EX BIBLIOTHECA 
 FRANCES A. YATES 
 
* 
 
HE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 X EDWARD, LORD HERBERT 
 OF CHERBURY: EDITED, WITH 
 AN INTRODUCTION, BY WILL 
 H. DIRCKS. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE 
 
 NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKER 
 
 TORONTO : W. J. GAGE & CO. 
 1888 
 
I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 M 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION : LORD HERBERT . . vii 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY i 
 
 APPENDIX: 
 
 The Lady Magdalen Herbert . . . 179 
 
 Lord Herbert to James 1 187 
 
 A Prayer of Herbert's 190 
 
 Herbert's Design for his Monument . . 192 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 LORD HERBERT. 
 
 Oy he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you 
 sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, arid proportion ; rests me his 
 minim rest, one, two, and the third in your hosom : the very butcher 
 of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist ! A gentleman of the very first 
 house, — of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado I " 
 
 HE autobiographical document presented in the 
 
 A following pages comes to us from about the 
 middle of the century before last. It was written by 
 Lord Herbert, of Cherbury in Shropshire, when, as 
 he tells us, he was over sixty. It has upon it, one 
 would say, the mark of a sexagenarian's hand and 
 style, — the inconsequential garrulity, the tendency to 
 ramble from the point, the ingenuous pedantry, that 
 one might expect in the story of an amiable, a 
 somewhat scholarly, though perhaps not too sagacious 
 old story-teller. But he delights in telling the 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 fairy-tale of his youth, in recalling the story of 
 the quaint and picturesque past in which he so 
 often cut a gallant and picturesque figure, in telling 
 of his travels, his escapades, his honours, of the great 
 personages he had encountered when he was not 
 a little of a personage himself ; we see the plumed 
 and laced figures appear and pass, the old cities 
 with their by-gone throng, the cavalcade of gentle- 
 men riding through the rich forest-chases, with the 
 castle-turret in the distance glinting over the yellow 
 tree-tops in the sun ; we live in a realm of by-gone 
 state and phantasy, in which princes, courtiers, and 
 ladies move onward in gracious array. The 
 story is invested with the old-world literary halo ; 
 it has the interest of a book of travel, of a brave 
 record of gallantry, ceremonial, and adventure ; it 
 has the import attaching to the statement of a 
 contemporaneous witness of persons and modes of 
 life and manners of the century before last. But 
 the air of ingenuousness and simplicity that pervades 
 it all is deceptive ; this apparently artless and 
 fantastic old story-teller is more cunning than he 
 seems. His book is, in fact, a sort of psychological 
 curiosity ; behind its composition lay a complexity of 
 motives difficult to decipher and determine. We find, 
 on getting to know the author independently of this 
 memoir, that it by no means contains a perfect 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ix 
 
 revelation of himself and his personality, but that 
 really it is remarkable for its revelation of the vast 
 faculty of reticence, of the art of putting things, of 
 which this Lord Herbert of Cherbury was the 
 master. 
 
 He came of a redoubtable Welsh stock. There 
 was a Herbert — Herhertus Gamararius — who, coming 
 over, no doubt, in the conventional fashion, was 
 a comrade of the Conqueror. Early in the thirteenth 
 century a descendant of his had lordships granted 
 him in Wales ; his grandson, Peter Fitz-Reginald, 
 married a Welsh heiress, and for several generations 
 his successors followed this laudable precedent of 
 marrying heiresses, until the territorial position of 
 the family was consolidated in south-east Wales. 
 Lord Herbert himself, though perhaps his private 
 inclination had little to do with the matter, did 
 not deviate from the ancestral policy in this 
 regard ; fortune endowed him when still quite a 
 boy^ with the hand of Mary, his cousin, the 
 daughter and heiress of Sir William Herbert, of 
 St. Julian's, between Caerleon and Newport. A 
 former Sir William Herbert, of Raglan Castle, made 
 Knight Banneret in 1415, had two sons, William, 
 
 1 Herbert states his age as then fifteen. Mr. Sidney L. Lee, the 
 authority on Herbert, says it should be seventeen. 
 
X 
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 created Earl of Pembroke in 1551, and Sir Richard 
 Herbert, of Oolebrook, both of whom fell on 
 Hedgecote Field. This Earl of Pembroke, and this 
 Sir Richard of Oolebrook, are regarded by Lord 
 Herbert as the founders of his family, his wife 
 being descended from the former, and himself from 
 the latter. Lord Herbert's great-grandfather was 
 steward under Henry VIH. of the Lordships and 
 Marches of North Wales, of East Wales, and of 
 Cardiganshire ; he was, as Herbert says, " a great 
 suppressor of rebels, thieves, and outlaws;" the 
 function of suppression, in view of the multiplicity 
 of these gentry, fell successively to Lord Herbert's 
 grandfather and father, both men of note and 
 distinction, and both in their time Deputy Lieu- 
 tenants of their county. Lord Herbert remembered 
 his father as " black-haired and bearded," as were 
 his ancestors on his father's side, " of a manly or 
 somewhat stern look, but withal very handsome and 
 compact in his limbs, and of great courage." This 
 father, leaving a family of seven sons and three 
 daughters, died when Herbert was twelve. The 
 period traversed by the autobiography, which covers 
 only about two-thirds of his life, extends from 
 Herbert's birth, which is assigned to 1582-3, till 
 1624 ; he lived till 1G48. The place of his birth 
 was Eyton, in Shropshire, and the day is indicated 
 
INTR OD UCTION 
 
 xi 
 
 by the title of some commemorative verses : — 
 in diem natalitium, viz., 3 Mar. At the age of 
 twelve he was sent to Oxford ; when about eighteen 
 or nineteen he removed to London with his mother, 
 his wife and family; and presented himself at the 
 court of Elizabeth, then not far from her end. He 
 was created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation 
 of James I. ; when about twenty-five, leaving his 
 family behind him, he went to Paris, one of the 
 first of a series of visits abroad ; in 1619 he was 
 chosen ambassador to France at the instigation of 
 Villiers, and the autobiography abruptly closes 
 with the termination of his ambassadorship and 
 return home in 1624. 
 
 In the beginning of his memoir Lord Herbert 
 professes to have a philosophical motive for its 
 composition ; it is to be indited for the benefit of 
 his descendants, for future representatives of the 
 house of Cherbury, who, inheriting ancestral 
 peculiarities of good and evil, may be the better 
 instructed by its perusal how to recognise and 
 cherish the good and chasten the evil. He 
 desires, moreover, to review his past actions on 
 his own behalf, to recall and examine what he 
 has done of good or ill for his own private 
 comfort or admonishment. This prelude, though 
 it has a touch of Polonius, is, besides being 
 
Xll 
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 philosophical, pious and praiseworthy, and likely 
 to inspire a reverent if credulous posterity with 
 considerable expectancy of profitable discourse to 
 follow. Recurring after a perusal of the work to 
 these prefatory words, one would think they were 
 dictated by some occult sense of humour, a faculty 
 which is conspicuously absent throughout the book, 
 or during some fit of cynicism, for whereby the 
 posterity of Cherbury are to be morally instructed 
 by an acquaintance with such facts of his career 
 as he choses thus with so momentous an air to 
 introduce to them, seems not easy to determine. In 
 such recitals and such prescriptions of conduct as 
 he gives. Lord Herbert seems sympathetically 
 intent upon a posterity of young gentlemen by 
 no means likely to possess an interest in philo- 
 sophic treatises, but, rather, a very choleric 
 company of young men, a rakish, amorous, duelling, 
 dancing race of be-ribanded gallants, who in the 
 future would look back upon this gay ancestor and 
 his dare-devil exploits with natural veneration. Of 
 the brothers of Lord Herbert, George Herbert, the 
 Rector of Bemerton and poet of The Temple, is the 
 much better remembered figure ; he was ten years 
 younger than Lord Herbert. He was a courtier 
 before he turned saint ; he had many affinities with 
 his elder brother, the same choleric temper, the same 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 love of letters, the same propensity to worldliness. 
 After James I. granted him a sinecure, he left his 
 oratorship at Cambridge to the care of another, 
 to Mr. Herbert Thorndike, and, as Isaac Walton 
 says, "enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes 
 and court-like company." No doubt the saint- 
 liness of George Herbert was present in his spirit, 
 in a germinal form at least, from his childhood. Had, 
 however, his circumstances been different he might 
 not have become for Isaac Walton " the holy Mr. 
 Herbert," but have turned out in many respects very 
 much like his brother. For a hermit, for a recluse, 
 for one who has not tasted the vanities of the world, 
 it is no great stroke to deny them ; but it was some- 
 thing for the courtly Mr. Herbert, the young rhe- 
 torician who used to make such a stir when the kini? 
 came to Cambridge, and who had so many fine friends 
 and accomplishments ; with him denial was no easy 
 task, denial of the train-bands of the world, as he 
 calls them, beauty, money, glory, quick wit, and con- 
 versation. He could not quite readily believe these 
 were but " false glozing pleasures," 
 
 Chases in arras, gilded emptiness, 
 Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career, 
 Embroidered lies, — 
 
 and the pathos of his denial comes home to his reader. 
 
xiv 
 
 INTR on UCTION, 
 
 As a virtuous young poetaster of sixteen, he quaintly 
 wrote, — 
 
 Cannot Thy love 
 Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise 
 As well as any she? 
 
 and, 
 
 Cannot Thy Dove 
 Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight ? 
 
 — referring to the profane poets — when, poor boy, he 
 did not know the struggle that lay before him, how 
 the instinct to be a profane poet would compete 
 within him against the call to become a saintly one. 
 And the mood of rebellion was often strong upon 
 him ; in The Collar he has given it dramatic 
 expression in a powerful way : — 
 
 I struck the board and cried, No more ?" 
 
 I will abroad. 
 What, shall I ever sigh and pine ? 
 
 Is the year only lost to me — 
 Have I no bays to crown it, 
 No flowers, no garlands gay ! 
 
 On the death of the King, the Duke of Richmond, and 
 the Marquis of Hamilton, his patrons, his hopes of 
 court preferment were frustrated, and on his return 
 from Kent, where he passed through his period of 
 reclusion and internal struggle, he had effected 
 
IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 XV 
 
 the renouncement of worklliness and profane 
 pleasures, and was able to estimate them more truly. 
 But Lord Herbert never formed such an estimate, 
 that brave glory puffing by in whistling silk, 
 which his brother learnt so wistfully to contemn, 
 ever in him found an ardent votary. That as 
 the representative of a great family he should 
 betake himself to the pursuits conformable to his 
 age and condition is no great marvel ; but, when 
 one comes to know the man better, to know more 
 of the character of his spirit, that he should 
 rehearse at such length the vain exploits de- 
 tailed in the following pages, however delight- 
 ful the entertainment they may now afford, without 
 a touch of irony, or a hint of being con- 
 scious of their relative vanity and insigni- 
 ficance, constitutes the romance and paradox of the 
 work and of his character. That the author of 
 this compendium of valorous anecdotes, this hand- 
 book of the art of sowing wild-oats with discretion, 
 of this repertory of duelling episodes, of this record 
 of preposterous feats of gallantry ; that this rash 
 and habitual duellist, another Tybalt in fieriness 
 and distemper, that this raconteur of vain 
 accounts of state and ceremonial, and all the delec- 
 table feats of flighty and reckless heroism in the pages 
 following, should at the same time be a student, a 
 
xvi 
 
 INTR on UCTION, 
 
 dialectician, a strenuous and original thinker, one who 
 laid before himself as his proper task nothing less 
 than the institution of a new system of philosophy, 
 and the development of a new theory of religion, one 
 whom Locke did not consider it unworthy to take up 
 his pen to refute, is indeed curious. His philosophic 
 works were read and commented on by Descartes, a 
 man so deliberately negligent of the writings of 
 others, and Herbert was pronounced by him one much 
 above des esprits ordinaires ; and Gassendi, at that 
 time probably the most distinguished man of learning 
 in France, wrote, in 1634, after reading Lord Herbert's 
 treatise Be Veritate, " O happy England, to have 
 after losing Verulam, raised up this new hero ! 
 
 Lord Herbert was only a little over forty when he 
 was recalled from the ambassadorship of France ; he 
 fulfilled subsequently minor public functions, but his 
 political career then virtually terminated. His 
 attitude during the Civil War was by no means a 
 dignified one; as a public personage he fell into 
 absolute disesteem ; he became known to Royalists 
 and Parliamentarians alike as " the black Lord 
 Herbert." When he set to work to write his auto- 
 biography he was perplexed by the turn of national 
 affairs, and by his own position ; he was, moreover, in 
 breaking health. But his native egotism and vanity 
 were still stalwart, and it is probable that an abiding 
 
INTR on UCTION. xvii 
 
 motive in compiling his memoir was the presentation 
 o£ himself in a popular chronicle, more likely to be 
 read than his heavier treatises, to a posterity which 
 might be unfavourably biassed, as one who had 
 been a person of distinction, one who had been en- 
 trusted with the care of grave affairs of state, who in 
 the discharge of them had acquired unwonted respect 
 and honour. And, as he wrote in his will, " Whereas I 
 have begun a manifest of my action in these late 
 troubles, and am prevented in the review thereof, 
 I do hereby leave it to a person whom I shall by 
 word instruct to finish the same, and to publish 
 it to the world by my direction ; " that furthermore 
 he desired to explain and set forth in a worthy 
 light the facts of his later career, to vindicate and 
 justify the attitude he adopted during the Rebellion, 
 and to place himself for good and -all on that lofty 
 pedestal which he deemed to deserve. The auto- 
 biography was never concluded ; Herbert's manifest 
 of his action during the civil troubles never appeared ; 
 the name of the editor mentioned in the will has 
 not come down to us ; the autobiography remained 
 unpublished until Horace Walpole printed a hundred 
 copies in his private press at Strawberry Hill in 
 1764 ; thus the posterity which Herbert would have 
 wished most to influence did not profit by his 
 magniloquent exDOsition of himself. Herbert is 
 
 B 
 
xviii 
 
 INTR OD UCTION, 
 
 not quite unveracious, but he makes discreet 
 omissions; he records those facts, he recalls his 
 connection with those persons, the relation of which 
 may redound most to his own exigeant dignity 
 and honour. His sense of domestic convenances 
 forbids him to mention that his mother, at the age 
 of forty, was re-married, her second husband. Sir 
 John Danvers, being ten years younger than herself. 
 Notwithstanding the disparity of years, this union 
 brought with it, if we may trust Donne, who has com- 
 mented on it, no unhappiness. "She had a cheerful- 
 ness," says Donne quaintly, "agreeable to his youth, 
 and he had a sober staidness conformable to her 
 more advanced years." Indeed of his mother, who 
 bestowed such care on his early training, of the Lady 
 Magdalen Herbert, to the exquisite beauty of whose 
 spirit and presence both Walton and Donne^ have 
 borne such eloquent testimony, Herbert is curiously 
 silent. Various instances of neglect, of curious omis- 
 sion, or of plausible perversion, might be cited. Of 
 Donne himself, with whom Herbert had been brought 
 during his adolescence into intimate contact, and for 
 whom^ after Donne's death, he inscribed an elegy ,2 
 
 See Appendix : The Lady Magdalen Herbert, 
 2 See Elegy for Doctor Dunn^ in Mr. Churton Collinses edition 
 of The Poems of Lord Herbert of Cherbury."— CAa^^o, 1881. 
 
IJSITROD UCTION. 
 
 xix 
 
 contained in his posthumous volume of verse, he 
 barely makes mention ; Ben Jonson, the familiar friend 
 with whom he exchanged verses, figures nowhere ; 
 Bacon, too, who owed his political advancement to 
 the same patron as did Herbert, is, like Selden, 
 absent. We hear, though, of the old, generous, horse- 
 loving Duke of Montmorency, and others of high 
 degree ; Herbert comments on being invited when 
 at Paris to the receptions of Queen Margaret of 
 Valois, but says nothing of her reputation ; while 
 in the 8atyra Secunda he addressed in 1608 to Ben 
 Jonson he stigmatises her as " that swol'n vicious 
 Queen Margaret, who were a monster even without 
 her sin." When he introduces humble persons, 
 it is generally because of some honourable diposi- 
 tion manifested towards them by himself ; thus he 
 introduces Bi chard Griffiths, his servant, whom, 
 swimming on his horse, he rescued from drowning 
 in the stream of the ITsk, when journeying one 
 day towards Montgomery. During his third ex- 
 pedition abroad, in travelling towards Lyons with 
 the Count Scarnafissi, he rode out of his way to 
 reach Burgoine, in order to see a host's daughter there. 
 But then she was a rarity worthy of examination, 
 for he had heard much talk of her extraordinary 
 beauty from Sir John Finnet and Sir Francis 
 Newport. And with that passion for detail, on 
 
XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which M. Ch. de R^musat lays stress as a peculiar 
 trait of Herbert, he enters into a minute description 
 of her appearance. The author of Be, Veritate 
 bequeathes to posterity, to those future young 
 gallants of the house of Cherbury, a delectable 
 piece of portraiture ; of hair, tied with ribbands of 
 pearl-grey or naccarine ; of eyes which, though black, 
 seemed to shoot forth a flame of the same colour ; 
 and he even does not forget a gown of green Turkey 
 grogram, slashed from the shoulder to the heel. This 
 heroine seems to have made a lively impression on 
 Herbert's fancy ; probably the verses he wrote entitled 
 La Gralletta Gallante or the Sun-burnt Exotique 
 Beautify were inspired by this visit to Burgoine. 
 
 One of Herbert's sedate prescriptions to posterity is 
 to keep the company of " grave, learned men," rather 
 than follow the example of " young, wild, and rash 
 persons." It transports one into the region of hope- 
 less conjecture to speculate what in his eyes constituted 
 a wild and rash person. Webster was born about the 
 same year as Herbert, Ford, a few years later; the 
 old fire of Elizabethan tragedy, the old " tragedy of 
 blood," was refined and became artistic in their hands. 
 But the thirst for fierce excesses had not expired ; 
 these later dramatists gave, in fact, if a less unbridled, 
 a more intense expression to it than did their earlier 
 fellows. Herbert had all the violent headiness of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 passion of the Elizabethan, but his passion exhausted 
 itselt m action, and he did not betake himself to 
 inditing heroics. Before he composed his autobio- 
 graphy, Herbert was an experienced litterateur ; he 
 was a student of long habit and standing ; he had 
 thought and spent years over the elaboration of 
 treatises of speculative philosophy, and when in 
 his later years he sits down to recount how he 
 challenged this man, or his duel with that, the blood 
 by no means flies to his head, but he sets it all down 
 with complacent equanimity. In his relation of 
 such affairs there is an entire absence of bragga- 
 docio, which is really a token of their sincerity 
 and truth; at the same time he seems to have 
 no idea of their often signal outrageousness. 
 Herbert delights in posing before posterity as the 
 perfect and accomplished knight, as that model of 
 " melodious gentlemanliness " which the Renascence 
 conceived ; but, above all, as the dandified and 
 reckless swordsman. " And indeed, I shall not 
 speak vaingloriously of myself, if I say that no 
 man understood the use of his weapon better 
 than I did, or hath more dextrously prevailed himself 
 thereof on all occasions;'' he perfected himself in 
 France in the usage of the foil, and, in fact, plumes 
 himself on being able to fight by the book of 
 arithmetic. His pages constantly glitter with the 
 
xxn 
 
 INTR on UCTION. 
 
 waving of steel. The multiplicity of occasions he 
 found for the dextrous use of his weapon, and 
 the facility with which he profited by them, are 
 apt to convey a lively idea of the ferocious 
 nature of the social amenities of his period. 
 Studious, hampered with responsibilities beyond his 
 years, tied to his mother and wife's apron-strings 
 as he was, with little knowledge of the world, and 
 spurred by no very definite ambition, we do not 
 hear of his making any breaches of the peace before 
 he bethought himself to go abroad and enjoy a 
 little irresponsible liberty there. Then he seems to 
 have bent himself to earning reputation as a swords- 
 man. The oath administered to the Knights of the 
 Bath was an antiquated piece of formulary even in 
 Herbert's day, containing many points, as he says 
 himself, " not unlike the romances of knight-errantry." 
 But Herbert took it upon himself to observe the oath 
 with an absurd literality, and found the first pretext 
 shortly after his departure from England, when, 
 one evening, accompanying the Duchess of Ven- 
 tadour with a train of ladies and cavaliers for a stroll 
 in the meadows surrounding the castle of Mello, 
 he challenged one of the gentlemen, who, in the play- 
 fulness of the moment, had snatched a knot of ribband 
 from the hair of the daughter of the Duchess, a 
 little girl of ten or eleven, and stuck it in his 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 hatband ; the Frenchman, however, declined the duel. 
 Herbert relates the whole anecdote with a sublime 
 seriousness. 
 
 This was but the prelude to a series of challenges, 
 of duels, of hare-brained affrays and escapades. At the 
 ball where he was stationed near Queen Margaret of 
 Valois, while awaiting the dancers to come in, a 
 summons of audacious loudness sounded at the door. 
 Presently there appeared a gentleman whose entrance 
 was the signal for a sudden whisper, — (ie^t Monsieur 
 Balagni ! — to run round the room, and for a general 
 subdued stir and sensation. The cavalier was but 
 tolerably handsome ; though young, his short-cropped 
 hair was half grey ; his doublet was merely of sack- 
 cloth cut to his shirt ; his breeches of plain cloth. 
 The curiosity and envy of the young Englishman, 
 himself, no doubt, as striking and resplendent a figure 
 as any of the throng, moved him to ask why such 
 attention should be bestowed on this nonchalant, ill- 
 clad person; he learnt that Damien de Montluc, 
 Seigneur de Balagni, was one of the gallantest of the 
 world, having killed his eight or nine men in single 
 fight, wherefore he was much cherished by ladies. 
 The incident impressed itself upon Herbert's memory ; 
 and when, a short while after, at the siege of Juliers, 
 he encountered again the Seigneur de Balagni, who 
 Que day challenged him to a feat of bravado^ he was 
 
XXIV 
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 not slow in response. Balagni, with drawn sword, 
 leapt suddenly out of the trenches ; Herbert leaping 
 after him, the two rivals, in reckless emulation, made 
 such headlong speed towards the bastion fronting 
 them, that the hail of shot pouring from it fell behind 
 them. The storm of bullets induced Balagni to pause; 
 he proposed to turn ; Herbert vowed that without 
 Balagni turned first, he would stay where he was ; 
 Balagni sped back ; Herbert, leisurely and upright, 
 followed him, without a hurt, home to the trenches. 
 This was a feat worthy the applause of ladies; 
 Herbert has many stories in which he exhibited a 
 similar fantastic impulse to invite and brook peril, to 
 hazard with rash coxcombry his person for his honour. 
 
 He returned from the siege of Juliers laden with 
 reputation, and was much sought after by society. 
 It was about this period that the notable quarrel 
 with Sir John Ayres, of which he has left a circum- 
 stantial record, took place. It enables us to conceive 
 vividly the enormous chasm which separates the 
 manners of London of the seventeenth century from 
 London of the nineteenth ; to measure the appalling 
 degree to which we have cultivated the art of 
 social restraint, to understand comparatively what 
 poltroons of urbanity we have become. In Herbert's 
 time, notwithstanding the severe enactments against 
 the abuse of the sword, the appeal to its per- 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 XXV 
 
 emptory rhetoric had by no means gone out of 
 vogue ; the sense of the readiness with which this 
 appeal was made must have been a fine tonic for 
 the nerves, have aided in imparting to life an often 
 recurring vibration of which nowadays we are not 
 apt to appreciate the intensity. The poor poet in 
 Shakespere's time gadding about London might at 
 any time encounter a rival poet, or some satirised 
 notoriety, and have to stand m mortal defence of 
 the muses and his life. Such episodes helped towards 
 that poetic excitation characteristic of the period, 
 which our latter-day verse seeks in vain to recover. 
 The fray of Montague and Capulet Shakespere could 
 draw from actual scenes he witnessed in the streets 
 of London. He was living at the time, and probably 
 heard of Herbert's encounter with Sir John Aj^es. 
 Not without significant reason Ayres believed that 
 this brilliant young gallant, fresh from the wars, the 
 talk of court and towii^ was paying too much attention 
 to his wife. Accompanied by some of his men, he 
 laid in wait for Herbert in the Scotland Yard of old 
 London. Herbert, attacked by Ayres with sword and 
 dagger, in attempting to alight from his horse was 
 thrown down, his foot hanging in the stirrup and his 
 sword broken. Ayres was about to give him the coup 
 de grace, when Herbert, catching him by the leg, threw 
 him down. They both got up ; Ayres was then 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 surrounded by his friends and some of the train of the 
 Earl of Suffolk, the father of Lord Howard of Walden, 
 with whom Herbert had but recently tried to provoke 
 a duel. Herbert, running violently against Ayres, 
 managed to put a thrust in his breast with the broken 
 sword. While his men encompassed Herbert, Ayres 
 found his feet again, and closing with Herbert forced 
 his dagger in him from the ribs to the hip ; Herbert, 
 notwithstanding, again threw Ayres, and kneeling on 
 the ground and bestriding the body, struck at him again 
 and again. The friends of Ayres drew him away, the 
 greater part of the crowd retired ; Herbert remained 
 master of the field, and presently departed in easy 
 triumph to seek surgical aid. This furious scene, — 
 which Herbert describes with his wonted air of tran- 
 quil good-breeding, as evidencing nothing unusual 
 but his own intrepidity, — we can picture again ; — the 
 many-coloured crowd of retainers, the wounded 
 plunging horse, the dark, pale, handsome young 
 fellow charging at his opponent, blood-stained like 
 himself, the scuffling, the cries, the flash and clash 
 of steel, and, for background, the red-roofed and 
 many-gabled houses of the Jacobean time. An 
 amusing part of the affair is that the then Lords of the 
 Privy Council, desirous of seeing the weapon which had 
 served in the encounter, sent for the fragment of the 
 sword in order to submit it to sympathetic scrutiny, 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 This incident was another feather in Herbert's cap ; he 
 received various visits and messages of condolence, 
 and became more sought after by society than ever. 
 
 With the termination of his ambassadorship to the 
 court of Louis XIII., the period traversed by Herbert's 
 manuscript closes. He returned in July 1624; the 
 frivolous Viscount Kensington, sanguine in his belief 
 in obtaining the hand of the youngest sister of Louis 
 XIII. for the Prince of Wales, and thus cementing the 
 alliance which James I. then desired between Louis 
 and himself, was already in Paris. Kensington and 
 the Earl of Holland had been appointed ambassadors 
 extraordinary in May of that year. Herbert's recall 
 was dated the 14th April, and his position in Paris up 
 to July, when he left, can hardly have been consoling 
 to his personal dignity. The great object of 
 James I. in seeking this marriage for the Prince 
 of Wales, shortly afterwards to become Charles I., 
 with the Princess Henrietta Maria, was to secure 
 the mediation of France for his daughter, the 
 Protestant Princess Elizabeth, and her husband, the 
 Elector Palatine of Bohemia, against the threatening 
 Catholic powers of Germany. The Prince of Wales, 
 having lately returned from Spain where he had 
 been frustrated in his desim of securinof the hand of 
 the Infanta, the moment was little auspicious for 
 opening negotiations of a similar nature with France; 
 
xxviii 
 
 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 moreover James desired to impose upon France, in 
 arranging the marriage contract, whatever respon- 
 sibility might be incurred in the intervention on 
 behalf of his Protestant son-in-law without himself 
 actually engaging English arms in the German 
 conflict. The whole idea to Herbert seemed futile ; 
 he wrote to James advocating the policy of possessing 
 actual proof of the intention of Louis XIII. to aid in 
 the recovery of the Palatinate before concluding the 
 marriage treaty ; but this straightforward action was 
 alien to the taste of James, always a devotee to 
 intrigue and the devious ways of diplomacy. Herbert 
 knew that Louis had then some intention of proffer- 
 ing alliance to the Duke of Bavaria, the worst foe of 
 the Elector. At the same time the threatening pre- 
 dominance of Spain might render it a political 
 necessity for the Catholic Louis to support a Protestant 
 prince. Incited, perhaps through his friendship with 
 the Princess Elizabeth, the wife of the Elector, to a 
 too ardent devotion to her cause, Herbert adopted 
 an aggressive tone in his discussion of the matter in 
 France ; he incensed not only James, but the 
 French ministers, and it was at their instigation 
 he was recalled. Herbert had not regarded his 
 ambassadorship as merely an opportunity for 
 fashionable recreation ; a scrutiny of his oificial 
 correspondence has testified not only to his faculty 
 
V 
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 of surveying and estimating social and political 
 forces, but to his admirable diligence. He returned 
 elated with the vision of court preferment; accord- 
 ing to a letter of Chamberlain to Carleton, he was 
 trusting to be chosen Vice-Chamberlain. But 
 six months elapsed before he received the barren 
 favour of elevation to the Irish peerage ; he was 
 created Lord Castle-Island, — the name of an estate 
 in Kerry inherited by his wife. The publication 
 of his philosophic work Be Veritatey the approval 
 it obtained from men of such eminence as Grotius 
 and Tilenus, did not tend to inspire him with any 
 scholarly ideal strong enough to obliterate that of 
 the courtier ; he craved still to be the great person- 
 age in the eyes of the world ; philosophic dis- 
 tinction, merely, was not enough. His lavish 
 expenditure had embarrassed him with debt ; his 
 abrupt recall, unfoUowed, as it was, by any other 
 appointment, or sufficiently distinguishing mark 
 of royal favour, — for the Irish peerage was a trifle, 
 — was terrible to his reputation. Buckingham was 
 his friend ; the accession of Charles augured well 
 for his prospects. Yet Buckingham gave him no 
 encouragement ; he did not invite Herbert to his 
 expedition to the Isle of Bhe ; and his assassina- 
 tion in the year 1628 must have been a bitter 
 blow to Herbert's hope. It was not till a year 
 
XXX 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 later that Charles 1. accorded him the English 
 peerage which Buckingham had long promised 
 him, and he became Baron Herbert of Cherbury; 
 this was on the 7th May 1629. Soon after the 
 accession of Charles, Herbert had preferred his 
 suit to him in a letter in which he recalled in set 
 terms his services to the State ; he laid indignant 
 stress on the absence of adequate recognition after his 
 return from France ; no one had ever returned from 
 the ambassadorship without employment of honour ; 
 his abrupt repeal was the most public disgrace that 
 ever minister in my place did suffer." He was 
 appointed to a seat on the Council of War in 1632 ; 
 this position he occupied again in 1637 ; and these petty 
 favours were the most he received. His failure to 
 obtain recognition rendered him only the more 
 assiduous in solicitation ; he became untiring as a 
 suppliant for royal favour. The sense of public 
 disgrace seems to have rankled in him always; to 
 remove the public slur which he conceived his 
 reputation had suffered haunted him like a mania. 
 Fifteen years after his return from France he was 
 appealing to the secretary, Windebank, for arrears of 
 pay as ambassador, still due to him, and still com- 
 menting on how much his reputation was com- 
 promised by his not yet being appointed to some 
 honourable place. The wound seems to gall him as 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxxi 
 
 much as ever. Failing the opportunity to distinguish 
 himself in any public capacity, he sought recognition 
 by bringing into play his literary qualities ; a vindi- 
 cation was needed of the conduct of Buckingham in 
 the expedition to the Isle of Rhe ; Herbert undertook 
 to write it. The pamphlet, completed in 1630, failed 
 to help him in the direction he expected ; Charles I. 
 ignored it. He was already engaged in his elaborate 
 History of the Reign of Henry VIIL, a work which 
 occupied him during many years ; but his theological 
 liberalism deterred him from dealing sincerely with 
 the subject of the Reformation, which theoretically to 
 him was a matter of small moment ; his delineation 
 of the character of Henry VIII. was too philosophi- 
 cally conceived to be very flattering, and it is 
 extraordinary that Herbert should cherish ideas of 
 the personal advancement he desired through the 
 publication of the book. That personal advancement 
 never came ; seek as he did for it by every means in 
 his power ; by means, too, more often than not, 
 fatally derogatory to himself. His remonstrances 
 and appeals were unheeded ; he suffered, like many 
 others of that time, from the careless ingratitude of 
 the court. When the civil war broke out, entertaining, 
 as may be imagined, no warm affection for the King s 
 cause, he sought to play the part of an opportunist ; 
 he wavered between Royalism and Parliamentarianism, 
 
xxxii 
 
 INTR on UCTION. 
 
 sincere in his attachment to neither, but intent only 
 in his own interest; and, notwithstanding, regarded 
 as he was with disfavour and suspicion by both sides 
 alike, he lost both fortune and honour. Well may he 
 have discovered a difficulty in continuing his auto- 
 biography, and of inditing the manifest which he 
 contemplated of his action during the civil troubles. 
 As far as he arrives in his memoir his career had been 
 but a parade of triumph at home and abroad ; hence- 
 forward it was destined to undergo a sorry transforma- 
 tion, not easily to be disguised. 
 
 But turning from Herbert as the delightful knight- 
 errant, of which we have the indestructible picture 
 by his own hand, from Herbert as the baffled and 
 ignoble seeker after court preferment, and from 
 Herbert as the selfish indifferentist wavering 
 between two parties in a momentous civil struggle, 
 and intent only on his private welfare, to Herbert as 
 a philosopher and theologian, we have a new 
 revelation of the man. The extravagant knight- 
 errant disappears ; there is no longer the dependant 
 courtier, the wavering politician ; but a spirit 
 of profound earnestness and independence; a man 
 who sincerely strives after truth, and truth of the 
 highest import; one who made it his quest to 
 pierce to the ultimate mystery of things. We have 
 the earliest allusion to his first philosophical work, Be 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 xxxiii 
 
 Veritate;'^ my book, as he familiarly calls it, during 
 the period of his ambassadorship. Herbert himself 
 states that it was begun in England, and there framed 
 in all its principal parts. In 1617 he was attacked 
 by ague, and suffered from a prolonged illness. The 
 good days of his sickness he employed in study, and 
 it is probable that between that year and 1619 he 
 outlined his system, and partially filled in the details. 
 It is recorded of Descartes, a man who had been a 
 soldier like Herbert, who like him mixed in the gay 
 world of Paris, and like him also aimed at the estab- 
 lishment of a new philosophical principle, that when 
 his great idea began to impose itself upon him, he 
 fled into seclusion, became lost to his friends ; and, 
 unable to endure the contact of his fellows, did not 
 emerge again until he found himself a victor in the 
 intellectual struggle which his spirit had enforced 
 him to undergo. With Herbert it was vastly 
 different ; he tells how, when, ill as he was, he shook 
 one Emerson by the beard, when walking one day in 
 Whitehall, because he had spoken impolitely of Sir 
 Robert Thurley, His philosophic abstraction was not 
 such as to make him forget his perverse instincts ; 
 and he was able, while immersed both in business and 
 
 ^ Its full title is De Veriiate, prout distmguitur Revalatione 
 verisimili, possibili, et d falso. Paris, 1624 ; LoDdon, 1645. 
 
 C 
 
xxxiv 
 
 INTR on UC TION. 
 
 pleasure in France, to divert his thoughts sufficiently 
 to complete his abstruse work. But we get the first 
 real introduction to the book in a charming passage 
 near the last page of the autobiography, where 
 Herbert recounts that while dubious about the pub- 
 lication of his work, being in his chamber in the 
 Faubourg St. Germain, with the casement open, on a 
 fair day in summer, the sun shining clear and no wind 
 stirring, he took his book in his hand and knelt down 
 to invoke some sign from heaven to guide him. 
 He had no sooner spoken than there came a 
 loud yet gentle noise from heaven, from the serene 
 and cloudless sky, which did so comfort and cheer 
 him that he took his prayer for granted ; — a scene 
 which, as he describes it, seems, as has been said, to 
 glow upon the page like an old clear picture of early 
 Italy. 
 
 Into Herbert's metaphysical and theological 
 opinions it is needless to enter with more detail 
 than will serve to convey an idea of his seriousness 
 and of his quality as a thinker, — philosopher merely 
 en amateur as he is disposed to make himself out to 
 be. The comprehensiveness of the system he con- 
 structed is significant of the arrogance of his intel- 
 lectual ambitions ; the life-long devotion he gave to 
 the perfecting of it is the assurance of his sincerity. 
 I'his sincerity may have had a touch, of a super- 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 ciliousness. " It is not/' he said, " from a hypocritical 
 or mercenary writer that we are to look for perfect 
 truth ; the interest of such is not to lay aside the 
 mask and think for themselves. A liberal and 
 independent writer alone will do this." But the 
 great ambassador, Sir Edward Herbert, might flatter 
 himself on the disinterestedness to which his condition 
 entitled him. Hallam's comment on the passage 
 quoted is that it denotes either neglect or ignorance 
 on Herbert's part of the history of thought ; Herbert, 
 indeed, had no reason then to plume himself on any 
 remarkable independency, with the examples of 
 Campanella and of Bacon immediately before him. 
 But Herbert must have profited by the study of the 
 works both of his predecessors and of his contempor- 
 aries ; one cannot sit down and formulate theories 
 of perception and ontology out of the unaided inner 
 consciousness. The originality of Herbert's ideas is, 
 in fact, evidence of his philosophic research. But he 
 desired to have the credit of notable originality. 
 There is a singular absence of citation throughout 
 his writings ; such is the case even in his volume 
 De Religione Gentilium, which must have involved an 
 extensive research of authorities. And, as in his 
 autobiography, so in his philosophic treatises, Bacon 
 remains unmentioned. They must often have met 
 at court ; Buckingham was the patron of both ; 
 
xxxvi 
 
 INTR on UCTION. 
 
 to George Herbert, Lord Herbert's brother, Bacon 
 dedicated his metrical translation of the Psalms ; 
 they both attacked scholasticism ; they were both 
 hostile to authority in the sciences. The fundamental 
 principle of Herbert's philosophy was one of intuition ; 
 the method of Bacon was the method of scientific 
 observation. The two men widely differed in their 
 modes of obtaining that Weltanschauung which was 
 the aim of both. Still, Herbert has occasions of 
 accordance with Bacon, and in omitting to acknow- 
 ledge his contemporary, it is conceivable that he 
 was moved by some spirit of private antipathy. 
 
 Beneath all the fantasticality of Herbert's outward 
 behaviour there lay the sober thinker, the dialectical 
 power and power of synthesis to which his philosophic 
 writings bear testimony. As M. de Bemusat says, in 
 whatever age he had lived, he would have con- 
 centrated himself on the questions which perennially 
 engage the world's greater spirits. He rises superior 
 to the religious controversies of his time, but there is 
 no doubt that they found in Herbert a close and 
 passionate observer, and that the turn his thoughts 
 took is explained by his interest in the contem- 
 poraneous theological controversies, in the struggle of 
 Sacerdotalist and Puritan, both cleaving to the doctrine 
 of eternal punishment, the Sacerdotalist basing the 
 salvation of the remnant on the grace of the church, 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 xxxvii 
 
 the Puritan on the pre-determination of God. Her- 
 bert's contribution to the controversy is indicative of 
 the power and loftiness of his thought ; he constructs 
 and entrenches himself behind an imposing philosophy 
 before he confronts the main issue. He starts with a 
 theory of perception. There is such a thing as truth. 
 Of truth there are four kinds : truth of the object, 
 which relates to the object in itself ; truth of appear- 
 ance, which relates to the object as manifested ; 
 truth of conception, which relates to the object as 
 apprehended by the mind ; and finally, the truth 
 which of all these is the highest, truth of intellect. 
 In the introduction ot the truth of the object 
 as it is in itself there is a premonition of the 
 ding an sich of Kant, but it is a point on 
 which, according to his commentators, Herbert is 
 obscure ; Gassendi, however, perhaps most intent 
 on its metaphysical portion, contended that the 
 aim of Herbert's work was that the intellect may 
 pierce into the nature of things, knowing them as 
 they are without the fallacies of appearance and sense. 
 Hallam, who quotes Gassendi to this effect, himself 
 infers from remarks of Herbert that the know- 
 ledge of the communes notitice, the eternal and neces- 
 sary truths which Herbert contends we have, is 
 accepted by him subjectively. M. de R^musat, who 
 has made Herbert's theories the subject of exhaustive 
 
xxxviii 
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 examination, says that Herbert never asserts at all 
 that the truth of appearance responds to the complete 
 truth o£ the object. There is little wonder that 
 Herbert's metaphysical faculty failed here, but it is 
 significant of the thoroughness of his synthesis that 
 he should endeavour to incorporate so much. This 
 thoroughness is conspicuous in his treatment of the 
 conditions of his third category of truth, that of the 
 object as apprehended,— that it should have determining 
 individuation, certain limits of dimension, and so on. 
 The final truth of intellect depends upon the con- 
 formity of the three preceding kinds of truth defined 
 with each other, and further is conditional on certain 
 principles, principles which being common to every 
 sane and perfect mind, command universal assent. 
 With the introduction of these principles, Herbert 
 seems able to dispense with all the paraphernalia of 
 conditions with which he has surrounded himself, and 
 to make appeal to them as final. 
 
 The faculties of the mind are four ; these in 
 Herbert\s terminology are Internal Sense, External 
 Sense, the Discursive Faculty or reason, and Natural 
 Instinct. The first deals with the phases of the 
 agreeable and disagreeable, good and evil ; it 
 corresponds to conscience ; the second is the faculty 
 which deals with sensation; reason deals with the 
 knowledge furnished by the internal and external 
 
INTR on UCTION. 
 
