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Among the contemporaries of Shakespeare an interesting but little-known figure is that of the poet and ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton. It is still remembered that he was the author of two or three beautiful lyrics which are to be found in every anthology; that he went as ambassador to Venice, and fell into temporary disfavour owing to a witty but indiscreet definition of his office; and that afterwards he became Provost of Eton, where he was visited by the young Milton, and where he fished with Izaak Walton, who quoted his sayings in the Compleat Angler, and wrote an exquisite portrait of his old friend. But behind the tranquil old age described by Walton lay many years of travel and participation in public affairs, much acquaintance with men, and with courts and foreign lands. The period indeed of Wotton’s life covers the whole of what is known as the great age of Elizabethan literature, from the defeat of the Armada to the death of Shakespeare, and extends almost to the outbreak of the Civil Wars. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to apologize for the publication of his letters (which for the most part have remained hitherto unpublished), and a study, longer and more complete than any which has yet been attempted, of his career and character and public services.

Sir Henry Wotton was the most widely cultivated Englishman of his time. A ripe classical scholar, an elegant Latinist, trained in Greek by his studies with Casaubon, he was an admirable linguist in modern languages as well. He corresponded with Bacon about natural philosophy, and was the friend of most of the learned men of that epoch, both at home and on the Continent; the first English collector of Italian pictures, he brought from Italy, where he lived many years, the refined taste in art and architecture, the varied culture of antiquity and the Renaissance, which was then only to be derived from Italian sources. His experiences of life were exceptionally varied, even in that spacious and enterprising age. Leaving England in 1589, he spent some time abroad in study and adventurous travel; he was much about the Court of Queen Elizabeth; he accompanied Essex to Ireland and on his famous voyages; he went in the service of an Italian Duke to the Court of James VI; and when that king succeeded to the English throne, was sent as his ambassador to many princes. Famous in his own day as a ‘wit and fine gentleman’, he deserves to be remembered as a noble example of that much maligned class, the ‘Italianate’ Englishmen—one who, with all his foreign culture, never lost the sincerity and old-fashioned piety of a ‘plain Kentish man’. Although his services as an ambassador were not always of the first importance, and his longer literary works are of a somewhat disappointing character, he yet may be counted as one of the great Elizabethans, with whom high actions were so remarkably combined with high literary expression. For Sir Henry Wotton was endowed with one gift, that of a letter-writer, which none of his more famous contemporaries possessed. Indeed, the very qualities or faults that stood in the way of his complete success, either as a statesman or author; the witty frankness that caused him to be a somewhat indiscreet diplomatist; a certain desultoriness of mind, combined with a great love of leisure and conversation, which hindered the completion of most of his literary tasks, all these made him an admirable correspondent. And letter-writing was not only one of the great pleasures of his life, but, as ambassador, almost his main duty. Among the somewhat formal and colourless epistles of that age his letters are remarkable for their wit, their beauty of phrase, and the impress of his kindly and meditative nature. His shortest note could not have been written by any one else; his long diplomatic dispatches are enlivened by reflections, epigrams, and bits of personal comment and observation. Sometimes eloquent, sometimes intimate, now informed by cynical but not unkindly knowledge of the world, and now by honest religious zeal, he put all his stores of thought and experience into his letters, in a way that was unique at the time and is unusual in any age. Any one who has read those written in the leisure of Venice or Eton will, I think, agree that it is no exaggeration to call Sir Henry Wotton the best letter-writer of his time—the first Englishman whose correspondence deserves to be read for its literary quality, apart from its historical interest. His style, although it may seem at first, to those not familiar with the style of the time, somewhat courtly and elaborate, yet possesses great qualities of beauty and distinction, and much of that quaint richness of thought and phrase which we associate with authors of a later date—George Herbert, Sir Thomas Browne, or Izaak Walton.

Of subsequent writers, Walton owed more than any one else to Sir Henry Wotton, and may be regarded as his disciple and follower. In the Life of Donne and the Compleat Angler he accomplished tasks which Wotton had left unfinished; and he seems to have caught his simple yet courtly grace of style from the example and discourse of the old Provost. The two men, indeed, had much in common; both were lovers of fishing and quiet days; both possessed the same musing piety and serenity of soul; and both were devoted members of the English Church, whose spirit Walton has so beautifully expressed in his Lives, and in whose orders Sir Henry appropriately ended his life, after striving so long as an ambassador for its defence and advancement. Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo, ‘that minds grow wiser by retirement,’ was the motto in which Wotton summed up the experience of his active years: ‘Learn to be quiet,’ the text his fellow fisherman wrote at the end of his most famous work.

Of Sir Henry Wotton’s correspondence enough was printed in the seventeenth century to give him a high reputation as a letter-writer. In the first edition of the Reliquiae Wottonianae, published in 1651, Izaak Walton added to Wotton’s essays and poems fifty-eight of his letters. Eight more were added to the second edition of 1654, and in 1661 forty-two new letters, almost all addressed to Sir Edmund Bacon, were printed in a little volume, which is now excessively rare. These, with the addition of thirty-one fresh letters and dispatches, were incorporated in the third edition of the Reliquiae in 1672, and finally in 1685 the Reliquiae was republished with thirty-four more letters, all but one addressed to Lord Zouche, and all written in the early period of Wotton’s life. Izaak Walton seems to have put together Sir Henry Wotton’s letters and papers in the Reliquiae Wottonianae pretty much as they came to hand, with small regard to date or order. Little or no improvement was made in the subsequent editions, and the result is extremely confusing. Letters written in the same year are scattered over different portions of the book, many are without date or address, and there are no notes of any kind. No one has yet attempted to re-edit this correspondence, although the Reliquiae Wottonianae has always been prized by lovers of seventeenth-century literature, and the need of a new edition has often been remarked. ‘His despatches,’ Carlyle wrote of Wotton in his Frederick the Great, ‘are they in the Paper Office still? His good old book deserves new editing, and his good old genially pious life a proper elucidation by some faithful man.’^[1] When, for lack of a more competent person I had undertaken the task thus indicated by Carlyle, I soon found it to be one of greater magnitude than I had thought at first. For although in 1850 the Roxburghe Club had published a volume containing the sixty-five letters and dispatches of Wotton’s preserved at Eton; and in 1867 thirteen more, preserved at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, had been printed in vol. xl of Archaeologia, much the greater part of his correspondence, and many of his most interesting letters, had never yet been printed, and were to be found widely scattered in various manuscript collections, college libraries, the muniment rooms of country houses, and Italian archives. In the Record office alone there are about five hundred letters and dispatches; others are preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the archives of Venice, Florence, and Lucca. Others, of which the originals have disappeared, have been published in different volumes of memoirs and correspondence. I have found altogether nearly one thousand of Wotton’s letters and dispatches, published and unpublished, and it is possible that there are others which have escaped my search. These documents can be roughly divided into three classes, familiar letters, news-letters, and diplomatic dispatches. The familiar letters are generally short, of an intimate character, and addressed to personal friends. The news-letters are of a type well known to historical students—long accounts of the occurrences of the day, which were sent before the date of newspapers to political correspondents, in exchange for similar budgets of information. The dispatches were addressed to the King or the Secretary of State, and contained the ambassador’s account of his negotiations, and his views on questions of diplomatic policy. But any such classification can only be extremely loose and vague. The familiar epistles and dispatches are often news-letters as well, and the political correspondence frequently contains much of a personal and intimate character.

To print the whole mass of Wotton’s correspondence would require perhaps ten volumes, instead of the two to which I am limited; and many of the dispatches, which are often of great length, giving as they do the history in detail of forgotten and unimportant negotiations, would have little interest save for special students of the foreign policy of James I. The plan of these volumes can be briefly indicated. I have first of all written a life of Sir Henry Wotton, in which I give an account of the events of his career, and his various interests and activities, based on a study of his complete correspondence, and many other contemporary sources of information. I then print in full his familiar letters, and many of his news-letters and dispatches, with extracts from others, choosing those which are most interesting and characteristic, or which give an account of the important negotiations in which he was engaged. While printing as much as possible hitherto unpublished material, I have added in their place the letters from the Reliquiae Wottonianae, which are now for the first time annotated and arranged according to their dates. In the successive editions of the Reliquiae various misprints crept into the text; I have collated each letter with the text of the original publication, which I follow in this edition, except when I state otherwise. The printer, however, of the third edition seems to have had access to the manuscripts of the letters, and in a few cases where the letters are more complete I follow this text. The holographs of some of the printed letters have been preserved, and of these I have collated the text with the originals. As Wotton’s letters are here printed partly from manuscripts written by himself, partly from transcripts of which the originals are lost, partly from letters dictated to secretaries with an orthography of their own, and partly from printed copies in which the original spelling is not preserved, I was met with a dilemma in regard to the spelling and punctuation, for which there was no completely satisfactory solution. To give, as is the modern custom, literal transcripts of the letters printed from manuscripts, with Wotton’s spelling, punctuation (or rather lack of it), and contractions, the varying orthography of his secretaries and transcribers, and the modern spelling of the printed letters, would have resulted in an orthographical chaos which I might have faced had it not been for the long and intricate numerical ciphers which frequently occur, and which, if reproduced, would have made the task of reading extremely difficult. I have, therefore, adopted what seemed to me the least unsatisfactory alternative; and, for the sake of clearness and uniformity, have modernized the spelling and punctuation throughout, except in the proper names. It is certain that one loses something by the loss of quaint and old-fashioned spelling; whether one does not lose more by preserving it is an open question. In an age like the Elizabethan, when every one spelt according to chance or whim, to reproduce this chaotic orthography is doing a certain injustice to a writer like Sir Henry Wotton, and gives an odd and almost illiterate character to the letters of one who wrote in the fashion of the highly educated gentlemen of his time. But, as I say, the dilemma is one for which (to my mind at least) there is no completely satisfactory solution;^[2] I have at least followed the example of the classic in this style and for this period. I refer, of course, to Spedding’s Letters and Life of Francis Bacon.

I give in an appendix a list of Sir Henry Wotton’s writings, and of letters, printed and unprinted, arranged as accurately as I could arrange them in chronological order, with indications of the manuscript collections or printed volumes in which they are to be found.

In the second appendix I discuss certain points about the date and authorship of The State of Christendom (published under Sir Henry Wotton’s name in 1657), which could not be adequately treated in the narrative of his life. The third appendix contains all the important information which I have gathered about Wotton’s friends and correspondents. As the lives of many of these appear in The Dictionary of National Biography, a reference to its pages is often sufficient, though I am able sometimes to supplement the information contained in that treasure-house of facts. Of those who are not mentioned in this great dictionary I have attempted to give a more complete account. Sir Henry Wotton belonged to a group of cultivated men, who shared his tastes and interests, and to know him we must know his friends as well. The fourth appendix contains a list of Italian books compiled by Wotton, and extracts from the commonplace book of one of Wotton’s secretaries—a Character of the first Earl of Salisbury, and notes of the ambassador’s table-talk and witty sayings.

Sir Henry Wotton’s correspondence divides itself into three periods. In the first we have a record of the life of a young Oxford man abroad in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the second period the ‘poor younger brother’ has become a diplomatist charged with weighty and important negotiations. Wotton was sent as special ambassador, once to Holland, and once to Vienna, in the troubled times before the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, to try to avert the impending conflict. On the first occasion he saw much of the great Dutch leaders, Barneveldt and Count Maurice of Nassau; on the second he negotiated with the Catholic Princes, Maximilian of Bavaria and the Emperor Ferdinand II. He was also twice accredited to the Duke of Savoy; but it was at Venice that he lived as resident ambassador, and the main part of his diplomatic activity is connected with Venice and Italy, in which country he was for many years the only English envoy. Although most of the negotiations between Venice and England were not of great importance, there are incidents in his career as ambassador in Italy which still possess considerable historic interest. Chief among these is the support he was empowered to offer the Venetians in their famous quarrel with the Pope—one of the most courageous and successful actions in James I’s not very courageous or successful foreign policy—and the subsequent attempt, in secret combination with certain Venetians, the chief of whom was the great historian and statesman, Paolo Sarpi, to introduce religious reform into Venice.

A study of Wotton’s papers throws considerable light on the hitherto obscure history of this movement, and especially on the delicate and much-debated question of Paolo Sarpi’s connexion with it. As an attack made on the Pope almost in his own country, in the midst of the Catholic Reaction, by members of the English Church, under the guidance and advice of a Servite friar, who was the greatest of living Italians, this movement deserves to be better known.

Of more general interest, perhaps, is the contribution which I hope these volumes will make to our knowledge of English diplomacy—a subject which has not yet found its historian. Wotton’s letters and dispatches give an intimate picture of an English ambassador’s life in the time of Shakespeare; how he travelled, how he lived in the place of his charge, of whom his household was composed, and how such diverse duties as kidnapping and religious propaganda, the robbing of the posts and the suppression of pirates, were all part of his official occupation.

The materials in printed books and manuscripts for the study of Wotton’s life seem extremely abundant, when we consider the scanty information which has come down to us about many of the great Elizabethans. That his diplomatic papers should have been preserved is not surprising; but that nearly fifty letters should remain, written between 1589 and 1593, from Wotton’s twenty-second to his twenty-sixth year, when he was an obscure youth wandering about Europe, is somewhat remarkable, if we remember that James Spedding, with all his research, was only able to find seven letters written in the same early period of Francis Bacon’s life. For Wotton’s career as an ambassador, the mass of material becomes almost unmanageable; and, indeed, the difficulty of his biographer is not lack of information, but the means of condensing it into a book of reasonable proportions. This is particularly the case with regard to his life in Italy. In travelling to Venice he went into the province, and came under the observation of a government, whose officials were, for many centuries, the memoir-writers of Europe. In the famous archives of Venice are preserved full accounts of all his negotiations with that State. Sir Henry Wotton was not only a charming letter-writer, but a witty and accomplished orator as well, and not the least interesting of the documents in these archives are the verbatim reports, taken down by shorthand, of many hundreds of the speeches of this ambassador, who was a distinguished man of letters in the greatest age of English literature. These speeches are, of course, in Italian, a language almost as familiar to Wotton as his own; those for the period of Wotton’s first embassy, from 1604 to 1610, have been transcribed and translated by Mr. Horatio Brown in the tenth and eleventh volumes of the Calendar of Venetian State Papers. I have made extensive use of these admirably edited Calendars in my notes, and only regret that for the period of Wotton’s two later embassies I am compelled to rely on my own transcripts from the Venice archives. The correspondence of De Fresnes-Canaye, who was French ambassador at Venice for some years after Wotton’s arrival, has been published; that of the Tuscan residents there, Montauto and Sachetti, I have examined in the Florence archives. From these sources, from Wotton’s dispatches, and other documents in the Record Office, from letters written by his chaplain Bedell, and other members of his household, I have endeavoured to create a living and vivid picture of Sir Henry Wotton’s life and activities in Venice. If I have not succeeded in my attempt, the fault must be my own.

To the third and last period, the period of Wotton’s life at Eton, belong the letters which possess perhaps the most personal and literary charm. The courtier and man of the world had returned to the books and religious thoughts he had never really deserted; and the correspondence of this time, with Izaak Walton’s account of the Provost’s days and conversation, gives a picture of a gentle, pious, old age, spent among congenial friends and beautiful surroundings, which one would find it hard to equal in any literature.

A word remains to be said concerning the secondary sources of information about Sir Henry Wotton. His life has been written seven times, but never at great length, or by any one who has availed himself of Wotton’s extant correspondence, and all the other manuscript sources of information. Izaak Walton’s famous and inimitable biography is mainly a portrait of Wotton in his old age; and although Walton gives a short sketch of Wotton’s earlier career, his information is plainly of a hearsay character, and often inaccurate and confused. I cannot find that he made use of more than one or two of the letters which he himself had printed, even when in the second edition of the Reliquiae he added a number of pages to the biography prefixed to the first edition. But it would be pedantry to ask for dates and accurate statements from Izaak Walton, who could give in his own way, and his own golden style, something of such infinitely greater value—the conversation, the character, and the very soul of the man about whom he wrote. Save for the last years, therefore, of Wotton’s life, when Walton was his friend and often saw him, I do not place much reliance on his statements about dates and facts.

The eighteenth-century life of Sir Henry Wotton in the Biographia Britannica (1740) is of some interest, and adds a few facts and dates to Izaak Walton’s account. The next on the list is the Rev. John Hannah’s scholarly little book, Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Others, published in 1845. This is the most important piece of research on the subject that has yet been made. It gives the result of a considerable amount of original investigation; and is particularly valuable for the bibliography and variant readings of the poems which it contains, and for the indication of letters by Wotton among the Bodleian manuscripts. As the portion of the book containing a full account of the poems by Wotton, and the poems attributed to him, has been reprinted under the title of The Courtly Poets (1870), I have not included in these volumes any discussion of Wotton’s poems, or the poems themselves, except where I have been able to add to the information collected by Mr. Hannah.

In 1866 Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Duffus Hardy published, as Deputy Keeper of the Record Office, a Report on the Documents in the Archives and Public Libraries in Venice, from Mr. Rawdon Brown’s transcripts, which contained a good deal of fresh information about Wotton’s career in Venice. Both these two volumes, and the life in the Biographia Britannica, appear, however, to have escaped the notice of Sir Henry Wotton’s subsequent biographers.

In 1898 Dr. Adolphus W. Ward published Sir Henry Wotton, a Biographical Sketch. This is more of a literary appreciation than a biography; and while interesting on account of Dr. Ward’s wide knowledge of the period, makes little claim to original research. In 1899 Mr. A. W. Fox included in his Book of Bachelors a life of Wotton which is of value for the references to the published correspondence of Wotton’s contemporaries, Casaubon’s letters, the Winwood Memorials, the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and many other volumes.

An article in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1899, is a sympathetic appreciation of Wotton’s character; and its author moreover has examined Wotton’s letters and dispatches in the Record Office, and those preserved at Eton (which were published by the Roxburghe Club in 1850), and made use of the information contained in these documents. Mr. Sidney Lee’s article in the Dictionary of National Biography is in the main a restatement of the information gathered by Dr. Ward and Mr. Fox, with however some additional references to printed sources. Both for the indication of sources, and for the general point of view, I am under a debt of obligation to these authorities. It is hardly necessary to say that Professor Gardiner’s great history of this period has been of the greatest assistance to me in many ways.

The new material of importance in these volumes may be briefly indicated. To Izaak Walton’s account of Wotton’s boyhood and Oxford life I have not been able to make fresh additions of any importance. For his first journey abroad, from 1589 to 1594, the only source of information hitherto available is the collection of letters to Lord Zouche printed in the fourth edition of the Reliquiae. I have reprinted with notes all of these which come within the scheme of this work, and have added to them six hitherto unpublished letters of considerable importance, as well as some references to him in the correspondence of friends he made abroad. I have also been permitted to see transcripts of seven of Wotton’s letters preserved in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna. For Wotton’s life in the service of Essex, and at the English Court (1594-1600), which is the period about which we have least information, I have added to the one letter in the Reliquiae seven others, two from the printed correspondence of Casaubon, and five from the Record Office and the Cecil Papers, one of which has already been calendared. I also add three unsigned letters which I found in the Burley Commonplace Book, and which I believe to have been written by Wotton in Ireland and sent to John Donne. These three are the only letters I am printing which may possibly have been written by some one else. But I think they are Wotton’s, and have therefore included them in his correspondence. I have found eleven letters written during Wotton’s second sojourn abroad (1600-1604), two in the Record Office, seven in the Florence archives, and two in the unpublished correspondence of Isaac Casaubon, now in the British Museum. None of these eleven letters have been printed or calendared; the two addressed to Casaubon were, however, first discovered by Mark Pattison. To Izaak Walton’s account of the journey to Scotland with the casket of antidotes I add information of some importance from documents in the Record Office and the Florence archives.

Of the three hundred and sixty letters and dispatches written during Wotton’s first embassy in Venice (1604-10) seventeen have been printed; I am now printing 140 complete or in part. For the remainder of Wotton’s active life until he retired to Eton there are more than four hundred letters still existing. Of these 120 have been printed and five calendared; I include 125 unprinted ones in these volumes, and reprint many of the others.

For the period of Wotton’s life at Eton, Izaak Walton’s biography and the seventy-six letters printed in the Reliquiae are the main authorities. To these I have added nineteen more letters, four from volumes of printed correspondence, eight from the Record Office, which have been calendared, and seven that have not been published.

To the new information about Wotton in the Venice archives, and in Mr. Horatio Brown’s calendars, I have already referred. I have attempted to identify all of Wotton’s references to events and people, and to discover the sources of his frequent Latin and occasional Greek quotations. In this I have received considerable help from correspondents in Notes and Queries, and in particular to Mr. E. Bensly, who has identified several of the Latin references. As Wotton sometimes mentions very obscure people, and quotes almost invariably from memory, in phrases of his own invention, there are a number of points which have eluded my research, and the absence of a note must be taken as a confession of ignorance on my part.

It only remains to express my thanks to the late Marquis of Salisbury, to the late Right Hon. G. H. Finch, to the authorities of the Bodleian Library, the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge, and the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for permission to transcribe and print manuscripts in their possession. Mrs. Hervey Bruce has most kindly sent me three of Wotton’s letters from the recently-discovered manuscripts at Clifton Hall; and Mrs. S. A. Strong, the Duke of Devonshire’s librarian, has allowed me to include in these volumes the letters found at Lismore Castle by the Rev. A. B. Grosart, and printed in his edition of the Lismore Papers. On inquiring whether any of Wotton’s letters to his friend Blotius were preserved in the Hofbibliothek at Vienna, I was informed that there were nine of his letters there, which Herr Gottlieb of that library was intending to publish in his edition of the Blotius correspondence. Permission was given me to print one of these letters, addressed to Wotton’s mother; and I was allowed to see transcripts of the others, and to make use of information contained in them for my life of Wotton. I must not omit to thank the director of the Hofbibliothek and Herr Gottlieb for their kindness in this matter. I am under a great debt of obligation to the late Professor York Powell for kind encouragement, and I could not easily express how much I owe to his successor, Professor C. H. Firth, for his advice and help in many ways. The Rev. W. C. Green, with great generosity placed in my hands a manuscript edition which he had prepared of the letters in the Reliquiae Wottonianae; this has been of great service to me in the dating of undated letters, and the identification of names and places. He also supplied me with translations of Wotton’s Latin letters, which, however, owing to exigences of space, I have been forced to omit. But I am glad to make an acknowledgement of all that I owe to his help and kindness.

To Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, Deputy Keeper of the Records, to Mr. Warre-Cornish at Eton, to Mr. Horatio Brown at Venice, to Mr. F. Madan of the Bodleian Library, and to Mr. Doble and Mr. Milford of the Clarendon Press, I am indebted for much in the way of help and advice; Professor Bywater, the Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J., Mr. R. A. Austen Leigh, Mr. Roger Fry, and Major Martin S. Hume have been most kind in answering inquiries and supplying me with information. Mr. Verity has kindly allowed me to make use of some notes in his edition of Milton’s early poems; my mother has helped me by reading this book in proof and making many suggestions.

The frontispiece to vol. i is from a portrait of Sir Henry Wotton by an unknown painter, presented to the University of Oxford by Sir Edward Stanley in 1780, and now in the Bodleian gallery. The picture of an ambassador’s reception at Venice (p. 48), by Odoardo Fialetti, was bequeathed by Wotton to Charles I (see i, p. 216), and is now at Hampton Court. The ambassador’s figure (p. 64) is almost certainly a rough sketch of Wotton himself. These pictures are reproduced by permission of the Lord Chamberlain. The portrait of the first Earl of Salisbury (i, p. 452) is from a mosaic presented by Wotton to the second Earl, and now at Hatfield. It is published by permission of the Marquis of Salisbury. The frontispiece of vol. ii is from the portrait in the Provost’s Lodge at Eton, and is printed from a block kindly lent by Messrs. Spottiswoode & Co., Ltd. The specimen of Wotton’s handwriting (ii, p. 224) is from a MS. in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and is reproduced by permission of the President and Fellows of the College. The portrait of Paolo Sarpi (ii, p. 370) is in the Bodleian gallery; a discussion of its history and authenticity will be found in vol. ii, pp. 478-9.

It was Sir Henry Wotton’s usual, though by no means invariable, custom to date his letters according to the style of the country in which he wrote them, and he would generally give some indication of the system he was employing. Thus his letters written from Vienna are most, if not all, dated according to the ‘style of Rome’; that is, the Gregorian calendar promulgated by Gregory XIII in 1582, adopted by the German Catholics in 1584, and now almost universal in Europe. The ‘style of Venice’ was the same as that of Rome, save that the legal year began on March 1. The ‘stylo veteri’, or style of England, which Wotton always employed at home, and sometimes abroad, is of course the Julian or old style, according to which, in Wotton’s time, the days of the month were ten days behind those of the Gregorian calendar, and the legal year began (in England) on March 25. Thus a date, say February 10, 1608, would mean February 10, 1609, in the modern reckoning, if the style of Venice were employed, or February 20, 1609, if written in the English style. Wotton occasionally slipped into the error of confusing two styles, giving the day of the month according to one, and the year according to the other; but towards the end of his residence abroad he frequently indicates both the old and the new style, as for instance December 2/12, 1622. He places the dates of his letters sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end; for the sake of uniformity I have put them in each instance at the head of the letter, and when there is any confusion I give in brackets the correct date according to the modern reckoning. In the other cases where these brackets ⟨ ⟩ occur, they are used to indicate (unless it is otherwise stated) that I have supplied a word to fill up a lacuna or imperfection in the text. When words are spaced in the text, as for instance Rome, it indicates that they are in cipher in the original.

Many of Sir Henry Wotton’s letters are undated; these I have arranged in accordance with the endorsement or internal evidence, and in each case I give, at the head of the letter or in a note, my reasons for the arrangement. There is, however, a small number of letters which contain no definite indications of their date, and the placing of these is, and must be, of course, highly conjectural and uncertain. I can only say that I have done my best to arrange the letters in correct chronological order; and if I have erred, I hope I shall meet with the indulgence of those who know the extreme difficulty of dating undated documents of this period.

In the ‘Life of Sir Henry Wotton’, which follows, I have given the dates of English events according to the English and the Venetian according to the Roman calendar. But for days before March 1 or March 25 I give the years in the modern reckoning, following in this the example of Spedding and Professor Gardiner.

I. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

S. P. Ger. Emp. = State Papers, Foreign, Germany, Empire, in the Public Record Office.

S. P. Ger. States = State Papers, Foreign, Germany, States, in the Public Record Office.

S. P. Ital. States = State Papers, Foreign, Italian States, in the Public Record Office.

Arch. Turin = Archivio di Stato, Turin (Lettere Ministri Inghilterra referred to).

II. PRINTED WORKS

Andrich = De Natione Anglica et Scota iuristarum Universitatis Patavinae, 1222-1738. J. A. Andrich. 1892.

Arber = A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London. Edited by Edward Arber. 1875, &c.

Birch, Eliz. = Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Edited by Thomas Birch. 2 vols. 1754.

Birch, Negot. = An Historical View of the Negotiations Between the Courts of England, France, and Brussels. Edited by Thomas Birch. 1749.

Cal. S. P. Col. = Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, China, and Japan, 1513-1616. 1862.

Camd. Epist. = Cl. G. Camdeni et Illustrium Virorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolae. 1691.

Canaye = Philippe Canaye, Seigneur de Fresnes, Lettres et Ambassade. 3 vols. 1635-6.

Chambers = Poems of John Donne. Edited by E. K. Chambers. Muses’ Library. 1901.

Cigogna = Delle Inscrizioni Veneziane. Raccolte et illustrate da E. A. Cigogna. 6 vols. 1824-53.

Davison = The Poetical Rhapsody. Francis Davison. Edited by N. H. Nicholas. 2 vols. 1826.

Duffus Hardy = Report on Documents in the Archives and Public Libraries of Venice. T. Duffus Hardy. 1866.

Foley = Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus. Henry Foley. 5 vols. 1877-9.

Foster, Gray’s Inn = Register of Admissions to Gray’s Inn, 1521-1889. Joseph Foster. 1889.

Gardiner, Letters = Letters and other Documents Illustrating the Relations between England and Germany at the Commencement of the Thirty Years’ War. Edited by S. R. Gardiner. Camden Soc. 1865.

J. Hannah = Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and others. Edited by the Rev. John Hannah, M.A. 1845.

Jas. I, Works = The Works of the Most High and Mighty Prince James . . . King of Great Britaine, &c. 1616.

Lord Herbert = The Autobiography of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Edited by S. A. Lee. 1886.

Maxwell-Lyte = A History of Eton College, 1440-1898. Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte. 3rd ed. 1899.

Moryson, Sh. = Shakespeare’s Europe, unpublished chapters of Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary. Edited by Charles Hughes. 1903.

Nichols, Eliz. = The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. John Nichols. 3 vols. 1823.

Nichols, Jas. I = The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James I. John Nichols. 4 vols. 1828.

Ranke, 17th C. = A History of England, principally in the Seventeenth Century. Leopold von Ranke. English translation. 6 vols. 1875.

Reliq. = Reliquiae Wottonianae. 1st ed. 1651; 2nd ed. 1654; 3rd ed. 1672; 4th ed. 1685.

Ritter = Briefe und Acten zur Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges. Moriz Ritter. 2. Bd. 1870.

Roe = The Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte, 1621-8. 1740.

Rox. Club = Letters and Dispatches from Sir Henry Wotton. Printed from the Originals in the Library of Eton College. Roxburghe Club. 1850.

Sarpi, Hist. Partic. = Historia Particolare delle Cose Passate tra ’l Sommo Pontefice Paulo V et la Serenissima Republica di Venetia. 1624.

Sherley Bros. = The Sherley Brothers, an Historical Memoir. E. P. Shirley. Roxburghe Club. 1848.

Spedding = The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon. James Spedding. 7 vols. 1861-72.

Strafford Pp. = The Earl of Strafford’s Letters and Dispatches. Edited by W. Knowler. 2 vols. 1739.

Sydney Pp. = Letters and Memorials of State . . . Written and Collected by Sir Henry Sydney, &c. Edited by Arthur Collins. 2 vols. 1746.

Winwood Mem. = Memorials of Affairs of State, . . . Collected . . . from the original papers of Sir Ralph Winwood. Edmund Sawyer. 3 vols. 1725.

Sir Henry Wotton was born on March 30, 1568,^[1] at Boughton or Bocton Hall, in the parish of Bocton Malherbe, which lies in the centre of the county of Kent, about six miles from Charing. At the time of his birth Bocton Hall had been the seat of the Wotton family for about one hundred and fifty years, his father Thomas being fourth in descent from Nicholas Wotton, Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Henry V, who obtained the estate by marriage with the daughter and heiress of Robert Corbye. Once settled in this old house, and allying themselves by marriage with long-established Kentish families, the Wottons had prospered, and had risen to considerable positions in the service of the State. Among those sturdy and honourable families of country gentlemen, which were one of the main sources of the greatness of Tudor England, the Wottons were distinguished by a peculiar honesty, and old-fashioned piety, and simplicity of nature. A certain modesty in pushing their own fortunes was hereditary with them. In the time of the dissolution of the abbeys, and the plunder of the church lands, they none of them grew rich, though high in the public service; they habitually declined, rather than sought, court honours and preferment. Sir Edward Wotton (1489-1551), Henry Wotton’s grandfather, who was Treasurer of Calais in 1540, and one of the executors of Henry VIII, was said to have refused, out of modesty, the office of Lord Chancellor offered him by that King.^[2] His more distinguished brother, Nicholas Wotton, who went as ambassador to many courts, and served under four English monarchs, refused a bishopric from Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth’s proffer of the See of Canterbury. ‘Though very wise he loves quietness,’ William Cecil said of him ^[3]; and this family love of peace and retirement was inherited by Sir Henry’s father, Thomas Wotton, who was a man, as Izaak Walton describes him, ‘of great modesty, of a most plain and single heart, of an ancient freedom and integrity of mind.’ A country gentleman of wealth and learning and many tastes, devoted to the Protestant cause, which his father Sir Edward had eagerly espoused, and for which he himself suffered imprisonment in the reign of Mary, he refused all offers of advancement, and lived most of his life at Bocton, which came into his possession at his father’s death in 1551.

By his first wife he was the father of three distinguished sons—Sir Edward Wotton, afterwards Lord Wotton of Marley, a well-known diplomatist and courtier in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I; Sir John Wotton, soldier and poet, who was knighted by Essex at Rouen in 1591, and who married a sister of the Earl of Northumberland. ‘A gentleman excellently accomplished both by learning and travel,’ Izaak Walton describes him, ‘but death in his younger years put a period to his growing hopes.’ The third of these sons was another soldier, Sir James Wotton, knighted at Cadiz in 1596.

Izaak Walton recounts how, after his first wife’s death, Thomas Wotton resolved that, should he marry again, he would choose a wife who had neither children nor lawsuits, nor was of his own kindred; and how he met in the law courts and married a lady who combined all these characteristics. This lady was Eleanor, daughter of Sir William Finch of Eastwell in Kent, and widow of Robert Morton.^[4] Henry Wotton was the only surviving son of this second marriage.

A small portion of Bocton Hall still stands, now a farmhouse among disparked meadows, but retaining some evidences of its former splendour. We can picture it as it was in Henry Wotton’s youth, an old Gothic house, built and fortified with embattlements and towers in the reign of Edward III ^[5], enlarged by the first Nicholas Wotton, and standing on the brow of a hill, in ‘a fair park’ with the parish church adjoining. In this church are the tombs of many of the old Wottons, persons of ‘wisdom and valour’, whose memories and achievements lived as a model for the new generations, and an inspiration ‘to perform actions worthy of their ancestors’. High public service, love of learning and of Italy and poetry, were among the influences inherited from the past. These were kept alive no doubt by the visits of learned men, and of Henry’s elder brothers, riding home from the Court or the wars; the soldier and poet John Wotton, and the courtier Edward, who had spent part of his youth in Italy, and who, as the intimate friend of Sir Philip Sidney, could tell of that brilliant group of court poets, Sidney and Dyer and Fulke Greville and Spenser, the harbingers of the dawn of the great age of English literature.

Izaak Walton rightly insists on the importance of Bocton in the history of Sir Henry Wotton’s life. It was indeed the memories and traditions centred about this ancient house that played a predominant part in the formation of his character. From his family and ancestors he inherited that peculiar combination of culture and old-fashioned piety, of worldly wisdom and ingenuousness of nature, ‘the simplicity,’ as he called it, ‘of a plain Kentish man,’ which gave in after years a certain graceful singularity to his conduct, difficult for the courtiers among whom he moved to understand. He loved everything that savoured of Kent, all the local ways and phrases, and when ambassador abroad he surrounded himself with the sons of Kentish neighbours. Bocton he always regarded as his home, finding even the air about it better and more wholesome than other air; to the end of his life he returned thither when he could, although as a younger son he possessed no claim on the place save that of affection.

The English youths of this period, the younger sons of country gentlemen, honourably nurtured in old halls and manors, and going out to seek their fortunes in the romantic world, appear on the scene of many an Elizabethan play, and are among the most human and delightful figures of literature. It lends an interest to Henry Wotton’s life that he belongs to this world, that in his letters we possess probably the most complete existing record of the life of one of these young travellers and seekers after fortune; one who possessed the adventurous heart of the heroes of the contemporary drama, and was not without a touch of their noble eloquence. The conflict, moreover, between the ideals of the active and the contemplative life, which so long occupied Henry Wotton’s thoughts, is a theme which constantly recurs in the books and plays of the time, as well as in the lives of the famous Elizabethans. For though kingship shone then as a dazzling and almost divine attribute, and the chances of court favour were splendid, the great men of that great epoch were endowed with natures that desired a deeper self-realization than that which courts afforded, and could find no complete satisfaction in the external gifts of fortune.

The conflict of the two ideals was probably brought before Henry Wotton’s young eyes in a dramatic fashion by the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Bocton in July, 1573, where she remained two days, and attempted to draw Thomas Wotton from his retirement and country recreations to the Court, offering him a knighthood as an earnest of some more honourable and profitable employment.^[6] These offers he refused; nor are we forbidden to imagine that Henry Wotton, then a boy of five, may have heard echoes, though with uncomprehending ears, of the debate between the great Queen and the quiet-loving Kentish squire.

Izaak Walton informs us that, after instruction first from his mother, and then from a tutor at home, the young Wotton was sent to school at Winchester at a very early age.^[7] Of his life at Winchester we know nothing, save that (as he somewhat sadly recalled, visiting the school more than half a century later) ‘sweet thoughts’ and ignorant young anticipations of the joys of life then possessed him; and time, which, as he thought, should enable him to realize these hopes, seemed slow-paced to his boyish meditations.

In 1584 Wotton, then aged sixteen, went from Winchester to New College, Oxford.^[8] But at New College he did not remain long; it was not unusual for students at that time to move from one college to another, and Wotton migrated first to Hart Hall, where he shared a room with Richard Baker (known afterwards as Sir Richard Baker, the historian ^[9]), and formed a lifelong friendship with the youthful John Donne. Donne entered Hart Hall at the early age of eleven in October, 1584, but apparently left Oxford in 1586.^[10] In the same year, Wotton migrated to Queen’s, where he wrote a play for performance in the College. The subject was Tancredo from Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (published in 1581). This play has not been preserved, and we know nothing of it, save what Walton tells us, that the gravest members of the College considered it ‘an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities’. The choice of subject shows that, even in his Oxford days, Wotton had some knowledge of the Italian language. This was no doubt increased by his friendship with the celebrated Alberico Gentili, who was appointed Professor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1587, and was the first of those Italian Protestant refugees with whom he was destined to have so much intercourse in after life. Wotton attracted the attention and won the friendship of Gentili by three Latin discourses de Oculo, in which he described, according to the current notions of the time, the construction of the eye, and ended with a commendation of the benefits of sight, from which Izaak Walton gives a quotation, though probably in his own and not in Wotton’s words.^[11] These discourses, Walton writes, ‘were so exactly debated, and so rhetorically heightened, as among other admirers, caused that learned Italian, Albericus Gentilis (then Professor of the Civil Law in Oxford), to call him Henrice mi ocelle; which dear expression of his was also used by divers of Sir Henry’s dearest friends, and by many other persons of note during his stay in the University.’ Gentili, Walton adds, formed so great a friendship for Wotton that, if it had been possible, he ‘would have breathed all his excellent knowledge, both of the mathematics and law, into the breast of his dear Harry (for so Gentilis used to call him); and though he was not able to do that, yet there was in Sir Henry such a propensity and connaturalness to the Italian language, and these studies, whereof Gentilis was a great master, that this friendship between them did daily increase, and proved daily advantageous to Sir Henry, for the improvement of him in several sciences, during his stay in the University’.

It is probable that Henry Wotton was already looking forward to a career of public service, and had chosen, as his future occupation, what is now called the diplomatic profession. The profession, indeed, was not an organized one in his time, and even the word ‘diplomatic’ was not used in this sense before the eighteenth century. There were, however, two examples in his family which might naturally suggest a life of this kind; his great-uncle, Nicholas Wotton, had been a famous ambassador; and, while he was at Oxford, his eldest brother, Edward Wotton, had gone as Elizabeth’s envoy to Scotland in 1585, and to France in the following year. In his preparation for this career, the friendship and teaching of Gentili must have been of the greatest use. Gentili had recently published the most important book hitherto written on the duties, and qualifications, and rights of ambassadors ^[12], and was regarded as an authority on these subjects. The study of Roman Law was considered, moreover, if not a necessary qualification, at least a great advantage to a diplomatic career, and many of the ambassadors of previous reigns had been Doctors of Civil Law. But with the Reformation the interest in Roman Law had fallen to a low ebb in the English Universities. Its study was intimately associated with that of Canon Law, which was now abolished, and the books of Civil and Canon Law were set aside to be devoured by worms, as savouring too much of Popery.^[13] The need, however, for a revival of a study of Civil Law had been felt; and the Protector Somerset had planned a College of Law in Cambridge to provide civilians for the diplomatic service, and for the consultations of the Privy Council.^[14] At Oxford Gentili had done much to revive this study of Roman Law ^[15], and Wotton no doubt profited by his teaching.

In January, 1587, Thomas Wotton, Henry’s father, died, leaving, according to Izaak Walton, a rent-charge on one of his manors of one hundred marks a year to each of his younger sons. This sum, nearly sixty-seven pounds a year, and worth perhaps six or seven times as much in modern currency, was no inconsiderable portion for a younger son, according to the standards of the time ^[16]; there is, however, no mention of any such bequest in Thomas Wotton’s will ^[17]; and the provision, if made, must have been by means of a gift in his lifetime, or by instructions to his eldest son and heir.

On June 8, 1588, Henry Wotton supplicated for his Bachelor’s degree ^[18], but there is no record that the degree was ever granted.

It is the good fortune of Henry Wotton’s biographer that his history can be studied in his own correspondence, which begins at the age of twenty-one, and lasts with a few breaks till his death fifty years later. The earliest of his letters are addressed to his brother, Edward Wotton, and are printed in these volumes from transcripts preserved in the British Museum. Written in the autumn of 1589, they describe the young Wotton’s first journey abroad after leaving Oxford.

Foreign travel was almost a necessary part of the education of an ambitious youth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The young men went abroad, in Shakespeare’s phrase—

Their object was seldom or never mere sight-seeing and pleasure. The soldiers went to gain military experience in the foreign wars; the students to perfect their education in the foreign universities, and by the company and instruction of foreign scholars. But for young Englishmen of birth the main object of travel was almost always political. By observing different forms of government, by penetrating into the secrets of foreign courts, they both prepared themselves for the service of the State, and procured information likely to be useful to the Government at home.^[2] They acted as informal spies on foreign princes, and on the English political exiles; and attempted to fathom the plots, and discover the warlike preparations, that were perpetually threatening England from abroad. So important for political purposes was foreign travel considered, that Queen Elizabeth was constantly sending young men abroad at her own expense to learn foreign languages, and to be trained up and made fit for the public service.^[3] These young travellers, whether or not they were supported by the Queen, were not absolutely free, but by their licences (and without a licence to travel no one could go abroad) they were restricted to certain countries, and to certain periods of time. Their movements were more or less determined by orders from home; and it is plain from Wotton’s letters that he was acting under instructions in his various journeys.

Francis and Anthony Bacon, Robert Cecil, Raleigh, Essex, and indeed almost all of Wotton’s contemporaries, eminent in politics, spent some years on the Continent in their youth; but of these Elizabethan travellers Wotton is the only one of whose studies and journeys an adequate record remains. His letters are of interest for this reason, and also for the glimpse they give us of his character in his early years. Although somewhat cumbrous and stilted in style, they are not without the personal quality, and felicitous phrasing, of his later letters, and present a lively and pleasant picture of the thoughts and good resolutions natural to a serious and high-spirited youth at his first entering into the world—of the plans and hopes of a young Englishman setting forth, the year after the defeat of the Armada, for study and travel on the Continent. Europe lay before him, first the universities and great scholars of Germany, then Italy, the great school of state-craft, then perhaps Constantinople; and at last his return to England, the favour he hoped of some great man; and, after that, who knew what brilliant fortune? Wotton wrote to his brother that he felt he had hitherto been but a fool, and was beginning life anew at twenty-one, and he meant to convince his friends that he could teach his ‘soul to run against the delights of fond youth’. ‘It is knowledge I seek,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘and to live in the seeking of that is my only pleasure.’ Among the many departments of knowledge, his first object was to devote himself to the study of Civil Law. In this he was following the example of Nicholas Wotton, who had studied law abroad, and received a legal degree in Italy. But since the time of his great-uncle, learning had deserted Italy, and made its home north of the Alps; and it was Wotton’s ambition to become the pupil of one of the greatest of living jurists, the old and eminent François Hotman, then Professor of Law at Basle, ‘the second lawyer in the earth’ in his opinion, and only inferior to the famous Cujas. He writes again and again with boyish eagerness, begging his brother to procure him letters of introduction to this great man, with whom he hoped to live until he went to Italy. This choice of Hotman for his master is of interest, for Hotman was a leader of the new or humanist school of legal study, which combined the reading of polite literature with that of law, and in which the student’s attention was directed from glosses and commentaries to the texts themselves; while Alberico Gentili, Wotton’s Oxford master, belonged to the old Scholastic or Bartolist school, and was a bitter opponent of the French humanists.^[4] It was therefore in search of a new and more elegant learning than he could find in England, and with the ambition of becoming ‘the best civilian in Basle’, that Wotton set sail from Leigh in pleasant October weather. After a voyage of four days, he landed at Stade in North Germany, not far from Hamburg.

Owing to the wars in France and the Low Countries, the course from England to North Germany was the safest and most frequented at this time. But even this crossing was not unattended with dangers; and although Wotton’s voyage was without incident, the ship in which, a year later, another English youth made the same journey was chased by Dunkirk pirates on its way. This youth was Fynes Moryson, who travelled over the Continent almost in Wotton’s footsteps. His Itinerary published in 1617, and his description of Europe, recently printed from the manuscript in Corpus Christi College ^[5], give much the same account of experiences and expenses as Wotton’s letters, and help to make clear many of his allusions.

Travelling on the Continent at this time was almost always done on horseback; but in the Low Countries and in Germany it was usual to journey in carts, or ‘coaches’, as they were called, lumbering vehicles with movable tops, holding about six people; and travellers going in the same direction would commonly combine to hire a coach and share expenses. At Stade Wotton waited four days, looking for such companions, and finding, after the manner of young Englishmen abroad, much subject for cheerful laughter in the aspect and customs of the natives of the place. Through Brunswick and Frankfort he travelled to Heidelberg, where he arrived on Nov. 26. At this University, which was then one of the most famous of the Protestant Universities of Europe, he spent the winter, studying German, and attending the law lectures and disputations. The legal instruction he found much superior to that of the English Universities; and while waiting for letters that should introduce him to Hotman, he prepared himself to take full advantage of that great scholar’s teaching.

Although our information about Wotton, when, young and obscure, he wandered over Europe, is almost all derived from his own letters, yet he does not pass altogether unnoticed in the correspondence of the scholars whose acquaintance he made abroad. In all these notices the impression is much the same, that of a youth of noble birth, brilliant and virtuous and witty, who delighted his friends with his literature and learning, and won their affection by that ‘sweet persuasiveness of behaviour’ for which he was afterwards noted. The first to mention him is the Scotch poet and scholar, Dr. John Johnston, then head of a College in Heidelberg, who had befriended Wotton at his arrival; and Wotton adds, had given him ‘the first sport in Germany with laughing at his dialect’. On April 10, 1590, Johnston wrote of Wotton to Camden (Wotton had brought with him a copy of Camden’s Britannia, which he had lent to Johnston), remarking that Wotton was then on the point of leaving Heidelberg.^[6]

From Heidelberg Wotton went to Frankfort, and on the journey thither a piece of good fortune befell him. Delighting all through his life in the society and friendship of scholars, he shows, in his earliest letters, his desire to make the acquaintance of ‘the great learned men’ of the Continent. And now he fell in by chance with one of the greatest of European scholars, Isaac Casaubon, who had gone from Geneva to Frankfort in the hopes of meeting Lipsius, and to arrange for the publication of his edition of Aristotle, and was now extending his journey to Heidelberg.^[7] We can picture the meeting at some wayside inn of the English youth, then twenty-two years of age, and the learned Frenchman, nine years his senior, querulous, ailing, and poor, but full of enthusiasm and generosity, and already famous in the world of scholars. They talked together for a little, and then went their several ways; but this encounter, or as Wotton called it ‘mere salutations in passing’, was the beginning of romantic friendship between them, and a few years later we find Wotton at Geneva living in Casaubon’s house.

After parting with Casaubon, Wotton went on to Frankfort, arriving in time to be present at the famous Mart, which was held there every spring and autumn, and was the great gathering place of Germany, and indeed of Europe, for merchants, travellers, authors, and scholars. Hither were brought silks from Italy, cloth from France and England, ironwork from Nuremberg, delicacies from Holland, and—what was of more interest to Wotton—hither to this ‘Fair of the Muses’ came not only booksellers from all over Europe, but the writers and learned men of the Continent, to meet each other, and to arrange with the printers of Frankfort for the publication of their works.^[8] In the bookshops, or mingling in the crowd, or gathered around the bookstalls, the traveller would hear famous men lecturing and disputing with their friends; and it is possible that at this fair, or two years later in the bookshops of Padua, Wotton caught a glimpse of perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most interesting of living philosophers, Giordano Bruno.^[9] That Bruno would be among the loudest and most eager of the disputants there can be little question; and the young Englishman may have listened to his profound and fantastic discourses about the plurality of worlds and the spirit of the universe, in which the deepest modern conceptions and the strangest allegory were so curiously mingled. At Frankfort he probably lodged with the hospitable printer, Andrew Wechel, in whose house seventeen years before his brother’s friend, Philip Sidney, had first met Languet. But of his stay at Frankfort we know nothing certain, save that here he made the acquaintance and won the friendship of the great botanist Clusius, or Lecluse ^[10], who was then resting at Frankfort after his many travels.

