FOUR LETTERS: One from the Duke of Bovillon to the French King. Dated in Feb. 1619.  
Another from the French King to the Duke of Espernon. Dated the 11. of jan. 1619.  
Two other from the Duke of Espernon to the French King; the one dated the 17. of jan. the other the 7. of Feb. 1619.  ANCHORA SPEI  printer's or publisher's device 
LONDON, Printed by RICHARD FIELD for Robert Mylbourne, and are to be sold at the great South door of Paul's. 1619.   

A letter from the Duke of Bovillon to the French King.  
Sir,  
I Have received with the honour and respect I ought to bear to whatsoever cometh from your Majesty, the message wherewith it hath been pleased to charge the Lord de la Chainee towards me, with the letter which he hath delivered me, dated the 26. of Febr. In the which mention is made of another sent two days before, which did declare unto me the unexpected depart of the Queen your majesties mother from Bleis, which I have not received; neither had I learned these troublesome news before the coming of the said Lord de la Chainee, who being endued with many good qualities, is among others an old faithful affectionate servant of your Majesty. By the election it hath pleased your Majesty to make of him, your Majesty doth testify and assure me of its good will and affection, which is a treasure I desire to possess above any other riches. Your Majesty doth command me to give him my advice upon the occasions which are offered. I cannot in obeying it be blamed as presumptuous, but rather as ignorant, for the small insight I have in affairs. My love and the fidelity I own to your service directing my pen, shall with your majesties good pleasure supply what may be defectuous. In the Queen mother's depart, all true Frenchmen receive at first this grief, to see an alteration in the natural love and mutual benevolence, which (as it should seem) ought to be perpetual between your Majesties. But as it doth cause a sudden sorrow, so doth it instantly mitigate it with an assured hope, that by God's help and nature's assistance, your majesties cannot remain disunited in love, you Sir being a good King, and a good son; she not only a loving mother, but also a most humble subject. Your Majesty may have been informed by the letter which she hath written unto you from Lorches, that two passions (as she doth tell you) have moved her to go out of Blois not without danger; The first, the notice which she hath of many disorders that concern your Majesty; the other, of her life; leaving and submitting to your choice and good liking the means she ought to take to let you understand them. By this means your Majesty shall without constraint rest free of her actions, to the end that taking the profitable advices for your affections, they may reject those that are less convenient. France above all other Realms hath been obnoxious to like sudden accidents, or rather greater; but also better than any where else, have they been helped and cured without force of arms, which are always hurtful, especially in this State, which I may say hath now less need of them then at any other time. So (Sir) by a royal, just, and mild power, your Majesty may reap some profit from this, in judging what is wanting to a sure tranquillity; in the which your authority may be respected, the laws of the kingdom maintained, your Edicts of pacifications kept and observed, the infractions repaired, the difference of your subjects taken away, and preferments and dignities i … rted unto such as your Majesty (both for their birth and merit) shall esteem worthy to be bestowed upon. So (Sir) shall you enjoy an immortal glory within your kingdom, and an assured felicity. And I hold that your Majesty cannot be counseled to make use of arms but by those that aim at a dissipation, and to equal their duty in the equality which they hope to obtain in weapons: which intention is most detestable, and shall have heaven for judge, and on earth due punishment; and likewise those that proffer their service that they may have the means to be disloyal, of whom there is great number. Sir, give ear to your mother by faithful and sufficient persons. Hearken to the common desires of your State, and appoint what shall be most convenient for it. Thus doing, if there be any who under a fair show mask any false intentions, they will be manifested, and will serve to demonstrate your power, and your justice in their punishment: in the execution whereof you shall be aided by your good subjects, according as their duty binds them. As for myself, (to whom there remaineth but a little life, and less health) I consecrate whatsoever belongeth to me and mine, without any excuse, to the service and establishing of your authority.  
From Sedan. Feb. 1619.   

