Cecil Papers: March 1588 | British History Online

Pages 312-317

Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House: Volume 3, 1583-1589. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1889.

Citation:

March 1588



	650. Lord Willoughby to Lord Burghley.
1587/8, Mar. 3.	The state of this country this messenger—welltrusted with me for long continuance in the Duchess my mother's house and mine, as also for his good deserts in the field, known to all soldiers on this side—shall inform you; and to offer your lordship out of my rude compass some weed that you mayhaps suck honey out of, it may please you to consider that when all things should succeed so as her Majesty might be possessed of all, yet, what a charge it is to keep defensively so many strong places, and to assure the inconstant popular sort. The first, you may easily judge by proportioning the charge already; the second, by those princes have advanc'd heretofore in such command, whether by succession or election. Lastly, how her Majesty for her assurance may pick out an island, one or two, with as many port towns, leaving States according to the contract statu quo prius, and, in cause of mutability, advance the nobility of this country to the government of the inland towns, that those may dispute the matter together, and, the whilst, good may be done by them either to maintain greater forces by mustering the contributions, or else, if there be a peace meant, not a worse condition by placing such as we may condition with.—The Hague, 3 March.
	Endorsed by Burghley :—1587.
	Seal. 1 p.
	651. P. Tournet to Archibald Douglas.
1587/8, Mar. 7.	Announcing that he has come to his ship, but by vehemence of evil weather has been constrained to remain where he is. Has left his brother Robert Graham in pledge of 10l. sterling, which he asks the Ambassador to pay. Patrick Thomson can show his lordship of their proceedings. The wine he spake of he may be assured he will get at the writer's bands, as also all other gear, &c.—From Sandwich, the 7th of March 1587.
1587/8, Mar. 7.	1 p.
	652. James VI. of Scotland to Lord Hunsdon.
1587/8, Mar. 10.	Letter of credit for [John Carmichael], with a postcript as follows : “My Lorde, for that you have ever bene a man of sports, I muste pray you to trust the bearer herof in horse and dogg matters.”—Holyrood House, 10 March 1887.
	Endorsed :—“King of Scottes to the Lord Chamberlaine by Carmichell.”
	¼ p.
	653. Lord Burgh to Lord Burghley.
1587/8, Mar. 12.	The estate of Mr. Sney, governor of Medenblick, standeth in hard terms, neither is there likelihood of mitigation; for they justify their proceedings, and have published a book to defend themselves, and to condemn his courses as not of merit with her Majesty; the reasons and copy whereof I have made bold to send you. The same is held of other towns, wherein her Majesty's cause is nothing interested, but only her name used to countenance faction of particular humours. These proceedings have bred distrust in this nation.—Briell, this 12th of March.
1587/8, Mar. 12.	1 p.
	654. Lord Hunsdon to Sir Francis Walsingham.
1587/8, Mar. 18.	I can but give you most hearty thanks for your favourable dealing with her Majesty for my son Robert Carey, who I trust her Majesty will have some consideration of, when she shall see her best time. I wrote unto ye touching Mr. Archibald Douglas, that he had no commission touching his being an Ambassador, never since the Master of Gray was there, which now I can assure you to be true, for I have seen it under the King's own hand that he was discharged of his ambassage at the fit time, nor never since had any dealing for the King, nor the King with him, and that if he have at any time since dealt with her Majesty or any of her Council as an Ambassador, or in any matter of the King's, he hath greatly abused both her Majesty and her Council, and I dare assure you that, if he come into Scotland, the King will take his life, and therefore let him take heed he come not here.
	Touching the decay of Tynmouth, if there be a letter directed unto me from my Lords of her Majesty's Council, appointing me to call such unto me as I shall think fit to view the same, besides the calling of such gentlemen as dwell near unto it, I will take out of this town with me both the Surveyor of the Works, who is a very skilfull man, and some other artificers, and some one of the officers of the Ordnance. And so as I come up will take a perfect view thereof, and bring it up with me. And so hoping of my leave to come up, having now nothing to do here.—At Berwick, this 18th of March 1587.
	1 p.
	655. Charlotte de la Marck, Countess of Bouillon, to the Duke Casimir.
1588, Mar. 28/Apr. 7	Monsieur,—Non seulement votre bon nature et jugement, mais l'amitié, qu'il vous a tousjour pleu de porter à ceste maison' vous aura, je m'assure, faict ressentir et deplorer l'affliction de laquelle il a pleu à Dieu la visiter, en neuf mois, retirant à soy feu raadame ma mère et messieurs mes frères : et me regarder, comme très-humblement je vous en supplie, d'nn oeil de compassion en ce peu d'age et d'experience, jestée seulle, au temps le plus calamiteux qui fut jamais, assaillie et assiegée des plus cruels ennemis que la terre porte, pour soubs une recherche d'allience exercer toutes sortes d'inhumanités si estranges, Monsieur, qu'il y a horreur les réciter. Pour n'avoir esgard d'age ny de sexe, en violemens tortures, et tout ce qui peult dépendre de cruauté, n'ayans en oultre laissé aulcun temple, maison, ny demeure, en pas un de mes villages, pensans y ruiner l'égliae, que Dieu par sa grace y a plantée, soubs messieurs mes père ct frères, et dont madame ma mère a faict si soigneuse et chère garde. A l'exemple de laquelle, et de tous voulant suyvre les sainctes paces, j'implore, Monsieur, à cest effect, votre bonne ayde et secours, tant en la memoire du service et extreme affection qu'ils vous avoient vouée, que d'aultant que ce mal regarde l'oppression de plusieurs aultres pays, vous suppliant de croire que je ne me déporterai jamais de l'assistance et service que je pourrai rendre avec mes bons seigneurs et amis à si juste cause.—Sedan, 7 April 1588.
