faithfully and honestly served you and exactly pursued your ends to the best of my understanding and abilities And I do no way doubt but your Majestie will in the end protect so faithful a servant as I have been and shall appear to be to your Majestie And in the interim my most humble suit unto your Majestie is that since I am neither admitted my self nor any man else will speak any word in my defence or justification your Majestie according to your Justice will let nothing that may be said of me redound to my prejudice in your gracious opinion For it shall be found that I will in all things wholly conform my self unto your Majesties will and pleasure So wishing unto your Majestie a happy journey and a safe return with the increase of all hapinesse I humbly c. London Your Majesties c. Bristol Here next of all follow divers Dispatches and Letters from Sir Walter Aston to the Duke Sir Walter Aston to the Duke May it please your Grace I Have received so much comfort by the care which I see in your grace to take all occasions to honour and favour me that I should be glad if it were possible in my affection to your person and in my desire to serve you that your grace might see something in me above what you cold find in any other servant What an honest thankfulnesse can be I am and what an honest servant can yield you shall be ever vigilant in me to serve you Since the departure of the last post by whom I wrote lately unto your Grace my Lord of Bristol hath had audience with this King taking me along with him to whom his Lordship represented the King our Masters desire concerning the Palatinate in conformity to what his Majesty hath commanded by his late letters we are now soliciting to hasten this kings answer which we hope we shall shortly send unto his Majesty and there is no diligence omitted by my Lord of Bristol nor my self that we can think on to negotiate such an answer as may be to his majesties good liking The Dispatches from Rome are not yet come but by letters which they have lately received from the Duke of Pastrana it is advertized that all things are concluded and that he would send them away within a few dayes By my Lord of Bristols Letter to his Majesty your grace will understand the resolution which his Lordship hath taken concerning his proceedings upon the arival of of the dispaches from Rome his Lordships hath communicated with me his Majesties Letter and desired my opinion concerning the resolution which he had taken wherein I have concurred with his Lordship not understanding it any way to be differing in substance from his Majesties directions the altering of the day mentioned in his Majesties letters being onely the changing it from a time when the powers are of no force to a time when they may be of use the putting of any thing in execution in the one time or in the other depending upon his Majesties and his Highnesses further directions I have hitherto understood that his Majesty and his highnesse have really affected this match and have laboured faithfully to second their desires with my utmost endeavours There is none I am sure a better witnesse then my self of the affection which your Grace hath born unto it which I have seen remain constant through many tryals And therefore until I understand the contrary from your self I must believe that your desires are the same which I have seen them I must ever speak my heart freely unto your Grace and confess that upon the letter which I received from his Highnesse and upon the sight of his Majesties to my Lord of Bristol I have been jealous of his Majesties heart and his Highnesse that they are not that to the match which they have been but these are but distrusts of my own and not foundation sufficient to slacken or cool those diligences which I daily perform in conformity to his Majesties and his Highnesse Commands and to what remains apparent of their desires I shall therefore humbly desire your Lordship to open mine eyes and if I am out of the way to let me straight for I have no affections of mine own but what agrees with my Masters and will ever submit with all humility my self and my judgment unto his Majesties wisedome and faithfully labour to serve him accordingly to what I shall understand to be his will and pleasure But untill I know by your Graces favour by what Compasse to guide my Course I can onely follow his Majesties revealed will and will once take the boldnesse to represent unto your Grace in discharge of what I owe you these Considerations which my desire to serve you forceth from me I do look upon your Grace as a person infinitely provoked to be an enemy to this match and believe that you have had represented unto you many reasons shewing how much it concerns you to seek to break it with all the force you have But I can neither believe that the errour of one man can make you an enemy to that which brings along with it so much happinesse and content unto his Majestie and his Highnesse nor that your Graces judgment can be led by those arguments that under the colour of safety would bring you into a dangerous labyrinth Your Grace hath given noble testimonie how little you have valued your own safety in respect of his Majesties service and therefore I assure my self you would contemn all Considerations concerning your self that might hinder the advancement of his Majesties ends In the proceeding to this Match there is the same conveniency to his Majestie that ever hath been there is the same Lady the same portion the same friendship desired they professing here an exact complying with what is capitulated and a resolution to give his Majestie satisfaction in