A Let●●● sent from the French King to the Duke of Espernon.  
COusin, I will defer my answer to the Letters which the Lord of Favieres hath delivered unto me from you, as also to those I have received before, until I have heard him more particularly, and be informed how he hath executed the commission which I had given him. But forasmuch as in them you make no answer to the command I sent you, not to stir from Mets; and that by the discourse you held to the said Favieres upon this subject, it seemeth that your mind is rather not to stay there, then to conform itself to my will; I therefore expressly send this messenger unto you with these presents, to advise you, that having very lately received news from Germany, which not only confirm the precedents, but witness the broils to increase, and that it is to be feared that wars fire already kindled is not so quickly nor so easily quenched, but disperseth itself throughout the greatest part of the country. I judge your presence necessary in the City of Mets, and charge you again, and that expressly, not to leave it until you receive farther directions from me; which you shall have (as I have promised you) so soon as the affairs will permit you to remove from the Frontiers of my king doom; assuring myself that in the mean while you will perform that service I desire, and unto the which the duty of your charge doth oblige you. I give you no other commission at this present, but only that you suffer not the archdukes Commissaries, or any other whatsoever, to carry away any saltpetre; and look that my commandments in that and all other things be duly observed.  
I beseech the Almighty, Cousin, to have you in his keeping. From Paris this 11. jan. 1691. Signed 

Lewis  
And Lower Ratier.     

The first letter of the Duke of Espermon to the King.  
Sir,  
I Have learned by the letters wherewith it hath pleased your Majesty to honour me, written the 20 of the last month, and the 11 of this present, that upon the news you have received of the continuing of the wars in Germany, you judge it fit for the profit of your service that I should not yet stir from the Frontiers of this kingdom. As to that (Sir) I have nothing to answer to your Majesty, but that having always absolutely depended on your commandments, and propounded to myself in all my actions (for only aim) the good of your State, in the smallest interest that shall regard it within the limits of my charge; which is not only capable to stay me here, but doth oblige me at all times and in all places whatsoever, to esteem my life nothing, so I may be so happy as to spend it for the service of your Majesty. But at this day (Sir) the peace and tranquillity of France is grown so general, your State so powerfully established, and your friendship so dear to all your neighbours; that as there is nothing within this Realm but stoops to your authority, so out of it there is no Prince but doth respect your power, and maintain himself by your justice. As for the wars in Bohemia, to the which hitherto it hath not been possible to give remedy (besides that means are now intended for the ending of them in the friendliest manner that may be, and that there is no condition how unprofitable soever, but the Emperor will accept rather than to hazard the little authority that yet remaineth unto him) the danger (feigned by such as make things far greater than they are,) is so remote from this Frontier, that the fear which we might have thereof should be without ground; seeing moreover that not any as yet are come over on this side the Rhine, and that the ancient friends & allies to this Crown (who are the nearest to these broils) expect the issue without any stirring, up or taking either the one or the others part. These considerations (Sir) require not my staying in this country, where all things are in so good a being, as almost of themselves they may subsist and be maintained: and the abode that my son de la Valette shall make here in my absence (being sufficient to give order to whatsoever shall concern the good of your affairs:) I trust your Majesty will with equity regard the necessity of mine own particulars, and be pleased to let me return to my house, from the which I have been absent above these 15 months. I crave but the liberty which you deny not to the least of those whose greatest honour is to be under your government. I make no doubt (Sir) but that you will be pleased with the desire I have to perform this journey; and assure myself that you will take the pains to consider, that since your coming to the Crown, having indebted myself above an 100000 crowns for your service, for the which I pay interests at Paris: & having not since these two years received of your liberality any other gratification but the bare wages of a Colonel, after the rate of 10 months for a year, it is not possible I should hold out in the great & necessary expenses which I am bound to make here, as well for the maintaining of the dignity of my office, as for the performing of your majesties service with more eminence. Furthermore (Sir) since my enemies do daily endeavour to infuse into your majesties heart a mistrust of my purest intentions, and that I am so unhappy, that even waxed old in the service of three great Kings, I should yet have much ado to defend a so constant and approved fidelity from calumnies; I must (and with grief I must) speak it, that I have remained in my duty when as rewards were promised to unfaithfulness; that I have maintained your authority when it was abused of some, and despised of others. It is to wrong me much to think that at these years I would begin to prove disloyal, and that my private passions should be dearer to me then my fidelity to your service. In this case (Sir) I will freely enough, that I have no cause to complain but of my bad fortune; being most certain that it is not where your Scepter-doth bear sway that virtue is suspected, and a good reputation odious; and that your Majesty is too just to put no difference between the oppressed innocent and the guilty. For indeed (Sir) if then, when you were not as yet free, the gentleness of your nature hath been such, that you have always withstood violent counsels, and not suffered your authority to be employed to the overthrow of your subjects, there is no likelihood (now that you only depend of yourself, and that your mild inclination is not fostered by any with violent passions) that in his hoary age you would oppress one of your best servants, and ancient officers to your Crown; or deny to his years the rest which nature doth require of you. I think, Sir, I may presume to deserve that for a recompense of my long and faithful service, and your Majesty may grant it me (as humbly I do beseech it) without any disparagement to your State: for as I never expected other profit from my actions but the pleasure I receive to have done them, so will I think myself sufficiently happy by the testimony which my conscience all my life time will yield me, that I have truly been, and intent to remain unto my end,  
Sir, Your most humble, most dutiful, faithful, and loving subject and servant, Espernon. From Mets this 17 of jan. 1619.   