	Endorsed :—Schreibens der Herzogin von Bouillon.
	Copy. 1½ pp.
	656. [Sir Edward Stafford] to the Queen.
1588, Mar. 30.	The day before yesterday I spake with 77, but very short, for after that he had heard what I delivered him from your Majesty, which I did with as plausible words as I could devise and at large, he answered me, first, with very great thanks; that he desired me the next day to ask audience, and he would give it me; that he should be in his cabinet apart, where nobody should be but those that brought me in, and that at the window so far off as they should hear nothing; that both the time and place permitted not to tarry long; that then, instead of hearing of me again, he would answer me, after [he] had time this night to think of it; that he humbly thanked your Majesty for the confident dealing and counsel; that the effect of this shewed the repute of wisdom that your Majesty had carried through the world; that there he would agree with me what he would that should be known of my audience and what not. That time and place suffered him not to tarry long with me, as I saw, but afore he went he would answer me to any point which he would not speak of in that cabinet for fear of being overheard, which was the counsel of the two, (fn. 1) which I knew what he had said to me at the last conference; as, indeed, I must ask pardon of your Majesty for forgetting that in my last letter. For, indeed, I said as much almost to him then as you writ to him now of that point at that time, and he answered me that he could never catch them together. But he now answered me plainly, that he had ever done what he could, but he could never have them come together. That one of the principalest charges he had given to Bellièvre now was, to have had them have come (sic), for to assemble a general Council about the war in Poitou, and the means to make an end of it, but that by no means he could persuade it, and to persuade any of them to come. He did not bid him to prass them greatly, for that would breed but more harm, and I answered him that one of them taken away or seized would make the leave like a horse that had lost one of his eyes, the least jerk in the other eye made him blind altogether. He answered me nothing but that, among all the rest that should not be known that you had advised him, that should be a chief point, for he would neither have it known that he had such a thought nor that anybody had ever put it in his head; that time brought, many occasions that were to be taken as time served; that in the mean time he left me till the next day, conjuring me again, as ever he would have confidence in me, it might never be known that he had seen me, and withal conjured your Majesty of all friendships, which I assured him of both.
	Yesterday I had audience in the cabinet, as he promised me, where, indeed, was nobody but Gondy and the captain of the guard that brought me in, who were far off at the window. Where, after that I had told that I was come according : to his commandment, he told me that he had very well weighed with himself all that I had delivered him, and the more he weighed it the more weight he found in it, and the more esteem he made of your Majesty's wisdom . . . . accompted of your friendship. That, in truth, he found reason in all, but, as his state stood, he could not tell how to dare to accept reason when it was offered him, for he saw that the contenting of the King of Navarre and that party, and to make them serve him for the overthrow of the other, was least hazard and most assurance for him; and if it were not for that point of religion, which if afore that be resolved, he should never so little be seen to lean unto. Upon the instant they have so many practices in the chiefest towns of France to alienate them from him under that pretence of religion . . . . the “busyes” that they put into their heads that . . . . leaneth secretly to the King of Navarre, not for . . . , and he, contrary wise, by shew he maketh to be . . . than they, and to stand stiffly in the point of religion . . . . them back not to let themselves go to their ab . . . . ; that if he should any way in the world seem to let himself give to under stand anything of remitting the King of Navarre's religion, there would be at an instant more towns be gone away from him than all the succour of all the princes in Christendom could in a long while win him again, and perchance hazard in one day his whole estate. That he seeth now that if God had given him grace to have followed your Majesty's counsel in the beginning, to have opposed himself against them, he could then have paid them short with ease, but two things letted them, the one that he made little accompt of them, the other that he was counselled with temperance to have pacified things better, and that withal he hoped it himself. But that now they had crept so far that it is not now possible to take that course without his hazard of his estate. But that, notwithstanding, time may bring opportunity to do otherwise, and to make them that they abuse with co . . . . of religion to see into their ambition, and to fall from them as early as they have cleaved unto them; which he useth all the art he can to make them to see, and to make them feel the sm . . . of their war, and if he can once get that point on . . . . that then he will not let go the opportunity a . . . . your Majesty's.