whatsoever is in their power From your Grace none can take away the honour of having been the principal means by which this great businesse hath been brought to a Conclusion And whatsoever others may suggest against your Grace the Infanta truly informed cannot but understand you the person to whom she owes most in this businesse Your Grace and the Conde Olivarez have fallen upon different waies that which concerns the honour of the King our Master being different to that which he understood concerned most his Master your ends were both one for the effecting of the Match and with the Conclusion of it he cannot but better understand you Would your Grace would commit it to my charge to inform the Infanta what you have merited and to accommodate all other mistakes here concerning the proceeding If your Grace would reconcile your heart I would not doubt but with the Conclusion of the Match to compose all things to your good satisfaction and to bring them to a truer understanding of you and of their obligation unto you In what a Sea of Confusions
cause was heard he moved all that heard it with much compassion to him and the people did think that when you sent him to the Tower you would have sent for him to have kissed your hand But your Majestie is abused for they do not let you know what is thought of the proceeding against this good man knowing how truely he loveth you with the truth of his cause that you would not follow him and his children with crueltie Which might have been better spent My Lord hath spent in running a Tylt in Masques and following the Court above 20000. And Sir shall his reward now be to be turned out of his place without any offence committed Sir I am the child of your old Servant and am now great with child I know it will kill me and I shall willingly die rather then desire life to see my unfortunate self and mine thus miserably undone Sir I beseech your Majestie remember my Father that is dead and me his distressed child for if he could know any worldly thing he would wonder to see me and those that shall come of me thus strangly used But my hope is still in your Majesties goodnesse and that you will not be carried away with the malice of other men In this confidence I rest with my daily prayers for your health and happinesse as Yours c. E. H. The Lady Elizabeth Norris to the Duke My Lord EVer since your Lordships first recommendation of my husband to me I have thought my self much ingaged to your Lordship for I must confesse after he had taken his leave of me I did love him never the lesse for immediately after my fathers death when in my Conscience he least expected to hear from me I did both send and write to him which he might interpret an incouragement or rather an invitation I did it the rather because I did not believe those which did him ill offices for those which were most for him on a sudden were most against him I must confesse that pitie did confirm my affection and I trust your Lordship will commiserate his estate as you do the fall of all mankind for I was the Eva and he was the Adam and I pray God the King and your Lordship may forgive us as I am confident God will pardon us Your Lordship may imagine my Mother was of the plot but I take God to witnesse that she was not only against it but contrarily I did believe she was wholly for your Brother And for your Brother my Mother recommended him to me whom I used like a Gentleman of high worth and qualitie But I did by no means abuse him by promise or taking guifts which I falsely suffer for in the opinion of the world I only took a ring by my mothers appointment which came as a token from my Lady your mother which was of very small value My husband and I am resolved rather to suffer in the opinion of the world then contradict any thing which shall be aggravated against us We must both honour you and think our selves much ingaged to your Lordship After God I protest you are the onely authour of it for by your means I first settled my affection I know there are those which do my husband and me ill offices I have reason to be jealous of the Lord Montgomery for he would have put tricks upon me in making me deny the Contract and when he failed in that he went about to make me believe Mr. Wray had denied his And to tell your Lordship true his violence and over-earnestnesse made me the more averse If my husband had not fetched me I would have come to him and so I sent him word Thus humbly beseeching your Lordship as you are happie in your wife that you would be pleased to make our peace with the King and seeing it is Gods act that you would honour us with your favour We shall be both bound to joyn in prayer that you may be ever happie in your Wife and in your Childrens Children And so with my humble respect to your Lordship I rest Your Lordships humble servant Elizabeth Norris Sir Edward Cecyl to the Duke My very good Lord HOw much my affection and ambition hath been to serve your Lordship before other men I hope I shall not need now to expresse considering it hath been clear and manifest to your own trial whereof I do bear still the testimonie and the continuance in mine own heart But in your noblenesse it will not appear impertinent to your Lordship that I put you in mind how much I suffered in the disgrace my enemies cast upon me about the imployment for the Palatinate when I was under your protection whether I suffered for mine own sake or for your Lordship I know not howsoever of this I am assured the greatest cause I gave them that had least reason was because I sought not them but your Lordship only And for the successe you may see by the miracles the imployment