that go full all the parts together; and not these could not. Neither might I in reason presume to offer unto your Majesty dead lines, myself being excluded as I am; were it not upon this only argument or subject, namely, to clear myself in point of duty. Duty, though my state lie buried in the sands, and my favours be cast upon the waters, and my honours be committed to the wind, yet standeth surely built upon the rock, and hath been, and ever shall be, unforced and unattempted. And therefore, since the world, out of error, and your Majesty, I fear, out of art, is pleased to put upon me, that I have so much as any election, or will in this my absence from attendance, I cannot but leave this protestation with your Majesty; that I am, and have been merely a patient, and take myself only to obey and execute your Majesty's will. And indeed, Madam, I had never thought it possible that your Majesty could have so disinterested yourself of me; nor that you had been so perfect in the art of forgetting; nor that after a quintessence of wormwood, your Majesty would have taken so large a draught of poppy, as to have passed so many * summers without all feeling of my sufferings. But the only comfort I have is this, that I know your Majesty taketh delight and contentment in executing this disgrace And since your Majesty can find no other use of me, I am glad yet I can serve for that. Thus making my most humble petition to your Majesty, that in justice, howsoever you may by strangeness untie, or by violence cut asunder all other knots, your Majesty would not touch me in that which is indissoluble: that is, point of duty; and that your Majesty will pardon this my unwarranted presumption of writing, being to such an end: I cease in all humbleness; Your Majesty's poor, and never so unworthy wrought underhand with me: the truth of which upon me. servant, ESSEX. XL. TO SIR ROBERT CECIL.† SIR, I FORBEAR not to put in paper, as much as I thought to have spoken to your honour to-day, if I could have stayed; knowing that if your honour should make other use of it, than is due to good meaning, and that I am persuaded you will; yet to persons of judgment, and that know me otherwise, it will rather appear, as it is, a precise honesty, and this same 66 suum cuique tribuere," than any hollowness to any. It is my luck still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature, nor would willingly meet with in my course; but yet cannot avoid, without show of base timorousness, or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness [Some hiatus in the copy.] And I am of one spirit still. I ever liked the Galenists, that deal with good compositions; and not the Paracelsians, that deal with these fine separations and in music, I ever loved easy airs, This shows this letter was wrote before the earl of Essex had been reconciled to the queen; and our author not having been called or advised with for some year and a half before the XLI. TO SIR ROBERT CECIL.1 YOUR honour knoweth, my manner is, though it be not the wisest way, yet taking it for the honestest, to do as Alexander did by his physician, in drinking the medicine, and delivering the advertisement of suspicion so I trust on, and yet do not smother what I hear. I do assure you, Sir, that by a wise friend of mine, and not factious towards your honour, I was told with asseveration, that your honour was bought by Mr. Coventry for two thousand angels: and that you wrought in a contrary spirit to my lord your father. And he said farther, that from your servants, from your lady, from some counsellors that have observed you in my business, he knew you tale I do not believe. You know the event will show, and God will right. But as I reject this report, though the strangeness of my case might make me credulous, so I admit a conceit, that the last messenger my lord and yourself used, dealt ill with your honours; and that word, speculation, which was in the queen's mouth, rebounded from him as a commendation: for I am not ignorant of those little I UNDERSTAND of your pains to have visited me, for which I thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said, "Requiesce, anima mea" but I now am otherwise put to my psalter; "Nolite confidere." I dare go no farther. Her Majesty had, by set speech, more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her ser earl's going to Ireland, determines the date at the latest to Rawley's Resuscitatio. XLIV. TO SIR ROBERT CECIL, AT HIS IT MAY PLEASE YOUR HONOURABLE LORDSHIP, I KNOW you will pardon this my observance in writing to you, empty of matter, but out of the fulness of my love. I am sorry that as your time of absence is prolonged, above that was esteemed at your lordship's setting forth; so now, upon this last advertisement received from you, there groweth an opinion amongst better than the vulgar, that the difficulties also of your negotiation are increased. But because I know the gravity of your nature to be not to hope lightly, it maketh me to despair the less. For you are natus ad ardua: and the indisposition of the subject may honour the skill of the workman. Sure I am, judgment and diligence shall not want in your lordship's self: but this was not my purpose; being only to signify unto your lordship my continual and incessant love towards you, thirsting after your return, for many respects. So I commend you ever to the good preservation of the Divine Majesty. vice; which I could not understand but of the place XLIII. TO MY LORD OF ESSEX.