Another Letter of the Duke of Espernon to the King.  
Sir,  
Having heretofore represented unto your Majesty with what patience I have expected in my government of Mets the occasions to do you service, and hoping that having put to your consideration the necessity of my business, you would have been fully satisfied with my resolution so long ago concluded: I have thought that I could not be blamed of your Majesty, nor of any other, if at these years, having given the best part of my life to the public good, I did desire at least to go spend the remnant of it with some ease, and be partaker of the peaceable rest you have stored up for your kingdom. Nevertheless, Sir, the least of your commandments is so dear unto me, and I am so religious in all the circumstances of my duty, that I had not undertook my journey, if the occasions of the staying thereof had not been taken away, and the difficulties of the wars in Bohemia altogether finished. But having learned by certain advise which the Lord Duke of Lorraine hath received from that country, that the Differents are upon terms of agreement, to the furtherance whereof shall be proceeded by the deposition of arms on both sides: I thought that the profit of your service did not require my abode any longer in a place which in time of peace is not in any danger, and will increase by the decay of the Empire if the wars continue. That if there be any part of this country less participant than other of the public tranquillity, and needing more carefully to be conserved, I am sure that your Majesty will judge that it is that Province into the which I am going; which since it dependeth of my charge, it is my duty to be careful in whatsoever doth concern the good of it, and not to give way through it to the prejudice of your authority. So, Sir, that if at this time I will not omit the occasions, your Majesty shall be pleased to do me the honour to consider, that I do not therein disobey your commandments, but that contrariwise I expound them according to the right sense, and that I give them the best interpretation, since it is that which is the most profitable for your service. For indeed, Sir, every one doth know, that as the chiefest law of your Realm is the maintaining of your authority, so your most express and most important commandment is the good success of your affairs; which being absolutely true, what likelihood should there be, that (being in me to conserve unto your Majesty the affections of a Province disunited; and to retain by my presence those spirits that might affect a changement, if there were no body to confirm them in their duty) I should propound to myself (for the hindering of so necessary a voyage,) such weak considerations as the wars of Bohemia. I am not of that age (Sir) that will permit me to seek after vain glory; yet nevertheless I do not think that your Majesty esteemeth of me so little, as to employ me in no other service then for the surer directing of your packets from Germany: I do not hold myself yet so unprofitable that I should only be thought fit to perform to you and to your State service of so little consequence. Sir, this is that which I humbly request your Majesty to judge of my faults; and in the mean time to do me that honour to believe, that wheresoever I be, and what bad usage soever I have had these 20 months, no condition in the world, and never so profitable shall corrupt me, nor any necessity how great soever hinder me to remain with the same affection, with which I have always been,  
Sir, Your most humble and most obedient subject, most faithful and loving servant, I. Lewes de le Valette. From the Bridge of Vichy this 7. of Feb. 1619.