hath brought forth that it was carried another way rather for private malice then for any great zeal to the advancement of the publique Cause Now my Lord for your own honour and for the upholding of your servant make me so happie if there be any imployment for men of my profession as there is opinion that I may be the man by your Lordships means wherein you shall make me your obliged as I am now your affectionate servant For which you shall be assured of as thankful heart as any breathes in the whole world In the enjoying of which kind of service though you are accounted the most happie among great men yet you cannot have too much of it I could remember your Lordship of his Majesties gracious promise for my imployment before any other in the presence of the Prince and your Lordship and that I am the first General his Majestie ever made and that I had no ill successe in the perfecting of that service yet for all this I will onely trust in your Noblenesse if you resolve to make me your Creature And if it shall please his Majestie to hold me worthy of this honour I will undertake to save his Coffers as I have heretofore done the sixth part of the imployments charge and cost that any other man shall require who makes not a computation for the managing of it by a sufficient expence of his own I will not write more at this time but to wish your Lordship as much happinesse as your heart can desire and that you will give me an occasion to shew how much I am and will be Your Lordships most faithful and affectionate servant Ed. Cecil From our Army this 20. of Novemb. Sir Edward Cecil to the Duke May it please your Excellency THis Gentleman Sir George Blundel hath now cleerly quitted the service of the States for this especial reason as he assures me to be the more absolutely imployed in your Excellencies service This I know his friends
For many of those that should have assisted me were more careful in betraying me then in forwarding his Majesties service And if this course be held to encourage them there is no man shall suffer more then his Majesties service will For it will be folly for any man to look to his Majesties service or to take any pains to prevent or hinder that which may be committed against it But to let every man do what he will so all will be pleased and he that Commands shall have no man to slander him which is the way to live in quiet Thus much I thought was fit for me to let your Excellencie understand and withal that I held it a great unhappinesse for me that have taken such toyl and pains and suffered so many slanders to be kept back by my enemies from that honour that never any one of my rank and place was hindered in which is from kissing the hand of my Soveraign Lord the King All Power is in your Lordships hands whether you will uphold me in my just cause or no or let me be ruinated for want of it So that I can say no more but that if I suffer I shall be your Excellencies Martyr if not I shall all my life rest Your Excellencies most humble and most thankful servant and Creature Wimbledon Sir John Ogle to the Duke Right Excellent and most Gratious Lord ANd because you are so why should not I put my soul in your hand that I have not done it sooner was not through want of will in me but it hath been the will of God that mine acknowledgment should be the fuller your goodnesse the greater Your Grace cannot be ignorant of the many motions I have had thereto but my judgment hath been made irresolute by several distractions I lay now my self and the fortunes of me and mine at your Graces feet Take me up then noblest Lord as becometh the fame which you have and the confidence which I have of you with a hand of goodnesse If I had wilfully sinned against you when I was wickedly insnared and beguiled by that wretch at Vtrecht to whom I gave some Extract out of your Letters as also out of the Lord Embassadours or did yet with obstinacie maintain such indiscreet proceeding your Grace might in justice reject me as unworthy But since you have long discerned in me a propension to crave your pardon though still unhappily diverted till this time I trust your true Noblenesse generousnesse and goodnesse to be such as you will not only not turn this heartie submission to any disadvantage on my part but looking upon mine ingenuitie with a right eye of gracious inclination both pardon my fault and follie towards your self and also to bind my prayers to be offered in the greater zeal for you for I shall not be able to do you better service then in prayer be a strong mediator to his gracious Majestie that my errours of weaknesse and want of discretion committed then towards his late Majestie of ever blessed memorie and his Embassadour with what other oversights may have been gathered up since may be freely and fully forgiven and remitted that so my soul being discharged of all fear of displeasure against me I may with a cheerful heart and quiet conscience go on in such a vocation as the Lord shall have appointed for me My Lord this wound hath long festered neer my heart and though false skins have been drawn over it sometimes by unskilful hands yet have I ever judged it the surest â—â—re to rip it up by Confession and heal it by Contrition And sure I judge that it savours more of a right generous spirit to confesse a fault then to conceal it especially when the party offending is free from malice and the party offended of a nature so noble and full of goodnesse as nothing can be wished to be added unto it and which is yet more and this have you graciously done to me my Lord signed himself with his own hand a true and faithful friend unto him the more