 XXX ix 
 
 sense ; in all three natural instinct is present as the 
 modifying factor. In the establishment of truths 
 obtained by the discursive faculty, which Herbert 
 calls secondary truths, natural instinct provides a 
 safeguard against the vagaries of scholasticism. 
 What Herbert terms natural instinct corresponds 
 with the Aristotelean noetic faculty, with the 
 intellectus of scholasticism, with the common 
 sense of philosophy ; it is something akin to 
 the Emersonian over-soul, though not quite so 
 picturesque. It is the vicarious instrument of the 
 universal intelligence of God, a part of the divine 
 seeing incorporated in man ; God has given to man 
 not only of his image but of his wisdom. The 
 primary truths, the common notices with which this 
 instinct furnishes us, are not products of experience 
 and observation ; the mind is not a tabida rasa on 
 which they are projected by the external world ; but 
 they are evoked in man in presence of the external 
 world. The mind may be likened, not to a blank 
 book, but to a book only opened on the presentation 
 of the object. The various criteria by which primary 
 truths may be discriminated are such as priority, 
 independence, universality ; to call them in question 
 would be to strip man of his essential humanity ; the 
 conservation the essential in humanity depends upon 
 them. 
 
xl 
 
 INTR on UCTION. 
 
 Herbert has now arrived at a position from which 
 he may advance into the theological arena. He has 
 got to the standpoint of primary truth. What pre- 
 eminently distinguishes man is not his gift of 
 reason, but his capacity for religion. George Herbert, 
 who probably profited in some degree by his brother's 
 speculations, has expressed this idea in his own 
 way: — 
 
 " Of all the creatures, both on sea and land, 
 
 Only to man hast thou made known thy ways, 
 And put the pen alone into his hand, 
 And made him secretary of Thy praise. 
 
 Man is the world's high -priest ; he doth present, 
 
 The sacrifice for all ; while they below 
 Unto the service mutter an assent, 
 
 Such as springs use that fall, or winds that blow.'* 
 
 The common notions, the primary truths, the 
 essential propositions of religion which universally 
 command assent are : — That there is one supreme 
 God ; that he ought to be worshipped ; that virtue 
 and piety are the main elements of worship ; that 
 repentance is a duty ; that there are rewards and 
 punishments both in this life and after it. These 
 are the five pillars of deism ; on these Herbert erects 
 his theory of natural religion, independent as it is of 
 revelation as of the controversies of the sects. 
 
IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 xli 
 
 Herbert's Be Religione Oentilium is an elaborate 
 supplement in support of his thesis ; he goes far 
 afield to traverse the various heathen beliefs with a 
 view to abstracting from each his five underlying 
 essential propositions ; it is an erudite performance, 
 and has a method and coherency strange to under- 
 stand as coming from the writer of the auto- 
 biography. A passage it contains is very much after 
 the manner of Matthew Arnold ; speaking of the 
 divines in connection with their belief in eternal 
 salvation and damnation, he says : " I found that 
 their opinion was not grounded on reason, but some 
 peremptory decrees, which nobody did pretend to 
 know, and I could not think they were so privy to 
 the secret counsels of God as to be able to establish 
 anything for certain ; wherefore I left them," — left 
 them, as has been seen, to establish a gospel of his 
 own, and to become known as the father of English 
 Deism. As well as by Descartes and Gassendi, Her- 
 bert's De Veritate, which ran through several editions, 
 was subjected to criticism by Nathaniel Culverwel, a 
 Fellow of Emanuel College, Cambridge, in his " Dis- 
 course of the Light of Nature," in 1652 ; by Thomas 
 Halyburton ; by Baxter ; by Dr. Leland, in the first 
 three chapters of his "View of Deistical Writers," in 
 1754 ; and by others. But in Locke, who in his great 
 essay calls Herbert " a man of so great parts," is found 
 
xlii 
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 the most elaborate of the earlier discussions excited by 
 his work. Into any latter-day criticism of Herbert's 
 theories it is needless here to enter. ^ 
 
 It is only natural to expect that Herbert, obeying 
 the fashion of gentlemen of his time, should be a 
 versifier. As a poet he has been but obscurely 
 remembered ; it is, in fact, curious, that the autobio- 
 graphy, intended by him to be but the partial 
 index of his many achievements, should come to 
 be best remembered and regarded as his special 
 monument. Throughout his life he seems to have 
 been in the habit of composing verses ; to many 
 of them are attached dates, and these range from 
 August 1608 to October 1644. In his autobiography 
 he is silent concerning them, and lacking either 
 opportunity or poetic vanity, he himself published 
 no collection of his poems, but some seventeen years 
 after his death they were brought together and 
 given to the world by his brother Henry, in a 
 volume which he dedicated to Herbert's heir and 
 favourite grandson, Edward, the third Lord Herbert 
 of Cherbury. His contribution to our stock of verse 
 is but slender ; such as it is, it classifies him among 
 
 1 For an exhaustive examination see M. De Remusat's Lord Rerhert 
 de Cherbury, sa vie et ses ceuvres, Paris, Didier, 1874, Reference 
 may also be made to Ueberweg, Hist, of Phil. II., and Hamilton's 
 edition of Reid. Mri Lee gives a concise exposition; 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 xliii 
 
 the poets of the school termed metaphysical by 
 Dr. Johnson in his famous essay on Cowley. Lord 
 Herbert and the Rector of Bemerton fell upon the 
 days when poetic effort had succeeded the days of 
 poetic abandonment ; his brother, affected as he was 
 by the contagion of the concetti of the time, survives 
 because of the exquisite natural vision which the 
 poetic fashion of his period could not divert and 
 blind, and because of the import of his ever-recur- 
 ring theme, the struggle of the earthly desire with 
 the higher spirit. Lord Herbert is not held by 
 a theme of any such import, though he has ideas 
 both lofty and noble to poetically convey. The 
 poetic epoch following the Elizabethan could not 
 fail, with such a model immediately before it, to 
 have a distinctive character of its own ; the wild, 
 unmistakable, lyrical note does, in fact, again and 
 again sound above the strains of courtly or pedantic 
 mannerism in the songs of the later choir of poets ; 
 whose most distinctive valuable possession perhaps is, 
 however, that special quality of daintiness and 
 fineness of touch and feeling which we know so 
 well in Her rick, in George Herbert ; which we find 
 in Crashaw; in Lord Herbert's friend, who accom- 
 panied him as one of his secretaries when ambassador 
 to France, — Carew. Lord Herbert was a pupil and 
 disciple of Donne ; he has much of Donne's metrical 
 
xHv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and verbal ungainliness ; we are never sure that when 
 in full lyrical career he will not suddenly collapse; 
 and the visage of his muse is often most grotesquely 
 disformed. After the manner of the metaphysical 
 school, he decomposes his subject and develops strained 
 parallels ; like Donne his master, and like Cowley, he 
 is full of what Coleridge calls the " compulsory juxta- 
 position" of ideas. Of that wherein he is praise- 
 worthy he has found a liberal eulogist in a modern 
 critic, who has recently edited his collected poems.^ 
 The volume contains the Satyra previously alluded to, 
 addressed in 1608 from Paris to Ben Jonson. During 
 this visit abroad he stayed at the Castle of Mello, lent 
 him by the Duke of Montmorency ; and it seems to 
 have been a time poetically fruitful for Herbert ; the 
 volume contains various stanzas composed there. 
 Merely an occasional recreation as was verse-making 
 with Herbert, his work affords evidence not merely of 
 poetical potentiality but of actual performance, 
 though it would be hard to cite one completely 
 satisfying effort. Notwithstanding the metrical 
 crudities in which he permits himself so often to 
 lapse, every now and again he demonstrates his 
 possession of a fine ear. In his Ditty in Imitation of 
 
 ^ The Foems of Lord Herbert of Cherhury, edited by John Churton 
 Collins ; Chatto, 1881. 
 
INTROD UCTION. 
 
 xlv 
 
 t}ie Spanish, there occurs the following exquisite stanza, 
 which suggests some well-known lines of Herrick : — 
 
 Then think each minute that you lose a day, 
 
 The longest youth is short, 
 The shortest age is long ; Time flies away, 
 
 And makes us but his sport, 
 And that which is not Youth's is Age's prey. 
 
 Though the penultimate line is weak, there is a 
 charming lyrical ebb and flow in the following 
 
 Madrigal : — 
 
 Dear, when I did from you remove, 
 I left my joy, but not my lovo ; 
 
 That never can depart. 
 It neither higher can ascend, 
 
 Nor lower bend. 
 Fixt in the centre of ray heart, 
 
 As in his place, 
 And lodged so, how can it change ? 
 Those are earth's properties and base ; 
 Each where, as the bodies divine. 
 
 Heaven's lights to you and me will shine. 
 
 Mr. Churton Collins accords to Herbert the triumph 
 of being the discoverer of the varied harmony and 
 sweetness of the stanza which Lord Tennyson has 
 utilised to such perfection. Besides employing it 
 elsewhere, Herbert has suspended upon it a lengthy 
 
xlvi 
 
 INTR on UCTION. 
 
 ode, Whether Love should continue for Ever. It will 
 be sufficient to quote a couple of stanzas : — 
 
 So when one wing can make no way 
 
 Two joined can themselves dilate, 
 
 So can two persons propagate 
 When singly either would decay j 
 
 So when from hence we shall be gone, 
 
 And be no more, nor you, nor I, 
 
 As one another's mystery, 
 Each shall be both, yet both be one. 
 
 This is not all ; in the final passage of a poem entitled 
 To Her Mind, the same critic has found in the 
 staccato construction, in the blending of sentiment 
 and logic, a strong resemblance to the work of Mr. 
 Browning. A.nd it cannot be gainsaid that Herbert, 
 though in his verse generally obscure, and often 
 tedious and fantastic, has occasional fine moods to 
 which he has given an expression correspondingly- 
 fine. 
 
 After the taking of his residence, Montgomery 
 Castle, by the Parliamentarian forces in 1644, 
 Herbert, almost destitute, made his way to London, 
 where he thenceforward lived. Having professed 
 allegiance to the new rulers, a maintenance of twenty 
 pounds a week was assigned to him, and he took up 
 his abode in Queen Street. Here he found solace in 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 literature ; in finishing various of his books. Here, 
 on the 20th August 1648, he died ; he was buried in 
 the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Herbert was 
 one of the latest children of the Renascence, and the 
 paradox of his career and character, fascinating 
 as their study must alwaj's remain, is explained 
 by the era to which he belonged. 
 
 WILL H. DIRCKS. 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, 15/// June 1888. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 I beg here to express my most grateful acknowledgments to 
 Mr. Sidney L. Lee, who gave me permission to make use of his 
 text of The Life of Lord Herbert (Nimmo, 1886). Of this 
 permission I have freely availed myself, but I am indebted to 
 him as well in the brief notice preceding for the innumerable 
 points of valuable information contained in his elaborate edition 
 of Herbert's autobiography, a work indispensable to every 
 Student of the subject of Herbert's character and life. 
 
 W. H. D. 
 
If men get name for some one virtue^ then 
 What man art thou, that art so many men. 
 All-virtuous Herhert ! on whose every part 
 Truth might spend all her voicCy fame all her art ? 
 Whether thy learning they would take or wit. 
 Or valour y or thy judgment seasoning it. 
 Thy standing upright to thyself y thy ends 
 Like straight^ thy piety to God and friends : 
 Their latter praise would still the greatest be. 
 And yety they all together, less than thee. 
 
 — Ben Jonson. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD, LORD HERBERT 
 OF CHERBURY. 
 
 I DO believe that if all my ancestors had set down 
 their lives in writing, and left them to posterity, 
 many documents necessary to be known of those 
 who both participate of their natural inclinations and 
 humours, must in all probability run a not much 
 different course, might have been given for their 
 instruction ; and certainly it will be found much 
 better for men to guide themselves by such observa- 
 tions as their father, grandfather, and great grand- 
 father might have delivered to them, than by those 
 vulgar rules and examples, which cannot in all points 
 so exactly agree unto them. Therefore, whether their 
 life were private, and contained only precepts neces- 
 sary to treat with their children, servants, tenants, 
 kinsmen, and neighbours, or employed abroad in the 
 university, or study of the law, or in the court, or in 
 the camp, their heirs might have benefited themselves 
 more by them than by any else ; for which reason I 
 
 483 
 
2 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY. 
 
 have thought fit to relate to my posterity those 
 passages of my life, which I conceive may best declare 
 me, and be most useful to them. In the delivery of 
 which, I profess to write with all truth and sincerity, 
 as scorning ever to deceive or speak false to any ; and 
 therefore detesting it much more where I am under 
 obligation of speaking to those so near me : and if 
 this be one reason for taking my pen in hand at this 
 time, so as my age is now past threescore, it will be fit 
 to recollect my former actions, and examine what had 
 been done well or ill, to the intent I may both reform 
 that which was amiss, and so make my peace with 
 God, as also comfort myself in those things which, 
 through God's great grace and favour, have been done 
 according to the rule^ of conscience, virtue, and 
 honour. Before yet I bring myself to this account, 
 it will be necessary to say somewhat concerning my 
 ancestors, as far as the notice of them is come to me 
 in any credible way ; of whom yet I cannot say 
 much, since I was but eight years old when my 
 grandfather died, and that my father lived but about 
 four years after ; and that for the rest I have lived 
 for the most part from home, it is impossible I should 
 have that entire knowledge of their actions which 
 might inform me sufiiciently ; I shall only therefore 
 relate the more known and undoubted parts of their 
 lives. 
 
 My father was Richard Herbert, Esq., son of 
 Edward Herbert, Esq., and grandchild to Sir Richard 
 Herbert, Knight, who was a younger son to Sir Richard 
 Herbert, of Colebrook, in Monmouthshire, of all whom 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH K 
 
 3 
 
 I shall say a little. And first of my father, whom I 
 remember to have been black-haired and bearded, as 
 all my ancestors of his side are said to have been, of a 
 manly or somewhat stern look, but withal very hand- 
 some and well compact in his limbs, and of a great 
 courage, whereof he gave proof, when he was so barbar- 
 ously assaulted by many men in the churchyard at 
 Llanerfyl, at what time he would have apprehended a 
 man who denied to appear to justice ; for, defending 
 himself against them all, by the help only of one John 
 ap Howell Corbet, he chased his adversaries until a 
 villain, coming behind him, did over the shoulders of 
 others wound him on the head behind with a forest 
 bill until he fell down, though recovering himself 
 again, notwithstanding his skull was cut through to 
 the mater of the brain, he saw his adversaries fly 
 away, and after walked home to his house at Llyssyn, 
 where, after he was cured, he offered a single com- 
 bat to the chief of the family, by whose procure- 
 ment it was thought the mischief was committed ; 
 but he disclaiming wholly the action as not done by 
 his consent, which he offered to testify by oath, and 
 the villain himself flying into Ireland, whence he never 
 returned, my father desisted from prosecuting the 
 business any farther in that kind, and attained, not- 
 withstanding the said hurt, that health and strength, 
 that he returned to his former exercises in a country 
 life, and became the father of many children. As for 
 his integrity in his places of deputy-lieutenant of the 
 county, justice of the peace, and custos rotulorum, 
 which he, as my grandfather before him, held, it is so 
 
4 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 memorable to this day, that it was said his enemies 
 appealed to him for justice, which they also found on 
 all occasions. His learning was not vulgar, as under- 
 standing well the Latin tongue, and being well versed 
 in history. 
 
 My grandfather was of a various life, beginning 
 first at court, where after he had spent most part of 
 his means, he became a soldier, and made his fortune 
 with his sword at the battle of St. Quentin in France, 
 and other wars, both in the north, and in the rebel- 
 lions happening in the times of King Edward VI. and 
 Queen Mary, with so good success, that he not only 
 came off still with the better, but got so much money 
 and wealth as enabled him to buy the greatest part of 
 that livelihood which is descended to me ; although 
 yet I hold some lands which his mother the Lady 
 Anne Herbert purchased, as appears by the deeds made 
 to her by that name, which I can shew ; and might 
 have held more, which my grandfather sold under 
 foot at an under value in his youth, and might have 
 been recovered by my father, had my grandfather 
 suffered him. My grandfather was noted to be a 
 great enemy to the outlaws and thieves of his time, 
 who robbed in great numbers in the mountains in 
 Montgomeryshire, for the suppressing of whom he 
 went often both day and night to the places where 
 they were ; concerning which, though many particulars 
 have been told me, I shall mention one only. Some 
 outlaws being lodged in an alehouse upon the hills of 
 Llandinam, my grandfather and a few servants 
 coming to apprehend them, the principal outlaw shot 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 5 
 
 an arrow against my grandfather, which stuck in the 
 pummel of his saddle ; whereupon my grandfather 
 coming up to him with his sword in his hand, and 
 taking him prisoner, he shewed him the said arrow, 
 bidding him look what he had done, whereof the 
 outlaw was no farther sensible than to say he was 
 sorry that he left his better bow at home, which he 
 conceived would have carried his shot to his body ; 
 but the outlaw being brought to justice, suffered for 
 it. My grandfather s power was so great in the 
 country, that divers ancestors of the better families 
 now in Montgomeryshire were his servants, and 
 raised by him. He delighted also much in hospitality, 
 as having a very long table twice covered every meal 
 with the best meats that could be gotten, and a very 
 great family. It was an ordinary saying in the 
 country at that time, when they saw any fowl rise, 
 " Fly where thou wilt, thou wilt light at Blackball," 
 which was a low building, but of great capacity, my 
 grandfather erected in his age ; his father and himself 
 in former times having lived in Montgomery Castle. 
 Notwithstanding yet these expenses at home, he 
 brought up his children well, married his daughters 
 to the better sort of persons near him, and bringing 
 up his younger sons at the university ; from whence 
 his son Matthew went to the Low Country wars, and 
 after some time spent there, came home, and lived in 
 the country at Dolguog, upon a house and fair living, 
 which my grandfather bestowed upon him. His son 
 also, Charles Herbert, after he had passed some time 
 in the Low Countries, likewise returned home, and was 
 
6 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 after married to an inheritrix, whose eldest son, called 
 Sir Edward Herbert, Knight, is the king's Attorney- 
 General. His son George, who was of New College in 
 Oxford, was very learned, and of a pious life, died in 
 a middle age of a dropsy. Notwithstanding all which 
 occasions of expense, my grandfather purchased much 
 lands without doing anything yet unjustly or hardly, 
 as may be collected by an offer I have publicly made 
 divers times, having given my bailiff in charge to pro- 
 claim to the country, that if any lands were gotten by 
 evil means, or so much as hardly, they should be 
 compounded for or restored again ; but to this day, 
 never any man yet complained to me in this kind. 
 He died at the age of four-score or thereabouts, and 
 was buried in Montgomery church, without having 
 any monument made for him, which yet for my 
 father is there set up in a fair manner. 
 
 My great-grandfather. Sir Richard Herbert, was 
 steward in the time of King Henry the Eighth, of the 
 lordships and marches of North Wales, East Wales, 
 and Cardiganshire, and had power, in a marshal law, 
 to execute offenders; in the using thereof he was so 
 just, that he acquired to himself a singular reputation, 
 as may appear upon the records of that time, kept in 
 the Paper-Chamber at Whitehall, some touch whereof 
 I have made in my History of Henry the Eighth ; of 
 him I can say little more than that he likewise was a 
 great suppressor of rebels, thieves, and outlaws, and 
 that he was just and conscionable ; for if a false or 
 cruel person had that power committed to his hands, 
 he would have raised a great fortune out of it, whereof 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH K 
 
 1 
 
 he left little, save what his father gave him, unto 
 posterity. He lieth buried likewise in Montgomery ; 
 the upper monument of the two placed in the chancel 
 being: erected for him. 
 
 My great-great-grandfather. Sir Richard Herbert of 
 Colebrook, was that incomparable hero who (in the 
 History of Hall and Grafton as it appears) twice 
 passed through a great army of northern men alone, 
 with his pole-axe in his hand, and returned without 
 any mortal hurt, which is more than is famed of 
 Amadis de Gaul, or the Knight of the Sun. 
 
 I shall, besides this relation of Sir Richard Herbert's 
 prowess in the battle at Banbury or Edgecote Hill, being 
 the place where the late battle was fought, deliver 
 some traditions concerning him, which I have received 
 from good hands : one is, that the said Richard 
 Herbert being employed together with his brother 
 William, Earl of Pembroke, to reduce certain rebels in 
 North Wales, Sir Richard Herbert besieged a principal 
 person of them at Harlech Castle, in Merionethshire ; 
 the captain of this place had been a soldier in the wars 
 of France, whereupon he said he had kept a castle in 
 France so long, that he made the old women in Wales 
 talk of him ; and that he would keep the castle so 
 long that he would make the old women in France 
 talk of him; and indeed as the place was almost 
 impregnable but by famine, Sir Richard Herbert was 
 constrained to take him in by composition, he 
 surrendering himself upon condition that Sir Richard 
 Herbert should do what he could to save his life ; 
 which being accepted, Sir Richard brought him to 
 
8 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 King Edward IV., desiring his highne^ss to give him a 
 pardon, since he yielded up a place of importance, 
 which he might have kept longer upon this hope ; but 
 the king replying to Sir Richard Herbert, that he had 
 no power by his commission to pardon any, and there- 
 fore might after the representation hereof to his 
 majesty, safe deliver him up to justice ; Sir Richard 
 Herbert answered he had not yet done the best he 
 could for him, and therefore most humbly desired his 
 highness to do one of two things — either to put him 
 again in the castle where he was, and command some 
 other to take him out ; or, if his highness would not do 
 so, to take his life for the said captain s, that being 
 the last proof he could give that he used his uttermost 
 endeavour to save the said captain's life. The king 
 finding himself urged thus far, gave Sir Richard 
 Herbert the life of the said captain, but withal he 
 bestowed no other reward for his service. 
 
 The other history is, that Richard Herbert, together 
 with his brother the Earl of Pembroke, being in 
 Anglesea apprehending there seven brothers which 
 had done many mischiefs and murders ; in these times 
 the Earl of Pembroke, thinking it fit to root out so 
 wicked a progeny, commanded them all to be hanged ; 
 whereupon the mother of them coming to the Earl of 
 Pembroke, upon her knees desired him to pardon two 
 or at leastwise one of her said sons, affirming that the 
 rest were sufficient to satisfy justice or example, which 
 request also Sir Richard Herbert seconded ; but the 
 earl finding them all equally guilty, said he could 
 make no distinction betwixt them, and therefore 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH V. 
 
 9 
 
 commanded them to be executed together ; at which 
 the mother was so aggrieved, that with a pair of 
 woollen beads on her arms (for so the relation 
 goeth), she on her knees cursed him, praying God's 
 mischief might fall to him in the first battle 
 he should make. The earl after this, coming with 
 his brother to Edgecote Field, as is before set down, 
 after he had put his men in order to fight, found his 
 brother. Sir Richard Herbert in the head of his men, 
 leaning upon his pole-axe in a kind of sad or pensive 
 manner ; whereupon the earl said, " What ! doth thy 
 great body (for he ^as higher by the head than any 
 one in the army) apprehend any thing, that thou art 
 so melancholy ; or art thou weary with marching, 
 that thou dost lean thus upon thy pole-axe ? Sir 
 Richard Herbert replied, that he was neither of both, 
 whereof he should see the proof presently ; " only I 
 cannot but apprehend on your part, lest the curse of 
 the woman with the woollen beads fall upon you." 
 This Sir Richard Herbert lieth buried in Abergavenny, 
 in a sumptuous monument for those times, which 
 still remains ; whereas his brother, the Earl of 
 Pembroke, being buried in Tintern Abbey, his monu- 
 ment, together with the church, lie now wholly 
 defaced and ruined. This Earl of Pembroke had a 
 younger son, which had a daughter which married 
 the eldest son of the Earl of Worcester, who carried 
 away the fair castle of Raglan, with many thousand 
 pounds yearly, from the heir male of that house, 
 which was the second son of the said Earl of Pem- 
 broke, and ancestor of the family of St. Julians, 
 
lO 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whose daughter and heir I after married, as shall be 
 told in its place. And here it is very remarkable, 
 that the younger sons of the said Earl of Pembroke 
 and Sir R. Herbert left their posterity after them, 
 who in the person of myself and my wife united 
 both houses again ; which is the more memorable, 
 that when the said Earl of Pembroke and Sir K 
 Herbert were taken prisoners in defending the just 
 cause of Edward IV., at the battle abovesaid, the 
 earl never intreated that his own life might be saved, 
 but his brothers, as it appears by the said history. 
 So that joining of both houses together in my 
 posterity, ought to produce a perpetual obligation of 
 friendship and mutual love in them one to another, 
 since by these two brothers, so brave an example 
 thereof was given as seeming not to live or die but 
 for one another. 
 
 My mother was Magdalen Newport, daughter of 
 Sir Richard Newport and Margaret his wife, daughter 
 and heir of Sir Thomas Bromley, one of the privy 
 council, and executor of King Henry the Eighth ; 
 who, surviving her husband, gave rare testimonies of 
 an incomparable piety to God and love to her children, 
 as being most assiduous and devout in her daily both 
 private and public prayers, and so careful to provide 
 for her posterity, that, though it were in her power to 
 give her estate (which was very great) to whom she 
 would, yet she continued still unmarried, and so pro- 
 vident for them, that, after she had bestowed all her 
 daughters with sufl&cient portions upon very good 
 neighbouring families, she delivered up her estate 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPHY, 
 
 II 
 
 and care of housekeeping to her eldest son Francis, 
 when now she had for many years kept hospitality 
 with that plenty and order as exceeded all either of 
 her country or time ; for, besides abundance of pro- 
 vision and good cheer for guests, which her son Sir 
 Francis Newport continued, she used ever after dinner 
 to distribute with her own hands to the poor, who 
 resorted to her in great numbers, alms in money, to 
 every one of them more or less, as she thought they 
 needed it. By these ancestors I am descended of 
 Talbot, Devereux, Gray, Corbet, and many other noble 
 families, as may be seen in their matches, extant in 
 the many fair coats the Newports bear. I could say 
 much more of my ancestors of that side likewise, but 
 that I should exceed my proposed scope : I shall 
 therefore only say somewhat more of my mother, my 
 brothers, and sisters. 
 
 And for my mother, after she lived most virtuously 
 and lovingly with her husband for many years, she 
 after his death erected a fair monument for him in 
 Montgomery church ; brought up her children care- 
 fully, and put them in good courses for making their 
 fortunes, and briefly was that woman Dr. Donne hath 
 described in his funeral sermon of her printed. The 
 names of her children were, Edward, Richard, William, 
 Charles, George, Henry, Thomas ; her daughters were, 
 Elizabeth, Margaret, Frances ; of all whom I will say 
 a little before I begin a narration of my own life, 
 so I may pursue my intended purpose the more 
 entirely. 
 
 My brother Richard, after he had been brought up 
 
12 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 in learning, went to the Low Countries, where he 
 continued many years with much reputation, both in 
 the wars and for fighting single duels, which were 
 many, insomuch that between both, he carried, as I 
 have been told, the scars of four-and-twenty wounds 
 upon him to his grave, and lieth buried in Bergen-op- 
 Zoom. My brother William being brought up likewise 
 in learning, went afterwards to the wars in Denmark, 
 where, fighting a single combat, and having his sword 
 broken, he not only defended himself with that piece 
 which remained, but closing with his adversary, threw 
 him down, and so held him until company came in ; 
 and then went to the wars in the Low Countries, but 
 lived not long after. My brother Charles was fellow 
 of New College, in Oxford, where he died young, 
 after he had given great hopes of himself every way. 
 
 My brother George was so excellent a scholar, that 
 he was made the public orator of the University in 
 Cambridge ; some of whose English works are extant, 
 which though they be rare in their kind, yet are far 
 short of expressing those perfections he had in the 
 Greek and Latin tongue, and all divine and human 
 literature ; his life was most holy and exemplary, in 
 so much that about Salisbury, where he lived bene- 
 ficed for many years, he was little less than sainted : 
 he was not exempt from passion and choler, being 
 infirmities to which all our race is subject, but that 
 excepted, without reproach in his actions. 
 
 Henry, after he had been brought up in learning as 
 the other brothers were, was sent by his friends into 
 France, where he attained the language of that 
 
A U TO BIO GRAPH K 
 
 13 
 
 country in much perfection, after which time he 
 came to court, and was made gentleman of the king's 
 privy chamber, and master of the revels : by which 
 means, as also by a good marriage, he attained to 
 great fortunes, for himself and posterity to enjoy : he 
 also hath given several proofs of his courage in duels, 
 and otherwise, being no less dexterous in the ways of 
 the court, as having gotten much by it. 
 
 My brother Thomas was a posthumus, as being 
 born some weeks after his father s death ; he also 
 being brought up a while at school, was sent 
 as a page to Sir Edward Cecil, lord general of 
 his majesty's auxiliary forces to the princes in 
 Germany, and was particularly at the siege of 
 Juliers, A.D. 1610, where he showed such forwardness 
 as no man in that great army before him was more 
 adventurous on all occasions. Being returned from 
 thence, he went to the East Indies under the com- 
 mand of Captain Joseph, who in his way thither, 
 meeting with a great Spanish ship, was unfortunately 
 killed in fight with them, whereupon his men being 
 disheartened, my brother Thomas encouraged them to 
 revenge the loss, and renewed the fight in that 
 manner (as Sir John Smyth, governor of the East 
 India Company, told me at several times) that they 
 forced the Spanish ship to run aground, where the 
 English shot her through and through so often, that 
 she run herself aground, and was left wholly 
 unserviceable. After which time he, with the rest of 
 the fleet, came to Surat, and from thence went with 
 the merchants to the Great Mogul, where after he had 
 
14 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 stayed about a twelvemonth, he returned with the 
 same fleet back again to England. After this he went 
 in the navy which King James sent to Algiers, under 
 the command of Sir Robert Mansell, where our men 
 being in great want of money and victuals, and many 
 ships scattering themselves to try whether they could 
 obtain a prize, whereby to relieve the whole fleet ; it 
 was his hap to meet with a ship, which he took, and 
 in it to the value of eighteen hundred pounds, which 
 it was thought saved the whole fleet from perishing. 
 
 He conducted also Count Mansfelt to the Low 
 Countries, in one of the king's ships, which being 
 unfortunately cast away not far from the shore, the 
 count, together with his company, saved themselves 
 in a long-boat or shalop, the benefit whereof my said 
 brother refused to take for the present, as resolving to 
 assist the master of the ship, who endeavoured by all 
 means to clear the ship from the danger ; but finding 
 it impossible, he was the last man that saved himself 
 in the long-boat ; the master thereof yet refusing to 
 come away, so that he perished together with the 
 ship. After this, he commanded one of the ships that 
 were sent to bring the prince from Spain, where, upon 
 his return, there being a fight between the Low 
 Countrymen and the Dunkirkers, the prince, who 
 thought it was not for his dignity to suffer them to 
 fight in his presence, commanded some of his ships to 
 part them ; whereupon my said brother with some 
 other ships got betwixt them on either side, and shot 
 so long, that both parties were glad to desist. After 
 he had brought the prince safely home, he was 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 15 
 
 appointed to go with one of the king's ships to the 
 Narrow Seas. He also fought divers times with 
 great courage and success with divers men in single 
 fight, sometimes hurting and disarming his adversary, 
 and sometimes driving him away. After all these 
 proofs given of himself, he expected some great 
 command ; but finding himself, as he thought, 
 undervalued, he retired to a private and melancholy 
 life, being much discontented to find others preferred 
 to him ; in which sullen humour having lived many 
 years, he died and was buried in London, in St. 
 Martin's, near Charing-cross ; so that of all my 
 brothers none survives but Henry. 
 
 Elizabeth, my eldest sister, was married to Sir 
 Henry Jones, of Abermarles, who had by her one son, 
 and two daughters ; the latter end of her time was the 
 most sickly and miserable that hath been known in 
 our times, while for the space of about fourteen years 
 she languished and pined away to skin and bones, and 
 at last died in London, and lies buried in a church 
 near Cheapside. Margaret was married to John 
 Vaughan, son and heir to Owen Vaughan of 
 Llwydiarth, by which match some former differences 
 betwixt our house and that were appeased and 
 reconciled : he had by her three daughters and heirs, 
 Dorothy, Magdalen, and Katherine, of which the two 
 latter only survive. The estate of the Vaughans yet 
 went to the heirs male, though not so clearly but that 
 the entail which carried the said lands was questioned. 
 Frances, my youngest sister, was married to Sir John 
 Brown, Knight, in Lincolnshire, who had by her divers 
 
i6 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 children, the eldest son of whom, though young, 
 fought divers duels, in one of which it was his fortune 
 to kill one Lee, of a great family in Lancashire. I 
 could say many things more concerning all these, but 
 it is not my purpose to particularise their lives : I 
 have related only some passages concerning them to 
 the best of my memory, being assured I have not 
 failed much in my relation of them. I shall now 
 come to myself. 
 
 I was born at Eyton, in Shropshire (being a house 
 which, together with fair lands, descended upon the 
 Newports by my said grandmother), between the 
 hours of twelve and one of the clock in the morning ; 
 my infancy was very sickly, my head continually 
 purging itself very much by the ears, whereupon also 
 . it was so long before I began to speak, that many 
 thought I should be ever dumb. The very furthest 
 thing I remember is, that when I understood what 
 was said by others, I did yet forbear to speak, lest I 
 should utter something that were imperfect or 
 impertinent. When I came to talk, one of the 
 furthest inquiries I made was, how I came into this 
 world ? I told my nurse, keeper, and others, I found 
 myself here indeed, but from what cause or beginning, 
 or by what means, I could not imagine ; but for this, 
 as I was laughed at by nurse and some other women 
 that were then present, so I was wondered at by 
 others, who said, they never heard a child but myself 
 ask that question ; upon which, when I came to riper 
 years, I made this observation, which afterwards 
 a little comforted me, that as I found myself in 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 possession of this life, without knowing any thing of 
 the pangs and throes my mother suffered, when yet 
 doubtless they did not less press and afflict me than 
 her, so I hope my soul shall pass to a better life than 
 this without being sensible of the anguish and pains 
 my body shall feel in death. For as I believe then I 
 shall be transmitted to a more happy estate by God's 
 great grace, I am confident I shall no more know how 
 I came out of this world, than how I came into it ; 
 and because since that time I have made verses to 
 this purpose, I have thought fit to insert them here 
 as a place proper for them. The argument is, 
 
 YITA. 
 
 Prima fuit quondam gentiali semine vita 
 Procurasse suas dotes, ubi plastica virtus 
 Gestiit, et vegeto molem perfundere succo, 
 Externamque suo formam cohibere recessu, 
 Dum conspirantes possint accedere causce, 
 Et totum tuto licuit proludere foetum. 
 
 Altero materno tandem succrevit in arvo 
 Exiles spumans ubi spiritus induit artus, 
 Exertusque simul miro sensoria textu 
 Cudit, et hospitium menti non vile paravit, 
 Quae coelo delapsa suas mox inde capessat 
 Partes, et sortis tanquam prsesaga futurse 
 Corrigat ignavum pondus, nec inutile sistat. 
 
 Tertia nunc agitur, qua scena recluditur ingens, 
 Cernitur et festum coeli, terrseque theatrum ; 
 Congener et species, rerum variataque forma ; 
 
 484 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Et circumferri, motu proprioque vagari 
 
 Contigit, et leges seternaque fsedera mundi 
 
 Yisere, et assiduo redeuntia sidera cursu. 
 
 Unde etiam vitsG causas, nexumque tueri 
 
 Fas erat et summum long^ prsesciscere Numen ; 
 
 Dum varios mir^ motus contemperet orbis, 
 
 Et Pater, et Dominus, Gustos, et conditor idem 
 
 Audit ubique Deus ; Quid ni mod6 Quarta sequatur % 
 
 Sordibus excussis ciim mens jam purior instat, 
 
 Auctaque doctrinis variis, virtuteque pollens 
 
 Intendit vires, magis et sublimia spirat, 
 
 Et tacitus cordi stimulus suffigitur imo, 
 
 Ut vefit heic quisquam sorti superesse caducse, 
 
 Expefeiturque status falicior ambitiosis 
 
 Ritibus, et sacris, et cultu religioso, 
 
 Et nova successit melioris conscia fati 
 
 Spes superis hserens, toto perfusaque cselo, 
 
 Et sese sancto demittit Numen amori, 
 
 Et data cselestis non fallax tessera vitae, 
 
 Cumque Deo licuit non uno jure pacisci, 
 
 Ut raihi seu servo reddatur debita merces, 
 
 Filius aut bona adire paterna petam, mihi sponsor 
 
 Sit fidei Numen ; mox banc sin exuo vitam, 
 
 Compos jam f actus melioris, turn simul uti 
 
 Jure meo cupiam liber, meque asserit inde 
 
 Ipse Deus (cujus non terris gratia tantiim, 
 
 Sed ceelis prostat) quid ni modo Quinta sequatur, 
 
 Et Sexta, et quicquid tandem spes ipsa requirat ? 
 
 DE YITA O^LESTI CONJEOTURA. 
 
 ToTO lustratus genio mihi gratulor ipsi, 
 Fati securus, dum nec terroribus u^llis 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Dejicior, tacitos condo vel corde dolores, 
 Sed Isetus mediis serumnis transigo viiam, 
 •Invitisque malis (quae terras undique cingunt) 
 Ardenti virtute viam super sethera quserens, 
 Proxima cselestis prsecepi prsemia vitse, 
 Ultima prsetento, divino nixus amore, 
 Quo simul exuperans creperse ludibria sortis, 
 Barbara vesani linquo consortia ssecli, 
 Auras infernas defflans, spiransque supernas, 
 Dum Sanctis memet totum sic iraplico flaramis. 
 Hisce ut suffultus penetrem lacquearia cseli, 
 Atque novi latfe speculer magnalia mundi, 
 Et notas animas, proprio jam lumine pulchras 
 Invisara, superumque choros, mentesque beatas, 
 Queis aveam miscere ignes, ac vincula sacra, 
 Atque vice alterna transire in gaudia, caelum 
 Quae dederit cunctis, ipsis aut indita nobis, 
 Yel quae communi voto sancire licebit. 
 Ut deus interea cumulans sua praemia, nostrum 
 Augeat inde decus, proprioque illustret amore, 
 Nec caeli caelis desint, seternav^ vitae 
 Saecula, vel sseclis nova gaudia, qualia totum 
 j^vum nec minuat, nec terminat infinitum. 
 His major desit nec gratia Numinis alma, 
 Quae miris variata modis haec gaudia crescant, 
 Excipiatque statum queravis faelicior alter ; 
 Et quae nec sperare datur sint prsestita nobis, 
 Nec, nisi sola capit quae mens divina, supersint ; 
 Quae licet ex sese sint perfectissima longe, 
 Ex nobis saltem mag^ condecorata videntur : 
 Oum segnes animas, caelum quas indit ab ortu, 
 Exacuat tantum labor ac industria nostra ; 
 Ac demum poliat doctrina, et moribus illis, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Ut redeant pulchrae, dotem caeloque reporteiit ; 
 Quuin simul arbitriis usi, mala pellimus ilia, 
 Quae nec vel pepulit caelum, vel pelleretolim. 
 Ex nobis ita fit jam gloria Numinis ingens, 
 Auctior in caelos quoque gloria nostra redundat, 
 Et qu^ virtuti sint debita praemia, tandem 
 Yel Numen solito reddunt faelicius ipsum. 
 Amplior unde simul redhibetur Gratia nobis, 
 Ut vel pro voto nostro jam singula cedant. 
 Nam si libertas chara est, per amaena locorum 
 Conspicua innumeris caeli^ discurrere fas est, 
 Deliciasque loci cujusvis carpere passim. 
 Altior est animo si contemplatio fixa, 
 Cuncta adaperta patent nobis jam scrinia caeli, 
 Arcanasque Dei rationes nosse juvabit : 
 Hujus sin repetat quisquam consortia saecli, 
 Mox agere in terris, ac procurare licebit 
 Kes heic humanas, et justis legibus uti ! 
 Sin mage caelesti jam delectamur amore, 
 Solvimur in flammas, quae se lambuntque foventque 
 Mutu5, et impliciti Sanctis ardoribus, un^ 
 Surgimus amplexi, copula junctique tenaci, 
 Partibus, et toto miscemur ubique vicissim ; 
 Ardoresque novos accendit Numinis ardor. 
 Sin laudare Deum lubeat, nos laudat et ipse, 
 Concinit angelicusque chorus, modulamine suavi 
 Personat et caelum, prostant et publica nobis 
 Gaudia, et eduntur passim spectacula laeta ; 
 Fitque theatralis quasi caeli machina tota. 
 Hanc mun^i molem sin vis replica verit ingens 
 Numinis, atque novas formas exculpserit inde 
 Dotibus ornatas aliis, magis atque capaces ; 
 Nostras mox etiam formas renovare licebit 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH V. 
 
 21 
 
 Et dotes sensusque alios assumere, tandem 
 Consummata magis quo gaudia nostra resurgant, 
 Haec si conjecto mortali corpori fretus 
 Corpus et exuerim, Quid ni raajora recludam ? 
 
