Elizabeth: January 1586, 16-20 | British History Online

Pages 302-310

Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Elizabeth, Volume 20, September 1585-May 1586. Originally published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1921.

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January 1586, 16–20



Jan. 16.	A. de Licques to Walsingham.
	On behalf of an honest and God-fearing man of Rouen named Jean de la Croix, by trade a cap-maker, whose flight was so sudden that he could not arrange for his caps to be sent to Bordeaux or Bayonne, where he usually trades, but who finds that they may easily be sent from hence, unless he should be hindered on the ground that it is forbidden to import caps into this country. Prays for his honour's aid in the matter, which he does with the more boldness that they are not meant for this kingdom, and so will do prejudice to no man, but only enable him to save the little which God has given him.—16 January, 1586.
	Add. Endd. by Walsingham's clerk, “16 January, 1585.” (fn. 1) Fr. 1 p. [France XV. 13.]
Jan. 16.	Davison to Walsingham.
	I hope so shortly to wait on you that I need not trouble you with many lines. What resolution is taken here in my lord's behalf, “I doubt not but himself hath at length imparted with you. Amongst many other causes moving them hereunto, the most important hath been the reason of necessity, which hath admitted little or rather no contradiction or question either in his or their behalfs, and yet how it will be digested with you at home I know not. It may please your honour to do my lord thus much favour at the least, that her Majesty may be moved to suspend her judgment till she be informed more particularly from myself of the matter and circumstances.
	“Sir Philip doth perplex himself with care that all things may be carried with the honour and surety of her Majesty, my lord his uncle's credit and the good of the cause, wherein, I assure you he hath done and doth most honest and honourable offices. He seemeth in mind to repair to his government for some little time, which shall not be mode expedient for his charge than incommodious for my lord, who will soon find the want of him; and so his government were furnished of a more able and fit lieutenant than he hath yet there, I would he did nunquam discedere ab ejust latere.”
	My lord thinks it very necessary that I should make this journey home, as the man best able to satisfy her Majesty, and presses me to prepare myself as soon as I may; so that I expect to depart some time next week, or within ten or twelve days at the furthest.— Leyden, 16 January, 1585.
	Holograph. Add. Endd. 1 p. [Holland VI. 28.]
Jan. 17.	“The heads of a letter [from Walsingham ?] to Leicester.
	“That her Majesty will not assent to his lordship's desired supply of Irishmen, in respect, as it seemeth, of the charges of their transportation and entertainment.
	The Master of Graye's offer fit to be accepted.
	“That her Majesty is offended with the title of Excellency given to his lordship, and therefore it is likely that she will mislike of the authority that the States have given him over them.
	“That the Treasurer do send over an account of the disbursement of the treasure.
	“That it will please his lordship to have some regard of Sir Thos. Cecil's charges at the sea-side.”
	Endd. with date. ½ p. [Ibid. VI. 29.]
[Jan. 17 ?] (fn. 2)	The Queen to the Lord Treasurer.
	Note for a warrant on request of the Earl of Leicester, that 2,000l. of the sums for entertainment of the forces under his charge may be disbursed to the Master of Gray for a levy to be by him made of certain footmen in Scotland for the service of the States—that he shall deliver the said sum to be sent into Scotland, deducting it out of the next treasure to be sent over to the said Earl.
	Draft. Endd. ¾ p. [Holland VI. 30.]
Jan. 17/27.	C. Aerssens to Davison.
	I am very glad that all differences are made an end of, and that his Excellence has been pleased to accept the government of these countries, being assured that this will be to the glory of God, the honour and service of her Majesty and his Excellency and our own preservation; wherefore the provinces are bound to regard those who have employed themselves in bringing about this happy end, and especially your lordship.
	I know that the States feel this, and will do their duty that the effects may follow as you deserve. Now, being informed that many are soliciting places and especially that of Audiencer, I have thought it my duty to inform you that it pleased the States to confer the said place upon me on Sept. 11, 1584, when it was vacant by the death of M. Jehan van Asseliers, as appears by the translation of their apostile hereto annexed [wanting] in order that you may be pleased to remember it when occasion shall require. And your lordship having promised me many favours, I earnestly pray you to give me a word of advice whether you think I should present a request to his Excellency or not, according to which I shall not fail to govern myself. Your lordship will see how greatly it concerns my honour and the position I hold, that I should not take anything in hand save with assurance and good ground, which makes me also pray you to hold this as confidential and to pardon my boldness; sending me back the papers if you are of a different opinion.—The Hague, 27 January, 1586.