News had no doubt reached Wotton of the death, in the previous February, of François Hotman, from whose instructions he had promised himself such profit. He therefore abandoned his intention of travelling to Basle, and went to Altdorf, the little University of the town of Nuremberg, where he spent the spring and summer, residing in the house of a lawyer to whom his friend Franciscus Junius, Professor of Theology at Heidelberg, had introduced him.^[11]

If the history of a man’s early years is largely the history of his friendships, this is particularly true of Henry Wotton, who had the gift of winning the interest and affection of older and more distinguished men. The next friend on his list was an Englishman, Lord Zouche, who happened to be then at Altdorf. Edward la Zouche, eleventh Baron Zouche of Harringworth, was perhaps ten or twelve years older than Wotton, and already a political personage of considerable note. He had been one of the peers who had tried Mary Queen of Scots, and in after years he was charged with diplomatic and other offices of some importance. He was living abroad at this time, partly for the sake of studying foreign affairs, and partly too for economy; for he had wasted his fortune not in the ways usual to spendthrift noblemen, but on gardens and horticulture. A man of cultivated tastes, the friend of Ben Jonson and of other poets, and interested in history and mathematics, he took the young Wotton under his protection, and they seem to have spent much of their time together. Wotton, writing to Lord Zouche nearly thirty years later, speaks of these days when they first met, and when he was a poor student at Altdorf, as the happiest of his life.^[12]

In the last edition of the Reliquiae Wottonianae, published in 1685, was printed a series of letters from Henry Wotton to Lord Zouche, written between October, 1590, and August, 1593; and it is from these, and from the collection of Wotton’s letters preserved in the Hofbibliothek in Vienna, that most of our information about the next three years of his life is derived. Among the Vienna letters is one written at Altdorf, on Sept. 25, 1591, Old Style. It is addressed to his mother, and, like many letters of young men to their mothers, it is extremely pious in its tone. He informs his mother, however, that at Vienna, whither he was going, ‘the great learned men’ there, in the profession he followed, were all ‘marvellous devout papists’; but that did not trouble him, as he made a point of daily conversing with all sorts of men, yet in his own ‘manner and conscience’.^[13]

Wotton left Altdorf towards the end of October, and after stopping at the Jesuit University of Ingolstadt, in Upper Bavaria, he arrived on Nov. 11, New Style, at Vienna; in which city, where his eldest brother had spent the winter fifteen years before in company with Philip Sidney, he remained for about six months. He had letters to two eminent Protestants in the service of the Emperor, Rudolf II: the Baron von Friedesheim, one of the judges of the Lower Court of the Province of Austria, and Dr. Hugo Blotz, or Blotius, a learned Dutchman, and librarian of the Imperial Library. With Friedesheim Wotton stayed for a week or two, and then went to live in the house of Dr. Blotius, adjoining the old Minorite monastery, in which the library was then lodged. His private study opened into the library, and he had the free use of this collection of about nine thousand volumes, for the most part manuscript. The cost of chamber, stove, table, and lights was two florins a week, and he had plenty of wine for himself and a friend who was with him. Altogether the expense of living came, he calculated, to about five pounds four shillings more a year than a good careful student would spend in the English Universities.^[14]

Blotius seems to have been a kindly host; Wotton soon won his trust and friendship to such an extent, that when in January, 1591, the librarian had occasion to go to Neustadt, he allowed Wotton to remain in the house with his wife, though not without misgivings about the unconventionality of such a proceeding. Wotton, however, was able to assure him that the conduct of Frau Blotius, in the absence of her husband, was altogether above reproach.^[15]

This time of Wotton’s youthful sojourn abroad was apparently a period of severe study and immense and varied reading. If, as I believe, The State of Christendom, written three years later, is rightly ascribed to his authorship, he proved himself possessed of an amount of learning that is very remarkable in so young a man. Wotton’s letters from Vienna show that he made full use of the Imperial Library, studying not only the political treatises it contained, but the Greek manuscripts as well. We find him busy with the text of Polybius (which Casaubon had already begun to edit), and of other authors; and indeed, at that time, a study of unpublished texts was almost a necessity for wide scholarship.

In addition to the records of the past, he devoted much attention to the study of contemporary politics and matters of State. It was by knowledge of this kind, about the condition of foreign governments and the plans of foreign princes, that young men who, like Wotton, had chosen a political career, hoped to make their fortune. If their information proved to be useful to some great man at home, he would be likely to take them into his service, and thus start them on the road to success. And this indeed proved the case with Wotton almost immediately after his return to England four years later.

This valuable and secret knowledge was to be obtained in two ways, by the confidence and conversation of experienced statesmen, but still better by the study of printed or manuscript ‘Relations’ about the forces, and revenues, and general condition of the different European States. The reports of Venetian ambassadors are the best known of these ‘Relations’; but there were many others written by travellers and State officials, and it is plain that they were of great value to the student.^[16] Wotton had copies made for Lord Zouche of those he found in the Imperial Library, and writes of one of them, that more would be learned from it in three weeks’ study, than from many years of observation.^[17] As German was not much read in England, Wotton gave special attention to books or manuscripts in German; works in other languages could be read at home, ‘whereby the poor younger brother traveller loses his reward.’^[18] Wotton vainly attempted to procure, by means of bribery, one rare manuscript for Lord Zouche, the Steganographia of Trithemius, which was the earliest treatise on cipher-writing, a dangerous book to possess, and therefore much prized; though for this kind of undertaking he showed some distaste, confessing to his patron that he was too confiding and ‘soon handled as they please to deal with me’.^[19]

The definite and comparatively commonplace character of our news makes one of the most obvious differences between the life of modern days and that of former centuries. News has for us lost half the wonder and uncertainty it possessed for our ancestors, when echoes of great battles, and rumours of the deaths of kings, travelled mysteriously over Europe; when travel-stained couriers galloped through the gates of old walled cities with, in the phrase repeated by Wotton, ‘lies in their mouths and truth in their packets ^[20]’; and when to know the news of the world, to gain the confidence of the well-informed, to study the masked faces of statesmen, and to rob the posts, was a profession in itself. In Ben Jonson’s amusing comedy, The Staple of News, the methods of news-collectors are humorously described; the play contains a phrase which seems to refer to Wotton ^[21], and indeed all his life Wotton belonged to the class so wittily satirized by Ben Jonson. Even before he became an ambassador, (and the food of ambassadors, as he said, was news), we find him busy collecting the latest information; and his letters, written in the old library of Vienna, are full of rumours of contemporary events, quarrels in the Imperial family, Henry IV’s siege of Paris, and the marching of the Prince of Parma to relieve that famished city. The time was a troubled one for all parties. The death of Sixtus V, and of his short-lived successor, Urban VII, had left the Papal See vacant; the fate of France, involved in the wars of the League, was still uncertain; and in Austria itself the fortunes of the house of Habsburg seemed almost at their lowest ebb. The half-mad emperor, Rudolf II, was shut up at Prague with his astrologers and soothsayers; he seemed hopelessly in debt, the Turks harried his frontiers, his Protestant subjects were in almost open rebellion, and it appeared not unlikely that the power of the House of Habsburg would end with his reign. The young Ferdinand, who was destined to restore the fortunes of his house, and lead the forces of the Catholic reaction to so many triumphs, was then a boy of twelve. Wotton, in recounting the quarrels about his guardianship, little guessed that the boy would one day be Emperor, and he himself return to Vienna as ambassador to his Court.

At the end of April, 1591, Wotton left Vienna and went to Prague; and in June of this year we find him again at Frankfort, where he seems to have arrived before the end of May, and where, as he writes to Blotius, he had suffered from a severe and expensive illness of a month’s duration.^[22] In August he was again at Heidelberg, and shortly after he started for Italy, giving it out in the meantime that he was going to Constantinople. His Italian journey was an adventurous and somewhat dangerous undertaking; he wished to arrive there unknown, and under another name, and was particularly anxious to deceive his ‘honest friends and countrymen’, the English merchants abroad, from whose gossip the Spanish and Papal authorities might receive information about his plans.^[23] For although Englishmen could safely enough visit Venice and Florence, and the States of the independent Italian princes, they ran the risk of arrest in Milan or Naples, as these were Spanish territories, and Philip II was at war with Elizabeth. A visit to Rome was fairly safe for the ordinary traveller, provided he could obtain Cardinal Allen’s protection; but Wotton’s purpose was more than that of the ordinary traveller. He intended to penetrate as far as possible into the secrets of the Papal Court; and to make the acquaintance, and discover the plans, of the English outlaws who congregated in Rome, and who were continually plotting the overthrow of Elizabeth, either by assassination or by open war. This purpose, if discovered, would certainly have led to arrest and imprisonment; and, indeed, any Englishman going to Italy for political objects had to be most careful to conceal his purpose. ‘It would bring great danger upon me if it were known I were as I am,’ a young English student of politics wrote from Italy at this time ^[24]; and Fynes Moryson recounts how, three years later, another young Englishman who visited Rome, apparently with a purpose similar to Wotton’s, was pursued as far as Siena by the Inquisition, and took to his heels towards Padua, in such haste ‘as he seemed to fly over the Apennine without wings’.^[25]

For the purpose of concealing his identity, Wotton travelled into Italy as a young German and a Roman Catholic; and such was his fluency in his adopted language, that a German with whom he journeyed to Rome took him for a fellow countryman. Fynes Moryson, when he visited Rome, pretended to be a Frenchman; and the hazardous nature of foreign travel in the time of Elizabeth is shown by the fact that Englishmen found it necessary to adopt these disguises. Wotton, indeed, who afterwards went as an Italian to Scotland, regarded a change of nationality as almost necessary for any one who would make the most of his opportunities abroad: ‘he travels with mean consideration in my opinion,’ he wrote, ‘that is ever one countryman.’^[26]

On Nov. 4, 1591, New Style, Wotton landed in Venice at eight o’clock in the morning.^[27] Of his journey thither I know nothing, save that, as he told the Doge of Venice many years later, when he crossed the Alps and came down into Italy, he loved the Italians at once with a particular affection which he never lost.^[28]

Italy, though fallen now under the dominion of Spain, and the deadening influences of the Catholic reaction, and no longer the home of liberty and learning, was still the main goal of English travellers, the model of culture, the great school of statecraft. When nearly fifty years later Italy had fallen still deeper into decadence, Milton found nevertheless great delight in the society of the cultivated and polite Italians of Florence; and when Wotton, who had left England in the very dawn of its greatest day, crossed the Alps, he travelled indeed into the evening of the Italian Renaissance, but an evening from which the last glow of light had not yet faded. The Courts of Ferrara and Urbino still retained something of their old splendour; and in Venice, where the spirit of the Renaissance remained the longest, Paolo Veronese had been dead but three years, Tintoretto was still living, and architecture was flourishing anew under the impulse given it by Palladio. Wotton’s first visit to Venice, which was afterwards his home for so many years, lasted only four days. He found the climate of the city unwholesome, and ‘not being made of stone’ he felt he could not trust himself among the famous Venetian courtesans.^[29] He went, therefore, to Padua, whence he wrote to Blotius on Nov. 30, telling of his arrival in Italy. Clusius had given him a letter to Pinelli at Padua, the well-known patron of letters, who had not, however, received him at his two visits. How long he would remain at Padua he did not know; he had resolved to wait on chance, and sail towards whatever shore a favourable wind might waft him. His first impression of the Italians, like that of almost all travellers from the north, was of their politeness and perfidy; and he wrote that he who would be always safe in Italy must not be always good.^[30]

The Blotius correspondence contains another glimpse of Wotton at Padua; a young German writing to Blotius on Dec. 6 to say that Wotton had just visited him, and had sent his regards, and a message to the effect that he had changed his name, and letters to him, (if Blotius had written any), would not reach him. ‘Stultus est ut nosti,’ the letter concludes, ‘et quoties cupio ipsum revocare ad sanctam Romanam Catholicam fidem, toties me ridet.’^[31]

At Padua Wotton was joined by Lord Zouche; but in March, 1592, they parted, and Wotton went to Rome, travelling, no doubt, by the way of Ancona. In his letters to Lord Zouche will be found an account of his two visits to Rome and his journey to Naples. At Rome he spent altogether more than a month, disguised as a dashing young German, drinking deep, in the German fashion, with mad German priests, and flaunting about the town with ‘a mighty blue feather in a black hat’. To this mighty blue feather he trusted for safety, for it made him conspicuous, and therefore unsuspected; and, by appearing light-minded, he would be thought harmless. He judged Rome, nevertheless, from under his blue feather, with the serious eyes of a young Protestant; no Englishman, he wrote, true in his allegiance to the Queen, had seen more of the Pope and the Papal Court than he; and it was his opinion of Rome, or rather his assured knowledge, ‘that her delights on earth are sweet, and her judgements in heaven heavy.’^[32]

Many years afterwards, when about to enter Anglican orders, Wotton related to Charles I how this, and his subsequent visits to Rome, had confirmed him in his devotion to the English Church. Rome he had found the very sink and seat of all corruption, religion being converted there ‘from a rule of conscience to an instrument of State, and from the mistress of all sciences, into a very handmaid of ambition.’^[33]

Throughout his life Wotton’s hostility to Rome was more political than doctrinal. In Protestant dogma, as such, or indeed in any dogma, he seems never to have taken much interest. His religion was one of piety and trust; a love of God which needed no very definite theology. But the political Rome, the Rome of the Inquisition, the Jesuits, and the Catholic Reaction, allied to Spain, and claiming supremacy over temporal princes, was to his mind the great political danger of the time. He had no admiration for the devotion and zeal in which the Jesuits so surpassed their Protestant adversaries; and was not touched by that love of the ancient faith, which led back to Rome his eldest brother and several of his family, as well as some of the finest spirits of his time.

Between his two visits to Rome he spent a week at Naples, where he may have seen the greatest of living Italian poets, Torquato Tasso, from whose poem Wotton had taken the subject of his Oxford play. For Tasso was then the guest of the celebrated Manso, who, almost half a century later, acted as Milton’s guide when he visited Naples. Returning to Rome from Naples, his visit was hurriedly ended by a chance meeting with an Englishman, who knew him, and who, he suspected, was in league with the Catholics, and might betray him. He went therefore to Florence, where, in the territory of a prince at peace with Elizabeth, he could resume his name and nationality. He had left Rome none too soon, as he found that information about his journey had reached the authorities, that it was known that he was travelling as a German, and both he and Lord Zouche were being watched for in the Spanish and Papal territories.^[34] Nor was the risk of arrest and imprisonment in Rome the only danger that he ran. In that age of universal suspicion and treachery, his enemies, if they could not capture his person, might easily bring him into disfavour with the authorities in England, by making it appear that he had entered into intimate relations with traitors and Roman Catholics. A mysterious letter in the Record Office, written from Venice by Lord Darcy ^[35], a travelling Englishman there, shows that some such attempt to inculpate both Lord Zouche and Wotton was made at this time, apparently by sending them letters from Rome, and arranging that they should be intercepted by an English spy. Fortunately the spy brought them to Lord Darcy, who wrote at once to Burghley, otherwise both Wotton and Lord Zouche might have been forbidden to return to England. That this danger was no slight one is shown by the fact that even Sir Philip Sidney had, when abroad, fallen under the same suspicions; and his friend Languet thought it wise to write to Walsingham to contradict these reports.^[36]

In Florence Wotton lodged in the house of one Baccio Buoni, a wise but wicked fallen courtier. Florence he described as ‘a paradise inhabited by devils’; but the Italian was good, so that it was an excellent place to ‘learn to speak well as to do ill’. Some knowledge of the ways of villains was a necessary part at that time of politicians’ training; Wotton was afterwards destined to have many dealings with Italian knaves and spies; and he seems to have regarded the study of Italian wickedness as a part of his preparation for his future career. He remained in Florence throughout the summer of 1592, being under orders (no doubt from England) to stay near the Grand Duke’s Court, and expecting further orders and letters of recommendation, though to whom he did not know.^[37] During his first visit to Italy he became acquainted, Walton tells us, with the most eminent men for learning and all manner of arts; but the only letters written by him at this time which have been preserved are more of a political than personal character, and give little information about his tastes and friends. Many years later, however, he speaks of his admiration for the Pitti Palace, which he thought ‘for solid architecture the most magnificent and regular pile within the Christian world’,^[38] and the phrase shows that he had already acquired that taste for the noble and severe architecture of the Late Renaissance which he expressed many years later in his little book on the elements of architecture. In October he went from Florence to Siena, where his host was Scipione Alberti, an old gentleman to whom Wotton often afterwards referred in his letters. Alberti, as steward at Rome, forty years before, to Giovanni Caraffa, Duke of Palliano and nephew of Paul IV, had lived through the tragedy of the Caraffa family ^[39]—a terrible and famous story like that of the Cenci and of Vittoria Accoramboni—and on winter evenings, in some dark old palace of Siena, would tell his young English guest tales of horror and assassination, hardly to be equalled in the bloodiest Italian tragedies of Ford or Webster. ‘With him,’ Wotton wrote long afterwards to Milton, ‘I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour.’^[40]

The impression that Wotton made on his Italian friends, his goodness, his great learning, and courteous wit, can be dimly discerned beneath the flowery rhetoric of a little book written at this time by a learned Sienese, to help him in his study of Italian literature.^[41]

Early in the year 1593 Wotton went to Rome for a third visit, carrying with him as a guide for his conduct the phrase of his old Italian host, ‘I pensieri stretti e il viso sciolto,’ or as Wotton, who was fond of quoting the phrase, afterwards translated it, ‘Your thoughts close, and your countenance loose, will go safely over the whole world.’ In Rome he seems to have spent some weeks, and to have returned from thence to Florence. He next appears at Geneva, where he arrived on June 22, Old Style, after travelling through Genoa, the Milanese, and across one of the Grison passes. He felt (as he wrote Lord Zouche) that he had left a discreet country too soon; he wished, however, to perfect himself in the French language; and the memory of his meeting with Casaubon three years before, and the desire to profit by his learning and society, drew him to Geneva, where Casaubon lived as Professor of Greek in the Academy of the little Republic. No good Protestant, moreover, would complete his foreign trip without a visit to this heroic city, the capital of continental Protestantism, ever threatened with ruin by the Catholic Duke of Savoy, but ever triumphant over his plots and armies.

By the help of a common friend, Richard Thomson, a Cambridge scholar and collector of MSS., he succeeded in being taken as a lodger into Casaubon’s house ^[42]. Here he remained with Casaubon for fourteen months, a delightful period of studious companionship, of reading, and infinite talk, to which they both often referred in their letters afterwards. ‘Ah, what days those were,’ Casaubon wrote eight years later, ‘when heedless of the lateness of the hour we passed whole nights in lettered talk! I hanging on your stories of all you had seen of many men and many lands; you pleased to hear somewhat of my desultory readings. Oh! that was life worth living! pure happiness! I cannot recall those times without groaning in spirit.’^[43] Wotton had much to tell of Oxford, his German wanderings, his Italian friends and adventures; while Casaubon guided and advised his young guest in his reading of the Greek authors.

Although, as Wotton wrote, they were at Geneva rather scholars than politicians, and sooner good than wise, Wotton did not apparently forget his political ambitions, and if the posthumous work, The State of Christendom, printed in 1657, is, as I believe, correctly ascribed to Wotton, it must have been written at this time. The book, however, is a puzzling one, and I deal in an appendix with the question of its date and authorship.^[44] That it was written in 1594, and not, as Wotton’s biographers have all stated, in 1600 or 1601, is plain to any one who has read it. The State of Christendom is a folio of about three hundred pages; the style is tiresomely euphuistic, and the book is overloaded with long historical digressions and parallels from classic authors. Apart from the evidence it gives in somewhat pedantic fashion of immense and varied reading, it is mainly interesting as an exposition of the political ideas of an intelligent and travelled young Englishman of the time. In his discussion of contemporary affairs the author shows remarkable insight. He had already discovered the weakness of that bugbear of the time, the Spanish monarchy; and he saw with insight equally remarkable the strength and growth of the Dutch Republic, whose power, he says, might almost be compared with that of the mightiest princes of the world ^[45], and was likely to grow into a dangerous rival of the English nation.^[46] He foresaw too the danger of France becoming too powerful, should Henry IV triumph over the forces of the League; and the point of view throughout is that of a practical politician, more anxious to maintain the balance of power by fomenting troubles among the rivals of his country, than for the triumph of any great principle. He justifies not only the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, but Henry III’s murder of the Guises. He also defends, in a curious passage, the statesmen and ambassadors who took bribes from foreign princess ^[47]; and, save for a noble defence of religious toleration ^[48], one would look in vain for principles raised above the somewhat unscrupulous political morality of the time.

What gives this book its greatest value is the spirit which pervades it of passionate and triumphant patriotism. He shows in its full fervour the awakening of national consciousness and national pride, which dates from the defeat of the Armada, and characterizes the great literary creations of the epoch that immediately followed. This sense of the greatness of England was embodied in the figure of the heroic queen; and the most eloquent passage in the book is a lofty and noble panegyric of Elizabeth. Avoiding the fulsome praises of her aged personal attractions, in which most of his contemporaries indulged, the author celebrates her as a martial and invincible princess, made glorious by her victory over the force and power of Spain. With the heightened style of the Elizabethan dramatists, he gives a sombre and sinister picture of Philip II, grown old and morose in evil, and still plotting by day and by night to trouble and conquer all the nations of Europe. Was he not ‘the terror of princes, the controller of kings, the monarch of the world’? ‘Now if a woman hath presumed to encounter with this man; if a queen of one island hath undertaken to bridle a prince of so many nations,’ did not this surpass the glory of all the old heroes of antiquity? ‘Are not their praises eclipsed, their honours blemished, and their renown obscured?’ He finds in the vain attempts to assassinate Elizabeth a proof of divine favour and protection. ‘The Lord hath said that His elect shall not be confounded with human wisdom; He hath said, and we may swear, that heaven and earth shall sooner perish than His word shall fail. Why then do the princes rage? Why then do the Pope and the King of Spain fret and fume against the Lord’s Anointed? Against His chosen Vessel? Against His dear Virgin?’^[49]

Wotton, although he had intended to return to England in the spring of 1594, remained at Geneva till nearly the end of August. The want of money for travelling and for the payment of his debts was probably the cause of delay. As the remittances he was expecting did not arrive, he finally borrowed money and bought a horse on the credit of Casaubon, to whom he owed thirty-three gold crowns for board and lodging, giving him an order for money which he expected to be sent to the Autumnal Mart at Frankfort. The total amount for which Casaubon was responsible was 263 gold crowns, besides the price of the horse, an enormous sum for a poor scholar, but which was intended to be repaid within a few weeks’ time.^[50]

Wotton left Geneva on Aug. 24 ^[51], meaning to travel down the Rhine to Heidelberg and the Low Countries. He carried letters of introduction from Casaubon to Marquard Freher at Heidelberg, to Melchior Junius, Rector of the Academy at Strassburg, and two copies of Casaubon’s recently printed edition of the Apology of Apuleius, one for Scaliger, one for the younger Dousa, both of them at Leyden. The letter to Junius has been preserved, and gives us another glimpse of Wotton at this time. ‘A noble Englishman,’ Casaubon describes him, ‘a youth adorned with all the virtues, who has lived many years abroad in order that, returning home at length, he might truly recall the account of Ulysses, that he had seen the cities of many men, and known their minds. Wherever he comes, therefore, his first care is to meet with those from whose company he may depart a better and a wiser man.’^[52]

We next hear of Wotton at Leyden, whence Scaliger wrote in November to Casaubon to say that the copy of Apuleius had been delivered.^[53] Wotton was back in England before the end of the year; but in the meantime, by his fault or misfortune, Casaubon was plunged into great trouble and embarrassment. The money which was to have been received at the Frankfort Mart had not arrived; none of Wotton’s debts were paid, and his creditors came down on the impecunious scholar for their money. Casaubon was in despair; it seemed to his excitable mind that complete overthrow and ruin threatened him. To Wotton he wrote a pathetic letter begging and imploring that the money might be paid.^[54] This letter he sent to Scaliger to forward to Thomson, whom he asked to see that it was delivered. To Scaliger and Thomson, and to the French scholar and diplomatist Bongars, he related the whole story.^[55] Scaliger took up the case warmly and wrote himself to Thomson.^[56] At the next Frankfort Mart in the spring the money arrived and Casaubon was paid in full.^[57] By Casaubon’s and his own biographers Wotton has been very much blamed for this incident. The original misfortune was not, however, as Casaubon admitted, Wotton’s fault ^[58]; and the delay in payment may have been due to the fact that there was no safe way of sending money to so distant a place as Geneva, save by the Frankfort Mart, where English traders would meet with traders from Geneva; and that Wotton was therefore compelled to wait till the next Mart in the spring to pay his debt.

Henry Wotton’s years of travel and study were now for the time over; he had returned to England to seek his fortune, endowed with great learning, much experience, and a wide knowledge of European politics and languages. He was then noted by many, Izaak Walton writes, ‘both for his person and comportment; for indeed he was of a choice shape, tall of stature, and of a most persuasive behaviour; which was so mixed with sweet discourse and civilities, as gained him love from all persons with whom he entered into an acquaintance. And whereas he was noted in his youth to have a sharp wit, and apt to jest; that by time, travel, and conversation was so polished, and made so useful, that his company seemed to be one of the delights of mankind.’ His character, as we shall find it determining his future career, was now formed. A wit and courtier, with the self-possession of a man of action, ready for any adventure and disguise, he was yet by nature and inclination a scholar and student; and beneath his cosmopolitan experience, and the taste and culture of Italy, he had preserved something of the simplicity and piety of the old Wottons, and an untouched devotion to the religion of his country.

his friend Donne wrote to him in a verse-epistle which, as Mr. Gosse has proved, belongs to about this period,^[2] and which gives us another glimpse of Wotton through contemporary eyes.

But it is vain to search history for perfect beings. Izaak Walton, who saw every one in the light of his own beautiful and pious nature, has given to Wotton’s life a character of sanctity which it may have possessed in his retired and religious old age, but which one can hardly expect to find in one of the young courtiers of Elizabeth. There is plenty of evidence to show that observers, less friendly than Donne, watched Wotton with the distrust of the traditional ‘Inglese Italianato’—with a certain suspicion of his sincerity and good faith. Even Donne’s epistle might read like an admonition to ‘Utopian youth grown old Italian’, a warning against the notion that one could touch pitch and not be stained, could know vices and not act them. Throughout Wotton’s active career we have the curious phenomenon of a man leading an unusually blameless life, in an age when great qualities were almost always associated with great faults and misdeeds, a man against whom a definite accusation was seldom or never brought, and who was yet frequently suspected of double-dealing and sinister motives. It would almost seem as if Wotton had learned only too well the need of disguise impressed on him by his old host in Siena; and finding in Italy ‘that he who would be safe must not always be good’, had decided that even for the virtuous, an appearance of subtlety and evil was a useful part of the mask which, for his own protection, the wise man must wear. However this may be, his habit of concealing his thoughts was enough to make him an object of suspicion; and, in any case, a travelled Englishman, returning home with foreign manners and foreign phrases, was but doubtfully regarded by his sturdy and straightforward compatriots. But Wotton’s character was not without definite faults, both in reality and appearance. ‘An undervaluer of money,’ as Izaak Walton gently puts it, we shall find him, like most of his contemporaries, often in pecuniary difficulties, and, like them, not unwilling to accept secret gifts of money. But, perhaps, for the life he had chosen, his greatest fault was a certain carelessness or nonchalance of character, a bookish abstraction and love of quiet, which, in future years, made him sometimes forget absent friends and neglect routine obligations. For the present, however, he was but a youth, mingling, with the hopes and ambitions of youth, in the life and politics of the English Court.

These years at the end of the sixteenth century are of supreme importance in the history of literature, although politically the great days of Elizabeth’s reign were over. The Queen had grown old; the famous statesmen of her reign were either dead or dying, and the last years were troubled by personal quarrels and her own follies. The faction between Essex and the Cecils, which occupies the foreground of the history of this decade, was a strife, not for principle or faith, but for personal power and the favour of the Queen. But this struggle must always remain interesting on account of the great personalities involved, the dramatic incidents, and the tragic ending. We are, however, only concerned with the modest part played in it by the young Henry (or, as his contemporaries called him, Harry) Wotton. When he returned to England, late in the year 1594, his hope of winning the favour of some great man was speedily fulfilled; and by the solicitation of his brother, Sir Edward Wotton, he was taken, almost immediately, into the service of the Queen’s favourite, the Earl of Essex.^[3] Essex at this time was not only ambitious of military glory, but had come to desire political power as well. As foreign affairs were the great preoccupation of the time when Elizabeth was excommunicated, and still at war with Spain, and continually threatened from abroad, Essex devoted his wealth and energies to obtaining early and accurate information from foreign countries. He maintained, in rivalry with Burghley, what might almost be called a foreign office of his own, with news-agents and spies; and by 1594 much of the foreign correspondence, greatly to the annoyance of the Cecils, passed through his hands.

In 1595 Wotton entered the Middle Temple ^[4], but he was never called to the Bar. Already in the summer of this year he had become, as he wrote his friend Blotius, one of the secretaries of Essex.^[5] A paper, preserved among the Cecil MSS., signed ‘Harry Wotton’, giving the names of his political acquaintances and correspondents abroad, who might be useful in the way of providing information, was probably written at the time of his return, and addressed to Essex.^[6] We soon find him employed by Essex in confidential business. In October, 1595, he visited, on the behalf of Essex, the Markgraf of Baden ^[7], then in London; and in December of this year he was entrusted with a mission of some delicacy, being sent to Paris to entice home a certain Godfrey Aleyn, who had gone from England to France as secretary to the exiled Spanish Minister, Antonio Perez. Perez had been sent by Essex on a mission to Henry IV; Aleyn had intercepted some of his letters and sent copies to England; and Essex, fearing the secrets he might reveal, was anxious to get him back before he knew his treachery was discovered. Wotton arrived in Paris on Dec. 13, 1595 (O.S.), and arranged an ingenious plot with Perez. Perez was to pretend that Wotton had brought important letters from Essex, so important that he could not trust Wotton, as he did not know him very well, with the answers. He, therefore, made Aleyn believe that he had prepared two sets of ciphers, and that he would give the real ones to Aleyn in secret, sending him to England ostensibly to bring back a sum of money he had left there, while Wotton was to be given the second set, which he should think were the real ones. Aleyn, thinking he was deceiving Wotton, was himself deceived, and, as Perez wrote, ‘took the hook readily into his jaws’, and, returning to England, delivered his papers full of unmeaning ciphers, and was at once arrested and put in the Clink prison, where he remained six months.^[8]

In 1596 Wotton sailed with Essex on the famous Cadiz expedition ^[9], which has been too often written about to need description here. His brother, James Wotton, and his friends, Arthur Throckmorton and John Donne, were of the company. Donne, then a youth of twenty-three, was in personal attendance on the Earl of Essex, and was perhaps induced by Wotton to join the expedition. It is probable that the two friends sailed on Essex’s ship, the Ark Royal; and we can imagine the thoughts of these young men setting out, not unlike the Argonauts on a famous adventure, with the heroes of their time, and how they watched the gathering in of the fleet towards evening, as ship greeted ship with sound of trumpets and noise of cheerful voices. They may have been witnesses, too, of that famous moment when Raleigh rowed back from the ship of the commander of the expedition, Lord Thomas Howard, and passing under the Ark Royal told the great news that Cadiz was to be attacked to Essex, who in his joy threw his hat far into the sea, shouting ‘Entramos, entramos!’

Wotton also went on the Azores expedition in 1597, which he afterwards described, contrary to the verdict of history, as the best of the voyages of Essex ‘for the discovery of the Spanish weakness, and otherwise almost a saving voyage’.^[10] About Wotton’s life while in the service of Essex, we have not much information. Only eleven letters, written between the years 1595 and 1600, seem to have been preserved; and although his name appears occasionally in the Bacon papers, the references are for the most part of no great importance. They show, however, that the dependents of Essex quarrelled among themselves, and that some of them at least felt towards Wotton that distrust and suspicion which his conduct or his manner aroused in unfriendly observers. Edward Reynolds, another of the Earl’s secretaries, wrote to Anthony Bacon that he observed ‘some spleen in his carriage’^[11]; and when in 1596 Essex sent Dr. Henry Hawkins on a political mission to Italy, Bacon accused Wotton of keeping back some letters of introduction, which were found ‘in a merchant’s window in London by my Cousin Harry Wotton’s dutiful care and discreet address’. Bacon wrote to Essex begging that the matter might be sifted to the bottom ^[12], and to Hawkins telling of the discovery of the letters, and adding: ‘but let us leave my cousin for such as he is; but doubt you not but I have and will improve this my cousin’s prank and your disaster for his shame and your advantage the best I can.’^[13] Wotton declared, however, that the letters discovered in London were duplicates, and that the originals had been sent; and as we shortly afterwards find Wotton in the position of secretary for Italian and German business, it is plain that Anthony Bacon’s accusations did not injure him in his patron’s eyes.^[14]

In spite of the bitter rivalry between Essex and Sir Robert Cecil, an appearance of friendly relations between the two leaders and their followers was maintained; and just before the sailing of the Cadiz expedition, we find Henry Wotton writing to Cecil, (who was a friend of his brother Edward, and afterwards his own greatest patron), about a lease of property, belonging to New College, which he wished to procure. The College authorities were reluctant to grant this favour; but Court influence seems to have proved too strong, and in 1599 the Manor of Stanton St. John was leased to Henry Wotton at a rent of six pounds a year.^[15] Another letter to Cecil written at the end of 1597 has been preserved. It is about a diplomatic mission to Germany on which Wotton was expecting to be sent, but which eventually was entrusted to some one else. The letter to Blotius already mentioned, two letters to Casaubon, and one apparently to the Earl of Essex are, with the letters to Cecil, all that remains of Henry Wotton’s correspondence for the years 1595-8.^[16] To Casaubon he wrote apologizing for his long silence, and recalling the happy and studious days they had spent together; and to Essex, writing from Plymouth, a few days after the return from the Azores expedition, he sends news he had received from a correspondent in Berne, about the attempts of Philip II to win the Swiss from their allegiance to Henry IV.

In 1599 Wotton accompanied Essex on his disastrous expedition to Ireland. After a stormy passage they landed at Dublin on April 14; and on the 19th Wotton wrote to his fellow secretary, Edward Reynolds (who had remained at Court), expressing good hopes for the campaign. In two unsigned letters which I believe to have been written by Wotton to John Donne, and which I include in these volumes,^[17] will be found the impression which Ireland made on the followers of Essex; a country in which there was almost nothing, ‘but it is savage or wanton,’ and whose people ‘wanted nothing more than to be kept in fear’—a view of the Irish which, rightly or wrongly, has often been entertained by subsequent visitors to that island.

It is not necessary to follow the course of this famous and unfortunate Irish adventure, which ended in the disgraceful treaty with Tyrone, the rebel leader. Wotton, as secretary of Essex, was one of the principal negotiators of the treaty. ‘The Earl of Essex sent me with the necessary instructions,’ he told the Doge of Venice eight years afterwards, when Tyrone had fled to Italy, ‘and I went to the army of the Earl of Tyrone, which numbered 25,000 Irishmen; I stayed with him a whole day. Tyrone, he added, was as cunning and suspicious a character as could be found ^[18]; and this day spent in his camp, negotiating this humiliating treaty with ‘Carmoc Mac Gonnis, Mac Giure, Mac Cowley’ and others, left a vivid impression on Wotton’s mind; and his habitual kindliness of judgement is a little obscured whenever afterwards the Irish are mentioned in his letters.

When Essex injudiciously and hurriedly returned to England in September, Wotton came with him, bringing the articles of the treaty which had so enraged the Queen.^[19] For the next eighteen months the fate of Essex remained uncertain; the heroic old Queen now seemed determined on his disgrace, now showed touches of relenting; until at length, urged on by rash councils and his own desperation, the unfortunate young man was hurried into open rebellion—‘the last act,’ as Wotton described it, ‘which was written in the Book of necessity.’ Of Wotton’s own whereabouts, his thoughts and fears during this time, we know very little. Belonging to the more moderate section of the Earl’s followers, he probably tried to counteract the dangerous influence of Henry Cuffe, his fellow secretary; and Cuffe, or some others of Essex’s party, took advantage of this, and of a nearer alliance between Sir Edward Wotton and Cecil, to make Henry Wotton’s loyalty suspected by Essex. Foreseeing the tragic outcome of a situation he was powerless to remedy, and in disgrace with the Queen, who was bitterly incensed against all who had shared in the surrender to Tyrone, Wotton took the safe course of retiring abroad; and he was already far on his way to Italy, when the final catastrophe overwhelmed Essex and his rasher adherents.

The authenticated facts of the next three years of Henry Wotton’s life read more like romance than history; and even our information about them is sometimes derived from curious and unexpected sources. The first mention of his name during this period appears in a bundle of old letters, ill-spelt, often almost illegible, and full of curiously misplaced moral platitudes, written by certain Italian spies and assassins, and preserved in the archives of the quiet old town of Lucca.

When Henry Wotton went abroad this second time, he took with him his young nephew, Pickering Wotton, Sir Edward Wotton’s eldest surviving son. With Pickering Wotton travelled a certain Lucchese gentleman, Alessandro Antelminelli, who, however, called himself Amerigo Salvetti, having good reason to conceal a name famous in the history of Lucca and Italy. For the family of Antelminelli (or Interminelli as Wotton and others spelt the name) were collaterally descended from Castruccio Castracani, who was tyrant of Lucca in Dante’s time. A few years before, Bernardino Antelminelli, father of the young Alessandro, passing by the borders of the little Lucchese Republic, had been heard to boast that by right of inheritance, the lordship of Lucca belonged to him; and he had subsequently attempted, by means of forged documents, to establish his direct descent in the male line from the famous tyrant. The Republic, which existed in ever-present fear of conquest, was much alarmed by these pretensions of Bernardino (especially as he was known to be in the pay of their great enemy, the Grand Duke of Tuscany) and resolved to exterminate the whole family. The Government succeeded in capturing and putting to death Bernardino and three of his sons ^[20]; but one son, this Alessandro, escaped to England on hearing of his father’s execution. He was condemned to death, and a large reward offered for his capture or assassination. And then began one of the most curious stories that can be found in the pages of history. For fifty years the unfortunate man was hunted by the spies and assassins of the little Republic, frequently in danger of his life, but always escaping; and after long and hazardous journeys about Europe, he finally settled in England, and in the year 1618 was appointed Tuscan Resident at the English Court.^[21] Even this position did not prevent attempts at his assassination; but they were always unsuccessful, and he finally died in 1657, at the ripe age of eighty-five, leaving several sons, one of whom succeeded him in his office of Tuscan Resident.

The letters preserved at Lucca concerning this long persecution (letters of spies and assassins, letters from Salvetti pleading his innocence, and begging for pardon) make most curious reading ^[22]; we must, however, confine ourselves to the information about Wotton which they contain.

On Dec. 13, 1600, Marcantonio Franciotti, a Lucchese spy in London, wrote that Salvetti had left England about fifteen days previously in the company of Pickering and Henry Wotton. They were travelling to Italy, but meant to stop at Paris for the marriage festivals of Henry IV and Marie de’ Medici. Franciotti recommended that an assassin should be sent to Paris, as the occasion was a favourable one for murdering Salvetti.^[23] A certain captain Jacobo Lucchezini, was given 100 crowns, and a letter of credit for 200 more, and sent to Paris for this purpose ^[24]; but, like all the Lucchese assassins, he accomplished nothing. Salvetti and the two Wottons were traced to Lyons, (whither another assassin was sent), and then to Pisa, where they arrived about the end of February, 1601. While at Pisa, Wotton, as he afterwards wrote, discovered that Salvetti was a man condemned to death in his own country, and forbad him his house ^[25]; but in spite of this they seem to have left Pisa together on March 2 for Florence, where they arrived on the 4th.^[26]

A letter to Casaubon, written at this time, shows how deeply Wotton felt the change in his fortunes caused by the fall of Essex.^[27] He could not act the stoic, and pretend that by the loss of Court favour he had lost nothing; on the contrary, he had lost much. His past life had been the sport of false hopes, his future must be one of wandering and exile—and as the fresh memory of his misfortunes comes over him, he interrupts his letter. But when he takes up his pen again, it is to write of the consolations he found in the shipwreck of his fortunes, his affection for Casaubon, the memory of their happy days together, and the love of literature and learning, which was the basis of their friendship. He begs Casaubon to write to him in Greek, and promises to answer in the same language. There is a great contrast in sincerity of feeling between this letter from Florence, and the letter to Casaubon written five and a half years before from Elizabeth’s Court, and interrupted by the distractions of business and affairs.^[28] The protestations of affection, the phrases recalling their companionship of old, which seem forced and half sincere in the earlier letter, have a genuine ring about them now, when Wotton had learnt by bitter experience the instability of worldly hopes.

But shortly after this letter was written, Henry Wotton started out again in the hunt for fortune, and again in curious company. For about the middle of March there had arrived at Florence that famous traveller and adventurer, Sir Anthony Sherley, whose history is too well known to need recounting here. It will, however, be remembered that in 1599, Sherley had gone to Persia, on a mission to the Shah; and that in the following year, the Shah had sent him, with a nobleman of his Court and a train of Persians, on a diplomatic mission to the princes of Europe, to urge them to combine with Persia against the Turk.

Sherley had been in Russia, the Emperor Rudolf had welcomed him at Prague, and he was now on his way to Rome to see the Pope. Henry Wotton and Anthony Sherley were connected by family ties,^[29] and had been together with their patron Essex, on the voyage to the Azores. Sherley now introduced Wotton to the notice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany,^[30] and when, early in April, he went with his Persian attendants to Rome, Wotton went with them. Salvetti followed, and joined them at Rome, being pursued on the way by a band of Lucchese assassins, who made a vain attempt to capture him at the passage of the Ronciglione.^[31]

Sherley and his train were given a magnificent reception on their arrival at Rome. The nobles and gentlemen of the city rode out to meet them; salvoes of cannon from the fort of S. Angelo greeted their entrance, they were splendidly lodged in the Palazzo della Rovere; and Sir Anthony Sherley, who displayed great zeal for Roman Catholicism, was for a while high in the favour of the Pope. Amid the other curious circumstances of this visit, (which was Wotton’s fourth and last to Rome), an element of comedy was not lacking. The Persian nobleman, sent in attendance on Sherley, believed, or pretended to believe, that he was the ambassador, and Sherley his attendant; but speaking no European language, he had been unable to make known his pretensions at the various Courts they had visited. But at Rome he claimed precedence, and the best apartment in their palace; and finding an interpreter, told the Venetian ambassador that Sherley had usurped the position that belonged to him, and had stolen the presents the Shah had sent to the princes of Europe.^[32] Soon, however, both he and Sherley were in disgrace with the Pope, and forced to leave Rome. But before this Wotton had been sent back to Florence with letters to the Grand Duke, and letters for England also.^[33] He arrived in Florence on May 31 ^[34]; and about a week later the Grand Duke sent him on a mission to the north. Before telling the story of this romantic journey, some account of Wotton’s companions during this period of exile will be of interest. Sir Anthony Sherley went to Venice, and was there imprisoned for debt, or for some unknown cause; and in prison he remained till the death of Queen Elizabeth. He subsequently entered the Spanish service, and died a pensioner of the King of Spain. His companion, the Persian nobleman, returned to Persia, and was put to death by order of the Shah. Pickering Wotton remained in Florence; we find him in Venice with his uncle two years later, and in Spain in 1605, in which year he died. His deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism, under the influence of Father Richard Walpole, caused some little sensation at the time.^[35] While at Florence the Lucchese spy became the companion of his pleasures, and wormed himself into his confidence, in order to discover the whereabouts of Salvetti. Pickering Wotton told all he knew, but for two years Salvetti disappeared from sight. Six years later, after other vain attempts to capture him, the authorities of Lucca, believing him to be in England, entered into negotiations to have him kidnapped by the English Government and sent to Italy by sea. These negotiations, which eventually came to nothing, were conducted as part of his official business, by none other than Henry Wotton himself, who was then the English ambassador at Venice.

But the history of this belongs to a later period; we have now come to an incident in Wotton’s life, a secret and mysterious journey, which proved the turning-point in his fortunes. He arrived in Florence, as I have said, on May 31, and on June 9 Daniele da Massa, the Lucchese spy, wrote to say that ‘il volpone vecchio’, as he called Wotton, had ridden away, giving out that he was going to Bologna and Venice. Pickering Wotton had accompanied him with a friend, as far as Pratolino.^[36] It was believed that he was going to Germany; but the real object of his mission was kept a profound secret, even from his nephew.

There was in Florence at this time a young Englishman named Thomas Wilson, who afterwards earned an unenviable fame as the spy who betrayed Sir Walter Raleigh. He was now acting as foreign intelligencer for Sir Robert Cecil, and his letters to Cecil are preserved in the Record Office. On September 16 he wrote that Sir Anthony Sherley was in Venice, and that he had written to Pickering Wotton to inquire if his uncle Henry had returned from Germany;

On October 5, Wilson wrote that Wotton had not yet returned; ‘his business, whereabout he is all this while, is wrapped up in great secrecy.’^[37]

Wotton’s journey, the object of which Cecil’s spy could not discover, was, as we know from other sources, to James VI in Scotland. Ferdinand I, formerly a cardinal, and now Grand Duke of Tuscany, was a wise, subtle, and ambitious prince, who by means of spies and correspondents kept himself well informed of the secret plans of foreign Courts and politicians. He had now discovered one of the plots for the assassination of James VI, which, in expectation of the death of Queen Elizabeth, were planned by some of the more ardent of the Spanish Catholic party, who dreaded the accession of a Protestant king, and wished to strengthen the claim of Philip II’s daughter, the Infanta Isabella.^[38] Being on friendly terms with James VI, and connected with him by marriage with a princess of Lorraine, and believing himself to have great knowledge about poisons and their antidotes,^[39] Ferdinand determined to send a warning and a casket of antidotes, by some trusty bearer. Henry Wotton, who had been introduced to his notice by Sir Anthony Sherley, and who had moreover become an intimate friend of his confidential secretary, Belisario Vinta, was chosen for this purpose; and it is plain that Wotton, despairing of advancement in England, had decided to enter the Grand Duke’s service, and that he looked for advancement at his Court. Pretending therefore to be an Italian, and taking the name of Ottavio Baldi, Wotton started for Scotland, bearing with him the casket of antidotes, and a dispatch ‘of high and secret importance’, which the Grand Duke had intercepted, touching the succession to the English crown. He also carried a letter from the little Prince of Tuscany to Prince Henry of Scotland, who was then a boy of seven.

Avoiding England, he travelled through Germany to Denmark (the journey, as he afterwards wrote, was a painful one ^[40]) and taking ship landed in Scotland early in September. Our next document (a dispatch of September 9, 1601, from George Nicolson, Elizabeth’s agent at the Court of James VI) describes the arrival of a mysterious envoy ‘of high stature, brown-haired, sober and thought-wise’, who had come from the Duke of Tuscany, and was going immediately to meet the King.^[41]

Our documents now fail us, but Izaak Walton has told the story of Wotton’s reception by James VI. Save that the interview took place, not at Stirling, as Walton seems to suggest, but at Dunfermline, near by, his account agrees with that of Nicolson, and indeed he had no doubt heard the story from Wotton’s own lips.

By means of Bernard Lindsay the King learned, with surprise, of the arrival of an Italian ambassador or messenger, calling himself Ottavio Baldi, who declared that his business was of such importance that the Grand Duke of Tuscany had suddenly sent him from his native country of Italy to impart it to him. James VI thereupon arranged to receive him privately that evening.

Wotton seems to have spent the winter in Scotland, for in March, 1602, or before that date, he passed through Hamburg,^[42] and was back in Florence by the end of May. Of his sojourn in Scotland we know little. How, on one occasion, his English nationality was revealed, was told to Drummond of Hawthornden by Ben Jonson in a not very edifying little anecdote.^[43] When Wotton returned to Florence, he wrote in Italian an account of his impressions of James VI and his Court, which is now in the Florence Archives, and which is printed in these volumes.^[44] His description of the gossiping, undignified James VI agrees with the accounts which other contemporaries have left us; but the expression, which he noted in the King’s eyes, of modesty and kindness, ‘una certa bontà naturale tirando al modesto,’ adds a vivid touch to our picture of that monarch, whom we can hardly respect as a King, but who, like his grandson Charles II, possessed such good humour and natural kindliness of nature, that it is equally impossible to dislike him. Wotton notices James’s addiction to learned talk and his fondness for jests; and if the learned and witty Ottavio Baldi proved (as he must have done) a congenial courtier, the King, who loved mystification, was no doubt particularly pleased by the presence of an Italian envoy, who was really a young Englishman in disguise, and the brother of the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, sixteen years before, had come to Scotland, and, by his gaiety, and good breeding, and accomplishments, had obtained almost a dangerous influence in the Scotch Court. The joke indeed about Henry Wotton’s disguise was kept up for many years, and his subsequent letters to the King were frequently signed by the Italian name of Ottavio Baldi.

Travelling back through Germany in a leisurely manner, and conversing with his learned friends, Bongars and Hoeschel and Marquard Freher, Wotton, unaware how materially his visit to the future King of England would affect his fortunes, seems to have been confirmed in his determination to lead the scholar’s life. In Florence once more, he wrote to Casaubon of his literary plans; he was composing an essay on Fate in Greek, which, with his other labours, he would dedicate to Casaubon in gratitude for his kindness; and to Hoeschel he declared that now, after the shipwreck of his fortunes, it was his ambition to win the commendation of the good and wise.^[45]

Wotton seems to have remained in Florence throughout the summer and autumn of 1602. A letter to Thomas Wilson, printed in these volumes, three Latin letters,^[46] and three notes in Italian,^[47] preserved in the Florence Archives, and addressed to Belisario Vinta, are all that remain of Wotton’s correspondence at this time.