 And certainly, since in my mother's womb this 
 plastica, or formatrix, which formed my eyes, ears, 
 and other senses, did not intend them for that dark 
 and noisome place, but, as being conscious of a better 
 life, made them as fitting organs to apprehend and 
 perceive those things which should occur in this 
 world ; so I believe, since my coming into this world 
 my soul hath formed or produced certain faculties 
 which are almost as useless for this life as the above- 
 named senses were for the mother's womb ; and these 
 faculties are hope, faith, love, and joy, since they 
 never rest or fix upon any transitory or perishing 
 object in this world, as extending themselves to 
 something further than can be here given, and indeed 
 acquiesce only in the perfect, eternal, and infinite. I 
 confess they are of some use here ; yet I appeal to 
 every body whether any worldly felicity did so 
 satisfy their hope here, that they did not wish and 
 hope for something more excellent ; or whether they 
 had ever that faith in their own wisdom, or in the 
 help of man, that they were not constrained to have 
 recourse to some diviner and superior power than 
 they could find on earth, to relieve them in their 
 danger or necessity; whether ever they could place 
 their love on any earthly beauty, that it did not fade 
 and wither, if not frustrate or deceive them; or 
 
22 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 whether ever their joy was so consummate in any 
 thing they delighted in, that they did not want much 
 more than it, or indeed this world can afford, to 
 make them happy. The proper objects of these 
 faculties, therefore, though framed, or at least ap- 
 pearing in this world, is God only, upon whom faith, 
 hope, and love were never placed in vain, or remain 
 long unrequited. But to leave these discourses, and 
 come to my childhood again. 
 
 I remember this defluxion at my ears above- 
 mentioned continued in that violence, that my friends 
 did not think fit to teach me so much as my alphabet 
 till I was seven years old, at which time my defluxion 
 ceased, and left me free of the disease my ancestors 
 were subject unto, being the epilepsy. My school- 
 master, in the house of my said lady grandmother, 
 then began to teach me the alphabet, and afterwards 
 grammar, and other books commonly read in schools, 
 in which I profited so much, that upon this theme 
 Audaces fortuna juvaty I made an oration of a sheet 
 of paper, and fifty or sixty verses in the space of one 
 day. 
 
 I remember in that time I was corrected sometimes 
 for going to cuffs with two school-fellows, being both 
 elder than myself, but never for telling a lie or any 
 other fault ; my natural disposition and inclination 
 being so contrary to all falsehood, that being de- 
 manded whether I had committed any fault whereof 
 I might be justly suspected, I did use ever to confess 
 it freely, and thereupon choosing rather to suffer 
 correction than to stain my mind with telling a lie, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 23 
 
 which I did judge then, no time could ever deface ; 
 and I can affirm to all the world truly, that from my 
 first infancy to this hour I told not willingly any 
 thing that was false, my soul naturally having an 
 antipathy to lying and deceit. 
 
 After I had attained the age of nine, during all 
 which time I lived in my said lady grandmother's 
 house at Eyton, my parents thought fit to send me 
 to some place where I might learn the Welsh tongue, 
 as believing it necessary to enable me to treat with 
 those of my friends and tenants who understood no 
 other language ; whereupon I was recommended to Mr. 
 Edward Thelwall, of Plas-y-ward, in Denbighshire. 
 
 This gentleman I must remember with honour, as 
 having of himself acquired the exact knowledge of 
 Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, and all 
 other learning, having for that purpose neither gone 
 beyond seas, nor so much as had the benefit of any 
 universities : besides, he was of that rare temper in 
 governing his choler, that I never saw him angry 
 during the time of my stay there, and have heard so 
 much of him for many years before. When occasion 
 of ofience was given him, I have seen him redden in 
 the face, and after remain for a while silent; but 
 when he spake, his words were so calm and gentle, 
 that I found he had digested his choler, though yet I 
 confess I could never attain that perfection, as being 
 subject ever to choler and passion more than I ought, 
 and generally to speak my mind freely, and indeed 
 rather to imitate those who, having fire within doors, 
 choose rather to give it vent than suffer it to burn the 
 
24 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 house. I commend yet much more the manner of Mr. 
 Thelwall ; and certainly he that can forbear speaking 
 for some while, will remit much of his passion ; but 
 as I could not learn much of him in this kind, so I 
 did as little profit in learning the Welsh or any other 
 of those languages that worthy gentleman understood, 
 as having a tertian ague for the most part of nine 
 months, which was all the time I stayed in his house. 
 
 Having recovered my strength again, I was sent, 
 being about the age of ten, to be taught by one Mr, 
 Newton, at Didlebury, in Shropshire, where, in the 
 space of less than two years, I not only recovered all 
 - 1 had lost in my sickness, but attained to the know- 
 ledge of the Greek tongue and logic, in so much that 
 at twelve years old my parents thought fit to send me 
 to Oxford, to University College, where I remember 
 to have disputed at my first coming in logic, and to 
 have made in Greek the exercises required in that 
 college, oftener than in Latin. I had not been many 
 months in the university, but news was brought me 
 of my father's death, his sickness being a lethargy, 
 caroSy or coma viligans, which continued long upon 
 him ; he seemed at last to die without much pain, 
 though in his senses. Upon opinion given by phy- 
 sicians that his disease was mortal, my mother 
 thought fit to send for me home, and presently after 
 my father's death to desire her brother Sir Francis 
 Newport to hasten to London, to obtain my wardship 
 for his and her use jointly, which he obtained. 
 Shortly after, I was sent again to my studies in 
 Oxford, where I had not been long but that an 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 25 
 
 overture for a match with the daughter and heir of 
 Sir William Herbert of St. Julians was made, the 
 occasion whereof was this : Sir William Herbert being 
 heir-male to the old Earl of Pembroke above- 
 mentioned, by a younger son of his (for the eldest 
 son had a daughter who carried away those great 
 possessions the Earl of Worcester now holds in 
 Monmouthshire, as I said before), having one only 
 daughter surviving, made a will whereby he estated 
 all his possessions in Monmouthshire and Ireland upon 
 his said daughter, upon condition she married one of 
 the surname of Herbert, otherwise the said lands to 
 descend to the heirs male of the said Sir William ; and 
 his daughter to have only a small portion out of the 
 lands he had in Anglesea and Carnarvonshire : his 
 lands being thus settled. Sir William died shortly 
 afterwards. He was a man much conversant with 
 books, and especially given to the study of divinity, 
 insomuch that he wrote an Exposition upon the 
 Revelations, which is printed ; though some thought 
 he was so far from finding the sense thereof as he was 
 from attaining the philosophers stone, which was 
 another part of his study: howsoever, he was very 
 understanding in all other things, he was noted yet to 
 be of a very high mind ; but I can say little of him, 
 as having never seen his person, nor otherwise had 
 much information concerninof him. His dauc^hter and 
 heir, called Mary, after her father died, continued 
 unmarried till she was one-and-twenty, none of the 
 Herberts appearing in all that time, who either in age 
 or fortune was fit to match her. 
 
26 
 
 A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 About this time I had attained the age of fifteen, and 
 a match at last being proposed, yet, notwithstanding 
 the disparity of years betwixt us, upon the eight-and- 
 twentieth of February, 1598, in the house of Eyton, 
 where the same vicar married my father and mother, 
 christened and married me, I espoused her. Not long 
 after my marriage I went again to Oxford, together 
 with my wife and mother, who took a house and lived 
 for some certain time there : and now, having a due 
 remedy for that lasciviousness to which youth is natu- 
 rally inclined, I followed my book more closely than 
 ever ; in which course I continued till I attained about 
 the age of eighteen, when my mother took a house in 
 London, between which place and Montgomery Castle I 
 passed my time till I came to the age of one-and-twenty, 
 having in that space divers children, I having none 
 now remaining but Beatrice, Richard, and Edward. 
 During this time of living in the university, or at 
 home, I did, without any master or teacher, attain the 
 knowledge of the French, Italian, and Spanish 
 languages, by the help of some books in Latin or 
 English, translated into those idioms, and the diction- 
 aries of those several languages : I attained also to 
 sing my part at first sight in music, and to play on 
 the lute with very little or at most no teaching. My 
 intention in learning languages being to make myself 
 a citizen of the world as far as it were possible ; and 
 my learning of music was for this end, that I might 
 entertain myself at home, and together refresh my 
 mind after my studies, to which I was exceedingly 
 inclined, and that I might not need the company of 
 
A UTOBIOGRA PHY, 
 
 27 
 
 young men, in whom I observed in those times much 
 ill example and debauchery. 
 
 Being gotten thus far into my age, I shall give some 
 observations concerning ordinary education, even from 
 the first infancy till the departure from the univer- 
 sity; as being desirous, together with the narration 
 of my life, to deliver such rules as I conceive may be 
 useful to my posterity. 
 
 And first, I find, that in the infancy those diseases 
 are to be remedied which may be hereditary unto 
 them on either side ; so that, if they be subject to the 
 stone or gravel, I do conceive it will be good for the 
 nurse sometimes to drink posset-drinks, in which are 
 boiled such things as are good to expel gravel and 
 stone : the child also himself, when he comes to some 
 age, may use the same posset-drinks of herbs, as 
 milium solis, saxifrigia, &c., good for the stone many 
 are reckoned by the physicians, of which also myself 
 could bring a large catalogue, but rather leave it to 
 those who are expert in that art. The same course 
 is to be taken for the gout, for which purpose I do 
 much commend the bathino- of children's le^fs and feet 
 in the water wherein smiths quench their iron, as also 
 water wherein alum hath been infused, or boiled, as 
 also the decoction of juniper-berries, bay-berries, 
 chamedriSy chamoepetiSy which baths also are good for 
 those that are hereditarily subject to the palsy, for 
 these things do much strengthen the sinews ; as also 
 olium castoriiy and succoniy which are not to be used 
 without advice. They that are also subject to the 
 spleen from their ancestors, ought to use those herbs 
 
28 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY. 
 
 that are splenetics ; and those that are troubled with 
 the falling sickness, with cephaliques, of which cer- 
 tainly I should have had need, but for the purging of 
 my ears above-mentioned. Briefly, what disease soever 
 it be that is derived from ancestors of either side, it 
 will be necessary first to give such medicines to the 
 nurse as may make her milk efiectual for those pur- 
 poses ; as also afterwards to give unto the child itself 
 such specific remedies as his age and constitution will 
 bear. I could say much more upon this point, as 
 having delighted ever in the knowledge of herbs 
 plants, and gums, and in few words, the history of 
 nature, insomuch that, coming to apothecaries' shops, 
 it was my ordinary manner, when I looked upon the 
 bills filed up, containing the physicians' prescriptions, 
 to tell every man's disease. Howbeit, I shall not 
 presume in these, particulars to prescribe to my 
 posterity, though I believe I know the best receipts 
 for almost all diseases, but shall leave them to expert 
 physicians; only I will recommend again to my 
 posterity the curing of hereditary diseases in the very 
 infancy, since otherwise, without much difficulty, they 
 will never be cured. 
 
 When children go to school, they should have one 
 to attend them who may take care of their manners 
 as well as the schoolmaster doth of their learning, 
 for among boys all vice is easily learned ; and here 
 I could wish it constantly observed, that neither the 
 master should correct him for faults of his manners, 
 nor his governor for manners for the faults in his 
 learning. After the alphabet is taught, I like well the 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 29 
 
 shortest and clearest grammars, and such books into 
 which all the Greek and Latin words are severally 
 contrived, in which kind one Comenus hath given an 
 example : this being done, it would be much better to 
 proceed with Greek authors than with Latin ; for as it 
 is as easy to learn at first the one as the other, it would 
 be much better to give the first impressions into the 
 child's memory of those things which are more rare 
 than usual ; therefore I would have them begin at Greek 
 first, and the rather, that there is not that art in the 
 world wherein the Greeks have not excelled and gone 
 before others : so that when you look upon philosophy, 
 astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and briefly, all 
 learning, the Greeks have exceeded all nations. 
 When he shall be ready to go to the university, it 
 will be fit also his governor for manners go along with 
 him, it being the frail nature of youth, as they grow 
 to ripeness in age, to be more capable of doing ill, 
 unless their manners be well guided, and themselves 
 by degrees habituated in virtue, with which if once 
 they acquaint themselves, they will find more pleasure 
 in it than ever they can do in vice ; since every body 
 loves virtuous persons, whereas the vicious do scarce 
 love one another. For this purpose, it will be neces- 
 sary that you keep the company of grave, learned 
 men, who are of good reputation, and hear rather 
 what they say, and follow what they do, than follow 
 the examples of young, wild, and rash persons ; and 
 certainly of those two parts which are to be acquired 
 in youth, whereof one is goodness and virtuous man- 
 ners, the other learning and knowledge, I shall so 
 
30 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 much prefer the first before the second, as I shall ever 
 think virtue accompanied with ordinary discretion, 
 will make his way better both to happiness in this 
 world and the next, than any puffed knowledge which 
 would cause him to be insolent and vainglorious, or 
 minister, as it were, arms and advantages to him for 
 doing a mischief ; so that it is pity that wicked dis- 
 positions should have knowledge to actuate their ill 
 intentions, or courage to maintain them, — that forti- 
 tude which should defend all a man's virtues being 
 never well employed to defend his humours, passions, 
 or vices. 
 
 ' I do not approve for elder brothers that course of 
 study which is ordinarily used in the university, 
 which is, if their parents perchance intend they shall 
 stay there four or five years, to employ the said time 
 as if they meant to proceed Masters of Art and 
 Doctors in some science ; for which purpose their 
 tutors commonly spend much time in teaching them 
 the subtilties of logic, which, as it is usually practised, 
 enables them for little more than to be excellent 
 wranglers, which art, though it may be tolerable in a 
 mercenary lawyer, I can by no means commend in a 
 sober and well-governed gentleman. 
 
 I approve much those parts of logic which teach 
 men to deduce their proofs from firm and undoubted 
 principles, and show men to distinguish betwixt truth 
 and falsehood, and help them to discover fallacies, 
 sophisms, and that which the schoolmen call vicious 
 argumentations, concerning which I shall not here 
 enter into a long discourse. So much of logic as may 
 
A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 31 
 
 serve for this purpose being acquired, some good sum 
 of philosophy may be learned, which may teach him 
 both the ground of the Platonic and Aristotelian 
 philosophy. After which, it will not be amiss to read 
 the Idea Medicince Philosophicce, written by Sever- 
 nius Danus, there being many things considerable 
 concerning the Paracelsian principles written in that 
 book, which are not to be found in former writers : 
 it will not be amiss also to read over Franciscus 
 Patricius, and Telesius, who have examined and con- 
 troverted the ordinary peripatetic doctrine ; all which 
 may be performed in one year, that term being 
 enough for philosophy, as I conceive, and six months 
 for logic ; for I am confident a man may have quickly 
 more than he needs of these two arts. 
 
 These being attained, it will be requisite to study 
 geography with exactness, so much as may teach a 
 man the situation of all countries in the whole world ; 
 together with which it will be fit to learn something 
 concerning the governments, manners, religions, either 
 ancient or new, as also the interests of states and 
 relations in amity, or strength in which they stand to 
 their neighbours : it will be necessary also, at the 
 same time, to learn the use of the celestial globe, the 
 studies of both globes being complicated and joined 
 together. I do not conceive yet the knowledge of 
 judicial astrology so necessary, but only for general 
 predictions ; particular events being neither intended 
 by nor collected out of the stars. 
 
 It will be also fit to learn arithmetic and geometry 
 in some good measure, but especially arithmetic, it 
 
32 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 being most useful for many purposes, and among the 
 rest for keeping accounts, whereof here is much use. 
 As for the knowledge of lines, superficies, and bodies, 
 though it be a science of much certainty and demon- 
 stration, it is not much useful for a gentleman, unless 
 it be to understand fortifications, the knowledge 
 whereof is worthy of those who intend the wars ; 
 though yet he must remember, that whatsoever art 
 doth in way of defence, art likewise, in way of assail- 
 ing, can destroy. This study hath cost me much 
 labour, but as yet I could never find how any place 
 could be so fortified, but that there were means in 
 certain opposite lines to prevent or subvert all that 
 could be done in that kind. 
 
 It will become a gentleman to have some knowledge 
 in medicine, especially the diagnostic part, whereby 
 he may take timely notice of a disease, and by that 
 means timely prevent it ; as also the prognostic part, 
 whereby he may judge of the symptoms either 
 increasing or decreasing in the disease, as also con- 
 cerning the crisis or indication thereof. This art will 
 get a gentleman not only much knowledge, but much 
 credit ; since seeing any sick body, he will be able to 
 tell, in all human probability, whether he shall recover, 
 or if he shall die of the disease, to tell what signs 
 shall go before, and what the conclusion will be. It 
 will become him also to know not only the ingredients, 
 but doses of certain cathartic or purging, emetic or 
 vomitive medicines, specific or choleric, melancholic, 
 or phlegmatic constitutions, phlebotomy being only 
 necessary for those who abound in blood. Besides, I 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 33 
 
 would have a gentleman know how to make these 
 medicines himself, and afterwards prepare them with 
 his own hands ; it being the manner of apothecaries 
 so frequently to put in the succedanea, that no man 
 is sure to find with them medicines made with the 
 true drugs which ought to enter into the composition 
 when it is exotic or rare ; or when they are extant in 
 the shop, no man can be assured that the said drugs 
 are not rotten, or that they have not lost their natural 
 force and virtue. I have studied this art very much 
 also, and have, in cases of extremity, ministered physic 
 with that success which is strange, whereof I shall 
 give two or three examples. Richard Griffiths, of 
 Sutton, my servant, being sick of a malignant pesti- 
 lent fever, and tried in vain all our country physicians 
 could do, and his water at last stinking so grievously, 
 which physicians note to be a sign of extension of 
 natural heat, and consequently of present death, I was 
 entreated to see him, when as yet he had neither 
 eaten, drank, slept, or known anybody for the space 
 of six or seven days ; whereupon, demanding whether 
 the physicians had given him over, and it being 
 answered unto me that they had, I said it would not 
 be amiss to give him the quantity of an hazle-nut of a 
 certain rare receipt which I had, assuring, that if any- 
 thing in the world could recover him, that would ; of 
 which I was so confident, that I would come the next 
 day at four of the clock in the afternoon unto him, 
 and at that time I doubted not but they should find 
 signs of amendment, provided they should put the 
 doses I gave them, being about the bigness of a nufc, 
 
 48s 
 
34 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 down his throat ; which being done with much 
 difficulty, I came the morrow after at the hour 
 appointed, when, to the wonder of his family, he 
 knew me, and asked for some broth, and not long 
 after recovered. 
 
 My cousin Athelston Owen, also of Rhiew Saeson, 
 having an hydrocephale also in that extremity, that 
 his eyes began to start out of his head, and his tongue 
 to come out of his mouth, and his whole head finally 
 exceeding its natural proportion, insomuch that his 
 physicians likewise left him, I prescribed to him the 
 decoction of two diuretic roots, which after he had 
 drank four or five days, he urined in that abundance 
 that his head by degrees returned to its ancient figure, 
 and all other signs of health appeared ; whereupon 
 also he wrote a letter to me, that he was so suddenly 
 and perfectly restored to his former health, that it 
 seemed more like a miracle than a cure ; for those are 
 the very words in the letter he sent me. 
 
 I cured a great lady in London of an issue of blood, 
 when all the physicians had given her over, with so 
 easy a medicine, that the lady herself was astonished 
 to find the effects thereof. I could give more 
 examples in this kind, but these shall suffice ; I will 
 for the rest deliver a rule I conceive for finding out 
 the bests receipts not only for curing all inward but 
 outward hurts, such as are ulcers, tumours, contusions, 
 wounds, and the like : you must look upon all 
 pharmacopseias or antidotaries of several countries ; of 
 which sort I have in my library the Pharmacopoeia 
 LondinensiSj Parisiensis, Amstelredamensis, that of 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 35 
 
 Quercetanus,^ Bauderonus, Renadeus, Valerius Scordus, 
 Pharmaco'poeia Goloniensis, Augustana, Venetiana, 
 Vononiensis, Florentina, Romana, Messanensis ; in some 
 of which are told not only what the receipts there set 
 down are good for, but the doses of them. The rule I 
 here give is, that what all the said dipensatorsies, an- 
 tidotaries, or pharmacopseias prescribe as effectual for 
 overcoming a disease, is certainly good ; for as they 
 are set forth by authority of the physicians of these 
 several countries, what they all ordain must necessarily 
 be effectual : but they who will follow my advice, 
 shall find in that little short antidotary called 
 Amstelredamensis, not long since put forth, almost all 
 that is necessary to be known for curing of diseases, 
 wounds, etc. There is a book called Aurora 
 Medicoi'um, very fit to be read in this kind. Among 
 writers of physic, I do especially commend, after 
 Hippocrates and Galen, Fernelius,^ Lud. Mercatus, and 
 Dan. Sennertus, and Heurnius. I could name many 
 more but I conceive these may suffice. As for the 
 chemic or spagyric medicines, I cannot commend them 
 
 1 Josephus Quercetanus published a Pharmacopoeia Dogmaticorum 
 Restituta, 1607, 4to. Paris. Bricius Bauderonus, Pharmacopoeia et 
 Praxis Medica, 1620, Paris. Johannes Renodajus, Dispensatorium 
 Medicum et Antidotarium, 1609, 4to. Paris. Valerius Cordus, 
 Dispensatorium, Antw. 1568. 
 
 2 Johannes Fernelius (Physician to Henry II. of France) published 
 Opera Medicinalia, et Universa Medicina, 1564, 4to. et 1577, fol. 
 Lud. Mercatus (physician to Philip II. and III. of Spain) was author 
 of Opera Medica et Chirurgica, fol. Francof. 1620. Daniel Sennertus 
 published Institutiones Medicinte, 1620 ; and Johannes Heurnius a 
 work of the same title, 1597. Lugduni, 
 
36 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 to the use of my posterity, there being neither emetic, 
 cathartic, diaphoretic, diuretic medicines extant among 
 them, which are not much more happily and safely 
 performed by vegetables ; but hereof enough, since I 
 pretend no further than to give some few directions to 
 my posterity. 
 
 In the meanwhile I conceive it is a fine study, and 
 worthy a gentleman, to be a good botanic, that so he 
 may know the nature of all herbs and plants, being 
 our fellow-creatures, and made for the use of man ; for 
 which purpose it will be fit for him to cull out of some 
 good herbal all the icones together, with the descrip- 
 tions of them, and to lay by themselves all such as 
 grow in England ; and afterwards to select again such 
 as usually grow by the highway-side, in meadows, by 
 rivers, or in marshes, or in corn-fields, or in dry and 
 mountainous places, or on rocks, walls, or in shady 
 places, such as grow by the sea-side ; for this being 
 done, and the said icones being ordinarily carried by 
 themselves, or by their servants, one may presently find 
 out every herb he meets withal, especially if the said 
 flowers be truly coloured. Afterwards it will not be 
 amiss to distinguish by themselves such herbs as are 
 in gardens and are exotics, and are transplanted 
 hither. 
 
 As for those plants which will not endure our clime, 
 though the knowledge of them be worthy of a 
 gentleman, and the virtues of them be fit to be 
 learned, especially if they be brought over to a 
 druggist as medicinal, yet the icones of them are not 
 so pertinent to be known as the former, unless it be 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 37 
 
 where there is less danger of adulterating the said 
 medicaments; in which case it is good to have recourse 
 to not only the botanies, but also to Gesnar's Dispensa- 
 tory, and to Aurora Medicorum above-mentioned, 
 being books which make a man distinguish betwixt 
 good and bad drugs. And thus much of medicine may 
 not only be useful but delectable to a gentleman, since 
 which way soever he passeth, he may find something 
 to entertain him. I must no less commend the study 
 of anatomy, which whosoever considers, I believe will 
 never be an atheist ; the frame of a man s body and 
 coherence of his parts being so strange and paradoxal, 
 that I hold it to be the greatest miracle of nature ; 
 though when all is done, I do not find she hath made 
 it so much as proof against one disease, lest it should 
 be thought to have made it no less than a prison to 
 the soul. 
 
 Having thus passed over all human literature, it 
 will be fit to say something of moral virtues and 
 theological learning. As for the first, since the Chris- 
 tians and the heathens are in a manner agreed con- 
 cerning the definitions of virtues, it would not be 
 inconvenient to begin with those definitions which 
 Aristotle in his Morals hath given, as being confirmed 
 for the most part by the Platonics, Stoics, and other 
 philosophers, and in general by the Christian Church, 
 as well as all nations in the world whatsoever ; they 
 being doctrines imprinted in the soul in its first 
 original, and containing the principal and first notices 
 by which man may attain his happiness here or 
 hereafter ; there being no man that is given to vice 
 
38 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHV. 
 
 that doth not find much opposition both in his own 
 conscience, and in the religion and law is taught 
 I elsewhere ; and this I dare say, that a virtuous 
 man may not only go securely through all the 
 religions, but all the laws in the world, and 
 whatsoever obstructions he meets, obtain both an 
 inward peace and outward welcome among all with 
 whom he shall negociate or converse : this virtue, 
 therefore, I shall recommend to my posterity as the 
 greatest perfection he can attain unto in this life, 
 and the pledge of eternal happiness hereafter ; there 
 being none that can justly hope of an union with the 
 supreme God, that doth not come as near to him in 
 this life in virtue and goodness as he can ; so that if 
 human frailty do interrupt this union by committing 
 faults that make him incapable of his everlasting 
 happiness, it will be fit, by a serious repentance, to 
 expiate and emaculate those faults, and for the rest 
 trust to the mercy of God, his Creator, Redeemer, and 
 Preserver, who being our Father, and knowing well 
 in what a weak condition through infirmities we are, 
 will, I doubt not, commiserate those transgressions 
 we commit, when they are done without desire to 
 offend his Divine Majesty, and together rectify our 
 understanding through his grace : since we commonly 
 sin through no other cause, but that we mistook a 
 true good for that which was only apparent, and so 
 were deceived, by making an undue election in the 
 objects proposed to us ; wherein, though it will be 
 fit for every man to confess that he hath offended 
 an infinite Majesty and Power, yet, as upon better 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 39 
 
 consideration he finds he did not mean infinitely to 
 offend, there will be just reason to believe that God 
 will not inflict an infinite punishment upon him if he 
 be truly penitent, so that his justice may be satisfied, 
 if not with man's repentance, yet at least with some 
 temporal punishment here or hereafter, such as may 
 be proportionable to the offence ; though I cannot 
 deny but when man would infinitely offend God in a 
 despiteful and contemptuous way, it will be just that 
 he suffer an infinite punishment : but as I hope none 
 are so wicked as to sin purposedly and with an high 
 hand against the eternal Majesty of God, so when 
 they shall commit any sins out of frailty, I shall 
 believe either that unless they be finally impenitent, 
 and (as they say) sold ingeniously over to sin, God's 
 mercy will accept of their endeavours to return into 
 a right way, and so make their peace with him by all 
 those good means that are possible. 
 
 Having thus recommended the learning of moral 
 philosophy and practice of virtue, as the most neces- 
 sary knowledge and useful exercise of man's life, I 
 shall observe, that even in the employing of our 
 virtues, discretion is required ; for every virtue is not 
 promiscuously to be used, but such only as is proper 
 for the present occasion. Therefore, though a wary 
 and discreet wisdom be most useful where no im- 
 minent danger appears, yet, where an enemy draweth 
 his sword against you, you shall have most use of 
 fortitude, prevention being too late, when the danger 
 is so pressing. On the other side, there is no occasion 
 to use your fortitude against wrongs done by women 
 
46 
 
 A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 or children, or ignorant persons, that I may say 
 nothing of those that are much your superiors, who 
 are magistrates, etc., since you might by a discreet 
 wisdom have declined the injury, or when it were too 
 late to do so, you may with more equal mind support 
 that which is done, either by authority in the one, or 
 frailty in the other. And certainly to such kind of 
 persons forgiveness will be proper ; in which kind 
 I am confident no man of my time hath exceeded me ; 
 for though whensoever my honour hath been engaged, 
 no man hath ever been more forward to hazard his 
 life, yet where with my honour I could forgive, 
 I never used revenge, as leaving it always to God, 
 who, the less I punish mine enemies, will inflict so 
 much the more punishment on them ; and to this for- 
 giveness of others three considerations have especially 
 invited me. 
 
 1. That he that cannot forgive others, breaks the 
 bridge over which he must pass himself, for every 
 man hath need to be forgiven. 
 
 2. That when a man wants or comes short of an 
 entire and accomplished virtue, our defects may be 
 supplied this way, since the forgiving of evil deeds 
 in others amounteth to no less than virtue in us ; that 
 therefore it may be not unaptly called the paying our 
 debts with another man's money. 
 
 3. That it is the most necessary and proper work of 
 every man ; for, though when I do not a just thing, 
 or a charitable, or a wise, another man may do 
 it for me, yet no man can forgive my enemy but 
 myself : and these have been the chief motives for 
 
A UTOBIOQRAPH K 
 
 41 
 
 which I have been ever inclined to forgiveness ; 
 whereof, though I have rarely found other effect than ; . 
 that my servants, tenants, and neighbours, have ' 
 thereupon more frequently offended me, yet at least 
 I have had within me an inward peace and comfort 
 thereby, since I can truly say, nothing ever gave 
 my mind more ease than when I had forgiven my 
 enemies, which freed me from many cares and 
 perturbations, which otherwise would have molested 
 me. 
 
 And this likewise brino:s in another rule con- 
 cerning the use of virtues, which is, that you are 
 not to use justice where mercy is most proper ; as, 
 on the other side, a foolish pity is not to be 
 preferred before that which is just and necessary for 
 good example. So likewise liberality is not to be 
 used where parsimony or frugality is more requisite ; 
 as, on the other side, it will be but a sordid thing in 
 a gentleman to spare where expending of money 
 would acquire unto him advantage, credit, or 
 honour ; and this rule in general ought to be 
 practised, that the virtue requisite to the occasion 
 is ever to be produced, as the most opportune and 
 necessary. That, therefore, wisdom is the soul of all 
 virtues, giving them, as unto her members, life and 
 motion, and so necessary in every action, that 
 whosoever by the benefit of true wisdom makes 
 use of the rio-ht virtue on all emernrent occasions, I 
 dare say would never be constrained to have recourse 
 to vice, whereby it appears that every virtue is not 
 to be employed indifferently, but that only which is 
 
42 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 proper for the business in question ; among which 
 yet temperance seems so universally requisite, that 
 some part of it at least will be a necessary 
 ingredient in all human actions, since there may be 
 an excess even in religious worship, at those times 
 when other duties are required at our hands. After 
 all, moral virtues are learned and directed to the 
 service and glory of God, as the principal end and use 
 of them. 
 
 It would be fit that some time be spent in 
 learning rhetoric or oratory, to the intent that 
 upon all occasions you may express yourself with 
 eloquence and grace ; for as it is not enough for 
 a man to have a diamond, unless it is polished and 
 cut out into its due angles, and a foil be set under- 
 neath, whereby it may the better transmit and vibrate 
 its native lustre and rays ; so it will not be sufficient 
 for a man to have a great understanding in all matters, 
 unless the said understanding be not only polished 
 and clear, but underset and holpen a little with those 
 figures, tropes, and colours which rhetoric affords, 
 where there is use of persuasion. I can by no means 
 yet commend an affected eloquence, there being 
 nothing so pedantical, or indeed that would give more 
 suspicion that the truth is not intended, than to use 
 overmuch the common forms prescribed in schools. 
 It is well said by them, that there are two parts of 
 eloquence necessary and recommendable ; one is, to 
 speak hard things plainly, so that when a knotty or 
 intricate business, having no method or coherence in 
 its parts, shall be presented, it will be a singular part 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHV, 
 
 43 
 
 of oratory to take those parts asunder, set them 
 together aptly, and so exhibit them to the under- 
 standing. And this part of rhetoric I much commend 
 to every body, there being no true use of speech but to 
 make things clear, perspicuous, and manifest, which 
 otherwise would be perplexed, doubtful, and obscure. 
 
 The other part of oratory is to speak common things 
 ingeniously or wittily, there being no little vigour and 
 force added to words, when they are delivered in a 
 neat and fine way, and somewhat out of the ordinary 
 road, common and dull language relishing more of the 
 clown than the gentleman. But herein also affectation 
 must be avoided ; it being better for a man by a 
 native and clear eloquence to express himself, than by 
 those words which may smell either of the lamp or 
 ink-horn ; so that, in general, one may observe that 
 men who fortify and uphold their speeches with 
 strong and evident reasons, have ever operated more 
 on the minds of the auditors, than those who have 
 made rhetorical excursions. 
 
 It will be better for a man who is doubtful of his 
 pay to take an ordinary silver piece with its due 
 stamp upon it, than an extraordinary gilded piece, 
 which may perchance contain a baser metal under 
 it ; and perefer a well-flavoured wholesome woman, 
 though with a tawny complexion, before a besmeared 
 and painted face. 
 
 It is a general note, that a man s wit is best shewed 
 in his answer, and his valour in his defence ; that 
 therefore as men learn in fencing how to ward all 
 blows and thrusts which are or can be made against 
 
44 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 him, so it will be fitting to debate and resolve before- 
 hand what you are to say or do upon any affront 
 given you, least otherwise you should be surprised. 
 Aristotle hath written a book of rhetoric, a work in 
 my opinion not inferior to his best pieces, whom 
 therefore with Cicero de Oratore, as also Quintilian, 
 you may read for your instruction how to speak, 
 neither of which two yet I can think so exact in 
 their orations, but that a middle style will be of more 
 efficacy, Cicero in my opinion being too long and 
 tedious, and Quintilian too short and concise. 
 
 Having thus by moral philosophy enabled yourself 
 to all that wisdom and goodness which is requisite to 
 direct you in all your particular actions, it will be fit 
 now to think how you are to behave yourself as a 
 public person, or member of the commonwealth and 
 kingdom wherein you live ; as also to look into those 
 principles and grounds upon which government is 
 framed, it being manifest in nature that the wise doth 
 easily govern the foolish, and the strong master the 
 weak ; so that he that could attain most wisdom and 
 power, would quickly rule his fellows ; for proof 
 whereof, one may observe that a king is sick during 
 that time the physicians govern him, and in day of 
 battle an expert general appoints the king a place in 
 which he shall stand, which was anciently the office 
 of the constables de France. In law also, the judge is 
 in a sort superior to his king, as long as he judgeth 
 betwixt him and his people. In divinity also, he to 
 whom the king commits the charge of his conscience, 
 is his superior in that particular. All which instances 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 45 
 
 may sufficiently prove, that in many cases the wiser 
 governs or commands one less wise than himself, 
 unless a wilful obstinacy be interposed ; in which case 
 recourse must be had to strength where obedience is 
 necessary. 
 
 The exercises I chiefly used, and most recommend 
 to my posterity, were riding the great horse and 
 fencing, in which arts I had excellent masters, 
 English, French, and Italian ; as for dancing, I could 
 never find leisure enough to learn it, as employing my 
 mind always in acquiring of some art or science more 
 useful ; howbeit, I shall wish these three exercises 
 learned in this order. 
 
 That dancing may be learned first, as that which 
 doth fashion the body, gives one a good presence in 
 and address to all companies, since it disposeth the 
 limbs to a kind of souplesse (as the Frenchmen call it) 
 and agility, insomuch as they seem to have the use of 
 their legs, arms, and bodies, more than any others, 
 who, standing stiff* and stark in their postures, seem 
 as if they were taken in their joints, or had not the 
 perfect use of their members. I speak not this yet as 
 if I would have a youth never stand still in company, 
 but only that, when he hath occasion to stir, his 
 motions may be comely and graceful ; that he may 
 learn to know how to come in and go out of a room 
 where company is; how to make courtesies hand- 
 somely, according to the several degrees of persons he 
 shall encounter ; how to put off* and hold his hat ; all 
 which, and many other things which become men, are 
 taught by the more accurate dancing-masters in France. 
 
46 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 The next exercise a young man should learn (but 
 not before he is eleven or twelve years of age) is 
 fencing ; for the attaining of which the Frenchman's 
 rule is excellent, hon pied bon oeil, by which to teach 
 men how far they may stretch out their feet when 
 they would make a thrust against their enemy, lest 
 either should overstride themselves, or not striding 
 far enough, fail to bring the point of their weapon 
 home : the second part of his direction adviseth the 
 scholar to keep a fixed eye upon the point of his 
 enemy's sword, to the intent he may both put by or 
 ward the blows and thrusts made against him, and 
 together direct the point of his sword upon some part 
 of his enemy that lieth naked and open to him. 
 
 The good fencing-masters, in France especially, 
 when they present a foil or fieuret to their scholars, 
 tell him it hath two parts, one of which he calleth 
 the fort, or strong, and the other the faible, or weak. 
 With the fort or strong, which extends from the 
 part of the hilt next the sword about a third part 
 of the whole length, thereof he teacheth his scholars 
 to defend themselves, and put by and ward the 
 thrusts and blows of his enemy, and with the other 
 two third parts to strike or thrust, as he shall see occa- 
 sion ; which rule also teacheth how to strike or thrust 
 high or low as his enemy doth, and briefly to take his 
 measure and time upon his adversary's motions, 
 whereby he may both defend himself or offend his 
 adversary, of which I have had much experiment and 
 use, both in the fleuret, or foil, as also when I fought 
 in good earnest with many persons at one and the 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPHY, 
 
 47 
 
 same time, as will appear in the sequel of my 
 life. 
 
 And, indeed, I think I shall not speak vain- 
 gloriously of myself, if I say, that no man understood 
 the use of his weapon better than I did, or hath more 
 dexterously prevailed himself thereof on all occasions ; 
 since I found no man could be hurt but through some 
 error in fencing. 
 
 I spent much time also in learning to ride the great 
 horse,! that creature being made above all others for 
 the service of man, as giving his rider all the 
 advantages of which he is capable, while sometimes 
 he gives him strength, sometimes agility or motion, 
 for the overcoming of his enemy, insomuch that a good 
 rider on a good horse, is as much above himself and 
 others, as this world can make him. The rule for 
 graceful riding is, that a man hold his eyes always 
 betwixt the two ears, and his rod over the left ear of 
 his horse, which he is to use for turning him every 
 way, helping himself with his left foot, and rod upon 
 the left part of his neck, to make his horse turn on the 
 right hand, and with the right foot and help of his 
 rod also (if needs be), to turn him on the left hand ; 
 but this is to be used rather when one would make 
 a horse understand these motions, than when he is 
 a ready horse, the foot and stirrup alone applied to a 
 either shoulder being sufficient, with the help of the 
 reins, to make him turn any way. That a rider thus 
 may have the use of his sword, or when it is requisite 
 
 ^ The horse of exceptional size and strength used in war. 
 
48 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 only to make a horse go sidewards, it will be enough 
 to keep the reins equal in his hand, and with the flat 
 of his leg and foot together, and a touch upon the 
 shoulder of the horse with the stirrup, to make him 
 go sideward either way, without either advancing 
 forward or returning backwards. 
 
 The most useful air, as the Frenchmen term it, 
 is terre-h'terre ; the courbettes, cabrioles, or un pas et 
 un saut} being fitter for horses of parade and triumph 
 than for soldiers ; yet I cannot deny but a demivolte 
 with courbettes, so that they be not too high, may be 
 useful in a fight or melee, for, as Labroue hath it in 
 his book of horsemanship. Monsieur de Montmorency 
 having a horse that was excellent in performing the 
 demivolte, did with his sword strike down two adver- 
 saries from their horses in a tourney, where divers of 
 the prime gallants of France did meet ; for taking his 
 time when the horse was in the height of his courbette, 
 and discharging a blow, then his sword fell with such 
 weight and force upon the two cavaliers one after 
 another, that he struck them from their horses to the 
 ground. 
 
 The manner of fighting a duel on horseback I was 
 tauo^ht thus : we had each of us a reasonable stiff* 
 riding-rod in our hands, about the length of a sword, 
 and so rid one against the other; he, as the more 
 expert, sat still to pass me, and then to get behind me, 
 and after to turn with his right hand upon my left 
 side with his rod, that so he might hit me with the 
 
 * Terms of horsemanship for different leaps. 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHV. 
 
 49 
 
 point thereof in the body ; and he that can do this 
 handsomely, is sure to overcome his adversarj^, it 
 being impossible to bring his sword about enough to 
 defend himself or offend the assailant ; and to get this 
 advantage, which they call in French gagner la 
 croupe^ nothing is so useful as to make a horse to go 
 only sideward until his adversary be past him, since 
 he will by this means avoid his adversary's blow or 
 thrust, and on a sudden get on the left hand of his 
 adversary, in the manner I formerly related. But of 
 this art let Labroue and PluvineP be read, who are 
 excellent masters in that art, of whom I must confess 
 I learned much ; though, to speak ingeniously, my 
 breaking two or three colts, and teaching them after- 
 wards those airs of which they were most capable, 
 taught me both what I was to do, and made me see 
 mine errors, more than all their precepts. 
 