	Add. Endd. Fr. 1¼ pp. [Ibid. VI. 31.]
Jan. 17/27.	Segur-Pardeilhan to Davison.
	I have not written until now, as I had nothing satisfactory to tell you, for at the beginning of my negotiation I had all the difficulties and obstacles in the world, but God has given me the means to overcome them, insomuch as I hope that all the Protestant princes will aid to the utmost of their power to preserve God's church' and am very sorry that the Queen of England, who had exhorted the others to do well to us, and made so many fine promises, should yet be the last to do her duty. But although she should not do better than she has begun by doing, God will not fail to raise up for us better friends, and we are not in so evil a state that we have not good means of acknowledging with usury the kindness done to us. I have been very glad, however, that she has taken upon her the defence of the Low Countries, both for the general good and your own that she will aid so many good men, and that you will gain honour and satisfaction.—Frankfort, 27 January, 1586. [Style doubtful.]
	Holograph. Add. Endd. Fr. 1 p. [Germany, States IV. 2.]
Jan. 17/27.	A proclamation by the King of Spain in his Council of Flanders, against rovers, free-booters, brawlers, their abeltors and receivers &c.— Brussels, 12 January, 1586.
	Signed, Pamele, President. Countersigned, Verreyken. Published on January 27.
	Black letter. Flemish. 10 pp. [Flanders I. 53.]
Jan. 18/28.	The Prince of Condé to Walsingham.
	Has been informed by one of his subjects in his barony of Meschez, named Nicolas Ardouyn, that having laden a ship with wine in the river of Bourdeaux, to bring into England, it has been taken by some English in a ship “d'ouemue” [qy. of Weymouth]; by which he is reduced to great poverty, unless by his honour's means he may find redress. Prays him, seeing that it is not the Queen's intention that the traffic between the two countries should be disturbed, to take measures that the said Ardouyn may recover his wine, and assures him that he shall consider this as a pleasure done to himself.—La Rochelle, 28 January, 1586. Signed, Vostre plus affectionné et meilleur amy, Henry de Bourbon.”
	Add. Endd. by Walsingham's clerk, “28 January, 1585.” Fr. ½ p. [France XV. 14.]
Jan. 18.	Colonel Norreys to Burghley.
	“I have delivered over an account to Mr. Treasurer of 3,000l. disbursed by me to the captains for the arming of their bands,” the greater part whereof he has already; the rest to be received when my lord of Leicester shall give his warrant. The other 2,000l. my lord has assigned to me for the levy, transport and arming of a hundred lances at her Majesty's charge. I sent your lordship by the last a note of all payments made by my warrant since my coming over, wherewith I trust you will have no cause to find fault; if you will give me your opinion therein. I shall be much bound to you, earnestly desiring that you should rest wholly satisfied of all my doings.—Leyden, 18 January, 1586.
	Holograph. Add. Endd. “18 January, 1585.” 1 p. [Holland VI. 32.]
Jan. 20.	Stafford to Walsingham.
	From your letter received this morning by Mr. Staling “I perceived that you took otherwise my meaning in my last about Lillye and Michael than I meant it. For truly Sir, though I writ that I must be fain to seek some other course to make known unto her Majesty (if you would not favour me to do it) that she had no cause to be offended with me for keeping of Lillye after her commandment to me to put him away, because indeed you in her name did command me the contrary,” yet you know I wrote to none of it but yourself, and desired to be beholding to nobody but to you in it. If I were to write what I daily hear and see “said and conceived among ambassadors and others of no small quality to my disgrace, you might think whether I had cause to grieve”; and in truth, it would have shown more respect to the place I am employed in if you had written to me privately why it was not fit I should keep the men, that I might have put them away myself, than to have kept them away from me, as if I had neither honest reason nor discretion to have done it myself upon just cause. “All the wealth I have is my desire to live with good opinion and reputation, and any thing that toucheth that, truly I must confess doth gall me.” I pray you to think better of a man that deals plainly with his friends, than of him that “keepeth every thing in his stomach,” and whose friendship “is not worth a point when it cometh to the touchstone.” There is no one with whom I more desire friendship than with you, and whenever you will make trial of it, you shall find that nothing shall make me alter my affection when I promise it.