* But IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, I AM very sorry her Majesty should take my motion to travel in offence. But surely under her Majesty's royal correction, it is such an offence as it should be an offence to the sun, when a man, to avoid the scorching heat thereof, flieth into the shade. And your lordship may easily think, that having now these twenty years, for so long it is, and more, since I went with Sir† Amyas Paulet into France, from her Majesty's royal hand, made her Majesty's service the scope of my life; I shall never find a greater grief than this, relinquere amorem primum. since principia actionum sunt tantum in nostra potestate, I hope her Majesty of her clemency, yea and justice, will pardon me, and not force me to pine here with melancholy. For though mine heart be good, yet mine eyes will be sore; so as I shall have no pleasure to look abroad: and if I should otherwise be affected, her Majesty in her wisdom will but think me an impudent man, that would face out a disgrace. Therefore, as I have ever found you my good lord and true friend, so I pray open the matter so to her Majesty, as she may discern the necessity of it without adding hard conceit to her rejection; of which, I am sure, the latter I never deserved. Thus, &c. At your honour's commandment ever and particularly. XLIV. TO SIR ROBERT CECIL.§ THE argument of my letters to your lordship rather increaseth than spendeth; it being only the desire I have to salute you; which by your absence is more augmented than abated. For me to write to your lordship occurrences, either of Scottish brags, or Irish plaints, or Spanish ruffling, or Low-Country states, were, besides that it is alienum quiddam from mine own humour, to forget to whom I write; save that you, that know true advertisements, sometimes desire and delight to hear common reports, as we that know but common reports desire to hear the truth. But to leave such as write to your fortunes, I write to yourself, in regard of my love to you, you being as near to me in heart's blood, as in blood of descent. This day I had the contentment to lordship's countenance was not decayed, nor his see your father, upon occasion: and methought his cough vehement; but his voice was as faint all the while as at first. Thus wishing your lordship a happy and speedy return, I commend you to the Divine Majesty. XLVI. A LETTER OF ADVICE TO THE EARL MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, I DO write, because I had no time fully to express This seems to be written 1598, the time of lord Burghley's last sickness. Rawley's Resuscitatio. my conceit to your lordship touching Irish affairs, considering them as they may concern your lordship; knowing that you will consider them as they may concern the state. That it is one of the aptest particulars that hath come, or can come upon the stage for your lordship to purchase honour upon, I am moved to think for three reasons: because it is ingenerate, in your house, in respect of my lord your father's noble attempts: because of all the actions of state on foot at this time, the labour resteth most in that particular: and because the world will make a kind of comparison, between those that set it out of frame and those that bring it into frame: which kind of honour giveth the quickest kind of reflection. The transferring this honour upon yourself consisteth in two points: the one, if the principal person employed come in by you and depend upon you; the other, if your lordship declare yourself, and profess to undertake a care of that kingdom. For the persons, it falleth out well that your lordship hath had no interest in the persons of imputation for neither Sir William Fitz-Williams, nor Sir John Norris, was yours. Sir William Russel was conceived yours, but was curbed. Sir Coniers Clifford, as I conceive it, dependeth on you, who is Isaid to do well. And if my lord of Ormond, in this interim, doth accommodate things well, as it is said he doth, I take it he hath always had good understanding with your lordship; so as all things hitherto are not only whole and entire, but of favourable aspect towards your lordship, if hereafter you choose well: wherein in your wisdom you will remember there is a great difference in choice of the persons, as you shall think the affairs to incline to composition or to war. Concerning the care of business, the general and popular conceit hath been, that Irish causes have been much neglected; whereby the very reputation of better care will put life into them. And I am sure her Majesty, and my lords of the council, do not think their care dissolved when they have chosen whom to employ: but that they will proceed in a spirit of state, and not leave the main point to discretion. Then if a resolution be taken, a consultation must proceed; and the consultation must be governed upon information to