may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open cenfure, and mine offence being fo lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me, as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection, already fettled on that party, for whofe fake I am now as I am, whofe name I could fome good while fince have pointed unto your grace, being not ignorant of my fufpicion therein. But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous flander must bring you the en joying of your defired happiness, then I defire of God that he will pardon your great fin therein, and likewife mine enemies the inftruments thereof; and that he will not call you to a frict account for your unprincely and cruel ufage of me, at his general judgment-feat, where both you and myfelf mull fhortly appear, and in whofe judgment, I doubt not (whatsoever the world may think of me), mine innocence fhall be openly known and fficiently cleared. My laft and only request thall be, that myfelf may only bear the burthen of your grace's difpleasure, and that it may not touch the innocent fouls of thofe poor gentlemen, who, as I understand, are likewife in ftrait imprisonment for my fake. If ever I found favour in your fight, if ever the name of Anne Bullen hath been pleafing in your ears, then let me obtain this requeft; and I will fo leave to trouble your grace any farther, with my earneft prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prifon in the Tower, the 6th of May. Your mot loyal, and ever faithful wife. my poor husband and me. I pray Aimighty God continue your goodness fo fill, for thereupon hangeth the greatest part of my poor hufband's comfort and mine. The caufe of my writing at this time, is to certify your especial good maftership of my great and extreme neceflity; which, on and befides the charge of mine own houfe, do pay weekly fifteen fhillings for the board-wages of my poor hufband and his fervant; for the maintaining whereof I have been compelled, of very neceffity, to fell part of my apparel, for lack of other fubftance to make money of. Wherefore my moft humble petition and fuit to your maiterfhip at this time is, to defire your maftership's favourable advice and counfel, whether I may be fo bold to attend upon the king's molt gracious highness. I trust there is no doubt in the cause of my impediment; for the young man, being a ploughman, had been difcafed with the ague by the fpace of three years before that he departed. And befides this, it is now five weeks fince he departed, and no other perfon difeafed in the house since that time; wherefore I moft humbly befeech your efpecial good maftership (as my only truft is, and clfe know not what to do, but utterly in this world to be undone) for the love of God to confider the premises, and thereupon, af your most abundant goodness, to fhew your moft favourable help to the comforting of my poor husband and me, in this our great heavinefs, extreme age, and neceffity. And thus we and all ours fhall daily, during our lives, pray to God for the profperous fuccefs of your right honourable dignity. By your poor continual oratrix. LETTER VIII. A Letter from Lady More to M“. Secretary Cromwell. RIGHT honourable and my efpecial good mafter fecretary: in my mott humble wife I recommend me unto your good maftership, acknowledging myself to be mot deeply bound to your good mafter hip for your manifold goodnefs and loving favour, both before this time and yet daily, now alio fhewn towards LETTER IX. Lady Stafford to Mr. Secretary Cromavell, MASTER fecretary, after my poor recommendations, which are little to be regarded of me that am a poor ba nihed creature. This fhall be to defire you to be good to my poor hulband and to me. I am fure it is not unknown to you the high difpleafure that both he and I have both of the king's highness and the queen's grace, by the reafon of our marriage marriage without their knowledge, wherein we both do yield ourselves faulty, and do acknowledge that we did not well to be fo hafty or fo bold without their knowledge. But one thing, good mafter fecretary, confider, that he was young, and love overcame reafon; and for my part, I faw fo much honesty in him that I loved him as well as he did me, and was in bondage, and glad I was to be at liberty: fo that for my part I faw that all the world did fet fo little by me, and he fo much, that I thought I could take no better way but to take him and to forfake all other ways, and live a poor honeft life with him; and fo I do put no doubts but we should, if we might once be fo happy to recover the king's gracious favour and the queen's. For well I might have had a greater man of birth, and a higher; but I affure you I could never have had one that should have loved me fo well, nor a more honeft man. And befides that, he is both come of an ancient stock, and again as meet (if it was his grace's pleature) to do the king fervice as any young gentleman in his court. Therefore, good matter fecretary, this fhall be my fuit to you, that for the love that well I know you do