	That for the points of the King of Navarre changing of his religion, and the hazard that might grow unto the “ceasers” (?), he most humbly thanked your Majesty, and found, as he said, that sufficiency in them as no living creature could set down more. But he did hold himself most assured that if the King of Navarre did once commit that lightness to change his religion (which was the word he used, and that I marked very well, and in my opinion it was worthy the marking) and afterwards would commit another lightness in attempting anything, he should but ruin himself. That, without doubt, it was a great deal more hazard at this time to let himself “gar” to seem to hearken to anything in religion than anything the King of Navarre could do if he change. For the honourable offer your Majesty made him of your own succour, and of the employing of your credit to the princes of Germany, he doth think himself most bound and beholden unto you for it, and if he might have that favour at your hands that it might not be tied with the hazardous and unpeaceable point of the religion at this time, he should think him self more beholden unto you, and a thing that he desired as much as yourself, as a thing that he did think could bring nothing more good to both their estates than that, and “impeach” the intents, as he said, of them that of both sides did hinder good intelligence between you. But it was a thing at this time so far impossible, and such difficulties and interpretations of the satirists on both sides arrive of it, as it was a thing they would never permit you to do, what mind soever you both had to desire it. And desiring me that I would do him that favour, and he knew your Majesty would not mislike of it, not only to permit him to commuicate the chief points of this with his mother and nearest Council, as answers upon the last audience I had, and your Majesty's answer upon that, but also that I would let Pinard, whom he durst assure me to affect the amity of you two as much as any man in France, whom he would send to me the next day, to take the chief points in order that I delivered him, for he would communicate it both unto her and them, and that he did find them set down with that weight as he would have them as they be set down, to make them ashamed that shall see it, and to sound most of their humours upon it, and it might perchance work in some that shame and in others form that effect as he desireth and your Majesty both. But one point by no means to speak to Pinard of, the seizing of the two brothers, for that he would not have his shirt (fn. 2) know he did think of it.
	I remained a little blank at that demand, because [I] had no com mission from your Majesty, which he perceived, and told me he durst warrant me that I needed not to fear your Majesty's dislike, though you commanded me to deliver it to himself and had no further charge. For, first, there was nothing [in] it but that one point, though things were more substantially set down . . . . by reason, but that, in effect, your Majesty had sent afore, and had published it to his ambassador in England, and, besides that, your Majesty had sent it to him of good will that he might make his profit of and breed some good effect, which were things, some of them, that he could not resolve upon alone secretly, specially the chief point, about the using the King of Navarre against the rest, and the reasons for it. I, seeing that if I did refuse it, he might conceive some jealousy of it, that your Majesty did not it for so good an intent as you made shew, and also to put courage [in] him to dare the better, by seeing your Majesty not afraid to have any thing you counselled him but to have it known to all the world, I answered him that I studied not at the doing of it but at the manner, for I durst be bound that your Majesty gave you (sic) no counsel but you would have all the world to know, . . . . because you were sure it was the best thing he could . . . . And so I, promising to do it I took my leave . . . . and attend Pinard's coming, to whom I will set down in such sort as I am sure they will be ashamed of themselves. But to write unto your Majesty what I do hope of it certainly, I cannot give your Majesty any comfort to hope any good from hence, because I fear the King's weakness of courage. But, in truth, his good-will I do not fear, for first knowing that humour in him, I fear the fears that 74 and 30, I am afraid, agree together to put in him, as your Majesty shall see more at large by another letter I wrote to Mr. Secretary. And, in truth, the fear of the towns that he speaks of, for without doubt that is most certain that they have intelligence in all the chiefest towns in France, and allay them with the pretext of religiousness, and the King keepeth them from falling to the other only with the standing earnestly in the point of religion. What time may bring better, I know not, or what the sight of your “augments” may move, which I think will put the best of them to a plunge. But, in the mean time, the best poor advice in few words I know [to] give to your Majesty is, to build assuredly upon nothing of no . . . side, to entertain all the world with reason, as by rea . . . of state you may be moved, but in the end to trust upon nobody but upon God, and to ground no steadfastness upon no earthly prince or their amity or helps, but only upon those helps as God of His grace hath given yourself, to help you withal and to preserve you.—30 March 1588.
	Not signed. Noted :—“Avise from France.”
	4 pp.