In May, 1603, we find Wotton at Venice. The death of Queen Elizabeth, in the previous March, had produced a great change in his prospects. Her successor regarded with no disfavour the followers of Essex, who had consistently supported his claim to the throne; and Henry Wotton had already won his notice and affection. Of almost equal importance was the fact that Sir Robert Cecil, who was destined to control the government of England for the next nine years, had expressed to Sir Edward Wotton a favourable opinion of his brother Henry. Sir Edward sent the news of this to Italy; and Henry replied in a letter to Cecil, offering to join with his brother’s devotion to Cecil’s interests, and expressing a hope that Cecil would make use of him in the public service. He speaks frankly of his former relations with Cecil’s rival Essex; and while admitting that he owed a duty to the memory of his former master, yet there was in his opinion, he wrote, no reason why that obligation should be eternal; especially as he had taken no part in the rebellion of that earl, and indeed toward the last, owing to the relation between the families of Cecil and Wotton, had been treated by Essex with some distrust.^[48] The first Earl of Salisbury has the reputation of a cold and crafty person, without heart or friends. In his relations, however, with Henry Wotton his character shows itself in a more amiable light; he never withdrew the favour and friendship he had once granted; quickly forgave Wotton’s errors; always wrote to him in a kindly and considerate manner, and on his deathbed recommended that Wotton should succeed him as Secretary of State.

When Wotton wrote to Cecil he was on the point of leaving Venice. He intended to travel to Germany with his nephew Pickering Wotton, who was with him, and expected to be at the Frankfort Mart in September, after which he was going to France. On December 5 we hear of him as being in Paris on private business, and in April, 1604, if not earlier, he came to England. Walton tells the story of his return; how James, when he came from Scotland, asked Sir Edward Wotton ‘if he knew one Henry Wotton, who had spent much time in foreign travel?’ Edward Wotton replied that he knew him well, and that he was his brother.

Walton adds that the King offered Henry Wotton the choice of the French, Spanish, and Venetian embassies, and that of the three he chose Venice; but I find no corroboration for this. Indeed by December 5, 1603 (O.S.), before he came to England, Cecil told Nicolò Molin, the Venetian envoy, that Wotton had been appointed ambassador to Venice ^[49]; and James afterwards said he had chosen him for this post because he had formerly known him in Scotland, ‘whither the Grand Duke had sent him, as being a discreet and prudent gentleman, who had lived so long in Italy that he was master of its manners and its tongue.’^[50]

Wotton remained in England till the summer of 1604. He visited the Venetian ambassador, Molin, in June, to discuss a smuggling case,^[51] and on Tuesday, July 10, Molin wrote to the Doge that Wotton had been knighted by the King on the previous Sunday (July 8, O.S.), and was to leave on Friday. ‘He is a gentleman,’ the ambassador added, ‘of excellent condition, wise, prudent, able. Your Serenity, it is to be hoped, will be very well pleased with him.’^[52] On July 19 Wotton was at Dover, whence, as was customary at this time, when an ambassador went abroad, one of the King’s ships was to convey him to Boulogne.^[53] It is worth noting that while Wotton was travelling to Venice, Shakespeare was probably engaged in writing his great Venetian tragedy, Othello, which was acted before James I in November of this year.

Special envoys, sent abroad to negotiate a treaty, arrange a royal marriage, or for purposes of formal congratulation or condolement, had for centuries played a part in European history, and great noblemen were still employed in this manner. The custom of sending resident or ‘lieger’ ambassadors to reside at foreign Courts dated from the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the more modern conception of the balance of power, replacing the mediaeval ideal of the unity of the Empire, lent importance to the negotiations by which that balance was maintained.^[1] Henry VII, who was the first English king to maintain agents at foreign Courts, had employed for this purpose men of obscure position who were meanly paid. But under the monarchs who succeeded him, the English Residents grew in position and importance. Although there was no regular diplomatic corps, and the profession was still an open one, it was usual to select for resident ambassadors gentlemen and knights of good family, and as a rule men who, like Wotton, had studied foreign politics abroad in their youth, or who, like Sir Dudley Carleton or Sir Ralph Winwood, had served an apprenticeship as secretary to an older ambassador.^[2]

The pay of a resident ambassador in the reign of James I was at the rate of five marks, or £3 6s. 8d. a day, for his ‘diets’^[3] (a special ambassador was paid £4 or £5 a day), and in addition to this sum he was given about £400 a year for his special expenses, couriers, and secret service. There was a liberal allowance also for travel, and the transport of his goods. Out of his personal salary (about £1,200 a year in the money of the day, and perhaps six times as much in present value) he paid for his house, servants, food, and the salaries of his secretaries and staff. The money in itself was ample, but the payment extremely irregular; and James I’s envoys almost invariably returned from their missions in financial distress, and found it almost impossible to extract the sums owing them from the public exchequer. His personal staff or ‘family’ each ambassador chose for himself, taking with him perhaps a dozen young men, who lived in the house of their chief, and returned to England when he returned.^[4]

Of these the principal person was the chief secretary, who helped the ambassador in his business, kept a register of his negotiations, and had charge of his ciphers and papers of importance. When the ambassador was ill, or absent from the place of his charge, the chief secretary could act for him, and in some cases he wrote, or helped to write, the ambassador’s dispatches.^[5] In addition to the chief secretary, there were one or two assistant secretaries, who were employed for translating and copying, and to whom the ambassador frequently dictated his dispatches. A native of the country where the envoy resided was moreover engaged as a secretary ‘for language and compliments’, and of all the suite he alone received his salary from the English exchequer. Another of the household was steward, keeping the ambassador’s accounts, and acting as housekeeper and treasurer, and another was gentleman usher, or master of ceremonies. The ambassador also took a chaplain with him, being allowed by custom to celebrate the rites of his own religion in his private chapel; and he sometimes took his own physician as well. Five or six more young men of good family, who desired to see something of the world, or to push their fortunes under the ambassador’s patronage, made up the envoy’s household. Besides their duties at the embassy, these secretaries and attachés (as they would now be called) were sometimes sent on secret missions into neighbouring countries, and sometimes to England, to carry dispatches that were too important to be trusted to the ordinary post. These missions and journeys were often sufficiently adventurous; the disguised young Englishmen acting as spies were sometimes spied on themselves, and thrown into prison, and had to reveal their quality to obtain release; those travelling to England might be waylaid, and their dispatches stolen, or be attacked by robbers and left for dead where they fell. The privilege, however, of carrying dispatches to England was highly valued, as the bearer was by this means introduced to the notice of the Secretary, or even of the King himself.

Each ambassador was provided with a service of silver plate,^[6] and in addition to the gentlemen of his suite, he was accompanied by a number of footmen and pages.^[7]

The reign of the peace-loving James I was a time of numerous and brilliant embassies, and the sight of an English envoy on his travels was both picturesque and splendid. The ambassador shone, as a contemporary describes one of them, like a comet, all in crimson and beaten gold; behind him followed sometimes as many as one hundred attendants, footmen, and pages in splendid liveries, young men in satin suits, with gold lace and gilt spurs, and waving feathers—‘a whole forest of feathers,’ Chapman describes the train, though he detracts from the dignity of his image by comparing the ambassador, as he plodded along, to a schoolmaster followed by his boys.^[8]

Wotton’s company when he went on his first journey to Venice, included his nephew, Albertus Morton, his chaplain Nathaniel Fletcher (a brother of the dramatist, John Fletcher), and several young men of Kentish families,^[9] sons of gentlemen who lived in the neighbourhood of Bocton. They rode across Germany on horseback, carrying their light luggage with them; while their heavier effects, and furniture for the ambassador’s house, were shipped direct by sea to Venice. On August 14 Wotton was in Augsburg, whence he wrote to Cecil, but his letter has not been preserved.^[10] It was at Augsburg that he committed the indiscretion, afterwards famous, of writing his witty definition of an ambassador in the album of a friend, and signing it in full pomp of name and title. ‘An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country,’ the definition would read in English, but the pun is lost in the Latin in which Wotton wrote it.^[11]

The journey through France and Germany was pleasant enough in times of peace; and Wotton proceeded with his company in a leisurely manner, visiting in state the towns where he had been known as a poor scholar. He probably crossed the Alps by the Splügen Pass to Chiavenna, which was his usual route in entering Italy. Sometimes, however, the main passes were closed by war or epidemics, and he was compelled to force his way ‘by such rocks and precipices, as I think Hannibal did hardly exceed it, when he made his way (as poets tell us) with fire and vinegar’.^[12]

It was on September 23, 1604, that the young English ambassador arrived in Venice. Entering the city incognito, he went into temporary lodgings to rest and recover from his journey. The sight of Venice, familiar to him, but new to his companions, was one of the most beautiful and splendid that could be found in Europe. Venice, with its hundreds of churches, monasteries, and gardens, with its ten thousand gondolas, and with the great concourse in its piazze and streets, of men from all nations of Europe and the East, was regarded as the home of pomp and pleasure, and the most admired city of the world.^[13] Nor had life in Venice ever appeared in a more splendid guise than at this time. In spite of the decline of Venetian power, the wealth and display of the noble families had gone on increasing; great palaces had been recently built, or were in the process of erection, and the ceremonies of Church and State, the processions and pageants, which dazzled contemporary visitors, and still shine for us in the great productions of Venetian art, had grown in magnificence and pomp.^[14] Venice now lies like a sea-shell on the shores of the Adriatic, deserted by the wonderful organism that once inhabited it; but to picture the city as it was at this time, we must remember the power of that Republic whose ancient wisdom, whose unbroken history of freedom, was then the marvel of Europe, and still remains indeed one of the greatest wonders of history. Certainly there has never existed before, and probably will never exist again, such an enduring constitution, such a succession of wise and patriotic statesmen, a government remaining unoverthrown through such a vast tract of history. Unconquered for more than a thousand years, Venice was now the only free corner of Italy, and stood alone in opposing the power of Spain, which was dominant over the rest of the peninsula. Although since the League of Cambrai, the loss of Cyprus, and the partial loss of the Eastern trade, the power of the Republic had been gradually declining, this very falling off of strength had given a greater importance to Venice in European politics. Relying in former years on her maritime empire to supply the two great needs of the State, corn to feed her inhabitants, and soldiers to defend her land dominions, Venice had had no great need of allies out of Italy. But now, harassed on the east by Turks and pirates, she began to look to the north and west for corn and soldiers; and threatened by the Spaniards in Milan, and Spanish fleets from Naples, and aware that Spain was determined, if possible, on her destruction, she found it necessary to seek alliance with the opponents of the Austro-Spanish power. The renewal therefore of diplomatic relations with England, interrupted during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth, was most welcome to Venice; for England was the most powerful Protestant State in Europe; and although far away, could come to her aid with ships and sailors. When therefore Wotton was visited by the Venetian Secretary Scaramelli, to arrange for his formal reception by the Republic, it was readily agreed that he should be given the same honours as the ambassadors of France and Spain.^[15]

Venice, which was the first State in Europe to form a regular diplomatic service, was still regarded as the best place for the training of an ambassador. Nowhere were envoys more highly honoured, and nowhere did they meet with a more munificent welcome, the Republic taking advantage of an ambassador’s arrival to impress on its own citizens and the world a sense of the power and dignity of the State. As Sir Henry Wotton played on three occasions the principal part in pageants of this kind, it will not be superfluous to give some account of the ceremonial. When the ambassador had rested from his journey, and was comfortably settled in his house, he would send word that he was ready for his public reception. For this two days were necessary; on the first, the giorno d’entrata (which, in Wotton’s case, was September 30, a week after his arrival), the ambassador entered his gondola, and, followed by his suite, and all the English in Venice, and the English students at Padua, was rowed by gondoliers a few miles across the lagoons to the island of S. Spirito. Here they disembarked, and entered the gardens and cloisters of the monastery. Shortly afterwards a company of sixty Venetian senators, ‘magnificoes of greatest port,’ dressed in their scarlet robes, and led by a nobleman of highest place, wearing a gold-embroidered stole, followed after them across the lagoons in gondolas adorned with black velvet. They were received by the English ambassador at the entrance of the principal cloister; and after a few compliments, the principal senator led the ambassador to his gondola, and the other senators followed, each walking on the left of one of the assembled Englishmen. They were then rowed back to Venice, past windows and bridges full of sightseers, to the ambassador’s lodging, where a great crowd had collected, and where they were received with a loud noise of drums and trumpets. The Venetians led the Englishmen upstairs, and after a short visit, they were conducted down by their hosts to their gondolas. After their departure a Venetian secretary arrived, bringing a cask of malmsey, and a large number of silver dishes, loaded with candles, and confections, and wax, and loaves of sugar. The next day being the giorno d’audienza, the same senators returned, and conducted the ambassador, dressed in his official gown of figured velvet, adorned with lace, and lined with rich fur,^[16] and his company to the Piazzetta, where, landing first, they stood in a semicircle to receive the English, and led them through a great crowd of spectators to the entrance of the palace, and up the great staircase to the Collegio, where the Doge and Cabinet, with a large number of spectators, were waiting to receive them. As the ambassador entered, he made a triple bow to the Doge and senators on either side. At this bow the Doge and Cabinet arose; the ambassador uncovered, and bowing twice as he advanced, he kissed the Doge’s hand, who then embraced him. He presented his credentials, and they all sat down, the ambassador taking the place of honour at the right hand of the Doge. At this first reception Wotton made a speech in Italian, in which, with abundant phrases, he explained the object of his mission, and expressed the esteem of James I for the Republic. The Doge replied in suitable terms, and after the usual compliments the ambassador retired, being conducted home again by the Venetian senators who had brought him thither.^[17]

The Collegio in the Ducal Palace, with ‘Venice Enthroned’ painted on the ceiling, and Paolo Veronese’s great picture of ‘Thanksgiving for the Battle of Lepanto’, remains as it was in Wotton’s time, and is known to every visitor to Venice. In Wotton’s old age a painting of this room, and his reception in it, hung over his mantelpiece in his dining-hall at Eton.^[18] Wotton had good cause to remember this room, for it was the scene during many years of his negotiations. The Anticollegio, adorned with famous paintings by Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese, Wotton describes as the place ‘where the ambassadors use for a while to take their breath, after the mounting of the palace stairs’.^[19] The Cabinet, or Collegio, by which ambassadors were received, Wotton described as ‘the stomach of the Republic, where all things are first digested’; and his phrase accurately defines the part it played in the machinery of the constitution. Although in theory the Senate was the chief executive body of the State, and was supposed to decide on all important questions of policy and administration, in practice its power was delegated to two committees, the Council of Ten, which had charge of criminal affairs, and the Collegio, composed of the Doge and twenty-five principal senators, to whom foreign affairs and matters of general policy were entrusted. The decisions of this body had to be submitted to the Senate for approval; and though this was generally a matter of form, the majority of the Senate was sometimes of a different political complexion from the Collegio, and would overrule its decisions. The Doge, who presided in the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Collegio, was in theory little more than a figurehead; but a prince of ability and character might indirectly wield much power and influence.

In his audiences the ambassador always sat at the right hand of the Doge. He wore his official robe, and remained covered, but would raise his hat now and then to emphasize some complimentary expression. A Venetian secretary stood by him, and wrote an official account of the audience, taking down his words in shorthand, and describing his ‘passions and pauses’, the varying expressions of his face and voice. On one or two occasions of great importance Wotton gave a copy of his speech, but this was quite exceptional. When the ambassador had spoken, the Doge would make a reply; but being forbidden by law to give a definite answer, he could only ‘float in generalities’, as Wotton described it. Other members of the Collegio might join in the discussion; and then the whole matter, with the Collegio’s decision about it, was referred to the Senate (before which, as before the Council of Ten, no ambassador could appear); and when the matter had been voted on by the Senate, the ambassador would again be summoned to the Collegio to learn its decision.

Readers who would enjoy Wotton’s frank and witty speeches, must be referred to Mr. Horatio Brown’s Calendars, as the exigencies of space do not permit me to print many of his orations. An extract, however, from his speech of January 16, 1606, in which he congratulated the new Doge, Leonardo Donato, on his election, may be quoted as a specimen of his eloquence. He began by quoting Virgil: ‘Most Serene Prince, uno avulso non deficit alter aureus, so must I begin, for I hold it sure that among all the tomes, ancient and modern, you will not find in so small a compass a truer picture of Venice. She is governed now for some thousand two hundred years in the same fashion, with an unfailing display of the highest qualities. True, from time to time she has been shaken, as the storms lash up the lagoons, but she has always recovered in the end, renewed her youth, regained’—here the ambassador permitted himself a pun—‘her lost serenity. Each time I think on her orderly government, her sound institutions, her exaltation of the worthy, her punishment of the evil, the reverence paid to her magistrates, the encouragement of her youth in the paths of virtue and the service of their country, I am forced to believe that, come what may, she will survive until the final dissolution of the elements themselves.’^[20]

Another extract will give an idea of his more familiar style. In the same year the Jesuits had published, and circulated in Italy, Garnett’s denial of all connexion with the Gunpowder Plot, and Wotton addressed the Doge as follows: ‘Your Serenity, I assure you that when I read that denial, I was astounded to see such desperate impudence; for a few days earlier I had read certain News-sheets printed here in Venice by these good Fathers, relating their progress in Muscovy, the conversion of a king in Africa, and so on. I said to myself, “All right about Muscovy, it’s a cold country afar away, few go there and few return. About Africa, it’s a country separated from us by the sea, full of strange names, where every now and then a Portuguese or two may land.” The Jesuits might have published, had they chosen, the conversion—God forgive me—of a crocodile. But now that the ancient friendly relations between Venice and Great Britain have been re-established and envoys sent by both sides, who keep each party fully informed every week of all that is going on, upon my soul I am amazed that the Society should dare to treat Italy as a simpleton.’^[21]

Equally eloquent, if less witty, are the speeches of the Doges, and especially those of the great Leonardo Donato, who was at the head of the State during the greater part of Wotton’s first embassy. The power of the Venetian State was entrusted to the ablest of the Venetian nobles in their ripe and wise old age. Trained in their youth in administrative and diplomatic work, they acted in middle age as ambassadors and proconsuls; and when, grown old in statecraft, they came to govern the Republic, they possessed a stately bearing then unique in Europe, and a dignity of eloquence which was the inheritance of a thousand years of freedom. In the portraits of Titian, Tintoretto, and the Bassani, we see the noble faces of these profound old men, and the Venice records are full of their wise deliberations and golden speech. Although the long continuance of Venice is a justification of their government, Wotton and other acute observers noted that this preponderance of old men in the State led to excessive slowness and caution. ‘Good answers,’ he said, ‘are cheaper in this State than good resolutions, or at least than hasty;’ and while in times of peace, the aged senators could weave at leisure their subtle webs of policy, in the sudden emergencies of war their slowness became a danger. ‘The abundance of council and curious deliberation,’ Wotton wrote, ‘by which they subsist in time of peace, is as great a disadvantage in time of action.’^[22]

Sir Dudley Carleton, who succeeded Wotton at Venice, aptly compared the Republic to ‘a clock going with many wheels, and making small motions, sometimes out of order, but soon mended, and all without change or variety’.^[23] The clock was now slowly running down; but it had been adjusted with such niceness, that it went for nearly three centuries more before it stopped; the State maintaining its existence more by the inherited wisdom of its government, than by arms or valour, and preserving internal peace ‘rather through good laws’, as Wotton remarked, ‘than good dispositions.’

Save for his formal audiences in the Collegio, Wotton held little or no communication with the Venetian Government. Such was the suspiciousness of the State, that for an official, or even any Venetian of senatorial rank, to speak without permission to an ambassador, was an offence punishable with lifelong imprisonment or death.^[24] Sometimes he would be permitted a secret meeting with a Venetian secretary, or when he was ill the secretary could visit him at his house; and once or twice a Venetian ambassador, who was going to England, would be allowed to call on him before his departure. But in all such cases full accounts of the conversations were rendered to the Senate; and all other communications between ambassadors and members of the governing class were forbidden by the strictest laws.

As a matter of fact, however, channels of communication between foreign envoys, and senators favourable to the Governments they represented, were secretly established, through which news and advice were privately sent. The Venetians made these communications, either to advance their own private ends, or out of zeal for the party the ambassador supported; but, as Sir Dudley Carleton wrote of his secret advisers, ‘the strictness of their laws makes them like fairies; if you would see them, and take knowledge of their good turns, they are lost.’^[25] Wotton’s dispatches show that he frequently received information in this way; and we shall see how, by means of his chaplain, Bedell, he entered into close relations with Paolo Sarpi, the leader of the anti-papal party, and formed his policy according to Sarpi’s advice and suggestions. The mysterious and hidden character of the Venetian Government, its dark prisons, its secret tribunals, with their ‘unknown dooms and sudden executions’, has formed the theme of many dramas and romances; and travellers in Venice, passing under the Bridge of Sighs, are still expected to feel a vague sense of ancient mystery and terror. The isolation of ambassadors in the midst of Venice, the disguises and dangerous methods by which they entered into communication with Venetian nobles, added another dramatic element to Venetian life, and led to several tragedies, the best known of which is the famous Foscarini case, in which Wotton himself was indirectly involved.

Wotton’s ‘Instructions’ for his first, as well as those for his later embassies in Venice, have not been preserved; all but one of his letters and dispatches written from Venice in 1604, and most of those for 1605, have been lost, although for the subsequent years the collection is almost complete. But from the accounts of his audiences we can learn about his negotiations. Before, however, entering into this subject, it will be of interest to describe his private life in Venice, his home and household, and the occupations of his leisure. After a few months he moved from his temporary lodgings, to a palace which he rented in the once fashionable, but now almost deserted, district of Canareggio, not far from the present railway station. This palace (which can almost certainly be identified with the Palazzo Silvia at the Ponte degli Ormesani) was in the immediate vicinity of the Church of S. Gerolamo, which is now a factory, but was then the conventual church of nuns. From an inventory in the Record Office, made when Wotton left Venice in 1610, we can get some idea of how this palace was furnished.^[26] The walls were hung with arras and gilded leather, and adorned with pictures and armour; there were green velvet armchairs, great andirons and lanterns, tables with their ‘carpets’ (as table-covers were called); and a ‘ground carpet’ is mentioned in the dining-room. There was a billiard-table in the house,^[27] and in Wotton’s study hung a portrait of the young Prince Henry. Many of the large pieces of furniture Wotton hired from the Jews, and apparently on exorbitant terms; for after his departure they boasted that they had had ‘a fleece of him’, and looked for his return as they hoped for the coming of the Messiah.^[28] Wotton also rented a villa at Noventa, on the canal of the Brenta, whither he would often retire during the hot weather, for a change of air, or for the sake of playing bowls and ‘baloon’, of which games he was fond. The neighbourhood of Padua, with the learned professors of its University, and the large number of English students in its famous medical school, made his sojourn at Noventa pleasant. We get glimpses of him in his garden there, enjoying the beauties of nature; and there he was to be found every September ‘pressing his grapes’, as he wrote one of his correspondents; and almost every autumn he would go on a trip through some part of the territories of Venice, to the Friuli, or the Lago di Garda, or to witness fêtes at Vicenza.

On these journeys he was accompanied by his suite, who also went with him to his villa, and lived with him in his Venetian palace. Being prohibited by his position from any association with the nobles of Venice, he was largely dependent for society on the members of his own household. But these young men, his own nephews, sons of Kentish squires, or scholars fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, formed just the kind of society in which he delighted. Together they made what Wotton called a ‘domestic college’ of young Englishmen in their Venetian palace. They had their chaplain and their religious services; they read aloud the classics, or some new book of weight at stated hours,^[29] and dined together, toasting by name their friends in England. They occupied themselves sometimes with music ^[30], (the ambassador himself playing on the viol di gamba), sometimes with chemical experiments, or again with philosophical speculations, attempting, as Wotton put it, to mend the world in the speculative part, since they despaired of putting it right in the practical and moral.^[31]

and his ideal of life was ever one in which, either for business or pleasure, nothing more than study and friendship was necessary. This ideal he could more or less realize in Venice, where he had ample provision of books and friends and harmless days, and where his position was one of considerable leisure, compared with that of an ambassador in Spain or France or the Low Countries.^[32]

I give in an appendix some specimens of what I believe to be notes of Wotton’s ‘Table Talk’, written down by one of his secretaries living in his house. He tells anecdotes of Elizabeth, of his former patron Essex, sayings of Burghley and Salisbury; gives his companions sound and witty moral maxims, wise, if somewhat cynical advice, about Courts and princes; or he amuses them with hits at the Pope and Jesuits, the ways of women and courtiers. Izaak Walton has preserved for us some of the golden talk of Wotton’s retired years and genial and pious old age; in these earlier sayings there is the same wit, the same beautiful turn of phrase, with the freedom and sharpness of a younger man, busy with the world and the affairs of Courts. ‘In summa we live happily, merrily, and honestly,’ one of his household writes; ‘let State businesses go as they will, we follow our studies hard and love one another.’^[33]

So in this almost collegiate society, not unlike the society of Oxford in his youth, or that of Eton, where he passed his old age, Wotton lived pleasantly enough, with his books, his favourite ape ^[34], his congenial companions. We find him taking the air in his gondola, going over the lagoons to shoot ducks in winter,^[35] or watching a comet at night, and rejoicing to think how this sinister apparition would trouble the superstitious old Pope at Rome.^[36] He haunted the churches to study the pictures, or to listen to the music, and was generally to be found in the Church of S. Gerolamo, near his house, when the nuns were singing.^[37] Although, owing to his religion, he could take no official part in the processions and pageants of the State, we may be sure that he went out to see them—indeed, on one occasion some sensation was caused by the sight of the English ambassador climbing up into the organ of St. Mark’s to procure a better view of the Christmas services.^[38] We get another glimpse of him masked at a festa given by the French ambassador, and listening to nymphs reciting speeches composed by his host ^[39]; he haunted the bookshops of Venice, the florists’ gardens at Chioggia, and the glass factories at Murano, where he was well known, and where he would select the best specimens of their beautiful wares for his patrons and friends in England.^[40] He sent melon seeds and rose cuttings to the King; and Parkinson mentions the ‘finocchio’ that John Tradescant received from him, with full directions as to how it should be cooked and eaten.^[41]

The earliest English connoisseur of Italian art, he started the fashion among his countrymen of buying Italian pictures, helping to form the collections of Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Buckingham, and employing a painter to travel about Italy to hunt for works of art. At Eton, at Hampton Court, in the galleries of Hatfield and Newnham Paddox, are to be found pictures of Wotton’s buying; and it is not impossible that, in the gardens of old country houses, there still blossom plants sent from their Italian soil by this courtly ambassador, who was a lover of flowers, and found no greater pleasure than in ‘the simplest ornaments and elegancies of nature’.

For the English visitors to Venice Wotton kept open house; and it was part of his duty to present English travellers of distinction to the Doge, taking them to the Collegio for this purpose. Young Englishmen on the grand tour would sometimes stay with him in his palace, and others, when not invited, would try to gain admittance to this pleasant household. The famous Tom Coryate, and James Howell, the letter-writer, both visited Venice while Wotton was ambassador there, and were kindly treated by him; and Coryate makes an enthusiastic acknowledgement in his Crudities, praising his learning, ‘his most elegant and gracious behaviour amongst the greatest senators and clarissimoes,’ his ‘plausible volubility of speech’, his ‘piety and integrity of life, and his true worship of God in the midst of Popery, superstition, and idolatry’.^[42]

Outside the members of his own household, and the English visitors to Venice, Wotton’s principal associates were the other ambassadors and envoys accredited to the Republic. Besides the papal Nuncio (with whom Wotton, a Protestant, had no intercourse ^[43]), there were the Emperor’s Resident, the regal ambassadors of France and Spain, and the agents of the six important Italian princes, Savoy, Tuscany, Urbino, Parma, Mantua, and Modena. Ambassadors and envoys, when not engaged in quarrelling, paid frequent visits to each other, each boasting about the power of his own prince, and condoling, with affected sympathy, on the misfortunes of the master of his host. Ambassadors whose relations were friendly saw each other very frequently, and interchanged advice and secret information. These friendships were determined by the relations of the countries the envoys represented; and as James showed goodwill both to France and Spain, Wotton began by being on good terms with the French and Spanish ambassadors. The first to call on him was the French representative, Philippe de Fresnes-Canaye, who wrote home on October 6, 1604 (N.S.), that he found ‘Le Chevalier Hutten’ a discreet gentleman, and very affable.^[44] But Henry IV and James I, in spite of appearances of friendship, thoroughly disliked each other, and this dislike soon had its effect in Venice. Canaye, moreover, (who had formerly been a friend and patron of Casaubon), was a recent convert from Protestantism, had been sent to Venice as a reward for his conversion, and had bitterly attacked his old Protestant friends. Soon he began to complain that Wotton did not return his calls,^[45] and exaggerated reports of their strained relations reached Henry IV, who mentioned the matter to the Duke of Lennox, then extraordinary ambassador in France,^[46] and wrote to De Harlay in England that ‘le Chevalier Outon’ was more friendly to Spain than France, and suggested that Cecil had given him orders to stand aloof. It was also reported that Wotton had used injurious expressions about Henry IV ^[47]; but Canaye, on hearing these reports, wrote to deny them; Wotton kept up an appearance of politeness, and he had no real cause for complaint.^[48]

With the Spanish ambassador, Don Inigo de Cardenas, Wotton was at first on very friendly terms, and these lasted till the quarrel between Venice and the Pope in 1606, when Spain and England took opposite sides. In 1607 Cardenas was succeeded by Don Alfonzo della Cueva, better known as the Marquis of Bedmar, whom Wotton described as ‘la gentilezza del mondo’.^[49] Wotton seems never to have suspected Bedmar’s secret scheming against the Republic, which ended in the abortive plot of 1618, when Wotton himself, owing to his friendship for the Spaniard, fell under some suspicion.

An interesting figure at Venice was the Count Asdrubale di Montauto, envoy from Wotton’s old patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose voluminous dispatches in the Florence Archives give many glimpses of the life of this little diplomatic world at Venice. Montauto was a good-natured person, who made it his business to be on friendly terms with his fellow diplomatists, and for this purpose kept a store of the delicacies for which Tuscany was famous, wine, fruits, and biscuits, with which he was accustomed to raddolcire, as he called it, a newly-arrived ambassador. When a supply of these good things was sent from Florence, all the envoys in Venice hurried to his house to get their share (how the news reached them was a mystery to Montauto); Wotton was among the most eager;^[50] indeed, he seems to have thought his former relations with the Grand Duke entitled him to special favours. When there were guests of distinction at the English Embassy, he would come to Montauto for a supply of Tuscan wine,^[51] and on one occasion he called after midnight and begged for a quantity of Florentine cloth with such energy and eloquence (vehementia et dolcezza di parole) that Montauto was forced to agree to send to Florence for it.^[52]

Nor were these gifts confined to presents of wine and Italian delicacies. A good diplomatic turn was sometimes rewarded by a handsome sum of money; and although these gifts were made secretly, it was an almost universal practice at the time to receive presents of money in official transactions, and ambassadors, who found great difficulty in obtaining their pay, had no scruples in accepting money from foreign princes. Wotton, indeed, expressly defends the practice in his State of Christendom on the ground that it was a good thing ‘to ease an indiscreet enemy of his money’^[53]; and while there is no reason to suppose that he was ever induced to act contrary to his conscience or duty by such gifts, he was, like other contemporary statesmen, by no means unwilling to accept them.

When he first arrived in Venice he intimated (though in vain) to the Grand Duke of Tuscany that he would like a gift of 1,000 scudi,^[54] and in 1607 Montauto gave him secretly six hundred ducats for his services in inducing an English captain to remain with his ship in the Tuscan fleet.^[55] Wotton afterwards accepted a pension from the Duke of Savoy, when commissioned to negotiate for a marriage between Prince Henry and a Savoy princess ^[56]; and shortly after his arrival in Venice, the Spanish ambassador declared that he had applied for a Spanish pension, similar to the pensions given to most of the English council, and following the example of his patron Lord Cecil; promising in return to use his good offices in urging James I to bring about peace in the Low Countries.^[57] There is no confirmation, however, of this report in the Spanish Archives,^[58] and it was perhaps started by the Spanish ambassador for the purpose of causing distrust between France and England. Indeed, Wotton in one of his dispatches writes to Cecil (himself a pensioner of Spain) as if he regarded it as a discreditable thing to enter into secret relations with Spain.^[59]

In the library of Queen’s College, Oxford, are two large folio volumes of extracts, copied by the antiquary John Brydall, for the most part from Wotton’s dispatches, about diplomatic punctilios—Ambassadors, Ceremonials, Titles, and Visits. The subject was one of immense importance at the time when the great body of diplomatic etiquette was in the process of formation, and the lives of ambassadors were embittered by intricate and interminable quarrels about questions of ceremony. It was the duty of an ambassador to be extremely punctilious about these matters, as the least neglect would reflect discredit on his master, and be made use of by his rivals for a precedent in other Courts. Wotton, therefore, though naturally somewhat careless of ceremony, rightly considered that ‘these fooleries’, as he called them, were State matters, and the reader will see how much time and attention he was forced to give to them. Fortunately for him, the most difficult point of all, that of precedence, which caused such storms in other Courts, did not arise in Venice, as he never appeared in public in the company of any other ambassador. His main difficulties were caused by questions about titles and visits. Ambassadors of kings (teste coronate) had recently arrogated to themselves the title of ‘Eccellenza’, and refused to give anything more than ‘Illustrissimo’ to the envoys of inferior princes—a title with which these diplomatists were by no means satisfied. In regard to visits, a regal ambassador thought it beneath his dignity to pay the first call on a newly-arrived envoy from an inferior prince, but would send his principal secretary to perform this office. This again was resented, and led to many difficulties and quarrels. Another point was this. A newly-arrived ambassador was expected to return the visits of other ambassadors in the order in which they had been paid. But the Nuncio representing the Pope, who claimed sovereignty over kings, expected that his visit should be returned first, even if he had not been the first to call. An English ambassador, however, to whom the Pope was no more than a ‘testa coronata’, could not acknowledge the Pope’s claims, and was bound to take offence at this; and Wotton’s successor got into a quarrel with a newly-arrived French envoy on the point of visits, which did much to embitter his stay in Venice.^[60]

No account of the household and life of an ambassador of this date would be complete without some mention of the curious underworld of diplomacy—the nest in each ambassador’s house of spies and villains, and one may add, in Wotton’s case, of dubious and venal religious controversialists. The devil, as Wotton remarked, built his kingdoms upon the wisdom of the world, and he thought it necessary to fight the devil with his own weapons—to imitate, as he put it, the ‘arts though not the ends’ of his enemies. Knaves he soon found were as indispensable for his purpose as honest men, and much more costly, although so plentiful in Italy. ‘I think the reason is,’ Wotton writes, ‘because they know themselves to be necessary.’

The number of bravi employed by great men, and living in their houses, forms one of the most sinister features of Italian life in this age, and led to many crimes and murders. Wotton’s ‘good fellows’, as he calls them, were partly Italians of this kind. Some belonged to that body of French and other adventurers which infested Italy ^[61], and some were English exiles, for the most part Catholic, who, for a consideration, were willing to betray their own party. Wotton made use of these men for the purpose of spying on the enemies of England, especially the Jesuits, and the English Catholics at Rome. Rome he regarded as part of his charge, and he soon established a secret correspondence with Nicholas Fitzherbert, who had formerly been secretary to Cardinal Allen,^[62] with an unnamed Italian, living ‘in sinu Apostolorum’, and with others who were willing to send him secret news.^[63] His ‘meritorious curiosity’, however, as he called it, principally took the form of robbing the posts, and stealing the letters of the Jesuits. He was well acquainted with the seals used by the Jesuits, and with the names of their confidants and dependants, and had agents placed in Rome, Turin, Milan, Frankfort, and Venice itself, that he might intercept their letters, and ‘light upon some of their plots and practices, as they pass from College to College, or from their Colleges to Courts’. For the most part he sent copies, allowing the originals to reach their destination, so as not to ‘spoil the haunt’. Among the Venetian Papers in the Record Office are a large number of these intercepted letters. It cannot be said that the information contained in them is of much importance; but there was always a chance that he might come on the traces of some plot that was being hatched against James I, similar to those by which the life of Elizabeth had been continually endangered. And moreover, as many an expression shows, Wotton took a good deal of pleasure in this part of his diplomatic duties. For if there was any class of men whom he found it in his kindly heart to hate it was the Jesuits. This wonderful order, which was now guiding the forces of the Catholic reaction to so many victories, was, as we know, the dangerous enemy of all the causes dear to him; he saw Jesuits at the bottom of every wicked scheme, and he exhausts the resources of his quaint vocabulary in describing ‘this viperous brood,’ ‘these reverend cheaters,’ ‘these caterpillars of Christianity,’ ‘these prowling fathers.’ ‘I must confess myself,’ he writes, ‘to have a special appetite to the packets that pass to and fro from these holy fathers ^[64]’; and he was all the more eager in the hunt for them, because he knew the inquisitive English King had an equal appetite for the intercepted letters, and found ‘very much sport’ in their perusal. James often commended Wotton’s activity in procuring them, and offered to send more money if necessary, for the expenses of what the ambassador called his ‘honest industry’; ‘for I call that honest,’ he writes, ‘which tendeth to the discovery of such as are not so, by what means soever, while I am upon the present occupation;’^[65] a candid phrase which, like his famous definition of an ambassador, shows how wholeheartedly, in becoming a diplomatist, he had adopted the morality of that profession. And when his own letters were stolen, and his own couriers robbed, he took these incidents simply as part of his ‘mining and countermining profession’; they were no more to him, he said, than blows to soldiers, or storms at sea to sailors.^[66] Some of the information acquired from these intercepted letters Wotton would hand on to the Venetian authorities; but as such things could not be mentioned in public audience, before spectators who might betray him to the Jesuits, he would arrange, by permission of the Council of Ten, a secret meeting at twilight in an empty church, in order to make his communication without witnesses; so that in case of betrayal, as he frankly remarked, he would be able to swear that he had done nothing of the kind ^[67].

Besides the ‘knaves’ in regular employment, Wotton’s house was haunted by men who came to sell the English ambassador secret information about plots against James I; or to offer their services for the purpose of kidnapping or assassinating English traitors. Some of the most amusing of Wotton’s dispatches are those which contain accounts of his interviews with men of this class. Indeed, his letter of April 24, 1608, in which he describes a visit from an Italian, who proposed the assassination of the Earl of Tyrone, reads almost like a scene in one of Shakespeare’s comedies—the villain’s ‘direct laughter’ at the ambassador’s fine moral distinctions; the subtle art with which Wotton, by mentioning the arguments against the project, suggested the difficulties that would have to be overcome, and hinted that the reward should be asked for after the deed had been accomplished, and not before.^[68] Projects for kidnapping the enemies of James I, Wotton entertained with less reserve; and in 1607 he was visited by an envoy of the Republic of Lucca, who came to negotiate for the arrest of the much-desired Salvetti, then supposed to be in England.^[69] Wotton on his part was extremely anxious to capture a certain Robert Eliot, who had been involved in plots against James I; and as Eliot often visited Lucca, he proposed that he should be arrested there and shipped to England, in exchange for Salvetti. Wotton seems to have shown no reluctance in bargaining for the ruin of a man who, as far as he knew, was innocent of any crime; and when the Lucchese authorities proved unwilling or afraid to arrest Eliot, he expressed some contempt for their timidity, reminding them of a Venetian proverb to the effect that ‘he who counts every feather will never make a bed’.^[70]

In addition to spies and bravi, another and less useful kind of villain was sometimes to be found in Wotton’s house. Each embassy was a place of sanctuary, in which no one could be arrested, and criminals often took refuge in these asylums, paying their hosts for their entertainment,^[71] and jeering at the police from the embassy windows. Although Wotton never extended his hospitality to condemned criminals,^[72] he sometimes allowed them to take refuge with him before their trial; and it must be admitted that some of them were great ruffians.^[73] In addition to the right of asylum, ambassadors, as well as foreign princes, were allowed to intercede in favour of Venetians; and during his first embassy we find Wotton continually asking for the pardon of condemned men, or the mitigation of their sentences. It was not merely human kindness and sympathy that made him exercise this right of intercession. Being fond of visiting about in the various towns subject to Venice, he liked to provide himself hosts among the noble families in these places; and this was best done by protecting relatives of theirs who had fallen into the hands of the law. Wotton was often perfectly frank in stating his motives; and on one occasion, when interceding for a criminal of Verona, he urged that the Council of Ten should grant his petition on the ground that, although he himself was well known at Padua and Vicenza for favours of this kind he had obtained, at Verona he was quite unknown, and if he had to stay in that city, he added almost pathetically, he really would not know where to lodge!^[74]

Once engaged in a criminal’s favour, Wotton showed a pertinacity worthy of a better cause. He felt indeed that his prestige among the Venetians, and the ambassadors in Venice, depended on having his requests always granted; and in one of his audiences he drew a humorous picture of the consequences of a refusal. ‘I see the quarter of S. Gerolamo abandoned,’ he told the Doge, ‘my house deserted, the grass growing not merely before the house, but under the arcade and up the stairs.’^[75]

But it was only during his first embassy at Venice that Wotton allowed himself to intercede for Venetian criminals, or permitted outlaws to take advantage of the immunity of his house. He probably felt that this constant interference with Venetian justice was not wise or right; and when he took leave of the Doge, both in 1619 and in 1623, he claimed credit for the fact that during his later embassies he had asked for no favours of this kind—had, as he expressed it, ‘kept from putting his fingers in that pie.’^[76]

His right of intercession was more properly exercised in favour of his unfortunate countrymen who found their way into the Venetian prisons, or whom he discovered, as sometimes happened, in the condition of slaves in foreign vessels.^[77] He began his ambassadorial duties by presenting on his first arrival a petition in favour of a young Scot, named Thomas Seget, who was in prison on the charge of libelling a Venetian noble; and finally, after great persistence, he succeeded in procuring his acquittal.^[78] In cases where Englishmen were robbed or murdered, he was unwearied in demanding justice and the punishment of the criminals. Information about the two principal cases of this kind with which he was concerned during his first embassy, the murder of an English merchant named Nicholas Pert, and the death of the eldest son of Sir Julius Caesar, killed in a brawl at Padua, will be found in the dispatches printed in these volumes.

The charm of Wotton’s personality, his fine presence, his wit and graceful eloquence, soon won him the favour of the Venetian senators, and the Government often strained a point to grant his requests, ‘essendo la sua persona,’ as the Doge Donato told him, ‘grandemente amata et honorata dalla Republica.’^[79] But the other diplomatists, who were all representatives of Catholic princes, regarded this brilliant and unconventional Protestant ambassador with more suspicion. He had wit enough and valore, Montauto admitted, to buy and sell every envoy in Venice, but whether he would use it for a good purpose was very questionable to a good Catholic like Montauto.^[80] Stories of his daring and indiscretion circulated about Venice, and caused much shaking of diplomatic heads,^[81] and his enmity to the Pope and the Church of Rome was the cause of considerable scandal.

As the only English envoy in Italy, Wotton had general charge over all the English interests in the peninsula; Cecil wrote to the English merchants of Pisa and Leghorn, telling them to report to Wotton of ‘wrecks, piracies, attempts, sale of ships,’ &c.^[82] He negotiated with the Grand Duke of Tuscany about English vessels captured by the Tuscan fleet, and sent one of his secretaries to Naples to arrange about an English consul in that port. He was commissioned to act as superior to the English ambassador at Constantinople, who was ordered to take his policy from him;^[83] and he kept a general watch over English refugees in Italy. In 1607 he attempted to procure the return of that romantic fugitive, Sir Robert Dudley,^[84] who had come to Italy followed by his cousin Elizabeth Southwell in the costume of a page; and when the Earl of Tyrone arrived in the following year, Wotton remonstrated with the Spanish authorities for the reception accorded to the Irish fugitives at Milan, and sent a spy to accompany them on their Italian journey.^[85]

It was part of the ambassador’s duty to guard the interests of Englishmen travelling in Italy, and in particular to protect, or at least to warn, them against any attempts to convert them to Roman Catholicism. The fact that, of recent years, Protestants were allowed more freely to visit Rome, and indeed often received a friendly welcome from the English Catholics there, made, as Wotton pointed out, the danger of their conversion all the greater; and he strongly urged James I to forbid his subjects to hold any conversation in their travels with English Jesuits, priests, or seminary scholars.^[86] James finally in 1616 sent orders to Wotton to warn English travellers against visiting Rome, or the territories of the Pope, and requested him to report the names of any who might disregard this admonition.^[87]

If young Englishmen of rank were well received in Rome, their tutors and governors, who had charge of them on their travels, sometimes met with a very different welcome, and were arrested and imprisoned in the Inquisition. This, Wotton thought, was part of the policy of the Jesuits, who were thus enabled to separate young men from those who might protect them; and many references to imprisoned tutors will be found in his dispatches. Wotton was indefatigable in his attempts to obtain the release of these unfortunate men, and in particular of ‘worthy Mr. Mole’, governor of Lord Roos, who, when in Rome in 1608, had translated passages about Babylon and Antichrist from the writings of Duplessis-Mornay, and had been arrested in consequence, and confined in the prisons of the Inquisition. It was believed, indeed, that Lord Roos had betrayed him to the papal authorities, in order to rid himself by this means of his earnest and elderly tutor. In spite of Wotton’s efforts, and the intercessions of many other people of greater influence, Mole remained in prison till his death thirty years later. The Roman Catholics tried their famous controversialists on him, one after the other, with undiscouraged persistence; but thirty years of argument seem only to have confirmed his conviction that Rome was the Apocalyptic Babylon, and the Pope Antichrist.^[88]

WOTTON’S FIRST EMBASSY IN VENICE—continued. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE REPUBLIC; RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA, 1604-1610

Wotton’s intercessions in criminal cases I have already mentioned; his other and more important negotiations with the Republic can be divided into two classes—matters of trade; and matters of international policy, in which the religious question and anti-papal propaganda had a large concern.

Owing to the long breach of diplomatic relations between Venice and England, there were a number of trade disputes waiting settlement when Wotton arrived in Venice. Indeed, the trade between the two countries had diminished to such an extent that, as Wotton wrote in 1607, not more than four or five English ships a year arrived in Venice.^[1] The cause of this falling off was partly the discovery of the Cape passage, and partly the fact that the English Levant Company, (the charter of which was first granted in 1581), had found it more profitable to send its wool and tin and other products direct to Constantinople; or to load its cargoes of currants and wine at Zante, or at the other Greek islands, without sailing up the Adriatic to Venice. The Venetians, however, wishing to regain their ancient position as the chief exchange mart between the East and the West, had recently attempted to ruin this English trade in the Levant; they had forbidden English ships to lade currants at Zante, and had taken other steps which had resulted in what was practically a trade war between the two countries. Their policy was now to remove the restrictions on English trade to Venice, on the understanding that the direct trade to the East should be given up. As the result of a disagreement between James I and the Levant Company, the King was not unwilling to agree to this; and Wotton was instructed to procure the repeal of a number of regulations extremely hampering to English merchants, on the understanding that the direct trade to Constantinople should be abandoned. But the Venetians trading to England suffered from heavy import duties and other restrictions; and the Republic naturally demanded that these should be removed. James I seems soon to have lost interest in the matter, and little or nothing was done to meet the Venetian demands. In Venice, however, Wotton succeeded, after years of persistence, in getting one of the principal grievances of the English merchants removed—a heavy anchorage tax levied only on English ships.^[2]

Another great question was that of piracy. During the long years of war with Spain, piracy had been regarded in England as legitimate warfare; and it had by no means ceased with the peace of 1604. James I was really anxious to suppress it; but as various members of his council shared in the profits, and cart-loads of plunder and money were sent by pirates to the Lord High Admiral, the King found it difficult to enforce his orders. ‘You should come with me to the Levant,’ one English pirate would say to another, ‘to find those sound and solid Venetian ducats, which one may take without any risk.’^[3] Of these pirates the most famous was Captain John Ward, who lived at Tunis in a marble palace almost as magnificent as the palace of the Bey, and who, as Wotton wrote, had kept the Venetians in such awe, both within and without their own seas so long, and has done with them almost as he liked.^[4] And not only was the Adriatic swarming with English pirates, but the merchant ships went armed as well, and prepared to do a little plundering when the opportunity offered. The Venetians, indeed, regarded every English vessel as more or less a pirate ship; and Wotton himself, in writing to Lord Salisbury, admitted that the English sailors were ‘many times not very innocent’ in those matters.^[5]

As laudation of England, and a lofty sense of English generosity and virtue, formed an indispensable part of Wotton’s rhetoric as English envoy, the word ‘pirate’ had a particularly unpleasant sound in his ears. Although the negotiations for the suppression of piracy were conducted by the Venetian ambassador in England, he was frequently embarrassed by complaints of the misdeeds of English buccaneers. It was therefore a great advantage for him when he could complain, as he sometimes could, of an honest English merchantman wrongfully captured as a pirate by the Venetian galleys. To prevent incidents of this kind, and to enable the Venetians to distinguish between pirates and honest merchants, an arrangement was negotiated by Wotton in 1605, by which the right of search claimed by the Venetians in the Adriatic Gulf was allowed; and it was agreed that English vessels, on meeting the Venetian galleys, should strike their foretopsail, heave to, and send their ship’s boat with their papers on board. Any disobedience to these orders would expose the ship to be taken as a pirate.^[6] On the whole the arrangement seems to have worked well. During his first year Wotton was continually troubled with complaints about piracy; but afterwards the pirates were taken under the protection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the English ambassador in Venice was not so frequently held responsible for their acts.^[7]

Out of acts of piracy committed by Englishmen, or the refusal to allow the right of search claimed by the Venetians, arose several lawsuits, which occupied a good deal of Wotton’s time. The most complicated of these was in regard to the Venetian ship Soderina, which was captured by English pirates in 1607, and taken into Tunis, where the cargo was disposed of to the Turks, who sold it again to certain English merchants. The Venetians demanded the restitution of the cargo; but when they finally obtained this in 1609, the English merchants sent in a bill of counter-claims, amounting to more than the value of the pirated merchandise. Almost equally complicated was the case of the English ship the Costley, taken as a privateer by the Venetian galleys off Strivali, with contraband goods on board, and run into the port of Canea. When Wotton at last succeeded in getting the ship and cargo restored, it was found that both were badly injured, and the owners began an action for damages against the Venetian authorities. Wotton found the case of the Costley useful to counterbalance the Venetian claims in regard to the Soderina, and brought it before the attention of the Doge in no less than twelve audiences. His speeches are preserved in the Venetian archives; but the dust of three centuries lies heavy on the records of these old lawsuits, and we will not disturb it. Neither case was settled when Wotton left Venice in 1610.^[8]

But Sir Henry Wotton’s main interests and objects in his Venetian embassy were of a larger scope than mere questions of trade and piracy. He had a definite conception of the part England should play in the affairs of Europe: a definite foreign policy, for the furtherance of which his position in Venice was of great importance. The basis of his policy was the old plan, inherited from the age of Elizabeth, of a league of the Protestant States of Europe, joined together to oppose the power of Spain and the Catholic party. But this project of an Evangelical union was now somewhat modified by the circumstances of recent history. As a consequence of the triumphs of the Catholic reaction, the Papacy had not only subdued its adversaries in many places, but had also increased its powers over its own adherents. This had led to a reaction: the more independent of the Catholic princes had begun to resent the arrogant claims of the Pope to temporal supremacy, and the oppressive dominion of the Austro-Spanish power. It became the wisest policy therefore of Protestant statesmen to form a union, not ostensibly religious in purpose, but capable of including all the powers, Protestant and Catholic alike, which were opposed to the Pope and Spain. The formation of such an anti-papal league was Wotton’s great ideal, the cause for which throughout his active career he laboured with persistence and enthusiasm.

