Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

found it in argument, may, perhaps, have as much need of an interpreter, for all his deaconry, as myself; and whatsoever mine ignorance is in the tongue, yet this much I understand in the book, that it is a noble monument of your love, which I will entail to my posterity, who, I hope, will both reap the fruit of the work, and honour the memory of the author. The other book I delivered to his majesty, who is tied here by the feet longer than he purposed to stay.

For the business your lordship wrote of in your other letters, I am sorry I can do you no service, having engaged myself to Sir William Becher before my going into Spain, so that I cannot free myself, unless there were means to give him satisfaction. But I will ever continue

Your lordship's assured friend

[ocr errors]

and faithful servant,

Hinchenbrook, 27 Oct. 1623.

G. BUCKINGHAM.

CCLXXXVII. To the Lord ST. ALBAN.

My honourable Lord,

I HAVE delivered your lordship's letter and your
book to his majesty, who hath promised to read it over :
I wish I could promise as much for that which
you sent
me, that my understanding of that language might
make me capable of those good fruits, which, I assure
myself by an implicit faith, proceed from your pen. But
I will tell you in good English, with my thanks for
your book, that I ever rest

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant,
Hinchenbrook, 29 Oct. 1623.

G. BUCKINGHAM.

Stephen's second collection,

p. 181.

CCLXXXVIII. To the Duke of BUCKINGHAM. Ibid.

Excellent Lord,

I SEND Mr. Parker to have ready, according to the speech I had with your grace, my two suits to his majesty, the one for a full pardon, that I may die out of a

cloud; the other for a translation of my honours after my decease. I hope his majesty will have compassion on me, as he promised me he would. My heart telleth me that no man hath loved his majesty and his service more entirely, and love is the law and the prophets. I

ever rest

Your grace's most obliged and faithful servant,

25 Nov. 1623.

FR. ST. ALBAN..

Stephens's second collection, p. 184.

Ibid. 185.

CCLXXXIX. To the Lord ST. ALBAN.
My honourable Lord,

I HAVE received your lordship's letter, and have been
long thinking upon it, and the longer the less able to
make answer unto it. Therefore if your lordship would
be pleased to send any understanding man unto me, to
whom I may in discourse open myself, I will by that
means so discover my heart with all freedom, which
were too long to do by letter, especially in this time of
parliament business, that your lordship shall receive
satisfaction. In the mean time I rest

Your lordship's faithful servant,

Royston, 16 December.

G. BUCKINGHAM.

CCXC. To the Lord ST. ALBAN.

My Lord,

I HAVE moved his majesty in your suit, and find him very gracious inclined to grant it; but he desireth first to know from my lord treasurer his opinion and the value of it: to whom I have written to that purpose this inclosed letter, and would wish your lordship to speak with him yourself for his favour and furtherance therein; and for my part I will omit nothing that ap pertaineth to

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant,

Newmarket, the 28th of Jan. 1623.

G. BUCKINGHAM.

CCXCI. To the Duke of BUCKINGHAM.

Excellent Lord,

I HAVE received the warrant, not for land but for the money, which if it may be speedily served, is sure the better; for this I humbly kiss your grace's hands. But because the exchequer is thought to be somewhat barren, although I have good affiance of Mr. Chancellor, yet I hold it very essential, and therein I most humbly pray your grace's favour, that you would be pleased by your letter to recommend to Mr. Chancellor the speedy issuing of the money by this warrant, as a business whereof your grace hath an especial care; the rather for that I understand from him, there be some other warrants for money to private suitors at this time on foot. But your grace may be pleased to remember this difference: that the other are mere gifts; this of mine is a bargain, with an advance only.

I most humbly pray your grace likewise to present my most humble thanks to his majesty. God ever guide you by the hand. I always rest

Your faithful and more and more obliged servant,
Gray's-Inn, this 17th of

November, 1624.

FR. ST. ALBAN.

I most humbly thank your grace for your grace's favour to my honest deserving servant.

CCXCII. To the Lord ST. ALBAN.
My noble Lord,

THE hearty affection I have borne to your person and
service, hath made me ever ambitious to be a mes-
senger of good news to you, and an eschewer of ill;
this hath been the true reason why I have been thus
long in answering you, not any negligence in your
discreet modest servant, you sent with your letter, nor
his who now returns you this answer, oft-times given
me by your master and mine; who though by this
may seem not to satisfy your desert and expectation,
yet, take the word of a friend who will never fail you,

Stephens's second col

lection,

p. 185.

Ibid. 186.

Matthew's

hath a tender care of you, full of a fresh memory of your by-past service. His majesty is but for the present, he says, able to yield unto the three years' advance, which if you please to accept, you are not hereafter the farther off from obtaining some better testimony of his favour worthier both of him and you, though it can never be answerable to what my heart wishes you, as Your lordship's humble servant,

G. BUCKINGHAM.

Sir Tobie CCXCIII. To the Lord Treasurer (a) MARLBOROUGH, expostulating about his unkindness and injustice.

collection

of letters, p. 54.

Stephens's first collection, p. 197.

My Lord,

I HUMBLY intreat your lordship, and if I may use the word, advise you to make me a better answer. Your lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion of all them who hear how I am dealt with; if your lordship malice me for such a cause, surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in chancery. I will avouch it; and how deeply I was tempted therein your lordship knows best. Your lordship may do well, in this great age of yours, to think of your grave, as I do of mine; and to beware of hardness of heart. And as for fair words, it is a wind, by which neither your lordship, nor any man else, can sail long. Howsoever, I am the man who will give all due respects and reverence to your great place, etc.

CCXCIV. To the KING.

Most gracious and dread Sovereign,

BEFORE I make my petition to your majesty, I make my prayers to God above pectore ab imo, that if I have held any thing so dear as your majesty's service, nay, your heart's ease, and your honour's, I may be repulsed with a denial: but if that hath been the principal with me, that God, who knoweth my heart, would (a) The lord Marlborough was made treasurer 22 Dec. 1624, 22 Jac.

move your majesty's royal heart to take compassion of me, and to grant my desire.

I prostrate myself at your majesty's feet, I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age, and three years five months old in misery. I desire not from your majesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only, after so long a time of expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the upper-house, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, and from my memory with posterity; that I die not a condemned man, but may be to your majesty, as I am to God, nova creatura. Your majesty hath pardoned the like to Sir John Bennet, between whose case and mine, not being partial with myself, but speaking out of the general opinion, there was as much difference, I will not say as between black and white, but as between black and gray, or ash-coloured: (a) look therefore down, dear sovereign, upon me also in pity. I know your majesty's heart is inscrutable for goodness; and my lord of Buckingham was wont to tell me you were the best natured man in the world; and it is God's property, that those he hath loved, he loveth to the end. Let your majesty's grace, in this my desire, stream down upon me, and let it be out of the fountain and spring-head, and er mero motu, that living, or dying, the print of the goodness of king James may be in my heart, and his praises in my mouth. This my most humble request granted, may make me live a year or two happily; and denied, will kill me quickly. But yet the last thing that will die in me, will be the heart and affection of

Your majesty's most humble,

July 30, 1624.

and true devoted servant,

FR. ST. ALBAN.

(a) Sir John Bennet, judge of the prerogative court, was in the year 1621 accused, convicted, and censured in parliament for taking of bribes, and committing several misdemeanors relating to his office.

« AnteriorContinuar »