be had from such as know the place, and matters in fact: and in taking of information I have always noted there is a skill and a wisdom. But for a beginning and a key to that which shall follow, it were good your lordship would have some large and serious conference with Sir William Russel, Sir Richard Bingham, the earl of Thomond, and Mr. Wilbraham; to know their relation of the past; their opinion of the present; and their advice for the future. But I am of opinion much more would be had of them, if your lordship shall be pleased severally to confer; not obiter, but expressly upon some caveat given them to think of it before; for bene docet qui prudenter interrogat. For the points of apposing them, I am too much a stranger to the business to deduce them; but in a general topic, methinks the pertinent interrogations must be; either of the possibility and means of accord; or of the nature of the war; or of the reform ation of abuses; or of the joining of practice with force in the disunion of the rebels. If your lordship doubt to put your sickle into another's harvest, yet consider you have these advantages: first, time brings it to you in Mr. Secretary's absence: next, vis unita fortior: thirdly, the business being mixed with matters of war, it is fittest for you: and lastly, I know your lordship will carry it with that modesty and respect towards aged dignity, and that good correspondence towards my dear kinsman and your good friend now abroad, as no inconvenience may grow that way. Thus have I played the ignorant statesman; which I do to nobody but your lordship; except I do it to the queen sometimes when she trains me on. But your lordship will accept my duty and good meaning, and secure me touching the privateness of that I write. XLVII. A LETTER OF ADVICE TO THE EARL OF ESSEX, UPON THE FIRST TREATY WITH TYRONE 1598, BEFORE THE EARL WAS NOMINATED FOR THE CHARGE OF IRELAND.* MY VERY GOOD Lord, CONCERNING the advertisements, which your lordship imparted to me, touching the state of Ireland, I hold them to be no more certain to make judgment upon, than a patient's water to a physician : therefore for me upon one water to make a judgment, were indeed like a foolish bold mountebank, or Dr. Birket: : yet for willing duty's sake, I will set down to your lordship what opinion sprang in my mind upon that I read. The letter from the council there, leaning to mistrust and dissuade the treaty, I do not much rely on, for three causes. First, because it is always the grace, and the safety from blame, of such a council, to err in caution: whereunto add, that it may be, they, or some of them, are not without envy towards the person who is used in treating the accord. Next, because the time of this treaty hath no show of dissimulation; for that Tyrone is now in no straits: but he is more like a gamester that will give over because he is a winner, than because he hath no more money in his purse. Lastly, I do not see but those articles, whereupon they ground their suspicion, may as well proceed out of fear, as out of falsehood. For the retaining the dependence of the Vraights, the protracting the admission of a sheriff, the refusing to give his son for an hostage, the holding off from present repair to Dublin, the refusing to go presently to accord, without including Odonnell, and other his associates, may very well come of an apprehension in case he should receive hard measure; and not out of treachery: so as if the great person you write of be faithful, and that you have not heard some present intelligence of present succours from Spain, for the expectation whereof Tyrone would win time, I see no deep cause of distrusting this course of treaty, if the main conditions *Rawley's Resuscitatio. may be good. For her Majesty seemeth to me to be a winner thereby three ways: first, her purse shall have some rest: next, it will divert the foreign designs upon the place: thirdly, though her Majesty be like for a time to govern but precario in the north, and be not, as to a true command, in better state there than before; yet, besides the two respects of ease of charge, and advantage of opinion abroad, before mentioned, she shall have time to use her princely policy in two points to weaken them: the one, by division and the disunion of the heads; the other, by recovering and winning the people from them by justice: which of all other courses is the best. Now for the Athenian question: you discourse well; "Quid igitur agendum est ?" I will shoot my fool's bolt, since you will have it so. The earl of Ormond to be encouraged and comforted. Above all things, the garrisons to be instantly provided for. For opportunity maketh a thief: and if he should mean never so well now, yet such an advantage as the breaking of her Majesty's garrisons might tempt a true man. And because he may as well waver upon his own inconstancy as upon occasion, and wanton variableness is never restrained but by fear, I hold it necessary to be menaced with a strong war: not by words, but by musters and preparations of forces here, in case the accord proceed not: but none to be sent over, lest it disturb the treaty, and make him look to be overrun as soon as he