 To make a horse fit for the wars, and embolden him 
 against all terrors, these inventions are useful : to 
 beat a drum out of the stable first, and then give him 
 his provender, then beat a drum in the stable by 
 degrees, and then give him his provender upon the 
 drum. When he is acquainted herewith sufficiently, 
 you must shoot off' a pistol out of the stable, before 
 he hath his provender ; then you may shoot off* a pistol 
 in the stable, and so by degrees bring it as near 
 
 ^ Antoine de Pluvinel, Master of Horse to Louis XIII., published a 
 folio entitled, Instruction du Roi en texercise de montcr cheval. 
 Paris, 1619. It consists of dialogues between the young King, the 
 Due de Bellegarde, and himself ; with cuts by Crispin Pass, exhibiting 
 the system of the manege. Labroue, also an author on equitation. 
 
 486 
 
50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to him as you can till he be acquainted with the 
 pistol, likewise remembering still after every shot to 
 give him more provender. You must also cause his 
 groom to put on bright armour, and so to rub his 
 heels and dress him ; you must also present a sword 
 before him in the said armour, and when you have 
 done, give him still some more provender. Lastly, his 
 rider must bring his horse forth into the open field, 
 where a bright armour must be fastened upon a stake, 
 and set forth in the likeness of an armed man as much 
 as possible ; which being done, the rider must put his 
 horse on till he make him not only approach the said 
 image, but throw it down ; which being done, you 
 must be sure to give him some provender, that he 
 may be encouraged to do the like against an adver- 
 sary in battle. It will be good also that two men do 
 hold up a cloak betwixt them in the field, and then 
 the rider to put the horse to it till he leap over, which 
 cloak also they may raise as they see occasion, when 
 the horse is able to leap so high. You shall do well 
 also to use your horse to swimming, which you may 
 do either by trailing him after you at the tail of a 
 boat, in a good river, holding him by the head at the 
 length of the bridle, or by putting a good swimmer, 
 in a linen waistcoat and breeches, upon him. 
 
 It will be fit for a gentleman also to learn to swim, 
 unless he be given to cramps and convulsions ; how- 
 beit, I must confess, in my own particular, that I 
 cannot swim, for as I was once in danger of drowning 
 by learning to swim, my mother upon her blessing 
 charged me never to learn swimming, telling me 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 farther, that she had heard of more drowned than 
 saved by it ; which reason, though it did not prevail 
 with me, yet her commandment did. It will be good 
 also for a gentleman to learn to leap, wrestle, and 
 vault on horseback, they being all of them qualities of 
 great use. I do much approve likewise of shooting 
 in the long bow, as being both an healthful exercise, 
 and useful for the wars, notwithstanding all that our 
 firemen speak against it ; for, bring a hundred archers 
 against so many musqueteers, I say if the archer 
 comes within his distance, he will not only make two 
 shoots, but two hits for one. 
 
 The exercises I do not approve of are riding of 
 running horses,^ there being much cheating in that 
 kind ; neither do I see why a brave man should 
 delight in a creature whose chief use is to help him to 
 run away. I do not much like of hunting horses, 
 that exercise taking up more time than can be spared 
 from a man studious to get knowledge ; it is enough, 
 therefore, to know the sport, if there be any in it, 
 without making it an ordinary practice ; and indeed 
 of the two hawking is the better, because less time is 
 spent in it ; and upon these terms also I can allow a 
 little bowling, so that the company be choice and good. 
 
 The exercises I wholly condemn, are dicing and 
 carding, especially if you play for any great sum of 
 money, or spend any time in them, or use to come to 
 meetings in dicing-houses, where cheaters meet and 
 
 ^ Newmarket, observes Mr. Lee, was acquiring its first fame in the 
 fashionable world when Lord Herbert was a young man. 
 
52 
 
 A TJTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 cozen young gentlemen of all their money. I could 
 say much more concerning all these points of educa- 
 tion, and particularly concerning the discreet civility 
 which is to be observed in communication either with 
 friends or strangers, but this work would grow too 
 big, and that many precepts conducing thereunto may 
 be had in Gnazzo de la Civile Conversation and 
 Galeteus de Morihus. 
 
 It would also deserve a particular lecture or 
 recherche, how one ought to behave himself with 
 children, servants, tenants, and neighbours ; and I am 
 confident that precepts in this point will be found 
 more useful to young gentlemen than all the subtelties 
 of schools. I confess I have collected many things to 
 this purpose, which I forbear to set down here, 
 because (if God grant me life and health) I intend to 
 make a little treatise concerning these points. I shall 
 return now to the narration of mine own history. 
 
 When I had attained the age betwixt eighteen or 
 nineteen years, my mother, together with myself and 
 wife, removed up to London, where we took house, 
 and kept a greater family than became either my 
 mother s widow's estate, or such young beginners as 
 we were, especially since six brothers and three sisters 
 were to be provided for, my father having made 
 either no will, or such an imperfect one, that it was 
 not proved. My mother, although she had all my 
 father's leases and goods, which were of great value, 
 yet she desired me to undertake that burden of pro- 
 viding for my brothers and sisters, which, to gratify 
 my mother, as well as those so near me, I was 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH V. 
 
 53- 
 
 voluntarily content to provide thus far, as to give my 
 six brothers thirty pounds apiece yearly, during their 
 lives, and my sisters one thousand pounds apiece, 
 which portions married them to those I have above 
 mentioned. My younger sister, indeed, might have 
 been married to a far greater fortune, had not the 
 overthwartness of some neighbours interrupted it. 
 
 About the year of our Lord 1600, I came to 
 London, shortly after which the attempt of the Earl 
 of Essex, related in our history, followed, which I had 
 rather were seen in the writers of that argument than 
 here. Not long after this, curiosity, rather than 
 ambition, brought me to court; and, as it was the 
 manner of those times for all men to kneel down 
 before the great Queen Elizabeth, who then reigned, 
 I was likewise upon my knees in the presence-cham- 
 ber, when she passed by to the chapel at Whitehall. 
 As soon as she saw me she stopped, and swearing her 
 usual oath,^ demanded, " Who is this ? " Everybody 
 there present looked upon me, but no man knew me, 
 until Sir James Croft, a pensioner, finding the queen 
 stayed, returned back and told who I was, and that I 
 had married Sir William Herbert of St. Julian's 
 daughter. The queen hereupon looked attentively 
 upon me, and swearing again her ordinary oath, said, 
 " It is pity he was married so young ; " and thereupon 
 gave her hand to kiss twice, both times gently clapping 
 me on the cheek. I remember little more of myself, 
 but that from that time until King James's coming to 
 
 1 God's death f" 
 
54 
 
 4 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the crown, I had a son, which died shortly afterwards, 
 and that I attended my studies seriously, the more 
 I learnt out of my books adding still a desire to know 
 more. 
 
 King James being now acknowledged king, and 
 coming towards London, I thought fit to meet his 
 majesty at Burleigh, near Stamford. Shortly after I 
 was made Knight of the Bath, with the usual cere- 
 monies belonging to that ancient order. I could tell 
 how much my person was commended by the lords 
 and ladies that came to see the solemnity then used, 
 but I shall flatter myself too much if I believed it. 
 
 I must not forget yet the ancient custom, being 
 that some principal person was to put on the right 
 spur of those the king had appointed to receive that 
 dignity. The Earl of Shrewsbury seeing my esquire 
 there with my spur in his hand, voluntarily came to 
 me and said, " Cousin, I believe you will be a good 
 knight, and therefore 1 will put on your spur ; " 
 whereupon after my most humble thanks for so great 
 a favour, I held up my leg against the wall, and he 
 put on my spur. 
 
 There is another custom likewise, that the knights 
 the first day wear the gown of some religious order, 
 and the night following to be bathed ; after which 
 they take an oath never to sit in place where injustice 
 should be done, but they shall right it to the utter- 
 most of their power ; and particularly ladies and 
 gentlewomen that shall be wronged in their honour, 
 if they demand assistance, and many other points, not 
 unlike the romances of knight errantry. 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH V. 55 
 
 The second day to wear robes of crimson tafFety (in 
 which habit I am painted in my study), and so to 
 ride from St. James's to Whitehall, with our esquires 
 before us ; and the third day to wear a gown of purple 
 satin, upon the left sleeve whereof is fastened certain 
 strings weaved of white silk and gold tied in a knot, 
 and tassels to it of the same, which all the knights 
 are obliged to wear until they have done something 
 famous in arms, or until some lady of honour take it 
 off, and fasten it on her sleeve, saying, I will answer 
 he shall prove a good knight. I had not long worn 
 this string, but a principal lady of the court, and 
 certainly, in most men's opinion, the handsomest,^ 
 took mine olf, and said she would pledge her honour 
 for mine. I do not name this lady, because some 
 passages happened afterwards, which oblige me to 
 silence, though nothing could be justly said to her 
 prejudice or wrong. 
 
 Shortly after this I intended to go with Charles, 
 Earl of Nottingham, the Lord Admiral, who went to 
 Spain to take the king's oath for confirmation of tlie 
 articles of peace betwixt the two crowns ; howbeit, 
 by tlie industry of some near me, who desired to stay 
 
 ^ It is uncertain who this lady was ; but there is no doubt of her 
 being the same person mentioned afterwards, whom he calls the fairest 
 of her time. Perhaps, conjecturing from a passage of Selden, Lady 
 Kent. Lady Kent articled with Sir Edward Herbert that he should 
 come to her when she sent for him, and stay with her as long as she 
 would have him, to which he set his hand ; tlien he articled with her 
 that he should go away wlien he pleased, and stay away as long as he 
 pleased, to which she set her hand." 
 
56 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 me at home, I was hindered, and instead of going that 
 voyage, was made Sheriff of Montgomeryshire, con- 
 cerning which I will say no more, but that I bestowed 
 the place of under-sheriff, as also other places in my 
 gifts freely, without either taking gift or reward ; 
 which custom also I have observed throughout the 
 whole course of my life ; insomuch that when I was 
 ambassador in France, and might have had great 
 presents, which former ambassadors accepted, for 
 doing lawful courtesies to merchants and others, yet 
 no gratuity, upon what terms soever, could ever be 
 fastened upon me. 
 
 This public duty did not hinder me yet to follow 
 my beloved studies in a country life for the most part ; 
 although sometimes also I resorted to court, without 
 yet that I had any ambition there, and much less was 
 tainted with those corrupt delights incident to the 
 times ; for, living with my wife in all conjugal loyalty 
 for the space of about ten years after my marriage, 
 I wholly declined the allurements and temptations 
 whatsoever, which mii^ht incline me to violate mv 
 marriage bed. 
 
 About the year 1608, my two daughters, called 
 Beatrice, and Florence who lived not yet long after, 
 and one son Richard beino^ born, and come to so much 
 maturity, that, though in their mere childhood, they 
 gave no little hopes of themselves for the future 
 time, I called them all before my wife, demanding 
 how she liked them, to which she answering, "Well;'' 
 I demanded then, whether she was willing to do so 
 much for them as I would ? Whereupon she, replying, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 57 
 
 demanded what I meant by that. I told her, that for 
 my part I was but young for a man, and she not old 
 for a woman ; that our lives were in the hands of 
 God ; that, if He pleased to call either of us away, 
 that party which remained might marry again, and 
 have children by some other, to which our estates 
 might be disposed ; for preventing whereof I thought 
 fit to motion to her, that if she would assure upon the 
 son any quantity of lands from three hundred pounds 
 a year to one thousand I would do the like. But my 
 wife not approving hereof, answered in these express 
 words, that she would not draw the cradle upon her 
 head ; whereupon, I desiring her to advise better 
 upon the business, and to take some few days' respite 
 for that purpose, she seemed to depart from me not 
 very well contented. 
 
 About a week or ten days afterwards, I demanded 
 again what she thought concerning the motion I 
 made, to which yet she said no more, but that she 
 thought she had already answered me sufficiently to 
 the point. I told her then, that I should make 
 another motion to her, which was, that in regard I 
 was too young to go beyond sea before I married her, 
 she now would give me leave for a while to see 
 foreign countries ; howbeit, if she would assure her 
 lands as I would mine, in the manner above men- 
 tioned, I would never depart from her. She answered, 
 that I knew her mind before concerning that point, 
 yet that she should be sorry I went beyond sea, 
 nevertheless, if I would needs go, she could not 
 help it. 
 
58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 This, whether a licence taken or given, served my 
 turn to prepare without delay, for a journey beyond 
 sea, that so I might satisfy that curiosity I long since 
 had to see foreign countries. So that I might leave my 
 wife so little discontented as I could, I left her not 
 only posterity to renew the family of the Herberts of 
 St. J ulian's, according to her father's desire, to inherit 
 his lands, but the rents of all the lands she brought 
 with her, reserving mine own partly to pay my 
 brothers' and sisters' portions, and defraying my 
 charges abroad. Upon which terms, though I was 
 sorry to leave my wife, as having lived most honestly 
 with her all this time, I thought it no such unjust 
 ambition to attain the knowledge of foreign countries, 
 especially since I had in great part already attained 
 the languages, and that I intended not to spend any 
 long time out of my country. 
 
 Before I departed yet, I left her with child of a son, 
 christened afterwards by the name of Edward ; and 
 now coming to court, I obtained a license to go beyond 
 sea, taking with me for my companion Mr. Aurelian 
 Townsend,^ a gentleman that spoke the languages of 
 French, Italian, and Spanish in great perfection, and 
 a man to wait in my chamber, who spoke French, two 
 lackeys, and three horses. Coming thus to Dover, 
 and passing the seas thence to Calais, I journeyed 
 without any memorable adventure, till I came to 
 Faubourg St. Germain, in Paris, where Sir George 
 
 1 Wrote Albion's Triumph and Tempe Restored. Masques, both 
 published London, 1631. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 59 
 
 Carew, then ambassador for the king, lived; I was 
 kindly received by him, and often invited to his table. 
 
 Next to his house dwelt the Duke of Vantadour, 
 who had married a daughter of Monsieur de Mont- 
 morency, Grrand Constable de France. Many visits 
 being exchanged between that Duchess and the lady 
 of our ambassador, it pleased the duchess to invite me 
 to her father's house, at the castle of Merlou,^ being 
 about twenty-four miles from Paris ; and here I found 
 much welcome from that brave old general,^ who being 
 informed of my name, said he knew well of what 
 family I was ; telling, the first notice he had of the 
 Herberts was at the siege of St. Quintin, where my 
 grandfather, with a command of foot under William 
 Earl of Pembroke, was. Passing two or three days 
 here, it happened one evening that a daughter of the 
 duchess, of about ten or eleven years of age, going one 
 evening from the castle to walk in the meadows, 
 myself, with divers French gentlemen, attended her 
 and some gentlewomen that were with her. This 
 young lady wearing a knot of riband on her head, a 
 French chevalier took it suddenly, and fastened it to his 
 hatband. The young lady, oftended herewith, demands 
 her riband, but he refusing to restore it, the young 
 
 ^ Now called Mello, not far from Clermont (Oise). On y admire 
 encore un chateau^ unparc, et undo^naine magnifiqucs, — De RiMUSAT. 
 
 2 Henri de Montmorency, second son of the Constable Anne de 
 Montmorency, killed at the battle of St. Denis, 1567. Henri de 
 Montmorency was made constable by Henri IV. The Duchess of 
 Vantadour, mentioned above, was Margaret, second daughter of the 
 constable, and wife of Anne de Levi, Duke of Vantadour. 
 
6o 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 lady addressing herself to me, said, " Monsieur, I pray 
 get my riband from that gentleman ; hereupon going 
 towards him, I courteously, with my hat in my hand, 
 desired him to do me the honour, that I may deliver 
 the lady her riband or bouquet again ; but he roughly 
 answering me, " Do you think I will give it you, 
 when I have refused it to her ? " I replied, " Nay 
 then, sir, I will make you restore it by force ; " 
 whereupon also, putting on my hat and reaching at 
 his, he to save himself ran away, and, after a long 
 course in the meadow, finding that I had almost 
 overtook him, he turned short, and running to the 
 young lady, was about to put the riband on her hand, 
 when I, seizing upon his arm, said to the young lady. 
 It was I that gave it." " Pardon me," quoth she, 
 " it is he that gives it me." I said then, " Madam, I 
 will not contradict you, but if he dare say that I did 
 not constrain him to give it, I will fight with him." 
 The French gentleman answered nothing thereunto 
 for the present, and so conducted the young lady 
 again to the castle. The next day I desired Mr. 
 Aurelian Townsend to tell the French cavalier, that 
 either he must confess that I constrained him to 
 restore the riband, or fight with me ; but the gentle- 
 man seeing him unwilling to accept of this challenge, 
 went out from the place, whereupon I following him, 
 some of the gentlemen that belonged to the constable 
 taking notice hereof, acquainted him therewith, 
 who sending for the French cavalier, checked him 
 well for his sauciness, in taking the riband away from 
 his grandchild, and afterwards bid him depart his 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH K 
 
 61 
 
 house ; and this was all that I ever heard of the 
 gentleman, with whom I proceeded in that manner, 
 because I thought myself obliged thereunto by the 
 oath taken when I was made Knight of the Bath, as I 
 formerly related upon this occasion. 
 
 I must remember also, that three other times I 
 engaged myself to challenge men to fight with me, 
 who I conceived had injured ladies and gentlewomen ; 
 one was in defence of my cousin Sir Francis New- 
 port's daughter, who was married to John Barker, of 
 
 Hamon, whose younger brother and heir^ . 
 
 . . . sent him a challenge, which to this day he never 
 answered, and would have beaten him afterwards, but 
 that I was hindered by my uncle Sir Francis Newport. 
 
 I had another occasion to challenge one Captain 
 Vaughan, who I conceived offered some injury to my 
 sister the Lady Jones of Abermarles. I sent him a 
 challenge, which he accepted, the place between us 
 being appointed beyond Greenwich, with seconds on 
 both sides. Hereupon I coming to the King's Head, in 
 Greenwich, with intention the next morning to be in 
 the place, I found the house beset with at least a 
 hundred persons, partly sent by the Lords of the Privy 
 Council, who gave order to apprehend me. 
 
 I hearing thereof, desired my servant to bring my 
 horses as far as he could from my lodging, but yet 
 within sight of me ; which being done, and all this 
 company coming to lay hold on me, I and my second, 
 who was my cousin James Price of Hanachly, sallied 
 
 ^ The text here lacks continuity. 
 
62 
 
 A VTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 out of the doors, with our swords drawn, and in spite 
 of that multitude made our way to our horses, where 
 my servant very honestly opposing himself against 
 those who would have laid hands upon us, while we 
 got upon horseback, was himself laid hold on by them, 
 and evil treated ; which I perceiving, rid back again, 
 and with my sword in my hand rescued him, and 
 afterwards seeing him get on horseback, charged them 
 to go anywhere rather than to follow me. Riding 
 afterwards with my second to the place appointed, I 
 found nobody there, which, as I heard afterwards, 
 happened, because the Lords of the Council taking 
 notice of this difference, apprehended him, and charged 
 him in his Majesty's name not to fight with me ; since 
 otherwise I believed he would not have failed. 
 
 The third that I questioned in this kind was a 
 Scotch gentleman, who taking a riband in the like 
 manner from Mrs. Middlemore, a maid of honour, as 
 was done from the young lady above mentioned, 
 in a back room behind Queen Anne's lodgings in 
 Greenwich, she likewise desired me to get her the 
 said riband. I repaired, as formerly, to him in a 
 courteous manner to demand it, but he refusing as the 
 French cavalier did, I caught him by the neck, 
 and had almost thrown him down, when company came 
 in and parted us. I offered likewise to fight with 
 this gentleman, and came to the place appointed by 
 Hyde Park ; but this also was interrupted by order of 
 the Lords of the Council, and I never heard more of him. 
 
 These passages, though different in time, I have 
 related here together, both for the similitude of 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPFtY. 
 
 63 
 
 argument, and that it may appear how strictly I held 
 myself to my oath of knighthood ; since for the rest I 
 can truly say, that though I have lived in the armies 
 and courts of the greatest princes in Christendom, yet ^ 
 I never had a quarrel with man for mine own sake ; 
 so that, althoui^h in mine own nature I was ever 
 choleric and hasty, yet I never, without occasion 
 given, quarrelled with any body, and as little did 
 any body attempt to give me offence, as having as 
 clear a reputation for my courage as whosoever of my 
 time. For my friends often I have hazarded myself, 
 but never yet drew my sword for my own sake singly, 
 as hating ever the doing of injury, contenting myself 
 only to resent them when they were offered me. After 
 this digression I shall return to my history. 
 
 That brave Constable in France testifying now more 
 than formerly his regard of me, at his departure from 
 Merlou to his fair house at Chantilly, five or six miles 
 distant, said he left that castle to be commanded by 
 me, as also his forests and chases, which were well 
 stored with wild boar and stag, and that I might 
 hunt them when I pleased. He told me also, that 
 if I would learn to ride the great horse, he had a 
 stable there of some fifty, the best and choicest as 
 was thought in France ; and that his ecuyer, called 
 Monsieur de Disancourt, not inferior to Pluvenal^ or 
 
 ^ Pluvenal was first Master of the Horse to Henri III., rose to be 
 Ambassador to Holland under Henri IV.; he wrote Lc Manage Royal, 
 edited by Rene de Menou, probably the M. de Mennon mentioned 
 by Lord Herbert. Pluvenal is regarded as the founder of riding 
 schools. — De Remusat. 
 
64 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPBY, 
 
 Labroue, should teach me. I did with great thank- 
 fulness accept his offer, as being very much addicted 
 to the exercise of riding great horses ; and as for 
 hunting in his forests, I told him I should use it 
 sparingly, as being desirous to preserve his game. 
 He commanded also his ^cuyer to keep a table for 
 me, and his pages to attend me, the chief of whom 
 was Monsieur de Mennon, who, proving to be one 
 of the best horsemen in France, keeps now an 
 academy in Paris. And here I shall recount a little 
 passage betwixt him and his master, that the 
 inclination of the French at that time may 
 appear ; there being scarce any man thought worth 
 the looking on, that had not killed some other in 
 duel. 
 
 Mennon desiring to marry a niece of Monsieur 
 Disancourt, who it was thought should be his heir, 
 was thus answered by him : " Friend, it is not time 
 yet to marry ; I will tell you what you must do. 
 If you will be a brave man, you must first kill in 
 single combat two or three men, then afterwards 
 marry and engender two or three children, or the 
 world will neither have got nor lost by you ; " of 
 which strange counsel, Disancourt was no other- 
 wise the author than as he had been an example, 
 at least of the former part ; it being his fortune 
 to have fought three or four brave duels in his 
 time. 
 
 And now, as every morning I mounted the great 
 horse, so in the afternoons I many times went 
 a-hunting, the manner of which was this. The Duke 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 65 
 
 of Montmorency having given orders to the tenants 
 of the town of Merlou, and some villages adjoining, 
 to attend me when I went a-hunting, they, upon my 
 summons, usually repaired to those woods where I 
 intended to find my game, with drums and muskets, 
 to the number of sixty or eighty, and sometimes one 
 hundred or more persons ; they entering the wood on 
 that side with that noise, discharging their pieces and 
 beating their drums, we on the other side of the 
 wood having placed mastiffs and greyhounds, to the 
 number of twenty or thirty, which Monsieur de 
 Montmorency kept near his castle, expected those 
 beasts they should force out of the wood. If stags or 
 wild boars came forth, we commonly spared them, 
 pursuing only the wolves, which were there in great 
 number, of which are found two sorts ; the mastiff 
 wolf, thick and short, though he could not indeed run 
 fast, yet would fight with our dogs ; the greyhound 
 wolf, long and swift, who many times escaped our 
 best dogs, though when he were overtaken, easily 
 killed by us, without making much resistance. Of 
 both these sorts I killed divers with my sword, while 
 I stayed here. 
 
 One time also it was my fortune to kill a wild boar 
 in this manner. The boar beino^ roused from his den, 
 fled before our dogs for a good space ; but finding 
 them press him hard, turned his head against our 
 dogs, and hurt three or four of them very dan- 
 gerously. I came on horseback up to him, and with 
 my sword thrust him twice or thrice without entering 
 his skin, the blade being not so stiff as it should be. 
 
 4S7 
 
66 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The boar hereupon turned upon me, and much endan- 
 gered my horse, which I perceiving, rid a little out of 
 the way, and leaving my horse with my lackey, 
 returned with my sword against the boar, who by 
 this time had hurt more dogs ; and here happened a 
 pretty kind of fight, for when I thrust at the boar 
 sometimes with my sword, which in some places I 
 made enter, the boar would run at me, whose tusks 
 yet by stepping a little out of the way I avoided, but 
 he then turning upon me, the dogs came in, and drew 
 him off, so that he fell upon them, which I perceiving, 
 ran at the boar with my sword again, which made 
 liim turn upon me, but then the dogs pulled him from 
 me again, while so relieving one another by turns, we 
 killed the boar. 
 
 At this chase Monsieur Disancourt and Mennon 
 were present, as also Mr. Townsend, yet so as they 
 did endeavour rather to withdraw me from than 
 assist me in the danger. Of which boar, some part 
 being well seasoned and larded, I presented to my 
 uncle Sir Francis Newport in Shropshire, and found 
 most excellent meat. 
 
 Thus having passed a whole summer, partly in 
 these exercises, and partly in visits of the Duke of 
 Montmorency, at his fair house in Chantilly, which, 
 for its extraordinary fairness and situation, I shall 
 here describe. 
 
 A little river descending from some higher grounds, 
 in a country which was almost all his own, and falling 
 at last upon a rock in the middle of a valley, which, 
 to keep its way forwards, it must on one or other side 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 67 
 
 thereof have declined. Some of the ancestors of the 
 Montmorencies, to ease the river of this labour, made 
 divers channels through this rock, to give it a free 
 passage, dividing the rock by that means into little 
 islands, upon which he built a great strong castle, 
 joined together with bridges, and sumptuously fur- 
 nished with hangings of silk and gold, rare pictures 
 and statues ; all which buildings united, as I formerly 
 told, were encompassed about with water, which was 
 paved with stone (those which were used in the 
 building of the house were drawn from thence). One 
 might see the huge carps, pike, and trouts, which were 
 kept in several divisions, gliding along the waters 
 very easily. Yet nothing in my opinion added so 
 much to the glory of this castle, as a forest adjoining 
 close to it, and upon a level with the house ; for being 
 of a very large extent, and set thick both with tall 
 trees and underwood, the whole forest, which was 
 replenished with wild boar, stag, and roe-deer, was cut 
 out into long walks every way, so that, although the 
 doGfS mio'ht follow their chase throuo-h the thickets, 
 the huntsmen mio^ht ride alono: the said walks, and 
 meet or overtake their game in some one of them, 
 they being cut with that art, that they led to all 
 the parts in the said forest. And here also I have 
 hunted the wild boar divers times, both then and after- 
 wards, when his son, the Duke of Montmorency, 
 succeeded him in the possession of that incomparable 
 place. 
 
 And there I cannot but remember the direction the 
 old Con& table gave me to return to his castle out of 
 
68 
 
 A UTOBIO GRAPH Y. 
 
 this admirable labyrinth ; telling me, I should look 
 upon what side the trees were roughest and hardest, 
 which being found, I might be confident that part 
 stood northward, which being observed, I might easily 
 find the east, as being on the right hand, and so guide 
 my way home. 
 
 How much this house, together with the forest, 
 hath been valued by great princes, may appear by 
 two little narratives I shall here insert. Charles V. 
 the great emperor, passing in the time of Francois I. 
 from Spain into the Low Countries, by the way of 
 France, was entertained for some time in this house 
 by a Duke of Montmorency, who was likewise Con- 
 stable de France, after he had taken this palace into 
 his consideration, with the forests adjoining, said he 
 would willingly give one of his provinces for such a 
 place, there being, as he thought, nowhere such a 
 situation. 
 
 Henry IV. also was desirous of this house, and 
 offered to exchange any of his houses, with much 
 more lands than his estate thereabouts was worth ; to 
 which the Duke of Montmorency made this wary 
 answer : 'Sieur, la maison est d vous, mais queje sois 
 le concierge;^ which in English sounds thus: "Sir, 
 the house is yours, but give me leave to keep it for 
 you." 
 
 When I had been at Merlou about eight months, 
 and attained, as was thought, the knowledge of horse- 
 manship, I came to the Duke of Montmorency at 
 Chantilly, and, after due thanks for his favours, 
 took my leave of him to go to Paris; whereupon 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 69 
 
 the good old prince embracing me, and calling me 
 son, bid me farewell, assuring me nevertheless he 
 should be glad of any occasion hereafter to testify 
 his love and esteem for me ; telling me farther, he 
 should come to Paris himself shortly, where he hoped 
 to see me. From hence I returned to Merlou, where 
 I gave Monsieur Disancourt such a present as abund- 
 antly requited the charges of my diet, and the pains 
 of his teaching. Being now ready to set forth, a 
 gentleman from the Duke of Montmorency came to 
 me, and told me his master would not let me go 
 without giving me a present, which I might keep as 
 an earnest of his affection ; whereupon also a genet, for 
 which the duke had sent expressly into Spain, and which 
 cost him there five hundred crowns, as I were told, was 
 brought to me. The greatness of this gift, together 
 with other courtesies received, did not a little trouble 
 me, as not knowing then how to requite them. I 
 would have given my horses I had there, which were 
 of great value, to him, but that I thought them too 
 mean a present ; but the duke also suspecting that I 
 meant to do so, prevented me, saying, that as I loved 
 him, I should think upon no requital while I stayed 
 in France, but when I came into England, if I sent 
 him a mare that ambled naturally, I should much 
 gratify him. I told the messenger I should strive, 
 both that way and every way else, to declare my 
 thankfulness, ^-nd so dismissed the messenger with a 
 good reward. 
 
 Coming now to Paris, through the recommendation 
 of the lord ambassador, I was received to the house of 
 
70 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that incomparable scholar Isaac Casaubon, by wbose 
 learned conversation I much benefited myself ; besides, 
 I did apply myself much to know the use of my arms, 
 and to ride the great horse, playing on the lute, and 
 sinmnof according: to the rules of the French masters. 
 
 Sometimes also I went to the court of the French 
 king, Henry IV., who, upon information of me in 
 the garden at the Tuileries, received me with all 
 courtesy, embracing me in his arms, and holding me 
 some while there. I went sometimes also to the court 
 of Queen Margaret, at the hostel, called by her name ; 
 and here I saw many balls or masks, in all which it 
 pleased that Queen publicly to place me next to her 
 chair, not without the wonder of some, and the envy 
 of another, who was wont to have that favour. I 
 shall recount one accident which happened while I 
 was there. 
 
 All things being ready for the ball, and every one 
 being in their place, and I myself next to the Queen, 
 expecting when the dancers would come in, one 
 knocked at the door somewhat louder than became, as 
 I thought, a very civil person. When he came in, I 
 remember there was a sudden whisper among the 
 ladies, saying, " G^est Monsieur Balagny'' or, " It is 
 Monsieur Balagny : whereupon also I saw the ladies 
 and gentlewomen, one after another, invite him to sit 
 near them, and, which is more, when one lady had his 
 company a while, another would say, " You have 
 
 ^ Damien de Montluc, Seigneur de Balagny, son of the Marshal of 
 France of this name, and nephew of Bussy d'Amboise of Chapman fame. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 enjoyed him long enough, I must have him now ; " at 
 which bold civility of theirs, though I were astonished, 
 yet it added unto my wonder, that his person could 
 not be thought at most but ordinary handsome ; his 
 hair, which was cut very short, half grey, his doublet 
 but of sackcloth cut to his shirt, and his breeches only 
 of plain grey cloth. Informing myself by some 
 standers-by who he was, I was told that he was one 
 of the gallantest men in the world, as having killed 
 eight or nine men in single fight, and that for this 
 reason the ladies made so much of him, it being the 
 manner of all Frenchwomen to cherish gallant men, as 
 thinking they could not make so much of any else 
 with the safety of their honour. This cavalier, though 
 his head was half grey, he had not yet attained the 
 age? of thirty years, whom I have thought fit to 
 remember more particularly here, because of some 
 passages that happened afterwards betwixt him and 
 me, at the siege of Juliers, as I shall tell in its place. 
 
 Having past thus all the winter, until about the 
 latter end of January,^ without any such memorable 
 accident as I shall think fit to set down particularly, 
 I took my leave of the French king. Queen Margaret, 
 and the nobles and ladies in both courts ; at which 
 time the Princess of Conti desired me to carry a scarf 
 into England, and present it to Queen Anne on her 
 part, which being accepted, myself and Sir Thomas 
 Lucy2 (whose second I had been twice in France, 
 
 ' 1609. Lee. 
 
 2 Eldest son of the Sir Thomas Lucy of Shakesperean biography. — 
 See liee. 
 
72 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 against two cavaliers of our nation, who yet were 
 hindered to fio:ht with us in the field, where we 
 attended them), we came on our way as far as Dieppe, 
 in Normandy, and there took ship about the beginning 
 of February, when so furious a storm arose, that with 
 very great danger we were at sea all night. 
 
 The master of our ship lost both the use of his 
 compass and his reason ; for not knowing whither he 
 was carried by the tempest, all the help he had was 
 by the lightnings, which, together with thunder very 
 frequently that night, terrified him, yet gave the 
 advantage sometimes to discover whether we were 
 upon our coast, to which he thought, by the course of 
 his glasses, we were near approached. And now 
 towards day we found ourselves, by great providence 
 of God, within view of Dover, to which the master of 
 our ship did make. The men of Dover rising be- 
 times in the morning, to see whether any ship were 
 coming towards them, were in great numbers upon the 
 shore, as believing the tempest, which had thrown 
 down barns and trees near the town, might give them 
 the benefit of some wreck, if perchance any ship were 
 driven thitherwards. 
 
 We coming thus in extreme danger, straight upon 
 the pier of Dover, which stands out in the sea, our 
 ship was unfortunately split against it ; the master 
 said, Mes amis, nous sommes perdus ; or. My friends, 
 we are cast away ; when myself, who heard the ship 
 crack against the pier, and then found, by the master's 
 words, it was time for every one to save themselves, if 
 they could, got out of my cabin (though very sea-sick). 
 
A UIOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 73 
 
 and climbing up the mast a little way, drew my sword 
 and flourished it. They at Dover having the sign 
 given them, adventured in a shallop of six oars to 
 relieve us, which being come with great danger to the 
 side of our ship, I got into it first, with my sword in 
 my hand, and called for Sir Thomas Lucy, saying, 
 that if any man offered to get in before him, I should 
 resist him with my sword ; whereupon, a faithful 
 servant of his taking Sir Thomas Lucy out of the 
 cabin, who was half-dead of sea-sickness, put him into 
 my arms, whom after I had received, I bid the shallop 
 make away for shore, and the rather, that I saw 
 another shallop coming to relieve us ; when a post 
 from France, who carried letters, finding the ship still 
 rent more and more, adventured to leap from the top 
 of our ship into the shallop, where, falling fortunately 
 on some of the stronsfer timber of the boat, and 
 not on the planks, which he must needs have 
 broken, and so sunk us, had he fallen upon them, 
 escaped together with us two, unto the land. 
 I must confess, myself as also the seamen that 
 were in the shallop, thought once to have killed 
 him for this desperate attempt ; but finding no harm 
 followed, we escaped together unto the land, from 
 whence we sent more shallops, and so made means to 
 save both men and horses that were in the ship, 
 which yet itself was wholly split and cast away, inso- 
 much that, in pity to the master. Sir Thomas Lucy 
 and myself gave thirty pounds towai-ds his loss, which 
 yet was not so great as we thought, since the tide now 
 ebbing, he recovered the broken parts of his ship. 
 
74 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Coming thus to London, and afterwards to court, 1 
 kissed his majesty's hand, and acquainted him with 
 some particulars concerning France. As for the 
 present I had to deliver to her majesty from the 
 Princess of Conti, I thought fit rather to send it by 
 one of the ladies that attended her, than to presume 
 to demand audience of her in person. But her majesty 
 not satisfied herewith, commanded me to attend her, 
 and demanded divers questions of me concerning that 
 princess and the courts in France, saying she would 
 speak more at large with me at some other time ; for 
 which purpose she commanded me to wait on her 
 often, wishing me to advise her what present she 
 might return back again. 
 
 Howbeit, not many weeks after, I returned to my 
 wife and family again, where I passed some time, 
 partly in my studies, and partly riding the great horse, 
 of which I had a stable well furnished. No horse yet 
 was so dear to me as the genet I brought from France, 
 w^hose love I had so gotten, that he would suffer none 
 else to ride him, nor indeed any man to come near 
 him, when I was upon him, as being in his nature a 
 most furious horse. His true picture may be seen in 
 the chapel chamber in my house, where I am painted 
 riding him, and this motto by me : 
 
 Me totum honitas honum suprema 
 Reddas ; me infrepidum daho vel ipse. 
 
 This horse, as soon as ever I came to the stable, 
 would neigh, and when I drew near him would lick 
 my hand, and (when I suffered him) my cheek, but 
 yet would permit nobody to come near his heels at 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 75 
 
 the same time. Sir Thomas Lucy would have given me 
 two hundred pounds for this horse, which, though I 
 would not accept, yet I left the horse with him when 
 I went to the Low Countries, who not long after died. 
 The occasion of my going thither was thus. Hearing 
 that a war about the title of Cleve, Juliers, and some 
 other provinces betwixt the Low Countries and 
 Germany, should be made, by the several pretenders 
 to it, and that the French king himself would come 
 with a great army into those parts ; it was now the 
 year of our Lord 1610, when my Lord Chandos^ and 
 myself resolved to take shipping for the Low 
 Countries, and from thence to pass to the city of 
 Juliers, which the Prince of Orange resolved to 
 besiege. Making all haste thither, we found the 
 siege newly begun ; the Low Country army assisted 
 by 4000 English, under the command of Sir Edward 
 Cecil. We had not been long there, when the Marshal 
 de la Chastre, instead of Henry IV., who was killed 
 by that villain Ravaillac, came with a brave French 
 army thither, in which Monsieur Balagny I formerly 
 mentioned was a colonel. 
 
 My Lord Chandos lodged himself in the quarters 
 where Sir Horace Vere was ; I went and quartered 
 with Sir Edward Cecil, where I was lodged next to 
 him in a hut I made there, going yet both by day and 
 night to the trenches, we making our approaches to 
 the town on one side, and the French on the 
 
 1 Grey Bridges, Lord Chandos, made Knight of the Bath in 1604. 
 He was dubbed for his hospitality and magnificence, the King of 
 Cotswold, 
 
76 A UTOBIO GRAPHY, 
 
 other. Our lines were drawn towards the point of a 
 bulwark of the citadel, or castle, thought to be one of 
 the best fortifications in Christendom, and encompassed " 
 about with a deep wet ditch. We lost many men in 
 making these approaches, the town and castle being 
 very well provided both with great and small shot, and 
 a garrison in it of about 4000 men, besides the burghers. 
 Sir Edward Cecil (who was a very active general), 
 used often during the siege, to go in person in the 
 night time, to try whether he could catch any 
 sentinels jperdus ; and for this purpose, still desired 
 me to accompany him ; in performing whereof, both 
 of us did much hazard ourselves, for the first sentinel 
 retiring to the second, and the second to the third, 
 three shots were commonly made at us, before we 
 could do anything, though afterwards chasing them 
 with our swords almost home unto their guards, we 
 had some sport in the pursuit of them. 
 
 One day Sir Edward Cecil and myself coming to 
 the approaches that Monsieur de Balagny had made 
 towards a bulwark or bastion of that city, Monsieur 
 de Balagny, in the presence of Sir Edward Cecil and 
 divers English and French captains then present, said 
 Monsieur, on dit que vous etes un des plus braves de 
 voire nation, et je suis Balagny, allons voir qui fera 
 le mieux ; " They say, you are one of the bravest of 
 your nation, and I am Balagny, let us see who will do 
 best ; " whereupon leaping suddenly out of the 
 trenches with his sword drawn, I did in the like 
 manner as suddenly follow him, both of us in the mean 
 while striving who should be foremost, which being 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH V. 
 
 77 
 
 perceived by those of the bulwark and cortine opposite 
 to us, three or four hundred shot at least, great and 
 small, were made against us. Our running on 
 forwards in emulation of each other, was the cause 
 that all the shots fell betwixt us and the trench from 
 which we sallied. When Monsieur Balagny, finding 
 such a storm of bullets, said, Pardieu, il fait bien 
 chaud, "It is very hot here;" I answered briefly 
 thus, " Voits en irez primier, autrement je n'irai 
 jamais ; " " You shall go first or else I will never go ; " 
 hereupon he ran with all speed, and somewhat crouch- 
 ing towards the trenches, I followed after leisurely 
 and upright, and yet came within the trenches before 
 they on the bulwark or cortine could charge again. 
 Which passage afterwards being related to the Prince 
 of Orange, he said it was a strange bravado of 
 Balagny, and that we went to an unavoidable death. 
 
 I could relate divers things of note concerning 
 myself, during this siege, but do forbear, lest I should 
 relish too much of vanity. It shall suflice that my 
 passing over the ditch unto the wall, first of all the 
 nations there, is set down by William Crofts,^ M.A., 
 and soldier, who hath written and printed the history 
 of the Low Countries. 
 
 There happened during this siege a particular 
 quarrel betwixt me and the Lord of Walden,^ eldest 
 
 ' Should be William Crosse, author of a continuation of a General 
 History of the Netherlands." — Sec Lee. 
 
 ^ Theophilus, Lord Howard of Walden, eldest son of Tliomas Earl of 
 Suffolk, whom he succeeded in the title, Knight of the Garter, Con- 
 stable of Dover Castle, and captain of the Band of Pensioners. 
 