to invite him to trust him And trust you I do my Lord and in you next my Gracious Soveraign as much as may be in any arm of flesh The God of Heaven I hope will speak peace to my soul if the King and your Grace will send peace to my heart I trust you will and will pray to God you may that I may in all cheerfulnesse and thankfulnesse ever remain Your Grace's most humble and faithful and obliged servant Jo. Ogle Exester 3. June 1625. Postscript I Beseech your Grace to send some other man to take this Charge which I too weakly for fear of offending by denial have thus far undergone but upon hope of being withdrawn Yet still submit my self to your Graces good pleasure Sir Robert Mansel to the Duke Right Honourable and my singular good Lord HAving used all the possible speed I could to repair to Algier where I should have been by the 15. of March last I held it my dutie humbly to present unto your Lordship the particular account of my proceedings Before my arrival I furnished the two Prizes three Brigandines and a fourth Boat with Eirelocks and combustible materials for the burning of the Pyrats ships within the Moal and had trained my men in the execution of their several duties and likewise appointed a squadron of boats with small shot to rescue the vessels of execution in their advancement and retreat The first night of my arrival being the 21. of May last the vessels of execution were all advanced but by reason of contrary winds they were commanded to retire The second and third nights they were also in a readinesse but were withheld with calmes The fourth night it pleased God to blesse us with a fair Gale and they being advanced again and the two ships with the fire-works having almost recovered the mouth of the Moal the wind to our great grief turned to the opposite point of the Compasse The boats performed their directions in towing of the ships but considering that by the continuance of the course they should expose their principallest men to hazard by reason of the great store of Ordnance and small shot which plyed upon them they debated amongst themselves what to do Capt. Hughes who commanded one of the Brigandines replyed Go on and give the attempt with the boats which they cheerfully pursued crying out without cessation King James King James God blesse King James and fearlesse of danger even in the mouth of the Canon and small shot which showred like haile upon them they fired the ships in many places and maintained the same to the great comfort of us that were spectatours so long as they had any powder left in their bandileers striving in the end who should have the honour to come off last the which at length as a due to his former resolution and courage they left to captain Hughes and so retired all the ships continuing still
hath dibursed and stands engaged more for my affaires and the States then any Number of Noblemen of England whatsoever and therefore there is reason that from a King he would receive his own and more And now my Lords since I have thus far opened a Kings Cabinet unto you at least by the measure of this foot of answer you may discover what may be said concerning that great bodie and bulk of accusations of the Highest kind made against the Duke I desire you would take it to heart remembring that it is your King that speaketh this who therefore expects your service and love herein and who will requite the same assuredly hoping you will believe me indeed and do accordingly indeed and that you will also rest assured that my spirit is not so young though a young King as that I would bring this testimony in mine own wrong were not that I say true in my own knowledge And being so you also will grant that it is not for a King to use his Servant and Instrument as he doth his Horses which being by hard riding in his service foundred and lamed to turn them off to grasse or to the Cart. I must therefore in right of the King my Fathers Honour and my own protect a man though I have said justly seeming guiltie yet in mine own knowledge innocent and free as I have delivered it will you then deny the King to favour whom he please which the King hath never denyed you that are his subjects will you controle me your Head and Governor in things wherein your selves have taken liberty uncontroled would you that I should require accompt of your liberalitie nay of all your failings which are liable to my authority well commend me to my Lords and tell them that if any thing had been formerly done amisse by others I have power and will to redresse it and to prevent the like I speak it in the word of a King neither Lords nor Commons can desire of me any thing that is honest which I am not ready to give them Let not therefore the world by these mistakings make Table-talk any longer of your King and his negotiations nay of his secrets and necessities for alas what great wrong or indignity can the Glorie of the State receive then that the private grudges of subjects accusing to the ignorant when in their consciences they could excuse should be the businesse of our Parliament and that the King himself should be forced to appear as a partie No doubt this is a Cocatrice egge that craftie heads of our enemies seek to hatch whilest the weightie affaires that in present concern the Honour and welfare of the King and State and the peace of all Christendome are by us utterly neglected I end hoping your Lordship now privy to these things will be tender of your Soveraigns honour and will so satisfie and treat with the rest that those particular janglings may be by some other course and in some other place and time discussed and determined that so our minds