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Stephens's first collection,p.214.

CLXXXIV. To the KING.

It may please your most excellent Majesty, I DARE not presume any more to reply upon your majesty, but I reserve my defence till I attend your majesty at your happy return; when I hope verily to approve myself, not only a true servant to your majesty, but a true friend to my lord of Buckingham; and for the times also, I hope to give your majesty a good account, though distance of place may obscure them. But there is one part of your majesty's letter that I could be sorry to take time to answer; which is, that your majesty conceiveth, that whereas I wrote that the height of my lord's fortune might make him secure, I meant that he was turned proud, or unknowing of himself: surely the opinion which I have ever had of my lord, whereof your majesty is best witness, is far from that. But my meaning was plain and simple, that his lordship might, through his great fortune, be the less apt to cast and foresee the unfaithfulness of friends, and the malignity of enemies, and accidents of time. Which is a judgment, your majesty knoweth better than I, that the best authors make of the best and best tempered spirits, ut sunt res humana; insomuch that Guicciardine maketh the same judgment, not of a particular person, but of the wisest state of Europe, the senate of Venice, when he saith, their prosperity had made them secure, and underweighers of perils. Therefore I beseech your majesty to deliver me in this from any the least imputation upon my dear and noble lord and friend. And so expecting that that sun which when it went from us, left us cold weather, and now it is returned towards us hath brought with it a blessed harvest; will, when it cometh to us, dispel and disperse all mists and mistakings.

July 31, 1617.

CLXXXV. To the Earl of BUCKINGHAM.

My very good Lord,

SINCE my last to your lordship, I did first send for Mr. Attorney General, and made him know, that, since I heard from court, I was resolved to further the match and the conditions thereof for your lordship's brother's advancement the best I could. I did send also to my lady Hatton, and some other special friends, to let them know, I would in any thing declare for the match; which I did, to the end that if they had any apprehension of my assistance, they might be discouraged in it. I sent also to Sir John Butler, and after by letter to my lady your mother, to tender my performance of any good office towards the match or the advancement from the mother. This was all I could think of for the present.

I did ever foresee, that this alliance would go near to lose me your lordship that I hold so dear; and that was the only respect particular to myself that moved me to be as I was, till I heard from you. But I will rely upon your constancy and nature, and my own deserving, and the firm tye we have in respect of the king's service.

In the mean time I must a little complain to your lordship, that I do hear my lady your mother and your brother Sir John do speak of me with some bitterness and neglect. I must bear with the one as a lady, and the other as a lover, and with both for your lordship's sake, whom I will make judge of any thing they shall have against me. But I hope, though I be a true servant to your lordship, you will not have me to be a vassal to their passions, especially as long as they are governed by Sir Edward Coke and secretary Winwood, the latter of which I take to be the worst; for Sir Edward Coke, I think, is more modest and discreet: therefore your lordship shall do me right; and yet I shall take it for favour, if you signify to them, that you have received satisfaction from me, and would have them use me friendly and in good manner.

Stephens's first collection,p.215.

God keep us from these long journeys and absence,
which make misunderstandings and give advantage
to untruth, and God ever prosper and preserve your
lordship.

Your lordship's true and devoted friend and servant,
FR. BACON, C. S.

Gorhambury, Aug. 23, 1617.

CLXXXVI. A memorial for

Stephens's second collection, P. 58.

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ALTHOUGH I doubt not but your majesty's own memory and care of your affairs will put you in mind of all things convenient against you shall meet with your council, yet some particulars I thought it not unfit to represent to your majesty; because they passed the labour of your council.

I. Some time before your departure, here was delivered unto you by the officers of your exchequer a computation of your revenue and expence, wherein was expressed that your revenue ordinary was not only equal to your expence, but did somewhat exceed it, though not much.

In this point, because the half year will now be expired at Michaelmas, it shall be fit, that your majesty call to account, whether that equality hath held for this half year; and if not, what the causes have been, and whether the course prescribed hath been kept, that the ordinary expence hath been borne out of the ordinary revenue, and the extraordinary only out of such money as hath come in by extraordinary means, or else your estate cannot clearly appear.

II. To maintain this equality, and to cause your majesty's state to subsist in some reasonable manner till farther supply might be had, it was found to be necessary that 200,000/. of your majesty's most pregnant and pressing debts should be discharged; and after consideration of the means how to do that, two ways were resolved on. One that 100,000/. should be discharged to the farmers of your customs by 25,000l. yearly, they having for their security power to defalke so much of their rent in their own hands: but because if that

should be defalked, then your ordinary should want so much, it was agreed that the farmers should be paid the 25,000l. yearly in the sale of woods.

In this point it is fit for your majesty to be informed what hath been done, and whether order hath been taken with the farmers for it, and what debts were assigned to them so to discharge; for of the particulars of that course I never heard yet. And because it is apparent that the woodfalls this year do not amount to half that sum of 25,000l. your majesty is to give charge that consideration be had how the same shall be supplied by some other extraordinary for the present year, or else here will follow a fracture of the whole assignments.

Item, Your majesty may please to call for information how that money raised upon the woods is employed, so much is already received, and to be wary that no part hereof be suffered to go for extraordinaries, but to be employed only for the use for which it is assigned, or else a greater rupture will follow in your assignments. Item, A special consideration is to be had what course shall be taken for the rest of the years with the wood sales for supply of this 25,000l. yearly. III. The other hundred thousand pound was agreed to be borrowed, and an allotment made by my lords of the council at the table, how the same should be imployed, and for what special services, whereof I deliver to your majesty herewith a copy.

In which point it may please your majesty to cause yourself to be informed how that allotment hath been observed, and because it is likely that a good part of it hath gone towards the charges of this your journey to Scotland, at least so it is paid, your majesty is to call for the particulars of that charge, that you may see how much of that hundred thousand it taketh up.

And then consideration is to be had how it may be supplied with some extraordinary comings in, as namely the moneys to come from the merchant-adventurers, that the same be allotted to none other use, but to per

Stephens's first collec

tion,p. 217.

form this allotment, that so the foundation laid may be maintained, or else all will be to seek; and if there be any other extraordinary means to come to your majesty, that they may be reserved to that use.

And because care must be had to keep your credit in London, for this money borrowed, your majesty may please to call for information what is done in the matter of the forests, and what sum, and in what reasonable time, is like to be made thereof.

The extraordinaries which it is like will be alledged for this year:

Your majesty's journey into Scotland.

The lord Hay's employment into France.
The lord Roos into Spain.

The Baron de Tour extraordinary from France.
Sir John Bennet to the Archduke.

The enlarging your park at Theobalds.

Sir John Digby's sending into Spain.

Of all which when your majesty hath seen an estimate what they amount unto, and what money hath been already delivered towards them, which I fear will fall to be out of the moneys borrowed at London; then it is to be considered what extraordinaries are any ways to come in, which may supply these extraordinaries laid out, and be employed for the uses for which the moneys borrowed were intended.

CLXXXVII. To the Earl of BUCKINGHAM.

My ever best Lord, now better than yourself, YOUR lordship's pen or rather pencil hath pourtrayed towards me such magnanimity and nobleness and true kindness, as methinketh I see the image of some ancient virtue, and not any thing of these times. It is the line of my life, and not the lines of my letter, that must express my thankfulness: wherein if I fail, then God fail me, and make me as miserable as I think myself at this time happy by this reviver, through his majesty's singular clemency, and your incomparable love

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