78 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 son to the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer of England 
 at that time, which I do but unwillingly relate, in 
 reo-ard of the fjreat esteem I have of that noble 
 family ; howbeit, to avoid misreports, I have thought 
 fit to set it down truly. That lord having been 
 invited to a feast in Sir Horace Vere's quarters, where 
 (after the Low Country manner) there was liberal 
 drinking, returned not long after to Sir Edward 
 Cecil's quarters, at which time, I speaking merrily to 
 him, upon some slight occasion, he took that offence 
 at me, which he would not have done at another 
 time, insomuch that he came towards me in a violent 
 manner, which I perceiving, did more than half way 
 meet him ; but the company were so vigilant upon us 
 that before any blow past we were separated ; howbeit, 
 because he made towards me, I thought fit the next 
 day to send him a challenge, telling him, that if he 
 had any thing to say to me, I would meet him in 
 such a place as no man should interrupt us. Shortly 
 after this, Sir Thomas Peyton came to me on his part, 
 and told me my lord would fight me on horseback 
 with single sword ; and, said he, " I will be his second ; 
 where is yours ? " I replied that neither his lordship 
 nor myself brought over any great horses with us ; 
 that I knew he might much better borrow one than 
 myself ; howbeit, as soon as he shewed me the place, 
 he should find me there on horseback or on foot; 
 whereupon both of us riding together upon two geld- 
 ings to the side of a wood, Peyton said he chose that 
 place, and the time break of day the next morning. I 
 told him, "I would fail neither place nor time, though I 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH K 
 
 79 
 
 knew not where to get a better horse than the nag 
 I rid on ; and as for a second, I shall trust to your 
 nobleness, who, I know, will see fair play betwixt us, 
 though you come on his side." But he urging me again 
 to provide a second, I told him I could promise for 
 none but myself, and that if I spoke to any of my 
 friends in the army to this purpose, I doubted least 
 the business might be discovered and prevented. 
 
 He was no sooner gone from me, but night drew on, 
 myself resolving in the mean time to rest under a fair 
 oak all night ; after this, tying my horse by the bridle 
 unto another tree, I had not now rested two hours, when 
 I found some fires nearer to me than I thought was 
 possible in so solitary a place, whereupon also having 
 the curiosity to see the reason hereof, I got on horse- 
 back again, and had not rode very far, when by the 
 talk of the soldiers there, I found I was in the Scotch 
 quarter, where finding in a stable a very fair horse of 
 service, I desired to know whether he might be 
 bought for any reasonable sum of money, but a soldier 
 replying it was their captain's. Sir James Areskins 
 chief horse, I demanded for Sir James, but the soldier 
 answering he was not within the quarter, I demanded 
 then for his lieutenant, whereupon the soldier 
 courteously desired him to come to me. This 
 lieutenant was called Montgomery, and had the 
 reputation of a gallant man ; I told him that I would 
 very fain buy a horse, and if it were possible, the 
 horse I saw but a little before ; but he tellinnf me 
 none was to be sold there, I offered to leave in his 
 hands one hundred pieces, if he would lend me a good 
 
8o 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 horse for a day or two, he to restore me the money 
 again when I delivered him the horse in good plight, 
 and did besides bring him some present as a gratuity. 
 
 The lieutenant, though he did not know me, 
 suspected I had some private quarrel, and that I 
 desired this horse to fight on, and thereupon told me. 
 
 Sir, whosoever you are, you seem to be a person 
 of worth, and you shall have the best horse in the 
 stable ; and if you have a quarrel and want a second, 
 I offer myself to serve you upon another horse, and 
 if you will let me go along with you upon these 
 terms, I will ask no pawn of you for the horse." I 
 told him I would use no second, and I desired him 
 to accept one hundred pieces, which I had there 
 about me, in pawn for the horse, and he should 
 hear from me shortly again ; and that though I did 
 not take his noble offer of coming along with me, I 
 should evermore rest much obliged to him ; where- 
 upon giving him my purse with the money in it, I 
 got upon his horse, and left my nag besides with him. 
 
 Riding thus away about twelve o'clock at night to 
 the wood from whence I came, I alighted from my 
 horse and rested there till morning ; the day now 
 breaking I got on horseback, and attended the 
 Lord of Walden and his second. The first person 
 that appeared was a footman, who I heard after- 
 wards was sent by the Lady of Walden, who as 
 soon as he saw me, ran back again with all speed ; 
 I meant once to pursue him, but that I thought it 
 better at last to keep my place. About two hours 
 after Sir William St. Leger, now Lord President of 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 8i 
 
 Munster, came to me, and told me he knew the 
 
 cause of my being there, and that the business was 
 
 discovered by the Lord Walden's rising so early 
 
 that morning, and the suspicion that he meant to 
 
 fight with me, and had Sir Thomas Peyton with 
 
 him, and that he would ride to him, and that there 
 
 were thirty or forty sent after us, to hinder us from 
 
 meeting ;. shortly after many more came to the 
 
 place where I was, and told me I must not fight, 
 
 and that they were sent for the same purpose, and 
 
 that it was to no purpose to stay there, and thence 
 
 rode to seek the Lord of Walden ; I stayed yet two 
 
 hours longer, but finding still more company came in, 
 
 rode back again to the Scotch quarters, and delivered 
 
 the horse back again, and received my money and nag 
 
 from Lieutenant Montgomery, and so withdrew 
 
 myself to the French quarters, till I did find some 
 
 convenient time to send again to the Lord Walden. 
 
 Being among the French, I remembered myself of 
 
 the bravado of Monsieur Balagny, and coming to him 
 
 told him, I knew how brave a man he was, and that 
 
 as he had put me to one trial of daring, when I was 
 
 last with him in his trenches, I would put him to 
 
 another ; saying, I heard he had a fair mistress, and 
 
 that the scarf he wore was her gift, and that I would 
 
 maintain I had a worthier mistress than he, and that 
 
 I would do as much for her sake as he, or any else 
 
 durst do for his. Balagny hereupon looking merrily 
 
 upon me, said, " If we shall try who is the abler man 
 
 to serve his mistress, let both of us get two wenches, 
 
 and he that doth his business best, let him be the 
 
 488 
 
82 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 braver man ; and that for his part, he had no mind to 
 fight on that quarrel." I looking hereupon somewhat 
 disdainfully on him, said he spoke more like a 
 paillard ^ than a cavalier ; to which he answering 
 nothing, I rode my ways, and afterwards went to 
 Monsieur Terant, a French gentleman that belonged to 
 the Duke of Montmorency, formerly mentioned ; who 
 telling me he had a quarrel with another gentleman, I 
 offered to be his second, but he saying he was pro- 
 vided already, I rode thence to the English quarters, 
 attending some fit occasion to send again to the 
 Lord Walden. I came no sooner thither, but I found 
 Sir Thomas Somerset ^ with eleven or twelve more in 
 the head of the English, who were then drawing forth 
 in a body or squadron, who seeing me on horseback, 
 with a footman only that attended me, gave me some 
 affronting words, for my quarrelling with the Lord of 
 Walden; whereupon I alighted, and giving my horse 
 to my lackey, drew my sword, which he no sooner saw 
 but he drew his, as also all the company with him. I 
 running hereupon amongst them, put by some of their 
 thrusts, and making towards him in particular, put by 
 a thrust of his, and had certainly run him through, 
 but that one Lieutenant Prichard, at that instant 
 taking me by the shoulder, turned me aside ; but I 
 recovering myself again, ran at him a second time, 
 
 ^ A loose fellow. 
 
 2 He was third son of Edward, Earl of Worcester, Lord Privy Seal 
 to Queen Elizabeth and King James, Sir Thomas Somerset was Master 
 of the Horse to Queen Anne, was made Knight of the Bath in 1604, 
 and, later, Viscount Somerset, of Cashel, in Ireland. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 83 
 
 which he perceiving, retired himself with the company 
 to the tents which were near, though not so fast but I 
 hurt one Proger, and some others also that were with 
 him. But they being all at last got within the tents, I 
 finding now nothing else to be done, got to my horse 
 again, having received only a slight hurt on the 
 outside of my ribs, and two thrusts, the one through 
 the skirts of my doublet, and the other through my 
 breeches, and about eighteen nicks upon my sword 
 and hilt, and so rode to the trenches before Juliers, 
 where our soldiers were. 
 
 Not long after this, the town being now sur- 
 rendered, and every body preparing to go their ways, 
 I sent ag^ain a erentleman to the Lord of Walden to 
 offer him the meeting with my sword, but this was 
 avoided not very handsomely by him (contrary to 
 what Sir Henry Rich, now Earl of Holland, persuaded 
 him). 
 
 After having taken leave of his excellency Sir 
 Edward Cecil, I thought fit to return on my way 
 homewards as far as Dusseldorf. I had been scarce 
 two hours in my lodgings when one Lieutenant 
 Hamilton brouo-ht a letter from Sir James Areskin 
 (who was then in town likewise) unto me, the effect 
 whereof was, that in regard his Lieutenant Mont- 
 gomery had told him that I had the said James 
 Areskins consent for borrowing his horse, he did 
 desire me to do one of two thinofs, which was, either 
 to disavow the said words, which he thought in his 
 conscience I never spake ; or, if I would justify them 
 then to appoint time and place to fight with him. 
 
84 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Having considered a while what I was to do in this 
 case, I told Lieutenant Hamilton that I thought myself 
 bound in honour to accept the more noble part of his 
 proposition, which was to fight with him, when yet 
 perchance it might be easy enough for me to say that 
 I had his horse upon other terms than was affirmed ; 
 whereupon also giving Lieutenant Hamilton the 
 length of my sword, I told him that as soon as ever he 
 had matched it, I would fight with him, wishing him 
 further to make haste, since I desired to end the 
 business as speedily as could be. Lieutenant Hamilton 
 hereupon returning back, met in a cross street (I know 
 not by what miraculous adventure) Lieutenant 
 Montgomery, conveying divers of the hurt and 
 maimed soldiers at the siege of Juliers unto that 
 town, to be lodged and dressed by the surgeons there ; 
 Hamilton hereupon calling to Montgomery, told him 
 the effects of his captain's letter, together with my 
 answer, which Montgomery no sooner heard, but he 
 replied (as Hamilton told me afterwards), " I see that 
 noble gentleman chooseth rather to fight than to 
 contradict me ; but my telling a lie must not be an 
 occasion why either my captain or he should hazard 
 their lives : I will alight from my horse, and tell my 
 captain presently how all that matter past ; " where- 
 upon also he relating the business about borrowing 
 the horse, in that manner I formerly set down, which 
 as soon as Sir James Areskin heard, he sent Lieu- 
 tenant Hamilton to me presently again, to tell me he 
 was satisfied how the business past, and that he had 
 nothing to say to me, but that he was my most 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 8S 
 
 humble servant, and was sorry he had ever questioned 
 me in that manner. 
 
 Some occasions detaining me in Dusseldorf, the 
 next day Lieutenant Montgomery came to me, and 
 told me he was in danger of losing his place, and 
 desired me to make means to his excellency the 
 Prince of Orange that he might not be cashiered, or 
 else that he was undone. I told him that either I 
 would keep him in his place, or take him as my 
 companion and friend, and allow him sufficient means 
 till I could provide him another as good as it; which he 
 takmg very kindly, but desiring chiefly he might go 
 with my letter to the Prince of Orange, I obtained at 
 last he should be restored to his place again. 
 
 And now taking boat, I passed along the river of 
 Rhine to the Low Countries, where after some stay, 
 I went to Antwerp and Brussels ; and having passed 
 some time in the court there, went from thence to 
 Calais, where taking ship, I arrived at Dover, and so 
 went to London. I had scarce been two days there, 
 when the lords of the council sending for me, ended 
 the difference betwixt the Lord of Walden and myself. 
 And, now if I may say it without vanity, I was in 
 great esteem both in court and city ; many of the 
 greatest desiring my company, though yet before that 
 time I had no acquaintance with them. Richard,^ Earl 
 of Dorset, to whom otherwise I was a stranger, one 
 day invited me to Dorset House, where bringing me 
 
 1 Richard Sackville, Eaii of Dorset, grandson of the Treasurer, and 
 husband of the famous Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset and 
 Pembroke. 
 
86 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPH V. 
 
 into his gallery, and showing me many pictures, he at 
 last brought me to a frame covered with green 
 taffeta, and asked me who I thought was there ; and 
 therewithal presently drawing the curtain, showed 
 me my own picture ; whereupon demanding how his 
 lordship came to have it, he answered, that he had 
 heard so many brave things of me, that he got a copy 
 of a picture which one Larkin^ a painter drew for me, 
 the original whereof I intended before my departure 
 to the Low Countries for Sir Thomas Lucy. But not 
 only the Earl of Dorset, but a greater person ^ than I 
 will here nominate, got another copy from Larkin, 
 and placing it afterwards in her cabinet (without that 
 ever I knew any such thing was done), gave occasion 
 to those who saw it after her death of more discourse 
 than I could have wished ; and indeed I may truly 
 say, that taking of my picture was fatal to me, for 
 more reasons than I shall think fit to deliver. 
 
 There was a lady also, wife to Sir John Ayres, 
 knight, who finding some means to get a copy of my 
 picture from Larkin, gave it to Mr. Isaac Oliver,^ the 
 painter in Blackfriars, and desired him to draw 
 it in little after his manner ; which being done, she 
 caused it to be set in gold and enamelled, and so wore 
 it about her neck, so low that she hid it under her 
 breasts, which, I conceive, coming afterwards to the 
 
 ^ M. de Remusat was unable to identify Larkin, and Mr. Lee supposes 
 Nicholas Lockie to be meant. 
 
 ^ This was probably Queen Anne, as appears from the terms in which 
 he speaks of her a little farther. 
 
 2 A famous miniature-painter of the time. — Lee, 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPH Y. 
 
 87 
 
 knowledge of Sir John Ayres, gave him more cause of 
 jealousy than needed, had he known how innocent I 
 was from pretending to any thing which might wrong 
 him or his lady ; since I could not so much as imagine 
 that either she had my picture, or that she bare more 
 than ordinary affection to me. It is true that she had 
 a place in court, and attended Queen Anne, and was 
 beside of an excellent wit and discourse, she had made 
 herself a considerable person ; howbeit little more • 
 than common civility ever passed betwixt us, though 
 I confess I think no man was welcomer to her when 
 I came, for which I shall allege this passage : — 
 
 Coming one day into her chamber, I saw her 
 through the curtains lying upon her bed with a wax 
 candle in one hand, and the picture I formerly men- 
 tioned in the other. I coming thereupon somewhat 
 boldly to her, she blew out the candle, and hid the 
 picture from me ; myself thereupon being curious to 
 know what that was she held in her hand, got the 
 candle to be lighted again, by means whereof I found 
 it was my picture she looked upon with more earnest- 
 ness and passion than I could have easily believed, 
 especially since myself was not engaged in any affection 
 towards her. I could willingly have omitted this 
 passage, but that it was the beginning of a bloody 
 history which followed : howsoever, yet I must before 
 the Eternal God clear her honour. 
 
 And now in court a great person ^ sent for me 
 divers times to attend her, which summons though I 
 
 ^ Another allusion to Queen Anne. 
 
88 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 obeyed, yet God knoweth I declined coming to her as 
 much as conveniently I could, without incurring her 
 displeasure ; and this I did not only for very honest 
 reasons, but, to speak ingenuously, because that 
 affection passed betwixt me and another lady ^ (who I 
 believe was the fairest of her time) as nothing could 
 divert it. I had not been long in London, when a 
 violent burning fever seized upon me, which brought 
 me almost to my death, though at last I did by slow 
 degrees recover my health. 
 
 Being thus upon my amendment, the Lord Lisle,^ 
 afterwards Earl of Leicester, sent me word that Sir 
 John Ayres intended to kill me in my bed, and wished 
 me keep a guard upon my chamber and person. The 
 same advertisement was confirmed by Lucy,^ Countess 
 of Bedford, and the Lady Hobby ^ shortly after. 
 Hereupon I thought fit to entreat Sir William Herbert, 
 now Lord Powis, to go to Sir John Ayres, and tell 
 him that I marvelled much at the information given 
 me by these great persons, and that I could not 
 imagine any sufficient ground hereof ; howbeit, if he 
 had any thing to say to me in a fair and noble way, I 
 would give him the meeting as soon as I had got 
 strength enough to stand upon my legs. Sir William 
 hereupon brought me so ambiguous and doubtful an 
 
 ^ Probably Lady Kent. 
 
 2 Robert Sidney, younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney, 
 
 ^ Lucy Harrington, wife of Edward, Earl of Bedford, patroness of 
 
 the wits and poets of her day. 
 
 ^ Probably Anne, second wife of Sir Edward Hobby, a patron of 
 
 Camden. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAFHY. 
 
 89 
 
 answer from him, that whatsoever he meant, he would 
 not declare yet his intention, which was really, as I 
 found afterwards, to kill me any way that he could, 
 since, as he said, though falsely, I had whored his 
 wife. Finding no means thus to surprise me, he sent 
 me a letter to this effect ; that he desired to meet me 
 somewhere, and that it might so fall out as I might 
 return quietly again. To this I replied, that if he 
 desired to fight with me upon equal terms, I should 
 upon assurance of the field and fair play, give him 
 meeting when he did any way specify the cause, and 
 that I did not think fit to come to him upon any 
 other terms, having been sufficiently informed of his 
 plots to assassinate me. 
 
 After this, finding he could take no advantage 
 against me, then, in a treacherous way, he resolved 
 to assassinate me in this manner ; hearing I was to 
 come to Whitehall on horseback, with two lackeys 
 only, he attended my coming back in a place called 
 Scotland Yard, at the hither end of Whitehall, as you 
 come to it from the Strand, hiding himself here with 
 four men armed, on purpose to kill me. 
 
 I took horse at Whitehall Gate, and passing by that 
 place, he being armed with a sword and dagger, with- 
 out giving me so much as the least warning, ran at 
 me furiously, but instead of me, wounded my horse 
 in the brisket, as far as his sword could enter for the 
 bone. My horse hereupon starting aside, he ran him 
 again in the shoulder, which, though it made the horse 
 more timorous, yet gave me time to draw my sword. 
 His men thereupon encompassed me, and wounded my 
 
90 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 horse in three places more ; this made my horse kick 
 and fling in that manner, as his men durst not come 
 near me ; which advantage I took to strike at Sir 
 John Ayres with all my force, but he warded the blow 
 both with his sword and dagger ; instead of doing 
 him harm, I broke my sword within a foot of the hilt. 
 Hereupon some passenger that knew me, and observ- 
 ing my horse bleeding in so many places, and so many 
 men assaulting me, and my sword broken, cried to me 
 several times, " Ride away, ride away ; but I, scorn- 
 ing a base flight upon what terms soever, instead 
 thereof, alighted as well as I could from my horse. 
 
 I had no sooner put one foot upon the ground, but 
 Sir John Ayres pursuing me, made at my horse again, 
 which the horse perceiving, pressed on me on the side 
 I alighted, in that manner that he threw me down, so 
 that I remained flat upon the ground, only one foot 
 hanging in the stirrup, with that piece of a sword in 
 my right hand. Sir John Ayres hereupon ran about 
 the horse, and was thrusting his sword into me, when 
 I, finding myself in this danger, did with both my 
 arms reaching at his legs, pull them towards me, till 
 he fell down backwards on his head. One of my 
 footmen hereupon, who was a little Shropshire boy, 
 freed my foot out of the stirrup ; the other, which 
 was a great fellow, having run away as soon as he saw 
 the first assault. This gave me time to get upon my 
 legs, and to put myself in the best posture I could 
 with that poor remnant of a weapon. 
 
 Sir John Ayres by this time likewise was got up, 
 standing betwixt me and some part of Whitehall, with 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 91 
 
 two men on each side of him, and his brother behind 
 him, with at least twenty or thirty persons of his 
 friends, or attendants of the Earl of Suffolk.^ Observ- 
 ing thus a body of men standing in opposition 
 against me, though to speak truly I saw no swords 
 drawn, but by Sir John Ayres and his men, I ran 
 violently against Sir John Ayres ; but he knowing 
 my sword had no point, held his sword and dagger 
 over his head, as believing I could strike rather than 
 thrust ; which I no sooner perceived but I put a 
 home thrust to the middle of his breast, that I 
 threw him down with so much force, that his head 
 fell first to the ground, and his heel upwards. His 
 men hereupon assaulted me ; when one, Mr. Mansel, a 
 Glamorganshire gentleman, finding so many set against 
 me alone, closed with one of them ; a Scotch gentle- 
 man also closincf with another, took him oft* also. All 
 I could well do to those two which remained was, to 
 ward their thrusts, which I did with that resolution, 
 that I got ground upon them. 
 
 Sir John Ayres was now got up a third time, when 
 I was making towards him with the intention to close, 
 thinking that there was otherwise no safety for me, 
 put by a thrust of his with my left hand, and so 
 coming within him, received a stab with his dagger 
 on my right side, which ran down my ribs as far as 
 my hip, which I feeling, did with my right elbow 
 force his hand, together with the hilt of the dagger, 
 
 ^ Father of Lord Howard of Walden, with whom Herbert had lately 
 quarrelled. — Lee. 
 
9^ 
 
 A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 so near the upper part of my right side, that I made 
 him leave hold. The dagger now sticking in me, Sir 
 Henry Gary, afterwards Lord of Falkland, and Lord 
 Deputy of Ireland, finding the dagger thus in my 
 body, snatched it out. This while I being closed with 
 Sir John Ayres, hurt him on the head, and threw him 
 down a third time, when, kneeling on the ground, and 
 bestriding him, I struck at him as hard as I could 
 with my piece of a sword, and wounded him in four 
 several places, and did almost cut off his left hand. 
 His two men this while struck at me ; but it pleased 
 God even miraculously to defend me ; for when I 
 lifted up my sword to strike at Sir John Ayres, I 
 bore off their blows half a dozen times. His friends 
 now finding him in this danger, took him by the head 
 and shoulders, and drew him from betwixt my legs, 
 and carried him along with them through Whitehall, 
 at the stairs whereof he took boat. Sir Herbert Groft 
 (as he told me afterwards) met him upon the water, 
 vomiting all the way, which I believe was caused by 
 the violence of the first thrust I gave him. His ser- 
 vants, brother, and friends being now retired also, I 
 remained master of the place and his weapons ; having 
 first wrested his dagger from him, and afterwards 
 struck his sword out of his hand. 
 
 This being done, I retired to a friend's house in the 
 Strand, where I sent for a surgeon, who, searching my 
 wound on the right side, and finding it not to be 
 mortal, cured me in the space of some ten days, 
 during which time I received many noble visits and 
 messages from some of the best in the kingdom. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 93 
 
 Being now fully recovered of my hurts, I desired Sir 
 Robert Harley^ to go to Sir John Ayres, and tell him, 
 that though I thought he had not so much honour 
 left in him that I could be any way ambitious to get 
 it, yet that I desired to see him in the field with his 
 sword in his hand. The answer that he sent me was, 
 that I had whored his wife, and that he would kill 
 me with a musket out of a window. 
 
 The Lords of the Privy Council, who had first sent 
 for my sword, that they might see the little fragment 
 of a weapon with which I had so behaved myself, as 
 perchance the like had not been heard in any credible 
 way, did afterwards command both him and me to 
 appear before them ; but I absenting myself on pur- 
 pose, sent one Humphrey Hill with a challenge to 
 him in an ordinary, which he refusing to receive, Hum- 
 phrey Hill put it upon the point of his sword, and so 
 let it fall before him and the company then present. 
 
 The Lords of the Privy Council had now taken order 
 to apprehend Sir John Ayres, when I, finding nothing 
 else to be done, submitted myself likewise to them. 
 Sir John Ayres had now published everywhere, that 
 the ground of his jealousy, and consequently of his 
 assaulting me, was drawn from the confession of his 
 wife the Lady Ayres. She, to vindicate her honour, 
 as well as free me from this accusation, sent a letter 
 to her aunt the Lady Crook, to this purpose ; that her 
 husband Sir John Ayres did lie falsely, in saying that 
 I ever whored her; but most falsely of all did lie, 
 
 1 Knight of the Bath, and Master of the Mint. 
 
94 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 when he said he had it from her confession, for she 
 had never said any such thing. 
 
 This letter the Lady Crook presented to me most 
 opportunely, as I was going to the Council table before 
 the Lords, who having examined Sir John Ayres con- 
 cerning the cause of the quarrel against me, found 
 him still persist in his wife's confession of the fact ; 
 and now he being withdrawn, I was sent for, when 
 the Duke of Lennox,^ afterwards of Richmond, telling 
 me that was the ground of his quarrel, and the only 
 excuse he had for assaulting me in that manner, I 
 desired his lordship to peruse the letter, which I told 
 him was given me as I came into the room. This 
 letter being publicly read by a clerk of the Council, 
 the Duke of Lennox then said, that he thought Sir 
 John Ayres the most miserable man living; for his 
 wife had not only given him the lie, as he found by 
 her letter, but his father had disinherited him for 
 attempting to kill me in that barbarous fashion, which 
 was most true, as I found afterwards. For the rest, 
 that I might content myself with what I had done, it 
 being more almost than could be believed, but that I 
 had so many witnesses thereof ; for all which reasons 
 he commanded me, in the name of his Majesty, and all 
 their Lordships, not to send any more to Sir John 
 Ayres, nor to receive any message from him, in the 
 way of fighting ; which commandment I observed. 
 Howbeit, I must not omit to tell, that some years 
 
 ^ Lodovic Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, was Lord Steward 
 of the Household, and Knight of the Garter. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 95 
 
 afterwards, Sir John Ayres returning from Ireland by 
 Beaumaris, where I then was, some of my servants 
 and followers broke open the doors of the house where 
 he was, and would (I believe) have cut him into 
 pieces, but that I, hearing thereof, came suddenly to 
 the house and recalled them, sending him word also, 
 that I scorned to give him the usage he gave me, and 
 that I would set him free out of the town ; which 
 courtesy of mine, as I was told afterwards, he did 
 thankfully acknowledge. 
 
 About a month after that Sir John Ayres attempted 
 to assassinate me, the news thereof was carried, I 
 know not how, to the Duke of Montmorency, who 
 presently dispatched a gentleman with a letter to me 
 (which I keep), and a kind offer, that if I would come 
 unto him, I should be used as his own son ; neither 
 had this gentleman, as I know of, any other business 
 in England. I was told besides by this gentleman, 
 that the Duke heard I had greater and more powerful 
 enemies than did publicly declare themselves (which, 
 indeed, was true), and that he doubted I might have 
 a mischief before I was aware. 
 
 My answer hereunto by letter was, That I rendered 
 most humble thanks for his great favour in sending 
 to me ; that no enemies, how great or many soever, 
 could force me out of the kingdom ; but if ever there 
 were occasion to serve him in particular, I should not 
 fail to come ; for performance whereof, it happening 
 there were some overtures of a civil war in France 
 the next year, I sent over a French gentleman 
 who attended me, unto the Duke of Montmorency^ 
 
96 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 expressly to tell him, that if he had occasion to use 
 my service in the designed war, I would bring over 
 one hundred horse at my own cost and charges to him ; 
 which that good old Duke and constable took so 
 kindly, that, as the Duchess of Ventadour, his 
 daughter, told me afterwards, when I was ambassador, 
 there were few days, till the last of his life, that he 
 did not speak of me with much affection. 
 
 I can say little more memorable concerning myself 
 from the year 1611, when I was hurt, until the year 
 of our Lord 1614, than that I passed my time some- 
 times in the Court, where (I protest before God) I had 
 more favours than I desired ; and sometimes in the 
 country, without any memorable accident ; but only 
 that it happened one time, going from St. Julian's 
 to Abergavenny, in the way to Montgomery Castle, 
 Richard Griffiths, a servant of mine, being come near 
 a bridge over Usk, not far from the town, thought 
 fit to water his horse ; but the river being deep and 
 strong in that place where he entered it, he was 
 carried down the stream. My servants that were 
 before me, seeing this, cried aloud, " Dick Griffiths 
 was drowning : " which I no sooner heard, but I put 
 my spurs to my horse, and coming up to the place, 
 where I saw him as high as his middle in water, leapt 
 into the river a little below him, and swimming up to 
 him, bore him up with one of my hands, and brought 
 him unto the middle of the river, where (through God's 
 great providence) was a bank of sand. Coming 
 hither not without some difficulty, we rested our- 
 selves ; and advised whether it were better to return 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH K 
 
 97 
 
 back unto the side from whence we came, or to go 
 on forwards ; but Dick Griffiths saying we were sure 
 to swim if we returned back, and that, perchance, the 
 river might be shallow the other way, I followed his 
 counsel, and putting my horse below him, bore him up 
 in the manner I did formerly, and swimming through 
 the river, brought him safe to the other side. The 
 horse I rode upon, I remember, cost me forty pounds, 
 and was the same horse which Sir John Ayres hurt 
 under me, and did swim excellently well, carrying me 
 and his back above water; whereas that little nag 
 upon which Richard Griffiths rid, swam so low, that 
 he must needs have drowned, if I had not supported 
 him. 
 
 I will tell one history more of this horse, which I 
 
 bought of my cousin Fowler of the Grange, because 
 
 it is memorable. I was passing over a bridge not far 
 
 from Colebrook, which had no barrier on the one 
 
 side, and a hole in the bridge, not far from the 
 
 middle ; my horse, though lusty, yet being very 
 
 timorous, and seeing besides but very little on the 
 
 right eye, started so nuicli at the hole, that upon a 
 
 sudden he had put half his body lengthwise over the 
 
 side of the bridge, and was ready to fall into the 
 
 river, with his fore-foot and hinder-foot on the right 
 
 side ; when I, foreseeing the danger I was in if I fell 
 
 down, clapt my left foot, together with the stirrup and 
 
 spur, flat- long to the left side, and so made him leap 
 
 upon all four into the river, whence, after some three 
 
 or four plunges, he brought me to land. 
 
 The year 1614 was now entering, when I understood 
 
 489 
 
98 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that the Low Country and Spanish army would be 
 in the field that year. This made me resolve to offer 
 my service to the Prince of Orange, who, upon my 
 coming, did much welcome me, not suffering me almost 
 to eat anywhere but at his table, and carrying me 
 abroad the afternoon in his coach, to partake of those 
 entertainments he delighted in when there was no 
 pressing occasion. The Low Country army being now 
 ready, his Excellency prepared to go into the field ; in 
 the way to which, he took me in his coach, and some- 
 times in a waggon, after the Low Country fashion, 
 to the great envy of the English and French chief 
 commanders, who expected that honour. 
 
 Being now arrived near Emmerich, one with a most 
 humble petition came from a monastery of nuns, most 
 humbly desiring that the soldiers might not violate 
 their honour, nor their monastery ; whereupon, I was a 
 most humble suitor to his Excellency to spare them, 
 which he granted ; " But," said he, " we will go and see 
 them ourselves ; " and thus, his Excellency, and I and 
 Sir Charles Morgan only, not long after going to the 
 monastery, found it deserted in great part. Having 
 put a guard upon this monastery, his Excellency 
 marched with his army on till we came near the city of 
 Emmerich, which, upon summoning, yielded ; and now 
 leaving a garrison here, we resolved to march towards 
 Bees. 
 
 This place, having the Spanish army, under the 
 command of Monsieur Spinola, on the one side, and the 
 Low Country army on the other, being able to resist 
 neither, sent word to both armies, that whichsoever 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 99 
 
 came first should have the place. Spinola hereupon 
 sent word to his Excellency, that if we intended to 
 take Rees, he would give him battle in a plain near 
 before the town. His Excellency, nothing astonished 
 hereat, marched on, his pioneers making his way for 
 the army still, through hedges and ditches, until he 
 came to tliat hedge and ditch which was next the 
 plain ; and here drawing his men into battle, resolved 
 to attend the coming of Spinola into the field. While 
 his men were putting in order, I was so desirous to see 
 whether Spinola with his army appeared, I leapt over 
 a great hedge and ditch, attended only with one 
 footman, purposing to change a pistol-shot or two 
 with the first I met. I found thus some single horse 
 in the field, who, perceiving me to come on, rid away 
 as fast as they could, believing, perchance, that more 
 would follow me. Having thus passed to the further 
 end of the field, and finding no show of the enemy, I 
 returned back, that I might inform his Excellency 
 there was no hope of fighting, as I could perceive. In 
 the mean time, his Excellency having prepared all 
 things for battle, sent out five or six scouts to dis- 
 cover whether the enemy were coming, according to 
 promise ; these men finding me now coming towards 
 them, thouo^ht I was one of the enemies, which beinof 
 perceived by me, and I as little knowing at that time 
 who they were, rode up with my sword in my hand 
 and pistol, to encounter them ; and now being come 
 within reasonable distance, one of the persons there 
 that knew me, told his fellows who I was, whereupon 
 I passed quietly to his Excellency, and told him wliat 
 
TOO 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 I had done, and that I found no appearance of an 
 army. His Excellency then caused the hedge and 
 ditch before him to be levelled, and marched in front, 
 with his army, into the middle of the field ; from 
 whence, sending some of his forces to summon the 
 town, it yielded without resistance. 
 
 Our army made that haste to come to the place 
 appointed for the battle, that all our baggage and pro- 
 vision were left behind, insomuch that I was without 
 any meat, but what my footman spared me out of 
 his pocket ; and my lodging that night was no better, 
 for extreme rain falling at that time in the open 
 field, I had no shelter, but was glad to get on the top 
 of a wai^g^on which had straw in it, and to cover 
 myself with my cloak as well as I could, and so 
 endure that stormy night. Morning being come, and 
 no enemy appearing, I went to the town of Rees, into 
 w^hich his Excellency having now put a garrison, 
 marched on with the rest of his army towards Wezel, 
 before which Spinola with his army lay, and in the 
 way intrenched himself strongly, and attended 
 Spinola s motions. For the rest, nothing memorable 
 happened after this betwixt those two generals, for 
 the space of many weeks. 
 
 I must yet not omit with thankfulness to remember 
 a favour his Excellency did me at this time ; for a 
 soldier having killed his fellow soldier in the quarter 
 where they were lodged, which is an unpardonable 
 fault, insomuch that no man would speak for him ; 
 the poor fellow comes to me, and desires me to beg 
 his life of his Excellency; whereupon I demanding 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 lOI 
 
 whether he had ever heard of a man pardoned in this 
 kind, and he saying no, I told him it was in vain then 
 for me to speak ; when the poor fellow writhing his 
 neck a little, said, " Sir, but were it not better you 
 shall cast away a few words, than I lose my life ? " 
 This piece of eloquence moved me so much, that I 
 went strait to his Excellency, and told him what 
 the poor fellow had said, desiring him to excuse me, if 
 upon these terms I took the boldness to speak for 
 him. There was present at that time the Earl of 
 Southampton,^ as also Sir Edward Cecil, and Sir 
 Horace Verc, as also Monsieur de Chatillon, and 
 divers other French commanders ; to whom his Excel- 
 lency turning himself said in French, " Do you see 
 this cavalier with all that courage you know, hath 
 yet that good-nature to pray for the life of a poor 
 soldier ? though I have never pardoned any before in 
 this kind, yet I will pardon this at his request ; " so 
 commanding him to be brought me, and disposed of as 
 I thought fit, whom therefore I released and set free. 
 
 It was now so far advanced in autumn, both armies 
 thought of retiring themselves into their garrisons, 
 when a trumpeter comes from the Spanish army 
 to ours, with a challenge from a Spanish cavalier to 
 this cfiicct. That if any cavalier in our army would 
 fiofht a sin Me combat for the sake of his mistress, the 
 said Spaniard would meet him, upon assurance of the 
 camp in our army. This challenge being brought 
 
 ^ ITcnry Wiiotlicslcy, third Earl of Southampton. He had been 
 attainted with the Earl of Essex, but was restored by King James, and 
 made Knight of the Garter. 
 
T02 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 early in the morning was accepted by nobody till 
 about ten or eleven of the clock, when a report thereof 
 coming to me, I went strait to his Excellency, and 
 told him I desired to accept the challenge. His 
 Excellency thereupon looking earnestly upon me, told 
 me he was an old soldier, and that he had observed 
 two sorts of men who used to send challeno^es in this 
 kind; one was of those who having lost perchance 
 some part of their honour in the field against the 
 enemy, would recover it again by a single fight. The 
 other was of those who sent it only to discover 
 whether our army had in it men aflTected to give trial 
 of themselves in this kind ; howbeit, if this man was 
 a person without exception to be taken against him, 
 he said there was none he knew, upon whom he 
 would sooner venture the honour of his army than 
 myself; and this also he spoke before divers of the 
 English and French commanders I formerly nominated. 
 
 Hereupon, by his Excellency's permission, I sent a 
 trumpet to the Spanish army with this answer, 
 " That if the person who would be sent were a cavalier 
 without reproach, I would answer him with such 
 weapons as we should agree upon, in the place he 
 oflfered ; " but my trumpeter was scarcely arrived, as I 
 believe, at the Spanish army, when another trumpeter 
 came to ours from Spinola, saying the challenge was 
 made without his consent, and that therefore he would 
 not permit it. 
 
 This message being brought to his Excellency, with 
 whom I then was, he said to me presently, " This is 
 strange ; they send a challenge hither, and when 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 they have done, recall it : I should be glad if I 
 knew the true causes o£ it." — " Sir," said I, " if vou 
 will give me leave, I will go to their army and make 
 the like challenge as they sent hither ; it may be 
 some scruple is made concerning the place appointed, 
 being in your Excellency's camp, and therefore I shall 
 offer them the combat in their own ; " his Excellency 
 said, " I should never have persuaded you to this 
 course, but since you voluntarily offer it, I must not 
 deny that which you think to be for your honour." 
 
 Hereupon taking my leave of him, and desiring Sir 
 Humphrey Tufton,^ a brave gentleman, to bear me 
 company, thus we two, attended only with two 
 lackeys, rode straight towards the Spanish camp 
 before Wezel; coming thither without any disturb- 
 ance, by the way I was demanded by the guard at 
 the entering into the camp, with whom I would 
 speak ; I told them with the Duke of Neuburg ; 
 whereupon a soldier was presently sent with us to 
 conduct us to the Duke of Neuburg s tent, who 
 remembering me well, since he saw me at the siege of 
 Juliers, very kindly embraced me, and therewithal 
 demanding the cause of my coming thither ; I told 
 him the effect thereof in the manner I formerly set 
 down ; to which he replied only, he would acquaint the 
 Marquis Spinola therewith ; who coming shortly after 
 to the Duke of Neuburg s tent, with a great train of 
 commanders and captains following him, he no sooner 
 
 1 Third son of Sir John Tufton and brother of Nicholas Earl of 
 Thanet. 
 
T04 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPH V. 
 
 entered but he turned to me and said, that he knew 
 well the cause of my coming, and that the same reasons 
 which made him forbid the Spanish cavalier to fight 
 a combat in the Prince of Orange's camp, did make 
 him forbid it in his, and that no one should be 
 better welcome to him than I would be, and thereupon 
 entreated me to come and dine with him; I finding 
 nothing else to be done, did kindly accept the offer ; 
 and so attending him to his tent, where a brave 
 dinner being put upon his table, he placed the Duke 
 of Neuburg uppermost at one end of the table, and 
 myself at the other, himself sitting below us, present- 
 ing with his own hand still the best of that meat his 
 carver offered him. He demanded of me then in Italian, 
 Di die moriva Sigr. Francisco Vere'^ (Of what died 
 Sir Francis Vere ?) I told him, "Per aver niente d 
 fare'' (Because he had nothing to do.) Spinola replied, 
 " E basta per un generale '' (And it is enough to kill a 
 general). And indeed that brave commander. Sir 
 Francis Vere, died not in the time of war but of peace. 
 
 Taking my leave now of the Marquis Spinola, I 
 told him that if ever he did lead an army against the 
 Infidels, I should adventure to be the first man that 
 would die in that quarrel, and together demanded 
 leave of him to see his army, which he granting, I 
 took leave of him, and did at leisure view it ; 
 observing the difference in the proceedings betwixt 
 the Low Country army and fortifications, as well as 
 I could ; and so returning shortly after to his 
 Excellency, related to him the success of my journey. 
 
 It happened about this time that Sir Henry 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 1 05 
 
 Wotton mediated a peace, by the king's command, 
 who coming for that purpose to Wezel, I took 
 occasion to go along with him to Spinolas army, 
 whence after a night's stay, I went on an extreme 
 rainy day through the woods to Kaiserswerth, to the 
 great wonder of mine host, who said all men were 
 robbed or killed that went that way ; from hence I 
 went to Cologne, where among other things I saw the 
 monastery of St. Herbert ; from hence I went to 
 Heidelberg, where I saw the Prince and Princess 
 Palatine, from whom having received much good 
 usage, I went to Ulm, and so to Ausburg, where 
 extraordinary honour was done me ; for coming into 
 an inn, where an ambassador from Brussels lay, the 
 town sent twenty great flagons of wine thither, 
 whereof they gave eleven to the ambassador, and nine 
 to me ; and withal some such compliments that I 
 found my fame had prevented^ my coming thither. 
 