and time may be employed in the care of better things which earnestly invoke our ayd at this instant Thus much spoken or written or the like for I seek but to awaken your Lordships higher spirit and invention I conceive it may get this effect That these 6. Lords won by these reasons and by other the Kings invitations may deliver to the House that for their parts they have received unexpected satisfaction in those greatest points of the accusation against your Lordship and of such secret nature as are not fit to be published without further deliberation Wherefore since it pleased their Lordships to have made choyce of them to be trusted in this imployment they have faithfully served accordingly and do upon their Honours freely and without any ingagement or respect protest the fame And therefore humbly desire their Lordships that they would intreat his Majestie to be President in advice with their Lordships What further were to be done in this private Contention betwixt your Lordship and the Lord Digbie which obtained something may then follow for your Lordships good by yeelding up that Cause into the Kings hands And his Majestie hath great reason to bend it that way because it is conceived that the Lords will be loath to admit the King to be supream Judge and Accuser which point will much touch his Majestie And his Majestie were better give some ease to the Lord Digbie then permit that dispute And now for my self I beseech your Lordship to pardon my strange boldnesse I know I am a mere stranger to you and if ever you have heard of me it must be as of a friend of such you then did not love I know it shewes me a medler in businesse or an insinuator which are suspitions that may distast you and make you suspect my pretences though they were not altogether witlesse I know this disadvantage and am in my own nature offended for putting my self thus into your notions But yet I resolved to undergo all this First because you made my Brother a Captain in Ireland who had otherwise perished Next for the favour you did to my Lord of Northumberland and the retiring of disfavour from my Lord of Sommerset And lastly for your firm hand that advanced the now Lord Treasurer To all which Lords I am familiarly known and bound But neerest to you your Lordship may hear of me from the Lord Treasurer I am confident of your Lordships noble interpretation since I seek no ends no acquaintance no other thanks being one that have no Court-suits to your Lordship but being one that loves not ruines which my friends have tasted nor that the publique should wrestle with a private Inturn of Spleen And I offer it but as a simplicity yet with good will enough for what can a man that is not privy to the Elements of State demonstrate any conclusion thereof yet I hear sometimes how the world goes as other men do I conceive I have said something to your Lordship and though perhaps short yet enough to occasion and stir up your deeper thoughts I also may have deeper but also I know that little pinnes of wood do sustain the whole building More I could have said touching the other points but these greatest elided the fall of the others may be easily directed What I have said against those objections I touched doth arise from grounds of truth and they must win and prevail and my conceit is fitted to the Kings part and to the occasions now on foot I humbly cease your Lordship further trouble and wish you all good desiring your Lordship also to pardon my tedious and hasty scribled hand Your Lordships unknown servant Ch. Th. Postscript YOur Lordship shall be pleased to take off some part of my boldnesse and impute it to the obligation and service I owe this worthy Lady the Bearer To Count Gondomar My Lord I Thought my hands bound that I could no sooner have
giving you meanes withal to oblige this sweet blessed Queen who hath your Lordship in a very high account and would be glad to find occasions how she may witnesse it The mention of my Lord of Carlile upon this occasion refreshed her remembrance of the late falling out betwixt the Cardinal and him and though she were sufficiently informed of the particulars by the Cardinal himself yet she would needs have a relation from me who in a merrie kind of fashion obeyed her command and salved every thing the best I could She would needs know my opinion of the Cardinal who so magnified to her his wisdom his courage his courtesie his fidelity to her service his affection to our businesse as pleased her not a little Neither did my heart and my tongue differ for I esteem him such This discourse she left to fall upon a better subject the Prince concerning whose voyage into Spain the censure of Italie she said was that two Kings had therein committed two great errours The one in adventuring so precious a pledge to so hazardous an enterprise the other in badly using so brave a guest The first Madam answered I may be excused from the end the common good of all Christendom which then standing upon desperate tearmes had need of a desperate remedie The second had need of a better advocate then I to put any colour of defence upon it But his Highnesse had observed as great a weaknesse and follie as that in that after they had used him so ill they would suffer him to depart which was one of the first speeches he uttered after he was entred into the ship But did he say so said the Queen Yes Madam I will assure you quoth I from the witnesse of my own eares She smiled and replyed Indeed I heard he was used ill So he was answered I but not in his entertainement for that was as splendid as that countrie could afford it but in their frivolous delayes and in the