Nor was he in this opposed to the policy of his master the King of England. James I, though incompetent to deal wisely with any practical situation, and too much swayed by his admiration for Spain, was not without noble ambitions and enlarged conceptions, and had adopted, partially at least, the plan of forming under his own leadership some such union of the anti-papal powers of Europe. But the object of James was above all peace; he wished to be strong enough to enter into friendship with Spain on equal terms, and so put an end to religious warfare. Wotton’s plan was of a bolder and more aggressive nature. It had been the policy of the more active of the Elizabethan Protestants to deliver a counter-attack on Spain in its own territories; and Wotton, who, when in the service of Essex, had joined in two expeditions sent out for this purpose, still retained this conception of carrying the war into the enemy’s own country. As England and Spain were now at peace, his plan was not to attack the Catholic party in Spain, but in Italy itself, almost in the dominion of the Pope; and his main hope of an anti-papal league was that by its means the more independent of the Italian States, such as Venice or Savoy, might be detached from the Papacy, and brought into close union with the Protestant powers. He therefore urged on the Venetians on all possible occasions the wisdom of allying themselves with England and the Dutch Republic; did everything he could to bring about more friendly relations between the Republic and the Union of German Protestant Princes, and strove indefatigably to sow seeds of dissension between Venice and the Pope.

But beneath the political aspect of his policy was hidden a deeper purpose. If at this time, when religion and politics were inextricably mixed in questions of policy, the Protestant princes and statesmen fell behind their Catholic opponents in religious enthusiasm, this was not the case with Sir Henry Wotton. While he was not greatly preoccupied with questions of Protestant dogma, he hated the corruptions of the Roman Church, and was a determined enemy of the Jesuits and the Papacy. Admitting with a sigh the greater zeal and skill of the Catholic propagandists, he thought it ‘ignominious that the instruments of darkness should be more diligent than those of truth’. Religion, as he afterwards wrote to Charles I, was the main subject of his diplomatic negotiations;^[9] he regarded his life abroad as no unfitting preparation for religious orders. His plan therefore for a counter-attack on the Papacy was not so much political as religious; was nothing less than the introduction of Protestantism into Italy. Accomplished in all the arts and subtle deceptions of his profession, and avowing his methods with a frankness surprising to his contemporaries, his main motive was religious zeal; the one great purpose, the ‘one supremest end’ that he kept steadily before him was ‘the advancement of God’s truth’, the re-establishment of true religion in a country long darkened by error and superstition. For the purpose of carrying the religious war into the Pope’s own country, and introducing the reformed religion into Italy, no place was so propitious as Venice. It has already been mentioned that the Republic had begun to find it necessary to look for help from the princes opposed to the Austro-Spanish power, and there were other reasons why the time of Wotton’s arrival was most favourable to his plans.

Venice was in many ways a survivor, and the sole survivor, of the ancient city States, and her attitude toward religion was that of those pagan communities. Although strictly orthodox and Catholic, religion was kept subordinate to public interests, being fostered for purposes of public order and morality, and for the opportunities which its pomps and pageants provided for symbolizing the idea of the State. The new claims of the Pope were therefore in opposition to the ancient principles of Venetian policy, and a conflict was sooner or later inevitable. There was, moreover, at this time in Venice a group of enlightened nobles, who in their youth had imbibed liberal ideas at the palace of Andrea Morosini ^[10] and at the ‘Golden Ship’, the counting-house of some Flemish merchants called Zechinelli. These men had now, in their mature years, attained to office and supreme power in the Republic. Their leader among the nobles was Leonardo Donato; but the man who did most to inspire and direct their policy was the famous Servite friar, Paolo Sarpi. Passionately devoted to Venice, they were prepared to defend her freedom at all costs; and it was in conflict with them, and the State they ruled, that the Papacy sustained a defeat from which it never recovered.

During the lifetime of the moderate Clement VIII, no open quarrel arose; but Wotton, visiting Venice in 1603, had remarked that the Venetians had almost, as he expressed it, ‘slipped into a neutrality of religion.’^[11] When he returned in the following year, with all the state of a royal ambassador, the Venetians eagerly welcomed this renewal of diplomatic relations with England; and in spite of the Pope’s vigorous protests, they allowed him to celebrate his own religious services in his private chapel. The Venetian ambassador in England was given the same privilege, and this was a sufficient answer to the Pope’s objections. As a matter of form, Wotton promised that the services should be always in English, and the attendance limited to himself and his household, and perhaps a few of his compatriots in Venice.^[12] But when, in spite of his promise, Italians began to attend the chapel, the Venetian Government, being unwilling to interfere with an ambassador, and not at all unwilling to cause the Pope annoyance, connived at this breach of their agreement.

The introduction of the Anglican ritual into Italy was to Wotton not only the dearest privilege of his position, but the beginning, as he hoped, of mighty changes. He regarded it as ‘the first example of God’s incorrupted service on this side of the mountains, since the Goths and Vandals did pass them, and confounded the marks and limits both of state and religion’; his chaplain was the first who had preached ‘God’s truth in Italy since the main Deformation thereof’.^[13]

With the death of Clement VIII in 1605, and the election of Paul V, the disagreements between Venice and the Papacy suddenly became acute, and led to that remarkable conflict which is one of the most famous incidents in Venetian history. Paul V was of a very different character from his moderate predecessor. A pedant, and a devoted student of ecclesiastical law, he believed that it was his duty to assert and maintain the ancient rights of the Church, which, in his opinion, were founded on the laws of God. He was soon involved in quarrels with several Italian States; but Venice was the main offender, and against Venice he resolved to hurl his thunderbolts. The Venetians had already given several causes of offence. They had levied taxes on the clergy in Venetian territory, and they had recently renewed two laws which forbad the alienation of immovables for religious purposes, and the further erection of churches and monasteries without the permission of the State.

In the first months of Paul V’s pontificate a new cause of disagreement arose, as the Republic arrested two priests, Brandolin and Saraceni, for monstrous crimes, and refused to hand them over to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In December, 1605, the Pope peremptorily demanded the surrender of the two priests, and the abrogation of the laws against which his predecessor had protested; and threatened excommunication in the case of refusal. The arrival of this demand coincided with the death of the Doge Marino Grimani, who was succeeded by Leonardo Donato, one of the last of the great Venetians, an enemy of the Papacy, whom Wotton described as ‘a wise and beaten man in the world, eloquent, resolute, provident’.^[14]

The history of this conflict, in which Venice fought for the cause of all temporal princes against papal aggression, is too well known to need anything but the shortest summary here. The Senate refused to annul its laws, or to surrender the two criminals. Paolo Sarpi was appointed Theological Counsellor to the Republic, and for the future the policy of the Government was directed by his advice. On April 17, 1606, the Pope issued a bull of Interdict and Excommunication, twenty-four days being allowed to Venice for repentance. The Republic replied by an edict pronouncing the bull to be null and void, and ordering the Venetian ecclesiastics to disregard it, and to continue their functions and services as usual. Almost all of them obeyed, and the Jesuits, who refused, were expelled from Venice. As neither side would yield, war seemed inevitable, and both parties began to arm.

When the conflict commenced, Wotton had himself been engaged in a minor dispute with the Venetian Government about a point of trade. After attempting at first by persuasion, and then by speeches in which he affected to be transported by passion, to get the anchorage tax levied on English ships removed, he had decided to try on the slow-moving Republic the effect of a little dignified resentment. Shutting himself up in his house, he sought no audiences, and told the Venetian secretary that he intended to seek none, as he never got any satisfaction, and that, in his opinion, James I might very well save himself the expense of an ambassador in Venice.^[15] But this minor grievance was soon forgotten in the excitement of this great conflict, which was, as he realized, an unhoped-for opportunity of pursuing his own policy, and into which he threw himself with all the zeal and eloquence, and, one may also say, the indiscretion of his character. While the Catholic powers wished to find some peaceable solution for the difficulty, and sent special ambassadors each with his bucket of water (as one of them described his mission) to pour on the flames, Wotton kept adding as much fuel as he could to the conflagration.^[16]

Although pretending to desire nothing so much as a peaceful and honourable settlement, it was war that he looked for, a war that should detach Venice from the Papacy; ‘set all Italy on fire,’ divide the Italian princes ‘that are now bound together by superstition’, and lead to the introduction of religious reform ‘into this goodly country, which hath so long slept in error and ease’.^[17] His audiences now became frequent, and he took every opportunity he could find or make to incite and encourage the Venetians in their defiance of the Pope. He hinted that behind the Pope was a scheme of the Jesuits to get control of all the States of Europe, and tried to make out that the recent Gunpowder Plot in England had been part of this secret scheme;^[18] he taunted the Venetians with their awe of the Pope,^[19] and remarked on the enormous property of the Church in the Venetian territory.^[20] He kept supplying secret information about the military preparations of the Pope, and of the Spaniards, who had taken the Pope’s side; and once hurried down to the palace in a dramatic manner with news of a Spanish plot to seize one of the towns in Venetian territory; declaring that he felt it his duty not only to knock at the doors of the Collegio, but to burst them open in order to get in.^[21] He encouraged the Doge with historical precedents and classical quotations from his reading; lent him books that might be useful in the controversy, and warned him against the sincerity of the special envoys who had come to settle the dispute. He was eager in proposing English help, suggesting that English ships might be sent into the Adriatic, and hinting that if the Venetians wanted soldiers, they might get plenty of ‘voluntary good fellows’ from England.^[22] On his own responsibility, remarking that he had been revolving in his mind how he might be of service to the Republic, ‘if haply like the ant he might add one grain to the mound of Venetian greatness,’ he urged the formation of a secret and defensive league between Venice, England, France, the Swiss Protestants, and perhaps a German prince.^[23]

The slow and cautious Venetians, though welcoming his sympathy, declined at first to consider his offers of English help. But when the Pope kept on arming, and Spain openly declared itself on the Pope’s side, the Republic began to think it necessary to find support and allies. The two princes whom they might expect to find favourable to their cause were the Kings of France and England. But while Henry IV, with his usual cool sagacity, stood aloof until he could see what advantage he could derive from the conflict for his own purposes; the pedantic James I, who was deeply interested in the theoretic aspect of the struggle, did not hesitate to declare his sympathy with Venice, and his sense of the justice of her contention. Engaged, as he was, in a polemical controversy with the assertors of papal claims, and still under the impression of the fright of the Gunpowder Plot, the cause of Venice appealed to him in many ways. When, therefore, in June, 1606, the Venetian ambassador, Giustinian, explained to him the grounds of the variance, he favoured that patient diplomatist with a learned and very long discourse about papal usurpation, employing such a vigour of reasoning, such a wealth of quotation, such a marvellous flow of eloquence, that the courtiers declared they had never seen the English Solomon more delighted and pleased with himself.^[24] Being informed of the King’s favourable disposition, and encouraged by Wotton’s exhortations, the Venetian Government instructed their ambassador to see James I again, and to get from him, if possible, some definite promise of help. Giustinian went on August 10, 1606, to Greenwich, where the deep-drinking King of Denmark was then a guest, and James told him to assure the Republic that he would assist her with all his heart in all that depended on him.^[25] The same day Lord Salisbury wrote to Wotton, instructing him to convey to the Doge the King’s promise of assistance. Salisbury, however, who did not share the enthusiasm of his master, added cautiously, that the King’s promise of aid should be limited by the condition ‘that it shall be at all times as far as the state of his own affairs shall let him’. But after this dispatch was written, James I, though busy drinking with the King of Denmark, found time to express again his zeal for the Venetian cause, and ordered Salisbury to add a postscript, telling Wotton to do all he could in his speeches to encourage the Venetians, in reliance on the help of England.^[26] It would be beneath the dignity of history to suggest any connexion between the King’s Danish potations and the strong wording of this postscript; but he certainly seems to have spoken more boldly than he would have done in a less inspired moment; nor did he subsequently have the courage to stand resolutely by his professions.

In the meantime, however, Wotton, on the receipt of this animating letter, went to the Ducal Palace on September 5, and had an audience with the Doge and a full Collegio. This audience was perhaps the most momentous and remarkable occasion in his life. In that stately palace, before an assembly of great Venetians, he dramatically intervened in one of the famous struggles of history, casting the weight of England’s power into the balance against the forces of the Catholic reaction, and helping to inflict on the Papacy a defeat from which it never recovered. It was the first occasion on which was revealed to the world the fact at the basis of the whole theory of sea-power, namely, that those who have command of the sea are never far off; and it was one of the few courageous and successful acts of James I’s not very courageous and successful foreign policy. But although James was undoubtedly aroused to unusual boldness in the Venetian cause, the success of his intervention was largely due to the characteristic indiscretion of his ambassador. For Wotton went considerably beyond his instructions, which were to promise help in general terms only; and, declaring that the King considered himself bound by his words, he made a definite offer of James’s assistance ‘with all his counsels, friends, and forces, both terrestrial and maritime, sincerely and seriously’.^[27] He added indeed the restrictive clause as Salisbury had instructed him; but notwithstanding this, his offer of the forces of England caused a great sensation; and to all the foreign envoys in Venice he gave a formal account of his declaration, in order that the news might be dispersed throughout Europe.^[28]

The Republic wrote to the King at once, to thank him for his offer, joining with it Wotton’s suggestion for the formation of a league, treating this suggestion as if it had been a proposal made by the King himself, and expressing their gratitude for his ‘heroic resolution’.^[29] The Venetian ambassador saw the King again, and found him still enthusiastic in the cause; he emphatically asserted his determination to help the Republic, and promised to approach his allies for the purpose of making them declare themselves on the side of Venice. About the proposal for the formation of a league, however, he said nothing; and it soon appeared that his councillors by no means shared his enthusiasm. Lord Salisbury, in particular, had no great belief in the genuineness of the dispute. He suspected that the Venetians were merely trying to terrify the Pope with rumours of a league, in order to make better terms for themselves. He was inclined, moreover, to suspect that Henry IV, who had not declared himself on either side, was plotting to involve England in a quarrel with Spain for his own advantage. Salisbury, therefore, wrote to Wotton, sharply reproving him for his definite offer of the English forces, and for his suggestion that the King should attempt to form a league in defence of Venice. This last was, he dictated to his secretary, ‘a somewhat untimely notion’ in the King’s opinion, ‘and not so fit to be undertaken by him’. But before the letter was sent Salisbury crossed out the phrase ‘not so fit’, and added ‘very improper’ in his own handwriting.^[30] He warned Wotton to be more wary as the Venetians were quick to make use of anything they could turn to their own advantage. His fears were justified, for on October 14 the Republic sent instructions to Giustinian to close with the King’s ‘offer’. For, although Henry IV was now trying to negotiate an agreement, the attitude of the Pope was still menacing, and the Venetians wished James I to know that they counted on him to give effect to his promise, if occasion should require it, and they informed him also that they intended to send a special ambassador to express their thanks.^[31]

In the meantime Wotton, who had again brought up the proposal for a league,^[32] and had among his fellow diplomatists talked of it as if it were already agreed upon in secret, and had boasted of the forces of Protestant powers,^[33] received Salisbury’s letter, and was compelled to tell the Doge that James I did not think the time was opportune for him to take the initiative of negotiating with the other Protestant princes.^[34] The Venetians now began to suspect what was the truth of the matter, that the aid of England was not as much to be relied on as Wotton had made them think. This impression was confirmed by their ambassador’s letters. James I he found a model of frankness and sincerity; he wished to God he had only the King to deal with;^[35] but many of his councillors were urging him to cool down, and Salisbury, in particular, meant to go cautiously, fearing the Republic would land England in a quarrel, and then herself make peace.

Wotton did his best to minimize this impression, and protested against the report, circulating in Venice, that James had grown lukewarm in the cause of the Republic. ‘English ships,’ he declared, ‘are lying idle in the Thames, the dauntless English blood is boiling to rush to the defence of this great cause; all are impatient of these long negotiations.’^[36] Early in the year 1607 he again brought up the subject of a league, suggesting that the Republic should take the initiative in its formation; he was ready ‘to write, to run, to fly, were it possible’, to lay the proposals before James I; or he would himself travel to Germany to negotiate with the Protestant princes, if the Republic desired it. But when, on January 29, 1607, the Senate passed a resolution agreeing to join with James I in attempting to form a league, Wotton was forced to confess that the idea was his own, not submitted upon orders of his master, and that Venice and not James I should appear as the prime mover.^[37]

Fortunately the dispute had now reached a point where the assistance of England was not of primary importance. While James I had rushed in, full of theoretic enthusiasm for the cause, and then drawn back in fright at the responsibilities involved, Henry IV had as quietly waited until he could intervene to his own advantage. Finding that Spain wished for peace, he determined to win for himself the glory of settling the dispute. He frightened the Pope with the fear of Spanish aggression, and the danger of driving the Venetians into a breach with the Church, and by means of his special envoy, Cardinal de Joyeuse, induced him to agree to terms which the Venetians could accept. The papal interdicts were removed, and Venice then revoked her edict. The imprisoned clerics were handed over to the French ambassador to be delivered to the papal authorities, with a statement, however, that this was done simply out of consideration for the King of France, and without prejudice to the right of the Republic to punish ecclesiastics. The Venetians conceded another point, in that they allowed the Cardinal de Joyeuse to pronounce absolution, though in the most private and quiet manner, from the papal excommunication. But the objectionable laws were not repealed; the right to try clerics was not abandoned; the Jesuits were not readmitted, and on the whole the result was a substantial victory for Venice. ‘The reign of the Pope, as King of Kings, was over,’^[38] nor did the Papacy again attempt to coerce an independent State by excommunication.

On April 4, 1607, when Wotton heard that the terms of the settlement were practically agreed on, he hurried down to the Ducal Palace to congratulate the Doge, and to claim that, next to their own courage, the credit of the triumph belonged to James I, who had been ‘the sole declared prince in favour of the right’.^[39] Nor was the claim an unfounded one. Although the actual conclusion of the great contest was due to the masterly diplomacy of Henry IV, the Venetians always felt a peculiar gratitude to James I, and maintained that his timely and courageous declaration in their favour was one of the main causes of their triumph.^[40] It encouraged them to withstand the Pope at a time when encouragement was necessary; and when James partially withdrew his support, the dangerous period was past. That the King’s original declaration was somewhat more courageous than he intended, was due to the boldness of his ambassador in Venice; and if Wotton is to be occasionally blamed for his rashness and indiscretion, it must be remembered that, on one occasion at least, these qualities contributed in no small measure to a diplomatic victory of great importance and far-reaching consequences.

Although Wotton was disappointed in his desire for open war, he by no means abandoned his hope of detaching Venice from the Papacy. The controversy had revealed the existence of a strong anti-papal party; and indeed it was largely the fear that the Republic would join with the Protestants which had made the Pope willing to accept terms so humiliating to himself. Wotton’s vigorous support of their policy had placed him in more intimate relations with the liberal leaders. During the controversy he had received secret messages from them, encouraging him in his frequent appearances and inflammatory speeches in the Collegio; and although in these speeches he only spoke of the point of civil jurisdiction, he believed that, under this, religion would ‘slide along’, and Venice, as he wrote to Lord Salisbury, would soon be more closely united with England, ‘not only in civil friendship but even in religion.’^[41] Already in 1606 he began to hope for the formation of a Protestant Church, and wrote to the Protestant minister at Geneva, Giovanni Diodati, (who was then engaged in translating the Bible into Italian), suggesting that a preacher should be sent to Venice.^[42]

Shortly after the settlement with the Pope, William Bedell arrived, to take the place of Wotton’s chaplain, Nathaniel Fletcher, who had returned to England. Bedell was a man of saintly life and great learning, nor could Wotton have chosen a better person to help him in his work in Venice. An interesting letter from Bedell has been preserved,^[43] written soon after his arrival, and giving his impression of the ‘sick estate’ of religion in Italy, and of the idolatry and wickedness of Venice. He ends with a high tribute to Wotton’s character and abilities, adding: ‘Of his excellent understanding of religion, of his constant zeal to further it, I can speak; and when I have said never so much, yet will there be more behind than what I have said. In sum, from him alone or from none, and from him I hope ere long, if God prosper his religious counsels, and bring them to their desired issue, to see an end put to that glorious work, whereunto there hath already been made a happy beginning, of bringing in reformation into this Church.’

Bedell’s arrival in Venice was of importance, not only on account of his zeal and abilities, but because through him Wotton was able to enter into more intimate relations with Paolo Sarpi, the profound and learned friar, who had been the inspiration and the intellect of the successful opposition to the Pope. Sarpi was undoubtedly the greatest of living Italians, and Wotton used no exaggerated phrase when he described him as ‘the most deep and general scholar of the world’.^[44] He remains, indeed, one of the most interesting figures among the great men of the past. As the historian of the Council of Trent his fame is established; in philosophy he anticipated Locke; he is credited with important physical discoveries; ‘he was so expert,’ Wotton said of him, ‘in the history of plants, as if he had never perused any book but nature’; and he was withal ‘one of the humblest things that could be seen within the bounds of humanity’.^[45] His statesmanship and cool practical wisdom equalled his learning, and made his influence paramount in the councils of the Venetian Government.

On account of his official position as theological counsellor to the Republic, it was impossible for Sarpi to be visited by Wotton, or to enter into any open relations with him; and Wotton on one occasion positively and publicly declared that he had never spoken to Sarpi save once, and then had only greeted him when they happened to pass each other in the palace.^[46] There is proof, however, that, if not before this denial, at any rate afterwards they did meet together in secret conferences.^[47] The meetings took place at the ‘Golden Ship’ in the Merceria, a house which Giordano Bruno had frequented when in Venice, and which had for some time been a gathering-place for intelligent foreigners and the more learned and liberal Venetians.^[48] But such meetings, on account of the watch kept on this house by the spies of the papal Nuncio, were dangerous and compromising; and it was by means of Bedell that Wotton was able to enter into free and full communication with Paolo Sarpi. For shortly after his arrival Bedell made Sarpi’s acquaintance, and soon became very intimate with him; Sarpi taking Bedell, as Wotton wrote, ‘into his very soul.’^[49] On the excuse that he was teaching English to Sarpi and his inseparable friend, Fra Fulgenzio, Bedell spent nearly half a day with the two friars every week. They read the Scriptures together, and Bedell made Sarpi acquainted with the principal books of Anglican controversy.^[50]

Whether or not Sarpi was, as Bossuet declared, a secret Protestant, is a question that has been much debated. Certainly it was Bedell’s opinion that both he and Fulgenzio were definitely on the side of the reformers. ‘These two I know (as having practised with them),’ he wrote, ‘to desire nothing in the world so much as the reformation of the Church, and, in a word, for the substance of religion they are wholly ours.’^[51] And Wotton, in sending a portrait of Sarpi to the King, described him as ‘a sound Protestant as yet in the habit of a friar’.^[52] Sarpi, however, remained in the Catholic fold, and said Mass till the end of his life. The truth seems to be that all forms of external religion were indifferent to him, and that he regarded the divergences between the Churches as of more political than doctrinal importance. Diodati wrote of him, ‘Sarpi is rooted in that most dangerous maxim that God cares nothing for externals, provided the mind and heart are in pure and direct relation with Himself. And so fortified is he in this opinion by reason and examples, ancient and modern, that it is vain to combat with him.’^[53]

Although Sarpi was without question a determined enemy of the Papacy as it was in his time, loyalty to Venice was the principal motive of his life; a great theologian, he was equally great as a statesman; and while in his later years, when he had come to see his enemies triumph, and the causes lost for which he cared, he seems at one time to have entertained the project of leaving Venice and taking refuge in England,^[54] this project was only momentary. He was not willing to leave the Roman Church, unless the whole State changed its religion, and did not think it right to abandon a position of power and influence, for the sake of logical consistency, and a nearer approach to truth, in matters in which absolute truth was not obtainable, and which were not to him of the essential nature of the religious life.

But at this time, so great was the bitterness caused by the controversy with the Pope—a bitterness much increased by the attempt inspired by the Pope’s friends, if not by the Pope himself, to assassinate Sarpi in October, 1607—that the Servite friar, although convinced that an open breach could not be brought about except by war, thought the conditions now favourable for the beginnings of religious reform. Of the 1,500 nobles of Venice, three-fourths, he told von Dohna, were hostile to the Pope, and from four to ten thousand of the citizens, including the resident foreigners.^[55] Among these he counted the Doge, Leonardo Donato, who was neither Protestant nor atheist, but hated the priests and the Pope on account of the liberties of Venice.^[56] It was to Sarpi therefore that Wotton looked for advice and help in his Protestant propaganda, and he took no step without first consulting him.

No account of this attempt to introduce religious reform into Venice has, as far as I know, ever yet been written. It is of interest, however, on account of the personalities involved, and the political forces and the currents of thought it brought into relief and opposition. As a counter-attack on the Papacy in the midst of the Catholic reaction, conducted by members of the English Church, it deserves a place in the history of Anglicanism. In Wotton’s career it was one of the most important incidents; and it throws a new light not only on the state of feeling in Venice at the time, but also on the religious attitude of the greatest of the Venetians, Paolo Sarpi. It aroused the hopes of all the Protestants of Europe; it gave James I an opportunity for statesmanlike action, of which he as usual failed to take advantage; and, curiously enough, it was exposed and crushed by his great and crafty rival, Henry IV, for the purpose of masking a much more ambitious war against the forces of Catholicism. Although Wotton was the leader of the movement, he seems to have acted in this matter on his own responsibility, without instructions from home. He relied on the sympathy with which he knew James I would regard any such attempt; and he went moreover on the general principle, universally accepted at the time, that it was part of an ambassador’s duty to create or foster a party, in the place where he was stationed, favourable to his own country. While, therefore, he not infrequently mentions the subject in his dispatches, he nowhere gives a detailed account of his plans, or of the various steps that were taken. He may have felt indeed that he was going somewhat beyond even the large latitude of action allowed to ambassadors; or at least, that if complaints were made of his doings in Venice, it would be as well for the English Government to be able to deny any knowledge of them. The history of this attempt must be written from other documents, of which there are a number in existence, both published and unpublished. Of these the most important are two long letters, written early in the year 1609. One is from William Bedell to Adam Newton,^[57] and was carried to England by an Italian Protestant, Francesco Biondi, who afterwards settled in England, was knighted by James I, and is still remembered as an historian and romance-writer.^[58]

Bedell begins by stating that Wotton had now confided in him some part of his ‘religious counsels’ for introducing Protestantism into Venice, and then describes his methods, dividing them into three classes.

The first method was political, and was ‘to maintain the States here in heart and courage against the Pope’. This was done in Wotton’s audiences, of which Bedell knew little, but in which, as Wotton’s dispatches show, he made use of every opportunity to knit firmer ties of friendship between Venice and England and the Protestant powers, and did his best to foment every cause of disagreement between the Republic and the Papacy. The second part of the plan was the conversion of individual Venetians. This was done by distributing books among the principal nobility and ‘the men of mark for authority and learning’; for Wotton found it impossible to carry on a widespread propaganda. For the theologians he imported Calvin’s Institutes and many volumes of Anglican controversy—folios that now sleep undisturbed on the shelves of old libraries, but then had their day of passionate interest and novelty ^[59]—Powell’s de Antichristo, Mr. Perkins his Problem—and he asked that Jewel’s Apologia might be printed in a small form, and two hundred copies sent to Venice; as he knew of nothing more suitable for those ‘young Christians’. He distributed, moreover, copies of the Bible, in the Italian translation, which had just been published by Giovanni Diodati; and had the New Testament, in the same translation, printed and bound in a small form, on thin paper, for wider distribution.^[60]

For the Venetian nobles, who were unaccustomed to religious controversy, and likely to be shocked by the truth in ‘its own naked simplicity’, he thought it better to provide religious principles in the guise of political discourses, which they read with great avidity. A book which seemed written for the purpose he found in the recently-published Europae Speculum of Sir Edwin Sandys; and this was translated into Italian by Bedell, with the help of Sarpi and Fulgenzio. Bedell does not mention in this letter another method which was used for the conversion of individuals—a series of political or religious discourses which, according to the papal Nuncio, who kept a strict watch on the English ambassador’s house, were delivered there by Bedell himself, and were attended by many Venetians and even some of the nobles.^[61]

The third part of Wotton’s programme was to unite all the Protestants in Venice together in a religious congregation, with a pastor and service of their own. There was a French Protestant named Papillon in Venice, who had access to the houses of many Venetian nobles, and who undertook to get the names of those who were willing to join, and to collect a subscription for this purpose. A Confession was then to be drawn up, which should be approved by the English, the Palatine, and the Genevan Churches. The members of the congregation were to take a vow of silence and mutual defence. Bedell translated the English liturgy into Italian, for the use of this proposed Church; and towards the end of the year 1607 Wotton, on the advice of Sarpi and Fulgenzio, sent to Geneva for the Protestant pastor Giovanni Diodati, to come to Venice. The time was now ripe, he wrote, for the foundation of a Church in secret; and Bedell added, ‘Ecclesiae Venetae reformationem brevi speramus.’^[62] Diodati took the advice of his Protestant friends in Germany, and of the venerable leader of the French Protestants, Duplessis-Mornay; and it was decided that he should visit Venice, and that Baron Christopher von Dohna should also go, ostensibly on a commercial mission from Prince Christian of Anhalt, but really to see Wotton and Sarpi, and to advise on the steps that should be taken to help the cause. Von Dohna reached Venice in July, 1608; Diodati followed soon after, arriving in August. He travelled under the name of ‘Giovanni da Coreglia’; for the papal authorities had got news of his proposed journey, and there was some fear that he might be assassinated on the way. Indeed, after he had started, he received a letter from Wotton advising him to defer his journey on this account, and for other reasons ^[63]; but he went on nevertheless, and reached Venice without mishap. With him travelled a young Frenchman named De Liques, sent by Duplessis-Mornay, who now wrote to Wotton to encourage him in his work, and to ask for his friendship.^[64]

Both von Dohna and Diodati had long interviews with Wotton and Sarpi; and their reports, which have been published, and von Dohna’s notes of his secret conversations with Sarpi,^[65] give a clear impression of the progress and the difficulties of the propaganda.

‘We have gone like the spies into the desert,’ Diodati wrote, ‘we have seen the giants and the Babylonian walls; and, God be praised, we have not lost courage.’^[66] Venice was in a more favourable condition for religious reform, they believed, than either France or England had been at the beginning of the Reformation; there was a great desire for books and information, great freedom of speech and action, and a feeling of implacable hatred of the Papacy; while many were already enlightened with the truths of Protestant doctrine. The newly-elected Council of Ten was even more favourable than the last had been; the Inquisition was kept in check by the presence, on its executive committee, of senators opposed to the Pope, without whose consent no step could be taken. They found, nevertheless, that the difficulties in the way of starting an independent Church were for the present insuperable. Papillon had been profuse in promises, but when it came to the point, he was not able to get the Venetian nobles who, he declared, were Protestants, to join in the proposed Church, or to allow Diodati to have access to them. Moreover this indiscreet Frenchman, being told by Sarpi that the Doge and Senate were not unfavourable to the cause of Protestantism, but would help and aid it, jumped to the conclusion that all was done that he desired, and wrote the good news to his French friends; and the Reformed Churches in France were soon full of rejoicings at the fall of Venice from the Papacy.^[67] Many of the Venetians drew back at this; and it was found also that the foreign Protestants in Venice were not for the most part people of reputable lives, or fit for the formation of an evangelical community. Sarpi, who said that he wished that war should be made on the Papacy, that it might be ruined as Carthage was ruined, told them that although religious reform could not be openly introduced in Venice, except on the occasion of open hostilities, or of a political breach with Rome, yet that a secret propaganda could be carried on, as the Government was not unfavourable, and indeed greatly desired an innovation.^[68] Diodati and von Dohna left Venice with hopes for the good progress of the cause, and fully informed of the best methods of helping the propaganda.

What these methods were is fully set forth in a document now in the Record Office. When early in the year 1609 Francesco Biondi went to England, Sarpi took advantage of his journey to suggest to James I a general plan for aggressive action against the Papacy, and for the introduction of religious reform into Italy. The first part of the scheme, as Biondi put it before the King,^[69] was that James I, as the most powerful Protestant prince in Europe, should, partly for the sake of religion and partly out of self-defence, bring about a union of all the Protestants, then weak and disorganized and torn by dissensions, owing to their want of a leader, and should make himself their head, ‘Direttore et Protettore nell’ aumento della fede.’ He would then be able to carry the war into the enemy’s country, and by introducing ‘la religione’ into Italy, he would keep the Pope busy at home, and secure himself and other Protestant princes from the intrigues of Catholic emissaries in their domains. For a beginning no place was so suitable as Venice, where there was a resident English ambassador, and no effective Inquisition, and where great disaffection already existed. As to the means, three or four Protestant teachers should be sent thither from Geneva, and the English should get permission to establish an exchange-house, similar to that possessed by the Germans. A secret agent should be appointed to distribute books, and act as ‘midwife for souls’. This agent could take the official responsibility of directing the movement from the English ambassador, and enable him to affirm, and to be believed, that he had no part in the business, putting the blame on the agent, and removing all suspicion from the intentions of the King or the operations of his ambassador. James I should, moreover, establish two Colleges—one in England, similar to the English College in Rome, for the reception of Italian fugitives; one in the Valtelline, on the borders of Italy, (similar to the Jesuit College at Rheims), for the instruction of preachers who could carry on the propaganda in Italy. But the beginning and foundation of all should be the formation of a league of the anti-papal powers, not ostensibly religious in its purpose, but to be called ‘A defensive league against encroachers on the Jurisdiction of Princes’.^[70] A league of this kind the Republic of Venice could join; and indeed had such a confederation been in existence at the time of the Interdict, Venice, the letter states, would never have reconciled herself with the Pope. This league could compose, by a council, or by some other way, the dissensions of the Protestants; by its means the Empire could be taken from the House of Habsburg, the Spaniards deposed from their position as arbiters of Europe, and the power of the Papacy greatly weakened, if not destroyed.

Such was the wise and statesmanlike plan devised by Sarpi for the advancement of the cause of the religious freedom of Italy and Europe. It will be found to coincide in its main outlines with the principles of foreign policy which Sir Henry Wotton persistently advocated, and no doubt many of Wotton’s ideas were due to the advice and suggestion of Sarpi. Another plan that Sarpi urged on Wotton and von Dohna, was that the Protestant princes should send agents to reside in Venice, who could secretly help the propaganda, and who, being of less importance than ambassadors, would not be so much exposed to public observation.^[71] He also urged that the Dutch States-General should send an ambassador to announce their truce with Spain, and so prepare the way for better relations between the two Republics.^[72] These last suggestions were acted on, and steps were almost immediately taken to send to Venice a Dutch ambassador and a German agent. Sarpi’s proposals to James I fell on less fruitful ground; that timid and vacillating King was not capable of taking the bold position that had been suggested to him; and although in his ‘Premonition’, written at this time, he proposed the formation of a league of princes against the temporal aggressions of the Papacy, he did little or nothing to carry out Sarpi’s plans.

From the very beginning, full information about the Protestant propaganda had been sent to Rome by the papal Nuncio in Venice. The papal authorities were naturally alarmed; and as soon as diplomatic relations were re-established after the Interdict, a series of complaints and protests began. In June, 1607, the Cardinal d’Ascoli told Contarini, the Venetian ambassador at Rome, that he spent whole sleepless nights troubled by the fear that heresy would take root in Venice; the Republic allowed the English ambassador to live as he liked; his house was thronged by nobles and others, who went there to hear sermons. Paul V, too, complained of Wotton, ‘that ambassador—we know how he speaks of us!’ Wotton, the Pope declared, entertained Marsilio and Sarpi at his house, and had a printing-press there, and had printed, the Pope believed, a pamphlet stating that Protestant doctrines were being preached in Venice by permission of the Senate.^[73] He stated, moreover, that the services in Wotton’s chapel were now in Italian, and that certain nobles had been named to him as attending them. Cardinal Borghese remonstrated, too, about the meetings between Venetian theologians and Wotton and other Protestants at the ‘Golden Ship’, where they had a room prepared for them, and where they spoke all the ill they could of the Pope and the Apostolic See. Contarini denied these reports, and begged the Pope not to lend his ear to such sinister rumours, which only unsettled his mind.^[74] On August 4, 1607, the Senate passed an almost unanimous resolution, stating that they were very much displeased by these complaints. It was not true that the Venetian theologians and nobles frequented Wotton’s house; it was against the law, and they would be severely punished if they did.^[75] But in the following year the Pope renewed his protests against Bedell’s discourses, the circulation of Protestant books, and the importation of Bibles into Venice. He said he did not like the English ambassador. He understood he was a bad man (mal huomo), that he was in Venice to do all the harm he could to the Catholic faith. He feared they were all nursing the viper in their breast; for in Venice, Spain, and everywhere the agents of the King of England did their best to spread his errors.^[76] And when the Nuncio heard of two cases of books which had arrived for Wotton and Bedell, he came to the Collegio to make a strong protest. He was sure, he said, that the books referred to Wotton’s religion, and that they were meant for distribution. ‘They will be read by people who will be befogged in them (s’imbuiscono in essi), will search for the truth and will not find it, and so be tripped up. . . . Two cases! what can he want with all that? They must be intended for circulation!’^[77]

But to all the complaints of the Pope, or of the papal Nuncio in Venice, about Wotton, the sermons in his house, the Bibles he imported, his printing-press, and his other objectionable doings, the Republic returned one unvarying answer. The English ambassador lived quietly and peaceably in his house; did not meddle with religion; as for the books he imported, they knew nothing about them. In reply to the Nuncio’s assertions that Venetian nobles attended Bedell’s sermons or lectures, the Doge said, with dignified astonishment, that there was ‘not a soul in Venice who even dreamed of such a thing’. Or, if any persons did go to the ambassador’s house, he suggested on another occasion, it was probably for the purpose of discussing literature, as Wotton was a man of letters.^[78]

Wotton himself denied these reports with a considerable show of moral indignation. It was not true that he had attempted to separate Venice from the Catholic faith. ‘Nothing could be falser, more baseless; nor do I believe that during the five years of my residence here could a single action of mine be discovered that could have caused a shadow of suspicion that such was my intent. On this point I appeal to the final judgement of your Serenity and your Excellencies; and although it is the wish and desire of every Christian to see all others of his way of believing, still, what the Devil (pardon me!) does it matter to my King that some draw to the papal rather than to his side?’^[79] These scenes in the Collegio partake of the nature of solemn comedy, and were all enacted to baffle the papal authorities, who, from senators friendly to them, heard of everything that was said in Wotton’s audiences.

It was not, however, any action of the Pope, but the weakness and inaction of the Protestants themselves that caused the failure of this movement. Reform could not have been introduced into Venice save by means of a firm and strong union of the anti-papal powers, such as Sarpi had suggested. But probably no such combination and concerted action was possible to the Protestants themselves, torn as they were by dissensions, and the quarrels of rival sects. If, indeed, Henry IV had lived to carry out his ‘Great Design’, and succeeded in driving the Spaniards out of Italy, it is conceivable that the Republic of Venice, always singularly independent of the Pope, might have emancipated itself, under the guidance of its great Doge, and its still greater theologian, from the hated authority of Rome. But that the Venetians, piously devoted to the worship of the Virgin and the Saints, and all the feasts and pomps of the Church, would ever have accepted, as Wotton hoped, the doctrines and forms of Protestantism, is not conceivable. The movement was a political and not a religious one. It was tentatively encouraged by an enlightened group of nobles, who at this time composed the majority of the Collegio and Council of Ten, and counted the Doge as one of their number; but the greater part of the Senate was probably never favourable to it. It depended on the political condition of Europe for its success, and this proved hostile. With the assassination of Henry IV in 1610, Spain became again predominant in Europe, and Venice slowly drifted back to the papal allegiance.^[80]

But, curiously enough, this movement of reform was exposed and checked by Henry IV himself, shortly before his death, for purposes of his own. It was the custom of that subtle King, when about to benefit the Protestants, to begin by attacking them, in order to safeguard his reputation of a good Catholic. He now chanced to get possession of an intercepted letter, written by Giovanni Diodati, after his return to Geneva, giving an account of the Protestant propaganda in Venice. The discovery of this letter came at a time when the reformers in Venice had taken a new and daring step, which enabled the King’s interference to come with a certain dramatic force.

For after the departure of Diodati in 1608, another quarrel arose between Venice and the Pope, which inspired Wotton with fresh hopes. The Pope had, contrary to Venetian law, made his nephew, Cardinal Borghese, abbot of Vangadizza, a monastery in Venetian territory; the Republic had refused to allow the Cardinal to take possession, and at first neither side would yield. It so happened that Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, Sarpi’s intimate friend, was among the Lenten preachers for 1609; and on the advice of Sarpi, and with the help of Bedell, he composed a series of sermons, in which, without attacking the Roman Church, he openly and eloquently expounded Protestant doctrines, preaching Justification by Faith, and advising his hearers both to read the Scriptures and to pray in their own language.^[81] The Nuncio made strong remonstrances, and the Pope was reported to have declared in a passion that the preaching of the Scriptures would destroy the Catholic faith.^[82] But these protests only increased the public curiosity, and the sermons came to be attended by an immense concourse of citizens and nobles. News of them went abroad, and the propaganda in Venice began to attract the attention of Europe.

This was Henry IV’s opportunity. He was now preparing to put into execution his great design of attacking the Austro-Spanish power, being hastened by the death of the Duke of Cleves, whose territories he intended to invade; while, with the help of the Duke of Savoy, the Spaniards were to be driven out of Italy. He therefore produced Diodati’s intercepted letter, sending one copy to the Pope, another to Venice, and ordering his ambassador in Venice to make a strong protest against the ‘instruments of novelty and unquietness’ they were nourishing, and against Fulgenzio’s heretical sermons.^[83]

The Venetians strongly resented this action of Henry IV; the public exposure, however, brought about a temporary supremacy of the papal party, and frightened the senators who were favourable to the reform.^[84] But as the designs of Henry IV against the Austro-Spanish power began to develop, they took heart again.^[85] In the summer of 1609, Johann Baptist Lenk arrived to reside in Venice as agent for the Union of Protestant Princes; and a little later Cornelius Vandermyle, Barneveldt’s son-in-law, came as special ambassador to Venice, to announce the conclusion of the truce, and to prepare the way for the exchange of resident ambassadors between the two Republics.^[86] The principal object of both these envoys was to help on the Protestant propaganda in Venice ^[87]; and towards the end of this year the formation of a small congregation is mentioned.^[88] But with the assassination of Henry IV in the following year all hopes of reform perished.^[89] It is true that Wotton, passing homeward through Paris early in 1611, spoke hopefully of the propaganda and its secret progress ^[90]; but when he returned to Venice five years later, he found few or no remains of this once promising movement.

But it is necessary to go back for a moment to Henry IV’s action in 1609, when he made public the intercepted letter about the movement for reform in Venice. This interference was rightly regarded as an example of his marvellous and unimaginable malice, and his mastery of all kinds of cunning,^[91] and in it he had several other motives beside the principal one of winning the Pope’s favour. One of these was to cause a coolness between James I and Venice, as he was jealous of the friendship between the Republic and the English King. The protest of the French ambassador was therefore timed to take place at about the date when an important demonstration was made of the good relations between Venice and England. This was the solemn presentation to the Doge of a copy of James I’s newly published book, the Premonition to all most Mighty Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom.

The story of this book, its presentation to the Doge, its prohibition, and Wotton’s quarrel with the Republic, although of no great historic importance, is of interest nevertheless as a scene of high comedy, in which the principal characters with whom we are concerned, the pedantic King of England, his bold ambassador in Venice, the passionate Pope, and the wise and dignified old Venetian statesmen, come on the scene in dramatic fashion, each displaying his own character in high relief. The story begins in 1607, when James I wrote a defence of the oath of allegiance imposed on his Catholic subjects after the Gun-Powder Plot. This defence, called Apologia pro Iuramento Fidelitatis, was printed anonymously, and James declared that if it were answered he would then republish it in his own name, with a preface to all the princes in Christendom, in which he would print such a confession of his faith and ‘discover so much of the Mystery of Iniquity unto them, as the Pope’s Bulls should pull in their horns, and himself wish he had never meddled with this matter’.^[92] The King was not disappointed; Parsons and Cardinal Bellarmine (under the name of his chaplain, Matthias Tortus) published answers, and James began his reply, shutting himself up in the country with several bishops for the purpose. The Venetian ambassador wrote that he heard the King was ‘biting and free’ in his language, made frequent use of jokes, and wrote ironically, and sometimes flippantly, of things venerable.^[93]

Like most of the King’s performances, the book is a curious mixture of good sense and folly. It contains a learned defence of Protestant principles, an acute exposure of Bellarmine’s false statements and false reasonings, and a vigorous manifesto against papal usurpation. But the style is so familiar, the jokes about the Pope, and the Virgin, and things sacred to Catholics, are so improper, that it is no wonder that the Catholic princes to whom it was sent were unwilling to accept it. The Premonition is dedicated to the Emperor Rudolf, and to the kings and princes of Europe; ‘my loving brethren and cousins,’ James calls them. He warns these potentates against the aggressions of the Pope on their temporal sovereignty, and proposes a league of princes against papal usurpation. All this is wisely and moderately written; but the portion which James calls ‘the Digression anent the Antichrist’, and which occupies nearly half the Premonition, is of a very different character. James regarded himself as an unrivalled master in the art of apocalyptic interpretation, and could not let pass this occasion for displaying his accomplishments to Europe.

The horned and disquieting figure of Antichrist makes but rare appearances now in the arena of Protestant controversy, and its name and features indeed have almost faded from devout imaginations. That its importance at this time was very great, there are many volumes to prove, but none more able or more learned than this work of the King of England. He demonstrates with admirable clearness that the Pope is the ‘Whore of Babylon that rideth upon the Beast’; that the frogs issuing from the mouth of the Dragon are the Jesuits, and that the ten horns of the Beast are the Christian kings he is addressing, ‘even you, to whom I consecrate my labours.’ These views, he says with an air of judicious impartiality, had been forced on him by his study of the Scriptures; adding however, in a burst of frankness, that he intends to hold to them as long as the Pope keeps to his claims of temporal sovereignty.^[94]

James had copies of his book beautifully bound, and sent them to his ambassadors abroad, for presentation to the kings and princes at whose Courts they resided. To other princes copies were sent by special envoys; and the King waited, with all the vanity of an author, to hear of their reception. This was, however, by no means flattering. Henry IV received the book, but did not read it. It was reported that he threw it down on the table, saying that the writing of books was no business for a king, and that James had better have done something else. The Duke of Savoy refused to receive it; the Grand Duke of Florence was said to have burnt his copy. Count Fuentes, at Milan, had it cut in pieces. The King of Spain was in terror lest Sir Charles Cornwallis should suddenly produce it, and sent word to him begging him not to try, as he could not possibly receive it. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ cried one of the princes; ‘I shall eat no bread of that baking.’^[95]

The whole affair involved the King in ridiculous annoyances and squabbles, and caused a good deal of trouble to his diplomatists; none of whom, except Sir Henry Wotton, welcomed the book with any enthusiasm. Wotton’s zeal indeed went considerably beyond that of the royal author. Eager as he was to seize any occasion to spread anti-papal doctrine, he delighted in the King’s expositions; his chaplain, Bedell, translated them into Italian with Sarpi’s help; and Wotton wrote that if James I would send to Venice one of the best of his ships laden with copies of the book, he would find means to circulate them all.^[96]

The accession of James I to the throne of England had been hailed by obsequious scholars as the realization of Plato’s dream of the reign of a philosopher king. That such a monarch should send out a navy laden, not with cannon, but with works of controversy of his own composition, would have added a touch beyond Plato’s imagination. But James I (although one of his fundamental errors may be defined as a false belief that the pen is more potent than the sword) did not, unfortunately, carry out his ambassador’s suggestion. A copy duly arrived, however, for presentation to the Doge; and Wotton waited until the Doge should recover from a slight illness, to present it.