 From hence I went through Switzerland to Trent, 
 and from thence to Venice, where I was received by 
 the English ambassador, Sir Dudley Carlton,^ with 
 much honour. Among other favours shew^ed me, I w^as 
 brought to see a nun in Murano, who being an 
 admired beauty, and together singing extremely well, 
 was thought one of the rarities not only of that place 
 but of the time. We came to a room opposite unto 
 the cloister, whence she coming on the other side of 
 the grate betwixt us, sung so extremely well, that 
 
 ^ 1.6., preceded. 
 
 2 Ambassador to Venice, Savoy, and Holland, Secretary of State, 
 and Viscount Dorchester. 
 
io6 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 when she departed neither my Lord Ambassador nor 
 his lady, who were then present, could find as much 
 as a word of fitting language to return her, for the 
 extraordinary music she gave us ; when I, being 
 ashamed that she should go back without some 
 testimony of the sense we had both of the harmony 
 of her beauty and her voice, said in Italian, " Moria 
 pur quando vuol, non bisogna mntar ni voce ni 
 facia per esser un angelo " (" Die whensoever you 
 will, you neither need to change voice nor face to be 
 an angel"). These words it seemed were fatal, for 
 going thence to Rome, and returning shortly after- 
 wards, I heard she was dead in the meantime. 
 
 From Venice, after some stay, I went to Florence, 
 where I met the Earl of Oxford^ and Sir Benjamin 
 Rudyerd f having seen the rarities of this place like- 
 wise, and particularly that rare chapel made for the 
 house of Medici, beautified on all the inside with a 
 coarser kind of precious stone, as also that nail which 
 was at one end iron, and the other gold, made so by 
 virtue of a tincture into which it was put. I went to 
 Siena, and from thence, a little before the Christmas 
 holidays, to Rome. I was no sooner alighted at my 
 inn, but I went straight to the English College, where 
 demanding for the regent or master thereof, a grave 
 person not long after appeared at the door, to whom 
 
 ^ Henry Yere, Earl of Oxford. He died at the Hague in 1625, of a 
 sickness contracted at the siege of Breda. 
 
 2 Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, a wit and poet, and intimate friend of 
 William Earl of Pembroke, with whose poems Sir Benjamin's are 
 printed. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 107 
 
 I spake in this manner : " Sir, I need not tell you my 
 country when you hear my language ; I come not 
 here to study controversies, but to see the antiquities 
 of the place; if without scandal to the religion in 
 which I was born and bred up, I may take this 
 liberty, I should be glad to spend some convenient 
 time here ; if not, my horse is yet unsaddled, and 
 myself willing to go out of town." The answer 
 returned by him to me was, that he never heard any- 
 body before me profess himself of any other religion 
 than what was used in Rome ; for his part, he ap- 
 proved much my freedom, as collecting thereby I was 
 a person of honour ; for the rest, that he could give 
 me no warrant for my stay there, howbeit that 
 experience did teach that those men who gave no 
 affronts to the Roman Catholic religion, received none ; 
 whereupon also he demanded my name. I telling 
 him I was called Sir Edward Herbert, he replied, that 
 he had heard men oftentimes speak of me both for 
 learning and courage, and presently invited me to 
 dinner; I told him that "I took his courteous offer 
 as an argument of his affection ; that I desired him to 
 excuse me, if I did not accept it; the uttermost 
 liberty I had (as tlie times then were in England) 
 being already taken in coming to that city only, least 
 they should think me a factious person ; I thought fit 
 to tell him that I conceived the points agreed upon on 
 both sides, are greater bonds of amity betwixt us, 
 than that the points disagreed on could break them ; 
 that for my part I loved everybody that was of a 
 pious and virtuous life, and thought the errors on 
 
io8 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 what side soever, were more worthy pity than hate 
 and having* declared myself thus far, I took my leave 
 of him courteously and spent about a month's time in 
 seeing the antiquities of that place which first found 
 means to establish so great an empire over the persons 
 of men, and afterwards over their consciences ; the 
 articles of confession and absolving sinners, being a 
 greater arcanum imjyerii for governing the world 
 than all the arts invented by statists formerly were. 
 
 After I had seen Rome sufficiently, I went to 
 Tivoli, anciently called Tibur, and saw the fair palace 
 and garden there, as also Frascati, anciently called 
 Tusculanum. After that I returned to Rome, and 
 saw the Pope in consistory, which being done, when 
 the Pope being now ready to give his blessing, I 
 departed thence suddenly, which gave such a sus- 
 picion of me, that some were sent to apprehend 
 me, but I going a byway escaped them, and w^ent to 
 my inn to take horse, where I had not been now half 
 an hour, when the master or regent of the English 
 College telling me that I was accused in the Inquisi- 
 tion, and that I could stay no longer with any safety, 
 I took this warning very kindly ; howbeit I did only 
 for the present change my lodging, and a day or two 
 afterwards took horse and went out of Rome towards 
 Siena, and from thence to Florence. 
 
 I saw Robert Dudley ,i who had the title of Earl or 
 
 1 See account in Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. 
 Handsome Mrs. Sudel was Mrs. Southwell, daughter of Sir Robert 
 Southwell, who had followed Sir Robert Dudley from England, under 
 the disguise of a page. 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPH K 109 
 
 Duke of Northumberland given him by the Emperor,^ 
 and handsome Mrs. Southwell, whom he carried with 
 him out of England, and was there taken for his 
 wife. I was invited by them to a great feast the 
 night before I went out of town ; taking my leave of 
 them both, I prepared for my journey the next 
 morning ; when I was ready to depart, a messenger 
 came to me, and tokl me if I would accept the same 
 pension Sir Robert Dudley had, being two thousand 
 ducats per annum, the duke would entertain me for 
 his service in the war against the Turks. This offer, 
 whether procured by the means of Sir Kobert 
 Dudley, Mrs. Southwell, or Sigr. Loty, my ancient 
 friend, I know not, being thankfully acknowledged 
 as a great honour, was yet refused by me, my 
 intention being to serve his Excellency in the Low 
 Country war. 
 
 After I had stayed a while, from hence I went by 
 Ferrara and Boloona towards Padua, in which univer- 
 sity having spent some time to hear the learned 
 readers, and particularly Cremonini,^ I left my 
 Eni^lish horses and Scotch saddles there, for on them 
 I rid all the way from the Low Countries, I went by 
 boat to Venice. The Lord Ambassador, Sir Dudley 
 Carlton, by this time had a command to reside a 
 while in the court of the Duke of Savoy, wherewith 
 also his Lordship acquainted me, demanding whether I 
 would go thither; this offer was gladly accepted by 
 
 1 Ferdinand I. 
 
 2 1552 1631 Professor of Philosophy at Padua. The last important 
 representative of Aristotelianism as tempered by Averroes. 
 
110 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 me, both as I was desirous to see that court, and that 
 it was in the way to the Low Country, where I meant 
 to see the war in the summer ensuing. 
 
 Coming thus in the coach with my Lord Ambassador 
 to Milan, the governor thereof invited my Lord 
 Ambassador to his house, and sometimes feasted him 
 during his stay there. Here I heard that famous nun 
 sino^inof to the orofan in this manner ; another nun 
 beginning first to sing, performed her part so well, 
 that we gave her much applause for her excellent art 
 and voice ; only we thought she did sing somewhat 
 lower than other women usually did ; hereupon also, 
 being ready to depart, we heard suddenly, for we saw 
 nobody, that nun which was so famous, sing an eight 
 higher than the other had done. Her voice was the 
 sweetest, strongest, and clearest, that ever I heard ; in 
 the using whereof, also, she shewed that art as 
 ravished us into admiration. 
 
 From Milan we went to Novara, as I remember, 
 where we were entertained by the governor, being 
 a Spaniard, with one of the most sumptuous feasts 
 that ever I saw, being but of nine dishes, in 
 three several services ; the first whereof was, three 
 ollas podridas, consisting of all choice boiled meats, 
 placed in three large silver chargers, which took up 
 the length of a great table ; the meat in it being 
 heightened up artificially pyramid-wise, to a sparrow 
 which was on the top ; the second service was like 
 the former, of roast meat, in which all manner of fowl, 
 from the pheasant and partridge, to other fowl less 
 than them, were heightened up to a lark ; the third 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 was in sweetmeats, dry of all sorts, heightened in like 
 manner to a round comfit. 
 
 From hence we went to Vercelli, a town of the 
 Duke of Savoy's, frontier to the Spaniard, with whom 
 the Duke was then in war ; from whence, passing by 
 places of least note, we came to Turin, where the 
 Duke of Savoy's court was. After I had re- 
 freshed myself here some two or three days, I took 
 leave of my Lord Ambassador, with intention to go to 
 the Low Countries, and was now upon the way 
 thither, as far as the foot of Mount Cenis, when the 
 Count Scarnafissi came to me from the Duke,^ and 
 brought a letter to this effect : " That the Duke had 
 heard I was a cavalier of great worth, and desirous 
 to see the wars, and that if I would serve him, I 
 should make my own conditions." Finding so 
 courteous an invitation, I returned back, and was 
 lodged by the Duke of Savoy in a chamber furnished 
 with silk and gold hangings, and a very rich bed, and 
 defrayed at the Duke's charges, in the English 
 ambassador's house. The Duke also confirmed unto 
 me what the Count Scarnafissi had said, and together 
 bestowed divers compliments on me. I told his 
 Highness, that when I knew in what service he 
 pleased to employ me, he should find me ready to 
 testify the sense I had of his princely invitation. 
 
 It was now in the time of Carnival, when the 
 Duke, who loved the company of ladies and dancing 
 as much as any prince whosoever, made divers masks 
 
 ' Charles Emanuel. 
 
112 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and balls, in which his own daughters, among divers 
 other ladies, danced. And here it was his manner to 
 place me always with his own hand near some fair 
 lady, wishing us both to entertain each other with 
 some discourse, which was a great favour among the 
 Italians. He did many other ways also declare the 
 great esteem he had of me without coming to any 
 particular, the time of the year for going into the field 
 being not yet come ; only he exercised his men often, 
 and made them ready for his occasions in the spring. 
 - The Duke at last resolving how to use my service, 
 thought fit to send me to Languedoc, in France, to 
 conduct four thousand men of the reformed religion, 
 who had promised their assistance in his war, unto 
 Piedmont. I willing accepted this offer ; so taking my 
 leave of the Duke, and bestowing about seventy or 
 eighty pounds among his officers, for the kind enter- 
 tainment I had received, I took my leave also of my 
 Lord Ambassador, and Sir Albertus Morton, who was 
 likewise employed there, and prepared for my journey, 
 for more expedition of which I was desired to go post. 
 An old Scotch knight of the Sandilands hearing this, 
 desired to borrow my horses as far as Heidelberg, 
 which I granted, on condition that he would use them 
 well by the way, and give them good keeping in that 
 place afterwards. 
 
 The Count Scarnafissi was commanded to bear me 
 company in this journey, and to carry with him some 
 jewels, which he was to pawn in Lyons, in France, and 
 with the money gotten for them to pay the soldiers 
 above nominated ; for though the Duke had put 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 113 
 
 extreme taxations on his people, insomuch that they 
 paid not only a certain sum for every horse, ox, cow, 
 or sheep that they kept, but afterwards for every 
 chimney ; and, finally, every single person by the 
 poll, which amounted to a pistole, or 14s. a head or 
 person, yet he wanted money ; at which I did not so 
 much wonder, as at the patience of his subjects ; of 
 whom I demanded, how they could bear their taxa- 
 tions ? I have heard some of them answer, " We are 
 not so much offended with the Duke for what he 
 takes from us, as thankful for what he leaves us." 
 
 The Count Scarnafissi and I, now setting forth, rid 
 post all day without eating or drinking by the way, 
 the Count telling me still we should come to a good 
 inn at night. It was now twilight, when the Count 
 and I came near a solitary inn on the top of a 
 mountain ; the hostess, hearing the noise of horses, 
 came out, with a child new-born on her left arm, 
 and a rush candle in her hand. She presently knowing 
 the Count de Scarnafissi, told him, "Ah, signior, you 
 are come in a very ill time ; the Duke's soldiers have 
 been here to-day, and have left me nothing." I 
 looked sadly upon the Count, when he, coming near to 
 me, whispered me in the ear, and said, " It may be she 
 thinks we will use her as the soldiers have done : go 
 you into the house, and see whether you can find any 
 thing ; I will go round about the house, and perhaps 
 I shall meet with some duck, hen, or chicken." 
 Entering thus into the house, I found for all other 
 furniture of it, the end of an old form, upon which 
 
 sitting down, the hostess came towards me with a 
 
 490 
 
A UrOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 rush candle, and said, " I protest before God, that is 
 true which I told the Count, here is nothing to eat ; 
 but you are a gentleman, methinks it is pity you should 
 want ; if you please, I will give you some milk out of 
 my breasts, into a wooden dish I have here." This 
 unexpected kindness made that impression on me, 
 that I remember I was never so tenderly sensible of 
 any thing. My answer was, " God forbid I should 
 take away the milk from the child I see in thy arms : 
 howbeit, I shall take it all my life for the greatest 
 piece of charity that ever I heard of ; and there- 
 withal giving her a pistole, or a piece of gold of 14s., 
 Scarnafissi and I got on horseback again, and rid 
 another post, and came to an inn where we found very 
 coarse cheer, yet hunger made us relish it. 
 
 In this journey I remember I went over Mount 
 Gabelet by night, being carried down that precipice 
 in a chair, a guide that went before bringing a bottle 
 of straw with him, and kindling pieces of it from 
 time to time, that we might see our way. Being at 
 the bottom of a hill, I got on horseback and rid to 
 Burgoine, resolving to rest there awhile ; and the 
 rather, to speak truly, that I had heard divers say, 
 and particularly Sir John Finnet,^ and Sir Richard 
 Newport,^ that the host's daughter there was the 
 handsomest woman that ever they saw in their lives. 
 Coming to the inn, the Count Scarnafissi wished me to 
 rest two or three hours, and he would go before to 
 
 ' Master of the Ceremonies to James L 
 2 Herbert's relative. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 "5 
 
 Lyons, to prepare businevss for my journey to Lan- 
 guedoc. The host's daughter being not within, I told 
 her father and mother that I desired only to see their 
 daughter, as having heard her spoken of in England 
 with so much advantage, that divers told me they 
 thought her the handsomest creature that ever they 
 saw. They answered, she was gone to a marriage, 
 and should be presently sent for ; wishing me, in the 
 mean while, to take some rest upon a bed, for they 
 saw I needed it. Wakinof now about two hours 
 afterwards, I found her sitting by me, attending when 
 I would open mine eyes. I shall touch a little of her 
 description ; her hair being of a shining black, was 
 naturally curled in that order that a curious woman 
 would have dressed it ; for one curl rising by degrees 
 above another, and every bout tied with a small 
 riband of a naccarine,^ or the colour that the Knights 
 of the Bath wear, gave a very graceful mixture, while 
 it was bound up in this manner from the point of her 
 shoulder to the crown of her head ; her eyes, which 
 were round and black, seemed to be models of her 
 whole beauty, and in some sort of her air, while a 
 kind of light or flame came from them, not unlike 
 that which the riband which tied up her hair 
 exhibited ; I do not remember ever to have seen a 
 prettier mouth, or w^hiter teeth ; briefly, all her out- 
 ward parts seemed to become each other ; neither was 
 there any thing that could be misliked, unless one 
 should say her complexion was too brown, which yet. 
 
 Pearl colour, Fr. nacre. 
 
it6 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 from the shadow, was heightened with a good blood 
 in her cheeks. Her gown was a green Turkey 
 grogram, cut all into panes or slashes, from the 
 shoulder and sleeves unto the foot, and tied up at the 
 distance of about a hand's-breadth everywhere with 
 the same riband with which her hair was bound : so 
 that her attire seemed as bizare as her person. I am 
 too long in describing an host's daughter, howbeit I 
 thought I might better speak of her than of divers 
 other beauties held to be the best and fairest of the 
 time, whom I have often seen. In conclusion, after 
 about an hour's stay, I departed thence, without 
 offering so much as the least incivility ; and indeed, 
 after so much weariness, it was enough that her sight 
 alone did somewhat refresh me. 
 
 From hence I went straight to Lyons. Entering the 
 gate, the guards there, after their usual manner, 
 demanded of me who I was, whence I came, and 
 whither I went ? to which while I answered, I 
 observed one of them look very attentively upon me, 
 and then again upon a paper he had in his hand ; this 
 having been done divers times, bred in me a suspicion 
 that there was no good meaning in it, and I was not 
 deceived in my conjecture ; for the Queen-mother of 
 France having newly made an edict, no soldiers should 
 be raised in France, the Marquis de Rambouillet,^ 
 
 ^ Husband of Madame de Rambouillet, who received the wits and 
 poets in the Hotel de Rambouillet. Her daughter was Julie de 
 Angennes, Duchesse de Montausier, known by Voiture's letters to 
 her. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 117 
 
 French ambassador at Turin, sent word of my em- 
 ployment to the Marquis de St. Chaumont, then 
 governor of Lyons, as also a description of my person. 
 This edict was so severe, as they who raised any men 
 were to lose their heads. 
 
 In this unfortunate conjuncture of affairs, nothing 
 fell out so well on my part, as that I had not raised 
 as yet any men ; howbeit, the guards requiring me to 
 come before the governor, I went with them to a 
 church where he was at vespers ; this while I walked 
 in the lower part of the church, little imagining what 
 danger I was in had I levied any men. I had not 
 walked there long, when a single person came to me, 
 apparelled in a black stuff suit, without any attendants 
 upon him, when I, supposing this person to be any 
 man rather than the governor, saluted him without 
 much ceremony. His first question was, whence I 
 came ? I answered from Turin ; he demanded then 
 whither I would go ? I answered, I was not yet 
 resolved ; his third question was, what news at Turin ? 
 to which I answered, that I had no news to tell, as 
 supposing him to be only some busy or inquisitive 
 person. The Marquis hereupon called one of the 
 guards that conducted me thither, and after he had 
 whispered something in his ear, wished me to go 
 along with him, which I did willingly, as believing 
 this man would bring me to the governor. This man 
 silently leading me out of the church, brought me to a 
 fair house, into which I was no sooner entered, but he 
 told me I was commanded to prison there by him I 
 saw in the church, who was the governor ; I replied, 
 
ii8 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I did not know him to be governor, nor that that was 
 a prison, and that if I were out of it again, neither the 
 governor nor all the town could bring me to it alive. 
 
 The master of the house hereupon spoke me very 
 fair, and told me he would conduct me to a better 
 chamber than any I could find in an inn, and there- 
 upon conducted me to a very handsome lodging not 
 far from the river. I had not been here half an hour 
 when Sir Edward Sackville^ (now Earl of Dorset) 
 hearing only that an Englishman was committed, sent 
 to know who I was, and why I was imprisoned. The 
 governor not knowing whether to lay the fault upon 
 my short answers to him, or my commission to levy 
 men contrary to the queens edict, made him so 
 doubtful an answer (after he had a little touched 
 upon both), as he dismissed him unsatisfied. 
 
 Sir Edward Sackville hereupon coming to the 
 house where I was, as soon as ever he saw me, 
 embraced me, saying, " Ned Herbert, what doest thou 
 here ? I answered, " Ned Sackville, I am glad to 
 see you ; but I protest I know not why I am here." 
 He again said, " Hast thou raised any men yet for 
 the Duke of Savoy ? " I replied, " Not so much as 
 one ; " then said he " I will warrant thee ; though I 
 must tell thee the governor is much offended at thy 
 behaviour and language in the church. (I replied it 
 was impossible for me to imagine him to be governor 
 that came without a guard, and in such mean clothes 
 as he then wore.) I will go to him again, and tell 
 
 ' Known best for his duel with the Lord Bruce. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 him what you say, and doubt not but you shall be 
 suddenly freed." Hereupon returning to the gover- 
 nor, he told of what family I was, and of what 
 condition, and that I had raised no men, and that I 
 knew him not to be governor ; whereupon the 
 Marquis wished him to go back, that he would come 
 in person to free me out of the house. 
 
 This message being brought me by Sir Edward 
 Sackville, I returned this answer only ; that it was 
 enough if he sent order to free me. While these 
 messages past, a company of handsome young men 
 and women, out of I know not what civility, brought 
 music under the window and danced before me, 
 looking often up to see me ; but Sir Edward Sack- 
 ville being now returned with order to free me, I 
 only gave them thanks out of the window, and so 
 went along with them to the governor. Being come 
 into a great hall where his lady was, and a large 
 train of gentlewomen and other persons, the governor 
 with his hat in his hand, demanded of me, whether 
 I knew him ? when his noble lady answering for me, 
 said, " How could he know you, when you were in 
 the church alone, and in this habit, being for the rest 
 wholly a stranger to you ? " which civility of hers, 
 though I did not presently take notice of it, I did 
 afterwards most thankfully acknowledge, when I was 
 ambassador in France. The governor s next questions 
 were the very same he made when he met me in the 
 church ; to which I made the very same answers 
 before them all, concluding, that as I did not know 
 him, he could think it no incongruity if I answered in 
 
120 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAFHY. 
 
 those terms : the governor yet was not satisfied 
 herewith, and his noble lady taking my part again, 
 gave him those reasons for my answering him in that 
 manner, that they silenced him from speaking any 
 further. The governor turning back, I likewise, after 
 an humble obeisance made to his lady, returned with 
 Sir Edward Sackville to my lodgings. 
 
 This night I passed as quietly as I could, but the 
 next morning advised with him what I was to do. I 
 told him I had received a great affront, and that I 
 intended to send him a challenge, in such courteous 
 language that he could not refuse it. Sir Edward 
 Sackville by all means dissuaded me from it; by 
 which I perceived I was not to expect his assistance 
 therein; and, indeed, the next day he went out of 
 town. 
 
 Being alone now, I thought on nothing more than 
 how to send him a challenge, which at last I penned 
 to this effect : " That whereas he had given me great 
 offence, without a cause, I thought myself bound as 
 a gentleman to resent it, and therefore desired to see 
 him with his sword in his hand in any place he 
 should appoint ; and hoped he would not interpose 
 his authority as an excuse for not complying with his 
 honour on this occasion, and that so I rested his 
 humble servant." 
 
 Finding nobody in town for two or three days by 
 whom I might send this challenge, I resolved, for my 
 last means, to deliver it in person, and observe how he 
 took it, intending to right myself as I could, when I 
 found he stood upon his authority. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 121 
 
 This night it happened that Monsieur Terant, 
 formerly mentioned, came to the town ; this gentle- 
 man knowing me well, and remembering our 
 acquaintance both at France and Juliers, wished there 
 were some occasion for him to serve me ; I presently 
 hereupon, taking the challenge out of my pocket, told 
 him he would oblige me extremely, if he were pleased 
 to deliver it ; and that I hoped he might do it with- 
 out danger, since I knew the French to be so brave a 
 nation, that they would never refuse or dislike any 
 thing that was done in an honourable and worthy way. 
 
 Terant took the challenge from me, and after he 
 had read it, told me that the language was civil and 
 discreet ; nevertheless, he thought the governor would 
 not return me that answer I expected ; howsoever, 
 said he, I will deliver it. Returning thus to my inn, 
 and intending to sleep quieter that night than I had 
 done three nights before; about one of the clock 
 after midnight, I heard a great noise at my door, 
 which awakened me, certain persons knocking so 
 hard as if they would break it ; besides, through the 
 chinks thereof I saw light. This made me presently rise 
 in my shirt, when, drawing my sword, I went to the 
 door, and demanded who they were ; and together told 
 them, that if they came to make me prisoner, I would 
 rather die with my sword in my hand ; and there- 
 withal opening the door, I found upon the stairs half 
 a dozen men armed with halberts, whom I no sooner 
 prepared to resist, but the chief of them told me, that 
 they came not to me from the governor, but from my 
 good friend the Duke of Montmorency, son to the duke 
 
122 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I formerly mentioned ; and that he came to town late 
 that night, in his way from Languedoc (of which he 
 was governor) to Paris ; and that he desired me, if I 
 loved him, to rise presently and come to him, assuring 
 me further that this was most true ; hereupon wishing 
 them to retire themselves, I drest myself, and went 
 with them. 
 
 They conducted me to the great hall of the governor, 
 where the Duke of Montmorency and divers other 
 cavaliers had been dancing with the ladies. I went 
 presently to the Duke of Montmorency, who, 
 taking me a little aside, told me that he had 
 heard of the passage betwixt the governor and me, 
 and that I had sent him a challenge ; howbeit, 
 that he conceived men in his place were not bound 
 to answer as private persons for those things they 
 did by virtue of their office ; nevertheless, that I 
 should have satisfaction in as ample manner as I 
 could reasonably desire. Hereupon, bringing me 
 with him to the governor, he freely told me, that now 
 he knew who I was, he could do no less than assure 
 me that he was sorry for what was done, and desired 
 me to take this for satisfaction ; the Duke of Mont- 
 morency hereupon said presently, " Oest assez ; " it is 
 enough. I then turning to him, demanded whether 
 he would have taken this satisfaction in the like case ? 
 He said, " Yes." After this, turning to the governor, 
 I demanded the same question ; to which he answered, 
 that he would have taken the same satisfaction, and 
 less too. I kissing my hand, gave it to him, who 
 embraced me, and so this business ended. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 After some compliments passed between the Duke 
 of Montmorency, who remembered the great love his 
 father bore me, which he desired to continue in his 
 person, and putting me in mind also of our being 
 educated together for a while, demanded whether I 
 would go with him to Paris ? I told him that I was 
 engaged to the Low Countries ; but that wheresoever 
 I was, I should be his most humble servant. 
 
 My employment with the Duke of Savoy in Lan- 
 guedoc being thus ended, I went from Lyons to 
 Geneva, where I found also my fame had prevented^ 
 my coming ; for the next morning after my arrival, 
 the State taking notice of me, sent a messenger in 
 their name to congratulate my being there, and pre- 
 sented me with some flagons of wine, desiring me (if 
 I stayed there any while) to see their fortifications, 
 and give my opinion of them ; which I did, and told 
 them I thought they were weakest where they 
 thought themselves the strongest, which was on the 
 hilly part, where, indeed, they had made great fortifi- 
 cations ; yet, as it is a rule in war, that whatsoever 
 may be made by art, may be destroyed by art again, 
 I conceived they had need to fear the approach of an 
 enemy on that part rather than any other. They 
 replied, that divers great soldiers had told them the 
 same ; and that they would give the best order they 
 could to serve themselves on that side. 
 
 Having rested here some while to take physic (my 
 health being a little broken with long travel), I 
 
 t.«., preceded. 
 
124 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 departed, after a fortnight's stay, to Basle, where 
 taking a boat upon the river, I came at length to 
 Strasburg, and from thence went to Heidelberg, 
 where I was received again by the Prince Elector and 
 Princess with much kindness, and viewed at leisure 
 the fair library there, the gardens, and other rarities 
 of that place ; and here I found my horses I lent to 
 Sandilands in good plight, which I then bestowed 
 upon some servants of the prince, in way of retribu- 
 tion for my welcome thither. From hence Sir George 
 Calvert^ and myself went by water, for the most part, 
 to the Low Countries, where taking leave of each 
 other, I went straight to his excellency, who did 
 extraordinarily welcome me, insomuch that it was 
 observed that he did never outwardly make so much 
 of any one as myself. 
 
 It happened this summer that the Low Country 
 army was not drawn into the field, so that the Prince 
 of Orange past his time at playing at chess with me 
 after dinner ; or in going to Ryswick with him to see 
 his great horses ; or in making love, in which, also, he 
 used me as his companion, yet so, that I saw nothing 
 openly, more than might argue a civil familiarity. 
 When I was at any time from him, I did, by his good 
 leave, endeavour to raise a troop of horse for the 
 Duke of Savoy's service, as having obtained a com- 
 mission to that purpose for my brother William, then 
 an officer in the Low Country. Having these men in 
 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Baltimore. — See Catalogue of Royal and Noble 
 Authors. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAFHY, 
 
 125 
 
 readiness, I sent word to the Count Searnafissi thereof, 
 who was now ambassador in England, telling him that 
 if he would send money, my brother was ready to 
 go. 
 
 Searnafissi answered me, " That he expected money 
 in England ; and that as soon as he received it, he 
 would send over so much as would pay a hundred 
 horse ; but a peace betwixt him and the Spaniard 
 being concluded not long after at Asti, the 
 whole charge of keeping this horse fell upon 
 me, without ever to this day receiving any recom- 
 pense. 
 
 Winter now approaching, and nothing more to be 
 done for that year, I went to the Brill to take 
 shipping for England. Sir Edward Conway, w^ho 
 was then governor at that place, and afterwards 
 secretary of state, taking notice of my being there, 
 came to me, and invited me every day to come to 
 him, while I attended only for a wind ; which serving 
 at last for my journey. Sir Edward Conway con- 
 ducted me to the ship, into which, as soon as I was 
 entered, he caused six pieces of ordnance to be 
 discharged for my farewell. I was scarce gone a 
 league into the sea, when the wind turned contrary, 
 and forced me back aojain. Returninor thus to the 
 Brill, Sir Edward Conway welcomed me as before ; 
 and now, after some three or four days, the wind 
 serving, he conducted me again to the ship, and 
 bestowed six volleys of ordnance upon me. I was 
 now about half way to England, when a most cruel 
 storm arose, which tore our sails and spent our masts, 
 
126 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 insomuch that the master of our ship gave us all for 
 lost, as the wind was extreme high, and together 
 contrary. We were carried at last, though with much 
 difficulty, back again to the Brill, where Sir Edward 
 Conway did congratulate my escape ; saying, he 
 believed, certainly, that (considering the weather) I 
 must needs be cast away. 
 
 After some stay here with my former welcome, the 
 wind being now fair, I was conducted again to my 
 ship by Sir Edward Conway, and the same volleys of 
 shot given me, and was now scarce out of the haven, 
 when the wind again turned contrary, and drove me 
 back ; this made me resolve to try my fortune here no 
 longer ; hiring a small bark therefore, I went to the 
 sluice, and from thence to Ostend, where finding 
 company, I went to Brussels. 
 
 In the inn where I lay, here an ordinary was kept, . 
 to which divers noblemen and principal officers of the 
 Spanish army resorted ; sitting among these at dinner, 
 the next day after my arrival, no man knowing me or 
 informing himself who I was, they fell into discourse 
 of divers matters, in Italian, Spanish, and French ; 
 and at last three of them, one after another, began to 
 speak of King James, my master, in a very scornful 
 manner. I thought with myself then, that if I was a 
 base fellow, I need not take any notice thereof, since 
 no man knew me to be an Englishman, or that I did 
 so much as understand their language ; but my heart 
 burning within me, I, putting off my hat, arose from 
 the table, and turning myself to those that sat at the 
 upper end, who had said nothing to the King my 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 127 
 
 master's prejudice, I told them in Italian, ''Son 
 Inglese "I am an Englishman;" and should be 
 unworthy to live if I suffered these words to be 
 spoken of the King my master ; and therewithal 
 turning myself to those who had injured the King, 
 I said, " You have spoken falsely, and I will fight with 
 you all." Those at the upper end of the table find- 
 ing I had so much reason on my part, did sharply 
 check those I had questioned, and, to be brief, made 
 them ask the King's forgiveness, wherewith also the 
 King's health being drank round about the table, I 
 departed thence to Dunkirk, and thence to Graveling, 
 where I saw, though unknown, an English gentle- 
 woman enter into a nunnery there. 
 
 I went thence to Calais ; it was now extreme foul 
 weather, and I could find no master of a ship willing 
 to adventure to sea ; howbeit, my impatience was such 
 that I demanded of a poor fisherman there whether 
 he would go, he answered, his ship was worse than 
 any in the haven, as being open above, and without 
 any deck, besides, that it was old ; but, saith he, " I 
 care for my life as little as you do, and if you will go, 
 my boat is at your service." 
 
 I was now scarce out of the haven, when a high- 
 grown sea had almost overwhelmed us, the waves 
 coming in very fast into our ship, which we laded out 
 again the best we could ; notwithstanding which we 
 expected every minute to be cast aw^ay : it pleased 
 God yet before we were gone six leagues into the sea, 
 to cease the tempest, and give us a fair passage over 
 to the Downs, where after giving God thanks for my 
 
128 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 delivery from this most needless danger that ever I 
 did run, I went to London. 
 
 I had not been here ten days when a quartan ague 
 seized on me, which held me for a year and a-half 
 without intermission, and a year and a-half longer at 
 spring and fall ; the good days I had during all this 
 sickness I employed in study, the ill being spent in as 
 sharp and long fits as I think ever any man endured, 
 which brought me at last to be so lean and yellow, 
 that scarce any man did know me. 
 
 It happened during this sickness, that I walked 
 abroad one day towards Whitehall, where meeting 
 with one Emerson, who spoke very disgraceful words 
 of Sir Robert Harley, being then my dear friend, my 
 weakness could not hinder me to be sensible of my 
 friend's dishonour ; shaking him therefore by a long 
 beard he wore, I stept a little aside, and drew my 
 sword in the street. Captain Thomas Scriven, a friend 
 of mine, not being far off on one side, and divers 
 friends of his on the other side. All that saw me 
 wondered how I could go, being so weak and con- 
 sumed as I was, but much more, that I would offer to 
 fight; howsoever Emerson, instead of drawing his 
 sword, ran away into Suffolk House, and afterwards 
 informed the Lords of the Council of what I had done ; 
 who not long after sending for me, did not so much 
 reprehend my taking part with my friend, as that 
 I would adventure to fight, being in such a bad 
 condition of health. 
 
 Before I came wholly out of my sickness, Sir George 
 Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, came into the 
 
A U TO BIO GRAPH V. 129 
 
 King 8 favour. This cavalier meeting me accidentally 
 at the Lady Stanhope's^ house, came to me, and told 
 me he had heard so much of my worth, as he would 
 think himself happy if, by his credit with the king, he 
 could do me any service ; I humbly thanked him, but 
 told him that for the present I had need of nothing 
 so much as of health, but that if ever I had ambition 
 I should take the boldness to make my address by 
 him. 
 
 I was no sooner perfectly recovered of this long 
 sickness, but the Earl of Oxford and myself resolved 
 to raise two regiments for the service of the Venetians. 
 While we were making ready for this journey, the 
 king having an occasion to send an ambassador into 
 France, required Sir George Villiers to present him 
 with the names of the fittest men for that employ- 
 ment that he knew ; whereupon eighteen names, 
 among which mine was, being written in a paper, were 
 presented to him ; the King presently chose me, yet so 
 as he desired first to have the approbation of his Privy 
 Council, who, confirming his Majesty's choice, sent a 
 messenger to my house among gardens, near the Old 
 Exchange, requiring me to come presently to them. 
 Myself little knowing then the honour intended me, 
 asked the messenger "whether I had done any fault, 
 that the lords sent for me so suddenly ?" wishing him 
 to tell the Lords that I was o-oino- to dinner, and would 
 afterwards attend them. I had scarce dined, when 
 
 1 Catherine, daughter of Francis Lord Hastings, first wife of Philip 
 Lord Stanhope, afterwards Earl of Chesterfield. 
 
 491 
 
I30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 another messenger was sent ; this made me hasten to 
 Whitehall, where I was no sooner come, but the Lords 
 saluted me by the name of Lord Ambassador of 
 France ; I told their Lordships thereupon, that I was 
 glad it was no worse, and that I doubted, that by their 
 speedy sending for me, some complaint, though false, 
 might be made against me. 
 
 My first commission was to renew the oath of 
 alliance betwixt the two crowns, for which purpose I 
 was Extraordinary Ambassador, which being done, I 
 was to reside there as ordinary. I had received now 
 about six or seven hundred pounds towards the 
 charges of my journey, and locked it in certain 
 coffers in my house, when, the night following, about 
 one of the clock, I could hear divers men speak and 
 knock at the door, in that part of the house where 
 none did lie but myself, my wife, and her attendants ; 
 my servants being lodged in another house not far off. 
 As soon as I heard the noise, I suspected presently 
 they came to rob me of my money ; howsoever, I 
 thought fit to rise, and go to the window, to know 
 who they were ? The first word I heard was, " Barest 
 thou come down, Welshman ? which I no sooner 
 heard, but, taking a sword in one hand, and a little 
 target in the other, I did in my shirt run down the 
 stairs, open the doors suddenly, and charged ten or 
 twelve of them with that fury that they ran away, 
 some throwing away their halberts, others hurting 
 their fellows, to make them go faster in a narrow way 
 they were to pass ; in which disordered manner I 
 drove them to the middle of the street by the 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Exchange, where, finding my bare feet hurt by the stones 
 I trod on, I thought fit to return home, and leave 
 them to their flight. My servants, hearing the noise, 
 by this time were got up, and demanded whether I 
 would have them pursue those rogues that fled away ; 
 but I answering that I thought they were out of their 
 reach, w^e returned home together. 
 
 While I was preparing myself for my journey, it 
 happened that I passing through the Inner Temple 
 one day, and encountering Sir Robert Vaughan in 
 this country, some harsh words passed betwixt us, 
 which occasioned him, at the persuasion of others 
 whom I will not nominate, to send me a challenge. 
 This was brought me at my house in Blackfriars, by 
 Captain Charles Price, upon a Sunday, about one of 
 the clock in the afternoon. When I had read it, I told 
 Charles Price that I did ordinarily bestow this day in 
 devotion, nevertheless, that I would meet Sir Robert 
 Vaughan presently, and gave him thereupon the 
 length of my sword, demanding whether he brought 
 any second with him ; to which Charles Price replying, 
 that he would be in the field with him, I told my 
 brother. Sir Henry Herbert, then present, thereof, who 
 readily offering himself to be my second, nothing was 
 wanting now but the place to be agreed upon betwixt 
 us, which was not far from the waterside, near 
 Chelsea. 
 
 My brother and I taking boat presently, to the 
 place, where, after we had stayed about two hours 
 in vain, I desired my brother to go to Sir Robert 
 Vaughan's lodging, and tell him that I now attended 
 
T32 
 
 A U TO BIO GRAPH K 
 
 his coming a great while, and that I desired him to 
 come away speedily ; hereupon my brother went, and 
 after a while returning back again, he told me they 
 were not ready yet. I attended then about an hour 
 and a half longer ; but as he did not come yet, I sent 
 my brother a second time to call him away, and to 
 tell him I catched cold, nevertheless that I would stay 
 there till sunset : my brother yet could not bring him 
 along, but returned himself to the place, where we 
 stayed together till half an hour after sunset, and 
 then returned home. 
 
 The next day the Earl of Worcester,^ by the King s 
 command, forbid me to receive any message or letter 
 from Sir Robert Vaughan, and advertised me withal, 
 that the King had given him charge to end the 
 business betwixt us ; for which purpose he desired 
 me to come before him the next day about two of the 
 clock ; at which time, after the Earl had told me, that 
 being now made ambassador, and a public person, 
 I ought not to entertain private quarrels ; after 
 which, without much ado, he ended the business 
 betwixt Sir Robert Vaughan and myself. It was 
 thought by some that this would make me lose my 
 place, I being under so great an obligation to the 
 King for my employment in France ; but Sir George 
 Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, told me he 
 would warrant me for this one time, but I must do so 
 no more. 
 
 ^ Edward Somerset, Earl of Worcester, Lord Privy Seal, and Knight 
 of the Garter. 
 
A UTOBIO GRAPHY. 1 3 3 
 
 I was now almost ready for my journey, and had 
 received already as choice a company of gentlemen 
 for my attendants, as, I think, ever followed an 
 ambassador ; when some of my private friends told 
 me, that I was not to trust so much to my pay from 
 the Exchequer, but that it was necessary for me to 
 take letters of credit with me, for as much money as 
 I could well procure. Informing myself hereupon 
 who had furnished the last ambassador, I was told 
 Monsieur Savage, a Frenchman ; coming to his house 
 I demanded whether he would help me with moneys 
 in France, as he had done the last ambassador ? He 
 said he did not know me, but would inform himself 
 better who I was : departing thus from him, I went 
 to Signior Burlamacchi, a man of great credit in those 
 times, and demanded of him the same; his answer 
 was, that he knew me to be a man of honour, and I 
 had kept my word with every body ; whereupon also, 
 going to his study, gave me a letter of credit to one 
 Monsieur de Langherac, in Paris, for 2000Z. sterling. 
 I then demanded what security he expected for this 
 money ? he said he would have nothing but mj^ 
 promise ; I told him he had put a great obligation 
 upon me, and that I would strive to acquit myself of 
 it the best I could. 
 
 Having now a good sum of money in my coffers, 
 and this letter of credit, I made ready for my journey. 
 The day I went out of London, I remember, was the 
 same in which Queen Anne was carried to burial ; 
 which was a sad spectacle to all that had occasion to 
 honour her. My first night's journey was to Gravesend, 
 
134 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHV, 
 
 where, being at supper in my inn, Monsieur 
 Savage, formerly mentioned, came to me, and told me, 
 that whereas I had spoken to him for a letter of 
 credit, he had made one which he thought would be 
 to my contentment. I demanded to whom it was 
 directed ; he said, to Monsieur Tallemant and Ram- 
 bouillet, in Paris : I asked then, what they were 
 worth ? he said, above one hundred thousand pounds 
 sterlinor. I demanded for how much this letter of 
 credit was ? he said, for as much as I should have 
 need of; I asked what security he required? he said, 
 nothing but my word, which he had heard was 
 inviolable. 
 
