Stephens's second collection, P. 184. Ibid. 185. cloud; the other for a translation of my honours after my decease. I hope his majesty will have compassion on me, as he promised me he would. My heart telleth me that no man hath loved his majesty and his service more entirely, and love is the law and the prophets. I ever rest Your grace's most obliged and faithful servant, 25 Nov. 1623. CCLXXXIX. To the Lord ST. ALBAN. My honourable Lord, I HAVE received your lordship's letter, and have been long thinking upon it, and the longer the less able to make answer unto it. Therefore if your lordship would be pleased to send any understanding man unto me, to whom I may in discourse open myself, I will by that means so discover my heart with all freedom, which were too long to do by letter, especially in this time of parliament business, that your lordship shall receive satisfaction. In the mean time I rest Your lordship's faithful servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Royston, 16 December. CCXC. To the Lord ST. ALBAN. My Lord, I HAVE moved his majesty in your suit, and find him very gracious inclined to grant it; but he desireth first to know from my lord treasurer his opinion and the value of it: to whom I have written to that purpose this inclosed letter, and would wish your lordship to speak with him yourself for his favour and furtherance therein; and for my part I will omit nothing that appertaineth to Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, Newmarket, the 28th of Jan. 1623. CCXCI. To the Duke of BUCKINGHAM. Excellent Lord, I HAVE received the warrant, not for land but for the money, which if it may be speedily served, is sure the better; for this I humbly kiss your grace's hands. But because the exchequer is thought to be somewhat barren, although I have good affiance of Mr. Chancellor, yet I hold it very essential, and therein I most humbly pray your grace's favour, that you would be pleased by your letter to recommend to Mr. Chancellor the speedy issuing of the money by this warrant, as a business whereof your grace hath an especial care; the rather for that I understand from him, there be some other warrants for money to private suitors at this time on foot. But your grace may be pleased to remember this difference: that the other are mere gifts; this of mine is a bargain, with an advance only. I most humbly pray your grace likewise to present my most humble thanks to his majesty. God ever guide you by the hand. I always rest Your faithful and more and more obliged servant, November, 1624. FR. ST. ALBAN. I most humbly thank your grace for your grace's favour to my honest deserving servant. CCXCII. To the Lord St. Alban. THE hearty affection I have borne to your person and service, hath made me ever ambitious to be a messenger of good news to you, and an eschewer of ill; this hath been the true reason why I have been thus long in answering you, not any negligence in your discreet modest servant, you sent with your letter, nor his who now returns you this answer, oft-times given me by your master and mine; who though by this may seem not to satisfy your desert and expectation, yet, take the word of a friend who will never fail you, Stephens's second collection, p. 185. Ibid. 186. Matthew's hath a tender care of you, full of a fresh memory of your by-past service. His majesty is but for the present, he says, able to yield unto the three years advance, which if you please to accept, you are not hereafter the farther off from obtaining some better testimony of his favour worthier both of him and you, though it can never be answerable to what my heart wishes you, as Your lordship's humble servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Sir Tobie CCXCIII. To the Lord 4 Treasurer MARLBOROUGH, expostulating about his unkindness and injustice. collection of letters, p. 54, Stephens's My Lord, I HUMBLY intreat your lordship, and if I may use the word, advise you to make me a better answer. Your lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion of all them who hear how I am dealt with; if your lordship malice me for such a cause, surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in chancery. I will avouch it; and how deeply I was tempted therein, your lordship knows best. Your lordship may do well, in this great age of yours, to think of your grave, as I do of mine; and to beware of hardness of heart. And as for fair words, it is a wind, by which neither your lordship, nor any man else, can sail long. Howsoever, I am the man who will give all due respects and reverence to your great place, etc. CCXCIV. To the KING. Most gracious and dread Sovereign, BEFORE I make my petition to your majesty, I make my prayers to God above pectore ab imo, that if I have held any thing so dear as your majesty's service, nay, your heart's ease, and your honour's, I may be repulsed with a denial; but if that hath been the principal with me, that God, who knoweth my heart, would • The lord Marlborough was made treasurer 22 Dec. 1624. 22 Jac, move your majesty's royal heart to take compassion of me, and to grant my desire. I prostrate myself at your majesty's feet, I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age, and three years five months old in misery. I desire not from your majesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only, after so long a time of expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the upper-house, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, and from my memory with posterity; that I die not a condemned man, but may be to your majesty, as I am to God, nova creatura. Your majesty hath pardoned the like to Sir John Bennet, between whose case and mine, not being partial with myself, but speaking out of the general opinion, there was as much difference, I will not say as between black and white, but as between black and gray, or ash-coloured: look therefore down, dear sovereign, upon me also in pity. I know your majesty's heart is inscrutable for goodness; and my lord of Buckingham was wont to tell me you were the best natured man in the world; and it is God's property, that those he hath loved, he loveth to the end. Let your majesty's grace, in this my desire, stream down upon me, and let it be out of the fountain and spring-head, and er mero motu, that, living or dying, the print of the goodness of king James may be in my heart, and his praises in my mouth. This my most humble request granted, may make me live a year or two happily; and denied, will kill me quickly. But yet the last thing that will die in me, will be the heart and affection of Your majesty's most humble July 30, 1624. 5 Sir John Bennet, judge of the prerogative court, was in the year 1621, accused, convicted, and censured in parliament for taking of bribes, and committing several misdemeanors relating to his office. Cabala, 270. Edw. CCXCV. In answer to the foregoing, by King: 1663. JAMES. To our trusty and well-beloved, Thomas Coventry, our Attorney-General. Trusty and Well-beloved, we greet you well: WHEREAS our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin, the viscount of St. Alban, upon a sentence given in the upper house of parliament full three years since, and more, hath endured loss of his place, imprisonment, and confinement also for a great time; which may suffice for the satisfaction of justice, and example to others: we being always graciously inclined to temper mercy with justice, and calling to mind his former good services, and how well and profitably he hath spent his time since his trouble, are pleased to remove from him that blot of ignominy which yet remaineth upon him, of incapacity and disablement; and to remit to him all penalties whatsoever inflicted by that sentence. Having therefore formerly pardoned his fine, and released his confinement; these are to will and require you to prepare, for our signature, a bill containing a pardon, in due form of law, of the whole sentence for which this shall be your sufficient warrant. Stephens's CCXCVI. The Lord Viscount ST. ALBAN to 'Dr. WILLIAMS, Bishop of Lincoln, concerning his speeches, etc. second col- My very good Lord, I AM much bound to your lordship for your honourable promise to Dr. Rawley: he chooseth rather to depend upon the same in general, than to pitch upon any particular; which modesty of choice I commend. 6 His sentence forbid his coming within the verge of the court. [In consequence of this letter, my lord Bacon was summoned to parliament in the first year of king Charles.] 7 This title seems to imply that the date of this letter was after the bishop was removed from being lord keeper. |