	If my two men may be sent over to me, and you advise me with reason to put them away, let me have that credit and you will favour me greatly. For the one, I never meant to use him after his return, for a reason private to myself, and if he come will not keep him long. With Lilly I have no cause to be offended; I have sought well into it; “and he is not so wise as not to be found halting. . . . I knew afore that [which] he was examined upon; except that matter of my lord of Arundel's I could answer myself. For that of my lord of Leicester, your honour did mistake me that I took him for a private person, but in one kind; which was that I being a public person here for her Majesty, could do no more than I did if it had been for my father; for to complain against anybody that had written against anybody but against the Queen I could not; and to go about to suppress it I could do no more, for as I could get books into my hand I burnt them all, to the number of thirty-two or three; till so great numbers of them came as I saw it was to no purpose. And for Lilly, if he perchance saw or read a book, surely that were in reason no such criminal cause; but sure I had rather cause to think that my lord of Leicester should be so incensed against him for that love the poor fellow bare to me than for any cause else. . . . I will, if you think good, send of purpose to my lord of Leicester, and write in the best manner I can, to see if by craving it of him I can obtain his goodwill, which yet I know no cause of why I should lose it; and the letters and the bearer shall come by you first, that you may see them.” If you will send Lilly over, he himself shall carry them to my lord, who “may use him as he shall see cause, or pardon him if he find none, and send him to me again with his pleasure.” Truly he would now stand me in some stead, for Grimston has very great business in England for three weeks, and I would fain have Lilly to serve me in his absence, and as soon as ever Grimston returns, I will send him, first to you and then to my lord of Leicester. “Or if you think not good for other causes which I beseech you to look well into before you condemn the poor man, he hath had a mind to travel a great while. I will give him wherewithal to travel for a year or such a thing into Italy, and after to place him the best I can.”
	Mr. Staling told me of some unkindness between my mother and you, which I am very sorry for. I will send my mind plainly to her. Of my men's usage, upon my honesty, I never writ or sent word to her or to any of it, “and if she hath conceived anything of that, it is of opinion that everybody else hath done that heard it.” For that of my lord of Arundel, I will write my mind plainly to her by Staling, and so would I do to my lord himself, if I knew how it would be taken; for you do me great wrong if you do not think that I desire to be as much beholding to you as any man in England.—Paris, 20 January, 1585.
	Holograph. Add. Endd. 3 pp. [France XV. 15.]
Jan. 20.	M. de Quitry to Walsingham.
	His desire to carry out her Majesty's orders made him attempt to put to sea, but the wind being quite contrary and his ship badly victualled, he had returned to Lee, to wait for a good wind. If Mr. “Palvoizine's” despatch could be hastened, they might cross over together.—Lee, 20 January.
	Signed. Add. Endd. Fr. 1 pp. [Ibid. XV. 16.]
Jan. 20.	François de Civille to Walsingham.
	Having arrived at “Lire” (fn. 3) they are waiting for a wind to go over to the Earl of Leicester and M. de Sydney, when he hopes by his honour's favour, to accomplish that for which he has been sent by his lord, the Duke of Bouillon. Prays him to continue his good will and affection to him, if anything occurs in his absence which concerns the Dyke.—"Lyre,” Friday, 20 January, 1586.
	Signed. Add. Endd. Fr. ½ p. [Ibid. XV. 17.]
Jan. 20.	R. Huddilston to Walsingham.
	I have been detained from advertising you of the state of our business on this side by waiting for my man's coming from Zeeland, where I left him by his Excellency's order to pay the garrisons of Vlyssing and those in Flanders and Brabant, “which his Excellency appointed to be cleared by warrant from Mr. Norreys until the 12th of December, and from thenceforward imprested by his Excellency's sum for a month, as Vlyssing and the Ramekens, the rest being Ostend, Berghen and Lillo for half a month”; the cause being that by your honour's of Nov. 3, you authorized Mr. Norreys to make full pay till the 12th of the same, the end of the three months first contracted for by her Majesty; but he did not receive this letter till the 27th, and was then in camp and could hardly take order for a convoy to so many places, so far distant, before his Excellency's arrival on the 10th of November [sic. i.e. December], who thought good to continue the authority given by your letters for a month longer, especially as her Majesty was less charged in paying after the rate of this country than after the English “by 6l. sterling the month in every company,” a thing much mistaken heretofore, their rate having been supposed to “surmount ours by almost 30l. the month.”