 From Gravesend, by easy journeys, I went to Dover, 
 where I took shipping, with a train of a hundred and 
 odd persons,^ and arrived shortly after at Calais, 
 where I remember my cheer was twice as good as at 
 Dover, and my reckoning half as cheap ; from whence 
 I went to Boulogne, Monstreville, Abbeville, Amiens, 
 and in two days, thence to St. Dennis, near Paris, 
 where I was met with a great train of coaches, that 
 were sent to receive me ; as also by the master of the 
 ceremonies, and Monsieur Mennon,^ my fellow scholar, 
 with Monsieur Disancourt, who then kept an academy, 
 and brought with him a brave company of gentlemen 
 on great horses, to attend me into town. 
 
 It was now somewhat late when I entered Paris, 
 upon a Saturday night ; I was but newly settled in 
 
 1 Thomas Carevv, the poet, went as Lord Herbert's Secretar3^ 
 
 2 Or, de Menou^ 
 
A VTOBIO GRAPH K 135 
 
 my lodging, when a secretary of the Spanish ambas- 
 sador there told me that his lord desired to have the 
 first audience from me, and therefore requested he 
 might see me the next morning. I replied, it was 
 a day I gave wholly to devotion ; and therefore 
 entreated him to stay till some more convenient time. 
 The secretary replied, that his master did hold it not 
 less holy ; howbeit, that his respect to me was such, 
 that he would prefer the desire he had to serve me 
 before all other considerations ; howsoever, I put him 
 off until Monday following. 
 
 Not long after, I took a house in Faubourg St. 
 Germain, Rue Tournon, which cost me two hundred 
 pounds sterling yearly. Having furnished the house 
 richly, and lodged all my train, I prepared for a 
 journey to Tours and Touraine, where the French 
 court then was. Being come hither in extreme hot 
 weather, I demanded audience of the King and Queen,^ 
 which being granted, I did assure the King of the 
 great affection the King my master bore him, not only 
 out of the ancient alliance betwixt the two crowns, 
 but because Henry the Fourth and the King my 
 master had stipulated with each other, that whenso- 
 ever any one of them died, the survivor should take 
 care of the other's child. I assured him further, 
 that no charge was so much imposed upon me 
 by my instructions, as that I should do good offices 
 betwixt both kingdoms ; and therefore, that it 
 
 1 Louis XII., son of Henry IV. Anne of Austria, mother of 
 Louis XIV. 
 
136 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 were a great fault in me, if I behaved myself 
 otherwise than with all respect to his Majesty. This 
 being done, I presented to the King a letter of 
 credence from the King my master. The King 
 assured me of a reciprocal affection to the King 
 my master, and of my particular welcome to his 
 court ; his words were never many, as being so 
 extreme a stutterer, that he would sometimes hold his 
 tongue out of his mouth a good while, before he could 
 speak so much as one word ; he had, besides, a double 
 row of teeth, and was observed seldom or never to 
 spit, or blow his nose, or to sweat much, though he 
 were very laborious, and almost indefatigable in his 
 exercises of hunting and hawking, to which he was 
 much addicted ; neither did it hinder him, though he 
 was burst in his body, as we call it, or herniosus ; for 
 he was noted in those sports, though oftentimes on 
 foot, to tire not only his courtiers, but even his 
 lackeys, being equally insensible, as was thought, 
 either of heat or cold. 
 
 His understanding and natural parts were as good 
 as could be expected in one that was brought up in so 
 much ignorance, which was on purpose so done, that 
 he might be the longer governed ; howbeit, he acquired 
 in time a great knowledge in affairs, as conversing for 
 the most part with wise and active persons. He was 
 noted to have two qualities incident to all who were 
 ignorantly brought up — suspicion and dissimulation ; 
 for as ignorant persons walk so much in the dark, 
 they cannot be exempt from the fear of stumbling ; 
 and as they are likewise deprived of, or deficient in 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 137 
 
 those true principles by which they should govern 
 both public and private actions in a wise, solid, and 
 demonstrative way, they strive commonly to supply 
 these imperfections with covert arts, which, although 
 it may be sometimes excusable in necessitous persons, 
 and be indeed frequent among those who negotiate in 
 small matters, yet condemnable in Princes, w^ho, pro- 
 ceeding upon foundations of reason and strength, ought 
 not to submit themselves to such poor helps. Howbeit, 
 I must observe, that neither his fears did take away 
 his courage, when there was occasion to use it, nor his 
 dissimulation extend itself to the doing of private 
 mischiefs to his subjects, either of one or the other 
 religion. His favourite was one Monsieur de Luynes, 
 who in his nonage gained much upon the King, by 
 making hawks fly at all little birds in his gardens, and 
 by making some of those little birds again catch 
 butterflies ; and had the King used him for no other 
 purpose, he might have been tolerated ; but as, when 
 the King came to a riper age, the government of public 
 affairs was drawn chiefly from his counsels, not a few 
 errors were committed. 
 
 The Queen-mother, princes, and nobles of that king- 
 dom repined that his advices to the King should be so 
 prevalent, which also at least caused a civil war in 
 that kinodom. How unfit this man was for the 
 credit he had with the King may be argued by this ; 
 that when there was a question made about some 
 business in Bohemia, he demanded whether it was an 
 inland country, or lay upon the sea? And thus much 
 for the present of the King and his favourite. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 After my audience with the King, I had another 
 from the Queen, being sister to the King of Spain ; 
 I had little to say unto her, but some compliments on 
 the King my master's part, but such compliments as 
 her sex and quahty were capable of. This Queen was 
 exceedingly fair, like those of the house of Austria, 
 and together of so mild and good a condition, she was 
 never noted to have done ill offices to any, but to have 
 mediated as much as was possible for her, in satisfac- 
 tion of those who had any suit with the King, as far 
 as their cause would bear. She had now been married 
 divers years without having any children, though so 
 ripe for them, that nothing seemed to be wanting on 
 her part. I remember her the more particularly, that 
 she shewed publicly at my audiences that favour to 
 me, as not only my servants but divers others took 
 notice of it. 
 
 After this, my first audience, I went to see Monsieur 
 Luynes, and the principal ministers of state, as also the 
 princes and princesses, and ladies then in the court, 
 and particularly the Princess of Conti, from whom I 
 carried the scarf formerly mentioned ; and this is as 
 much as I shall declare in this place, concerning my 
 negotiation with the King and state, my purpose 
 being, if God sends me life, to set them forth apart, as 
 having the copies of all my despatches in a great 
 trunk in my house in London ; and considering that 
 in the time of my stay there, there were divers civil 
 wars in that country, and that the Prince, now King, 
 passed with my Lord of Buckingham and others 
 through France into Spain ; and the business of the 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 139 
 
 Elector Palatine in Bohemia, and the battle of Prague, 
 and divers other memorable accidents, both of state 
 and war, happened during the time of my employ- 
 ment ; I conceive a narration of them may be worth 
 the seeing, to them who have it not from a better 
 hand ; I shall only therefore relate here, as they come 
 into my memory, certain little passages, which may 
 serve in some part to declare the history of my life. 
 
 Coming back from Tours to Paris, I gave the best 
 order I could concerning the expenses of my house, 
 family, and stable, that I might settle all things as 
 near as was possible in a certain course, allowing, 
 according to the manner of France, so many pounds 
 of beef, mutton, veal, and pork, and so much also in 
 turkeys, capons, pheasants, partridges, and all other 
 fowls, as also pies and tarts, after the French manner, 
 and after all this a dozen dishes of sweetmeats every 
 day constantly. The ordering of these things was the 
 heavier to me, that my wife flatly refused to come 
 over into France, as being now entered into a dropsy, 
 which also had kept her without children for many 
 years ; I was constrained therefore to make use of a 
 steward, who was understanding and diligent, but no 
 very honest man. My chief secretary was William 
 Boswell, now the King's agent in the Low Countries ; 
 my secretary for the French tongue was one Monsieur 
 Ozier, who afterwards was the Kinn^'s ao-ent in France. 
 The gentleman of my horse was Monsieur de Meny,^ 
 who afterwards commanded a thousand horse in the 
 
 Perhaps de Menou. 
 
I40 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 wars of Germany, and proved a very gallant gentle- 
 man ; Mr. Crofts was one of my principal gentlemen, 
 and afterwards made the king s cupbearer; and Thomas 
 Carew, that excellent wit, the King's carver ; Edmund 
 Taverner, whom I made my under-secretary, was 
 afterwards chief secretary to the Lord Chamberlain ; 
 and one Mr. Smith, secretary to the Earl of Northum- 
 berland; I nominate these, and could many more, 
 that came to very good fortunes afterwards, because 
 I may verify that which I said before concerning the 
 gentlemen that attended me. 
 
 When I came to Paris the English and French were 
 in very ill intelligence with each other, insomuch 
 that one Buckly coming then to me, said he was 
 assaulted and hurt upon Pontneuf, only because he 
 was an Englishman ; nevertheless, after I had been 
 in Paris about a month, all the English were so 
 welcome thither, that no other nation was so acceptable 
 amongst them, insomuch that my gentlemen having a 
 quarrel with some debauched French, who in their 
 drunkenness quarrelled with them, divers principal 
 gentlemen of that nation offered themselves to assist 
 my people with their swords. 
 
 It happened one day, that my cousin, Oliver 
 Herbert, and George Radney, being gentlemen who 
 attended me, and Henry Whittingham, my butler, had 
 a quarrel with some French, upon I know not what 
 frivolous occasion. It happened my cousin, Oliver 
 Herbert, had for his opposite a fencer belonging to 
 the Prince of Conde, who was dangerously hurt by 
 him in divers places ; but as the house, or hostel, of 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 the Prince of Cond^ was not far off, and himself well 
 beloved in those quarters, the French in great 
 multitudes arising, drove away the three above 
 mentioned into my house, pursuing them within the 
 gates. I, perceiving this at a window, ran out with 
 my sword, which the people no sooner saw, but they 
 fled again as fast as ever they entered ; howsoever, 
 the Prince of Conde his fencer was in that danger of 
 his life, that Oliver Herbert was forced to fly France, 
 which, that he might do the better, I paid the said 
 fencer two hundred crowns, or sixty pounds sterling, 
 for his hurt and cures. 
 
 The plague now being hot in Paris, I desired the 
 Duke of Montmorency to lend me the castle of 
 Merlou, where I lived in the time of his most noble 
 father, which he willingly granted. Removing 
 thither, I enjoyed that sweet place and country, 
 wherein I found not a few that welcomed me out of 
 their ancient acquaintance. 
 
 On the one side of me was the Baron de Montaterre, 
 of the reformed religion, and Monsieur de Bouteville 
 on the other, who, though young at that time, proved 
 afterwards to be that brave cavalier which all France 
 did so much celebrate. In both their castles, likewise, 
 were ladies of much beauty and discretion, and 
 particularly a sister of Bouteville, thought to be one 
 of the chief perfections of the time, whose company 
 yielded some divertisement when my public occasions 
 did sufler it. 
 
 Winter being now come, I returned to my house in 
 Paris, and prepared for renewing the oath of alliance 
 
142 
 
 A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 betwixt the two crowns, for which, as I said formerly, 
 I had an extraordinary commission ; nevertheless, the 
 king put off the business to as long a time as he well 
 could. In the meanw^hile, Prince Henry of Nassau, 
 brother to Prince Maurice, coming to Paris, was met 
 and much welcomed by me, as being obliged to him, 
 no less than to his brother in the Low Countries. 
 This Prince, and all his train, were feasted by me at 
 Paris with a hundred dishes, costing, as I remember, 
 in all, one hundred pounds. 
 
 The French King at last resolving upon a day for 
 performing the ceremony betwixt the two crowms 
 above mentioned, myself and all my train put our- 
 selves into that sumptuous equipage, that I remember 
 it cost me one way or another above one thousand 
 pounds. And truly the magnificence of it was such, 
 as a little French book was presently printed thereof. 
 This being done, I resided here in the quality of an 
 ordinary ambassador. 
 
 And now I shall mention some particular passages 
 concerning myself, without entering yet any way into 
 the whole frame and context of my negotiation, 
 reserving them, as I said before, to a particular 
 treatise. I spent my time much in the visits of the 
 princes, council of state, and great persons of the 
 French kingdom, who did ever punctually requite my 
 visits. The like I did also to the chief ambassadors 
 there, among whom, the Venetian, Low Country, 
 Savoy, and the united princes in Germany, am- 
 bassadors, did bear me that respect, that they usually 
 met in my house, to advise together concerning the 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH Y. 
 
 143 
 
 great affairs of that time ; for as the Spaniard then 
 was so potent, that he seemed to affect a universal 
 monarchy, all the above mentioned ambassadors did, 
 in one common interest, strive to oppose him. 
 
 All our endeavours yet could not hinder, but that 
 he both publicly prevailed in his attempts abroad, and 
 privately did corrupt divers of the principal ministers 
 of state in this kingdom. I came to discover this 
 by many ways, but by none more effectually than by 
 the means of an Italian, who returned over, by letters 
 of exchange, the moneys the Spanish ambassador 
 received for his occasions in France ; for I perceived 
 that when the said Italian was to receive any extra- 
 ordinary great sum for the Spanish ambassador's use, 
 the whole face of affairs was presently changed, 
 insomuch that neither my reasons, nor the am- 
 bassadors above mentioned, how valid soever, could 
 prevail ; though yet afterwards we found means 
 together to reduce affairs to their former train, till 
 some other new great sum coming to the Spanish 
 ambassador's hand, and from thence to the aforesaid 
 ministers of state, altered all. 
 
 Howbeit, divers visits passed betwixt the Spanish 
 ambassador and myself, in one of which he told me, 
 that though our interests were divers, yet we might 
 continue friendship in our particular persons ; " For," 
 said he, " it can be no occasion of offence betwixt us, 
 that each of us strive the best he can to serve the 
 king his master." I disliked not his reasons, though yet 
 I could not omit to tell him that I would maintain the 
 dignity of the King my master the best I could ; and 
 
144 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 this I said, because the Spanish ambassador had taken 
 place of the English in the time of Henry IV. in this 
 fashion : they both meeting in an antechamber to the 
 Secretary of State, the Spanish ambassador, leaning to 
 the wall in that posture that he took the hand of the 
 English ambassador, said publicly, " I hold this place 
 in the right of the King my master ; " which small 
 punctilio being not resented by our ambassador at 
 that time, gave the Spaniard occasion to brag that he 
 had taken the hand from our ambassador. 
 
 This made me more watchful to regain the honour 
 which the Spaniard pretended to have gotten herein ; 
 so that though the ambassador, in his visits, often 
 repeated the words above mentioned, being in 
 Spanish, " Que cada uno haga lo que imdiere por 
 su amo ; " " Let every man do the best he can 
 for his master ; " I attended the occasion to right my 
 master. 
 
 It happened one day, that both of us going to the 
 French King for our several affairs, the Spanish 
 ambassador, between Paris and Estampes, being upon 
 his way before me in his coach, with a train of about 
 sixteen or eighteen persons on horseback, I following 
 him in my coach, with about ten or twelve horse, 
 found that either I must go the Spanish pace, which 
 is slow, or if I hasted to pass him, that I must hazard 
 the suffering of some affront like unto that our former 
 ambassador received ; proposing hereupon to my 
 gentlemen the whole business, I told them that I 
 meant to redeem the honour of the King my master 
 some way or other, demanding further, whether they 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 145 
 
 would assist me ? which they promising, I bid the 
 coachman drive on. 
 
 The Spanish ambassador seeing me approach, and 
 imagining what my intention was, sent a gentleman to 
 me, to tell me he desired to salute me ; which I accept- 
 ing, the gentleman returned to the ambassador, who, 
 alighting from his coach, attended me in the middle of 
 the highway ; which being perceived by me, I alighted 
 also, when some extravagant compliments having 
 passed betwixt us, the Spanish ambassador took his 
 leave of me, went to a dry ditch not far off, upon pre- 
 tence of making water, but indeed to hold the upper 
 hand of me while I passed by in my coach ; which 
 being observed by me, I left my coach, and getting 
 upon a spare horse I had there, rode into the said dry 
 ditch, and telling him aloud, that I knew well why he 
 stood there, bid him afterwards get to his coach, for I 
 must ride that way ; the Spanish ambassador, who 
 understood me well, went to his coach grumbling and 
 discontented, although yet neither he nor his train did 
 any more than look one upon another in a confused 
 manner ; my coach this while passing by the ambas- 
 sador on the same side I was, I shortly after left my 
 horse and got into it. It happened this while, that 
 one of my coach horses having lost a shoe, I thought 
 fit to stay at a smithes forge, about a quarter of a mile 
 before ; this shoe could not be put on so soon, but that 
 the Spanish ambassador overtook us, and might indeed 
 have passed us, but that he thought I would give 
 him another affront. Attending, therefore, the smith's 
 
 leisure, he stayed on the highway, to our no little 
 
 492 
 
146 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 admiration, until my horse was shod. We continued 
 our journey to Estampes, the Spanish ambassador 
 following us still at a good distance. 
 
 I should scarce have mentioned this passage, but 
 that the Spaniards do so much stand upon their "pun- 
 donor : for confirminsr whereof I have thoun^ht fit 
 to remember the answer a Spanish ambassador made 
 to Philip II., King of Spain, who finding fault with 
 him for neglecting a business of great importance in 
 Italy, because he could not agree with the French 
 ambassador about some such jpimdonove as this, said 
 to him, " Gomo ha dejado %ina cosa de importancia 
 poT una ceremonia How have you left a business 
 of importance for a ceremony !" The ambassador boldly 
 replied to his master, Como por una ceremonia ! 
 Vuesa Majestad misma no es sino una ceremonia ; " 
 
 How, for a ceremony ! Your Majesty's self is but a 
 ceremony." 
 
 Howsoever, the Spanish ambassador taking no notice 
 publicly of the advantage I had of him herein, dis- 
 sembled it, as I heard, till he could find some fit 
 occasion to resent this passage, which yet he never did 
 to this day. 
 
 Among the visits I rendered to the grandees of 
 France, one of the principal I made was to that brave 
 general the Duke of Lesdigueres, who was now grown 
 very old and deaf. His words to me were, " Monsieur, 
 you must do me the honour to speak high, for I am 
 deaf ; " my answer to him was, You was born to 
 
 ^ Nice points of behaviour, punctilios.— >S^?, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 147 
 
 command not to obey ; it is enough i£ others have ears 
 to hear you." This compliment took him much, and 
 indeed I have a manuscript of his military precepts 
 and observations, which I value at a great price. 
 
 I shall relate now some things concerning myself, 
 which though they may seem scarcely credible, yet, 
 before God, are true. I had been now in France about 
 a year and a half, when my tailor, Andrew Henly of 
 Basle, who lives in Black friars, demanded of me half 
 a yard of satin, to make me a suit, more than I was 
 accustomed to give, of which I required a reason, 
 saying, I was not fatter now than when I came to 
 France. He answered it was true, but you are taller ; 
 whereunto when I would give no credit, he brought 
 his old measures, and made it appear that they did not 
 reach to their just places. I told him I knew not how 
 this happened, but however he should have a half a 
 yard more, and that when I came to England I would 
 clear the doubt, for a little before my departure 
 thence, I remember William Earl of Pembroke and 
 myself did measure heights together, at the request of 
 the Countess of Bedford, and he was then higher than 
 I by about the growth of my little finger ; at my 
 return, therefore, into England, I measured again with 
 the same Earl, and, to both our great wonders, found 
 myself taller than he by the breadth of a little finger ; 
 which breadth of mine I could attribute to no other 
 cause but to my quartan ague formerly mentioned, 
 which, when it quitted me, left me in a more perfect 
 health than I formerly enjoyed, and indeed disposed 
 me to some follies which I afterwards repented and do 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 still repent of ; but as my wife refused to come over, 
 and my temptations were great, I hope the faults I 
 committed are the more pardonable ; howsoever, I can 
 say, truly, that whether in France or England, I was 
 never in a bawdy-house, nor used my pleasures intem- 
 perately, and much less did accompany them with that 
 dissimulation and falsehood which is commonly found 
 in men addicted to love women. 
 
 To conclude this passage, which I unwillingly men- 
 tion, I must protest again, before God, that I never 
 delighted in that or any other sin, and that if I trans- 
 gressed sometimes in this kind, it was to avoid a greater 
 ill ; for certainly if I had been provided with a lawful 
 remedy, I should have fallen into no extravagancy. 
 I could extenuate my fault by telling circumstances 
 which would have operated, I doubt, upon the chastest 
 of mankind ; but I forbear, those things being not fit 
 to be spoken of ; for though the philosophers have 
 accounted this act to be inter honesta factu, where 
 neither injury nor violence was offered, yet they ever 
 reckoned it among the turpia dictit. I shall therefore 
 only tell some other things alike strange of myself. 
 
 I weighed myself in balances often with men lower 
 than myself by the head, and in their bodies slenderer, 
 and yet was found lighter than they, as Sir John 
 Danvers, knight, and Richard Griffiths, now living, 
 can witness, with both whom I have been weighed. 
 I had also, and have still a pulse on the crown of my 
 head. It is well known to those that wait in my 
 chamber, that the shirts, waistcoats, and other gar- 
 ments I wear next my body, are sweet, beyond what 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 149 
 
 either can easily be believed, or hath been observed in 
 any else, which sweetness also was found to be in my 
 breath above others, before I used to take tobacco, 
 which towards my latter time I was forced to take 
 against certain rheums and catarrhs that trouble me, 
 which yet did not taint my breath for any long time ; 
 I scarce ever felt cold in my life, though yet so subject 
 to catarrhs, though I think no man ever was more 
 obnoxious to it ; all which I do in a familiar way 
 mention to my posterity, though otherwise they might 
 be thought scarce worth the writing. 
 
 The effect of my being sent into France by the King 
 my master, being to hold all good intelligence betwixt 
 both crowns, my employment was more noble and 
 pleasing, and my pains not great, France having no 
 design at that time upon England, and King James 
 being that pacific prince all the world knew. And 
 thus, besides the times I spent in treaties and nego- 
 tiations, I had either with the ministers of state in 
 France, or foreign ambassadors residing in Paris, I 
 had spare time not only for my book, but for visits 
 to divers grandees, for little more ends than obtain- 
 ing some intelligence of the affairs of that kingdom, 
 and civil conversation, for which their free, generous, 
 and cheerful company was no little motive ; persons 
 of all quality being so addicted to have mutual enter- 
 tainment with each other, that in calm weather one 
 might find all the noble and good company in Paris, 
 of both sexes, either in the garden of the Tuileries, or 
 in the park of Bois de Vincennes, they thinking it 
 almost an incivility to refuse their presence and free 
 
ISO A UTOBIO GRAPHY, 
 
 discourse to any who were capable of coining to those 
 places, either under the recommendation of good 
 parts, or but so much as handsome clothes and a good 
 equipage. When foul weather was, they spent their 
 time in visits at each others' houses, where they 
 interchanged civil discourses, or heard music, or fell 
 to dancing, using, according to the manner of that 
 country, all the reasonable liberties they could with 
 their honour ; while their manner was, either in the 
 garden of the Tuileries, or elsewhere, if any one dis- 
 coursing with a lady did see some other of good 
 fashion approach to her, he would leave her and go to 
 some other lady, he who conversed with her at that 
 time quitting her also, and going to some other, that 
 so addresses might be made equal and free to all 
 without scruple on any part, neither was exception 
 made, or quarrel begun, upon these terms. 
 
 It happened one day, that I being ready to return 
 from the Tuileries, about eight of the clock in the 
 summer, with intention to write a dispatch to the 
 King about some intelligence I had received there, the 
 Queen, attended with her principal ladies, without so 
 much as one cavalier, did enter the garden. I staid on 
 one side of an alley, there to do my reverence to her 
 and the rest, and so return to my house, when the 
 Queen perceiving me, staid awhile, as if she expected 
 I should attend her ; but as I stirred not more than 
 to give her that great respect I owed her, the Princess 
 of Conti, who was next, called me to her, and said I 
 must go along with her, but I excusing myself upon 
 occasion of a present dispatch which I was to make 
 
A U TO BIO GRAPH K 
 
 unto his Majesty, the Duchess of Ventadour, who 
 followed her, came to me, and said I must not refuse 
 her ; whereupon, leading her by her arms, according 
 to the manner of that country, the Princess of Conti, 
 offended that I had denied her that civility which I 
 had yielded to another, took me off after she had 
 demanded the consent of the Duchess ; but the Queen 
 then also staying, I left the Princess, and, with all due 
 humility, went to the Queen, and led her by the 
 arms ; walking thus to a place in the garden where 
 some orange trees grew, and here discoursing with her 
 Majesty bare-headed, some small shot fell on both our 
 heads ; the occasion whereof was this. The King 
 beinof in the s^arden, and shootin^f at a bird in the air, 
 which he did with much perfection, the descent of his 
 shot fell just upon us ; the Queen was much startled 
 herewith, when I, coming nearer to her, demanded 
 whether she had received any harm ; to which she 
 answering: no, and therewith takin^' two or three 
 small pellets from her hair, it was thought fit to send 
 a gardener to the King, to tell him that her Majesty 
 was there, and that he should shoot no more that way, 
 which was no sooner heard among the nobles that 
 attended him, but many of them leaving him, came 
 to the Queen and ladies, among whom was Monsieur 
 le Grand,^ who, finding the Queen still discoursing 
 with me, stole behind her, and letting fall gently some 
 comfits he had in his pocket upon the Queen s hair, 
 gave her occasion to apprehend that some shot had 
 
 Roger, Due de Bellegarde, grand ccuycr under Henry HI, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 fallen on her again. Turning hereupon to Monsieur le 
 Grand, I said that I marvelled that so old a courtier 
 as he was, could find no means to entertain ladies but 
 by making them afraid ; but the Queen shortly after 
 returning to her lodgings I took my leave of her, and 
 came home. All vv^hich passage I have thought fit to 
 set down, the accident above mentioned being so 
 strange, that it can hardly be paralleled. 
 
 It fell out one day that the Prince of Conde coming 
 to my house, some speech happened concerning the 
 King my master, in whom, though he acknowledged 
 much learning, knowledge, clemency, and divers other 
 virtues, yet he said he had heard that the King was 
 much given to cursing, I answered that it was out of 
 his gentleness ; but the Prince demanding how cursing- 
 could be a gentleness ? I replied, " Yes, for though he 
 could punish men himself, yet he left them to God to 
 punish;" which defence of the King my master was 
 afterwards much celebrated in the French court. 
 
 Monsieur de Luynes continuing still the King's 
 favourite, advised him to war against his subjects of 
 the reformed religion in France ; saying, he would 
 neither be a great prince as long as he suflfered so 
 puissant a party to remain within his dominions, nor 
 could justly style himself the most Christian King, as 
 long as he permitted such heretics to be in that great 
 number they were, or to hold those strong places 
 which by public edict were assigned to them ; and 
 therefore, that he should extirpate them as the 
 Spaniards had done the Moors, who are all banished 
 ' into other countries, as we may find in their histories. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH K 
 
 153 
 
 This counsel, though approved by the young King, 
 was yet disliked by other grave and wise persons 
 about him, and particularly by the chancellor Sillery, 
 and the president Jeannin, who thought better to have 
 a peace which had two religions, than a war that had 
 none. Howbeit, the design of Luynes was applauded, 
 not only by the Jesuit party in France, but by some 
 princes and other martial persons, insomuch that the 
 Duke of Guise ^ coming to see me one day, said 
 that they should never be happy in France, until 
 those of the religion were rooted out. I answered 
 that I wondered to hear him say so, and the Duke 
 demanding why ? I replied that whensoever those of 
 the religion were put down, the turn of the great 
 persons, and governors of provinces of that kingdom 
 would be next ; and that, though the present King 
 was a good prince, yet that their successors may be 
 otherwise, and that men did not know how soon 
 princes might prove tyrants when they had nothing 
 to fear ; which speech of mine was fatal, since those 
 of the reliefion were no sooner reduced into that weak 
 condition into which now they are, but the governors 
 of provinces were brought lower, and curbed much in 
 their power and authority, and the Duke of Guise 
 first of them all ; so that I doubt not but my words 
 were well remembered. 
 
 Howsoever, the war now went on with much fer- 
 vour ; neither could I dissuade it, though using, accord- 
 ing to the instructions I had from the King my mastur, 
 
 1 Cliarles, son of Henry Duke of Guise who was killed at Bloig, 
 
154 
 
 A U TO BIO GRA PH Y, 
 
 many arguments for that purpose. I was told often, 
 that if the reformation in France had been like that 
 in England, where they observed we retained the 
 hierarchy, together with decent rites and ceremonies 
 in the church, as also holidays in the memory of 
 saints, music in churches, and div^ers other testimonies, 
 both of glorifying God and giving honour and reward 
 to learning, they could much better have tolerated it, 
 but such a rash and violent reformation as theirs was, 
 ought by no means to be approved ; whereunto I 
 answered, that though the causes of departing from 
 the Church of Rome were taught and delivered by 
 many sober and modest persons, yet that the reforma- 
 tion in great part was acted by the common people, 
 whereas ours began at the prince of state, and 
 therefore was more moderate ; which reason I found 
 did not displease them : I added further then, that 
 the reformed religion in France would easily enough 
 admit an hierarchy, if they had sufficient means 
 among them to maintain it, and that if their churches 
 were as fair as those which the Roman Catholics had, 
 they would use the more decent sorts of rites and 
 ceremonies, and toofether like well of oro^ans and 
 choirs of singers, rather than make a breach or schism 
 on that occasion. As for holidays, I doubted not but 
 the principal persons and ministers of their religion 
 would approve it much better than the common 
 people, who, being labourers and artizans for the most 
 part, had the advantages for many more days, than 
 the Roman Catholic for getting their living ; howso- 
 ever, that those of the religion had been good cautions 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 ^55 
 
 to make the Roman Catholic priests, if not better, yet 
 at least more wary in their lives and actions ; it being 
 evident that since the reformation began among those 
 of the religion, the Roman Catholics had divers ways 
 reformed themselves, and abated not only much of 
 their power they usurped over laics, but were more 
 pious and continent than formerly. Lastly, that 
 those of the religion acknowledged solely the King s 
 authority in government of all affairs ; whereas the 
 other side held the regal power not only inferior in 
 divers points, but subordinate to the papal : nothing 
 of which yet served to divert Monsieur de Luynes, or 
 the Kinof, from their resolutions. 
 
 The King having now assembled an army, and 
 made some progress against those of the religion, I 
 had instruction sent me from the King my master to 
 mediate a peace, and if I could not prevail therein, to 
 use some such words as may both argue his Majesty's 
 care of them of the religion, and together, to let the 
 French King know, that he would not permit their 
 total ruin and extirpation. The King was now going 
 to lay siege to Saint- Jean-d'Angely, when myself was 
 newly recovered of a fever at Paris, in which besides 
 the help of many able physicians, I had the comfort 
 of divers visits from many principal grandees of 
 France, and particularly the Princess of Conti, who 
 would sit by my bedside two or three hours, and with 
 cheerful discourse entertain me, though yet I was 
 brought so low, that I could scarce return any thing 
 by way of answer, but thanks. 
 
 The command yet which I received from the King 
 
156 AU TO BIO GRA PH V. 
 
 my master quickened me, insomuch that by slow 
 degrees I went into my coach, together with my train, 
 towards Sant-Jean-d'Ang^ly, Being arrived within 
 a small distance of that place, I found by divers 
 circumstances, that the effect of my negotiation had 
 been discovered from England, and that I was not 
 welcome thither ; howbeit, having obtained an audi- 
 ence from the King, I exposed what I had in charge 
 to say to him, to which yet I received no other 
 answer but that I should go to Monsieur de Luynes, 
 by whom I should know his Majesty's intention. 
 
 Repairing thus to him, I did find outwardly 
 good reception, though yet I did not know how 
 cunningly he proceeded to betray and frustrate my 
 endeavours for those of the religion ; for, hiding a 
 gentleman called Monsieur ArnaukU behind the 
 hangings in his chamber, who was then of the 
 religion, but had promised a revolt to the King s side, 
 this gentleman, as he himself confessed afterwards to 
 the Earl of Carlisle, had in charge to relate unto those 
 of the religion, how little help they might expect 
 from me, when he should tell them the answers w^hich 
 Monsieur de Luynes made me. Sitting thus in a 
 chair before Monsieur de Luynes, he demanded the 
 effect of my business ? I answered, that the King my 
 master commanded me to mediate a peace betwixt 
 his Majesty and his subjects of the religion, and that I 
 desired to do it in all those fair and equal terms 
 
 1 Son of Anthoine de la Mothe-Arnauld. Tlie father was a 
 Protestant, but not the son. — De Remusat. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 157 
 
 which might stand with the honour of France and 
 the good intelligence betwixt the two kingdoms : to 
 which he returned this rude answer only ; What 
 hath the King your master to do with our actions ? 
 why doth he meddle with our affairs ? " 
 
 My reply was, " That the King my master ought 
 not to give an account of the reason which induced 
 him hereunto, and for me it was enough to obey him ; 
 howbeit, if he did ask me in more gentle terms, I 
 should do the best I could to give him satisfaction;" 
 to which, though he answered no more than the word 
 hien, or " well,'' I, pursuing my instruction, said " that 
 the King my master, according to the mutual stipula- 
 tion betwixt Henry IV. and himself, that the survivor 
 of either of them should procure the tranquillity and 
 peace of the other s estate, had sent this message ; and 
 that he had not only testified this his pious inclina- 
 tion heretofore in the late civil wars of France, but 
 was desirous on this occasion also to shew how much 
 he stood affected to the good of the kingdom ; besides, 
 he hoped that when peace was established here, that 
 the French King might be the more easily disposed to 
 assist the Palatine, who was an ancient friend and 
 ally of the French crown/' 
 
 His reply to this was, We will have none of your 
 advices ; " whereupon I said, that I took these words 
 for an answer, and was sorry only that they did not 
 understand sufficiently the affection and good-will of 
 the King my master; and since they rejected it upon 
 those terms, I had in charge to tell him, that we knew 
 very well what we had to do. Luynes, seeming 
 
A VTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 offended herewith, said, " Noxis ne vous craignons 
 pas,'' or, " We are not afraid of you I replied here- 
 upon, that, " if you had said you had not loved us, I 
 should have believed you, but should have returned 
 you another answer;'' in the mean while that I had 
 no more to say than what I told you formerly, which 
 was, that we knew what we had to do. 
 
 This, though somewhat less than was in my 
 instructions, so angered him, that in much passion he 
 said, " Par Diew, si vous rCetiez Monsieur VAm- 
 bassadeur, je vous traiterais dJun autre sorte ; " By 
 God, if you were not Monsieur Ambassador, I would 
 use you after another fashion." My answer was, that 
 as I was an ambassador, so I was also a gentleman ; 
 and therewithal laying my hand upon the hilt of my 
 sword, told him, there was that which should make 
 him an answer, and so arose from my chair ; to which 
 Monsieur de Luynes made no reply, but arising 
 likewise from his chair, offered civilly to accompany 
 me to the door ; but I telling him there was no 
 occasion for him to use ceremony after so rude an 
 entertainment, I departed from him. 
 
 From thence returning to my lodging, I spent three 
 or four days afterwards in seeing the manner of the 
 French discipline, in making approaches to towns ; at 
 what time I remember, that going in my coach within 
 reach of cannon, those in the town imagining me to 
 be an enemy, made many shots against me, which so 
 affrighted my coachman, that he durst drive no 
 farther ; whereupon alighting, I bid him put the 
 horses out of danger ; and notwithstanding many 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 IS9 
 
 more shots made against me, went on foot to the 
 trenches, where one Seaton, a Scotchman, conducting 
 me, shewed me their works, in which I found little 
 differing from the Low Country manner. 
 
 Having satisfied myself in this manner, I thought 
 fit to take my leave of the King, being at Cognac, the 
 city of Saint-Jean-d'Angely being now surrendered 
 unto him. Cominof thus to a villag^e not far from 
 Cognac, about ten of the clock at night, I found all 
 the lodgings possessed by soldiers, so that alighting in 
 the market-place, I sent my servants to the inns to 
 get some provision, who bringing me only six rj^e 
 loaves, which I was doubtful whether I should bestow 
 on myself and company, or on my horses. Monsieur de 
 Fonts, a French nobleman of the religion, attended 
 with a brave train, hearing of my being there, offered 
 me lodging in his castle near adjoining. 
 
 I told him it was a great courtesy at tliat time, yet 
 I could not witli my honour accept it, since I knew it 
 would endanger him, my business to those parts being 
 in favour of those of the religion, and the chief min- 
 isters of state in France being jealous of my holding 
 intelligence Avith him ; howbeit, if he would procure me 
 lodging in the town, I should take it kindly. Where- 
 upon, sending his servants round about the town, he 
 found at last, in the house of one of his tenants a cham- 
 ber, to which, when he had conducted me, and together 
 gotten some little accommodation for myself and horses, 
 I desired him to depart to his lodgings, he being then 
 in a place which his enemies, the King's soldiers, had 
 possessed ; all which was not so silently carried, but 
 
i6o 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that the said nobleman was accused afterwards at the 
 French court, upon suspicion of holding correspondence 
 with me, whereof it was my fortune to clear him. 
 
 Coming next day to Cognac, the Marechal de Saint- 
 Gerant, my noble friend, privately met me, and said I 
 was not in a place of surety there, as having offended 
 Monsieur de Luynes, who was the King's favourite, 
 desiring me withal to advise what I had to do : I told 
 him I was in a place of surety wheresoever I had my 
 sword by my side, and that I intended to demand 
 audience of the King ; which also being obtained, I 
 found not so cold a reception as I thought to meet 
 with, insomuch that I parted with his Majesty, to all 
 outward appearance, in very good terms. 
 
 From hence returning to Paris shortly after, I 
 found myself welcome to all those ministers of state 
 there, and noblemen, who either envied the greatness 
 or loved not the insolencies of Monsieur de Luynes ; 
 by whom also I was told, that the said Luynes had 
 intended to send a brother of his into England with 
 an embassy, the effect whereof should be chiefly to 
 complain against me, and to obtain that I should be 
 repealed ; and that he intended to relate the passages 
 betwixt us at Saint- Jean-d'Angely, in a much different 
 manner from that I reported, and that he would charge 
 me with giving the first offence. After thanks for this 
 advertisement, I told them my relation of the business 
 betwixt us, in the manner I delivered, was true, and 
 that I would justify it with my sword; at which they 
 being nothing scandalised, wished me good fortune. 
 
 The ambassador into England following shortly 
 
 1 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 i6i 
 
 after, with a huge train, in a sumptuous manner, and 
 an accusation framed against me, I was sent for home, 
 of which I was glad, my payment being so ill, that I 
 was run far into debt with my merchants, who had 
 assisted me now with three or four thousand pounds 
 more than I was able at the present to discharge. 
 Coming thus to court, the Duke of Buckingham, who 
 was then my noble friend, informed me at large of 
 the objections represented by the French ambassador ; 
 to which when I had made my defence in the manner 
 above related, I added, that I was ready to make good 
 all that I had said with my sword ; and shortly after 
 I did, in the presence of his Majesty and the Duke of 
 Buckingham, humbly desire leave to send a trumpet 
 to Monsieur de Luynes, to offer him the combat upon 
 terms that passed betwixt us ; which was not 
 permitted, otherwise than that they would take my 
 offer into consideration. 
 
 Howsoever, notice being publicly taken of this my 
 desire, much occasion of speech was given, every man 
 that heard thereof much favouring me ; but the Duke 
 of Luynes' death following shortly after, the business 
 betwixt us was ended, and I commanded to return to 
 my former charge in France. I did not yet presently 
 go, as finding much difficulty to obtain the moneys 
 due to me from the exchequer, and therewith, as 
 also by my own revenues, to satisfy my creditors 
 in France. The Earl of Carlisle^ this while being 
 
 ' James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, Knight of the Garter, Master of the 
 Wardrobe, and Ambassador in Germany and France, 
 
 493 
 
l62 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 employed Extraordinary Ambassador to France, 
 brought home a confirmation of the passages be- 
 twixt Monsieur de Luynes and myself, Monsieur de 
 Arnauld, who stood behind the hangings, as above 
 related, having verified all I said, insomuch that the 
 King my master was well satisfied of my truth. 
 
 Having by this time cleared all my debts, when 
 demanding new instructions from the King my master, 
 the Earl of Carlisle brought me this message : " That 
 his Majesty had that experience of my abilities and 
 fidelity, that he would give me no instructions, but 
 leave all things to my discretion, as knowing I would 
 proceed with that circumspection, as I should be 
 better able to discern, upon emergent occasions what 
 was fit to be done, than that I should need to attend 
 directions from hence, which, besides that they 
 would be slow, might perchance be not so proper, or 
 correspondent to the conjuncture of the great aflfairs 
 then in agitation, both in France and Germany, and 
 other parts of Christendom ; and that these things 
 therefore must be left to my vigilance, prudence, 
 and fidelity : whereupon I told his lordship, that I 
 took this as a singular expression of the trust his 
 Majesty reposed in me ; howbeit, that I desired his 
 lordship to pardon me, if I said I had herein only 
 recei ved a greater power or latitude to err ; and that 
 I durst not trust my judgment so far as that I would 
 presume to answer for all events, in such factious and 
 turbulent times, and therefore again did humbly desire 
 new instructions, which I promised punctually to 
 follow. The Earl of Carlisle returning hereupon to 
 
A Vl'OBWGRAPHY. 163 
 
 the King, brought 1110 yet no other answer back than 
 that I formerly mentioned, and that his Majesty did 
 so much confide in me, that he would limit me with no 
 other instructions, but refer all to my discretion; prom- 
 ising together, that if matters proceeded not as well as 
 might be wished, he would attribute the default to 
 any thing rather than to my not performing my duty. 
 