unreasonable conditions which they propounded and pressed upon the advantage they had of his Princely Person And yet smilingly added I you here Madam use him far worse And how so presently demanded she In that you presse quoth I upon that most worthie and Noble Prince who hath with so much affection to your Majesties service so much passion to Madam sought this Alliance The same nay more unreasonable conditions then the other and what they traced out for the breaking of the match you follow pretending to conclude it very unseasonablely in this Conjuncture of time especiallie when the jealousies that such great changes in state are apt to beget are cunningly fomented by the Spanish Embassadour in England who vaunts it forth that there is not so great a change in La Vievilles particular person as there is in the general affections which did but follow before the stream of his Greatnesse and credit Thus casting in the Kings mind the seed of doubts whereunto the Conde de Olivares in Spain hath been willing to contribute by this braving speech to our Royal Masters Embassadour there That if the Pope ever granted a dispensation for the match with France the King of Spain would march with an armie towards Rome and sack it Vrayement nons l'en empescherous bien promptly answered She Car nous lui taglierous assez de besongne ailleurs Mais qu'est-ce qui vous presse le plus I represented unto her the unfitnesse of the seventh Article even qualified by that interpretationt hat it is and the impossibility of the last which requires and prescribes an oath And desired that the honour of the Prince with whom she pretended a will to match her Daughter might be dearer to her then to be ballanced with that which could add nothing to their assurance I also humbly besought her to imploy her Credit with the King her son her authority to the Ministers for a reformation of those two Articles especially and a friendly and speedy dispatch of all And if we must come to that extreamitie that more could not be altered then already was yet at least she would procure the allowance of this protestation by the King our Master when he should swear them that he intended no further to oblige himself by that oath then might well stand with the safety peace tranquility and conveniency of his State This shee thought reasonable and promised to speak with the King and Cardinal about it And if you speak as you can replied I I know it will be done Though when all is done I know not whether the King my Master will condescend so far yea or no. Here I intreated I might weary her Majestie no further but take the libertie she had pleased to give me in entertaining Madam with such Commandments as the Prince had charged me withall to her She would needs know what I would say Nay then smiling quoth I your Majestie will impose upon me the like Law that they in Spain did upon his Highnesse But the case is now different said she for there the Prince was in person here is but his Deputie But a Deputie answered I that represents his person Mais pour tout cela dit elle qu' est ce que vous direz Rien dis-re qui ne Soit digne des oreilles d'vne si vertueuse Princesse Mais qu' est ce redoubled she Why then Madam quoth I if you will needs know it shall be much to this effect That your Majestie having given me the libertie of some freer Language then heretofore I obey the Prince his Command in presenting to her his service not by way of Complement any longer but out of passion and affection which both her outward and her inward beauties the vertues of her mind so kindled in him as he was resolved to contribute the uttermost he could to the Alliance in question and would think it the greatest happinesse in the world if the successe thereof might minister occasion of expressing in a better and more effectual manmer his devotion to her service with some little other such like amorous Language Allez Allez Il n'y a point de danger en tout cela smilingly answered she je me fie en vous je me fie en vous Neither did I abuse her trust for I varied not much from it in delivering it to Madam save that I amplified it to her a little more who drank it down with joy and with a low Curtesie acknowledged it to the Prince adding that she was extreamly obliged to his Highnesse and would think her self happie in the occasion that should be presented of meriting the place shee had in his good Graces After that I turned my speech to the old Ladies that attended and â—old them That sith the Queen was pleased to give me this liberty it would be henceforth fit for them to speak a suitable Language I let them know that his Highnesse had her Picture which he kept in his Cabinet and fed
and as it were a necessitie to destroy you But I hope he and the whole world here will fall before any misfortunes should fall upon so generous and so noble a deserver of his Master and so excellent a friend and Patron unto Your Graces Most humble and most obedient servant Holland Postscript THough the Embassadour deserves nothing but contempt and disgrace as Blanvile yet I hope as Embassadour he shall receive for publique Honours and accustomed respect to Embassadours all possible satisfaction and it will be conceived a generous action My dearest Lord ALL the joy I have hath such a flatnesse set upon it by your absence from hence as I protest to God I cannot rellish it as I ought for though beautie and love I find in all perfection and fulnesse yet I vex and languish to find impediments in our designs and services for you first in the businesse for I find our mediation must have no place with this King concerning a Peace We must only use our power with