ii;itlllliiillllflllliliililillilliaiil>liir liiiKliljIillllti.iitlliiilllllliiilililinl LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class ^1 ~~j e^AT ENGLISH G<^RNE% STUART TRACTS 1603-1693 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY C. H, FIRTH riLLOW or ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD ^ OF- THE '^ NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON AND CO. J r PUBLISHERS' NOTE The texts contained in the present volume are re- printed with very slight alterations from the English Garner x^zVitA in eight volumes (1877-1890, London, 8vo) by Professor Arber, whose name is sufficient guarantee for the accurate collation of the texts with the rare originals, the old spelling being in most cases carefully modernised. The contents of the original Garner have been rearranged and now for the first time classified, under the general editorial supervision of Mr. Thomas Scccombe. Certain lacunae have been filled by the interpolation of fresh matter. The Introductions are wholly new and have been written specially for this issue. The references to volumes of the Garner (other than the present volume) are for the most part to the editio princeps, 8 vols. 1877-90. Edinburgh : Printed by T. and A. Constable. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGB Sir Robert Carey. Account of the Death of Queen Elizabeth. . I The True Narration of the Entertainment of his Majesty from his departure from Edinburgh till his receiving at London. By T. M., 1603, .11 King James, liis Entertainment at Theobald's. By John Savile, 1603, . , 53 Time Triumphant. By Gilbert Dugdale, 1604, .... 69 The Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere. Published by William Dillingham, 1657, . . 83 Sir Thomas Overbury, his Observations in his Travels, upon the state of the Seventeen Provinces, etc., 1626, , : . 211 The Interpreter, 1622, , 233 The famous and wonderful Recovery of a Ship of Bristol, called the Exchange, from the Turkish Pirates of Argier, 1625, 247 Three to One : being an English-Spanish Combat. By Richard Peeke, 1622, . . ' 275 A true Relation of a brave Stratagem practised upon a Sea-town in Galicia, 1626, 299 The Sequestration of Archbishop Abbot from all his ecclesi- astical offices in 1627. By John Rushworth (1659), . . 309 Thomas Lord Fairfax. Short Memorials of some things to be cleared during my Command in the Army, and A Short Memorial of the Northern Actions during the war there. To which is added An Epitaph on Lord Fairfax by George Duke of Buckingham, 351 vi Stuart Tracts PAGB A true Relation of Major-General Sir Thomas Morgan's Progress in France and Flanders with the Six Thousand Enghsh in the years 1657 and 1658. 1699, 403 / England's Joy, or a Relation of the most remarkable passages from his Majesty's Arrival at Dover to his Entrance at Whitehall, 1660, 425 A Relation of the Great Sufferings and Strange Adventures of Henry Pitman, 1689, 431 A true and exact Account of the Retaking of a Ship called the Friends' Adventure of Topsham, from the French. By Robert Lyde, 1693, 477 INTRODUCTION The tracts which stand first in this volume describe the accession of James I. and the rejoicings which accompanied his progress from Scotland to London. To them is prefixed, in order to explain the narratives followed, Sir Robert Carey's account of the circumstances of Queen Elizabeth's death, and of the manner in which he brought the news to Edinburgh. Carey, whose Memoirs were first published by the Earl of Cork in 1759, was the youngest son of Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon, and the grandson of Mary, sister of Ann Boleyn. His kinship to the Queen and his gifts as a courtier secured him the favour of Elizabeth, and when that sovereign died he held the office of Warden of the Middle Marches. As soon as Carey perceived that her end was near, he resolved to use the opportunity to gain the favour of her successor, in the conviction, as he tells us, that it was neither ' unjust nor unhonest' for him to do so. The candid selfishness of his defence explains his character, but contemporaries as well as later historians censured his haste to profit by the death of his kinswoman and benefactress. * It hath set so wide a mark of ingratitude on him,' writes Weldon, ' that it will remain to posterity a greater blot than the honour he obtained afterwards will ever wipe out.'^ Carey would willingly have borne this general censure, but what he could not endure without lamenting was the failure of the * Secret History of the Court of James /., i. p. 314, viii Stuart Tracts hopes which he had built upon the gratitude of the King. James had at once appointed the welcome messenger one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, but after he reached England he dismissed Carey from this post, and forgot to fulfil his promises of further preferment. The cause which led to Carey's removal was no doubt a representation addressed by the Council to the King, in which they stigmatised Carey's conduct as 'contrary to such command- ments as we had power to lay upon him, and to all decency, good manners, and respect' However, later in the reign he succeeded in obtaining the offices and titles he desired, becoming successively master of the robes and chamberlain to Prince Charles, and being created Baron of Leppington (1622), and finally Earl of Monmouth (1626). He died in 1639. Whilfe the account of the last days of Queen Elizabeth given in Carey's Memoirs is valuable as being the report of an eye-witness, it should not be forgotten that he was influenced by the desire to construe the acts and words of the Queen in the manner most favourable to the claim of James I. Elizabeth had always been reluctant to name a successor, and even when she was dying this reluctance was as strong as ever, A recent historian gives good reason for doubting whether she so explicitly nominated James as Carey asserts : — ' On her dying day her Council ventured a first and last despairing effort to obtain from her such assent to their negotiations as would place James's title beyond cavil ; and although representations have been made that the effort was successful, there is little valid ground for crediting the Queen, even in her last hours, with any modification of her resolve to leave the subject of the succession severely alone. Introduction ix The French ambassador is solely responsible for the state- ment that she at an earlier period admitted by word of mouth that " the King of Scotland would hereafter become King of Great Britain." More trustworthy witnesses merely depose that on two occasions in her latest weeks, when the comments of others in her presence compelled her to break silence, she took refuge in oracular utterances which owe all their significance to the interpretation that their hearers deemed it politic to place on them. ' Before leaving London she is said to have told the Earl of Nottingham that " her throne had always been the throne of kings, and none but her next heir of blood and descent should succeed her." " Her next heir of blood and descent" was, in the eyes of the law. Lord Beauchamp. The vague phrases attest her settled policy of evasion. According to Sir Robert Carey, on the Wednesday afternoon before her death, " she made for her Council to be called, and by putting her hand to her head when the King of Scotland was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her." Throughout her illness her hand had passed restlessly to and from her head, and a definite meaning could only attach to the sign in the sight of those who, like the reporter, were already pledged to seat James VI. in her place. Lady Southwell gives a more disinterested account of this episode of the Wednesday afternoon. The Council were not invited to the royal presence, as Carey avers. They demanded admittance " to know