The arrival of the King’s book placed the Republic in a very embarrassing position. Venice and England were closely allied in interest and friendship, and the royal author had recently proved himself their best friend in a crisis of great danger. At the same time the redoubtable French King had recently discovered the connivance of many of the leading senators in an attempt to introduce heresy into Italy, and the sermons of Fulgenzio had drawn wide attention to this movement. The Pope moreover begged and insisted that this volume, in which he figured in so strange a manner, should not be received by the Doge. The papal Nuncio on July 18 made a formal protest to the Doge and Cabinet; the book, he said, was full of heresies, and scandalous and unendurable passages; and in the Pope’s name he beseeched the Republic to have a care of the Church in ‘these dangerous times’.

‘The Republic is very Christian and very pious,’ Donato replied; at the same time, as the Nuncio was aware, ‘one must keep one’s friendships in this world, and not break with persons so great as the King of England.’^[97] On July 21 the Senate decided that the Doge should receive the book, return thanks, and that it should then be locked up, without any one seeing its contents, until they could arrive at some further decision about it.^[98]

On July 25 (which happened to be St. James’s Day ^[99]), Wotton came down in state to the Ducal Palace. Taking his seat, he drew from out his pocket a letter from James I, and brought from under his cloak the book, beautifully bound in gold and crimson velvet. He made a long speech, giving a history of the composition of the book, and explaining that its purpose was purely political and not religious; although he admitted that James I, in order to defend himself against accusations of heresy and persecution, had ‘interjected’ a summary of his own faith. Concerning the ‘digression anent the Antichrist’ Wotton wisely said nothing. Repeating that the volume was only concerned with the point of temporal sovereignty, he handed it, with James I’s letter, to the Doge, who received them graciously as tokens of the King’s kindness and affection, and, according to Wotton (though this is not mentioned in the Venetian account), he kissed both the book and the letter. Wotton then took his leave; and the moment he was gone, the Doge, who had kept the book unopened in his hand, gave it to the Magnificent Grand Chancellor, who took it away and locked it up in the secret Chancery, whence it has never emerged.^[100]

Wotton, unaware of the fate of the volume, was highly pleased by the day’s performance, and wrote off to his correspondents describing the kind reception of the book. But to his great surprise and indignation, news soon reached him at his villa, where he had gone for a change of air, that its circulation had been forbidden in Venice. Although the prohibition was made in the politest and most moderate manner, and although Wotton knew that such a prohibition would only increase its sale, and indeed was sometimes procured by the booksellers of Venice themselves to advertise their wares, yet he felt that the act was a grave injury and insult to himself and to the King; and he determined to return to Venice and make a dramatic protest. This he did on August 31, complaining, with signs of emotion, and with heated language, of the Inquisitor, who had dared to prohibit a book written by the King of England, and accepted by the Republic as a pledge of friendship. He then waited ten days, and as no answer arrived, (the Senate indeed being unable to find any satisfactory way out of the difficulty,) he came again on September 10, and demanded the punishment of the Inquisitor, or some equivalent demonstration that should restore the injured honour of the King.^[101] The Senate met the next day, and framed a polite but firm answer, in which they explained that a book of this nature, which, as Wotton himself admitted, contained passages contrary to the dogmas of their religion, could not be permitted to circulate in Venice. The prohibition, however, had been made in the most discreet and courteous manner, not by the Inquisitor, but the Inquisition, of which body three senators were members; and they felt sure that James I, when he understood the circumstances, would approve of what they had done.^[102]

The answer was read to Wotton in the Collegio on September 11. He listened with indignation, and answered by resigning his post as ambassador. He did this, he said, not on instructions from home, but in discharge of his own conscience. The book had been presented as a pledge of friendship; the prohibition was incompatible with friendship; he would therefore retire to his villa and remain there ‘a poor private gentleman’, until he received further instructions from England.^[103]

The Senate met in alarm the same day, and sent off a letter in great haste to their new ambassador in England, Marc’ Antonio Correr, describing Wotton’s excited speech, his ‘unwonted and disturbing’ expressions, and his resignation of his office as ambassador. They instructed Correr to see the King at once and explain the situation to him before Wotton’s dispatches could arrive. So seriously did they take the matter that they voted the appointment of a special ambassador, to leave for England within eight days. The letter to Correr was sent by a special courier, who galloping across Europe, arrived in England within nine days.^[104] As soon as Correr received the dispatch of the Senate, he hurried to Theobalds to see the King, and finding he had gone to Wanstead, followed him thither in a pouring rain. He found the King half dressed, told his story, and ended by saying that the friendship of Venice and England ‘should not be like a flower, fair and bright in the morning, but pale and faded at evening; but like marble of the closest grain, which becomes even finer with age’. This simile he worked out with a certain wealth and warmth of words, and the King, he adds complacently, was deeply moved by it. In spite of his emotion, the King gave a guarded answer; though he admitted that if the Venetians sent a book attacking his religion, he would not tolerate it in England. James then wrote the following characteristic letter to Lord Salisbury:—

James I, although as an author he was apparently not displeased by Wotton’s zeal, had yet as a King good sense enough to realize that the prohibition of his book was not a cause for quarrelling with a friendly State. He therefore sent an amicable letter to the Doge, and instructed Wotton to express his goodwill towards the Republic. Lord Salisbury and Sir Julius Caesar told the Venetian ambassador that they hoped the Doge would not feel resentment against Wotton, as they did not know where to lay hands on a person more skilful and more attached to Venice.^[106] Wotton’s action was plainly resented in England,^[107] but everything possible was done to make things easy for him, and to save his credit. The Pope, on the other hand, was delighted with Wotton’s rebuff; it proved, he said, the patience and prudence of the Cabinet to have endured the conduct of the English ambassador, ‘whom he knew to be extremely fiery and bold.’^[108]

In the meantime Wotton himself seems to have realized that he had gone too far. A few days after his dramatic resignation, he reappeared in his official robe, remarking that the sending of a special ambassador had restored his honour and the credit of his King. The Doge Donato, who owing to illness had been absent at the previous audiences, received him, Wotton wrote, ‘in a middle temper between kindness and harshness,’ and administered a dignified rebuke for his hasty and ill-considered resignation.^[109] Francesco Contarini was sent, as special ambassador, to explain to James I their action in regard to the book. The King, highly flattered by this embassy, received him with great magnificence, and entertained him at a splendid banquet.^[110] If Wotton had transgressed, he said, ‘in taking too wide a flight, this must be laid to the door of his superabundant zeal in my service; but in truth the ambassador, as I have already said on other occasions, has always reported most favourably of the Republic’s affection toward me.’^[111] In the meantime Wotton presented to the Doge James I’s letter,^[112] and the incident closed without any permanent disturbance to the friendly relations between England and Venice.

The presentation of this book was the last important act of Wotton’s first embassy in Venice. He was now anxious to return home, having far exceeded the three years which were the usual term of residence for a lieger ambassador. He still remained, however, in Venice for another year, watching the course of events at that crisis of European history. In his dispatch of March 13, 1610, he sent James I news of the great astronomical discoveries which Galileo had made with the newly invented telescope, and which Wotton (not realizing their full import) declared must lead, not only to a new adjustment of the Copernican system of spheres, in order to include the satellites of Jupiter, but to a new scheme of astrology—for these satellites (or planets as he called them) must have their influences, and others might be discovered. All the corners, he said, were full of the news of these ‘superior novelties’; but there were novelties below which more troubled the wise men of Venice. He then descends from the stars to the great subject occupying the anxious minds of the earth’s inhabitants—the maturing of Henry IV’s ‘Great Design’, and in particular the point of especial interest for Venice, his agreement with the Duke of Savoy to attack Milan, and drive the Spaniards out of the north of Italy.^[113] Little more than two months later he writes of the news, which had swiftly travelled to Venice, of Henry IV’s assassination—an event which changed the whole course of European history, and put an end, as I have said, to all hopes of introducing religious reform into Italy.

In December of this year Wotton’s successor, Sir Dudley Carleton, arrived in Venice; and after the formality of taking his leave, Wotton was able to start back for England. I have described the acts of solemn comedy performed by Wotton and the Doge, whenever the question of Wotton’s religious propaganda was raised in the Collegio. The last and culminating scene of all was in his farewell audience on December 7, when the Doge Donato (‘for some contentment,’ Wotton thought, ‘of the Pope’s spies ^[114]’) went out of his way to congratulate the ambassador on his prudent conduct, and that of all his household, in religious matters. ‘It is much to your praise,’ said the dignified old Doge, ‘and a matter of no small wonder, that although there was in your house another religion, yet both you and all your suite have acted so prudently and circumspectly that not a breath of scandal has touched you.’^[115]

With the usual present of a gold chain, Wotton’s first embassy in Venice ended. Notwithstanding some indiscretions, he could regard with considerable satisfaction the result of his activities. He had won for himself the affection and goodwill of the Venetians; had helped to remove restrictions on English trade, and to hinder the operations of English pirates; he had offered the forces of England to the Republic at a critical time, and done much to strengthen the ties of friendship between the two Governments. The way had been prepared for a closer union between Venice and the Protestant powers of the continent; and a movement for religious reform had been started which, he believed, might lead to a breach between the Republic and the Pope, and which, in the meantime, caused considerable anxiety at Rome. These were semina magnarum rerum; and if the seeds ripened to no harvest, it was the fault of the soil and season, and not of the zealous hand that sowed them. And what was most important for Wotton’s own fortunes, he had given satisfaction to Lord Salisbury, and preserved and indeed increased his favour with the King.^[116]

Many of the qualifications necessary for an ambassador, (which were elaborately and somewhat pedantically enumerated in contemporary treatises on diplomacy ^[117]), Sir Henry Wotton possessed. He was of distinguished birth, of a fine and winning presence, and was deeply read in history and moral philosophy and civil law. Of Italian, the common language of diplomacy at that time, he was a perfect master; he was eloquent and witty, as well as wise; and sharp and witty repartees gave an ambassador a great reputation. A natural dramatic sense, shown in his love for disguises, gave him the necessary tincture of the comedian; for an ambassador must always be playing a part on the stage of the Court, than which there was no more illustrious theatre.^[118] What was more important, he had surveyed the state of Europe with thoughtful eyes, and possessed definite and enlightened ideas of international politics, which fitted him not only to serve, but to advise his royal master. To unite the Protestants of Europe, to suppress their wranglings amongst themselves, to detach from the Austro-Spanish power the more independent of the Catholic Princes, and to give the Pope plenty to do at home, by attacking him in the bowels of Italy, was a policy which, if it had been consistently and boldly followed by James I, might perhaps have averted the great war that then threatened Europe.

These were Sir Henry Wotton’s qualifications for the career he had adopted. But the ideal of an ambassador, as writers on the subject generally admitted, was laid up in heaven, and not to be found on earth. And there were elements in Wotton’s character which made him, perhaps, a more interesting man, although not so successful a diplomatist. The lessons of prudence and worldly wisdom he never thoroughly mastered: his wit and frankness were always warring with his ideal of discretion, ‘the thoughts close and the countenance loose,’ which he had early set before himself. But even the telling of the truth might, in Wotton’s opinion, occasionally be useful to the ambassador, sent to ‘lie abroad for the good of his country’; and, indeed, many years later he advised a friend starting on the diplomatic career always and on all occasions to speak the truth, for ‘you shall never be believed; and by this means your truth will secure yourself, if you shall ever be called to any account; and ’twill also put your adversaries (who will still hunt counter) to a loss in all their disquisitions and undertakings.’^[119] But what stood most in Wotton’s way, in the career he had chosen, was the student’s and scholar’s habit of mind. The ambassador, as Wicquefort pointed out, although a learned man, should not be absorbed in books; there being a habit contracted in constant reading which interfered with the incessant activity of an ambassador.^[120] This bookish abstraction led Wotton sometimes to neglect routine duties and forget his own interests, and sometimes, when the causes in which he was interested were in question, to rush into the fray with a zeal and indiscreet boldness, which more than once, as we have seen, led him into trouble.

Wotton himself was well aware of the ‘infirmities’ of his judgement in practical matters. Being, as he himself often said, fitter for an instrument of truth than of art and policy, a sense of his double personality haunted him. By nature a lover of peace, he considered it his business as ambassador to try to stir up war in Italy; and he saw plainly both the desirableness and the impossibility of many noble schemes; writing for instance of the well-worn plan of a combination of Christians against the Turks, ‘Lord, how unfit we are for it, and almost how ridiculous is that holy motion!’^[121] This unworldliness, however, like the habit of telling the truth, was not without its diplomatic advantages; and Wotton found it sometimes useful to represent himself to the Venetians as a little more simple and innocent than he really was—as a poor scholar, whom the King had taken from his study and sent to Venice, ‘all unskilled as I am in worldly matters.’^[122]

That the timid James I should regard with favour an ambassador of Wotton’s character, seems at first surprising. But for one part of his duties Sir Henry Wotton was endowed with qualifications such as few diplomatists have ever possessed. An ambassador was, in the definition he borrowed from Philippe de Commines,^[123] ‘an honourable spy’; he took the place of a special correspondent, and was expected to send in his weekly dispatches a running account of the news of the country in which he resided. Wotton’s qualities of mind, and his knowledge of the King’s tastes, enabled him to write just the kind of dispatches which that learned and gossip-loving monarch loved; it was no bad policy for James, condemned as he was to peruse so much diplomatic correspondence, to send abroad the best letter-writer of the time; and he often expressed the pleasure he took in reading the Venetian dispatches. Besides a journal of his negotiations with the Republic, Wotton sent week by week the news of Venice, the deaths and elections of Doges, the solemn funerals, the receptions of ambassadors and foreign princes, and all he discovered of what went on beneath the pomp and external show of the majestic and dignified Republic, the mysterious crimes and trials, the menace of foreign intrigue, and plot and counterplot, and the continual unrest of Venetian policy, fluctuating, as he said, like the element out of which the city was built. From Rome, that ‘Africa of monstrous things’, he collected, by means of spies and agents, the latest stories of papal intrigues and humorous incidents, and the doings and indiscreet sayings of contemporary pontiffs.

The Venetians watched the course of history, the oscillations of the European balance on which their existence depended, with careful eyes; from their experienced agents and ambassadors abroad couriers were continually arriving with the latest intelligence. Venice was ever ‘full of great rumours’,^[124] its inhabitants standing with ‘elevated ears’^[125] to hearken for the freshest news. Each report gave rise to infinite dissertations; discussion was indeed, as Wotton wrote, the disease of the place.^[126]

Ambassadors, as Wotton told the Doge, were creatures whose food was news—as much of the truth as possible, though sometimes they had to ‘swallow flies’,^[127]—and he carefully listened for the rumours echoing in this Dionysius’s ear of Europe, condensing now and then into a long dispatch the essence of all the discourses and opinions of wise Venetians about some contemporary event. Regarding it as his duty to send the King anything ‘that might either inform or entertain his excellent mind’, he mingled with weightier matter a good deal of ‘sport’—gossip and scandal, and, with pardonable vanity, his own jokes and witty repartees. He collected epigrams and pasquils, and his secretaries busied themselves in translating for the King satires written in the Venetian dialect. Although the greater part of Wotton’s dispatches were addressed to Lord Salisbury, they were all written more or less for the King’s eye; and not infrequently he would address a dispatch to James I himself, writing in an especially clear and beautiful hand, and signing it with his old pet name of Ottavio Baldi.

Besides his dispatches to the English Government, Wotton corresponded week by week with the other English ambassadors abroad, sending them the news of Venice and Italy, and getting in return from foreign Courts the latest information, which, as he said, gave him some opinion among the Venetians, ‘these swallowers of news.’^[128] Some of his letters to Sir Dudley Carleton at the Hague, to Sir Thomas Edmondes at Brussels and Paris, to Sir Walter Ashton at Madrid, I have found in various manuscript collections, and many of these are here printed for the first time. During his second embassy at Venice, Wotton also corresponded with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, when, as Sir Edward Herbert, he was ambassador in Paris; but these letters do not seem to have been preserved.^[129] Although the letters and dispatches of Sir Henry Wotton’s still existing in manuscript would, if all were printed, fill many volumes, they are only fragments of what must have been a vast private as well as official correspondence.

Wotton’s valuation of himself and his writings was always extremely modest. He was fitter, he wrote, for stitching things together—‘rhapsody’ as he called it—than for commentary, being ‘but a gatherer and disposer of other men’s stuff at my best value’.^[130] Judgement belonged to the King; it was the duty of the King’s ambassadors, ‘his poor honest creatures abroad,’ to supply him with the world’s news and opinions; if the King, whose ‘poor creature’ he was, and ‘otherwise no way considerable’, were but satisfied, he would ‘go cheerfully forward, without forecasting either the rain or the dust.’^[131] But Wotton’s dispatches have an historic and literary value beyond what he himself would have imagined. He composed them for the amusement and instruction of the wit-loving James I; but the work I have undertaken will fail of its main purpose, if it is not found that he wrote for the delight of posterity as well.

‘No season or weather can be ill to go homewards,’ Wotton wrote; nor did he hesitate at the thought of a winter journey across the Alps. He had proposed in the previous year that, on his journey to England, he should visit the chief German Protestant Princes, ostensibly out of his own curiosity, but really to urge them to help the reform movement in Venice, and to suggest Sarpi’s plan for a union against ‘the encroaching Babylonian monarch’.^[1] But now, the Venetians, who were always slow and cautious, (for it was a maxim of Republics, Wotton wrote, ‘and especially of this, that they never take physic, but when they are very sick’^[2]), had drawn back, and were unwilling, after the death of the French King, to participate in schemes of this nature. There was, however, in Italy a prince who found himself in a desperate plight, from which it seemed he could only extricate himself by alliance with the Protestant Powers of Europe.

This prince was the crafty and heroic Charles Emmanuel of Savoy. Married to a daughter of Philip II, and often at war with France, he had been an ally and dependant of Spain for many years. But the Spanish domination was too oppressive, and he himself of too independent and ambitious a nature, to endure this yoke any longer than he could help it; and in the ‘Great Design’ of the French King he had seen his chance for freedom. Being promised the Milanese by Henry IV, he had, with his usual impetuous courage, openly allied himself with that king, affianced his heir to a French princess, and raised troops to co-operate with a French army in driving the Spaniards out of Milan. But now his position had undergone a disastrous change, and he found himself with the troops of Spain on his borders and no ally to protect him. He therefore renewed, on his own account, a project of marriage between his family and that of James I, which had been suggested as early as 1603, and taken up from time to time by Spain, as an alternative to English marriages for Philip III’s children. Being no longer sure of a French princess for his eldest son, he wished to marry him to the daughter of James I, and offered one of his daughters as a wife for Prince Henry, hoping, by means of this double alliance with England, to strengthen his position amid the dangers that threatened him.

Either on orders from home, or by invitation from Charles Emmanuel, or perhaps of his own motion, Wotton abandoned his German route, and decided to return by Turin, where the Duke, having these matrimonial projects in view, awaited his arrival with great impatience. Leaving Venice immediately after his audience on December 7, 1610, the ambassador travelled to Padua, accompanied by Bedell, Albertus Morton, and the rest of his suite, and with them a Venetian Protestant convert, a physician named Despotini. At Padua he spent ten days with Lord Cranborne, Salisbury’s eldest son, who was lying ill there with fever and home-sickness. He then went to Milan, (where he was offended in his dignity of ambassador by the Spanish governor), and then to Turin, where he arrived on January 8, 1611. The Duke welcomed him with great honours, and entertained him at his own expense. Gregorio Barbarigo, the Venetian ambassador at Turin, (from whose dispatches my information is derived), mentions several incidents of Wotton’s stay which are sufficiently picturesque. On Sunday, the day after his arrival, the Duke invited him to a masked festival at Court, and sent him a costume to wear, assai pomposo, with a jewel in the hat of the value of a thousand crowns. Before the festival, however, in the afternoon, when the courtiers were amusing themselves in sledges in the park, (it was evidently frosty weather), and the Duke and his eldest daughter were driving, masked, in their sledge, they stopped opposite the carriage of the English ambassador, ostensibly for the purpose of readjusting the princess’s mask, which was causing her discomfort; but really, Barbarigo thought, in order that the ambassador might have a glimpse of her face, when, aglow with the exercise, her natural beauty might seem even greater than it was. On Monday the Duke gave a grand dinner in Wotton’s honour, with complimentary toasts to the health of the King, and after dinner showed him the gallery and library, and then took him to see his sons jousting, placing the ambassador just opposite the young princes, that he might describe them to the King. As Wotton was about to leave on Tuesday, the Duke sent for him and kept him three hours in conversation.^[3]

There is no record of what passed between them; but for the next two years Wotton was mainly occupied in promoting a matrimonial alliance between Savoy and England, and there can be little doubt that he was the bearer of important messages on this subject to the King. The project was indeed one which Wotton would welcome as highly advantageous to the cause nearest his heart. For while in England the plan of marrying the King’s son to a Catholic princess of Savoy was supported by the Catholic party for the sake of their religious interests, it was welcomed by the reformers on the other side of the Alps for the very opposite reason. Sarpi, watching the course of the world from his cloister, heard of the project with enthusiasm. If only James I were not ‘dottore’, some good result might be expected; Spain could not be overcome save by removing the pretext of religion, and this could only be removed by introducing religious reform into Italy; and if James I only knew how to go to work, that could be easily done, both in Venice and Turin.^[4] It was therefore not indifference to Protestantism, as Professor Gardiner suggests, but zeal for the cause, and for its advancement in Italy, which made Wotton enthusiastic for the Savoy match.^[5]

Nor would the only advantage of such a marriage have been the alliance of England and Savoy, and the consequent weakening of the Pope and Spain in Italy. Had the heir of England, (for the Savoy match was proposed for Prince Charles after his brother’s death), married a daughter of one of the minor Catholic princes, and of one who was most eager for the match, and decidedly anti-papal in his leanings, James I would not only have been saved from his fatal pursuit of a Spanish alliance, but England would have had a queen whose influence would have been less than that of Henrietta Maria, and probably more in sympathy with the true interests of the country. It is not perhaps too much to say that this marriage, so earnestly promoted by Sir Henry Wotton, might have saved the House of Stuart.

But before entering into that subject, it will be necessary to say a few words about Wotton’s journey to England and his life in London. Early in February, 1611, he arrived in Paris, where, owing to the illness of several of his party, he was detained about three weeks. He paid his respects to the young King, Louis XIII, and to the Queen Regent, and was received with distinguished honours, and lodged for a while in the house of the Duke of Guise.^[6] To a nephew of Diodati, named Turetini, he spoke of the Protestant movement in Venice and its slow progress, complaining of the coolness and caution of Sarpi. He planned, however, starting a press in England for printing Protestant books in Italian, and was full of ardour to arouse the zeal of James I in the cause.^[7] Wotton next appears at Canterbury, where he probably stayed with Lord Wotton in his house there, St. Augustine’s Priory, and where among other items of municipal expenditure, ‘For crying the stray nag,’ ‘For carrying a ded dogge to the Dongeon,’ ‘To Goodwyf Harnett for wool to set her to work,’ appears the sum of 38s. 6d. for wine and cakes, ‘to a bankett presented to Sir Harry Wotton, Lord Embassador to Venis, now at his coming home.’^[8] He was in London early in March, and, after a few days there, went to Royston, where he was well received by the King.^[9]

This was now the highest point in Sir Henry Wotton’s fortunes. A favourite with both the King and the Prince of Wales, and highly esteemed by Lord Salisbury, posts of great trust and honour seemed almost within his grasp; he was talked of for the Spanish embassy ^[10]—his friends said that he had refused the post at Brussels; but he was generally believed to have been chosen by Salisbury, whose health was now failing, to succeed him as secretary. In the meantime he was given two not unimportant pieces of patronage, a pension of £200 a year, in consideration of his service as ambassador at Venice,^[11] and the moiety of a reversion to the place of a Six Clerk in Chancery.^[12]

Wotton remained for a year in England; he had lodgings in King Street, Westminster, near Whitehall; and we get glimpses of him at Court, where he had a considerable reputation as ‘a fine gentleman, and full of variety of discourse’. He was somewhat lacking, however, in the qualities that make a good courtier; ‘he lets things slide,’ his follower Biondi wrote of him, ‘and neglects his own interests. Every saint must have his candle, but he offers none save to the Godhead alone. The principle is a good one in the Church but not in the Court, where idolatry is necessary.’^[13] Wotton, indeed, was too fond of books and good conversation to be assiduous in courting the favour of the great; his time seems to have been largely spent in his study, and in the company of his intimate friends. Chief among these was Sir Edmund Bacon, grandson and heir of Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper, a man of Wotton’s own age, and married to his niece Philippa, daughter of Lord Wotton. A collection of his letters to Sir Edmund Bacon, published in 1661, reprinted in the third and fourth editions of the Reliquiae, and now included in these volumes, gives the most intimate and pleasant glimpses of his life and character. Plainly, in Sir Edmund Bacon, a country gentleman of leisure and cultivation, and a lover of the arts,^[14] Wotton found that ‘consociation in our contemplative course, wherein,’ as he once wrote to another friend, ‘is the highest pleasure that I conceive in this world.’^[15] He often visited the Bacons at Redgrave, the house for which the fat old Lord Keeper jestingly told Queen Elizabeth she had made him too great; and amid the preoccupations of Court life, Wotton was haunted by a vision of its green banks, and a longing for the free and delightful conversation he found there. Another intimate friend was Sir Arthur Throckmorton, Raleigh’s brother-in-law; and he often visited Sir Henry Fanshawe, whose house at Ware Park was famous for its gardens.

He was, however, by no means without occupation at this time. He was writing, apparently by royal command, a history of the famous quarrel between Venice and the Pope; but this history, if finished, was never published,^[16] and all trace of it is lost. He visited in the King’s name the new Venetian ambassador, Antonio Foscarini, who arrived in England at the end of April, 1611, accompanied him at his formal reception by the King, and afterwards went with him to Windsor to witness the ceremonies when the Duke of York was made a Knight of the Garter.^[17] Wotton was also busy in helping the negotiations which were now proceeding for the Savoy marriages. Almost immediately after he had left Turin, the Duke of Savoy had sent the Count of Cartignana as ambassador to England to forward this scheme. Wotton, after waiting for the Savoyard at Paris, had come to England just before his arrival, and had been sent to welcome him. He told Cartignana that the King was favourable to the project, and promised the assistance of his brother Lord Wotton.^[18] Cartignana’s commission was to negotiate for the double marriages; this, however, was refused by James, who said he wished to make alliances that would be politically useful, and thought it was a mistake to marry two of his children into one family. He proposed, however, that the Princess Elizabeth should marry the Prince of Piedmont, and listened in the meantime to the plan suggested by the Spanish ambassador, that Prince Henry should marry the Spanish Infanta Anne. Cartignana, having no instructions to treat of anything but a double marriage, went back to Turin, returning in the autumn, however, to ask for the hand of the Princess Elizabeth for the Prince of Piedmont. He was received on November 21, and Wotton was present at the audience. He and his suite afterwards visited the Princess, and were greatly impressed by her grace and charm.^[19] But it was already practically decided that Elizabeth should marry the Elector Palatine; and the Savoyard went home, complaining of the indignity put upon his master by the preference shown to a German Elector.^[20] James had discovered by now that the plan of a Spanish Infanta for Prince Henry was not meant seriously, and his thoughts reverted to an Italian princess, either a daughter of the Duke of Savoy, or a sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was very eager for a matrimonial alliance with England. Early in the year 1612, he decided to send an ambassador to Turin, partly in return for the compliment of Cartignana’s mission, and partly also to find out on what conditions in regard to religion, and with what dowry, a Savoy princess could be obtained for Prince Henry. The King’s intentions at this time were not very definite, and he does not seem to have at first entertained very seriously the thought of this match; but he wished in any case to enter into nearer terms of friendship with Savoy, and to prepare the way for sending an agent who should reside at Turin. Lord Hay was first chosen for this mission, but Sir Henry Wotton was almost immediately appointed in his place.^[21] The embassy was to be one of special magnificence; certain jewels were selected from the Tower to be presented to the Duke, and Wotton was to be the bearer of a magnificent sword, mounted in gold and set with diamonds, and valued at £16,000. Ten ambling horses, with richly embroidered saddles and furniture, were also sent in charge of Sir Peter Saltonstall, one of the King’s equerries, to meet Wotton at Lyons. To give lustre to the embassy, a number of young Englishmen of noble families, who wished to see something of the world, accompanied him on this journey. Among them were two youths destined to play great parts in the future—Sir Robert Rich, afterwards Earl of Warwick and Lord High Admiral of the Commonwealth, and Sir William Cavendish, who, as the Marquis of Newcastle, commanded the loyalist troops of Charles I. With Wotton also went Albertus Morton and Francesco Biondi. They set out on March 18, 1612, O.S.,^[22] and, crossing to Boulogne, travelled to Lyons, where they arrived in just three weeks. Here they were met by Sir Peter Saltonstall and the King’s horses, which, Wotton wrote, were everywhere admired for ‘delicate beasts’.^[23] The whole party, numbering in all fifty horse, now started out to climb the Alps. The scene is a picturesque one, reminding us indeed of some of the Elizabethan romances of Italian palaces and fair princesses then being acted on the London stage—the stately ambassador, with his jewels, and ambling horses, and young courtiers, riding over the Alps in the May weather, to find a wife for one of the noblest of young princes, and the news of his coming filling the Italian courts with rumours, and the thoughts of Italian princesses with splendid hopes.^[24]

All of Wotton’s dispatches written on this journey have been lost, with the exception of one, in which he describes his almost royal reception at Chambéry, the capital of Savoy.^[25] But as we learn from the dispatches of the Venetian ambassador, his welcome was everywhere splendid, and the honours accorded him could hardly have been greater had the King of England himself been coming. In Savoy he found a banquet prepared in every town he passed; as he crossed the Alps the honours increased, he could hardly travel two miles without a fresh banquet; at each place nearer to Turin officers of higher and higher rank were sent to welcome him, while the capital itself was gay with preparations for feasts and jousts; and a splendid palace was hung with tapestries and gold-embroidered velvets for the ambassador’s reception.^[26] It would almost seem indeed as if Wotton were forced to eat his way into Italy through a succession of more and more splendid banquets; his digestion failed at last, and when he arrived at Rivoli on May 13, N.S., he was prostrated with a fever, and could not see the Duke, who had paid him the great honour of riding thither to meet him. The next day, however, Charles Emmanuel, who was most impatient, insisted on an interview, and on the day following Wotton was able to proceed to Turin.^[27] Here he remained a month, overwhelmed, as he wrote to Lord Pembroke, ‘with infinite honours and entertainments.’^[28] The Venetian ambassador at Turin writes of concerts, dances, feasts, hunting parties at Mirafiore and other ducal villas, and of the great honour paid to the young Englishmen of Wotton’s suite. The ambassador paid his court to the princesses, making them laugh and blush with his wit, and complimented in especial the Infanta Maria, who was intended for Prince Henry’s wife.^[29] When, however, he came to the serious part of his business with the Duke, the fundamental vice of policy, which pervaded almost all the negotiations of James I, and paralysed the action of his ambassadors, soon appeared. Wotton, Gussoni wrote, was commissioned to propose in the name of his King two things so incompatible, that no wisdom in the world could couple them together. The first was a league or union for the purpose of opposing Spain, and restoring the balance upset by the Franco-Spanish matches. The second was that Spain should undertake to bring about the Savoy marriage, which, as Wotton was forced to explain to the Duke, could not take place without Spanish sanction.^[30] This last condition seemed to make the project almost hopeless; and Wotton, on his arrival at Turin, had told Gussoni in confidence that the obstacles were too great to be overcome.^[31] But Charles Emmanuel was so eager for the English alliance, that he was prepared to make great concessions, and the prospects of success grew more favourable. On May 28 Albertus Morton was dispatched to England, and with him a Savoyard named Pergamo, who was the bearer of a miniature portrait of the Infanta. A little later Wotton wrote that the Duke was doing all he could to raise a dowry worthy of the Prince of Wales, and even had thoughts of making use of his jewels for this purpose. As to the objections of Spain and the Pope, he was a sovereign prince, and could marry his daughter without their permission.^[32] In the meantime he kept Wotton against his will at Turin, entertaining him with banquets and the chase. Just before his departure on June 15, the young princes gave him an entertainment at Mirafiore, and the last day there was a jousting scene in the Piazza Castello, when the Savoy princesses were placed in a coach opposite to that of the ambassador, so that he might see each of them plainly. At his leave-taking he was presented with a jewel valued at £3,000, and rich gifts were made to the gentlemen of his suite. He then set out for Milan, riding in a coach of the Duke’s, and saluted, as he passed through Asti, by two thousand troops drawn up in battle array.^[33] All Italy was by now talking of his splendid reception at Turin, and his magnificent gifts at parting,^[34] and the news soon reached England. We next hear of Wotton at Milan, spending on the ‘curiosities of that place’ some of the money that had flowed into his pockets at Turin, while five gentlemen of his suite went on to visit Venice.^[35]

It had been intended that Wotton should be commissioned to congratulate the new Emperor, who should be elected to succeed Rudolf II, but this project was abandoned. Wotton travelled home by way of Basle, and down the Rhine to Frankfort and the Low Countries, in order that his company might see something of the world.^[36] On July 14, 1612, he was at Cologne,^[37] and before the end of the month he arrived in England.

While Wotton was travelling thus over Europe in state, his name was much before the English public. Already in March it was known that Lord Salisbury was in his last illness, and Wotton was regarded as his probable successor in his office of Secretary of State. Even Chamberlain, who had never a good word for Wotton in his letters, thought it well to begin to insinuate himself into his favour.^[38] After the death of Salisbury on May 24, it was reported that he had left a letter to the King recommending Wotton to succeed him. The Queen and Prince of Wales, Chamberlain wrote, were earnest in Wotton’s behalf, and the new favourite Rochester unwilling to make any opposition.^[39] The Queen had sent him a jewel by Albertus Morton, with the request that he should return as soon as possible; and Lord Wotton told the Venetian ambassador that, if his brother were only in England, he might succeed in winning the coveted post.^[40]

But the King did not for some time appoint a successor to Salisbury, keeping the work in his own hands; and Wotton, who loved loitering on his foreign journeys, when he travelled at the King’s expense, ‘lingered and trifled so long in his way home,’ that Sir Peter Saltonstall, who had conducted the King’s horses to Turin, arriving in England a week or so before him, was sent for, Chamberlain wrote, and ‘did the best part of his errand beforehand’.^[41]

Even after his arrival in London on July 27 Wotton lingered there five or six days before he went to the King ‘with his pictures and projects’.^[42] The King was then on a progress in the Midlands; Wotton probably joined him at Belvoir Castle. He made a report very favourable to Savoy, and gave high praises to the beauty and qualities of the Infanta Maria.^[43] To Belvoir Castle had ridden the prospective bridegroom, the young Prince Henry, accomplishing the journey of nearly one hundred miles from Richmond in two days, in spite of the extreme heat of the weather. Wotton had an audience with the Prince, who then saw Gabaleoni, a banker sent by the Duke of Savoy to help in the negotiations.^[44] The Prince was at first inclined to approve of the match, being attracted by the beauty and youth of the Infanta, the spirited character of her father, which resembled his own, and the ancient lineage of the House of Savoy.^[45] It was understood, moreover, that the Infanta would be content if she were allowed the exercise of her religion in the most private manner possible.^[46] Indeed, as Isaac Wake, Carleton’s secretary, wrote from London, Wotton ‘gave assurance that she was so far from being superstitious as that she had always about her a lady of the Religion for her chief companion, and would desire Mass only in her chamber as privately as could be wished, promising likewise to accompany the Queen to our sermons at times when she should be called’. Wotton advocated the cause ‘as if’, Wake shrewdly remarked, ‘he had received some fee from thence’; and declared moreover that the Duke of Savoy was the least superstitious and devoted to the Pope of all Catholic princes; and even went so far as to ‘give some hope of that duke’s turning Huguenot upon such an occasion’.^[47]

James I however, not satisfied with the dowry of seven hundred thousand crowns offered by Charles Emmanuel, had begun negotiations with the Queen Regent of France for the hand of her second daughter, the Princess Christina;^[48] and on October 22 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, ‘I hear a whispering that the match with Savoy cools, so that unless Fabritio and such like blow the coal to warm themselves, it may in good time be quite quenched.’^[49] A rival of Wotton’s for the secretaryship, Sir Henry Neville, wrote that Wotton had rather lost than gained by his Savoy embassy.^[50] A little later, however, the prospects grew more favourable, and it seemed as if the King really intended the marriage to take place.^[51] But on October 26, when the Council met to conclude the matter, the Prince begged them to defer their decision, and showed himself suddenly unfavourable to the match.^[52] This change was attributed to the influence of Count Frederick Henry of Nassau, who had arrived in England to represent his brother Count Maurice at the Elector Palatine’s marriage, and who was supposed to have brought messages from Count Maurice, suggesting a Protestant marriage for the Prince, and grandiose schemes of war and conquest.^[53]

But all schemes of war and marriage were soon to be at an end for the gallant young Prince, now struggling heroically with that mysterious illness which ended fatally on November 6. ‘Our rising Sun is set ere scarce he had shone,’ ‘all our glory lies buried,’ the Earl of Dorset wrote,^[54] in words that expressed in no exaggerated terms the grief of all Englishmen of large patriotism and serious purpose, at the death of this high-minded and noble-hearted youth.

Wotton had lost, in the Prince and Lord Salisbury, two of his most important friends and patrons; and just before the Prince’s death another misfortune overtook him. He had spent the autumn happily in London; ‘Fabritio,’ Chamberlain wrote on October 22, ‘gives himself buon tempo, and follows good company, and plays, as familiarly and ordinarily, as if he had nothing else to do,’^[55] but on November 4 Chamberlain sent good news of Wotton’s disgrace to Carleton. ‘Signor Fabritio is thought to be down the wind, and I hope his business will follow the same way.’^[56] The cause of this disgrace was curious and unexpected. The reader has probably not forgotten the definition of an ambassador which Wotton had written in the album of a friend as he passed through Augsburg in August 1604. This indiscreet inscription was no doubt read and laughed over among the scholars of Augsburg. The most eminent of these was Mark Welser, who was a friend of that brilliant and infamous controversialist Gaspar Scioppius. Scioppius, first a Protestant and then a Catholic, at one time a friend and at another a bitter enemy of the Jesuits, defamed during his long lifetime of scurrility all parties in a series of libels unexampled in their quantity, their savage licence, their audacity of fiction, and their elegant Latinity. Either from Welser or from some one else he procured a copy of Wotton’s inscription, and when he wrote his Ecclesiasticus ^[57], (an attack on the Apologia of James I), he printed it in full, and made use of it to impeach the honour and fame of the English King. For if, as he pointed out, James I’s own ambassador declared that he had been sent abroad to lie in the King’s service, must not the King himself be numbered with those rulers of Jerusalem, who, in the words of Isaiah, boasted, ‘We have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves’?^[58] And if he sent out ambassadors to lie to the kings and princes of Europe, what truth could one expect to find in the book which he had dedicated to those same potentates? Wotton’s folly in making this barefaced admission was illustrated with appropriate texts. ‘It is as sport to a fool to do mischief’;^[59] he was one of the heretics of whom the Scriptures speak, ‘Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked’;^[60] ‘They declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.’^[61]

All this was sound and pertinent controversy, according to the standards of the time; and James I, who had a biting pen of his own, had no right to complain. He was nevertheless very angry at Wotton’s indiscretion, and taxed him with it at dinner, demanding an explanation in the face of the Court. Wotton tried to pass it off as a joke, but the King replied that it was no jesting matter, and that he must clear himself. According to Izaak Walton, Wotton wrote two apologies for this indiscretion. One in Latin, addressed to his friend Welser of Augsburg, was published as a pamphlet and distributed about Europe.^[62] In this he defends his definition of an ambassador as a mere jest, and retorts on Scioppius with some vigorous mud-throwing, which seems more than adequate to modern readers, though it is insipid enough compared with the obscene vituperation printed by the friends of Scaliger, whom Scioppius had also attacked.^[63] The second apology was a private one, addressed to James I, but this has disappeared. They were both, Walton says, so ingenuous, so clear, and so choicely eloquent, that his Majesty (who was a fine judge of it) could not forbear, at the receipt thereof, to declare publicly ‘that Sir Henry Wotton had commuted sufficiently for a greater offence’. Wotton seems, however, to have been more or less in disgrace with the King, and it was not till nearly a year later that he had hopes of public employment.

A few days after the King’s public reprimand, occurred an incident which Mark Pattison, and Wotton’s biographers, on his authority, have described in a manner that has done some injustice to the memory of Sir Henry Wotton. Paolo Sarpi, as Mark Pattison tells the story, had entrusted to Wotton the manuscript of his memoir on the Venetian quarrel for De Thou’s special use in his history. Casaubon, at the request of De Thou, wrote to ask for the manuscript, but Wotton vouchsafed no answer. After repeated applications, Wotton at last said that he was writing on the subject himself, and should retain the manuscript for his own use. Mark Pattison quotes a letter from Casaubon to De Thou, in which the scholar complains of Wotton’s neglect; he had been to see him several times, but had not found him at home; he had then written to make an appointment and to ask for the manuscript, but had received no answer. ‘I cannot make out these English,’ Casaubon adds; ‘those of them with whom I was acquainted before my coming over seem now not to know me. Not one of them ever speaks to me, or even answers if I speak to him.’ Mark Pattison draws the conclusion that Wotton ‘was now too fine a gentleman to be seen talking to an old pedant’.^[64]

As a matter of fact, however, the ‘old pedant’ was now in high favour with the King and Court; the fine gentleman was ‘down the wind’ and in disgrace. With the illness of the Prince and his own disfavour, Wotton was probably too much occupied for visiting even his most intimate friends. Casaubon, ill and sensitive, was quick to fancy neglect; and his letter was that of an exiled scholar in a foreign land, written in the vividness of a moment’s spleen, amid strange and what he felt to be unfriendly surroundings. But when the letter had been written and sealed, he opened it again to write, in a more cheerful mood, that he had just that moment heard from Wotton, who sent his compliments to De Thou, and would be glad to oblige him with the manuscript, only he himself was occupied in writing on the same subject. Casaubon was to see Wotton, and find out what could be done.^[65] Mark Pattison does not mention this postscript, and he was under a misapprehension in regard to the desired manuscript. Sarpi expressly states that it was an English translation made by Bedell, and in Bedell’s possession. He had not sent it to De Thou, but had only requested Bedell to allow De Thou if possible to have a sight of it.^[66] Wotton kept the translation for a while, and then returned it to Bedell, by whom it was finally published in 1626. The strictest laws of courtesy among scholars by no means obliged Wotton to send De Thou a document which belonged to some one else, and which he had merely borrowed for the purpose of writing his own history.

In spite of his disgrace, Wotton on November 14 wrote to Rochester begging for an increase of his pension ^[67]; but Isaac Wake, who visited him five days later and was received with ‘much ceremony all’ Italiana’, found him and his followers ‘much crestfallen’. This was perhaps, Wake wrote, due to the death of the Prince, ‘in whom they think to have lost more than others’; but he suggested that the King’s anger about the book of Scioppius was a possible explanation for ‘this dejection that is so sensibly seen in Sir H. and his followers’.^[68]

The year 1612 Wotton called a ‘fatal year’ for his own fortunes. He had lost two great patrons; his embassy to Turin had borne no fruit save the usual one of money difficulties for himself; and finally had come his disgrace with the King. But Henry Wotton was one of those characters in whom adversity is the parent, not of bitterness, but of philosophic wisdom and religious thought. ‘Quid superest?’ he wrote to Carleton. ‘In truth, my Lord, only this, that we learn hereafter to plant ourselves better than upon the grace or breath of men.’^[69] And it is to the misfortunes of this year that we owe one of Wotton’s immortal poems:—

These verses he entitled ‘The Character of a Happy Life’; and the author in truth was happy who, like Shakespeare’s exiled Duke, could

Indeed in the letters written in this period of disgrace there appears a certain gaiety of spirit very characteristic of his nature. ‘When we meet,’ he wrote to Sir Edmund Bacon, ‘all the world to nothing we shall laugh; and in truth, Sir, this world is worthy of nothing else.’^[71] Nor was Wotton incapable of appreciating the element of comedy in the cause of his own disgrace. ‘When all is said,’ he once wrote, ‘the Devil is one of the wittiest,’^[72] and in future years he would often refer to his ‘friend Scioppius’, and his own ‘merry definition’ of an ambassador.

Throughout the greater part of 1613 he remained quietly in London, with a few books about him, vicinae nescius urbis. He was still engaged in writing the history of the Interdict, and was planning to write the ‘Characters’ of his two patrons, Essex and Salisbury.^[73] But with his natural curiosity and love of news, Wotton kept his eye on the world and Court; his letters contain many references to the interesting occurrences of the day, the festivities for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, the mysterious arrest of Sir Thomas Overbury, sudden ‘like a stroke of thunder’, which he himself witnessed,^[74] and which was the beginning of such a strange history of crime. He writes also an interesting account of the burning of the Globe Theatre, ‘the fatal period of that virtuous fabric,’^[75] in which he had probably often seen Shakespeare act. He was at Cambridge in March, when the King and Court were there. In July he returned thither, on his way to visit Sir Edmund Bacon at Redgrave, and passed by Ware Park, the residence of his friend Sir Henry Fanshawe. We get from Chamberlain’s letters a glimpse of elaborate gardens being planned, and in the midst Wotton arriving, and proposing new devices, much to the disgust of the splenetic Chamberlain, to whom, whether as politician or landscape-gardener, Wotton was equally obnoxious.^[76]

But he was not at this time without political and diplomatic business of a half-official kind. The Duke of Savoy, in spite of the death of Prince Henry, had by no means given up the project of an English marriage, and sent as special ambassador the Marchese Villa, to renew for Prince Charles the proposals that had been made for Prince Henry. Villa arrived in April, 1613, and remained till nearly the end of June, and Wotton, Chamberlain writes, ‘was never from his elbow’ during his stay in England.^[77] Wotton, as we have seen, was deeply committed to the project of a Savoy marriage; and indeed, with the somewhat dubious morality of the time, both he and Albertus Morton were in the receipt of pensions from the Duke of Savoy, in payment for their assistance in his projects.^[78] These matrimonial negotiations came to nothing, but Wotton was soon in favour with the King once more, and occupied with important affairs. The good-natured James I was, indeed, not capable of long resentments; and by October 21 Wotton was at Court by command of the King, and expected to be employed as ambassador again.^[79] There was, however, some delay about his appointment, and he remained in England till the summer of 1614. At Easter he was at Ware Park once more with Chamberlain, who, finding no pleasure in his conversation, succeeded in putting him to silence for a day by lending him a manuscript to read by the well-known traveller John Pory.^[80]

In the ‘Undertakers’ or ‘Addled’ Parliament of 1614, which met on April 5, Wotton was member for Appleby.^[81] This Parliament, after a fruitless debate on impositions, and a quarrel with the House of Lords about Bishop Neile’s attack on the Commons, was soon dissolved by the King. On May 21, during the debate on the right of the Crown to levy impositions on merchandise without the consent of Parliament, Wotton made a speech which attracted some attention. Sir Roger Owen had maintained that the right of imposing, without the consent of the three estates, was not allowed by law in any European country. Wotton answered him in what Chamberlain called ‘a very mannerly and demure speech’, pointing out that the right of imposing did belong to hereditary, though not to elective monarchies.^[82]

Wotton was once again member of Parliament in 1625, but this was the only occasion on which he took any important part in debate. As a diplomatist, and an Englishman living for the most part abroad, his main care was for the maintenance of the dignity and power of the English King in Europe. He was thus out of sympathy with the movement for parliamentary freedom in England, and the efforts to limit the royal prerogative, which for us are the main interests in this period of English history. That a free country, ruled by a constitutional monarch, might impose its will on Europe with a force equal to or greater than that of an absolute king, was a conception to which no contemporary, certainly no survivor of the Elizabethan age, could have easily attained.

As late as June 18 Wotton believed that he was to go to France;^[1] but the King finally decided to send him as extraordinary ambassador to the Hague, to try to settle, in conjunction with the Dutch statesmen and the representatives of France, the famous Juliers-Cleves controversy, then on the point, as it seemed, of breaking into open war. He expected afterwards to go to Spain, to succeed Sir John Digby; for as he wrote, his training and constitution would ‘symbolize better’ with Spain than with France, whither the King had first destined him.^[2]

Wotton, familiar with the ancient Commonwealth of Venice, was now accredited to a Republic of a very different character. The Dutch United Provinces, with the great John of Barneveldt ruling their councils, and the famous Count Maurice of Nassau at the head of their armies, formed perhaps the best governed and most powerful State in Europe. But hardly had they won peace and triumphant independence by the Truce of 1609, than they found themselves threatened on their borders by a danger which was destined to tax all their resources, and which became in the end one of the main causes of the Thirty Years’ War.