 Finding his Majesty thus resolved, I humbly took 
 leave of him and my friends at court, and went to 
 Monsieur Savage ; when demanding of him new letters 
 of credit, his answer was, he could not furnish me 
 as he had before, there being no limited sum expressed 
 there, but that I should have as much as I needed ; 
 to which, though I answered that I had paid all, yet, 
 as Monsieur Savage replied, that I had not paid it at 
 the time agreed on, he said he could furnish me with 
 a letter only for three thousand pounds, and neverthe- 
 less, that he was confident I should have more if I 
 required it, which I found true ; for I took up after- 
 wards upon my credit there as much more, as made 
 in the whole five or six thousand pounds. 
 
 Coming thus to Paris, I found myself welcomed by 
 all the principal persons, nobody that I found there 
 being either offended with the passages betwixt me and 
 Monsieur de Luynes, or that were sorry for his death, 
 in which number the Queen's Majesty seemed the most 
 eminent person, as one who long since had hated him ; 
 whereupon also I cannot but remember this passage, 
 that in an audience I had one day from the Queen, I 
 demanded of her how far she would have assisted me 
 with her good oflSces against Luynes ? She replied, 
 
164 
 
 A VTOBiO GRAPH K 
 
 that what cause soever she might have to hate him, 
 either by reason or by force, they would have made 
 her to be of his side ; to which I answered in Spanish, 
 " No Jiay feurza por las Reinas ; " — There is no force 
 for Queens ; at which she smiled. 
 
 And now I began to proceed in all public affairs 
 according to the liberty with which my master was 
 pleased to honour me, confining myself to no rules 
 but those of my own discretion. My negociations in 
 the mean while proving so successful, that, during 
 the remainder of my stay there, his Majesty received 
 much satisfaction concerning my carriage, as finding I 
 had preserved his honour and interest in all great 
 affairs then emergent in France, Germany, and other 
 parts of Christendom ; which work being of great con- 
 cernment, I found the easier, that his Majesty*s 
 ambassadors and agents every where gave me perfect 
 intelligence of all that happened within their precincts ; 
 insomuch that from Sir Henry Wotton, his Majesty's 
 ambassador at Venice, who was a learned and witty 
 gentleman, I received all the news of Italy ; as also 
 from Sir Isaac Wake, who did more particularly 
 acquaint me with the business of Savoy, Valentina,^ 
 and Switzerland ; from Sir Francis Nethersole, his 
 Majesty's agent in Germany, and more particularly 
 with the united princes there, on the behalf of his son- 
 in-law, the Palatine or King of Bohemia, I received 
 all the news of Germany ; from Sir Dudley Carlton, 
 
 ^ The Vatelline ; the valley stretching from the Lake of Como to 
 the Tyrolese mountains* 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 his Majesty's ambassador in the Low-Countries, I 
 received intelligence concerning all the affairs of 
 that state ; and from Mr. William Trumball, his 
 Majesty's agent at Brussels, all the affairs on that 
 side ; and lastly, from Sir Walter Aston, his Majesty's 
 ambassador in Spain, and after him from the Earl of 
 Bristol and Lord Cottington, I had intelligence from 
 the Spanish court ; out of all whose relations being 
 compared together, I found matter enough to direct 
 my judgment in all public proceedings ; besides, in 
 Paris I had the chief intelligence w^hich came to either 
 Monsieur de Langherac, the Low Country ambassador, 
 or Monsieur Postek, agent for the united princes in 
 Germany, and Signior Contarini, ambassador for 
 Venice, and Signior Guiscardi, my particular friend, 
 agent for Mantua, and Monsieur Gueretin, agent for 
 the Palatine or King of Bohemia, and Monsieur Villers, 
 for the Swiss, and Monsieur Ainorant, agent for Geneva; 
 by whose means, upon the resultance of the several 
 advertisements given me, I found what I had to do. 
 
 The wars in Germany were now hot, when several 
 French gentlemen came to me for recommendations 
 to the Queen of Bohemia, whose service they desired 
 to advance, which also I performed as effectually as I 
 could ; howbeit, as after the battle of Prague, the 
 Imperial side seemed wholly to prevail, these gentle- 
 men had not the satisfaction expected. About this 
 time the Duke de Crouy, employed from Brussels to 
 the French court, coming to see me, said, by way of 
 rhodomontade, as though he would not speak of our 
 isles, yet he saw all the rest of the world must bow 
 
i66 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 under the Spaniard ; to which I answered, " God be 
 thanked they are not yet come to that pass, or when 
 they were, they have this yet to comfort them, that 
 at worst they should be but the same which you are 
 now ; which speech of mine being afterwards, I 
 know not how, divulged, was much applauded by the 
 French, as believing I intended that other countries 
 should be but under the same severe government to 
 which the Duke of Crouy and those within the 
 Spanish dominions were subject. 
 
 It happened one day that the agent from Brussels, 
 and ambassador from the Low Countries, came to see 
 me, immediately one after the other, to whom I said 
 familiarly, that I thought that the inhabitants of the 
 parts of the seventeen provinces, which were under 
 the Spaniards, might be compared to horses in a stable, 
 which as they were finely curried, dressed, and fed, 
 so they were well ridden also, spurred, and galled ; and 
 that I thought the Low Country men were like to 
 horses at grass, which, though they wanted so good 
 keeping as the other had, yet might leap, kick, and 
 fling, as much as they would ; which freedom of 
 mine displeased neither ; or if the Low Country 
 ambassador did think I had spoken a little too 
 sharply, I pleased him afterwards, when, continuing 
 my discourse, I told him that the states of the United 
 Provinces had within a narrow room shut up so much 
 warlike provision both by sea and land, and together 
 demonstrated such courage upon all occasions, that it 
 seemed they had more need of enemies than of friends, 
 which compliment I found did please him. 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 About this time, the French being jealous that the 
 King my master would match the Prince his son with 
 the King of Spain's sister, and together relinquish his 
 alliance with France, myself, who did endeavour 
 nothing more than to hold all good intelligence 
 betwixt the two crowns, had enou^jh to do. The 
 Count de Gondomar passing now from Spain into 
 England, came to see me at Paris, about ten of the 
 clock in the morning, when, after some compliments, 
 he told me that he was to go towards England the 
 next morning, and that he desired my coach to 
 accompany him out of town ; I told him, after a free 
 and merry manner, he should not have my coach, and 
 that if he demanded it, it was not because he needed 
 coaches, the Pope's nuntio, the Emperor's ambassador, 
 the Duke of Bavaria's agent, and others, having 
 coaches enough to furnish him, but because he would 
 put a jealousy betwixt me and the French, as if I 
 inclined more to the Spanish side than to theirs. 
 Gondomar then looking merrily upon me, said, " I 
 will dine with you yet;" I told him, by his good 
 favour, he should not dine with me at that time, and 
 that when I would entertain the ambassador of so 
 great a King as his, it should not be upon my ordinary, 
 but that I would make him a feast worthy of so great 
 a person ; howbeit, that he might see after what 
 manner I lived, I desired some of my gentlemen to 
 bring his gentlemen into the kitchen, where, after my 
 usual manner, were three spits full of meat, divers 
 pots of boiled meat, and an oven with store of pies in 
 it, and a dresser board covered with all manner of 
 
i68 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 good fowl, and some tarts, pans with tarts in them, 
 after the French manner ; after which, being con- 
 ducted to another room, they were shewn a dozen or 
 sixteen dishes of sweetmeats, all which was but the 
 ordinary allowance for my table. The Spaniards 
 returning now to Gondomar, told him what good cheer 
 they found, notwithstanding which, I told Gondomar 
 ao^ain that I desired to be excused if I thouo^ht this 
 dinner unworthy of him, and that when occasion were, 
 I should entertain him after a much better manner. 
 Gondomar hereupon coming near me, said he esteemed 
 me much, and that he meant only to put a trick upon 
 me, which he found I had discovered, and that he 
 thought that an Englishman had not known how to 
 avoid handsomely a trick put upon him under show 
 of civility ; and that I ever should find him my 
 friend, and would do me all the good offices he could 
 in England, which also he really performed, as the 
 Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Pembroke confirmed 
 to me ; Gondomar saying to them, that I was a man 
 fit for employment, and that he thought Englishmen, 
 though otherwise able persons, knew not how to make 
 a denial handsomely, which yet I had done. 
 
 This Gondomar being an able person, and dexterous 
 in his negotiations, had so prevailed with King James, 
 that his Majesty resolved to pursue his treaty with 
 Spain, and for that purpose to send his son Prince 
 Charles in person to conclude the match ; when, after 
 some debate whether he should go in a public or 
 private manner, it was at last resolved, that he, 
 attended with the Marquis of Buckingham, and Sir 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 169 
 
 Francis Cottington, his secretary, and Endymion 
 Porter, and Mr. Grimes, gentleman of the horse to the 
 Marquis, should pass in a disguised and private 
 manner through France to Madrid ; these five passing, 
 though not without some difficulty, from Dover to 
 Boulogne, where taking post horses, they came to 
 Paris, and lodged at an inn in Rue St. Jacques, where 
 it was advised amongst them whether they should 
 send for me to attend them. After some dispute, it 
 was concluded in the negative, since, as one there 
 objected, if I came alone in the quality of a private 
 person, I must go on foot through the streets, and 
 because I was a person generally known, might be 
 followed by some one or other, who would discover 
 whither my private visit tended, besides, that those in 
 the inn must needs take notice of my coming in that 
 manner ; on the other side, if I came publicly with my 
 usual train, the gentlemen with me must needs take 
 notice of the Prince and Marquis of Buckingham, and 
 consequently might divulge it, which was thought not 
 to stand with the Prince's safety, who endeavoured to 
 keep his journey as secret as possible. Howbeit, the 
 Prince spent the day following his arrival in seeing 
 the French court and city of Paris, without that any 
 body did know his person, but a maid that had sold 
 linen heretofore in London, who seeing him pass by, 
 said, certainly this is the Prince of Wales, but withal 
 sufiered him to hold his way, and presumed not to 
 follow him. The next day after, they took post horses, 
 and held their ways towards Bayonne, a city frontier 
 to Spain, 
 
170 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The first notice that came to me was by one 
 Andrews, a Scotchman, who, coming late the night 
 preceding their departure, demanded whether I had 
 seen the Prince ? When I demanding what prince ? 
 for, said I, the Prince of Conde is yet in Italy ; he 
 told me, " the Prince of Wales,'* which yet I could not 
 believe easily, until with many oaths he affirmed the 
 Prince was in France, and that he had charge to 
 follow his Highness, desiring me in the mean while, on 
 the part of the King my master, to serve his passage 
 the best I could. This made me rise very early the 
 next morning, and go to Monsieur Puisieux, Principal 
 Secretary of State, to demand present audience ; 
 Puisieux hereupon entreated me to stay an hour, since 
 he was in bed, and had some earnest business to 
 dispatch for the King his master as soon as he was 
 ready. I returned answer, that I could not stay a 
 minute, and that I desired I might come to his bed- 
 side; this made Puisieux rise and put on his gown 
 only, and so came to the chamber where I attended 
 him. His first words to me were, " I know your 
 business as well as you ; your Prince is departed this 
 morning post to Spain : " adding further, that I could 
 demand nothing for the security of his passage, but it 
 should be presently granted, concluding with these 
 very words ; " Fbus ^e^rez servi aw point nommey' or, 
 " You shall be served in any particular you can name." 
 I told him that his free offer had prevented the request 
 I intended to make, and that because he was so prin- 
 cipal a minister of state, I doubted not but what he 
 bad so nobly promised, he would see punctually 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 171 
 
 performed ; as for the security of his passage, that I did 
 not see what I could demand more, than that he would 
 suffer him quietly to hold his way, without sending 
 after, or interrupting him. He replied, that the Prince 
 should not be interrupted, though yet he could do no 
 less than send to know what success the Prince had in 
 his journey. I was no sooner returned out of his 
 chamber, but I dispatched a letter by post to the 
 Prince, to desire him to make all the haste he could 
 out of France, and not to treat with any of the 
 religion in the way, since his being at Paris was 
 known, and that though the French secretary had 
 promised he should not be interrupted, yet that they 
 would send after his Highness, and when he gave any 
 occasion of suspicion, might perchance detain him. 
 The Prince after some examination at Bayonne (which 
 the governor thereof did afterwards particularly relate 
 to me, confessing that he did not know who the Prince 
 was), held his way on to Madrid, where he and all his 
 company safely arrived. Many of the nobility, and 
 others of the English court, being now desirous to see 
 the Prince, did pass through France to Spain, taking 
 my house still in their way, by whom I acquainted 
 his Highness in Spain, how much it grieved me that I 
 had not seen his Highness when he was in Paris ; 
 which occasioned his Highness afterwards to write a 
 letter to me, wholly with his own hand, and subscribe 
 his name your friend Charles, in which he did 
 abundantly satisfy all the unkindness I might conceive 
 on this occasion. 
 
 I shall not enter into a narration of the passages 
 
172 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 occurring in the Spanish court, upon his Highness's 
 arrival thither, though they were well known to me 
 for the most part, by the information the French 
 Queen was pleased to give me, who, among other 
 things, told me that her sister did wish well unto the 
 Prince. I had from her also intelligence of certain 
 messages sent from Spain to the Pope, and the Pope's 
 messages to them ; whereof, by her permission, I did 
 afterwards inform his Highness. Many judgments 
 were now made concerning the events which this 
 treaty of marriage was likely to have ; the Duke of 
 Savoy said that the Prince's journey thither was, " Un 
 tiro di quelli cavallieri antichi die andavano cosi per 
 il mondo a diffare li incanti ; that " it was a trick 
 of those ancient knight errants, who went up and 
 down the world after that manner to undo enchant- 
 ments." For as that Duke did believe that the 
 Spaniard did intend finally to bestow her on the 
 imperial house, he conceived that he did only enter- 
 tain the treaty with England, because he might avert 
 the King my master from treating in any other place, 
 and particularly in France ; howbeit, by the intelli- 
 gence I received in Paris, which I am confident was 
 very good, I am assured the Spaniard meant really at 
 that time, though how the match was broken, I list 
 not here to relate, it being a more perplexed and 
 secret business than I am willing to insert into the 
 narration of my life. 
 
 New propositions being now made, and other 
 counsels thereupon given, the Prince taking his leave 
 of the Spanish court, canae to St. Andrew s in Spain, 
 
J UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 where shipping himself with his train, arrived safely 
 at Portsmouth, about the beginning of October 1623 ; 
 the news whereof being shortly brought into France, 
 the Duke of Guise came to me, and said he found the 
 Spaniards were not so able men as he thought, since 
 they had neither married the Prince in their country, 
 nor done anything to break his match elsewhere ; I 
 answered, that the Prince was more dexterous than 
 that any secret practice of theirs could be put upon 
 him ; and as for violence, 1 thought the Spaniards 
 durst not offer it. 
 
 The war against those of the religion continuing in 
 France, Pere Seguerend, confessor to the King, made 
 a sermon before his Majesty upon the text, " That we 
 should forgive our enemies,'' upon which argument 
 having said many good things, he at last distinguished 
 forgiveness, and said, we were indeed to forgive our 
 enemies, but not the enemies of God, such as were 
 heretics, and particularly those of the religion ; and 
 that his Majesty, as the most Christian King, ought 
 to extirpate them wheresoever they could be found. 
 This particular being related to me, I thought fit to 
 go to the Queen-mother without further ceremony, 
 for she gave me leave to come to her chamber when- 
 soever I would, without demanding audience, and to 
 tell her, that though I did not usually intermeddle 
 with matters handled within their pulpits, yet because 
 Pere Seguerend, who had the charge of the King's 
 conscience, had spoken so violently against those of 
 the religion, that his doctrine was not limited only to 
 France, but might extend itself in its consequences 
 
174 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY, 
 
 beyond the seas, even to the dominions of the King 
 my master ; I could not but think it very unreason- 
 able, and the rather, that as her Majesty well knew 
 that a treaty of marriage betwixt our Prince and the 
 Princess her daughter, was now begun, for which 
 reason I could do no less than humbly desire that 
 such doctrines as these henceforth might be silenced, 
 by some discreet admonition she might please to give 
 to Pere Seguerend, or others that might speak to this 
 purpose. The Queen, though she seemed very will- 
 ingly to hear me, yet handled the business so, that 
 Pere Seguerend was together informed who had made 
 this complaint against him, whereupon also he was so 
 distempered, that by one Monsieur Gaellac a Pro- 
 ven9al, his own countryman, he sent me this message ; 
 that he knew well who had accused him to her 
 Majesty, and that he was sensible thereof ; that he 
 wished me to be assured, that wheresoever I was in 
 the world, he would hinder my fortune. The answer 
 I returned by Monsieur Gaellac was, " That nothing 
 in all France but a friar or a woman durst have sent 
 me such a message." 
 
 Shortly after this, coming again to the Queen- 
 mother, I told her that what I said concerning Pere 
 Seguerend, was spoken with a good intention, and 
 that my words were now discovered to him in that 
 manner, that he sent me a very affronting message, 
 adding, after a merry fashion, these words, that I 
 thought Seguerend so malicious, that his malice was 
 beyond the malice of women ; the Queen, being a 
 little startled hereat, said, " A moi femme, et parler 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH K 
 
 175 
 
 ainsi 1 " To me a woman, and say so ? I replied 
 gently, " Je pavle a voire Majeste comme reine, et non 
 pas comme femme;'' "I speak to your Majesty as a 
 Queen, and not as a woman,'' and so took my leave of 
 her. What Pere Seguerend did afterwards, in way of 
 performing his threat, I know not ; but sure I am, 
 that had I been ambitious of worldly greatness, I 
 might have often remembered his words ; though, as 
 I ever loved my book, and a private life, more than 
 any busy preferments, I did frustrate and render vain 
 his greatest power to hurt me. 
 
 My book, De Veritate prout distinguitur U Revela- 
 tione verisimiliy possibiliy et h falso, having been 
 begun by me in England, and formed there in all its 
 principal parts, was about this time finished ; all the 
 spare hours which I could get from my visits and 
 negotiations being employed to perfect this work, 
 which was no sooner done, but that I communicated 
 it to Hugo Grotius, that great scholar, who, having 
 escaped his prison in the Low Countries, came into 
 France, and was much welcomed by me and Monsieur 
 Tilenus^ also, one of the greatest scholars of his time, 
 who, after they had perused it, and given it more 
 commendations than is fit for me to repeat, exhorted 
 me earnestly to print and publish it ; howbeit, as the 
 
 ^ In Lord Herbert's posthumous volume of poems, a verse is ad- 
 dressed To Tilenus when I had that fatal Defluxion of my Arm, A 
 famous theological writer who wrote about Antichrist, and Ani- 
 madversions on the Synod of Dort. He was born at Goldberg in 1565 
 was professor of theology at Sedan, and died at Paris in 1633. He 
 was invited to England by James, 
 
176 
 
 A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 frame of my whole book was so difFerent from any 
 thinsr which had been written heretofore, I found I 
 must either renounce the authority of all that had 
 written formerly concerning the method of finding 
 out truth, and consequently insist upon my own way, 
 or hazard myself to a general censure, concerning the 
 whole argument of my book ; I must confess it did 
 not a little animate me, that the two great persons 
 above mentioned did so highly value it, yet, as I 
 knew it would meet with much opposition, I did 
 consider whether it was not better for me a while to 
 suppress it. Being thus doubtful in my chamber, one 
 fair day in the summer, my casement being opened 
 towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no wind 
 stirring, I took my book, De Veritate, in my hand, 
 and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words: 
 
 " 0 Thou eternal God, Author of the light which 
 now shines upon me, and Giver of all imvard 
 illuminations, I do beseech Thee, of Thy infinite 
 goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner 
 ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether 
 I shall publish this booh De Veritate ; if it be for 
 Thy glory, I beseech Thee give me some sign from 
 heaven ; if not, I shall suppress if 
 
 I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud 
 though yet gentle noise came from the heavens (for it 
 was like nothing on earth), which did so comfort and 
 cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and 
 that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon also I 
 resolved to print my book. This, how strange soever 
 it may seem, I protest before the Eternal God is true, 
 
A UTOBIOGRAPH Y. 
 
 177 
 
 neither am I in any way superstitiously deceived 
 herein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but 
 in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all 
 cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence 
 it came. 
 
 And now I sent my book to be printed in Paris, at 
 my own cost and charges, without suffering it to be 
 divulo^ed to others than to such as I thou^rht mig^ht be 
 worthy readers of it ; though afterwards reprinting it 
 in England, I not only dispersed it among the prime 
 scholars of Europe, but was sent to not only from the 
 nearest but furthest parts of Christendom, to desire 
 the sight of my book, for which they promised any- 
 thing I should desire by way of return ; but hereof 
 more amply in its place. 
 
 The treaty of a match with France continuing still, 
 it was thought fit for the concluding thereof, that the 
 Earl of Carlisle and the Earl of Holland should 
 be sent Extraordinary Ambassadors to France. 
 
 494 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT. 
 
 The following beautiful passage relating to Lord Herbert*s 
 mother, and casting additional light upon a period of his 
 youth with which he himself deals summarily, occurs in 
 Isaac Walton's Life of George Herbert : — 
 
 In this time of her widowhood, she being desirous to give 
 Edward, her eldest son, such advantages of learning and other 
 education as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby 
 make him the more fit for the service of his country, did, at 
 his being of a fit age, remove from Montgomery Castle with 
 him and some of her younger sons to Oxford ; and having 
 entered Edward into Queen's College, and provided him a 
 fit tutor, she commended him to his care ; yet she continued 
 there with him, and still kept him in a moderate awe of 
 herself, and so much under her own eye as to see and con- 
 verse with him daily ; but she managed this power over him 
 without any such rigid sourness as might make her company 
 a torment to her child, but with such a sweetness and 
 compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth, as 
 did incline him willingly to spend much of his time in the 
 company of his dear and careful mother, which was to her 
 
i8o 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 great content, for she would often say, That as our 
 bodies take a nourishment suitable to the meat on which 
 we feed, so our souls do as insensibly take in vice by the 
 example or conversation with wicked company." And 
 would therefore as often say, That ignorance of vice was 
 the best preservation of virtue ; and that the very know- 
 ledge of wickedness was as tinder to inflame and kindle 
 sin, and to keep it burning/' For these reasons she 
 endeared him to her own company, and continued with 
 him in Oxford four years, in which time her great and 
 harmless wit, her cheerful gravity, and her obliging 
 behaviour, gained her an acquaintance and friendship with 
 most of anv eminent worth or learning that were at that 
 time in or near that university ; and particularly with Mr. 
 John Donne, who then came accidently to that place in 
 this time of her being there. It was that J ohn Donne who 
 was after Dr. Donne, and Dean of St. PauPs, London ; and 
 he, at his leaving Oxford, writ and left there in verse a 
 character of the beauties of her body and mind. Of the 
 first he says — 
 
 " No spring nor summer beauty has such grace 
 As I have seen in an autumnal face." 
 
 Of the latter he says : 
 
 "In all her words, to every hearer fit, 
 You may at revels or at councils sit.'' 
 
 The rest of her character may be read in his printed 
 poems, in that elegy which bears the name of the 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 Autumnal Beauty.'* For both he and she were then 
 past the meridian of man's life. 
 
 This amity, begun at this time and place, was not an 
 amity that polluted their souls, but an amity made up of a 
 chain of suitable inclinations and virtues — an amity like 
 that of St. Chrysostom's to his dear and virtuous Olympias, 
 whom, in his letter, he calls his saint ; or an amity, indeed, 
 more like that of St. Plierom to his Paula, whose affection 
 to her was such that he turned poet in his old age, and 
 then made her epitaph : " wishing all his body were turned 
 into tongues, that he might declare her just praises to 
 posterity." And this amity betwixt her and Mr. Donne 
 was begun in a happy time for him, he being then near to 
 the fortieth year of his age, which was some years before 
 he entered into sacred orders — a time when his necessities 
 needed a daily supply for the support of his wife, seven 
 children, and a family ; and in this time she proved one of 
 his most bountiful benefactors, and he as grateful an 
 acknowledger of it. You may take one testimony for what 
 I have said of those two worthy persons from this following 
 letter and sonnet : — 
 
 " Madam, — 
 
 Your favours to me are everywhere ; I use them, and 
 have them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them there ; 
 and yet find them at Micham. Such riddles as these become 
 things unexpressible, and such is your goodness. I was almost 
 sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loth to 
 have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed 
 of my coming this morning ; but my not coming was excusable, 
 
l82 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 because earnest business detained me ; and my coming this 
 day is by the example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose 
 early upon Sunday to seek that which she loved most ; and so 
 did I. Arid, from her and myself, I return such thanks as are 
 due to one whom we owe all the good opinion that they whom 
 we need most have of us. By this messenger, and on this good 
 day, I commit the enclosed holy hymns and sonnets (which for 
 the matter, not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire) to 
 your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think them 
 worthy of it ; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to 
 usher them to your happy hand. 
 
 " Your unworthiest servant, 
 " Unless your accepting him to be so have mended him, 
 
 " Jo. Donne. 
 
 Mich AM, /?//^/ ii, 1607." 
 
 To THE Lady Magdalen Herbert, of St. Mary 
 
 Magdalen. 
 
 " Her of your name, whose fair inheritance 
 Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo, 
 An active faith so highly did advance, 
 
 That she once knew more than the Church did 
 
 know, — 
 
 The resurrection ; so much good there is 
 Delivered of her, that some fathers be 
 
 Loth to believe one woman could do this. 
 
 But think these Magdalens were two or three. 
 
 Increase their number, lady, and their fame : 
 To their devotion add your innocence ; 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 Take so much th' example as of the name ; 
 
 The latter half ; and in some recompense 
 That they did harbour Christ Himself a guest, 
 Harbour these hymns to His dear name addrest. 
 
 *^J. D." 
 
 These hymns are now lost to us ; but doubtless they were 
 such as they two now sing in heaven. ^ 
 
 There might be more demonstrations of the friendship 
 and the many sacred endearments betwixt these two 
 excellent persons (for I have many of their letters in my 
 hand), and much more might be said of her great pru- 
 dence and piety; but my design was not to write hers, 
 but the life of her son, and therefore I shall only tell my 
 readers that about that very day twenty years that this 
 letter was dated, and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. 
 John Donne (who was then Dean of St. Paul's) weep, 
 and preach her funeral sermon in the parish church of 
 Chelsey, near London, where she now rests in her quiet 
 grave." 
 
 The following is an extract of Donne's commemorative 
 sermon, mentioned above by Walton. It was delivered on 
 1st July 1627, at Chelsea Church, where, on the 8th June 
 
 ^ Dr. Grosart thinks that these hymns were not lost, but that they 
 are to be found in his **Fullar Worthies Library" edition of Tht 
 Complete Poems of John Donne ^ 'D.D, 
 
1 84 APPENDIX, 
 
 preceding, Lord Herbert's mother was buried. She was 
 the daughter of Sir Francis Newport ; her second husband, 
 Sir John Danvers, to whom she was married in 1608, being 
 many years younger than herself. Donne comments on 
 this below : — 
 
 **From that worthy family from which she had her 
 original extraction and birth, she sucked that love of hos- 
 pitality (hospitality which hath celebrated that family for 
 many generations successively) which dwelt in her to her 
 end. But in that ground, her father's family, she grew not 
 many years. Transplanted young from thence by marriage 
 into another family of honour, as a flower that doubles and 
 multiplies by transplantation, she multiplied into ten 
 children, — Job's number and Job's distribution (as she 
 would often remember), seven sons and three daughters. 
 And in this ground she grew not many more years than 
 were necessary for the providing of so many plants. And 
 being then left to choose her own ground in her widowhood, 
 having at home established and increased the estate with a 
 fair and noble addition, proposing to herself, as her prin- 
 cipal care, the education of her children ; to advance that 
 she came with them and dwelt with them in the university, 
 and recompensed them the loss of a father in giving them 
 two mothers — her own personal care and the advantage of • 
 that place, where she contracted a friendship with divers 
 reverend persons of eminency and estimation there, which 
 continued to their ends. And as this was her greatest 
 business, so she made this state a large period, for in this 
 
APPENDIX. 185 
 
 state of widowhood she continued twelve years. And then 
 returning to a second marriage, that second marriage turns 
 us to the consideration of another personal circumstance, 
 that is, the natural endowments of her person, which were 
 such as that her personal and natural endowments had 
 their part in drawing and fixing the affections of such a 
 person, as by his birth and youth, and interest in great 
 favours at court, and legal proximity to great possessions 
 in the world, might justly have promised him acceptance in 
 what family soever, or upon what person soever, he had 
 directed and placed his affections. He placed them here, 
 neither diverted thence nor repented since. For as the 
 well tuning of an instrument makes higher and lower 
 strings of one sound, so the inequality of their years was 
 thus reduced to an evenness that she had a cheerfulness 
 agreeable to his youth, and he had a sober staidness con- 
 formable to her more advanced years. So that I would not 
 consider her at so much more than forty, nor him at so 
 much less than thirty, at that time ; but as their persons 
 were made one, and their fortunes made one by marriage, 
 so I would put their years into one number, and finding a 
 sixty between them, think them thirty apiece ; for as twins 
 
 of one hour they lived. . , God gave her such a 
 
 comeliness as, though she were not proud of it, yet she was 
 so content with it as not to go about to mend it by any art. 
 And for her attire (which is another personal circumstance), 
 it was never sumptuous, never sordid, but always agreeable 
 to her quality and agreeable to her company ; such as she 
 might, and such as others such as she was did wear." , . , 
 
i86 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 "She gave not at some great days or at some solemn goings 
 abroad, but as God^s true almoners, the sun and moon, that 
 pass on in a continual doing of good, as she received her daily 
 bread from God, so daily she distributed and imparted it to 
 others. In which office though she never turned her face 
 from those who, in a strict inquisition, might be called idle 
 and vagrant beggars, yet she ever looked first upon them who 
 laboured, whose labours could not overcome the difficulties 
 nor bring in the necessities of this life, and to the sweat of 
 their brows she contributed even her wine and her oil, and 
 anything that was, and anything that might be, if it were 
 not prepared for her own table. And as her house was a 
 court, with conversation of the best, and an almshouse in 
 feeding the poor, so was it also an hospital in ministering 
 relief to the sick. And truly, the love of doing good in this 
 kind, of ministering to the sick, was the honey that spread 
 over all her bread ; the air the perfume that breathed over 
 ail her house. ... As the rule of all her civil actions was 
 religion, so the rule of her religion was the Scripture ; and her 
 rule for her particular understanding of the Scripture was 
 
 the Church In the doctrine and discipline of that 
 
 Church in which God sealed her to himself in baptism she 
 brought up her children, she assisted her family,she dedicated 
 her soul to God in her life, and surrendered it to him in her 
 death ; and in that form of common prayer which is 
 ordained by that Church, and to which she had accustomed 
 herself with her family twice every day, she joined that 
 company which was about her death-bed in answering to 
 every part thereof which the congregation is directed to 
 
APPENDIX, 187 
 
 answer to, with a clear understanding, with a constant 
 memory, with a distinct voice, not two hours before she 
 died. According to this promise, that is, the will of God 
 manifested in the Scriptures, she expected this that she 
 hath received, God's physic and God's music — a christianly 
 death." 
 
 LORD HERBERT TO JAMES I. 
 
 The following letter written during his second embassy 
 to James I., will give an idea of Herbert as an official 
 correspondent when Ambassador to France. 
 
 " My most gracious Soveraigne, — 
 Now that I thanke God for it, his Higbenes, accordinge to 
 my continuall prayers, hath made a safe and happy returne unto 
 your Sacred Majestie's presence, I think myselfe bounde, by 
 way of complete obedience to those commandemeats I received 
 from your Sacred Majestic, both by Mr. Secretarie Calvert and 
 my brother Henry, to give your Sacred Majestic an account of 
 that sense which the generall sort of people doth entertaine 
 here, concerninge the whole frame and contexte of his Highnes 
 voyage. It is agreed on all parts that his Highnes must have 
 received much contentment, in seeinge two great kingdomes, 
 and consequently in enjoyinge that satisfaction which princes 
 but rarely, and not without great perill obtain. His Highnes 
 discretion, diligence, and princely behavior every where, like- 
 wise is much praysed. Lastly, since his Highnes journey hath 
 fallen out so well, that his Highnes is come back without any 
 prejudice to his person or dignitie : they say the successe hath 
 
i88 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 sufficiently commended the Counceil. This is the most com- 
 mon censure (even of the bigot party, as I am informed) which 
 I approve in all, but in the last pointe in the delivery whereof I 
 finde somethinge to dislike, and therfore tell them, that thinges 
 are not to be judged alone by the successe, and that when they 
 would not looke so highe as God's providence, without which no 
 place is secure, they might finde even in reason of state, so 
 much, as might sufficiently warrante his Highnes person, and 
 libertie to returne. 
 
 I will come from the ordinarie voice, to the selecter judg- 
 ment of the Ministers of State, and more intelligent people in 
 this kingdome, who though they nothinge vary from the above- 
 recited opinion, yet as more profoundly lookinge into the state 
 of this longe-treated-of allyance betwixt your Sacred Majestic 
 and Spaine in the persons of his Highnes and the Infanta, they 
 comprehende their sentence thereof (as I am informed) in three 
 propositions. 
 
 First, that the protestation, which the Kinge of Spaine 
 made to his Highnes upon his departure, whereby he pro- 
 mised to chase away, and dis-favor all those who should 
 oppose this marriage, doth extende no further, than to the 
 sayd kinges servants, or at furthest, not beyonde the temporall 
 princes his neighbours, so that the Pope, being not included 
 herin, it is thought his consent must bee yet obtained, and 
 consequently that the business is in little more forwardnes 
 than when it first beganne. 
 
 Secondly, That the Pope will never yeeld his consent, 
 unless your Sacred Majestie grante some notable privileges 
 and advantage to the Roman Catholique relligion in your 
 Sacred Majestie's kingedomes. 
 
 Thirdly, That the sayd Kinge of Spaine would never 
 insiste upon obtaininge those privileges, but that hee more 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 desires to forme a party in your Sacred Majestie's kingedomes, 
 which he may keep always obsequious to his will, then to 
 maintain a friendly correspondence betwixt your Sacred 
 Majestic and himselfe. I must not, in the last place, omitte 
 to acquaint your Sacred Majestie very particularly with 
 the sense which was expressed by the bons Francois, and body 
 of those of the Religion, who hartily wishe that the same 
 greatnes which the King of Spaine doth so affecte over all the 
 worlde, and still maintaines even in this country, which is to 
 bee Protector of the Jesuited and bigot partie, your Sacred 
 Majestie would embrace in beeing Defender of our Faithe. 
 The direct answer to which though I evade, and therfore reply 
 little more, then that this counceil was much fitter when the 
 Union in Germany did subsiste than at this tyme ; yet do I 
 think myselfe obliged to represente the affection they beare 
 unto your Sacred Majestie. This is as much as is come to my 
 notice concerninge that pointe your Sacred Majestie gave mee 
 in charge, which therfore I have plainly layd open before your 
 Sacred Majestie's eyes, as understandinge well, that princes 
 never receive greater wronge, then when the ministers they 
 putte in truste do palliate and disguise those thinges which it 
 concernes them to knowe. For the avoydinge wherof, let me 
 take the boldnes to assure your Sacred Majestie that those of 
 this King's counceil here will use all means they can, both to 
 the King of Spaine, and to the Pope (in whom they pretend to 
 have very particular interest) not only to interrupte but yf it be 
 possible, to breake off your Sacred Majestie's allyance with 
 Spaine. For which purpose the Count de Tillieres hath stricte 
 commande to give eether all punctuall advise, that accordingly 
 they may proceede. It rests that I most humbly beseech your 
 Sacred Majestie to take my free relation of these particulars in 
 good part, since I am of no faction, nor have any passion or 
 
190 APPENDIX, 
 
 interest, but faithfully to performe that service and dutie which 
 I owe to your Sacred Majestie, for whose most perfect health 
 and happiness I pray, with the devotion of 
 
 Your Sacred Majestie's 
 Most obedient, most loyall, and most affectionate 
 
 subject and servant, 
 
 Herbert." 
 
 From Merlou Castle, the '^ist of October^ 1623. Stil, No, 
 
 A PRAYER OF HERBERT^S. 
 
 A copy of the following carefully-framed prayer was 
 found in Herbert's handwriting. It is of interest as an 
 index not only of his devoutness, but of the character of 
 his theological belief : — 
 
 **0 God ! Thou, by whose power and wisdome all things 
 at lirst were made, and by whose providence and goodness 
 they are continued and preserved, still behold, from thy 
 everlasting dwellinge above, me thy creature and inhabitant 
 of this lower world, who from this valley of change and 
 corruption, lifting up heart and eyes to Thee, his eternal 
 God and Creator, does here acknowledge and confess these 
 manifold blessings, these vast gifts bestowed on me ; as 
 namely, that before I yet was, when I could neyther know 
 nor consent to be great and good, Thy eternall providence 
 had ordained me this being, by which I was brought into 
 this world, a living, free, and reasonable creature, not 
 senseless or bruitisb, but capable of seeinge and under- 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 standinge thy wondrous works herein; and not only so, 
 but of usinge and enjoyinge them, in that plentiful! 
 measure wherein they have been hitherto afforded me. 0 
 Lord, with all humbleness I confess, that were there no 
 other pledge of thy favour than this alone, it were more 
 than any of thy creatures in this life can possibly 
 deserve. 
 
 But thy mercies go farther yet. Thou hast not only 
 made me see, know, and partake thy works, but hast 
 suffered me to love Thee for the blessings shewed us in 
 them. I say. Thou hast admitted fraile dust and ashes to 
 so high a dignity as to love Thee, the infinite and eternall 
 Beauty. And not only disdainest it not, but acceptest, 
 yea, and rewardest the same : and whence can this come, 
 but from thy everlasting goodness, which, had it not 
 vouchsafed to love me first, I could not have had the 
 power (than which man has no greater) of loving Thee 
 againe. Yet here thy mercies stay not. Thou hast not only 
 given mee to know and love Thee, but hast written in my 
 heart a desire even to imitate and bee like Thee (as farre 
 as in this fraile flesh I may), and not only so, but many 
 ways inabled me to the performance of it. And from 
 hence. Lord, with how much comfort do I learne the high 
 estate I received in my creation, as beinge formed in thine 
 owne similitude and likenesse. But, O Lord, thy mercies 
 (for they are infinite) are not bounded even here. Thou 
 hast, then, not only given mee the means of knowinge, 
 lovinge, and imitatinge Thee in this life; but hast given 
 mee the ambition of knowinge, lovinge, and imitatinge 
 
192 APPENDIX, 
 
 Thee after this life ; and for that purpose hast begunne in 
 mee a desire of happinesse, yea of eternal bliss, and from 
 thence proceeded to give mee hope ; and not only so, but 
 also a faith which does promisse and assure mee, that since 
 this desire can come from none but Thee, nothing Thou 
 doest can be in vain. What shall I say, then, but desire 
 Thee, 0 Lord, to fulfill it in thy good tyme, to mee thy 
 unworthy creature, who in this flesh can come no nearer 
 Thee than the desireing that mortality which both keeps 
 mee from thy abode, and makes me most unlike Thee here. 
 Amen." 
 
 HERBERT'S IDEA FOR HIS MONUMENT. 
 
 He had, says Lloyd, designed a fair monument of his 
 own invention, to be set up for him in the church of 
 Montgomery, according to the model following : Upon the 
 ground a hath-piece of fourteen-foot square, on the middest 
 of which is placed a Doric column, with its right of pedestal 
 basis, and capitols of fifteen foot in height j on the capitol 
 of the colum is mounted an urn with a heart flamboul, sup- 
 ported by two angels. The foot of this column is attended 
 with four angels, placed on pedestals at each corner of the 
 said hath-pace ; two having torches reverst, extinguishing 
 the motto of mortality, the other two holding up palms, the 
 emblems of victory." 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 193 
 
 His Epitaph for Himself: — 
 
 " Reader, 
 
 "The monument which thou beholdest here 
 Presents Edward, Lord Herbert, to thy sight ; 
 
 A man, who was so free from either hope or fear 
 To have or lose this ordinary light. 
 
 That when to elements his body turned were, 
 He knew that as those elements would fight, 
 
 So his immortal soul should find above 
 
 With his Creator, peace, joy, truth, and love 1 " 
 
 Herbert died at his house in Queen Street, London, and 
 was, however, buried at St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, the in- 
 scription over his grave being : — 
 
 Hie inhumatur corpus Edvardi Herbert equitis Balnei, 
 baronis de Cherbury et Castle-Island, auctoris libri, cui titulus 
 est, " De Veritate." Redder ut herbae ; vicesimo die Augusti 
 anno Domini 1648. 
 
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