whom " the dying Queen " would have for King." She could barely speak, but made what preparation her waning strength permitted for the interview. The Coun- cillors desired her to lift her finger when they named whom she approved. They mentioned the King of France; she X Stuart Tracts did not stir. They spoke of the King of Scotland ; she made no sign. They named Lord Beauchamp, the rightful heir under Henry Vlil.'s unrepealed settlement. Then only did Elizabeth rouse herself, and with something of her old vivacity she gasped, " I will have no rascal's son to sit in my seat, but one worthy to be a king." These are the only un- questioned words which afford any clue to the Queen's wishes respecting her successor. At the best they are negative, and cannot be tortured into a formal acceptance of James.' ^ After Carey's account of how he brought the good news to Edinburgh follow three narratives describing the pro- gress of James from Edinburgh to London, and his recep- tion by his new subjects. All three are reprinted and copiously annotated by John Nichols in his Progresses of King James I. (vol. i. pp. 53, 135, 408). Very little id known of their authors. T. M., the author of the true narration, was probably an inhabitant of Berwick, from the particularity with which he describes incidents which happened there. John Savile, author of King James his Entertainment at Theobald's, is mentioned by Anthony Wood in his AthencB, but merely as 'a pretender to poetry,' patronised by the young spark to whom the ^Entertain- ment is dedicated.' Of Gilbert Dugdale, the author of Time Triumphant, nothing at all is known. Perhaps, as Nichols suggests, he was the ' old man of the age of three score and nineteen,' who had seen the changes of four Kings and Queens, and had prepared a political address to his new sovereign, which he printed in spite of the fact that it was never delivered. The unfeigned rejoicing by which the accession of James was hailed was due to the relief of the nation at * Mr. Sidney Lee. Cornhill Magazine, 1897, vol. Ixxv. p. 302. Introduction xi the peaceful settlement of a much disputed question, which might have caused a destructive civil war. The union of the two crowns of England and Scotland added to the public satisfaction. James himself by his affability and graciousness increased the popularity which he origin- ally owed to circumstances. T. M,, who was possibly a soldier, relates with great approbation, that the King, to show his respect to * the art military,' fired a shot out of a cannon, and did it ' with such sign of experience that the most expert gunner there beheld it not without admira- tion.' He applauds with' equal fervour the King's ' merry and well-seasoned jests,' adding that all his words were 'of full weight, and his jests filled with the salt of wit,' and that they were ' no less gracious ' than ' facetious and pleasant' One characteristic of the new sovereign he notes which other observers do not. * This is one especial note in his Majesty. Any man that hath aught with him, let him be sure he have a just cause, for he beholds all men's faces with stedfastness.' To cultivate popularity with his people, James over- came for a time the dislike to crowds, which was one of his characteristics. The Duke in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, who expresses a similar distaste, has been supposed to represent the King in this — ' " I love the people," But do not like to stage me to their eyes ; Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and Aves vehement ; Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does affect it.' (Act I. so. i. 1. 68.) At first, however, James affected this applause. A coach was offered him when he entered York in order to convey xH Stuart Tracts him to the Minster. But he graciously answered, ' I will have no coach. For the people are desirous to see a king, and so they shall ; for they shall as well see his body as his face.' Accordingly, ' to the great comfort of the people, he went on foot to the Cathedral' So far T. M., but Dugdale sounds a different note. By the time he reached London James was weary of crowds, and so the last of these three pamphleteers seizes the opportunity afforded by the King's visit to the Royal Exchange to rebuke the irreverent multitude for not respecting their monarch's desire to be private. ' You will say, perchance,' concludes Dugdale, * " It was your love." Will you, in love, press upon your sovereign thereby to offend him ? Your sovereign may, perchance, mistake your love, and punish it as an offence.' Once again we are reminded of Measure for Measure. ' Even so,' says Angelo, * The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness » Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offence.' (Act II. sc. iv. 1. 28.) Twenty years later James was no longer inconvenienced by the love of his subjects, and for him popular applause had become a thing of the past. Under his son the popularity of the House of Stuart revived for a moment, then sank lower than ever. In 1660 came a reaction, and the English nation, weary of civil strife and of new experiments in government, welcomed the restoration of monarchy with the same universal and extravagant joy with which it had hailed the union of the three kingdoms and the accession of James I. Introduction xiii The relation of the progress of Charles II. from Dover to London, entitled England's Joy, forms a kind of pendant to the narratives describing the reception of his grand- father in England. It is much less detailed and much less graphic. In some points, also, the anonymous pamphleteer is inferior to the contemporary diarists. His account has not the little personal touches which make the description of the King's landing given by Pepys of so much interest, nor has it the sincere emotion which breathes in the few lines Evelyn devotes to the King's entrance into London. On the other hand, it contains many picturesque details which are to be found nowhere else. We learn how the people of Rochester decorated their streets with garlands made up of costly scarves and ribbons ' decked with spoons and bodkins of silver'; how at Blackheath the King was met by * a kind of rural triumph, expressed by the country swains in a morrice-dance, with the old music of taber and pipe ' ; and we are told for the first time of the ' hundred proper maids ' of Deptford, with their ' flaskets full of flowers and sweet herbs.' There are also some new details about the King's journey through London ; and though the tract is of no great historical value, it is sufficiently interesting to deserve reprinting. To pass from these pictures of pageants and popular rejoicings to the serious records of Puritanism is a some- what abrupt transition. Two of the tracts in this volume — and two only — illustrate the rise of the discontent which bore fruit in the Civil War, and both of them deal with the religious rather than the political history of the times. But though the cause of the breach between the Stuarts and their people was more religious than political, religion and politics were almost inseparably associated in the struggle xiv Stuart Tracts from its origin to its close. In practice it was found that men who held a certain set of views about Church affairs held an equally definite set of views about State affairs, and that there was a definite connection between their political and their religious creeds. The verse tract called The Interpreter, printed in 1622, and probably in Holland, illus- trates this connection. The object of its author is to explain the political significance of the three familiar names — ' Puritan,' * Protestant,' and ' Papist,' but his standpoint is throughout that of the members of the first party. Any honest man, he complains, if he opposes the Government for constitutional or religious reasons, is termed a Puritan. Sir Benjamin Rudyard, in one of his most famous speeches in the Long Parliament, echoes the complaint of the anony- mous author of these verses in words that almost seem inspired by him. Speaking of the King's advisers, he says : ' They have so brought it to pass that under the name of Puritans all our religion is branded, and under a few hard words against Jesuits all Popery is countenanced. Who- soever squares his actions by any rule, either divine or human, he is a Puritan ; whosoever would be governed by the King's laws, he is a Puritan. He that will not do whatsoever other men would have him do, he is a Puritan. Their great work, their masterpiece now is, to make all those of the religion to be the suspected party of the Kingdom.'