bear to all my blood, though for my part I have not deferved it but little, by the calon of my vile conditions, as to put my husband to the king's grace, that he ay do his duty as all other gentlemen d. And, good mater fecretary, fue for to the king's highness, and befeech is highness, which ever was wont to epicy, to have pity on us; and that it would please his grace of his goodness, to fpeak to the queen's grace for us; for as far as I can perceive, her grace is fo highly difpleafed with us both, that without the king be fo good lord to us as to withdraw his rigour and fue for us, we are never like to recover her grace's favour, which is too heavy to bear. And feeing there is no remedy, for God's fake help us, for we have been now a quarter of a year married, I thank God, and too late now to call that again; wherefore there is the more need to help. But if I were at my liberty and might chufe, I affure you, mafter fecretary, for my ittle time I have tried fo much honefty to be in him, that I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greateit queen chriftened; and I believe verily he is in the fame cafe with me, for I believe verily he would not forfake me to be a king; therefore, good master secretary, being we are fo well together, and do intend to live fo honeft a life, though it be but poor, fhow part of your goodness to us, as well as you do to all the world befides; for I promise you ye have the name to help all them that have need; and amongst all your fuitors, I dare be hold to fay that you have no matter more to be pitied than ours; and therefore for God's fake be good to us, for in you is all our truft; and I beseech you, good mafter fecretary, pray my lord my father, and my lady, to be good to us, and to let me have their bleflings, and my hufband their good will, and I will never defire more of them. Alfo I pray you defire my lord of Norfolk, and my lord my brother to be good to us; I dare not write to them, they are so cruel against us; but if with any pain that I could take with my life I might win their good wills, I promife you there is no child living would venture more than I; and fo I pray you to report by me, and you fhall find my writing true; and in all points which I may please them in, I fhall be ready to obey them nearest my husband, whom I am most bound to, to whom I most heartily befeech you to be good unto, which for my fake is a poor banished man, for an honeft and a godly caufe; and being that I have read in old books that fome for as juft caufes have by kings and queens been pardoned by the fuit of good folks, I trust it fhall be our chance, through your good help, to come to the fame, as knoweth the God who fendeth you health and heart's eafe. Scribbled with her ill hand, who is your poor humble fuitor always to command. now that I fee the form come, I have put myself into harbour. Seneca faith, we must give way to fortune. I know that fortune is both blind and strong, and therefore I go as far as I can out of the way. You fay the remedy is not to strive: I neither ftrive nor feek for remedy. But you fay, I mult yield and fubmit: I can neither yield myfelf to be guilty, nor this my imprisonment, lately laid upon me, to be just; I owe fo much to the author of truth, as I can never yield truth to be falfehood, nor falsehood to be truth. Have I given caufe, you afk, and yet take a fcandal? No, I gave no cause to take up fo much as Fimbria his complaint: for I did totum telum corpore accipere; I patiently bear and fenfibly feel all that I then received when this fcandal was given inc. Nay, when the vileft of all indig nities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to fue? Doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? Why? Cannot Princes err? Cannot fubjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my Lord, I can never fubfcribe to thefe principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken; let thofe that mean to make their profit of Princes, fhew to have no fenfe of Princes injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite abfoluteness on earth, that do not believe an abfolute infinitenefs in heaven. me. As for me, I have received wrong, I feel it; my caufe is good, I know it; and whatfoever comes, all the powers on earth can never fhew more ftrength or conftancy in oppreffing, than I can fhew in fuffering whatfoever can or fhall be impofed upon me. my Your Lordship in the beginning of your letter makes me a player, and yourelf a looker on; and me a player of own game, fo you may fee more than I'; but give me leave to tell you, that fince you do but fee, and I do fuffer, I must of neceflity feel more than you. I must crave your Lordship's patience to give him that hath a crabbed fortune, leave to use a crooked ftyle. But whatsoever my flyle is, there is no heart more humble, nor more affected towards your Lordfhip, than that of your Lordship's poor friend. I years. HAVE received two letters from you, one written in Latin, the other in French; which I take in good part, and will you to exercife