hath laid away arms. And, but that your lordship is too easy to pass in such cases from dissimulation to verity, I think if your lordship lent your reputation in this case; that is, to pretend, that if peace go not on, and the queen mean to make, not a defensive war as in times past, but a full re-conquest of those parts of the country, you would accept the charge; I think it would help to settle Tyrone in his seeking accord, and win you a great deal of honour gratis. And that which most properly concerns this action, if it prove a peace, I think her Majesty shall do well to cure the root of the disease; and to profess, by a commission of peaceable men, chiefly of respect and countenance, reformation of abuses, extortions, and injustices there; and to plant a stronger and surer government than heretofore, for the ease and protection of the subject. For the removing of the sword or government in arms from the earl of Ormond, or the sending of the deputy, which will eclipse it, if peace follow, I think it unseasonable. Lastly, I hold still my opinion, both for your better information, and the fuller declaration of your care, in meddling in this urgent and meriting service, that your lordship have a set conference with the persons I named in my former letter. XLVIII. A LETTER OF ADVICE TO MY LORD MY SINGULAR good lord, hath made me set down these few wandering lines, as one that would say somewhat, and can say nothing, touching your lordship's intended charge for Ireland: which my endeavour I know your lordship will accept graciously and well; whether your lordship take it by the handle of the occasion ministered from yourself, or of the affection from which it proceeds. Your lordship is designed to a service of great merit and great peril; and as the greatness of the peril must needs include a like proportion of merit; so the greatness of the merit may include no small consequence of peril, if it be not temperately governed. For all immoderate success extinguisheth merit, and stirreth up distaste and envy; the assured forerunners of whole charges of peril. But I am at the last point first, some good spirit leading my pen to presage to your lordship success; wherein, it is true, I am not without my oracles and divinations; none of them superstitious, and yet not all natural. For first, looking into the course of God's providence in things now depending, and calling to consideration, how great things God hath done by her Majesty and for her; I collect he hath disposed of this great defection in Ireland, thereby to give an urgent occasion to the reduction of that whole kingdom; as upon the rebellion of Desmond there ensued the reduction of that whole province. Next, your lordship goeth against three of the unluckiest vices of all others, disloyalty, ingratitude, and insolency; which three offences, in all examples, have seldom their doom adjourned to the world to come. Lastly, he that shall have had the honour to know your lordship inwardly, as I have had, shall find bona exta, whereby he may better ground a divination of good, than upon the dissection of a sacrifice. But that part I leave; for it is fit for others to be confident upon you, and you to be confident upon the cause the goodness and justice whereof is such as can hardly be matched in any example; it being no ambitious war against foreigners, but a recovery of subjects; and that after lenity of conditions often tried; and a recovery of them not only to obedience, but to humanity and policy, from more than Indian barbarism. There is yet another kind of divination, familiar to matters of state; being that which Demosthenes so often relied upon in his time; when he said, That which for the time past is worst of all, is for the time to come the best: which is, that things go ill, not by accident, but by errors; wherein, if your lordship have been heretofore an awaking censor, yet you must look for no other now, but "Medice, cura teipsum" and though you shall not be the happy physician that cometh in the declination of the disease; yet you embrace that condition which many noble spirits have accepted for advantage; which is, that you go upon the greater peril of your fortune, and the less of your reputation; and so the honour countervaileth the adventure; of which ho nour your lordship is in no small possession, when + YOUR late note of my silence in your occasions that her Majesty, known to be one of the most Rawley's Resuscitatio. + Our author observes, I was not called or advised with some year and a half before his lordship's [namely, the earl of Essex's] going into Ireland," which explains this passage. Apology, p. 435. judicious princes in discerning of spirits that ever governed, hath made choice of you, merely out of her royal judgment; her affection inclining rather to continue your attendance, into whose hand, and trust, to put the command and conduct of so great forces; the gathering the fruit of so great charge; the execution of so many counsels; the redeeming of the defaults of so many former governors; the clearing of the glory of her so many happy years' reign, only in this part eclipsed. Nay farther, how far forth the peril of that state is