^ This tract also suggests the famous pamphlet called The Character of a Trimmer^ written by Halifax about December 1684, and first published in 1688. Just as Halifax sets forth the views of a moderate man on the questions of hereditary monarchy, foreign politics, ecclesiastical policy, ^ May, History of the Long Parliament, p. 73, ed. 1854. Introduction xv and other subjects of controversy, so the author of the earlier tract sets forth the opinions held by a moderate member of the opposition to James on the different points at issue between the popular party and the Government. But the difference between the halting verse of the first pamphleteer and the nervous prose of the second is more striking than the resemblance between their method of treatment. The progress of the national opposition to the govern- ment of the Stuarts is further illustrated by Archbishop Abbot's narrative of his own sequestration from all his ecclesiastical offices. Born in 1562, made a bishop in 1609, and Archbishop of Canterbury since 161 1, Abbot became popular with the Puritans, because he adhered firmly to Calvinistic doctrine and opposed the Spanish marriage. Clarendon describes him as ' a man of very morose manners and a very sour aspect, which in that time was called gravity,' who ' considered Christian religion no other than as it abhorred and reviled Popery and valued those men most who did that most furiously.' Puritan historians naturally took a more favourable view, and Whitelocke writes that Abbot left behind him ' the memory of a pious, learned, and moderate prelate.' As he was a man who had the courage of his convictions, the archbishop had not hesitated to defy King James when that monarch ordered him to marry the Earl of Somerset to the divorced Countess of Essex. He next defied King Charles in defence of the freedom of the subject. In 1626, after his rupture with his second Parliament, Charles levied a forced loan to provide for his military and naval expenditure. Chief- Justice Crew was ordered to sign a paper certifying the legality of the loan, and was dismissed from office upon xvi Stuart Tracts his refusal. The King determined to procure for his exaction the sanction of the highest authority of the Church, so, like Crew, Abbot was summoned to declare himself. The demand took the shape of requisition to him to license the sermon which Dr. Robert Sibthorpe had preached before the judges at the Northampton Assizes. Its title was ' Apostolic Obedience, showing the Duty of Subjects to pay Tribute and Taxes to their Princes,* and its doctrine was that no Christian could refuse the loan the King demanded. Abbot relates the attempts made to cajole or threaten him into acquiescence with the King's desire, and the nature of the objections which led him to decline, and so caused his sequestration. Incidentally he sketches the characters of his two chief enemies, Laud and Buckingham, and defends his friendship with two of the leaders of the opposition, Sir Dudley Digges and Sir Thomas Wentworth. Three of the tracts reprinted in this volume are narratives by military commanders of the campaigns and battles in which they took part. Of these the most valuable by far is that by Sir Francis Vere. He and his younger brother, Sir Horace, were the most famous of the school of English soldiers who fought in the wars of the Netherlands, and, having learned the art of war there, placed their skill at the disposal of their country when either Elizabeth or James had need of it. Excellent lives of both the brothers are contained in the Dictionary of National Biography, but the fullest account of their services is to be found in the volume entitled The Fighting Veres, published by Sir Clements Markham in 1888. Anything in Vere's Com- mentaries which needs explanation will be found explained there, though, like most biographers, the author is a little Introduction xvii too much inclined to maintain that his hero was always in the right. The Commentaries, which became at once a military classic, were first published in 1657. They had for many years before this passed from hand to hand in manuscript, and copies had been multiplied for the benefit of those who desired to learn from the famous soldier's recollections how battles should be fought or to study the history of the time in which he lived. Vere did not write his Commentaries for publication : at most, it is probable they were designed to be communicated to a few other soldiers. Hence the fragmentary condition in which they are, necessi- tating the additional narratives from the pen of his comrade, Sir John Ogle, and his page, Henry Hexham, which are here inserted. The object of the Commentaries was not autobiographical, and hence they do not give an account of all the actions in which he took part, but only of some of them, Vere wished to discuss simply those actions in which, as commander or adviser, he played a leading part; and though he naturally vindicated his own conduct when- ever it had been called in question, his main purpose was to explain the military causes of failure or success for the benefit of soldiers. The number and the nature of the details which he gives show this. Look, for instance, at the account given of the capture of the fort at Wesel, and the minuteness with which Vere describes the prepara- tions for the escalade, and calls attention to a new manner of assaulting which, * well considered, is of wonderful advantage.' In the same way, when he relates the action at Turnhout, he dwells minutely upon the tactics by which, with a small force, he delayed the march of a numerous enemy, and gave time for the rest of the prisoners to come b z xviii Stuart Tracts up. He notes also the mistake made by the enemy in drawing up their battalions of pike one behind the other instead of posting them chequerwise or in some other formation which would have enabled them to support each other. Notice also the detailed account of the manner in which the Dutch and English cavalry broke these squares of pikemen : ' We charged their pikes, not breaking through them at the first push, as it was anciently used by the men-of-arms with their barbed horses: but as the long pistols, delivered at hand, had made the ranks thin, so thereupon the rest of the horse got within them.' The picture of the battle in the original edition of the Cojn- mentaries shows this process admirably. The most important battle in which Vere was engaged was that at Nieuport in 1600. Before this the Dutch armies had never beaten the Spaniards in the open country in a pitched battle. Their successes had been gained in the attack or defence of fortified places. The Spanish foot were still renowned as the best infantry in Europe, and those who fought at Nieuport were 'old trained soldiers and to that day unfoiled in the field.' Their discipline and their solidity were their chief characteristics, while the strength of the infantry who served under the Dutch colours lay chiefly in their superior mobility. ' Unluckily,' says Vere, 'by the situation of the country that skill and dexterity we