that practice of learning often for that will ftand you in most stead, in that profeffion of life that you are born to live in. And, fince this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not, that it be all empty of fome advices, which my natural care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as documents to you in this your tender age. Let your firft action be, the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer, and feelingly digeft the words you speak in prayer, with continual meditation, and thinking of him to whom you pray, and of the matter for which you pray. ufe this as an ordinary, at, and at an ordinary hour. Whereby the time itfelf will put you in remembrance to do that, which you are accustomed to do. In that time apply your study to fuch hours as your difcreet mafter doth affign you, earneftly; and the time (I know) he will fo limit, as fhall be both fufficient for your learning, and fafe for your health. And And mark the fenfe and the matter of that you read, as well as the words. So fhall you both enrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. Be humble and obedient to your master, for unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourfelf what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others how to obey you. Be courteous of gelture, and affable to all men, with diverfity of reverence, according to the dignity of the perfon. There is nothing that winneth fo much with fo little coft. Ufe moderate diet, fo as, after your meat, you may find your wit fresher, and not duller, and your body more lively, and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet fometime do, left being enforced to drink upon the fudden, you should find yourfelf inflamed. Úfe exercife of body, but fuch as is without peril of of your joints or bones. It will increase your force, and enlarge your breath. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body, as in your garments. It fhall make you grateful in each company, and otherwife lothfome. Give yourself to be merry, for you degenerate from your father, if you find not yourself most able in wit and body, to do any thing, when you be moft merry: but let your mirth be meal of digeftion nourish any thing the weak ftomach of your young capacity, I will, as I find the fame grow stronger, feed it with tougher food. Your loving father, fo long as you live in the fear of God. LETTER XIV. ever void of all fcurrility, and biting Sir Henry Sidney, to Robert Dudley Earl of words to any man, for a wound given by a word is oftentimes harder to be cured, than that which is given with the fword. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or procurer of speech, otherwife you fhall be counted to delight to hear yourself Ipeak. If you hear a wife fentence, or an apt phrafe, commit it to your memory, with refpect of the circumstance, when you fhall fpeak it. Let never oath be heard to come out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry; deteft it in others, fo fall custom make to yourself a law again it in yourself. Be modeft in each embly, and rather be rebuked of light felows, for maiden-like fhamefacedness, than of your fad friends for pert boldpeis. Think upon every word that you will (peak, before you utter it, and remember how nature hath rampired up (as it were) the tongue with teeth, lips, yea and hair without the lips, and all betokenreins, or bridles, for the loofe of that member. Above all things no untruth, no not in trifles. The Catom of it is naughty, and let it not fatisfy you, that, for a time, the hearers take it for a truth; for after it will be known as it is, to your fhame; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman, than to be accounted a liar. Study and endeavour yourself to be virtacully occupied. So fhall you make fach an habit of well doing in you, that you shall not know how to do evil, though you would. Remember, my fon, the noble blood you are defcended of, by your mother's fide; and think that only by virtuous life and good action, you may be an ornament to that illuftrious family; and otherwife, through vice and floth, you fall be counted labes generis, one of the greatest curfes that can happen to Well (my little Philip) this is enough for me, and too much I fear for you. But if I fhall find that this light Leicefter. My dearest Lord, SINCE this gentleman, Sir Nicholas Arnold, doth now repair into England, to render account of his long and painful fervice, left my filence might be an argument of my condemnation of him, I thought good to accompany him with thefe my letters, certifying your Lordship, by the fame, that I find he hath been a marvellous painful man, and very diligent in inquiry for the Queen's advantage, and in proceeding in the fame more fevere than I would have wished him, or would have been myfelf in femblable fervice; but he faith he followed his inftructions. Doubtless, the things which he did deal in are very dark and intricate, by reafon of the long time paffed without account; and he greatly impeached, for lack