This was the Juliers-Cleves controversy, that great nightmare of history, which baffled for centuries the efforts of all the peacemakers of Europe. As Sir Henry Wotton is numbered among these peacemakers, some account of the affair will be necessary. The inheritance of the childless Duke of Cleves, (who died in 1609), formed a territory which lay like an apple of discord between the great Catholic and Protestant powers of Europe. If the Duchies of Juliers and Cleves and their appanages fell into the hands of the Catholics, then the Dutch were cut off from their neutral allies; if the Protestants possessed them, then Brussels and the Spanish provinces were hemmed in and divided from the Empire. The Emperor, after the death of the Duke, had attempted to take possession, until it could be decided who was the rightful heir; while Henry IV, seeing his opportunity was now come to carry out his attack on the Austro-Spanish power, collected a great army, and prepared to invade the disputed territories. The States-General got ready an army to co-operate with the French King; while James I, who wished to protect the German Protestants, sent four thousand English troops under the command of Sir Edward Cecil. In spite of the assassination of Henry IV just as he was about to march from Paris, his plan, as far as it related to Juliers, was carried out; the allied troops drove the Emperor’s representative, the Archduke Leopold, from that fortress, and settled the two principal claimants in joint possession of the disputed territories. These claimants were the Elector of Brandenburg, who was represented by his son Ernest, and the Count Palatine of Neuburg, represented by his son and heir, Wolfgang William. This joint government of the two princes, or Condominium as it was called, naturally led to endless disputes; the Brandenburg party, favoured by the Dutch, gained ground; in 1613 Wolfgang William of Neuburg became a Catholic, married a sister of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and claimed the protection of the Catholic League. The Brandenburgers in Juliers drove out the troops of Neuburg, and gained complete possession of the town; the Neuburgers retaliated by driving the Brandenburgers out of Düsseldorf. The Dutch, at the invitation of Brandenburg, and under the pretence of guarding the peace, put a garrison into Juliers. This occupation of Juliers was regarded, and not unjustly, by the Spanish party as an open violation of faith, and gave them the excuse they wanted to establish themselves in the places which would be of the most vital importance in the impending war against the Protestant powers.

This was the condition of affairs when Wotton was sent to intervene. His first business was to induce the Dutch to withdraw from Juliers; beyond that lay the larger task of finding some peaceful solution for the whole difficulty.

After a pleasant passage, two nights being spent at sea, Wotton arrived at Rotterdam on August 1. Here he was met by Sir Horace Vere and other English soldiers in the Dutch service, who accompanied him on his progress to the Hague. They travelled by boat to within about two miles of the capital, and then landing, were received by Count Maurice of Nassau, his brother Count Frederick Henry, and a number of the Deputies of the States in their coaches. Seated by the side of Count Maurice, and followed by the whole procession, the ambassador made his entry into the Hague, and was taken to a house magnificently fitted up for him by the Government, where he stayed, entertained at the cost of the States, for about a fortnight.^[3] At this house he was welcomed by four of the Deputies, or ‘Lords of the States’ as they were called, and on August 4 he had his first audience, being conducted to the palace in a state equipage followed by thirty or forty coaches. When he entered the apartment where the States-General met, the Deputies all rose and stood uncovered, until the ambassador covered himself, and took his seat in the green velvet armchair placed for him opposite to that of the President.^[4]

In his first audience Wotton protested against the occupation of Juliers. The next fortnight was spent by the English and the resident French ambassador, Aubery du Maurier, partly in public audiences, partly in private interviews with Barneveldt and Count Maurice, for the purpose of devising some means by which the fortress might be placed in neutral hands. But while these negotiations at the Hague were taking their leisurely course, in Brussels an army was being swiftly prepared; and the alarming news soon arrived that Spinola had marched into the disputed territories. This news caused the greatest consternation at the Hague; Count Maurice marched out at once to meet Spinola, and the garrison of Juliers was reinforced. But it was soon clear that Spinola had no intention of breaking the truce by an armed conflict with the Dutch troops. He besieged, however, and captured the imperial city of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had incurred the ban of the Empire, then entered the Juliers-Cleves territory, took Osroy and a number of other ungarrisoned places, and, crossing the Rhine, descended on Wesel. Wesel was a prosperous town which had formerly belonged to the Duchy of Cleves, but which, growing in wealth and prosperity, had come to regard itself as a free imperial city, recognizing the Dukes of Cleves, not as sovereigns, but only as protectors. Its inhabitants were strongly Protestant and Calvinistic, and it was considered the Rhenish Geneva, the very cradle of German Calvinism. When, therefore, it was captured by Spinola on September 7, just two days before the arrival of the Dutch army, there was a great outcry throughout Protestant Europe. A large share of the blame fell on Wotton, who was falsely said to have taken it upon himself to promise that Spinola would not attack Wesel. The Dutch had already ‘very handsomely’ laid to his charge their delay in marching to meet Spinola ^[5]; and now their complaints increased and reached James I, who demanded an explanation. Fortunately for Wotton, the accusation against him took so exaggerated a form that it was easy for him to defend himself. He certainly had made no promise about Wesel; and the fall of that town was, as he wrote to the King, due to the folly of its own citizens, who had refused the garrison which the Dutch had urged them to accept. For it was the rule of this extraordinary campaign that the hostile armies neither attacked each other, nor places occupied by each other’s troops, but only made war on neutrals.^[6] The blame incurred by Wotton belongs indeed more properly to James I, who was constitutionally unable to believe in the aggressive designs of the Spaniards, and who had expressly instructed Wotton to do all he could to keep the hostile armies from meeting. It must be admitted, however, that the choice of Wotton for this embassy was not a fortunate one. The leisurely and peace-loving ambassador, accustomed to the deliberations of the slow Venetians, was indeed, as he himself knew, somewhat out of place in the very storm-centre of Europe, where sharpness of insight and quick decision were of vital importance.

The States-General, when once they had realized their mistake, acted with promptness. Count Maurice took possession of Emmerich and Rees, and several other places in the disputed territories, and then encamped himself near Rees, where he was joined by Count Ernest of Brandenburg. Spinola took Xanten after Wesel, and lay encamped near the latter town, two hours’ march from Count Maurice. The Catholic claimant Neuburg came to his camp; and negotiations were begun between the parties for a cessation of arms, and a meeting of representatives and ambassadors, to settle if possible the whole question of the Duke of Cleves’ inheritance. The town of Xanten was chosen for this purpose, and thither Wotton and De Reffuge, the special French ambassador, who had at last arrived, travelled from the Hague, and a series of long and fruitless conferences began.

The Juliers-Cleves controversy is so involved in negotiations, buried deep beneath such a weight of documents, dispatches, and treaties, that the living facts of the country, the walled towns, and the concourse of soldiers and diplomatists, are apt to be forgotten. Even Wotton’s lively wit was oppressed by the perplexity of the situation, which was almost beyond human comprehension; and his dispatches at this time, hurriedly written at night, and as he said, ‘born of tired spirits,’ have not the vividness of his Venetian letters. But he gives now and then bits of description in his old manner, and we are enabled to see, (dimly as through thick dust-clouds), the quiet Rhine country overrun with swarms of soldiers, officers, envoys, and ambassadors, and the poor inhabitants themselves—who were most concerned, but least regarded in this controversy—groaning under the burden of the armies quartered on them, so that, as Wotton wrote, all corners were full of ‘poverty and clamour’.^[7]

Two figures stand out, the two great generals, Count Maurice and Spinola, both frank and manly soldiers, and, (in Wotton’s opinion), agreeing together well enough; each glad to be at the head of his troops again, and desiring nothing more than to renew with the other their famous struggles. To keep them apart were assembled in the little town of Xanten twenty-four delegates and ambassadors, all with their pretensions to rank and precedence, so that there was ‘no possible means devisable by the conceit of man’ to bring them all together into the same room.^[8] But at last some kind of a working arrangement was devised; and after seven weeks of negotiation and ‘much agitation of brains’, a treaty was agreed upon which was generally admitted to be fair and equitable. The unworkable Condominium was done away with, and the disputed territories were divided into two parts, one of which was to be assigned to each prince by lot, and to remain in his absolute possession until the whole question could be finally decided. The Dutch and Spanish troops were to be withdrawn from the disputed territories; and all fortifications at Juliers or elsewhere, made since the preceding month of May, were to be destroyed, and no part of the territories left in the hands of any third party. By November 2 these articles were agreed upon and signed by all parties concerned, including the rival princes.^[9]

The Spaniards, however, had no intention of giving up the advantages they had gained by the capture of Wesel and other cities in the disputed territories. When, therefore, the question of the withdrawal of troops arose, the delegates of the Archdukes and the Marquis Spinola made delays, and insisted on conditions impossible for the Dutch to accept. So neither general moved, and the ambassadors prepared to leave Xanten in disgust. And just as they were departing a courier from Spain arrived, bringing not a ratification, but a prohibition of the treaty. The articles were not to be executed, and, above all, Wesel was not to be restored without the concurrence of the King of Spain.^[10] This rendered the treaty utterly futile, and, as Motley says, ‘The whole great negotiation began to dissolve into a shadowy, unsatisfactory pageant.’^[11] Wotton with the other negotiators had wasted seven weeks at Xanten; the weather had been cold, the place uncomfortable and expensive; he was unjustly blamed for the failure of the conference; the great controversy was no nearer settlement than it had been before; and on November 21 he started for the Hague in no very good spirits, to continue there for many months, vainly attempting to arrange for carrying out the terms of this unfortunate treaty.

He arrived at the Hague on December 1st, and there, as English ambassador, helped in concluding a league between the States-General and the Princes of the Protestant Union,^[12] brought about by the mediation of James I, who had himself entered into a league with the Protestant Princes in 1612. With these successful negotiations, and with negotiations, also successful, to induce the States-General to send aid and troops to the Duke of Savoy, then at war in Italy, Wotton was occupied till the beginning of the year 1615, when the question of carrying out the terms of the treaty of Xanten again came up.

The States were most anxious that the treaty should be faithfully carried out. If this were done, the disputed territories peacefully divided, and the Dutch and Spanish troops withdrawn upon a promise binding upon both parties not to return, the peace of Europe might have been secured, and the great war between the Protestant Union and the Catholic League averted. The difficulty was to contrive formularies and promises that both sides would accept. For although the States-General, under their wise leader Barneveldt, acted in good faith, and were genuinely anxious to preserve the peace, and although the Archduke Albert was personally in favour of carrying out the treaty, the forces of Spain and the Catholic League, which controlled the Archduke, were determined on the conquest of the German Protestant Princes, and had no intention of agreeing to terms which would hinder them in this enterprise. If not prevented by England and the States they could, Wotton wrote, ‘swallow up the German Protestants in a week,’^[13] and, while preparing their forces for the attack, they exhausted all the tricks of diplomacy in their attempts to bind the Dutch not to enter the disputed territories, (which would be the seat of the conflict), while they themselves were left free to send in their troops when they pleased. In the end these attempts were foiled by the wise statesmanship of Barneveldt, the great Prime Minister of European Protestantism, in spite of the fact that the one prince who might have helped him, James I, by his futile and unwise diplomacy did almost more than any one to hinder his designs. The weakness and vacillation of James I seldom showed themselves in a more humiliating manner than in these negotiations; and it was Sir Henry Wotton’s unfortunate fate to be the mouthpiece of this feeble policy, realizing all the while its futile character, and to urge on men like Barneveldt and Count Maurice plans of which he himself strongly disapproved.

As these negotiations came to nothing, it is not necessary to enter at length into their endless and wearisome details. Seven months were spent in the ‘hammering and forging of formularies’; in the vain search for a form of promise for the withdrawal of the troops that both sides could accept. After several proposals, to which the Dutch could not agree, James I finally suggested in April, that the promise not to return into the disputed territories should be made to himself and the King of France; and that the States-General should be permitted to send an army thither if war broke out in those territories, or if they were invaded by the enemies’ forces. The States reluctantly agreed to this, although they had been anxious to have the formulary so worded that they could march across the disputed territories, if the Catholic League attacked the German Princes.^[14] They protested, however, that in their opinion the Spanish party intended nothing but ‘delays and delusions’; and Count Maurice declared to Wotton, in his blunt soldier’s fashion, that he would give the ambassador his head if the treaty of Xanten was ever carried out by the Archdukes.^[15]

It was soon plain that Count Maurice was right; the Archdukes now suggested that the Emperor’s name should be mentioned in the promise; a condition which the States could not accept, owing to the Emperor’s claim to sequester the whole Juliers-Cleves inheritance. The Government at Brussels thereupon declared that they would abandon the mention of the Emperor’s name, if the States would omit the names of the Kings of France and England. To this demande effrontée, as Barneveldt called it, which would leave the promise without any guarantee at all, James I not only agreed, but took it on himself to promise that the States would accept it. Impatient of the long delays, and the necessary punctiliousness of Barneveldt, he had been cajoled by the Spaniards, who deceived him by making him believe that the French Government would consent to the omission of the name of Louis XIII from the promise. But Barneveldt had influence enough at Paris to prevent the making of any such request; and Wotton was forced by orders from home to put before the States a demand, ridiculous enough in itself, and doubly ridiculous when it was realized that he was asking that the King of France’s name should be omitted without the consent of that monarch.

This was the crowning humiliation of these fruitless and hopeless negotiations; James I was, as Wotton wrote, ‘deceived on all hands,’^[16] and nothing remained but to recall the ambassador, and lay the blame on the Dutch for the failure of the negotiations. Wotton left the Hague towards the end of August, ending a task as fruitless and thankless as had ever been laid on any ambassador, even in this barren and endless Juliers-Cleves controversy. On account of the blame he had justly or unjustly incurred by the loss of Wesel, he had begun his embassy under unhappy auspices; the cold and uncomfortable seven weeks at Xanten affected his health, so that he was often ill; and he was forced to urge on the wise and resolute statesmen of the Dutch Republic impossible schemes devised by the Spaniards, who made James I their dupe, in order by his means to entrap the Dutch and ruin the German Protestants.

To add to the difficulty of Wotton’s task, James had seen fit, in the midst of this delicate business, when it was most important that a good understanding should be maintained between England and the States, to raise some extremely difficult points in regard to trade, which had long been disputed between the two countries. In January, 1615, an English Commission arrived at the Hague to treat on these points under Wotton’s superintendence; but after three months of discussion no conclusion was arrived at, and the commissioners returned.^[17]

Although late in the year 1614 there had been some talk of Wotton remaining at the Hague as resident ambassador, and Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, (who himself desired the post), that Wotton wished to stay there,^[18] by the time the summer came he was most anxious to get away. ‘For what sin in the name of Christ,’ he wrote to Sir Edmund Bacon, ‘was I sent hither among soldiers, being by my profession academical, and by my charge pacifical?’^[19] The English officers in the Dutch service complained of him, according to Chamberlain, as ‘not affable, always busy, but dispatching little’; accustomed to negotiating in Italian, he had not the same mastery of French, which was the diplomatic language of the Low Countries,^[20] and altogether he was uncomfortable and out of place amid his uncongenial surroundings.

After Wotton’s departure, the absurd proposal for the omission of the Kings’ names from the promise was submitted to the Sovereign Provincial Assemblies, (for the States-General, like the Collegio at Venice, was merely a deliberative body), but of course it was not accepted. Nor indeed did the French Government ever agree to it. In November Wotton is mentioned as being present, with Sir Ralph Winwood, at an interview with the Dutch ambassador in England, Noel de Caron, who had gone to the Hague, and had returned to assure James I that the Spaniards had no intention of carrying out the treaty of Xanten, and to beg him not to insist that the disputed places held by the Dutch should be given up. Caron had come from a stormy audience with the King, who was indignant that his proposals were not accepted, and the Dutch troops withdrawn, with no other guarantee than a mere promise from himself to come to their assistance if the terms of the treaty were not observed. ‘I see very well,’ he declared in a passion, ‘that you don’t mean to give up the places. If I had known that before, I should not have warned the Archdukes so many times, which I did at the desire of the States themselves. And now that the Archdukes are ready to restore their cities, you insist on holding yours. This is the dish you set before me!’ James hereupon swore a mighty oath, and beat himself upon the breast.^[21] With this dish which the Dutch set before the King, and which the King, (with Wotton for his unlucky subordinate), had largely concocted for himself, our concern with the Juliers-Cleves controversy comes to an end. The treaty of Xanten was never carried out; the Dutch and Spaniards kept their respective places until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War; not until 1666 was an effective partition brought about; even then the great lawsuit was by no means ended, and it does not disappear indeed from sight until its final settlement by the Congress of Vienna.

Wotton seems to have remained about the Court during the autumn of 1615. It was no doubt at this time that he wrote his poem on the fall of Somerset, who was arrested on October 18, being charged with complicity in the Overbury murder. Wotton was offered the choice of several embassies, and requested the King to send him to Venice, to succeed Sir Dudley Carleton, who was to be transferred to the Hague. His appointment was dated October 17, with pay to date from the beginning of the previous month;^[1] but he did not start on his journey till March 18, 1616. He was instructed to visit Heidelberg and Turin on his way to Venice, and the general purpose of his mission was of considerable importance. James I, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs on the Continent, had for the moment adopted, with some vigour, the wise policy of drawing the anti-Spanish powers together under his leadership, although engaged at the same time in negotiations for a Spanish marriage. In 1615 he had sent £15,000 to the Duke of Savoy, to aid him in his war with Mantua and Spain about the territory of Montferrat,^[2] which he claimed as the inheritance of his granddaughter. The treaty of Asti, by which that war had been temporarily ended on terms honourable to Savoy, had been negotiated with English help; now that hostilities seemed likely to break out again, Wotton was commissioned to propose, at the Courts of Heidelberg and Turin and Venice, a league between the Protestant Princes and Savoy, into which Venice and perhaps the Dutch might enter. In case a formal league could not be arranged, it was thought that closer relations between the parties might be established. He was also to see if anything could be done to open the Grison passes, closed to Venice by a combination of Spanish and French influences in 1612. This general plan of making a union between the anti-Spanish powers of the South and the northern Protestants was, as we have seen, the great object of Wotton’s life; and it is not improbable that he had himself suggested his present mission, and had had a hand in his own instructions.

Wotton and his suite ^[3] crossed from Dover to Dunkirk, and then travelled to Cologne, where they spent four days trying to discover the author of the famous libel on James I, the ‘Corona Regia’, which had been recently published at Louvain.^[4] From Cologne he went to Heidelberg, where he arrived on April 16. At Heidelberg he spent six days, entertained at the Elector’s Court, of which he sent a long and interesting account in his dispatch of April 23.^[5] It was probably at this time that he formed his romantic and chivalrous attachment to the Princess Palatine, the lovely and unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, whom he afterwards celebrated in immortal verse. He had been in London at the time of her marriage in 1613, and had probably made her acquaintance at her father’s Court; but now the Princess, in long and intimate conversations, made Wotton her confidant, telling of the troubles which beset her in the formal German Court of her husband. Wotton also had several interviews with the Elector Palatine and laid before him the plan for a league with Savoy, which the Prince approved, and said he would propose to the princes of the Union. Wotton was enabled to keep up a close connexion with the Palatine Court, for his nephew, Albertus Morton, was sent to reside at Heidelberg as secretary to the Electress, and English agent to the princes of the Union.

From Heidelberg Wotton went to Basle; and finding all the Swiss passes closed by infection, he was compelled to force a difficult passage from the Lake of Geneva, across the mountains of Savoy. When he at last reached the other side of the Alps, he wrote to the Duke, who sent gentlemen and coaches to escort him into Turin. He reached Turin on May 24, N.S. A few days afterwards, De Béthune, the Duke of Sully’s brother, arrived as French ambassador, to help in settling the troubles of Italy, travelling like a prince, with a train of two hundred persons. Wotton remained at Turin until May 31, being entertained with the splendid and oppressive hospitality which he had experienced on his previous embassy to the Savoy Court. In company with Isaac Wake, (who had succeeded Albertus Morton as English agent at Turin), he had long interviews with the Duke, which were spent in discussing the plans he was commissioned to lay before him; namely, that Savoy and Venice should enter into a league, and both should join with the Union of Protestant princes.

Wotton found Charles Emmanuel well disposed towards all these propositions; but, as usual with the diplomatic schemes of James I, little or nothing came of their negotiations. The King himself, after a temporary outburst of energy, veered round again to the side of the Spaniards. The league between Savoy and the Protestant princes was not established; and although Venice and Savoy entered into a defensive alliance in 1619, this was accomplished without English help. Wotton seems indeed to have realized the reputation that James I had won for himself, owing to his weak and shifting policy; and in one of his audiences, (fully reported by the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Donato, who was present), he made a long and elaborate speech to prove that the common and accepted view of James I, as a king given up to ease and study and pleasure, was a false one. It was true, he said, that having peacefully acquired a great kingdom, James wished to preserve that quiet and peace, not only for himself, but for all his friends; but, nevertheless, if the Spaniards ever set out to realize their vast designs, he would not stand looking on, but would take his sword in hand, and make the world see he was no idle prince (Principe superfluo). Wotton added, so Donato wrote, many other offers and amplifications of James’s goodwill, and insisted on his intention to preserve the world in a right balance. He boasted of the forces of the Elector Palatine, and of the princes allied to him, and praised the Dutch for their experience in arms and their prudent councils, which made them the great counterpoise of Spain.^[6] Having disposed the Duke towards a closer relation with the German princes, and ‘premasticated’, as he called it, the other objects of his mission, Wotton went on to Venice, which he said was ‘the proper place for their digestion’.^[7] The Duke, with his usual magnificence, made him a present of a jewel worth 1,500 crowns at his departure; and Isaac Wake remained as English agent at Turin, in the state of poverty usual with English agents, being compelled to live by selling the furniture from his house.^[8]

On June 9 Wotton arrived in Venice, and settled himself into the spacious Grimani della Vida Palace on the Grand Canal. Nearly three weeks later he made his public entry, and was received at the island of S. Giorgio in Alga, with the customary pomp and ceremonial. In his speech to the Doge and Collegio he said that it was unusual for an ambassador to be sent to the same place a second time, but that he had chosen to come to Venice of his own free will, the King having left the decision to his choice. For this he said he had three reasons: first, his great love for the Italians—a love born in him at his first crossing of the Alps ^[9]; the second was his admiration for the marvellous government of the Republic, ‘questo stupendo e bel governo,’ and the pleasure he derived from the contemplation of its noble institutions. His third reason for coming to Venice was the kind treatment he had experienced during his previous residence, and the belief that he would find the same kind toleration of his faults and imperfections. He ended his speech by saying that having undertaken this embassy by his own choice, he meant to enjoy it, living more as a philosopher than as a courtier, neither he himself, nor any of his household, causing any scandal or offence, but dwelling in their house in tranquillity and at peace with all men.^[10] Wotton was aware that the part he had played during the quarrel with the Pope had made his return the cause of a great deal of comment; and, whatever his plans, he thought it well to quiet, if possible, the suspicions of the anti-Papal party.

He found on his return to Venice a considerable change both in the Republic and his own position there. The veering of France towards Spain, and the consequent unsettlement of the balance of power, had thrown Italy into a feverish condition, and a general war seemed likely to break out. For although the rulers of the great states of Europe, the Emperor Matthias, the Queen Regent of France, and Philip III of Spain, (or rather his all-powerful favourite, the Duke of Lerma), had troubles enough at home to keep them occupied, and were anxious to avert a war, the outcome of which no one could foretell, there were other and less responsible leaders who were eager to make use of the state of disquiet for their own advantage. In especial the Spanish viceroys in Italy, who were the last of the great race of warlike Spaniards, had, as a consequence of the weakness of the central government of Spain, assumed to themselves almost the position of independent princes. The feebler the Spaniards became at home the more threatening and dangerous was their activity abroad, especially in Italy, where there was no power like that of the Dutch to hold them in check. They were now encouraged by the weakness and submission of France, to attempt the conquest of the states in Italy which still remained independent. The Governor of Milan, Don Pedro de Toledo, haughtily refused to carry out the terms of the treaty of Asti, and still menaced the Duke of Savoy with his troops; while in the south the Duke of Ossuna, Viceroy first of Sicily and then of Naples, began warlike preparations which the Venetians rightly believed to be directed against themselves. The Republic was indeed in a perilous position, being the one great obstacle in the way of the Spanish dominion of Italy. The Grison passes were closed to her, so that help could not be sent from the north, and she seemed likely to perish, as Wotton wrote, from ‘lack of a vent’. She was, moreover, actively engaged in a war with one of the branches of the Austro-Spanish power.

The Archduke Ferdinand of Styria was of a much more aggressive disposition than his peaceful cousin Matthias, whom he was so soon to succeed as Emperor. Resenting the claim of the Venetians to the dominion of the Adriatic Gulf, he had taken under his protection a nest of pirates who were settled at Segna in Croatia, on the Adriatic coast, and who did immense damage to the Venetian shipping. Finding the Archduke unwilling to help them to expel these pirates, the Venetians attempted it alone, and their attack on his territories brought on a war with the Archduke, called the ‘Uscock war’ after the pirates, who were known as the Uscocchi.

Such being the state of affairs, it is no wonder that Wotton found, as he wrote, both Venice and Italy ‘very sick’.^[11] But this was not the only change he found. The great generation of wise and liberal-minded statesmen had passed, or was passing away. Leonardo Donato had died four years previously, hooted by the fickle mob, while devout Catholics told strange stories of his unholy end; and in his place Wotton found the timid and insignificant Giovanni Bembo. Paolo Sarpi was still living in his cloister; he had just finished his great History of the Council of Trent, but was sick at heart with the state of Italy, and bitterly disappointed that the war he had so long desired had led to no weakening, but rather an increase of the Papal power. The movement for religious reform had almost completely died away, and Wotton could no longer regard himself as the leader of a party of the Venetians themselves.

In these somewhat discouraging circumstances Wotton, like the fishermen of the lagoons, as he wrote, prepared his nets and hooks to see what he could catch. He renewed his secret relations with Paolo Sarpi, took Gregorio de’ Monti again into his service, entered into communication with the secret agents and theological adventurers he had formerly employed, or those discovered and employed by his predecessor Sir Dudley Carleton, and established spies in Rome, which he described as ‘the centre of all practice’. In his dispatch of July 30 he gives an account of the first results of his fishing. The plan for transporting a number of Greek bishops to England he did not recommend; but he sent the important news that a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate, the famous Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, was about to renounce his allegiance to the Pope, and betake himself to England.^[12] De Dominis was by far the most important convert won to Anglicanism during the reign of James I; never before had an archbishop sought refuge in England after forswearing the errors of the Church of Rome; he was given a magnificent welcome on his arrival, being received at Lambeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and made Master of the Savoy and Dean of Windsor by James I.^[13]

The subsequent history of this able and over-bearing prelate, his return to Rome, and imprisonment in the Inquisition, and the burning of his body as that of a heretic after his death, is too well known to need recapitulation here. Nor was De Dominis, like some of the Italian converts of the time, a discovery or protégé of Sir Henry Wotton’s. His journey to England was arranged by Sir Dudley Carleton; although his departure, taking place shortly after Wotton’s arrival, and the circulation of the pamphlet in which he gave his reasons for leaving the Roman Church, increased the suspicion with which the Catholics regarded Wotton’s return to Italy. ‘My predecessor had the honour of this good work, and I must bear the envy of it,’ Wotton wrote, in giving an account of the excitement and displeasure caused by the defection of de Dominis.^[14] The Archbishop took with him the manuscript of a work, de Republica Ecclesiastica, in which his principles were set forth, and the first part of which he published in 1617. But he was the bearer of another manuscript of infinitely greater importance, a copy of Sarpi’s History of the Council of Trent,^[15] the greatest book ever written by a Venetian, and one of the most famous and important historical works of modern times. In the same dispatch in which Wotton wrote of the departure of De Dominis, he added in a postscript that this history was nearly finished, that it contained many ‘rare things never discovered before’, and that Sarpi was inclined on the persuasion of James I to allow it to be published. ‘But I have not yet received his full resolution,’ Wotton writes, ‘which peradventure doth somewhat depend upon the resolution which he will take about his own person.’^[16] It is plain from the above sentence that Sarpi admitted to Wotton his authorship of this great work—an admission he is not known to have made to any one else—and the last phrase, taken in connexion with a letter from Winwood to Wotton, seems to show that Sarpi entertained the project of leaving Venice and Italy, and following his friend De Dominis to England.^[17] We know from the biography written by his intimate friend Fulgenzio, that a few years later, on account of the enmity of the Papacy, and the fear that his presence in Venice would cause some disaster to the Republic, he resolved to leave Venice, and go to the Levant or Constantinople.^[18] Already in 1612 he had received a pressing invitation to England from James I, sent by means of Sir Dudley Carleton, to which Sarpi had replied accepting the offer of James’s protection conditionally, and saying that he would take advantage of it if the day ever came when his presence in Venice was no longer useful, either for the service of God or the State.^[19] If at this time, when he had finished his great history, he thought of leaving Venice for England, the thought was probably not more than a passing one. Venice was too dear to Sarpi to be lightly abandoned, even in the interests of the Republic itself; and Wotton’s efforts was not destined to be rewarded with any capture of such immense importance.

While Wotton was renewing his old relations, and recovering from an illness which attacked him soon after his arrival, the affairs of Italy were rapidly approaching a crisis. At Milan Don Pedro de Toledo refused to disarm; the Pope, Wotton wrote, was glad to see the Duke of Savoy in difficulty, and laughing silently at the expenses and troubles of Savoy and Venice, ‘spent not so much as a sprinkle of holy water upon the business till they were ready to fight’;^[20] and finally on September 14 the Spanish army invaded Piedmont.^[21] Wotton, who had already urged on the Venetians the project of a league with the German princes, now offered to travel to Germany himself to forward this object. His offer was not accepted, as a Venetian ambassador had already been dispatched to Heidelberg; but the Republic begged him to urge James to come to the help of the Duke of Savoy, whose condition was growing more and more desperate as time went on. James was for the moment piqued by delays in the Spanish marriage treaty, and took up the cause of Savoy with considerable vigour. To the Count of Scarnafissi, the special envoy sent from Savoy, to beg for help, he half promised a subsidy of £10,000 a month for the Duke; he told the Venetian ambassador that he was ready to join a league of the anti-Spanish powers; he sent Lord Roos to Spain to plead the cause of Savoy; and he even gave a temporary assent to Raleigh’s plan of making a diversion by attacking Genoa; nor did he abandon this plan until he received assurances of the pacific intentions of Spain.^[22] Indeed, the heroic valour of the Duke of Savoy, never more splendidly displayed than in his perilous campaigns of this winter, proved more than a match for Don Pedro de Toledo. Venice in the meantime was fighting successfully against the troops of the Archduke Ferdinand; and Spain and Austria, who had always desired peace, began actively to negotiate for putting an end to both the wars in Italy. This was arranged by the treaty of Madrid,^[23] by which the terms of the treaty of Asti were ratified, and the Uscock war was ended by the Archduke Ferdinand agreeing to expel those pirates, while the Venetians agreed to give up the territory which their troops had occupied.

But peace, though desired by Spain, was by no means to the taste of the Spanish governors of Italy. Don Pedro de Toledo made many delays in carrying out the terms of the treaty of Madrid, and at Naples the half-independent Duke of Ossuna kept the Venetians in a state of continual alarm. Early in 1617 he sent under his own flag a great fleet into the Adriatic, in defiance of the Venetian claim to the dominion of that gulf. He felt it his duty, he said, to help the Archduke Ferdinand in the Uscock war, and to punish the Republic for the aid it was giving to the Duke of Savoy. The treaty of Madrid made no difference to Ossuna, who refused to be bound by its terms, or by the orders of the King of Spain, declaring that he was resolved to send the fleet into Venetian waters ‘in spite of the world, in spite of the King, in spite of God’.^[24] Ossuna had in fact resolved on nothing less than the destruction of the Republic; the famous and mysterious plot of 1618 was almost unquestionably due to his instigation; and although he failed in his attempts, Venice was kept in a state of alarm, until Ossuna was at last superseded in 1620, and returned to Spain to die in prison not long after.

During the whole of Wotton’s second embassy, therefore, the Republic was in arms; and, as a consequence, many English soldiers and warlike adventurers, finding no employment under the peaceful King of England, flocked to Venice, as they did to the Low Countries, to gain the experience of war denied to them in the English service. The Venetian armies were composed of mercenaries, and their generals almost always aliens; already, during the time of the interdict, Wotton had recommended several soldiers to the Republic, and now there were more Englishmen than there had ever been before in Venice, and he was continually urging the Venetians to accept their services.

The English soldiers can be divided into two classes, great noblemen like Lord Dingwall or the Earl of Oxford, who were anxious to raise troops in England and bring them to Italy, or military captains and adventurers who wished for a command in the Venetian army. In his first two audiences after his arrival Wotton offered the services of Lord Dingwall (afterwards Earl of Desmond), who, he said, was the most popular Scotchman at the English Court, and who could bring soldiers from England, Scotland, and Ireland to Venice. He took the opportunity to reaffirm the great principle that those who have command of the sea are never far off, and made what may be regarded as the first English ‘Imperialist’ speech recorded in history. ‘I am displeased,’ he said, ‘at the talk circulating in the piazze, to the effect that the English are a long way off. We have now 500 soldiers in the island lately acquired towards the East (?) Indies; we have three colonies in Virginia, and in the Moluccas are kept four or five hundred infantry. These places could be called far off, but nevertheless one arrives at them. But Venice cannot be called far off, for the frontiers of the Republic join with those of England by sea, as they do with those of the King of Spain by land.’^[25] A little later the Earl of Oxford came to Venice for the same purpose, and Wotton recommended him as one of the greatest noblemen of England, setting forth the glories of his famous race in the past, and mentioning that the fighting Veres were of his family.^[26] The Venetians, however, did not hold a high opinion of English soldiers, who, according to one of their ambassadors in England, were too dependent on the three B’s, ‘beef, beer, and bed,’ to make good fighting soldiers,^[27] and the offers of Lord Dingwall and Lord Oxford were refused. In the Dutch they had more confidence, and early in 1617 Count John Ernest of Nassau arrived to command 3,000 troops, and was received in the territories of Venice with great honours. His troops came by sea, and with them came 600 English soldiers who had been serving in the Low Countries. Wotton took advantage of their arrival, and that of their captain, Sir John Vere, to recommend them to the Doge. ‘Their captains have come to see me, and assure me that they are all veterans. I hope that when they come into action,’ he said to the Doge, ‘their conduct will be such that Your Serenity will do me the justice to count them for 6,000, excusing in the meantime certain small disorders at the beginning, for the change has been great from the small beer which they drank till they disembarked to the wine they have had since.’^[28] He said, too, that the preference shown to Dutch troops caused jealousy in England, for the Dutch themselves, when they wanted soldiers, came to England to get them.^[29]

Although the Venetians set no high value on the services of the English soldiers, their opinion of the English marine was very different. When they found that the fleet of the Duke of Ossuna still haunted the Adriatic Gulf, they determined to apply to James I for permission to hire eight or ten English ships, well armed and manned, to join with the great fleet of 100 galleys they were themselves preparing, in order to defend their dominion of the Adriatic. In spite of the ‘storming’ of Gondomar,^[30] this request was granted, on condition that the ships should be used for defensive purposes,^[31] and early in 1618 seven English merchantmen set sail for the Adriatic Gulf. They were under the command of Sir Henry Peyton, a son-in-law of the Protector Somerset, and there were 500 men on board, sixty of whom came of gentlemen’s families.

The sailing of this little fleet is an incident which had been almost forgotten, until Mr. Julian Corbett pointed out its real importance, as the beginning of the English command of the Mediterranean. It was the first appearance of England as a force in the Mediterranean; for although Sir Henry Peyton’s ships were merchantmen in the pay of the Venetian Government, they nevertheless were really part of the navy of England, which at this time was largely composed of armed merchant ships; and in sanctioning their employment, James I was deliberately parting with a portion of his maritime force in order to protect an ally, and preserve the balance of power in the Mediterranean.^[32]

The English ships arrived in the Adriatic in July, and were joined by a larger squadron of Dutch vessels engaged by the Venetian ambassador at the Hague. Soon after, Naples and the ports of Spain began to resound with great naval preparations; and the Venetians, believing that these preparations were directed against themselves, again applied to James I for aid; and by means of Wotton and of their ambassador in England submitted a request for the loan of four ships from the English navy, to help them to defend themselves.^[33] This request was not granted, not from any unwillingness on the part of James, but because for once he acted in such a vigorous manner, getting ready a fleet himself, requesting the Dutch to join with him, and making strong representations in Spain, that the Spaniards thought it best to stop their hostile preparations.^[34] Thus the great principle of modern maritime warfare, on which Wotton was the first English statesman to insist, was practically demonstrated to the world; and the Spaniards saw that Venice, though the closing of the Grison passes had shut her off from all help by land, was nevertheless amply protected by the English and Dutch maritime forces, which could easily reach her by sea.

The moral effect, therefore, of the sailing of Sir Henry Peyton’s fleet was great, and its place in the history of English maritime policy is important. The fleet itself, however, accomplished little or nothing after its arrival; and indeed was a source of trouble and embarrassment both to Venice and the English ambassador. For when, in July, 1618, the English ships joined the Venetian fleet on the Dalmatian coast, a company of 150 men, happening to land at Cortsela, and meeting there some of the English soldiers who had come in the Dutch fleet, found that these men were paid at a higher rate than themselves. They thereupon mutinied, and refused to return to their ships unless their pay was made equal to that of the men in the Dutch service. The mutiny was promptly suppressed; and the Venetian general, Piero Barbarigo, arrested eight of the officers and ringleaders, and had them hanged after a summary trial. Wotton, who was ill when this news reached him, wrote at once to the Doge, expressing both his regret at the mutiny, and his indignation at the excessive severity of Barbarigo.^[35] Curiously what shocked him most, as is shown by his speech to the Doge on August 20, was the fact that no distinction in punishment had been made between the gentlemen and common soldiers. If some punishment had been necessary, he said, the gentlemen should have been spared, or at least they should have been strangled or decapitated, not hanged like common men.^[36]

Wotton hoped that the matter would be taken up by the English Government; but the fact of the mutiny was uncontested, and it was probably felt that no reparation could justly be demanded. Wotton himself, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, admitted that the men executed were either those who were the cause of the mutiny, or of such a character that they should have been hanged at home.^[37] But this, he said, was no excuse for Barbarigo, who had disregarded the quality of the soldiers, making no distinction between ‘gentry and baseness’.

A letter from the English chaplain with the fleet gives a glimpse of the unfortunate condition of his countrymen in the Adriatic Gulf. Not only had eight of them been executed for the mutiny, but on the same day five ‘prog-men’, who had gone ashore to buy victuals, had been attacked by Albanians and cut in pieces with poleaxes. The men hardly dared in their terror to speak to each other, and in the chaplain’s opinion, of the five hundred who had come from England, not more than one hundred would return. ‘In such misery,’ he adds, ‘did I leave them in the gulf over Ancona.’^[38] And there history leaves them; little more is known about them, save that they were somewhat better treated by the Venetians, and that their captain, Sir Henry Peyton, remained in the Venetian service until his death in 1623.

While the English ships were sailing towards Venice, that city itself was the scene of a sinister and strange event, the discovery of the famous Spanish plot of 1618, ‘the foulest and fearfullest thing,’ Wotton wrote, ‘that hath come to light since the foundation of the city.’^[39] This mysterious plot, which, as one of its latest historians has said, takes its rank for diabolical picturesqueness with the Gunpowder Plot or the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s,^[40] made at the time a great sensation in Europe, and has been ever since the cause of much speculation and controversy. To English readers it is perhaps best known as the occurrence on which Otway founded the plot of his famous play Venice Preserved. The briefest account of the circumstances must suffice for us here. During the early months of 1618 mysterious-looking foreign adventurers had been congregating in Venice, filling the streets and the piazze. On the morning of May 18 the bodies of two Frenchmen were seen hanging head downwards from the gibbet in the Piazza. On the twenty-third another body was seen, bearing marks of horrible torture. Two other Frenchmen who were with the fleet were hanged, and the foreign adventurers who had crowded the streets of Venice disappeared, it being popularly believed that they had been executed, and their bodies thrown into the deep Canale degli Orfani.

The Government of the Republic never made any explanation of these executions, only ordering, five months afterwards, a solemn thanksgiving for the preservation of the Republic. Although there is still much that is mysterious in the circumstances, there can be no doubt that a widespread and dangerous plot had been discovered, just in time to save the city from destruction. It seems probable that the plot was forged at Naples, and was part of a plan, formed by the Duke of Ossuna, to destroy the Republic by an uprising in the city, combined with an attack from the Neapolitan fleet. It is true that, as the organizers of the plot in Venice, Jacques Pierre, Regnault and Langlade, were all Frenchmen, suspicion fell at first on the French nation; but it has been proved that these men were in communication with Ossuna, and that Pierre and Langlade had entered the Venetian service in order to organize a revolt in Venice, and to betray the city to the Spanish fleet. The Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish ambassador at Venice, is believed to have had a hand also in the plot; after its discovery his palace was attacked and his life in danger, and he soon asked to be recalled from Venice.

Of all these events Wotton was of course a spectator; his letters contain many references to the conspiracy, and the horror and confusion it caused in Venice; and he characteristically remarks that, but for God’s mercy, he might have been spared the trouble of asking permission to return home, as in a common massacre ambassadors would not have been spared, indeed ‘we might perchance have had our houses thought worthiest the rifling’.^[41] His own curiosity, and his knowledge of the inquisitiveness of his master, made him investigate all the circumstances as carefully as he could. ‘No public minister resident upon this lake doth know more of it than myself,’ he wrote,^[42] yet he confessed that his knowledge was very confused. He attempted, though in vain, to induce the Government of the Republic to send an account of the circumstances to James I, remarking that James had shown his confidence in the Venetians by giving them an account of the Gunpowder Plot. When, however, in spite of the general opinion that some explanation should be made ‘for the satisfaction’, as Wotton put it, ‘of the ill-speaking world,’ nothing was done by the Venetian Government, Wotton finally sent in October his own account, which unfortunately has not been preserved.

In the atmosphere of mystery and distrust caused by these dark and far-reaching intrigues of the Spaniards and their French agents, suspicion fell on all the foreigners in Venice, even to a slight extent on Wotton himself, as is proved by certain documents in the Venetian archives. The Spanish ambassador Bedmar, who had arrived in Venice during Wotton’s first embassy, had taken especial pains to win his friendship. Their relations had no doubt been renewed at Wotton’s return in 1616, and some enemy of Wotton’s took advantage of this to try to make the Venetian Government distrust him. The intrigue was both obscure and unsuccessful, and it seems impossible to discover its history; but at the end of 1617 the new secretary, Sir Thomas Lake, who was himself a dependant of the Howards, and a pensioner of Spain, had suggested to Lionello, the secretary of the Venetian embassy in England, that Wotton was reported to be unfriendly to Venice, and to meet Bedmar at secret nocturnal interviews.^[43]

Lionello had already, earlier in the year, collected all the unfavourable gossip about Wotton he could get together; and his secret communication to the Council of Ten is the clearest expression of the suspicion and distrust which Wotton’s character and conduct aroused in unfriendly observers and professional rivals. The King had no esteem for him, Lionello wrote; he was poor and friendless, and had only returned to Venice because his debts made it impossible for him to live in England. He was extremely avaricious, would do anything for money, and it was reported that he had been won by the Spaniards during his negotiations at Xanten, in 1614.^[44] The Republic, however, paid no attention to the reports of Lionello, who seems to have been somewhat of a busybody, anxious to call attention to himself by making startling revelations. Not long afterwards the Venetians showed their confidence in Wotton by entrusting him with important negotiations in regard to their relations with the German princes, in spite of the fact that in 1618 he had been twice visited by Regnault, the dissolute old ruffian who acted as assistant and interpreter to Pierre, the leader of the plot. Wotton, who was aware that there were persons in Venice who were anxious to make it believed that he was implicated in the conspiracy, either from hatred of his religion, or to divert suspicion from others, gave in the Collegio a full account of these interviews with Regnault. Regnault met him one day, he said, in a bookshop, and approaching him closely, told him in his ear that he had things of great importance concerning the service of James I to relate to him, and begged for an appointment at the ambassador’s house. It being the duty, Wotton said, of an ambassador to listen to everything which concerned his king, he told Regnault to come whenever he pleased. He came the next morning, said that he was in the confidential service of Ossuna, and that he wished to go to England to communicate information of the greatest importance, and asked for letters of recommendation from Wotton. The ambassador replied that he was empowered to pay for information, and that he could spare him the trouble of travelling to England. Regnault replied that he was determined to go to England, and that he could only give Wotton the general outlines of his information. He spoke of some designs of the Spaniards for attacking the coast of Africa. Wotton promised him letters, and he returned the same morning with a map showing the exact post. He seemed confused, and spoke in a trembling voice; and shortly afterwards he was imprisoned and put to death.^[45]

While the Venetian waters were thus agitated, from beyond the Alps came ominous sounds of storm and conflict. The great war, which long threatened Europe, had at last broken out. Almost on the same day that the plot against Venice was discovered, occurred that famous event at Prague with which the Thirty Years’ War began, the throwing out of the window, or ‘defenestration’, of Martinitz and Slawata; the Bohemians thus dramatically renouncing their allegiance to their newly elected king, Ferdinand of Styria. The news of this was gladly received in Venice, partly for the blow it gave to the house of Austria, but principally because they hoped that the scene of war would be removed beyond the Alps, and Italy be left in peace. Indeed, the desire of the Venetians for peace, Wotton wrote, was ‘as plain as St. Mark’s steeple’;^[46] and they turned a deaf ear to the ambitions and magnificent plans of the Duke of Savoy, who wished them to join with him in a general attack on the house of Austria, by which they might get possession of the Austrian territories bordering on their own dominions.^[47] Venice adopted the policy to which she adhered throughout the Thirty Years’ War, the policy of encouraging the enemies of the Austro-Spanish power, without committing herself far enough to make Spain or the Emperor attack her. The Venetians now refused to allow the Spaniards to send troops across the Adriatic to help Ferdinand; they expressed their willingness to enter into defensive leagues with Savoy and the Dutch Republic; they welcomed the renewal of Wotton’s old proposal that they should establish more intimate relations with the German princes; and when Wotton went in May, 1619, as special ambassador to these princes, he was commissioned by the Republic to express their goodwill, and their desire for nearer terms of friendship.^[48]

Before leaving, however, the subject of Wotton’s second embassy in Venice, there are a few other incidents, in addition to those already described, which must be mentioned. The fire in the ambassador’s house,^[49] the arrest by mistake of his steward Will Leete, his sending to England the Praepositus of a Jesuit college at Milan, his renewed attempts to extricate poor Mr. Mole from the Inquisition, the deaths of two Doges, and the election of their successors, are all described in his letters and dispatches, and need no further mention here.^[50] A word should be said, however, in regard to one project which occupied a great deal of Wotton’s attention, and which he regarded indeed as the main business of his embassy. It will be remembered that among the plans for the benefit of religious reform which Paolo Sarpi, by means of Francesco Biondi, had proposed to James I in 1609, one was for the foundation of a Protestant college or seminary on the borders of Italy, where Protestant missionaries might be trained.^[51] These missionaries were then to be sent all over Italy; the seminary being a Protestant counterpart of the Jesuit College at Rheims, whence Catholic missionaries were sent into England. Wotton believed that the time was now propitious for carrying out this plan. Among the French volunteers serving in the army of the Duke of Savoy, there were many Protestants; the Dutch and English in the Venetian service almost all belonged to the reformed religion, so that the Italians had become accustomed to the presence of Protestants among them. Wotton still hoped that the Venetians, coming to depend more and more on the help of the northern powers, would by degrees ‘be led into a better light than they yet mean themselves’.^[52] These seminaries would, in any case, prepare the way for the acceptance of reform, and would also serve as a method of attacking the Pope in his own country. The Pope, being untroubled in Italy, had been able to send his spiritual armies abroad; the proper strategy for the Protestants, to counteract the successes of the Catholics, was, in Wotton’s opinion, ‘to imitate their arts though not their ends,’ and by giving the Pope business at home, to force him to withdraw his emissaries ‘from troubling of other kingdoms, to help himself in the bowels of Italy’.^[53] Wotton advocated, therefore, the foundation of a Protestant college at Sondrio, in the Valtelline, near the borders of the Milanese, whence the Protestant emissaries would find an easy entrance into the Catholic States of Italy. The seminary, like the first Jesuit seminary, might in time, he hoped, be the parent of others, becoming as he wrote ‘that mustard seed wherein the birds of heaven did afterwards build their nests.’^[54] One quaint objection Wotton admitted he had found to the plan, after spending many thoughts on it; namely, that there was a kind of natural simplicity and security about the truth, on account of which it would be difficult to find such plenty of proper instruments, ‘as the author of all untruth doth mould in his own colleges.’ But the objection ought rather to ‘awake our spirits than allay our hopes’, it being ignominious, as he often insisted, that ‘the instruments of darkness should be more diligent than those of truth’.^[55]

James I ‘fervently embraced’ the project, instructing Wotton to lay it before the Protestant princes on his way home, and promising in the meantime to prepare the way with the Archbishop of Canterbury and ‘some other good bishops’, in order that collections might be made for the purpose.

Wotton negotiated with the Grison Republics (in whose dominion the Valtelline lay), and a small beginning was actually made, and two houses rented at Sondrio for this purpose. But in the summer of 1620 the Catholic inhabitants of the Valtelline rose and slaughtered the Protestants; the country was occupied by Spanish troops, and the little seminary seems to have disappeared amid the armies and battles and disasters which filled for years that unhappy valley. Wotton, on his return to Venice in 1621, could only console himself with the fact that the Pope had taken steps to ‘oppose and countermine’ the seminary; his fear and solicitude showing that this plan, when the times would bear it, was the true antidote.^[56]

Wotton made his farewell speech to the new Doge, Antonio Priuli, on April 30, 1619. He would not, he said, call it farewell, as he hoped again to return to Venice, which he regarded as his second fatherland. But, wherever he might find himself, ‘whether where rises or where sets the sun,’ he would always remain the devoted subject of the Serene Republic; and he regretted that he could not, as he had hoped, remain at Venice three or four years longer. On May 5 he took his formal leave, and was presented with the customary chain of gold, and the Doge bade him farewell. ‘We wish you a good journey, prosperity, and every highest satisfaction. As for us, the life of men lies in the hands of God; we pray that His will be done, His service fulfilled, and all accomplished that may be for the best of our Republic, which is our great concern. If your Lordship returns on some future occasion—which, you say, may happen—you will find either ourselves in this place, or others who will be glad to welcome you. And now we accompany you on your departure with our sincere affection.’^[57] Thus spoke the old Doge, with the dignified eloquence characteristic of these great Venetians; and the Senate, with equally characteristic suspiciousness, sent off at once to England to inquire why Wotton had been recalled, without notice being sent to them or a successor appointed. The ambassador remained eleven days longer, and then departed for Augsburg, leaving behind him his faithful Italian, Gregorio de’ Monti, to supply the place of English newsagent in Venice.