presumed to excel our enemy in (which was the apt and agile motions of our battalions) was utterly taken from us.' Prince Maurice and his army had to fight a defensive battle with an inferior force and in a disadvan- tageous position. The 4000 infantry forming Maurice's van, under the command of Vere, bore the brunt of the fighting. The task which Vere set himself was to make Introduction xix the enemy expend their strength in the attack upon the van, so that when they were disordered and spent by the struggle they might be easily overthrown by the rest of the Dutch army. He describes the conformation of the ground, the dispositions by which he made the most of it, and the manner in which he used his small force to the best advan- tage. Through the tardiness of his reserves Vere's force was nearly overwhelmed, but an opportune charge of horse decided the fate of the day and justified his tactics. Vere has been charged with taking all the credit of the victory to himself and the troops under his command, and with ignoring the services of others ; but if his account is rightly read, it is evident that he does not profess to narrate the battle as a whole but only his particular part of it. His object is to state a military problem and show how it was solved, not to write a history. The controversy about the battle of Nieuport and the value of Vere's contribution to its history may be studied at length in Motley's United Netherlands, iv. 14-51 ; Markham's Fighting Veres, pp. 278- 305 ; and Dalton's Life of Sir Edward Cecil, i. 47-59. There are two parts of Vere's narrative which have a special interest for English readers : his account of the capture of Cadiz in 1596, and his account of what was called The Islands Voyage, that is the expedition to the Azores in 1597. Fortunately, both these subjects have recently been treated at length and very competently by Mr. Julian Corbett in his Successors of Drake (1900). Speaking of Vere's account in a critical appendix, Mr. Corbett says: *It is especially valuable for technical details and the light it throws on the true intention of the tactics employed ; but throughout it is a studied apology for the author, probably exaggerating the part he played and minimising XX Stuart Tracts that of officers he disliked, such as Raleigh.' In his nar- rative, however, Mr. Corbett is much more favourable to Vere, whom he praises as ' the greatest of the Elizabethan generals.' He confirms many of Vere's statements, and supplies the information which explains the carping, critical attitude adopted by Vere towards Raleigh and Essex. Towards Raleigh, Vere is extremely hostile, and, as Mr. Corbett says, his testimony against him must never be accepted without confirmation. Essex, whose relations with himself Vere narrates at some length, he justified when his conduct as commander of the expedition to the Azores was called in question by Elizabeth. But when Vere speaks of Essex it is always with something of the contempt with which the professional soldier is inclined to regard the amateur, however excellent the amateur's intentions may be. This feeling is shown in Vere's remarks on the dis- orderly manner in which the storming of Cadiz was managed, and again in his account of the landing at Terceira. Of the latter he says : — * His Lordship, as his fashion was, would be of the first to land ; and I, that had learned me of his disposition, took upon me the care of sending the boats after him. . . . His Lord- ship himself took great pains to put his men in order ; and for that I perceived he took delight to do all, in good manners and respect I gave the looking on.' In each case the com- mander-in-chief was doing what a general who knew his business would have left to some capable subordinate. The scene described by Vere in the market-place at Villa Franca when Essex, instead of listening to Vere's report of the movements of the enemy and the preparations which he had made to meet them, 'called for tobacco' and began smoking, shows that some resentment for personal incivility Introduction xxi may have been mingled with Vere's contempt. Vere also complains that he was excluded from the consultations in which the conduct of the expedition was decided. In addition to all this the usual hostility between the naval and military commanders in joint expeditions mani- fested itself in both these two, and helps to colour Vere's narrative. While his opinions on military matters may be confidently accepted, many of the disputed questions con- nected with the management of both expeditions were matters on which the admirals were better judges than he was. One more point requires notice. Vere describes himself as drawing up, at the outset of the expedition to Cadiz, a paper setting down in writing the duties which properly belonged to every rank of officer in the army. A manuscript of this document is in the British Museum.^ It was published in 1672 under the title of 'Sir Francis Vere's Notes of Direction how far every man's office in a regiment doth extend and the duty of every officer,' in Thomas Venn's Military and Maritime Discipline (folio, 1672, pp. 186-193). The Commentaries end suddenly with the repulse of the attack of the Spaniards on Ostend on July 25, 1601, though Vere's command there lasted until March 7, 1602. It was his last considerable exploit. In 1604, when James I. made peace with Spain, Vere retired from the Dutch service and returned to England, where he married, became Governor of Portsmouth, and died on August 28, 1609, at the early age of forty-nine. His brother. Sir Horace, who was five years younger, continued in the Dutch service till 1632, earning almost as much glory as Sir Francis. In English ^ Harleian, MS. 168,/ 120; also Cotton MS. Galba D. xiL xxii Stuart Tracts history his name is remembered as the commander of the little expedition sent by James I. to the Palatinate in 1620 and for his valiant defence of Mannheim against the Spaniards in 1622. Sir Horace, who was created Baron Vere of Tilbury on 24th July 1625, died in 1635. The history of the portion of Sir Francis Vere's command at Ostend, which he left untold, was supplied by two of his subordinates, Sir John Ogle and Henry Hexham. Ogle, who was Vere's lieutenant-colonel, related the last charge at the battle of Nieuport and the story of the parley at Ostend. He became subsequently Governor of Utrecht, left the service of the States-General in 161 8, was one of the Council of War appointed by James I. in 1624, as a sort of Committee of National Defence, and died in March 1640. Henry Hexham, Vere's page, whom we see on p. i8i pulling up the stockings and tying the points of his master's habits, contributed accounts of several episodes in the siege, and in especial of the great assault made by the Spaniards on January 7, 1602. He became a voluminous military writer; and his Principles of the Art Military y first published in 1637, was one of the most popular textbooks for the soldiers of the early seventeenth century. Besides this he compiled an excellent dictionary of the Dutch and English languages. Some account of Hexham is given in the supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, where it is said that he probably died about 1650. The long struggle of the Dutch for their freedom ended in 1609 with a twelve years' truce, though Spain did not formally acknowledge their independence till 1648. A tract by Sir Thomas Overbury contains an account of the economic and political condition both of the United Introduction xxiii Provinces and of the part of the Netherlands which still remained subject to Spain. Overbury's little work is not so valuable as the more elaborate and better-known account of Holland written by Sir William Temple sixty years later, but it is interesting as giving the impressions of a contemporary traveller at the moment when the War of Independence ended. It supplies also a description of the field in which the exploits of Vere and his comrades took place. The two Veres were the heads of a school of soldiers who learnt the art of war under their command. A list of the most notable of these officers is given by the editor of the Commentaries, and the most famous name amongst them is that of Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentary General. Fairfax, who had served under Sir Horace, married in 1637 Anne Vere, the daughter of his old commander, and his memoirs appropriately accompany those of Vere, Neither of the two papers written by Fairfax was published till after his death. His nephew, Brian Fairfax, who printed them in 1699, explains his reasons for doing so in a letter prefixed to the original edition. Brian says that his uncle's manuscript * was never intended by him to be published, but to remain for the satisfaction of himself and his relations.' Nevertheless imperfect copies of them had got abroad. 