of an auditor, as I take it. In truth, what will fall out of it, I cannot fay, but I fear he hath written too affirmatively upon Birmingham's information: it is reported by fome of his adversaries, that he fhould triumph greatly upon a letter, fuppofed to be fent him lately from your Lordship, as though, by the fame, he fhould be encouraged to proceed more vehemently againit the Earl of Suffex, and to make his abode longer here than elfe he would. And that he should ule this bravery, either by fhewing this letter, or by speech to me and to others. My Lord, I believe the whole of this to be untrue; and, for fo much as concerneth myfelf, I affure your Lordip is a ftark lie; for albeit he hath fhewed ine, as I believe, all the letters your Lordinip hath fent him, fince my arrival here, and a good many fent before, yet in sose of them is there any fuch matter contained; neither yet did he to me, or to my knowledge to any other, of any letter feat sy your Lordship, make any fuch bravery, or like conftruction, as is reported. My deared Lord and Brother, now that I fee the ftorm come, I have put myfelf into harbour. Seneca faith, we must give way to fortune. I know that fortune is both blind and ftrong, and therefore I go as far as I can out of the way. You fay the remedy is not to strive: I neither ftrive nor feek for remedy. But you fay, I mult yield and fubmit: I can neither yield myfelf to be guilty, nor this my imprisonment, lately laid upon me, to be just; I owe fo much to the author of truth, as I can never yield truth to be falsehood, nor falsehood to be truth. Have I given caufe, you afk, and yet take a fcandal? No, I gave no caufe to take up fo much as Fimbria his complaint: for I did totum telum corpore accipere; I patiently bear and fenfibly feel all that I then received when this fcandal was given me. Nay, when the vileft of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to fue? Doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it? Why? Cannot Princes err? Cannot fubjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, my Lord, I can never fubfcribe to thefe principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is ftricken; let thofe that mean to make their profit of Princes, fhew to have no fenfe of Princes injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite abfolutenefs on earth, that do not believe an abfolute infiniteness in heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, I feel it; my caufe is good, I know it; and what foever comes, all the powers on earth can never fhew more ftrength or conftancy in oppreffing, than I can fhew in fuffering whatfoever can or fhall be impofed upon me. own game, Your Lordship in the beginning of your letter makes me a player, and yourelf a looker on; and me a player of my fo you may fee more than I; but give me leave to tell you, that fince you do but fee, and I do fuffer, I must of neceffity feel more than you. I must crave your Lordship's patience to give him that hath a crabbed fortune, leave to use a crooked style. But whatfoever my flyle is, there is no heart more humble, nor more affected towards your Lordfhir, than that of your Lordship's poor friend. I years. HAVE received two letters from you, one written in Latin, the other in French; which I take in good part, and will you to exercife that practice of learning often: for that will stand you in moft ftead, in that profeffion of life that you are born to live in. And, fince this is my firft letter that ever I did write to you, I will not, that it be all empty of fome advices, which my natural care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as documents to you in this your tender age. Let your firft action be, the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer, and feelingly digeft the words you speak in prayer, with continual meditation, and thinking of him to whom you pray, and of the matter for which you pray. And ufe this as an ordinary, at, and at an ordinary hour. Whereby the time itself will put you in remembrance to do that, which you are accustomed to do. In that time apply your ftudy to fuch hours as your difcreet mafter doth affign you, earneftly; and the time (I know) he will fo limit, as fhall be both fufficient for your learning, and fafe for your health. And mark the fenfe and the matter of that you read, as well as the words. So fhall you both enrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. Be humble and obedient to your malter, for unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others how to obey you. Be courteous of gelture, and affable to all men, with diverfity of reverence, according to the dignity of the perfon. There is nothing that winneth fo much with fo little coft. Ufe moderate diet, fo as, after your meat, you may find your wit fresher, and not duller, and your body more lively, and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet fometime do, left being enforced to drink upon the fudden, you should find yourself inflamed. Ufe exercife of body, but fuch as is without peril of |