer shall be good I send to you the Copies of the advertisements of my Lord of Sussex journey into Scotland the 17. of April and returning the 22. his Lordship entred the 27. to besiege as I think Hume Castle for the same hath been the receptacle of all the Rebels but at the writing hereof I am not ascertained what his Lordship hath done Of late the Bishop of Ross caused one of his servants secretly to procure the printing of a Book in English whereof before eight leaves could be finished intelligence was had which Book tendeth to set forth to the world that the Queen of Scots was not guilty of her husbands death a parable in many mens opinion next that she is a lawful heir to the Crown and herewith such reasons inserted as make unsound conclusions for the Queens Majesties present state Besides this a notable lye is there uttered That all the noble men that heard her cause did judge her innocent and therefore made suite to her Majesty that she might marry with my Lord of Norfolk With these and such like enterprises her Majesty hath been grieved with the said Bishop whereupon she hath the longer kept him from her presence but I think he will be spoken withall to morrow and so within two or three days it is likely he shall have access to her Majesty The Secretary in Scotland hath so discovered himself for the Queen of Scots as he is the instrument to increase her party having such credit with Grange who keepeth Edenburgh Castle as the Duke of Chastilherault the Lord Herries c. are now at liberty and thereby the party for the King is diminished you can judge what is ment to be done and I wish her Majesty to take such a way herein as may preserve her estate the device and execution whereof is found upon consultation very difficult and yet in all evils the least is to be chosen My Lord of Worcester and my Lord of Huntington are chosen Knights of the Order I cannot procure any resolution for your revocation untill it may be seen what will fall out there of the war betwixt the King and his subjects whereof daily there is expectation of some issue and the French Ambassador doth constantly affirm that the peace shall follow And so I end Yours assuredly W. Cecil Hampton-Court 4. May 1570. To the right honorable Sir Henry Norris Knight the Queens Majesties Ambassador Resident with the French King A note of a journey into Tividale by the Earl of Sussex her Majesties Lieutenant in the North begun the 17. of April 1570. and ending the 22. of the same THe 17. of April 1570. the Earl of Sussex and the Lord Hunsdon Governor of Berwick with all the Garrisons and power of the East Marches came to Warke and entered into Tividale in Scotland the 18. at the break of the day and burnt all Castles and Towns as they went untill they came to the Castle of Moss standing in a strong Marsh and belonging to the Lord of Fernhurst which they burnt and razed and so burnt the Country untill they came to Craling The same day Sir John Foster with all the Garrisons and force of the middle marches entred into Tividale and Expesgate head 16. miles from Warke and so burnt all the Country untill they came to a strong Castle called in the possession of the mother of the Lord of Fernhurst which he burnt and razed and so burnt all other Castles and Towns untill he came to Craling where both Companies met and so went up the River of Tivit and burnt and threw down all the Castles and Towns upon that River untill they came to Godworth where they lodged This day the Lord of Chesford Warden of the middle marches with the principal men of his kinde who had never in person received the Rebels nor invaded England and yet had evil men that had done both came in to the Lord Lieutenant and submitted himself and offered to abide order for his mens offences whereupon he was received as a friend and he and all his were free from any hurt The 19. the Army was divided into two parts whereof the one did pass the River of Tivit and burnt and razed the Castle of Fernhurst and all other Castles and Towns of the Lord of Fernhurst Hunthill and Bederoll and so passed on to Minte and the other part of the Army burnt in like sort on the other side of the River Tivit untill he came to Hawick where it was intended to have lodged that night for that the Bailiffs had the same morning offered to receive the Army and had therefore their Town assured but at the coming thither of the Army they had unthetched their houses and burnt the Thetch in the streets and were all fled so as no person could well enter for smoak which caused lack of victuals lodging and horsemeats and therefore the fire began by themselves in the Straw burnt the whole Town aftersaving Donn Lamorecks Castle which for his sake was spared and all the goods of the Town in it The 20. the Army went to Branshaw the Lord of Buckloughs house which was wholly overthrown with Powder and there divided and burnt on the North the River of Tivit more into the inland all the Castles and Towns in that Country which belonged wholly to the Lord of Bucklough and his kinsmen and returned that night to Jedworth The 21. the Army divided and one part went to the River of Bowbeat and burnt all on both sides of that River and the other part went to the River of Caile and burnt all on both sides of the River and met neer to Kelsaw where the Lord Lieutenant lodged that night of purpose to beset Hume Castle in the night and the Lord Hunsdon and the other part went to Warke to bring the Ordnance thence in the morning which was disappointed by the negligence of such as were left in charge who suffered the carriage horses to return after the Ordnance was brought thither so as for lack of horses to draw the Ordnance the Army was forced to return to Berwick the 22. All which time there was never any shew of resistance And the same time the Lord Scroope entred Scotland from the West Marches the 18 c. During which time the Marches in all places were so guarded as the Scots that did not shew themselves to offer fight in the field durst not offer to enter into England so as in the absence of the Army there was not one house burnt nor own Cow taken in England and it is conceived by such as know the enemies part of Tividale that there is razed overthrown and burnt in this journey above fifty strong Castles and Piles and above 300 Villages so as there be few in that Country that