'And this being an age wherein every man presumes to print what he pleases of his own or other men's, we are plainly told, that my Lord Fairfax's memorials are ready to be published, and by the very same person who has lately set forth some memoirs, wherein his Lordship is scarce ever named but with reproach.' The publications alluded to are probably the Memoirs of Lord Holies and those of Edmund Ludlow, xxiv Stuart Tracts but especially the former, which contains the most direct personal attacks upon Fairfax. For this reason Brian thought that he was doing his uncle a service in publishing this vindication of his political conduct and the narrative of his military services which follow it. The history of the MS. is traced in Markham's Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, p. 393, and in the Sixth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, p. 465. The best version in print is that in the Antiquarian Repertory, vol. iii. 1808, for Brian Fairfax made a number of small changes in the text which are reproduced in the reprints in the Somers Tracts and in the Select Tracts of Maseres. The first memoir is simply a vindication. Fairfax describes himself as more anxious to clear his actions than declare them, and selects for the purpose 'those actions which seemed to the world most questionable.' On some points his defence may be accepted without hesitation. For instance, there is no reason for doubting that he did not seek for the command of the New Model army, and accepted it for public motives not for selfish ends. As little doubt is there that he had no hand in the seizure of King Charles I. at Holdenby, and was sincerely opposed to the execution of the King. Brian Fairfax tells us that he could never speak of the King's death without tears in his eyes, and a contemporary rumour describes Cromwell as necessitated to set guards over Fairfax to prevent him from endeavour- ing to release Charles. More doubtful is the success of Fairfax in vindicating his conduct with respect to the execution of Lucas and Lisle after the capture of Col- chester. The question has been much controverted, and to give the arguments at length in this Introduction would require too much space. It may be briefly stated that by Introduction xxv the capitulation Fairfax had a perfect right to execute the two knights if he thought fit to do so. On the other hand, the more merciful course of handing them over to the civil authority to be tried and sentenced would have been fairer and wiser. This was the course adopted with regard to the peers taken prisoners at the same time. So far as concerns Fairfax's performance of the articles on which these prisoners surrendered his defence is sound enough. The question is amply discussed in Mr. Gardiner's History of the Great Civil War (iv. p. 205). Yet in spite of the fact that Fairfax successfully vindicates himself on some particular points, there is no doubt that he misrepresents his own attitude during the events which followed the attempt of Parliament to disband the army in the spring of 1647. All contemporary evidence goes to prove that he was not the passive and unwilling agent he represents himself as being. Cromwell was more energetic and more prominent in the quarrel ; but Fairfax was by no means a mere puppet in Cromwell's hands. During 1647 he seems to have been in perfect agreement with the other leaders of the army in the policy adopted. His difference with them began in 1648, but did not come to a head until the King's trial. It is somewhat difficult to fix his exact part in events, and consequently the precise amount of his responsibility, but an attempt is made to do so in the life of Fairfax contributed to the Dictionary of the National Biography by the present writer.^ The feebleness of Fairfax as a politician was in striking contrast to his vigour and boldness as a soldier. It recalls Whitelocke's description of the difference between Fairfax ^ See also Mr. Gardiner's History of the Great Civil War, iii. pp. 308, 350 ; iv, p. 304, and the Clarke Papers, ii, pp. 146, 147. xxvi Stuart Tracts in council and Fairfax in battle. He describes the General as 'a person of as meek and humble carriage as ever I saw in great employment, and but of few words in discourse or council.' On the other hand, continues Whitelocke, * in action in the field I have seen him so highly transported that scarce any one durst speak a word to him, and he would seem more like a man distracted and furious than of his ordinary mildness.' There are signs of this Fairfax in the second of the two narratives printed here. He was not the man to boast of his own deeds, as he proved on many occasions, but he was obliged to give some account of them by the purpose which he set before himself in writing, ' My silence,' he says, 'seemed to accuse me of ingratitude to God for the many mercies and deliverances I have had. . . . Wherefore I shall set down, as they come into my mind, such things wherein I have found the wonderful assistance of God to me in the time of the war I was in in the north.' Just in the same way another soldier of the time. Sir William Waller, drew up a few pages of recollections, consisting almost entirely of a list of his remarkable escapes from the perils and accidents to which a military career had exposed him, attributing these escapes as Fairfax does to divine assistance. For this reason, therefore, Fairfax is led to say more about his personal share than he otherwise would have done. We see him always charging at the head of his men and expos- ing himself with reckless courage. At Sherburn, for instance, the royalists had barricaded the streets of the town, and Fairfax and his troops had to take one of these defences. * At the end of the barricade, there was a straight passage for one single horse to go in. I entered there, and others followed one by one.' At the capture of Wakefield Introduction xxvII he gets so far ahead of his men that he has a narrow escape of being taken, and much the same thing happens to him in the fight at Selby and at Marston Moor. In the retreat from Bradford, Fairfax and a dozen others charge three hundred horse, and six of them cut their way through. He gives a pretty full account of Marston Moor, where, besides narrating his own escape, he had to explain the defeat of the troops under his command ; but, on the other hand, he says little of Winceby, where an opportune flank charge made by the horse he led appears to have had a considerable share in obtaining the victory. Though he does not undertake to give an account of the campaigns themselves, but only of his personal share in them, Fairfax's narrative is one of the chief authorities for the history of the war in Yorkshire from 1642 to 1644. It was not meant for publication, and he apologises for not having set down things ' in that methodical and polished manner as might have been done; being but intended for my own satisfaction, and the help of my memory.' Only the salient incidents of the campaigns are therefore related, ' my intention being only to keep in mind what I had been present in.' The third of the military authors whose narratives are here reprinted, is Major General Thomas Morgan. Having learnt war in Germany and the Low Countries, he returned to take part in the war in the north of England, under the command of Fairfax. * One of Sir Thomas's colonels, a little man, short and peremptory,' is the manner in which a contemporary narrative describes him. During the first Civil War Morgan, being expert in sieges, was principally employed in the capture of Royalist castles. Later, as colonel of a regiment of dragoons, he helped Monck to complete the conquest of Scotland, and became finally xxviii Stuart Tracts second in command of the army in Scotland with the rank of Major-General. In 1657 Morgan was sent to Flanders as second in command of the six thousand English, whom Cromwell sent to help the French against the Spaniards, and it is his narrative of their exploits that now requires to be criticised. The boasting tone of Morgan's narrative is a complete contrast to Fairfax's modest account of his adventures. It also contrasts very strangely with the style and tone of the letters written by Morgan himself during the campaign he relates, some of which are printed in Thurloe's State Papers. Some historians have doubted in consequence whether the narrative was really the work of Morgan, but evidence exists to show when and why it was written. Dr. Samuel Barrow, an old acquaintance of Morgan's in Scotland, thought of writing a history of the period, and desired Morgan to draw up an account of the services of the six thousand English who were sent by Cromwell to serve in the Netherlands. Morgan's answer, which is dated 1675, ran as follows : — ' Sir, — Since I see you, I have drawne a foule draught of all my proceedings in France and Flanders with the six thousand English, and if you have the con- veniency to step hither, that you may see them before my man writes them faire over, it will doe well ; the sooner you come the better it will be, seeing you are so desireous to have a viewe of them. I shall not need to ad further but that I am, — Your very loving friend and servant, 1675. Tho. Morgan.^ ^ See The Academy, February 17, 1892. Introduction xxix Morgan died about 1679, and the narrative was published in 1699. Its value is rather doubtful. Godwin in his History of the Commonwealth^ speaking of the battle of the Dunes, says : * There is an absurd narrative of this action, printed under the name of General Morgan, the second in command, and published in 1699, in which he represents the French as cowards, Lockhart a poltroon, and Turenne an idiot, and assumes all the honour of the battle and the campaign to himself Though this criticism is not entirely undeserved, it is overstated. Morgan certainly played a more important part, both in the battle and the campaign, than his nominal commander Lockhart. And it is also certain from other sources that the English soldiers he commanded did greatly distinguish themselves, both at the battle of the Dunes, the storming of Ypres, and elsewhere. But Morgan's narrative is so exaggerated and so highly coloured, that it cannot safely be followed where it is not confirmed by other authorities. Its value lies in the little picturesque touches which bring before us the incidents of the battle and the character of the English soldier. The shout of rejoicing which Morgan's men give when they see the enemy, their throwing up their caps in the air, their colloquy with the English soldiers serving on the Spanish sides, and many similar details, are brought before us with incomparable vividness. Morgan amusingly describes Turenne's horror and wrath when he proposed to assault the outworks of Ypres before such an attempt seemed feasible to the French Marshal. ' He rose up and fell into a passion, stamping with his feet, and shaking his locks, and grinning with his teeth, he said, "Major-general Morgan had made him mad."' It is only fair to add a description of Morgan himself as he appeared XXX Stuart Tracts to Turenne. After the taking of Dunkirk, we are told by Aubrey, Marshal Turenne and Cardinal Mazarin had a mind to see the famous English commander : ' They gave him a visit, and whereas they thought to have found an Achillean or gigantic person, they saw a little man, not many degrees above a dwarf, sitting in a hut of turfs with his fellow soldiers, smoking a pipe about three inches long, with a green hat-case on. He spake with a very exile {i.e. thin or shrill) tone, and did cry out to the soldiers when angry with them, " Sirrah, I '11 cleave your skull," as if the words had been prolated by an eunuch.' From the narratives of the soldiers we pass to those written by the sailors. They are written by less important people, and deal with less important events ; but while they contain little information of direct use to historians, they are indispensable to those who seek to understand the temper of seventeenth century Englishmen. Throughout the whole of the century, and indeed much later, the English merchant seaman had to face the constant risk of capture by the pirates of Algiers or Sallee, in the Atlantic as well as the Mediterranean, and even at times in the Channel. The story told by John Rawlins is a type of many others, save that such bold exploits as the recapture of the' Exchange' were not frequent. The prominent part which English renegadoes play in his adventures is very notable, and his description of the cruise of the pirate ship on board which he embarked contains details which the stories of other captives do not supply. Some years ago the condition of the Christian captives at Algiers was admirably treated in a series of articles by M. H. De Grammont entitled 'La Course, I'esclavage et la redemption k Alger/ ^ ^ Revue Historique^ vols. xxv. xxvi. xxvii. Introduction xxxi but no English book exists in which the subject is adequately dealt with. In the preface, Rawlins apologises for the defects of his story, on the ground that it is 'the unpolished work of a poor sailor.' Towards the close of the narrative he admits that he had the help of some one else in 'cementing the broken pieces of well-tempered mortar,' and providing by ' art and cunning' a seemly setting for his 'precious stones.' The substance was doubtless, as asserted, supplied by the ' poor sailor ' himself, but the rhetorical exhortations addressed to the ' gentle reader ' are clearly the handiwork of a profes- sional writer. It is also to the hand of some journalist of the time that the next narrative in the volume is due. The True Relation of the Stratagem practised upon a sea-town in Galicia, illustrates the history of the war between England and Spain which began in 1625, and ended in 1629. It is essentially a political pamphlet, written to incite English- men to courageous deeds against their ancient enemies the Spaniards, and the statements of fact which it contains are of little value. One of the stories it tells seems to be the earliest form of the narrative of the adventures of Richard Peeke, which is printed after it. Richard Peeke's account of his single combat has doubtless some basis of fact. A newsletter of the time records his return to England after his release by the Spaniards, and says that he brought with him a challenge from Gondomar to Buckingham.