those of the Religion to humble them to reasonable Conditions and that done they would as far as I can guesse have us gone not being willing that we should be so much as in the Kingdom when the Peace is made for fear the Protestants may imagine we have had a hand in it For our Confederation made by you at the Hague they speak so of it as they will do something in it but not so really or friendly as we could wish But for these things you allow me I trust to refer you to the general Dispatch I come now to other particulars I have been a careful Spie how to observe intentions and affections towards you I find many things to be feared and none to be assured of a safe and real welcome For the king continues in his suspects making as they say very often discourses of it and is willing to hear Villanes say That the heart hath infinite affections you imagine which way They say there is whispered amongst the foolish young Bravado's of the Court That he is not a good Frenchman that suffers anchor to return out of France considering the reports that are raised many such bruits flie up and down I have since my coming given Queen Mother by way of discourse occasion to say somewhat concerning your coming as the other night when she complained to me That things were carried harshly in England towards France I then said That the greatest unkindnesse and harshnesse came from hence even to forbid your coming hither a thing so strange and so unjust as our Master had cause and was infinitely sensible of it She fell into discourse of you desiring you would respect and love her daughter and likewise that she had and would ever command her to respect you above all men and follow all your Councels the matter of her Religion excepted with many professions of value and respect unto your Person but would never either excuse what I complained of or invite you to come upon that occasion But though neither the businesse gives me cause to perswade your coming nor my reason for the matter of your safetie yet know you are the most happie unhappie man alive for the heart is beyond imagination right and would do things to destroy her fortune rather then want satisfaction in her mind I dare not speak as I would I have ventured I fear too much considering what practises accompany the malice of the people here I tremble to think whether this will find a safe conveyance unto you Do what you will I dare not advise you to come is dangerous not to come is unfortunate As I have lived with you and only in that enjoy my happinesse so I will die with you and I protest to God for you to do you the least service c. Postscript HAve no doubt of the partie that accompanied me for he is yours with his soul and dares not now as things go advise your coming Mr. Lorkin to the Duke the 30. of August 1625. May it please your Grace FRom an honest and truly devoted heart to receive the sacrifice of most humble thanks which come here offered for that excesse of favour which I behold in those gracious lines that you are so nobly pleased to honour me withal and which derive unto me farther the height of all contentment his Majesties gracious acceptance of my poor endeavours which howsoever they cannot shoot up to any high matter from so low an earth yet in their greatest force are eternally vowed with the price of my dearest blood as to his Masters faithful service in the first place so to your Graces in the next who have received I doubt not ere this what my former promised in the Savoyard Embassadours behalf and that as well from his own pen as mine But this State is very Euripus that flowes and reflowes 7. times a day and in whose waies is neither constancie nor truth The changes your Grace will find in my Letters to my Lord Conway whereunto I therefore make reference because I suppose there will be but one Lecture thereof to his Majestie and your self There in likewise your Grace will see a suddain comandement laid upon Mounsieur de Blanvile premire Gentilhome de la chambre du Roy speedily to provide himself to go extraordinary Embassadour into England The cause thereof I rove at in my dispatch taking my aime from two darke speeches to Queen Mother and the Cardinal I have since learned the interpretation of the riddle not from the Cardinals lips who yet being sounded by me pretended a further end then Ville-aux-cleres had done viz to entertain good intelligence betwixt the Queen of England and your Grace and to do you all the best offices and services that are possible but from the Duke de Chevereux who whatsoever pretexts may be taken makes the true ends of that Voyage to be first to try whether this man can mend what they conceive here the Duke hath marred in shewing himself more a servant to the King of England then to his own King and Master Secondly to spie and discover what he can and according as he shall find cause to frame Cabals and factions whereunto he is esteemed very proper being charactarized with the marks of a most subtile prying penetrating and dangerous man And therefore as an Antidote against the poison he brings the Duke gives this Caveat aforehand That every one keep close and covert towards him and avoid familiaritie with him though otherwise he wishes a kind and honourable entertainment Thus much I received from the Dukes own lips yesternight Bonocil being witnesse perhaps Counsellour of all that passed he promised a memorial in writing this day which I have attended till this evening and even now receive it I have not touched the least syllable hereof to my Lord Conway because I think both your Graces and the Duke de Chevereux's will may concur in this that these things be