Wotton’s second embassy in Venice, although in some ways of less importance than his first, was on the whole successful, considering the circumstances and conditions of international politics. It was a time, as he wrote, ‘to knit knots,’ and James I had acted with unusual vigour and decision. By allowing English ships to enter the Venetian service, and by equipping a fleet himself, and making spirited remonstrances with Spain, he had helped to restore the balance of power in Italy, and to protect the Republic against the attacks of Spain. The ground had been prepared for better relations between Venice and the German Protestants, and a scheme devised for Protestant propaganda in Italy. The ambassador himself, being an older and more experienced man, had committed no indiscretions, and had taken the wise course of refusing the protection of his house to Venetian criminals. He was no more troubled by disputes as to trade and piracy; the English pirates seem to have been driven from the Adriatic; and either the trade between the two countries was regulated by better laws, or the appointment of an English consul at Venice had relieved the ambassador of the care of these matters.^[58] That, contrary to the reports of Lionello, he was held in estimation at home, is shown by the fact that during the frequent changes of secretaries in England, he had once or twice been thought of for this post.^[59] And when early in 1619 James I decided to send an ambassador to mediate between the Bohemians and Ferdinand, he first chose Wotton for that mission, although the appointment was almost immediately cancelled in favour of Doncaster; Wotton himself welcoming the change, being fitted, as he modestly wrote to Naunton, ‘for business of more simplicity.’^[60]

His letters and dispatches show evidence, however, of discouragement, and of some failure of good spirits. After two years in Venice he petitioned for leave to return home, if only for a visit. His health had failed, he was still embarrassed with debt; and realizing that in the public service he could never retrieve his fortunes, he began to contemplate another method customary at the time—that of marrying a rich widow, if he could find one who would take pity on him.^[61] And in writing to his old friend, Lord Zouche, and recalling those early days, the happiest of his life, when as a poor student at Altdorf he had made his acquaintance, he summed up the results of his career in a somewhat melancholy fashion:—

Wotton’s dispatches, during this second embassy, were addressed to the King and the two Secretaries of State. James I had adopted the plan of appointing two secretaries, but the division that was made later between their provinces had not yet been arranged; and on account of the natural jealousy between the two officials, ambassadors found it wise, in writing to one, to send the other a duplicate of the dispatch. Until Winwood’s death, however, in October, 1617, Wotton corresponded with him alone, but subsequently wrote to both Naunton and Lake, and after the disgrace of Lake in February, 1619, to his successor, Sir George Calvert. Letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, then ambassador at the Hague, have been preserved; and two letters printed in the Reliquiae, though without address, seem almost certainly to have been sent to Buckingham, and to show that Wotton had already won the patronage of the new and almost omnipotent favourite of James I.^[63]

Wotton left Venice on May 16, 1619,^[64] and on May 29 he arrived at Munich. With him travelled the young Duke Joachim Ernest of Holstein, who was a cousin of the lately deceased Queen of England, and who had been living for some time in Wotton’s house in Venice. At Munich they were entertained by the able and sagacious Duke Maximilian, who was now cautiously watching the Bohemian Revolution, and who, until the Elector accepted the Bohemian crown, refused to give any help to Ferdinand, knowing that if the Bohemians only acted wisely, no help he could give would be of any avail.^[65] Being anxious to keep on good terms with both sides, until he saw his way to decided action, he treated the English ambassador with great honour and courtesy, and abounded in expressions of friendship for James I and the Elector Palatine. But Wotton, in spite of his ‘noble language’, could plainly enough perceive that there was not much sincerity in his professions.^[66] From Munich Wotton went to Augsburg, and then to Heilbronn, where the princes of the Protestant Union were assembled. To these princes the ambassador explained that he had come with two commissions—one sub fide tacita from the Republic of Venice, to prepare the way for terms of closer friendship; the other from James I, to ask for their co-operation in the establishment of seminaries in Italy, for the purpose of counteracting ‘the creeping mischief’ of the Jesuit propaganda. He had also been instructed, at his own suggestion,^[67] to urge that the differences of the Protestant sects should be forgotten, or at least the bitter controversies then raging between Lutherans and Calvinists should be stopped by civil authority, and ‘the heat of passionate divines’ suppressed, in order that the Protestants might combine against the common enemy. The sentence inscribed on Wotton’s tombstone, that ‘the itch of disputation will prove the scab of the Church,’ expressed in a quaint manner an idea that was constantly in his mind, for no one realized more acutely how much Protestantism suffered from its bitter internal disputes and quarrels. Wotton finally suggested to the princes that, by their mediation, the league between the Grisons and Venice should be re-established, in order to open a free passage for troops into Italy.^[68]

The princes answered civilly but cautiously, sending their thanks to the Republic of Venice for its kind professions, and expressing a polite willingness to join with James I in the plans submitted by his ambassador. But the thoughts of the German Protestants were occupied with much more important matters than the subjects on which Wotton had been meditating in the retirement and leisure of Venice. The war had now begun in terrible earnest; news reached them that Silesia and Moravia had joined the Bohemian Directors, and that the Bohemian general, Count Thurn, had invaded Austria and was besieging Ferdinand in Vienna, while a Spanish army was marching to his assistance.

Leaving, therefore, the agitated and undecided German princes to treat with the other English ambassador, Lord Doncaster,^[69] who was charged to negotiate with them about the Bohemian affairs, Wotton returned to England. He was home again by the end of July, in ‘poor plight’, according to Chamberlain, and likely (according to the same authority) to receive but a cold welcome from the King, whom he went to meet at Woodstock.^[70]

Of Wotton’s welcome, and of his movements in the autumn of 1619, we know nothing. He seems, however, to have been in favour with both the King and Buckingham, for by means of the latter he was promised early in 1620 an important piece of preferment, the reversion to the Mastership of the Rolls after the death of Sir Julius Caesar,^[1] and a little later we find him preparing his suite to return to Venice.

The portrait of Sir Henry Wotton now in the Bodleian gallery at Oxford must have been painted at about this time. In this picture, inscribed ‘Aetatis suae 52 A^o 1620,’ Wotton is dressed in a fur-lined ambassador’s robe; his bearded face is that of a man in the prime of life, and might almost be taken to represent some bluff Kentish squire or yeoman.^[2]

Wotton did not leave England until the beginning of July, when we find him starting out in great state to return to Venice, and to visit as extraordinary ambassador, on his way thither, the princes of Germany and the Emperor Ferdinand. When he had passed through Germany in the previous summer, fortune had seemed for a moment on the side of the Protestant party. But since then a disastrous change in the aspect of affairs had taken place. The siege of Vienna had failed; the Bohemians had been defeated, and Ferdinand of Styria had secured his election as emperor in succession to Matthias. Still more fatal to the Protestants was the election of King James’s son-in-law to the throne of Bohemia, and his acceptance of that disastrous honour. The cause of Protestantism was now associated with political anarchy and schemes of personal aggrandizement, and the newly elected king lost the sympathy of the law-abiding Protestants of Germany. When this fatal blunder had been committed, Maximilian of Bavaria hesitated no longer, but brought his forces and his wise statesmanship to the help of the new emperor, stipulating that, in the event of victory, Frederick’s electoral dignity should be transferred to himself. The accession of Maximilian to the Emperor’s cause soon made itself felt; he secured the neutrality of the Protestant princes, and prepared an army to attack Bohemia, while at Brussels Spinola and the Spaniards got ready to invade the Palatinate.

When the Catholic powers were thus plotting for the overthrow of Frederick, James I remained in a state of hopeless and humiliating indecision. For the sake of his family and for his own position as a leader of the Protestants, he was anxious to help his son-in-law; while as a legitimate king he doubted the validity of Frederick’s election. He was still hoping for success in his cherished plan of a Spanish match, and he was seized with horror at the thought that he might be suspected of complicity in his son-in-law’s aggression. It was a crisis that James was completely unable to meet; and the weakness and indecision he displayed, and the way he allowed the Spaniards to blind him to their real designs, lost him any reputation for practical statesmanship he may have possessed. When a firm warning to Frederick might have prevented the fatal acceptance of the Bohemian crown, he hesitated and delayed; and when Frederick had gone to Prague, James spent his time defending himself from the charge of complicity in that action, and in studying the niceties of Bohemian law to decide for himself the right of the Bohemians to elect their king. And when at last it became evident that the Spaniards were preparing to invade the Palatinate, James still refused to take any practical step. Had he dissociated himself from Frederick’s rash Bohemian adventure, but let the world see that he would help in the defence of his son-in-law’s hereditary dominion, the Palatinate would probably not have been invaded, and the Thirty Years’ War might have been averted. But James was incapable of displaying the necessary firmness; in spite of all the evidence, he would not believe in the projected invasion of the Palatinate, and yet he was aware that he must do something.

James Howell describes how, in a Jesuit play given at Antwerp two years later, a courier ‘came puffing on the stage, and being asked what news, he answered how the Palsgrave was like to have a huge formidable army, for the King of Denmark was to send him 100,000, the Hollanders 100,000, and the King of Great Britain 100,000; but being asked thousands of what? he replied the first would send 100,000 Red Herrings, the second 100,000 Cheeses, and the last 100,000 Ambassadors.’^[3] This satire, as far as it concerned James I’s methods, was fair enough; for now, when Catholics and Protestants were rushing to arms, he fell back on his old and ineffectual plan of sending out ambassadors to pacify Europe. Sir Edward Conway and Sir Richard Weston were chosen to visit Brussels, and then to travel through Dresden to the Court of the King of Bohemia at Prague. Wotton was to go to the Emperor at Vienna, and then to open communications with Conway and Weston at Prague. On his journey to Vienna he was to visit the princes through whose territories he passed. His mission was, as his instructions state, merely explanatory and provisional; to give a clear account of the state of affairs as he found them, to sound the affections of the German princes, so that James could decide whether it were possible to bring about an agreement, and so end the war. At Vienna he was to concur with the special embassy sent from France in arranging a truce if possible; and he was also, if the King of Bohemia approved, to propose an Imperial Diet for the settlement of the questions at issue. And to all the princes he visited he was to protest that James I had had no part, direct or indirect, in the election of his son-in-law to the Bohemian throne.^[4]

It would be difficult to imagine a more hopeless errand than the one on which the distracted peace-loving old King now sent his bookish ambassador, with instructions to compose on his way to Italy this giant conflict; and it mattered little that Sir Henry Wotton was by no means the right instrument for such an employment. That he did not himself realize the hopelessness of his mission, proved indeed how little he understood the affairs with which he was to deal; and his malicious critic, Chamberlain, records that, talking to some officers who were going to fight for the Palatinate under Sir Horace Vere, Wotton told them that he hoped ‘to effect that they should keep their swords in their scabbards’.^[5] With these unfounded hopes, and with a splendid train of more than twenty young gentlemen,^[6] Wotton travelled to Dover, where we find him on July 2, O.S., about to cross the Channel.^[7]

Before giving an account (which must be as brief as possible) of Wotton’s vain negotiations with the German princes, there is a little fact, recorded by chance among old State papers, which is of more interest to posterity than Wotton’s embassy to Germany, or than most of his negotiations, there or elsewhere. On June 12, 1620, the reformed pirate, Sir Henry Mainwaring, wrote from Dover to our old acquaintance, Lord Zouche, ‘I expect Sir Henry Wotton at Dover the latter end of this week. Being in Greenwitch Parke he made a sonnet to the Queen of Bohemia which he sent by me to the Lady Wotton; the copy I have sent your Lordship. It will be a good exercise for your Lordship’s two choiristers, Mr. Fooks and Mr. North, to set it to a sound.’^[8] It happens that this ‘sonnet’ (which of course is no sonnet, but was called so in the language of the time), written by an ambassador in an idle moment at Court, to a princess in whose service he was about to start on an impossible mission, is a bit of verse which takes its place among the most lovely of English lyrics. Though well known, it must not be omitted here:—

Neither Queen nor ambassador probably gave, amid the cares of state, a second thought to the little poem. Yet, such is the magic of art, these verses have done more than anything else, perhaps, to make both of them remembered.

On August 18, in the New Style, we find Wotton at his old haunt of Augsburg. How he had visited various towns and princes on his way, expounding to them the ‘Christian ends’ of James I, his Christian desire for the peace of Europe, and his freedom from all complicity in the election of his son-in-law, can be read in the dispatch he sent from Augsburg. Here it will also be seen that Wotton took it on himself to protest (in the face of facts afterwards notorious), that the Elector Palatine had in no way plotted or planned his accession to the Bohemian throne.^[10]

From Augsburg Wotton travelled to Vienna, stopping for a night at Lintz, the capital of Upper Austria, where a few weeks before Maximilian of Bavaria, invading Austria with an army to help Ferdinand in the Bohemian war, had received the submission of the Austrian nobles. At Lintz Wotton saw Kepler, and in an interesting and often-quoted letter to Francis Bacon, he describes his first sight of the camera obscura, with which the great astronomer entertained the ambassador. Wotton urged Kepler to come to England, promising him a favourable reception from James I; but Kepler, although flattered (as his letters show) by Wotton’s visit and invitation, was unwilling to desert Austria, where, in a time of war and trouble, he had found a home. And, moreover, as he quaintly says, being accustomed to the mainland, he dreaded the narrowness and dangers of an island life.^[11]

On September 1, N.S., Wotton arrived at Kloster Neuburg, outside Vienna. Here he remained four days, while suitable accommodations were being made ready for him in the Emperor’s capital. On September 5 he entered Vienna, whither thirty years before he had gone as a poor student, and where (as one of his attendants wrote) he was now received with honours and ceremonies worthy of a king.^[12] He was lodged at the Emperor’s expense in the house of the Baron di Gabriana, near the Court. He was visited by the three French ambassadors, the Duc d’Angoulême, and MM. de Béthune and De Preaux, who, after arranging the treaty of Ulm, by which the neutrality of the German Protestant princes was secured, had come to Vienna on a mission similar to Wotton’s, to negotiate for a peaceable solution of the Bohemian troubles. Already, on September 2, Wotton had had his first audience with the Emperor. He asked whether the Emperor were willing to treat, and if, in that case, he would agree to a truce while the negotiations were going on; and he protested with ‘high and holy affirmations’ that neither James nor his son-in-law had had any part in the election of the latter by the Bohemian Diet.^[13]

The Emperor, with victory almost in his grasp, would not of course hear of a truce; but while his armies were marching towards Prague, he was not unwilling to amuse the English and the three French ambassadors with idle negotiations. He therefore expressed every willingness to treat; sent the Chancellor of Bohemia and his Aulic councillors to expound to Wotton the legal aspect of the case, and allowed him to open communications with Prague. Wotton and the French ambassadors thereupon sent off to Prague suggestions, devised by themselves, for the settlement of the difficulty. The whole question should be remitted to a Diet at Ratisbon, assisted by foreign ambassadors. The Elector Palatine should give up Bohemia, which the Emperor should possess for life, leaving, however, the government to the Estates of the Kingdom, who should be free to elect Frederick his successor.^[14] For more than a month the ambassadors waited for an answer, and, having nothing else to do, spent their time together in agreeable conversation.^[15]

In Prague, where ‘the winter King’ was utterly unaware of the hopelessness of his position, the ambassadors’ proposal that Bohemia should be abandoned was rejected with indignation. Frederick still blindly expected to win a victory in arms; his partisans found confirmation for their hopes in the study of James I’s apocalyptic expositions, believing that the famous ‘defenestration’ was the first act in the great tragedy of the fall of Babylon ^[16]; the King and Queen took offence with Wotton for not giving them their royal title in addressing his letters to them ^[17]; and, indeed, incompetence and folly and confusion reigned in the doomed city, towards whose walls the Duke of Bavaria and Tilly were swiftly marching. No answer was returned to Wotton until the other English ambassadors, Conway and Weston, arrived from Dresden at Prague. When Wotton received their answer he realized at last the hopelessness of his mission—how little ambassadors of peace could effect in time of war. Frederick, they said, would not give up Bohemia; but before this letter reached Wotton, Bohemia was already lost. On November 8 occurred the famous battle of the White Hill; the Bohemians were utterly defeated, and Frederick fled with his queen to north Germany.

Vague rumours of this victory reached Vienna within three days; the Court and town were soon filled with jollity; but for two weeks there was no definite confirmation, and the English ambassador did his best not to believe the fatal news. When it was officially confirmed, he could only comfort himself with the thought that the Divine displeasure was due, not to the cause itself, but to the faulty way it had been championed. It was, he wrote, like the argument between Job and his friends, for ‘one side did carry a good cause ill, and the other an ill cause well.’^[18] About the conduct of the unfortunate Elector Palatine, and probably about that of James I, Wotton had plainly an opinion which he would not express because, as he wrote, these personages were ‘too great, and by veneration redeemed from censure’.^[19]

In Wotton’s instructions he had orders to remain at Vienna until the decisive blow was struck, and then to take his way to Venice. He remained, however, in Vienna for more than a month longer, hoping that in combination with Bethlen Gabor, the Prince of Transylvania, who had invaded Hungary, something might still be done in the way of negotiation. And now that Spinola had invaded the Palatinate, he was instructed to make a protest against this invasion in the name of James I, and to ask that the issuing of the ban of the Empire against the Elector Palatine should be suspended. This the Emperor granted, as a favour to James I, and the ban was not issued till the following January.^[20] At the end of the year Wotton was preparing to travel to Venice by the way of Styria. Hearing, however, from Eggenberg, the Emperor’s chief minister, that the Duke of Bavaria had found at Prague, after the capture of the city, papers proving that Frederick had plotted with the Bohemians his election to that crown, Wotton determined to travel to Munich, ‘in a most intolerable season of cold, besides triple expense of time and money,’ to find out if these reports were true. He therefore took leave of the Emperor, remarking that he left him to the counsels of his own fortune, which, as Wotton wrote, he was likeliest to follow anyhow. Izaak Walton adds that he advised the Emperor to use his victory so soberly, as still to put on thoughts of peace, and that the Emperor took his advice in good part, and presented him, as a token of esteem, with ‘a jewel of diamonds of more value than a thousand pounds’. This jewel the ambassador, however, gave on his departure the next morning to the wife of his host. The Emperor, hearing of this, took it as a high affront; and Wotton, being informed of his displeasure by a messenger, replied, ‘that though he received it with thankfulness, yet he found in himself an indisposition to be the better for any gift that came from an enemy to his royal mistress, the Queen of Bohemia.’ Though resting only on Izaak Walton’s authority, the story is very likely a true one, for ambassadors at this time, if their requests were not granted, would frequently refuse the gifts invariably offered them at their departure.^[21]

At Munich Wotton spent three days. Maximilian had now returned in triumph from Prague; the ambassador found him ‘swollen’ with Jesuit panegyrics, and was treated with cold formality. The Duke pretended, however, that he had undertaken the conquest of Bohemia merely in obedience to the Emperor, and ‘to the grief of his soul’. Although the arrangement for the transference to himself of the Palatine Electorate was still a secret, Wotton was of course not deceived by these professions; and in regard to the papers reported to have been discovered at Prague, he received little satisfaction. Maximilian said he had not seen them, and did not intend to read them, as he had no desire to exasperate the quarrel. He added that they were to be sent to Vienna.^[22] When, later in the year 1621, Lord Digby went on a special mission to the Emperor, Wotton warned him to be prepared for their production.^[23]

This was the conclusion of Wotton’s German embassy, which ended, as it was doomed to end, in complete failure. His journey, as he afterwards told the Doge, had been both fruitless and expensive, and had had no result save that he had been taught that on other occasions the noise of words should be changed for that of cannonades;^[24] a lesson of little use for a person inexpert in arms like himself; and one, he might have added, which his royal master would never learn.

From Munich the ambassador went to Innsbruck, and crossed into Italy by the Brenner Pass. The journey was attended with dangers and delays. At Rovere he was detained four days by the Governor, and at Verona he was forced to spend twelve days in quarantine; but finally on March 8 he reached Venice. To find himself in Italy again after two years’ absence, to settle into the quiet of a Venetian palace after his experience of the German toils and troubles, was evidently a great pleasure. Wotton’s dispatches from Germany, like those from the Hague, written in the midst of difficulties with which he could not very well cope, are weighted with a good deal of the dullness eternally characteristic of diplomatic papers. But in Venice he dipped his pen in a livelier ink. As Wotton is of more interest to us as a writer of letters, full of wit and gossip, than as a statesman, we may rejoice to find ourselves with him in the quiet of Venetian waters, leaving to other statesmen and their biographers the gigantic turmoils of the Thirty Years’ War, now raging afar beyond the barrier of the Alps.

If Wotton’s position in Italy had always been one of considerable leisure and dignity, he now found more leisure than ever (although combined with less dignity) at his disposal. During his first, and to a less extent during his second Venetian embassy, he had played a part of some importance. The Republic had frequently communicated their decisions to him, and had listened respectfully to his advice; and almost every week he had sought an audience, or had been summoned to the Collegio for the purpose of negotiation. But now the prestige of James I had suffered irreparable damage; his feeble policy and futile diplomacy in the affairs of the Palatinate, which had been lost to his son-in-law, and lost through James’s folly, had revealed to the world the King’s weakness. He became a mere voice in Europe, crying peace in the midst of war, a voice to which statesmen and princes listened more or less politely, without paying much heed to its requests or admonitions. ‘But my father will never leave treating,’ his unfortunate daughter wrote of him, ‘though with it he hath lost us all.’^[1]

Even the Republic of Venice, the one Government which, with Spain, James I seems to have regarded with respect, had now ceased to have any faith in its old ally. The Venetians saw that if the King of England would not give efficient aid to his own son-in-law, no other State could expect from him anything more than phrases and fine words; and the King’s ambassador was soon made aware of this change in his master’s position. After furnishing his great palace, Wotton went in state, three weeks after his arrival, to the island of S. Giorgio to await the customary train of sixty senators to escort him into Venice. But with wonder and mortification he saw only a little company of eighteen or nineteen approach. This want of respect to himself and to the king he represented, made apparent to all Venice in such a public manner, was a thing which any ambassador would resent, but which a wise ambassador would pretend not to notice, knowing it to be part of his duty to ignore affronts which were not of capital importance, and for which no adequate reparation could be expected. Wotton, however, was of too quick a temper to possess this cool wisdom. He went indeed to the Collegio, presented his letters from the King and Prince of Wales, and was welcomed by the Doge with the customary speech. But the next day he sent his Italian secretary, Gregorio de’ Monti, to complain of his poor reception. The ambassador, de’ Monti said, had been so indignant that he had at first thought of not coming to the Collegio. All Venice was talking of the affair; the news had gone abroad, and Wotton now suggested an apology from the senators who had been chosen to meet him, but had absented themselves. This was contrary to Venetian custom; the Senate, however, passed a resolution complimenting Wotton, explaining that it had been intended to send a large number of senators, but some had stayed away, thinking that there would be many there without them.^[2] The Venetian secretary took this resolution and read it to the ambassador, and after listening to a long speech and witnessing Wotton’s excited gestures, succeeded at last in ‘providing some mitigation for his spirit’.^[3] On April 7 the ambassador came again to the Collegio, to offer his good wishes for the Easter festivals, and then remarked that, having heard the resolution of the Senate, he was resolved to bury the whole incident in silence, and would not even write of it to the King. ‘In my earliest years,’ he added, ‘I made a vow to God not to tell lies, even if the world should perish; and if deceits and artifices are the means by which ambassadors help on their work, I may as well give up and go home when I like. But my king, who is sincere and truthful, has no need of ministers who act in a manner different from his own.’^[4]

On April 15 Wotton had another audience, in which he petitioned for the release of twelve English soldiers in the Venetian galleys.^[5] He then went to Padua, and did not come again to the palace for more than nine months. The reason was partly ill-health, as he was suffering from the effects of his winter journey, and partly no doubt resentment for his unsatisfactory reception. There was, moreover, a momentary calm in the affairs of Venice. The Uscock war was ended, the Duke of Ossuna had been removed from Naples; and, what was most important for the peace of the Republic, her bitter enemy Paul V was dead, and his successor, the fat and good-natured Gregory XV, was friendly to Venice and France, opposed to Spain, and resolved ‘to keep storms out of Italy’.

In this time of peace and leisure Wotton had little business beyond that of sending the news of Italy to his correspondents, and the two secretaries at home, Calvert and Naunton. This, however, was always an occupation, for as he wrote to a fellow ambassador, ‘while God shall spare us upon this theatre, how can we lack subject of noise and discourse?’^[6]

The ‘noise and discourse’ of the year 1621 will be found chronicled in the letters printed in these volumes—the death of Philip III of Spain, the vain attempt to obtain the re-admission of the Jesuits into Venice, and the illness of the Pope, on ‘the weak thread’ of whose life the peace of Italy depended. In the autumn of this year Wotton was himself again ill at Padua, and two of his household died, his Italian secretary Gregorio de’ Monti, and Will Leete, who had formerly been his steward. In May of this year the well-known letter-writer, James Howell, arrived in Venice, and, as he states, received some favours from Wotton.^[7] His letters from Venice are among the most interesting of his correspondence, and give a vivid impression of the beauty and stateliness and reposeful life in this ‘admiredest city of the world’.

The peace of Italy was, however, troubled by one great question, that of the Valtelline—a territory almost as much the subject of dispute, and the occasion of war in the south, as Juliers-Cleves or the Palatinate in the north. The Valtelline, or Valtolina (as the valley of the Adda is called), a fertile district lying to the east of the Lake of Como, was subject to the three Grison Leagues, which were Protestant, and united under a common Government. This valley, wedged in between the Milanese and the Tyrol, formed a barrier between the territories of Spain and Austria. It had long been an object of Spanish policy to obtain possession of the district, in order to join the territories of Milan to those of Austria, and to prevent France having any access into Italy, or foreign troops coming to the aid of Venice. In July, 1620, the Catholic inhabitants of the valley had, on Spanish instigation, risen and slaughtered the Protestants, and revolted against the government of the Grisons. The Grison Republics thereupon armed and invaded the valley. The Governor of Milan, the Duke of Feria, making a pretence of protecting his co-religionists, sent Spanish troops into the Valtelline. He succeeded also in detaching from the others the Grison League, and came to an agreement with it that the Valtelline should be garrisoned with Spanish troops, and Spanish armies allowed the right of passage through it (Feb. 6, 1621).^[8] The two other leagues (Caddè and Dix Droitures) made war on the Grison League, and compelled it to join with them.

In the meantime the Government of France, beginning now to free itself from Spanish influences, and to reassume its old position as a counterbalance to Spain, realized the importance for its own interests, of the freedom of the Valtelline; while, in Italy, the new Pope joined with Venice and France in trying to bring about peace. On April 25, 1621, a treaty was signed at Madrid by which it was arranged that the Valtelline should be given back to the Grison Leagues, and the state of affairs which obtained in 1617 restored. The Duke of Feria, however, after the manner of Spanish governors and viceroys, made little account of treaties or of orders from Spain, and refused to withdraw his troops. The Grisons thereupon again attacked the Valtelline; Feria went to war; and the Archduke Leopold, Governor of the Tyrol, invaded the Grison territory, captured Coire, the capital, and compelled the Grisons to renounce the Valtelline, and one of the leagues, the Dix Droitures, to join itself to Austria.^[9]

While all this was going on, the Venetians, Wotton wrote, ‘suffered strange fits’ in the business. Sometimes they believed that the treaty of Madrid would be carried out, sometimes they despaired.^[10] But by the autumn of 1621 things seemed in a desperate condition; the Spaniards, having possession of the Valtelline and the Lower Palatinate, could, as Wotton wrote, walk ‘from Milan to Dunkirk upon their own inheritances and purchases; a connexion,’ he added, ‘of terrible moment in my opinion.’^[11] The Venetians feared that all Switzerland would soon be under the dominion of Spain and Austria, and that they would be the next object of attack. When therefore Wotton, after a long absence, came again to the Collegio on January 18, 1622, he was informed of the successes of the Catholics in Switzerland, and of the Spaniards in the Valtelline, and requested to beg that James should come to the aid of the unfortunate Protestants.

The art of politics, Wotton once suggested, if it were well examined, would probably be found to have little in common with Christian principles.^[12] James I was now engaged in important negotiations with the Emperor and the King of Spain; and as war or trouble in Italy would be likely to make them more amenable to concession, it was Wotton’s duty, he wrote, ‘to blow this coal.’^[13] The coal, however, did not need Wotton’s breath to keep it alive; in May, 1622, the Protestant party in the Grisons began to get the upper hand; Venice sent an army to the borders, and entered into an agreement with France and Savoy to help the Protestants; a definite league was formed for this purpose in 1623, and in the following year, when Richelieu came to power, and resumed the policy of Henry IV, a French army was sent into Italy to drive the Spaniards out of the Valtelline.

James I’s negotiations, which Wotton thought a diversion in Italy would help, were first for the Spanish marriage, and secondly for the restoration of the Palatinate. With the Spanish marriage the ambassador in Venice had no direct concern. ‘The sovereignty of judgement’ in such matters belonged to the King; the only duty of ‘his poor honest creatures abroad’ was to send home whatever they might learn in regard to the negotiations, and the real intentions of Spain and the Pope. This duty in Wotton’s case was by no means pleasant, as his secret sources of information, both from Rome and from well-informed Venetians, convinced him that the Spaniards were not acting in good faith, and had no intention of allowing the marriage to take place. In 1623, however, Charles and Buckingham went on their romantic journey to Madrid, and the match seemed a certainty. Venice was now leagued with France against Spain; Wotton did his best to convince the Republic that although the King of England might marry his son to a Spanish princess, it would make no difference in his feelings towards the Venetians and his other friends and confederates. ‘Princes make marriages,’ he said in the Collegio, ‘but not princedoms; the laws of policy were based on their own firm foundations.’^[14] When he requested leave to return to England, he suggested that, in his letter of recall, a protest should be inserted to the effect that the Spanish alliance would make no change in the old and long-established friendship between James I and the Republic. This was done, and Wotton read the letter to the Doge.^[15] But, as the Tuscan Resident wrote, this letter produced little effect on the Venetians, owing to their poor opinion of James I.^[16]

With the King’s negotiations about the Palatinate, Wotton had a more direct concern. When in the beginning of the year 1622 the Bavarian army, under the command of Tilly, invaded the Upper Palatinate, they found themselves opposed by the Elector’s troops under Mansfeld; while Christian of Brunswick and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach were preparing to march to the defence of the threatened territory. Although the campaign was destined to end in disaster to Frederick, and the surrender of Heidelberg, for the moment the superiority of force seemed to be on his side, and he made his way across France in disguise and joined Mansfeld’s army on April 2.

James I, however, still hoped for peace; but while preparing for renewed negotiations, he made some efforts to help Frederick. He announced his intention of sending troops to aid in the defence of the Palatinate, and tried to get assistance from his friends and allies in the cause. Venice had asked him to help the Protestants in the Valtelline; James replied by asking the Republic to come to the aid of the German Protestants. On March 1, 1622, Wotton presented a letter from James I, in which the King stated that he had been deceived by the Emperor; all the Upper and part of the Lower Palatinate was occupied by hostile troops, he was determined to act in the defence of his son-in-law, and hoped that his friends, among whom Venice occupied a principal place, would come to his assistance.^[17] The Senate returned a polite and friendly answer to the King. They expressed their goodwill towards the Elector, their interest in his success, and stated they were already doing what they could to help his cause. They had recently appointed Mansfeld commander of their foreign troops, and had given him a pension; they were making open and regular contributions to help the Dutch in their war against Spain, and they had joined with France and Savoy to oppose the Spaniards in the Valtelline. The ambassador had not been commissioned to make any specific request, and pretended to be satisfied with this answer. In the following month an envoy from the Elector arrived in Venice to beg for more money to help Mansfeld’s army in the field, and Wotton, who was indefatigable in the cause of the German Protestants, and in the service of the Queen of Bohemia, hurried to Venice from Padua, where he had been lying ill, to second his requests.

In four audiences he urged on the Republic the merits of the cause, and their community of interest with the Elector. For if the Austro-Spanish powers should get control of all Germany, they would next attempt to conquer Italy, and Venice would be the first object of attack. He pointed out the advantage of keeping the war on foot in Germany, for all diversions were beneficial in proportion to their remoteness. He reminded the Doge of James I’s open declaration in their favour at the time of the Interdict, and said that although the King might expect a similar declaration now in his favour, yet, not to press his friends too far, he would be satisfied by ‘a silent contribution without noise’. Wotton’s speeches drew from the Doge, he wrote, ‘a great deal of good language,’ but no more practical satisfaction than he had received in his first assault.^[18] Venice was distracted by new troubles in the Grisons; and in July, 1622, after the defeats of Wimpfen and Höchst, the Elector was forced to dismiss Mansfeld’s army from his service.

This attempt to get money for Mansfeld’s army was the only negotiation of any importance which occupied Wotton during his third embassy. He remained in Venice for another year, being, he wrote to Calvert, ‘Legatus statarius, as the ancients spake of still personages on their stages.’^[19] For news, the troubles in the Grisons, the re-entrance of France as a powerful factor in European politics, the discovery, by means of intercepted letters, of the transference of Frederick’s electorate to Maximilian, the return of De Dominis to Rome, the prospects of the Spanish marriage, were the principal topics of general interest in the year 1622; while at Venice there was an earthquake to record, and a great scandal. The earthquake tumbled one of Wotton’s gondoliers into the water; in the scandal the ambassador himself nearly had a fall, being indirectly but most uncomfortably involved in its development.

The tragedy of Antonio Foscarini is famous in Venetian history, and, like the plot of 1618, has been made a subject of tragedy and romance. Picturesque and dramatic in all its details, the story is of especial interest to us on account of its connection with England and English characters. Antonio Foscarini, a Venetian nobleman of high rank, was ambassador in England from 1611 to 1615, where he seems to have won the favour of James I. Sir Henry Wotton was sent by the King to welcome him at his arrival, and accompanied him, as has already been related, at his formal reception, and was not infrequently in his company.^[20] He was a man of an eccentric and somewhat capricious nature, extravagant and dissipated, indiscreet, and apparently not very well affected towards the Jesuits and the papal power. While in England his secretary Muscorno, either out of personal enmity, or perhaps instigated by the Jesuits, brought a number of charges against him, both in his public and private character. In 1615 Foscarini was recalled to Venice, and put on his trial. After a long and complicated process, he was finally acquitted in June, 1618, and Muscorno was condemned to two years’ imprisonment. Foscarini was restored to the Senate and all his honours; and in November of this year Sir Henry Wotton was allowed to visit him, to congratulate him on his acquittal, and to discuss the often renewed plan of bringing about closer relations between Venice and the Protestant princes. Foscarini returned the visit, and Wotton congratulated the Doge in the name of James I on the result of his trial.^[21]

But Foscarini’s secret enemies had not ceased to plot his ruin, and his own eccentric conduct probably made him still an object of suspicion. Venice was full of rumours of treachery and intrigue, and in this atmosphere a class of professional informers found their occupation, the Government being only too ready to listen to their reports. Early in the year 1622, two of these informers brought before a committee of the Council of Ten, called the Inquisitors of State, a charge against Foscarini to the effect that he had secret meetings with the envoys of foreign States, and in particular the representatives of Spain, the Pope, and the Emperor. This for a man in his position was an offence punishable with death, it being supposed that such meetings could be for no purpose save for the revelation of State secrets. On April 8, 1622, Foscarini was arrested as he left a meeting of the Senate, and after a secret trial, was convicted on the charge of having revealed matters of State, and strangled in prison. On April 21 his body was seen hanging by one leg on the gallows in the Piazza. This execution caused the greatest excitement, and the city was full of wild reports.

There happened to be resident at that time in Venice an English lady of high rank and equally high spirit, Alathea Talbot, wife of the second Earl of Arundel, who was Earl Marshal of England, and is now remembered as a great art-collector. Lady Arundel had come to Italy in 1619 in order, as she said, to educate her sons in the Italian fashion, although it was reported that she was in secret a Roman Catholic (her husband had become a Protestant in 1615), and for that reason wished to live abroad. Her residence in Venice was the Mocenigo Palace on the Grand Canal, the home in the eighteenth century of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and in the nineteenth of Lord Byron. Foscarini, when ambassador in England, had been an acquaintance of Lady Arundel’s; and immediately after his execution it was reported in Venice, and generally believed, that his meetings with foreign envoys had taken place at her house, and that he had been wont to go thither at night in various disguises. It was also believed that the Government of the Republic had ordered Lady Arundel to leave the city within three days.^[22] These rumours came to Wotton’s ears; and as Lady Arundel was then at her villa at Dolo on the Brenta, he sent, the day after Foscarini’s execution, to tell her of them, and to say that in his opinion it would be better for her not to come to Venice till she should hear from him again. To be expelled from the city would be an affront not only to her, but to the whole English nation; and her steward, moreover, being a Venetian subject, might be liable to arrest.

This advice was probably well meant, but was at the same time extremely injudicious. For Lady Arundel to have seemed afraid to appear in Venice would have been taken as a confession of complicity, and she was a person of much too high a spirit to follow any such feeble course.^[23] Wotton’s message reached her as she was on the way to Fusina towards Venice. Here she was stopped by a horseman, who declared that he was John Dynely, the ambassador’s secretary, sent to give her a message in private. She refused to listen to a private message (from which it would appear that she knew what to expect, or else that her relations with Wotton were not very friendly); so Dynely delivered himself of his commission in the presence of her attendants. Lady Arundel replied angrily that she thanked the ambassador for his warning, but declined to take his advice; and promptly entering her barge, she went direct to Wotton’s palace. Here she had a long conference with the ambassador, and in the presence of her attendants denied the reports with great indignation, declaring that she had never exchanged civilities with the foreign envoys mentioned, nor received any visits from Foscarini since she had been in Venice.

Wotton advised her to wait till the source of the rumours could be discovered; but Lady Arundel demanded an instant and public recognition of her innocence, and a compensation for the injury inflicted on her. She insisted that Wotton should send to the Collegio, requesting an audience for herself and the ambassador on the following day. To this Wotton demurred, as it was then late at night. But the next morning the angry lady, after consulting with Sir Henry Peyton and other friends, returned to Wotton’s house and said she was determined to see the Doge at once. Much to his annoyance the ambassador was compelled to escort her, and on April 22 they entered the Collegio together, the ambassador supporting her with his right hand. The Doge and senators received Lady Arundel with great respect, and she was placed in the usual seat of ambassadors on the right of the Doge, Wotton taking his place on the left. Lady Arundel then made her statement in English, which Wotton translated.

The Doge replied with great vehemence of protest that the reports were absolutely unfounded, that the countess’s name had never been mentioned in connexion with the case of Foscarini, and that if the authors of these reports could be discovered, they would be punished in an exemplary manner. Wotton then thanked the Doge for his declaration, and added that Lady Arundel was greatly comforted by this public manifestation of her innocence. After a few more compliments the ambassador and the countess departed, her manner being, the Venetian secretary records, ‘humble and very composed.’ She was, however, by no means satisfied with her triumph, but believing that Wotton, for purposes of his own, had tried to frighten her away from Venice, she was determined on revenge.

In rendering her account of the affair to the Doge, Wotton had very unwisely suppressed the fact that it was he himself who had informed her of the rumours current in Venice, saying that she heard them from a crowd of company which she found at her palace on her arrival there. Lady Arundel understood Italian, and this did not escape her notice. But in the meantime the scandal took on the proportions of an affair of almost international concern. On April 28 the Senate met and passed a formal resolution, reiterating the declarations of the Doge about Lady Arundel’s innocence, and the high esteem in which she was held by the Venetian Government. They also instructed their ambassador in England to declare to Lord Arundel, in their name, the entire innocence of his wife, and to deny the reports to any one who might mention them, and to the King himself, if Lord Arundel should wish it. They also voted the sum of one hundred ducats to be spent in confections and wax for presentation to Lady Arundel; and both she and Wotton were invited to the Collegio on the following day in order that the decree of the Senate might be read to them. When Lionello, the Venetian secretary, went to tell Wotton of this invitation, he seemed very well pleased; but being informed that the countess was to be there too, he showed a troubled countenance (perturbatione di faccia), and remarked that he had no business to transact with her before the Doge, but that nevertheless he would come.^[24]

Wotton might very well wish to avoid the meeting, for Lady Arundel was to prove herself as implacable as Shylock amid the same surroundings. It was the ambassador who had told her of the reports against her, and she insisted that the ambassador should put the true account of the affair in writing and read it to the Doge. Wotton was compelled to draw up a paper giving a history of the whole occurrence, declaring that he himself had ‘signified unto her ladyship that malicious rumour while she was abroad’.^[25] To make the matter clear, the countess wrote herself a letter to the Doge, stating that as the reports about her were still in circulation, she had thought it necessary to obtain from Wotton a narrative of the whole affair. This she wished to be shown to James I, and to be made public generally as a proof of her innocence.

With these two papers in her hand, and escorted again by the ambassador, the countess entered the Collegio on April 29, and took her seat at the right of the Doge. The resolution of the Senate was read to her, and she expressed her thanks in English, protesting her devotion to the Republic. Wotton interpreted her speech, and added that as he was concerned in the affair, having himself been deceived, Lady Arundel would present a true account of the circumstances. The countess then rose and handed her two papers to the Doge, her own letter and Wotton’s narrative. Wotton vainly remarked that only the letter need be read aloud, as the narrative was very long. But the countess showed plainly by her manner that she wished both to be read, and read they were.

After the reading, and after the Doge had declared that they had instructed their ambassador to make all the circumstances of the affair public, Wotton attempted to justify himself, saying that reports had reached him from all quarters about Lady Arundel, and information was brought him from a very sure source, that Foscarini in his trial, when questioned about his nocturnal ambulations, had stated in his defence that he had occasionally gone to Lady Arundel’s house. The Doge denied this most positively, declaring that there had been no mention of the lady’s name in the trial, or of any other English person. Thereupon the ambassador, ‘endeavouring to assume a cheerful countenance,’ remarked that they owed infinite thanks to the Doge, and that the injurious accusation must be attributed to those who had bribed Foscarini, and had attempted to put the guilt on some one else.

Copies of Lady Arundel’s letter and Wotton’s narrative were sent to the ambassador in England, and the Government wrote pointing out that it was Wotton himself who had informed the countess of the reports against her. The wax and confections voted by the Senate were taken, on fifteen salvers, gaily decked, to Lady Arundel’s palace. The show was gazed at by the whole neighbourhood, and Lady Arundel expressed herself as highly gratified and completely comforted. A State galley was subsequently sent to take her to witness the ceremony of the marriage with the sea, and banquets were given her at Murano and on the Lido at the public expense.

For Wotton the affair was more serious. Lady Arundel’s steward told the Venetian secretary, who had brought the Senate’s gifts, that Wotton was dissatisfied and confounded, and had great fears that his hopes and fortunes at Court might be wrecked by this occurrence. And Lady Arundel, who seems to have believed that the ambassador had either started the reports himself, or had at least taken advantage of them to try to drive her from Venice, where, as a spy on his actions, her residence was objectionable to him, sent her steward to England to give a full account of the affair, and to satisfy her vengeance by ruining Wotton. In this however she did not succeed. The Venetian ambassador wrote that, from what Secretary Calvert and others told him, he could see that Wotton was much blamed, and might possibly lose his post; but that much money was owing him, which it would be difficult to pay. Lord Arundel, moreover, was not popular; his wife was blamed for living in Italy; the prudence and dissimulation of the Venetians were well known, and many believed that there was some foundation for the reports.^[26]

It is difficult, at this distance of time, to arrive at the truth of the affair. The records of Foscarini’s trial have been destroyed, and it will probably never be known whether he was accused of meeting foreign envoys at her house.^[27] The fact that when the Senate’s resolutions of April 28 were passed, the six Savii Grandi, who were practically the prime ministers of the Republic, were not present, and did not vote, seems to suggest, as has been pointed out, that although they regarded these measures as politic, they did not consider that they had been fully merited.^[28]

Probably it was true that both Foscarini and some of the foreign envoys had visited Lady Arundel, and that his enemies had made use of this as a basis on which to build false accusations of treachery to the State. It was certainly believed generally in Venice, as the dispatches of other Residents prove, that her name had been mentioned in the trial, and that the Republic intended to make her leave Venetian territory. There is no good reason for supposing that Wotton, in sending her news of this, and advising her not to come to Venice, acted with other than kind intentions. And yet here again, as in the letters of Anthony Bacon, and later in the correspondence of Chamberlain and Carleton, and in the secret documents about the plot of 1618, we find that curious distrust and suspicion which Wotton’s conduct aroused in unfriendly observers. But in this case also, as in the others, the accusations seem unfounded, although it must be admitted that his advice was extremely bad advice, and that, in the subsequent proceedings, he played a rather sorry part. Lord Arundel, who probably had good reason to know his wife’s character, and who afterwards found himself in the Tower owing to her high-handed conduct,^[29] seems to have taken a less unfriendly view of Wotton’s action. He severely blamed the ambassador, however, for giving his wife advice which a woman of less spirit might have followed, and thus have done her reputation irrevocable damage.^[30]

It only remains to be stated that James I wrote to the Doge to thank him for his kindness to Lady Arundel, and that Wotton did his best to repair his mistake by showing all possible attentions to the countess. On July 4, when he delivered the King’s letter, he presented Lord Arundel’s two sons to the Doge, with a complimentary speech; and when in October Lady Arundel in spite of her triumph decided to leave Venice, the ambassador escorted her to the frontier of the Venetian territory.^[31] Quarrelling with their nation’s representative became afterwards a favourite occupation with angry and high-spirited English ladies residing abroad; and readers of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s letters will remember the great conflict in Venice between that famous lady and the English minister of the time.

With the subsequent history of the Foscarini case Wotton had no connexion, save that of an interested spectator. It was soon discovered that the accusations against the unfortunate man were false; the informers who had brought about his ruin were tried and executed, and the Council of Ten had the courage to make a public declaration of his innocence before the Grand Council of the nobles. They also sent news of the injustice which had been committed to foreign courts, and provided a splendid funeral and an epitaph (‘the last of miserable remedies,’ as Wotton described it) for the remains of the unfortunate victim.

Foscarini had been condemned by the Council of Ten without a single vote in favour of his innocence, which shows that no doubt of his guilt was entertained at the time. That this tribunal publicly confessed its error, and made every possible reparation, was a noble piece of justice, and is regarded by Venetian historians as a proof that the Council of Ten does not deserve the evil fame for wicked and inexorable cruelty which it still possesses in the popular imagination. As Wotton truly wrote, nothing had ever happened to cast more discredit on Venetian justice; and he seems to have thought that it would have been more politic ‘to smother an irrevocable error’,^[32] than to make an exposure of a mistake so fatal to their reputation.