^ His adventure became so famous, that besides being the subject of the poem here reprinted, he was also made the hero of a play called Dick of Devonshire. ^ Peeke's narrative is so ^ Court of Charles I., i. p. 104. ' BuUen's Old flays, ii. pp. 1-99. xxxii Stuart Tracts well written, that it is easy to understand its popularity. He has an appreciation of the dramatic and the picturesque; he brings each incident vividly before his readers, from the moment when he finds the three dead Englishmen lying on the seashore, to that when after his hard won victory the Spanish soldiers, murmuring and biting their thumbs, threaten him with death. There is something which reminds one of Chevy Chase and the heroic ballads of the Elizabethan age in the modest depreciation of his own prowess, with which Peeke protests that though of the fourteen thousand men in the English army, above twelve thousand were better and stouter men than he is, yet, nevertheless, he is willing to fight any one they choose to pit against him. Better still is the simplicity and the fortitude of his farewell to his fellow prisoner in the gaol at Cadiz. Robert Lyde's account of the retaking of the ship ' Friend's Adventure' has some points of resemblance with Peeke's narrative. Each fights against desperate odds, and Peeke's quarter-staff may be paralleled by Lyde's iron oar. But there is a considerable difference in the characters of the two men, and Peeke has a chivalrous spirit which is wanting in Lyde. There is also the difference, that while Peeke was obliged to fight to save his life, Lyde's life was in no immediate danger, and his motive was simply to preserve his freedom. For the * lusty young man about twenty- three years old,' as the latter terms himself, had seen the inside of one French prison, and preferred to die fighting rather than to set his foot in another. Lyde's account of the sufferings endured by English sailors, who happened to be prisoners in France, is fully confirmed by the detailed diary which another sailor, Richard Strutton, published in 1690. In Lyde the dread of a French prison is reinforced Introduction xxxiii by the thirst for revenge. When he sets to work to recapture his ship, he determines in his own mind exactly how many of the seven Frenchmen on board are to die in the conflict. He will kill three and no more, because three of his old shipmates had perished in their prison at Dinan, and when he was back in England again, he would enter aboard a fireship, in order to avenge the other four hundred men who had died in the same prison. Lyde is singularly pious, and has no doubt that the bloody work he undertakes will be blessed by God. He reads the Bible to the boy who is his companion, in order to convince him of the justice of their enterprise. Special providences encourage him in his purpose : when he prays for a south wind, the south wind comes ; when for a south-west, south-west it is. At the last, with one brief prayer, he springs upon his enemies : ' Lord, be with us and strengthen us in the action.' Very remarkable too is Lyde's forethought. He throws away his cap, so that if he gets a blow upon the head in the struggle, he may be killed rather than stunned. He drinks a pint of wine and 'half-a-pint of oil' to make him ' more fit for action.' Lyde's account of the death struggle in the little low cabin is extremely graphic ; but the most horribly vivid thing in his story is the picture of the wounded man, with the blood streaming from his forehead, 'beating his hands upon the deck to make a noise, that the men at the pump might hear: for he would not cry nor speak.' Finally, to counterpoise this tragedy, we have just the one touch of comedy the drama requires, in the broken French Lyde puts into the mouths of the vanquished. ' Moy travalli pur Angleterre se vous plea,' cry his sometime masters, putting C 2 xxxiv Stuart Tracts off their hats, and then like Pistol to the French prisoners after Agincourt, his fury abates, and he promises to show mercy. We leave Lyde at last after his return to England, robbed by the lawyers of the bulk of his well-earned salvage money, but wearing the golden chain Queen Mary has given him, and looking forward confidently to preferment in the navy. The narrative of Henry Pitman, unlike those of Peeke and Lyde, is a narrative of sufferings, not of daring deeds. The adventures he met with were forced upon him by his attempt to escape from captivity ; and apart from the boldness with which he faced the dangers of the sea, he was evidently not a man to thrust himself into perils which it was possible to avoid. The peaceable surgeon was drawn into his strange experiences by fortune, just as he was accidentally involved in the fate which befell the men who had fought for Monmouth. As an account of the servitude to which the western rebels were con- demned Pitman's story should be compared with that of his fellow-sufferer, John Coad. Coad's narrative, probably written about 1692, was published first in 1849 under the title of ' A Memorandum of the Wonderful Providences of God to a poor unworthy creature during the time of the Duke of Mottmouth's Rebellion and to the Revolution in 1688.' But while Coad had actually fought for Mon- mouth and had received two wounds in his service. Pitman was a non-combatant, and the one passed his period of servitude in Jamaica, the other in Barbadoes. Pitman's narrative was freely employed by Sir Walter Besant, in the historical novel entitled For Faith and Freedom, which he published in 1889. Lord Macaulay, who read Coad's narrative in manuscript, refers to it as giving ' the best Introduction xxxv account of the sufferings of those rebels who were sentenced to transportation,' but it is evident that he never saw Pitman's Relation. Had he done so, it would have saved him from a serious error. As is well known to most of the readers of Macaulay's History, one of the most controverted questions connected with it is the justice of the author's treatment of the character of William Penn. Amongst other charges, Macaulay accuses Penn of being the agent employed to extract the ransom of the ' Maids of Taunton ' from their relatives. The advocates of the Quaker hero showed that the mysterious 'Mr. Penne' employed in this transaction was probably a certain George Penne employed in another business of the same kind. Macaulay for a number of insufficient reasons refused to accept this correction, and insisted that ' Mr. Penne ' necessarily meant Mr. William Penn. One of his arguments was that it was too big a business for an obscure scoundrel like George Penne to be employed in. Pitman's narrative, however shows that George Penne was regularly engaged in the buying and selling of prisoners, and completes the case against Macaulay's view. Mr. John Paget in his Paradoxes and Puzzles {"p. 13), published in 1874, undertook a refuta tion of Macaulay's charge against Penn, but Pitman's evidence on this point was unknown to him. Its bearing on the question was first pointed out by Mr. C. E. Doble in two letters to the Academy for April 15, 1893, ^"<^ March 23) 1895. Entries in the Calendar of Colonial State Papers for 1685-1688 still further strengthen the case against George Penne (p. 651). Apart from its value as a contribution to the history of the sufferers in Monmouth's rising, Pitman's tract also throws some light on the history of the West Indian pirates xxxvi Stuart Tracts with whom the fugitives were thrown into contact during their stay at Tortuga. Captain Yanche, whom Pitman mentions, reappears in the Colonial State Papers as Captain Yankey, who surrendered in 1687 to the governor of Jamaica. New Providence, which Pitman visited, became subsequently the chief rendezvous of privateersmen in those seas.