	His Excellency came to the Hague the 27 of December, having spent ten days in passing through the straits of Zeeland and in his abode at Dort, Rotterdam and Delft, “places of little despatch by reason of the great entertainments and concourse of all sorts” to congratulate him. Since coming hither, he has been occupied in conference with the States for matters of government and policy; has imprested the garrison of the Brill equally with Vlissing ; passed muster of his horsemen, paid and divided them into companies, and disposed them into several places most commodious for them to live in, without oppression of any one.
	As touching my accounts, although the Auditor has not yet had time to wade through the whole exactly, yet I hope you shall shortly have it under his hand “that all standeth upright.” For the 5,000l.” I have (as a brief which this bearer will deliver to you shows) charged myself with 1,100l., defalked upon the voluntary men for armour, and what remains shall be drawn in as time and order will give me leave.
	The disbursements are grown great since his Excellency's coming, by “extraordinaries crept in,” outside the rate which you gave me at my coming away, so that a more speedy supply is required. The bearer will also give you a brief of her Majesty's charges here till Dec. 12, drawn by George Lecester, and albeit we have received no order as yet from his Excellency for the pay of our companies in Guelderland and Friseland, the charge thereof is contained in the total of 25,019l.
	[Further details about charges and disbursements.] The payments to the Dutch companies at Ostend and what is disbursed for our pioneers is to be re-imbursed by the States, “the attendance upon whom is, as I think, the greatest pain of all my service besides; such are their delays, and such their frivolous means to put off their creditors.” By your allowance, I disbursed 2,268l. for them in London, “to be re-imbursed here upon sight, . . . imparting to you what security of our English merchants they tendered me, being Alderman Barnes and Mr. Hoddesdon.” Upon your commendation of the latter, I had the bill of exchange made to him, who undertook to do his best endeavour for her Majesty as to the rate of exchange, yet they have assigned me to receive only 22,000 guldens, which is a bare return enough, and for the 68l. have left out both exchange and principal. I had then no leisure to consider it, but I pray you to call Mr. Hoddesdon to give you “reason of his doing in that point.” In one thing more I must crave your wonted favour. “Having at my coming over some quantity of those double rose nobles . . . I did my best endeavour to put out so many of them as I could,” but could not get rid of any number without too great loss. Just then came forth his Excellency's warrants for disbursements to the value of 4,000l.
	“Money I had no other to pay than these nobles; change them upon the sudden I could not . . . so was there no remedy but to utter them to our soldiers; of whom for the most part, they were received with contentment enough, at two or three stivers less than they are passable for. Some grudged, but they only such as are apt to grudge at anything. His Excellency having sent me a warrant for 830l. for himself, was paid 700l. of them, after the rate of 30s. the piece, for so he would have them, or else refuse them. His refusal in that manner was to me a sufficient commandment, very well content with the loss, and to answer her Majesty her due upon the gaining of the other.” If his Excellency write to you about it, pray help to satisfy him, for otherwise I shall hardly be able to answer her Majesty the profit reserved to her by such grant as is made to Mr. Alderman Martin and me.
	Having worried you with this discourse about myself, I am to return to what imports the public action here, which, unless supported from England, “may haply bring the rest into suspense of a hard success;” namely, I humbly beseech you “to have in mind the supply of our poor 'remain,' which urgeth us so violently as it is become like the disease of a pleurisy, that can suffer no delay.” By the time Vlyssing and the Brill are imprested again for a month, and some few other needful imprests made, “the remain in the chest will be very poor; and to go to the exchange, your honour knoweth, is not the best profit for her Majesty. . . . And let as great haste be made as can be, there will be a great deal owing ere it can arrive on this side.” I once told you I meant to employ Mr. Cave for receipt of money in my absence, knowing him to be a man of great trust, but he being much occupied in business of his own, I only commit to him certain matters and “the flower of my business” to be this bearer, Benedict Grove, commended to me by my good friend Sir Philip Parker, whom your honour will find “dexterous in conceit and action,” and whom I beseech you to accept as one whom I mean often to employ to you in these matters.— The Hague, 20 January, 1585.
	Add. Endd. 4½ pp. [Holland VI. 33.]