interlaced with the peril of England; and therefore how great the honour is, to keep and defend the approaches or avenues of this kingdom, I hear many discourse; and there is a great difference, whether the tortoise gathereth herself within her shell hurt or unhurt. And if any man be of opinion, that the nature of the enemy doth extenuate the honour of the service, being but a rebel and a savage, I differ from him; for I see the justest triumph that the Romans in their greatness did obtain, and that whereof the emperors in their styles took addition and denomination, were of such an enemy as this; that is, people barbarous, and not reduced to civility, magnifying a kind of lawless liberty, and prodigal of life, hardened in body, fortified in woods and bogs, and placing both justice and felicity in the sharpness of their swords; such were the Germans and ancient Britons, and divers others. Upon which kind of people, whether the victory were a conquest, or a reconquest upon a rebellion or a revolt, it made no difference, that ever I could find, in honour. And therefore it is not the enriching predatory war that hath the pre-eminence in honour, else should it be more honour to bring in a carrack of rich burden, than one of the twelve Spanish apostles. But then this nature of people doth yield a higher point of honour, considered in truth, and substance, than any war can yield which should be achieved against a civil enemy; if the end may be "pacisque imponere morem," to replant and refound the policy of that nation; to which nothing is wanting, but a just and civil government; which design, as it doth descend unto you from your noble father, who lost his life in that action, though he paid tribute to nature, and not to fortune; so I hope your lordship shall be as fatal a captain to this war, as Africanus was to the war of Carthage, after that both his uncle and father had lost their lives in Spain in the same war. Now although it be true, that these things which I write, being but representations unto your lordship of the honour and appearance of the success of the enterprise, be not much to the purpose of any advice; yet it is that which is left to me, being no man of war, and ignorant in the particulars of estate. For a man may, by the eye, set up the white in the midst of the butt, though he be no archer. Therefore I will only add this wish, according to the English phrase, which termeth a well-willing advice, a wish; that your lordship in this whole action, looking forward, would set down this position; That merit is worthier than fame; and looking back hither would remember this text, That obedience is better than sacrifice. For designing to fame and glory may make your lordship in the adventure of your person to be valiant as a private soldier, rather than as a general: it may make you in your commandments rather to be gracious than disciplinary: it may make you press action, in respect of the great expectation conceived, rather hastily than seasonably and safely: it may make you seek rather to achieve the war by force, than by intermixture of practice: it may make you, if God shall send prosperous beginnings, rather seek the fruition of that honour, than the perfection of the work in hand. And for the other point, that is, the proceeding, like a good protestant, upon express warrant, and not upon good intention, your lordship in your wisdom knoweth that as it is most fit for you to desire convenient liberty of instructions, so it is no less fit for you to observe the due limits of them; remembering that the exceeding of them may not only procure, in case of adverse accident, a dangerous disavow; but also, in case of prosperous success, be subject to interpretation, as if all were not referred to the right end. Thus have I presumed to write these few lines to your lordship, in methodo ignorantiæ; which is, when a man speaketh of any subject, not according to the parts of the matter, but according to the model of his own knowledge; and most humbly desire your lordship that the weakness thereof may be supplied in your lordship by a benign acceptation, as it is in me by my best wishing. XLIX. TO MY LORD OF ESSEX.* MY LORD, CONCEIVING that your lordship came now up in the person of a good servant to see your sovereign mistress; which kind of compliments are many times" instar magnorum meritorum;" and therefore that it would be hard for me to find you: I have committed to this poor paper the humble salutations of him that is more yours than any man's; and more yours than any man. To these salutations I add a due and joyful gratulation, confessing that your lordship, in your last conference with me before your journey, spake not in vain, God making it good; that you trusted, we should say, "Quis putasset ?" Which, as it is found true in a happy sense, so I wish you do not find another "Quis putasset ?" in the manner of taking this so great a service. But I hope it is as he said, "Nubecula est, cito transibit:" and that your lordship's wisdom, and obsequious circumspection, and patience, will turn all to the best. So referring all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you to God's best preservation. |