^ It is curious to note that these pirates were all strongly in favour of Monmouth, no doubt because these constant hostilities with the Spaniards had sharpened their Protestant zeal. John Whickers's captivity at Santiago, and his enforced service on a Spanish privateer, supplies an instance of the fate which befell English sailors who fell into the hands of the Spaniards, whether the said sailors were pirates or traders. The adventurous voyage from Barbadoes, and the ex- periences of the castaways on the island of Tortuga, have an interest of a more romantic nature. Sometimes, as Mr. Arber is careful to point out, we are reminded of incidents in Robinson Crusoe ; and it is by no means unlikely that Defoe was familiar with Pitman's narrative, for he claimed to have been out with Monmouth himself, and at all events was specially interested in the subject of the ill-fated rebellion. The picture of Pitman and his comrades living on turtles and whelks, with occasional sea birds ' which did eat extreme fishy,' suggests comparison with Crusoe ; though Crusoe was never so destitute of tobacco as to be driven to smoke wild sage in a crab's claw. C. H. FIRTH. » Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, ii. p. 79. •CI-: OF THE ^ t UNIVERSIT^' Sir Robert Carey. z/fccount of the Death of S^ueen Klizabeth; and of his ride to King yjuEs at Edinburgh 1603 Sir Robert Carey, Lord Warden of the Middle Marches ; and afterwards Earl of Monmouth. Account of the Death of ^leen Elizabeth ; and of his ride to King James at Edinburgh, 2^th-2jth March 1603. § N this state was this Middle March when James came in King of England : and in all the time I continued Officer there, GOD so blessed me and all the actions I took in hand, that I never failed of any one enter- prise : but they were all effected to my own desire and the good of that Govern- ment. Thus passed I forty-two of my years; [? 1560-1602], GOD assisting with his blessing and mighty protection. After that all things were quieted and the Border in safety, towards the end of five years [i 598-1603] that I had been Warden there ; having little to do, I resolved upon a journey to Court, to see my friends and renew my acquaintance there. I took my journey about the end of the year [whick, accord- i}i,o to the old reckoning, ended oji the 2^th March : say then, March 1603]. When I came to Court \at Richmond\ I found the Queen ill disposed, and she kept her inner lodging. Yet she, hearing of my arrival, sent for me. I found her in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand, and told her, It was my chiefest happi- ^"^'u^/j'.] The last week of Elizabeth's life* 3 ness to see her in safety and health, which I wished might long continue. She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard ; and said "No, Robin, I am not well!" and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days : and, in her discourse, she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved, at the first, to see her in this plight: for, in all my lifetime before, I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded. Then [in 1587], upon my knowledge, she shed many tears and sighs ; mani- festing her innocence that she never gave consent to the death of that Queen. 1 used the best words I could to persuade her from this melancholy humour ; but I found, by her, it was too deep rooted in her heart ; and hardly to be removed. This was upon a Saturday night [? igi/i March 1 603] : and she gave command that the Great Closet should be prepared for her to go to Chapel the next morning. The next day, all things being in a readiness ; we long expected her coming. After eleven o'clock, one of the Grooms [of the Chambers] came out, and bade make ready for the Private Closet ; for she would not go to the Great. There we stayed long for her coming : but at last she had cushions laid for her in the Privy Chamber, hard by the Closet door ; and there she heard service. From that day forwards, she grew worse and worse. She remained upon her cushions four days and nights, [? Saturday igtk to Tuesday 22nd March 1603] at the least All about her could not persuade her, either to take any sustenance, or [to] go to bed. I, hearing that neither her Physicians, nor none about her, could persuade her to take any course for her safety, feared her death would soon after ensue. I could not but think in what a wretched estate I should be left : most of my liveli- hood depending on her life. And hereupon I bethought myself with what grace and favour I was ever received by the King of Scots, whensoever I was sent to him. I did 4 Elizabeth DESIGNATES HER SUCCESSOR, [^""^^^et/" assure myself it was neither unjust, nor unhonest, for me to do for myself; if GOD, at that time, should call her to his mercy. Hereupon I wrote to the King of Scots, knowing him to be the right heir to the Crown of England ; and certified him in what state Her Majesty was. I desired him not to stir from Edinburgh : and if, of that sickness she should die, I would be the first man that should bring him news of it. The Queen grew worse and worse, because she would be so : none about her being able to persuade her to go to bed. [The Earl of Nottingham] my Lord Admiral was sent for : who (by reason of my sister [Catharine]'s death, that was his wife) had absented himself some fortnight from [the] Court. What by fair means, what by force, he gat her to bed. There was no hope of her recovery, because she refused all remedies. On Wednesday, the 23rd of March [1603], she grew speech- less. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her [Privy] Council : and by putting her hand to her head, when the King of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her. About six at night, she made signs for [John Whitgift] the Archbishop, and her Chaplains to come to her. At which time, I went in with them ; and sat upon my knees full of tears to see that heavy sight. Her Majesty lay upon her back ; with one hand in the bed, and the other without. The [Arch]bishop kneeled down by her, and examined her first of her faith : and she so punctually answered all his several questions by lifting up her eyes, and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all beholders. Then the good man told her plainly. What she was ; and What she was to come to : and though she had been long a great Queen here upon earth ; yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the King of Kings. After this, he began to pray: and all that were by did answer him. After he had continued long in prayer, till the old man's knees were weary, he blessed her, and meant to rise and leave her. The Queen made a sign with her hand. ^"^ul%'^ Queen Elizabeth dies at Richmond. 5 My sister [Philadelphia, Lady] Scroope, knowing her meaning, told the Bishop, The Queen desired he would pray still. He did so for a long half-hour after; and then thought to have left her. The second time she made sign to have him continue in prayer. He did so for half an hour more, with earnest cries to GOD for her soul's health ; which he uttered with that fervency of spirit as the Queen, to all our sight, much rejoiced thereat : and gave testimony to us all, of her Christian and comfort- able end. By this time, it grew late ; and every one departed : all but her Women that attended her. This that I heard with my ears, and did see with my eyes, I thought it my duty to set down, and to affirm it for a truth upon the faith of a Christian ; because I know there have been many false lies reported of the end and death of that good Lady. I went to my lodging, and left word with one in the Cofferer's Chamber to call me, if that night it was thought she would die ; and gave the Porter an angel [ios. = £2 now] to let me in at any time, when I called. Between one and two of the clock on Thursday morning [25th March 1603], he that I left in the Cofferer's Chamber, brought me word, " The Queen was dead." I rose, and made all haste to the Gate [of Richmond Palace], to get in. There I was answered, I could not enter : the Lords of the [Privy] Council having been with him [^/le Porter\ and commanded him that none should go in or out, but by War- rant from them. At the very instant, one of the Council [Sir Edward V