The day before the Council of Ten announced this momentous decision, Venice was saddened by the death of her greatest citizen, Paolo Sarpi. He was now seventy-one years of age, and for the last year his health had been gradually failing. But he retained his serene and heroic spirit to the end, and even on his death-bed he continued to advise and direct the affairs of State. Wotton describes his last illness and the solemn and magnificent funeral with which the Republic honoured his remains. ‘Thus was laid into the earth,’ he concludes, ‘the ornament of all cloisters.’ ‘He had surely much of the Melanchthon, but little of the Luther,’ was Wotton’s final verdict on the great historian and statesman.^[33] Wotton honoured Sarpi above almost all living men; in political ideals they were in complete sympathy, and many features of the Englishman’s practical policy were due to the suggestions of the great Venetian. It was only when occasions for action arose that Wotton felt inclined to criticize what he considered Sarpi’s want of a bold and heroic spirit. But of the two, it was the friar and not the ambassador who was the wise and far-seeing statesman; Sarpi perceived what Wotton never understood, that the enthusiasm of the Reformation was extinct, and the day for a Luther had passed away. Nor could the ambassador enter into the passionate love for Venice which was the great motive of Sarpi’s life, making him regard even religious reform as secondary to the welfare of the State, and which found expression in the phrase Esto perpetua, the last words he uttered before his end.^[34]

With Sarpi’s death, Wotton must have given up any hopes he may have preserved that religious reform could, for the time at least, be introduced into Italy. Indeed, even before that event any such hopes must have vanished, and in the letters and dispatches of his third embassy the subject is hardly ever mentioned. But he was at home in Venice, and while waiting for the falling-in of his reversions in England, he could not expect to obtain any pleasanter or more lucrative post. He had, however, been away from England for three years, and early in 1623 he applied for the usual permission for leave of absence to return home. This was granted, and on July 19 he presented his letter of recall. But before he returned to take formal leave, the Doge Antonio Priuli died, and Wotton remained in Venice, in order to be able to congratulate his successor in the name of James I. The choice fell on Francesco Contarini, who in 1610 had gone to England as extraordinary ambassador about the prohibition of the King’s book and Wotton’s quarrel with the Republic. On Sept. 13 the English ambassador appeared in the Collegio to perform, as he put it, two duties—to congratulate the Doge, or rather the Republic, on the election, and to condole with himself on his departure from Venice. The Doge replied in a speech full of devotion to James I, which he uttered so seriously, Wotton wrote, ‘that he seemed to fetch it out of his bowels.’^[35] Recommending to the Doge’s favour the English residents in Venetian territory, whether merchants, or soldiers in the service of the Republic, and declaring that he did not despair of returning, he took his leave, telling the Doge that he left his secretary, Michael Branthwaite, to represent English interests till he himself should come back, or another ambassador be sent in his place.^[36]

Save for his attempt to procure help for the Elector Palatine, and his quarrel with Lady Arundel, Wotton had had but little business to occupy him during his last term of residence in Venice, and had made but rare appearances in the Ducal College. He remained there, as he told the Doge, as a sincere token of the unchanged disposition of his king.^[37] But to the Venetians the attitude of James I was now of minor importance, and his protestations carried little weight. It was from France, and not from England, that the Republic expected help, and the reassertion of French influence in Italy led to important changes. But with the history of Italy, and the great diplomatic and military struggle about the Valtelline, we are no longer concerned. When Sir Henry Wotton left Venice early in October his connexion with international politics was ended, and he crossed the Alps never to return. After a miserable and expensive journey he reached Basle, and then went down the Rhine to Cologne, where we find him on November 5, in the Old Style. From Cologne he went by Liège to Antwerp, and disembarked at Sandwich on November 25. Ten days later he went from London to Theobalds, where he expected to see the King.^[38]

As was customary at that time with travellers of distinction, he had left, on his journey from Italy, hanging in the inns and houses where he lodged, a tablet bearing his arms ^[39], with an inscription which has been preserved for us:

Wotton had returned to England, at the age of fifty-five, with no very brilliant prospects. His health was bad; there was no present hope of his reversions falling in; the king he had served so long was growing old, and from his successor he was not likely to win employment. This was the usual fate of English ambassadors, who were liable to be forgotten in their absence from the sources of Court favour, and who, on their return, could seldom obtain even the payment of the moneys owing to them. On January 31, 1624, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, ‘Sir Henry Wotton hath been sick, poor man, since his coming home, and I hear is now retiring to some corner in the country to finish a work he is setting out of the mathematics, or perhaps building of castles in the air; it was said last week he should certainly be Provost of Eton.’^[1] On the prospect of obtaining the Provostship of Eton, which was then vacant, Wotton’s hopes were now centred; but before describing the contest for this place, it will be necessary to say a few words about the book which Wotton was writing, and which appeared in April of this year. Save for the letter to Welser about Scioppius, this book, The Elements of Architecture,^[2] was Wotton’s first publication. It is a little treatise hurriedly put together, printed as fast as it was written, and modestly offered to the world with a witty preface, in which Wotton apologized for writing on this subject, and confessed that ‘he was but a gatherer and disposer of other men’s stuff at his best value.’ The Elements of Architecture is, nevertheless, the best written and most interesting of Wotton’s works, and deserves more notice than it has received, or than I have space to give it. The title suggests an essay on the whole field of architecture; the subject, however, is considerably narrower, being the building of a country house, with directions as to site, materials, gardens, and decorations. It may be regarded as a collection of notes and suggestions, made by an amateur of much taste and knowledge, for a nobleman or gentleman of wealth intending to erect one of the great country palaces which were then being built in England. It is of interest, not only as the first book on the subject in the English language, but as an exposition of the taste of the most accomplished connoisseur of the time—a time when there was in England a truer love of beauty, and a juster appreciation of art, than there had been before, or indeed, than there has ever been since. The reign of Elizabeth was rather an age of great creative energy, than of conscious and refined love of beauty. But the period which followed—the later reign of James, the time of Buckingham, of Charles I, of Inigo Jones, and of Van Dyck’s visits—is the true period, for the plastic arts at least, of the Renaissance in England. The refined taste shared by Buckingham and Charles was diffused from the Court among many of the great nobles; Lord Arundel had brought to England his marbles and pictures; other collections of Italian pictures were being made, and Inigo Jones had introduced the noble Palladian forms of architecture, which were now replacing the more quaint and barbarous models of Elizabethan building. This architectural Renaissance in England, though to a certain extent revived at a later date by Christopher Wren and his school, was but brief, and came to no full fruition. The political causes which soon put a stop to the aesthetic interests of the age were already working. Nations, like individuals, must often pay a heavy price for their moral qualities; but it is useless to speculate on what England might have become without the Puritan domination. The scattered remains of this period have, however, a beauty which makes us linger, not without regret, on the short moment in English history when it seemed as if the poetic splendour of the Elizabethan age might be crowned by great achievements in the other arts.

It is in this little book of Wotton’s that the ideals and standards then current among travelled and cultivated Englishmen can best be studied. The standards were those of the late Renaissance in Italy, where, under the influence of Palladio, and the revived interest in Vitruvius, architects had attained to a certain maturity and simplification of taste, and a noble and pure conception of form and proportion. All the buildings which, either in this book or in his letters, Wotton singles out for admiration are the works of architects of the later period—Palladio, Vignola, Ammanati—and his descriptions of the great halls of his ideal palace shine with the marble colonnades and luminous spaces of Paolo Veronese’s splendid pictures. Of the works of the earlier Renaissance there is no mention; and he shows, as might have been expected, no toleration for Gothic architecture. Pointed arches, he remarks, ‘both for the natural imbecility of the sharp angle itself, and likewise for their very uncomliness, ought to be exiled from judicious eyes, and left to their first inventors, the Gothes or Lumbards, amongst other reliques of that barbarous age.’^[3]

In his essay on Building (first published in 1625), Wotton’s friend and somewhat older contemporary, Francis Bacon, wrote of architecture, though in a more cursory manner, and also described an ideal country house. Wotton’s book, when compared with Bacon’s essay, shows evidence of severer taste, and of a much more serious conception of the importance and principles of architecture. Bacon begins by saying that ‘Houses are built to live in, and not to look on’, and he makes comfort rather than uniformity the main object of the builder. His imaginary house is a large and stately mansion with courts and towers, in the later Elizabethan or early Jacobean style, but with no conscious thought as to style or proportion. But to Wotton beauty of proportion was the first object, it being the duty of the architect ‘to make the form, which is the noblest part, as it were triumph over the matter’, and his ‘castle in the air’ is a noble and severe palace, like those he had seen in Italy, or such as Inigo Jones, had the chance been given him, might have built in England.

The history of art shows that the impulse of a new creative period is generally derived from the late, and even decadent achievements of some previous age; and although, when the Italians had reached sense of selection, the mature judgement of the end of the Renaissance, they were already decadent, and had lost the charm of youth, the freshness necessary for great and original work, it is not improbable that, if the Palladian forms had been successfully transplanted, as Wotton wished, into the new soil of England, a period of noble and beautiful architecture might have resulted. An analogy might perhaps be established between the architecture of this time and the greatest contemporary achievements in literature—Milton’s early poems, in which the influence of the late Italian style is combined with the grace and freshness of original composition. And it was probably not only a natural appreciation of excellence, but also a love of Milton’s Italian models, which made Sir Henry Wotton the first critic of distinction to appreciate the beauty of Milton’s poetry.

Wotton’s book is of interest, both as an exposition of the taste of a particular epoch, and because it shows that he had arrived at a curiously just appreciation of the general principles of aesthetics, much in advance of that of his age. It would be hard to find in subsequent writers a better description of true beauty in architecture than in some of his phrases, as when he defines Vitruvius’s term ‘Eurythmia’ as ‘that agreeable harmony between the breadth, length, and height of all the rooms of the fabric, which suddenly, where it is, taketh every beholder by the secret power of proportion’,^[4] or speaks of ‘the graceful and harmonious contentment to the eye’ produced by rightly proportioned doors and windows.^[5] Remarkable, too, is his description of Palladio’s ante-porch of brick columns in the cloister of S. Carità in Venice, (now the Accademia), and of Riccio’s noble church of S. Giustina at Padua, where the materials being of ordinary stone, unadorned by sculpture, ‘do yet ravish the beholder (and he knows not how) by a secret harmony in the proportions.’^[6] Nor is he content with the description of aesthetic effects. He makes more than one interesting and suggestive attempt to discover the laws of ‘this magnificent art’, to dive in his phrase ‘into causes, and into the mysteries of proportion’^[7] whose magical result he so well describes. He is in particular much occupied by the relation between nature and art. Nature was the ‘simplest mother of art’, and yet he was aware that the artist was by no means a mere imitator of nature. In describing to Bacon the camera obscura which Kepler had showed him in 1620, he had remarked that to paint landscapes by this process ‘were illiberal; though surely no painter can do them so precisely.’^[8] And in the second part of his book, where he treats of painting and sculpture, he states as a problem worthy of philosophical examination, ‘how an artificer, whose end is the imitation of nature, can be too natural.’

This effect of too much truth in representation, which Quintilian had ascribed to the work of Demetrius, was, Wotton wrote, ‘either the fault, or (to speak more gently) the too much perfection of Albert Dürer, and perhaps also of Michael Angelo da Buonarroti’. This collocation of names is curious, but Wotton explains it by quoting with approval the criticism of an ‘ingenious artisan’, ‘that the German did too much express that which was, and the Italian that which should be. Which severe observation of nature,’ he adds, ‘by the one in her commonest, and by the other in her absolutist forms, must needs produce in both a kind of rigidity, and consequently more naturalness than gracefulness.’^[9] It is plain from this sentence that he meant by ‘nature’ both visual appearance and ideal forms; and that in his opinion too much truth to either of these was a fault in art, and resulted in a loss of beauty.

Of this modern and interesting quality were Wotton’s speculations on the nature of beauty; and if, as is often the case, he succeeded better in stating, than in solving, the aesthetic problem, the mere fact of stating it is of considerable importance; and he deserves credit moreover for having put it in aesthetic, and not in ethical or historical terms. The problem of beauty in art, and especially in architecture, has, since his time, been strangely identified with questions of personal conduct; and we can dimly imagine our ambassador’s amazement at finding the noble and stately Palladian architecture he had loved in Venice, displayed to the world as a horrid product of the moral decay of that Republic.

But an adequate treatment of all the points suggested by this little book would require more space than is at my disposal. The curious reader will find much to interest him in what Wotton says about sculpture and gardens, as well as painting and architecture, and will find nowhere else so much information about the taste and the ideals of beauty of this remarkable period.

Wotton ends by stating that he did not wish it to be thought that he had spent his ‘poor observation abroad about nothing but stone and timber, and such rubbage’; he therefore announced that he had another work in preparation, a philosophical survey of education, which he called a kind of moral architecture. ‘In the meanwhile,’ he adds, ‘I have let these other gleanings fly abroad, like the bird out of the Ark, to discover what footing may be for that which shall follow.’

On April 10 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton of Wotton, ‘He hath set out lately a book on Architecture which I have not leisure to read, but hear it reasonably commended, though at first I thought he had busied himself to little purpose, to build castles in the air.’^[10] The first copy was sent to the King, the second to the Prince of Wales, and this latter is now in the British Museum, with the letter of presentation on the fly-leaf.^[11] A copy was also sent to the Earl of Middlesex, then Lord Treasurer, and others no doubt to friends of influence and importance, who might be able to help him in the competition for the Provostship of Eton.

The famous Provost, Sir Henry Savile, had died in February, 1622; Thomas Murray, his successor, only survived his election fourteen months. Even before Murray’s death, when his illness was known to be hopeless, a keen competition for the place had begun. Among the candidates were Sir Dudley Carleton, Savile’s son-in-law, and the great ex-Chancellor Lord St. Albans. ‘It were a pretty cell for my fortune,’ Bacon wrote to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Conway, adding in another letter, ‘There will hardly fall (specially in the spent hour-glass of such a life as mine) anything so fit for me.’^[12] Other candidates were Wotton’s nephew, Sir Albertus Morton, Sir William Beecher, Clerk of the Privy Council, Sir Ralph Freeman, the Master of Requests, and Sir Robert Ayton, who had been secretary to the late Queen. But in all matters of patronage Buckingham was supreme, and while Buckingham was absent in Spain no appointment could be made. Shortly after his return in October, 1623, Sir Henry Wotton arrived in England, and appeared as a new candidate for the vacant post.^[13] Wotton had strong claims on James I, besides those of ancient friendship. His long and honourable service abroad, the large sums of money owing him, which could not be paid, entitled him to some honourable preferment; and his scholarly reputation made him a not unfit successor to the learned Savile. But these considerations were of little weight compared with the wishes of the all-powerful favourite Buckingham. Wotton had, however, by his presents sent from Italy, and by buying pictures for Buckingham’s collection, won a certain amount of favour with the Duke. And when he heard that Sir Isaac Wake had been appointed ambassador to Venice, whither he himself had expected to return, he wrote begging Buckingham’s compassion. After seventeen years of foreign employment, he was now ‘left utterly destitute of all possibility to subsist at home; much like those seal-fishes which sometimes, as they say, oversleeping themselves in an ebbing water, feel nothing about them but a dry shore when they awake. Which comparison,’ he adds, ‘I am fain to seek among those creatures, not knowing among men, that have so long served so gracious a Master, any one to whom I may resemble my unfortunate bareness.’ His wants did indeed move compassion, but practical interests were of more importance to Buckingham than sentimental considerations, or the memory of past services. And Wotton, though penniless at the time, possessed two valuable reversions with which he could bargain. For one of these, the reversion of the Mastership of the Rolls after the death of Sir Julius Caesar, Buckingham had been offered £5,000, and was extremely anxious to give or sell it to the Attorney-General, Sir Robert Heath.^[14] Wotton therefore, at Buckingham’s request, surrendered this reversion to the Duke, who promised him some equivalent recompense in return. There was a difficulty about giving him the Provostship of Eton, as this had been promised to Sir William Beecher. But by means of his other reversion, that to half a Six Clerk’s place in Chancery (worth as much at a market, Wotton said, as the Provostship of Eton), he was able ultimately to buy off Beecher’s claim. The Prince of Wales intervened in his behalf,^[15] and on July 19, 1624, the place at Eton was granted him, and James I sent a mandamus to the Vice-Provost and Fellows for his election. ‘We have now thought good,’ the King wrote, ‘to recommend unto you our trusty and well-beloved servant, Sir Henry Wotton, Knt., to succeed in that government, whom, in regard of his many abilments, faithful services, and travails these many years in negotiating with foreign Princes and States, and managing our great and weighty affairs, and likewise in respect of his learning and integrity, We esteem of singular desert and worthy of this and a more eminent mark of Our Princely favour.’^[16] Wotton was duly elected on July 24; but such was his want of ready money, that the Fellows had to furnish the bare walls of his lodgings.^[17] He wrote to Nicolas Pey that he needed £500 for his settlement. If that were procured ‘my thoughts are at rest, and over my study door you shall find written Invidiae Remedium’.^[18] This money, Walton says, was paid out of the arrears owing him, and he was enabled to settle into his new home. He seems to have visited Bury St. Edmunds this summer, in order to consult the Venetian physician, Dr. Despotine; and in August he was again in London, as he is mentioned as one of those who witnessed Middleton’s famous play A game of Chess, (or Gondomar, as it was popularly called), in which the hated Spanish ambassador with all ‘his graces and faces’ was caricatured to the life.^[19]

By the autumn he was no doubt settled into the Provost’s Lodge at Eton, which was now to be his home for fifteen years until his death. The place, being one of dignity and leisurely retirement not far from London, was exactly what Wotton desired. He had learned experimentally, Izaak Walton tells us, ‘that the great blessing of sweet content was not to be found in multitudes of men or business, and that a college was the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts, and to afford rest both to his body and mind.’ It was at Eton, Walton adds, where ‘his happiness then seemed to have its beginning; the College being to his mind, as a quiet harbour to a seafaring man after a tempestuous voyage.’

Two years after his appointment, Wotton decided to enter Holy Orders, and thus conform to Henry VI’s often disregarded stipulation that the Provost of Eton College should be in Orders. He hoped, moreover, as he expressed it, ‘that gentlemen and knights’ sons, who are trained up with us in a seminary of Churchmen . . . will by my example (without vanity be it spoken) not be ashamed, after the sight of courtly weeds, to put on a surplice.’^[20] His principal motive, however, was of a deeper nature, a desire to enter more completely into the service of the religion and Church, for which, on looking back, he felt his past life had been no unsuitable preparation. His visits to Rome, his residence in Italy, had given him much experience of the corruptions of religion, and as ambassador his efforts had had one supreme end, the advancement of the cause of a purer faith. If with these higher thoughts were mingled some hopes of clerical preferment, these Wotton apparently soon abandoned. The nearer he approached to the sacred character of a priest, the more he trembled at the thought of its responsibility; and he went no further than Deacon’s Orders, feeling himself unfitted for the cure of souls, and better able to save the Church with his pen than with his voice. ‘My private study,’ he wrote the King, ‘must be my theatre rather than a pulpit, and my books my auditors, as they are all my treasure.’ He did not mean, however, ‘to sit and do nothing in the porch of God’s house,’ but hoped to render yet some service to his divine Master, either by exposing the corruptions of false religion, or by celebrating in hymns ‘His endless glory who hath called me (for which His name be ever blessed) though late to His service, yet early to the knowledge of His truth, and sense of His mercy’.^[21]

Izaak Walton describes how, shortly after his ordination, Wotton returning from Church in his surplice, ‘an old friend, a person of quality,’ met him so attired, and joyed him of his new habit; to whom Sir Henry Wotton replied,

As Provost of Eton, Wotton had ‘precedence and plenary authority over the whole College’. He presided over the college meetings, and voted for the election of the head master and Fellows, and had the power of nominating a certain number of the scholars elected to the foundation.^[22] He was a constant cherisher, Izaak Walton writes, ‘of all those youths in that school, in whom he found either a constant diligence, or a genius that prompted them to learning.’^[23] ‘He was pleased constantly to breed up one or more hopeful youths, which he picked out of the school, and took into his own domestic care, and to attend him at meals;’^[24] and on certain days other boys, in whom he took an interest, were invited to dine with him.

Our most detailed picture of life at Eton under Sir Henry Wotton is derived from the papers of the great Earl of Cork, who in 1635 sent from Ireland two of his sons to be educated there, Francis, afterwards Viscount Shannon, and the famous Robert Boyle. The Provost, who was an old friend of the Earl of Cork, received the boys into his own house, and entertained them at his table, until a lodging in the Vice-Provost’s house could be furnished for them. He was much taken with the little Robert’s ‘pretty conceptions’ and his ‘discourses of Ireland and his travels’, and delighted in making him talk. As Robert had the defect of stammering, Wotton arranged for a teacher to cure this, and also for the boys to be taught to play the viol and sing. He watched over their health, physicked them when they were ill, and arranged for their holidays, and was, as their attendant wrote, ‘mighty courteous and loving toward them.’^[25] Robert Boyle afterwards described Sir Henry Wotton as ‘a person that was not only a fine gentleman himself, but very well skilled in the art of making others so’,^[26] and adds that Eton in his time was ‘very much thronged with young nobility’. The young Boyles and other sons of men of rank were at Eton, not as scholars on the foundation, but as commensals sharing in the scholars’ education, and paying for their private lessons and all their other expenses.

The election of the scholars, both to Eton, and from Eton to King’s College, Cambridge, caused a great deal of worry and trouble to the Provost. The competition for these scholarships was great, and every year he was assailed by importunate letters from high-placed personages, and sometimes even from the King himself. To satisfy all these demands, and at the same time to encourage boys of promise, was an annual perplexity. At every election he lost, Wotton wrote, three or four friends, whose requests he had not been able to grant; while those whom he had obliged only laughed at him. The elections took place in the summer, generally in the first week in August, when the Provost of King’s College and two Fellows called ‘posers’ rode over to Eton, and were ceremoniously received by the Eton authorities.

Sir Henry Wotton erected the double row of wooden columns that are still standing in the Lower School, and adorned them with pictures of the most famous orators, poets, and historians of Greece and Rome, persuading the boys, Walton tells us,

Wotton’s stipend and allowances as Provost came to about £140 a year, with his residence, the expenses of his stables, and many quaint perquisites—the best quarter of an ox and three sheep every week, two ‘bores’, the produce of the dovehouse, and four hogsheads of beer from the March brewing.^[28] If his income was barely sufficient to pay for his current expenses (and the Provostship of Eton had never before, he wrote, within the memory of man, been held without some other benefice), it would not aid him of course to pay off the debts he had contracted in the public service; and the money troubles that had pursued him throughout his life still ‘bred wrinkles in his face’. Large sums were owing him from the Treasury for his pension, and probably also for his ambassador’s pay, and in 1635 these sums amounted to more than three thousand pounds. Although, as he wrote, condemned by nature ‘to a kind of unfortunate bashfulness’ in his own business,^[29] he did his best to keep his wants and claims before the succeeding Lord Treasurers of England. But his efforts were in vain, and in 1635, returning from the house of the Lord Treasurer Portland, he was arrested for debt and confined in his lodgings, and even threatened with imprisonment.^[30] Nor was he more successful in his hopes of clerical preferment from Charles I. The late King had promised him a Deanery, and in 1629 he reminded his successor of this, wishing, like his famous great-uncle, to be made Dean of Canterbury; and nine years later he requested that he might be given the Mastership of the Savoy.^[31] But Charles did nothing for him beyond increasing his pension in 1632 from two to five hundred pounds a year, for the purpose of enabling him to write a history of England. The history, however, save for two fragments, printed in the Reliquiae, was apparently not written, and it is probable that the pension was never paid.

Wotton had all his life amused himself with literary plans, and schemes for important works, and seems to have believed that in the leisure of Eton he would find time to carry out some at least of these projects. We hear of a work, long meditated, on ‘the Roman arts and practices’, a life of Luther, a history of the Reformation, the history of England, for which a pension had been granted, a life of Donne, and a book on fishing. But Wotton was, as he described himself, ‘a man that loves to do little,’^[32] and none of all these proposed works were written. Of his formal writings during this period, (if the word can be applied to the work of so desultory a person), only about one hundred pages remain, and these will all be found printed in the Reliquiae. A fragment on English history, the Character of William the Conqueror,^[33] another in Latin on the founder of Eton, Henry VI, a few pages on Pompey and Caesar, and two short religious meditations, call for no special notice. Of somewhat greater interest is the parallel between the two royal favourites, Buckingham and Essex, which was circulated in MS. in 1634, and was printed after his death in 1641. In this, and in the View of the Life and Death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (apparently printed at the same time), Wotton gives, in his gossiping, disconnected manner, some interesting details about the lives of these two patrons of his, who had both played a great part on the stage of fortune, and both met with a tragic end. The Plausus et Vota, a panegyric on Charles I,^[34] written and published after the King’s return from his coronation in Scotland in 1633, shows, as Dr. Ward has pointed out, a certain candour of soul that rises above flattery, in that he congratulates Charles on the moral discipline derived from his early weakness of body, and from the fact that he was born a younger son, and succeeded an elder brother who was the nation’s darling.^[35] The panegyric is of special interest, too, as giving a picture or ideal of that king as a devoted loyalist saw him, his fostering are for the influence and dignity of the English Church, his personal beauty, his temperance, and strict justice, and his enlightened love of music and the fine arts, for sculpture and painting and architecture, shown by his so adorning his palaces, that Italy might seem, by his magnificence, to have been transported into England.^[36]

But of the literary remains of this period, published in the Reliquiae, the most interesting are the Survey of Education, sent to the King in 1630, and its continuation, the Aphorisms of Education. The Survey is a little essay of twelve pages, written to fulfil the promise at the end of the Elements of Architecture, to follow that work with a book on Education which was, as he said, ‘a second building, or repairing of Nature, and as I may term it, a kind of moral architecture.’ On the subjects of both architecture and education Wotton was much in advance of his age, and in this little fragment it is surprising to read how he insists, as the first preliminary, on the study of the temperament and character of the child. The teacher or parent must not think it an easy matter to discover the natural powers and inclinations of children, which are often deep hidden and slow of development; but must carefully watch for little revelations of character and taste. Wotton’s notes on this process of observation are most curious, and evidently the fruit of considerable thought and study. The eye of the child must be noted, ‘for it loveth or hateth before we can discern the heart,’ and, in fact, ‘letteth out all our fancies and passions as it were by a window.’ The child’s smiles and frowns should be observed, especially ‘when withal they lighten or cloud the whole face in a moment’; his little lies, and ‘crafty and pertinent evasions’, his jests, his powers of mimicry and memory, his quickness of temper (for Wotton believed in the paradox about children, tantum ingenii quantum irae), his dreams, and ‘how prettily the child himself doth manage his pretty pastimes’. The fragment unfortunately ends just when Wotton is about to enter into the question of goodness of nature in children, a point though ‘round about in every mother’s mouth’, which yet ‘will need very nice and narrow observation’.^[37]

The Survey of Education was printed in the first edition of the Reliquiae; to the second edition were added the Aphorisms of Education, a collection of wise and witty reflections, with a short essay on each. These aphorisms have, as a matter of fact, no direct connexion with the subject of education, but are concerned with such subjects as travel, study, thrift, discretion, and the causes and circumstances of success or failure.

But Wotton’s formal writings have seldom or never the freshness and intimate charm of his letters; and it is in the somewhat scanty remains of his correspondence that we shall find the pleasantest product of these quiet years. For purposes of business or compliment, and in his modest and vain endeavour to procure the payment of the large sums of money owing him, he would occasionally write to Charles I, or to the Lord Treasurers of the time, Weston and Juxon; and his letters to these great personages are models of courtly and dignified appeal. Of his intimate letters, the greater number are written to his old friend, Sir Edmund Bacon, and to his former secretary in Venice, John Dynely. Others of an intimate character are addressed to Sir Thomas Wentworth (afterwards the Earl of Strafford), and to Wentworth’s brother-in-law, that fine old country gentleman, Sir Gervase Clifton; to the Provost of King’s College, Samuel Collins; to his devoted friend and man of business, Nicolas Pey; and these are plainly but the remaining fragments of a continued and regular correspondence. Among the intimate letters must also be numbered those to the Queen of Bohemia, then living in poverty and exile at the Hague. Wotton had celebrated her grace and beauty in the day of her triumph; that day had been but a brief one, but no change of worldly prosperity could affect the supremacy of one who, in his phrase, was ‘born within the chance, but without the power of fortune’; and the memory of her ‘sweet and royal virtues’ was, he wrote, the last thing that would die in him.

It only remains to give a brief account of the events of these last tranquil years of Sir Henry Wotton’s life. The chronicle requires little space, as his active years were over. But with his appointment to Eton he did not at once retire from public affairs; he was a member of the Parliament of 1625 ^[38], although he took no active part in its proceedings; and just before the death of James I, Chamberlain mentions him as a candidate for the office of Secretary, ‘or if he miss that, to be Dean of Canterbury.’^[39]

At the King’s funeral Wotton was one of the twelve knights who surrounded the hearse of their old master, and carried his armorial bearings.^[40] In the autumn of this year he suffered a great grief in the death of his accomplished nephew, Sir Albertus Morton, just when Morton had obtained the coveted post of Secretary, and the most brilliant prospects seemed to have opened before him. This was followed, not long after, by the death of his beloved niece, Sir Edmund Bacon’s wife. These were two irreparable losses, which Wotton always remembered with grief that time could not cure; and his poem on the death of Morton, though not free from the frigid conceits then fashionable, is still remembered for its last verse:—

More perfect is the inimitable epigram on Lady Morton, who did not long survive her husband:—

In the year following the death of Sir Albertus Morton, 1626, Wotton performed the only piece of State business with which he was charged in the new reign. This was not a matter of much importance, being merely to discover from a maiden lady living in Windsor, the history of a list of names, on which had been founded a wild accusation against Buckingham of the intention to poison a number of eminent people.^[43]

In 1627, as I have said, Wotton entered into Deacon’s Orders, and in this year he, with the Fellows of Eton College, petitioned the Duke of Buckingham that a regiment of soldiers, quartered at Eton in violation of the privileges of the College, might be removed, as their company did not well comport ‘with the youth repairing to the School, and lodging in the town’.^[44] Of the next few years there is little to chronicle. In the summer of 1629, while on a visit to Canterbury, he suffered ‘a rude affront’, probably an attempt to arrest him for debt, about which he wrote to his old friend Sir Dudley Carleton, now Viscount Dorchester and Secretary of State.^[45] In December of this year his pension was increased for the purpose, as I have already mentioned, of enabling him to write his history of England. In 1630 he celebrated the birth of the future Charles II in verses of no great merit; and also in 1630 he submitted to the King’s approval a portion of his Survey of Education, which apparently met with no encouragement, as it seems never to have been finished.

In 1631 the King summoned Wotton to Whitehall to give his judgement on some newly arrived pictures.^[46] Wotton gave to the Bodleian, in 1633, a rare and beautiful book which Tycho Brahe had presented to the Doge Grimani, and which Wotton had bought long before in Venice.^[47] In this year also he wrote his Plausus et Vota on the return of the King from Scotland, and this was published by him, being, with his letter to Mark Welser, and his Elements of Architecture, the only writings which Wotton himself printed. His ode on the King’s return, beginning

was circulated among his friends, and printed after his death with his other poems by Izaak Walton.^[48]

In 1634 Laud, who had charge of the diocese of Lincoln as Bishop Williams was in disgrace, reported to the King that he found that Sir Henry Wotton had ‘carried himself very worthily’ as Provost of Eton College.^[49] But in the following year Wotton, as I have said, suffered the indignity of an arrest for debt in London, and was confined by bailiffs in his lodgings. His letter to the secretary, Windebank, written from his ‘chamber and prison’, will be found in these volumes ^[50], and a protection against arrest for the space of a year was granted him by Windebank.

In 1636 Wotton presented to Eton College the immense map-picture of Venice painted by Fialetti, which now hangs in the Provost’s large dining hall, with this beautiful inscription: ‘Henricus Wottonius, post tres apud Venetos legationes ordinarias, in Etonensis Collegii beato sinu senescens, eiusque, cum suavissima inter se sociosque concordia, annos iam 12 praefectus, hanc miram urbis quasi natantis effigiem in aliquam sui memoriam iuxta socialem mensam affixit. 1636.’

It was thus that Wotton, who loved to compress much into one felicitous phrase, summed up the last years of his old age at Eton. With his Venetian pictures, his Italian words and gestures, and his memories of a bygone age, he remained to watch over the sons and grandsons of his old friends with religious care; and there is much witty observation in the eyes which look at us from the Eton portrait, with its characteristic inscription ‘Philosophemur’. Combining the gravity of an Anglican divine with the manners of the old Court, and something of the stateliness of a Venetian noble, he was, as Robert Boyle said of him, ‘not only a fine gentleman himself, but very well skilled in the art of making others so.’ But if to the Eton boys he seemed a fine gentleman and courtier of the old school, his distinction of nature and bearing was based on great simplicity and sincerity of character; and it was still his favourite boast that he was a ‘plain Kentish man’. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he had now at last realized that dream of happy retirement from Courts and cares, which ever haunted and kept fresh the thoughts of those great men.

In spite of the money troubles which were the usual fate, at that time, of retired politicians, we may easily believe, with his old biographer, that ‘peace, and patience, and a calm content did cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry Wotton’. The picture indeed that this friend, and his own letters, give us of Wotton’s old age is a charming one, and there is not much for any new biographer to add:—

Though most of Wotton’s time was spent at Eton, we often find him in London, whither he went to see his friends, and to renew his interest in plays and pictures and politics, and all the familiar life of the metropolis. He made an occasional appearance among the courtiers, like an owl, as he said, among gay birds.^[51] Although he once entertained the Queen Henrietta Maria at Eton ^[52], he could not boast of much royal favour, and shared Charles I’s neglect of his father’s old servants. Save for his friendship with Wentworth, he had little connexion with the newer, and for the most part inferior, class of men who now governed England. Once a year he visited Oxford, and he sometimes went to Cambridge, finding an academy to be a court more suited to his humour; and once a year also, or oftener, he would return to his old home of Bocton Malherbe, where his nephew’s widow lived with her daughters, and where, he would say, as Walton tells us, ‘he found a cure for all cares, by the cheerful company, which he called the living furniture of that place; and a restoration of his strength by the connaturalness of that, which he called his genial air.’ We find him also at Canterbury, and visiting his friend Sir Edmund Bacon at Redgrave, and consulting with his old physician Dr. Despotine at Bury St. Edmunds; and he no doubt made these journeys in his coach and four—a somewhat shabby coach, a contemporary describes it, upholstered ‘with an embroidery of russet twist on green cloth’.^[53]

Our happiest meetings with him are in the fresh and fragrant pages of The Compleat Angler, where, among the meadow sounds and scents, the old ambassador sits fishing with Izaak Walton, smoking his pipe, and telling the young London tradesman stories of wandering years and old experiences. There is, perhaps, no more charming passage in this old book than where ‘Piscator’, in his commendation of his favourite pastime, mentions the memorable men who have loved it, and, after praising ‘the good old man’ Dean Nowel, continues:—

Izaak Walton ends The Compleat Angler with two other poems, A Description of the Country’s Recreations and A Farewell to the Vanities of the World, which he doubtfully ascribes to Wotton, and which are not improbably from his pen.^[55] Both are descriptions of a retired life amid surroundings similar to those of Wotton’s last years:—

These lines from the first-mentioned poem have something of Wotton’s touch, and the last lines of the Farewell are even more characteristic:—

While the quiet years of Wotton’s old age glided by with the motion of the Thames beneath the Eton towers, and the old England he loved was still lit by the glow and afternoon of the Renaissance, and still ruled by the last of the cultivated and enlightened kings of this great epoch, the storms were swiftly arising in which this beautiful old order was doomed to perish, giving birth, in its ruins, to a new state and civilization in which Wotton would have found no place. Echoes and omens of the oncoming conflict reached him in his cloister; for, after long participation in the affairs of the world, there still hung on him, as he confessed, his old love of the news which had been so long his diet, ‘some relics of an harkening humour,’ and he eagerly sought from his correspondents stories and details of the latest events. Although he could follow with religious thankfulness the victories of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and the partial triumph, in the Thirty Years’ War, of the cause long dear to his heart, the course of events at home filled him with dismay and grief. A survivor of the Tudor age, inheriting the tried loyalty of his family to the English Royal House and the English Church, he could neither understand, nor regard with any suspicion of sympathy, the great struggle for Parliamentary freedom, which was to end with the overthrow of both Church and Throne. But this consummation he was fortunately not destined to see; he felt himself now approaching his last years, and repeated attacks of an old illness, from which he had first suffered in Venice, warned him that his end was not far off. In the autumn of the year 1637 he made his will, not so much to dispose of his few possessions, as in the desire to procure at his death enough money from the Treasury, which still owed him large sums, to pay his debts.

It may be questioned whether, among all the documents in Somerset House, a more characteristic will could be found. Izaak Walton’s comments on it are equally characteristic; a doubt still remains concerning it, he wrote, ‘whether it discovered more holy wit, or conscionable policy; but there is no doubt but that his chief design was a Christian endeavour that his debts might be satisfied.’ As to the epitaph which Wotton chose for himself, and which is now inscribed on his tombstone—surely one of the strangest and quaintest among the many strange phrases which wise men have written on their own tombs—Walton was met with a curious difficulty. ‘Here lies the first Author of this Sentence: “The Itch of Disputation will prove the Scab of the Church.” Inquire his name elsewhere,’ was Walton’s translation;

The sentence in question appeared in Wotton’s Plausus et Vota;^[76] as no subsequent investigators have succeeded in tracing it to an ulterior source, the credit of the invention—if credit there be—may, perhaps, in spite of Walton’s apology, be still allowed to Sir Henry Wotton.

The illness which had warned Wotton to make his will and to prepare for death, continued to visit him, with occasional intermissions, during the winter of 1637-8, and seems to have led to a report of his decease. This report made a sensation which surprised him, for, as he wrote to Dr. Castle, he thought, as he had lived with little ambition, so he ‘could have died with as much silence as any man in England.’^[77] But with the spring the danger for the moment vanished, and better health returned; and in the spring weather of this old year occurred a meeting, on the memory of which the student of poetry loves to linger. In a village not many miles from Eton, the young poet John Milton had spent six years in studious retirement, and was now about to start on his Italian journey. But shortly before leaving Horton he was invited to meet the old Provost, and walking through Datchet and along the Thames to Eton, he visited Sir Henry Wotton and ‘the ever memorable’ John Hales. The talk was no doubt of Italy and poetry, and the ‘good authors of the ancient time, among which,’ as Wotton wrote to Milton, ‘I observed you to have been familiar.’ After his return to Horton Milton sent a letter to the Provost, which has not been preserved, and with it a copy of Comus, in the first and anonymous edition. It so happened that Wotton had already seen Comus before, though unaware of the author, and now he thanked Milton in words of praise which have become famous. ‘I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes; whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language, ipsa mollities.’^[78] This praise, given to a young and almost unknown poet, was, as far as we know, the first that Milton received from any accredited judge, and is indeed a remarkable proof of the old Provost’s literary discernment. Nor is it surprising that Milton set a high value on this letter, which he printed in 1645, in the first volume of his collected poems, and to which he proudly referred in his Defensio Secunda. In the rest of the letter Wotton gives Milton advice about his Italian journey, and repeats the Delphian oracle of his old host in Siena, ‘I pensieri stretti e il viso sciolto.’ Milton’s visit, he confessed, had left him with ‘an extreme thirst’ for more of his society, and he offered to write to him abroad ‘even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle’. Very shortly after the receipt of this letter Milton left England; he returned again in August, 1639, a few months before Sir Henry Wotton’s death, but, as far as we know, they never met again. If they wrote to each other the correspondence has been lost; we owe, indeed, the preservation of this letter to the fact that Milton printed it; and we must be grateful to the pardonable vanity which has kept for us so strong a proof, not only of Wotton’s literary discernment, but of his judgement of character as well. Milton had plainly won his heart at their first meeting, and there are few phrases in the history of literature more charming than the frank and courtly words in which the old and famous Provost offered his friendship to the obscure young poet.

In the summer of this year Wotton visited Canterbury, and some months later he made his last modest appeal to the royal favour. The Mastership of the Savoy was then likely to fall vacant, and it was for this post that he petitioned; the value was not much, but it would give Wotton a residence in London, and it would be a proof to the world, as he wrote the King, ‘that my most virtuous, most dear and royal master hath not utterly forgotten me.’^[79] This last request was not, however, granted.

If I am correct in supposing that the letter to Sir Edmund Bacon, on p. 405, was written early in 1639, it shows that Wotton began to realize now more vividly ‘the seignory and sovereignty of time’ over him, and the swift approach of death. Having survived all his brothers and sisters, he was now the only living representative of his name, ‘being the sole masculine branch of my good father’s House in the county of Kent’; many of his especial friends and companions of his youth had melted away before him, and he was himself ‘arrived near those years which lie in the suburbs of oblivion’. To comfort his thoughts and prepare himself for the end, he wrote a letter touching ‘the loss of friends, and final resignation of ourselves’, which has unfortunately not been preserved. He seems, however, to have entered his last year with a temporary access of good health and spirits; he writes cheerfully to invite Izaak Walton to Eton at ‘this approaching time of the fly and the cork’; and it was in this last year, not many months before his death, that he wrote, ‘as he sat quietly in a summer’s evening on a bank a-fishing,’ the fresh and charming poem already quoted.

In May he seems to have gone to Kent, returning thither in the summer; and this year, instead of visiting Oxford, as was his custom, he went to Winchester. And as he returned, Izaak Walton writes, from Winchester towards Eton College, he said to a friend, his companion in that journey:—

Nothing is known of the remainder of Sir Henry Wotton’s life beyond what Izaak Walton tells us, nor is it necessary to do anything but quote his words:—

Lunga vita et bel morire had been the motto with which Wotton had begun one of his earliest preserved letters, written fifty years before. All that this motto implied had been granted him; he had lived to a good old age, he had died in peace, and the epitaph proposed for his friend and fellow-ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, ‘Praereptus opportune, ne funestam regni catastrophen spectaret,’^[82] might well have been inscribed on his tomb. For all the old England that he loved, the Royal House he had served so faithfully, the Church for which he had waged so long a warfare, the band of royalists and divines who were his intimate friends, were doomed to ruin and misfortune. Charles I followed Strafford to execution; Bedell and Bargrave were both imprisoned and died of their hardships; Samuel Collins was expelled from King’s College, and John Hales from Eton. Wotton, had he lived, would doubtless, like his successor, Richard Steward, have been driven from Eton; but fortunately he was now at rest beneath his quaint epitaph, and deaf to the ‘drums and tramplings’ of the Parliamentary armies.

Among the famous men of that pre-revolutionary era, Sir Henry Wotton, although he was busied with important affairs and negotiations, yet pursued throughout his life a quiet course of his own. He is the first of that bookish, contemplative class of authors, men like Cowley, Marvell, Gray, Cowper, Charles Lamb and Edward FitzGerald, whose names lend a rare distinction, and whose writings give a certain fragrance to English literature. These men may have been in the world, but they were never of it; in its strongest passions, in love, war and ambition, they had but little share. We picture them in gardens or college cloisters, seeking contentment, if not happiness, in ‘book and friend’ and their own musings. They all possessed a genuine vein of poetry, a certain inner music, which found expression now and then in verse, but for the most part diffused itself in faint echoes through their lives and writings. A certain scholarly habit of mind, a perhaps too fastidious love of beauty, kept them separated from most of their fellow-men; but they formed strong ties of friendship when they met with companions who shared their tastes. A combination of pensiveness and wit, of acute observation and aloofness from the world, is perhaps their main characteristic. They had neither great ambitions, nor much belief in their own powers, and it was in their letters to their intimate friends, their occasional essays and bits of verse, that they gave the best they had to give. But this is much of it pure gold; and any glimpse of such treasure is enough to reward lovers of the past, who choose to wander on this search through the quiet by-ways of history.

A few poems and biographical sketches, the fragments of a charming and witty correspondence, make Sir Henry Wotton’s modest title to fame among these writers. But among them his life was more splendid in external circumstance, he played a greater part on the stage of the world; and above all he belongs to the time of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare, so rich, so varied, so beautiful in our eyes, and yet so remote. His writings are full of echoes of this great age and literature; he is a link between Italy and that old England, and his memory is still cherished in the antique and stately places—Winchester, Oxford, Venice, and Eton—where he lived.

Having quoted Izaak Walton’s account of Wotton’s death, I cannot end more appropriately than in Walton’s own words:—

1. To Edward Wotton.

Stowe MS. 697, f. 149, transcript. Henry Wotton’s preparations for his journey abroad.

At my leaving of London I cannot (my dear brother) but acquaint you with the sum of my state, yourself being by your own love made so necessary a person in it, that I cannot reckon without you. I first most earnestly thank you for the great portion and interest of affection which I have in you; of which I wish, as the poet did, without the poet’s spirit, crescat saeclis innumerabilibus.^[1] You are (my good brother) the best of my hope and highest regard, and the very comfort of my fortune; whose ever loving heart towards me I cannot cease to desire without treason to mine own happiness. And, believe me, I desire it without distrust, and in the certainty of your well-disposed self towards me, whom I am as assured to love me as that I love.

The little history of my matters here begins thus: I have consulted with Graisen, and in the never-erring form of law, taken such order as the half-blood shall be no hurt at all to the whole name.^[2] That done, I repaired me to my friend in Bow Lane, for exchange of my money, which, in Tullie’s rhetoric, is the nervus vitae,^[3] and in my logic, the unum primum of my travel. Your letter I had delivered before; for which I much thank you. It spake very well; and I gathered a rule by it, that the style of an elder brother is the only style of proof. I have since then brought him £20, and have two bills of exchange to his factor in Stode, there to receive the like sum in the current money of that country, without any manner of ‘provision ^[4]’, as the merchants call it—a pacified word for it; all this was mere courtesy. The rest of my silver I have put into French Crowns of the Sun ^[5], which are generally received as far as the sun goes; but I lost one French crown in thirty. When I had thus ballasted myself, my next care was the choice of a good ship; and out of twenty, with two of the Queen’s, because I would participate with your sports in the place that I love, I have taken the Vineyard.^[6] All these great matters did Mr. Parvis ^[7] compose, sic parvis componere magna solebam,^[8] in another sense. Thus myself being ready, the ships in their full load, the wind large and fair, we were determined to go gallantly down the river the next morning; but the wind changed with the day; and I have ever since been hindered with the strange let of the wind’s constancy, till this present morning the 20th of the month, in which it is come about to the west. The ships are gone before to Leigh, and I follow with ambition in my desire to become the best civilian in Basile. And so, my most dear brother, having delivered up unto you my adventures since I left you, I now must, with the same hearty care, commit you and my sweetest sister to Him to whom I commit my whole life; desiring Him, if it stand with His high pleasure, to bring me safe back again to the long enjoying of both your loves.

⟨Post⟩script. I pray, sir, at your coming up, remember the Bowe ^[9] letter of credit. I would now send you the occurrenza giornale, but that news here is as uncertain as the weather, and I have this week practised the rule of life, diffidere ^[10]; all that which I dare trust, I have sent you, which is the book in English which you have already in Spanish, Vale et Salve.

Sir Francis Vere ^[11], being sent to the relief of Bercke ^[12] the third time, which standeth upon the Rhene, took with him five hundred English foot, or not so many; of Dutch some thousand or more. The enemy understanding it, laid for them at the return ten ensigns of foot with certain cornets of horse in an Ambuscatho. At the return, the Dutch being past, Sir Francis Vere, having the rearward, was charged by the enemy; which charge he did so well stand that, the Dutch returning to his side, they overthrew the enemy utterly, taking the most part of their colours, both of horse and foot. The Count Mansfill ^[13] led toward them more than forty ensigns of foot, with a great strength of horse, which Sir Francis and the rest perceiving, betook themselves to such a place of strength as the plainness of the country did afford. The enemy, noting their resolution to abide the fight, and fearing, as it is said, greater succours, retired; whereupon they marched home with great honour, and carried with them an hundred and fifty horse more than they brought out, with many prisoners of blood and name. Of this Sir Francis Vere his service, I dare put down the posy of his house, Vero nihil verius.

2. To Edward Wotton.

Here are my first commendations out of Germany, which I send you with a soul that wishes you, and all those that wish you well, the world’s perfect happ⟨iness⟩. I have at this present lesser time than mind to write, and yet so much of both as shall let you understand brief⟨ly⟩ how it runs with me. I departed London the day of my last letter’s date unto you, to Leigh, where I lay four days for a south-west; and then blew the wind so l⟨ight⟩ and fair, as the

fourth day following, which was the 2⟨8th⟩ of October, we made good the coast of Germanie. Our passage I thank God was pleasant and safe; and what it ⟨is⟩ to be sick at the sea I cannot tell you, besides some two or three odd qualms, with their appurtenances. I have, since my arrival, lived in this town Stode three days, where there is nothing to be had but alla borsa alla borsa. My stay hath been merely for want of company, which I now have gotten to my farthest desire, and am travelling toward Basill this 2nd of November. I determined once to have passed to Bremen, there to fall into the acquaintance of Doctor C. Piscelius ^[2], the principal divine in all Germanye, but the Malcontents ^[3] come often up and sweep the stakes by the way, and a younger brother’s ransom is twenty thousand crowns—this c⟨aused⟩ a great variation in my compass. I have, since I came hither, seen a great piece of justice done upon certain witches; their manner of arraignment did much differ from England; their death was all one. This town is able, out of his own provision, to refute fifty Mr. Reignold Scotts ^[4].

Here met I with one Mr. Mallorie, who went with Mr. Candishe ^[5] to Constantinople upon the braveraria, and is lately returned. Him I closed withal, and persuaded that I meant to go very shortly the same voyage; and so I did. I learned his advice, and he laid open unto me a large discourse of his travel, which I have treasured up to (my ^[6]) good use. The news of the Turks coming into Polonia holds certain here.^[7] He is entered into those parts with an army of an hundred and twenty thousand, 80,000 Turks, and 40,000 Tartarians; the Polonians are sospesi in aria come l’archo di Machometo, and know not what to do. The towns of Danzich and Elben ^[8] are charged to find the King some three thousand horse, and so you may cast the accompt of the rest. I shall hear more of this matter farther in the country. No doubt the Turk’s purpose is, as his manner hath been, to draw them to a peace, and so make them tributary.

There were three that brake prison out of Newgate in London; and one of them coming through these parts, and bound for Rome, as he said, Casimire ^[9] took and bound him for Englande. He is sent now into the town, and is now put into the Queen’s ship that wafted us over, and you shall have him in England within these three weeks. Other news here I have none; but find many things new unto me, being but yet less than a freshman in travel, because I never came at ⟨that⟩ University.^[10] The dearest thing and most pinching that I find is drink, 2d. sterling the poor pint of English beer. But my hope is that the change of the English mercanteria from Antwerpe hither,^[11] hath raised the price; and so in the higher country I shall find it fallen, where it is less desired and used. I laugh at many things, and especially at the women, which, believe me, are the most pitifully attired of any creatures since the fall of Adam. The clowns here are scarce animalia; all possessed with so not-understanding a spirit, as the best taught of them cannot make a leg. My High Dutch is yet very Low; but it comes so near my reach, as I find the tongue of the Germans to be cousin-german to the English. Here are no matters of note in this town that may lengthen my letter; and therefore I am fain to fill it up with trifles, because I am glad to be as long as I may; being in the lively imagination of your presence while I thus speak with you. I have, my most loving brother, for the conclusion of these lines, reserved a request unto you, which is that you will procure me the letters of some of the English nobility to Casimere, commending me to his favour. It will be a matter that will much advantage me with all the great learned men of this country, and the nobility besides. Whose letters are fittest in the case, I leave to your good judgement and love. If it please you to provide them, the conveyance is easy by the Dutch milliner in Abchurche Lane, who conveys his letters to Middlebourough and Anwerpe, and from thence to Collen, and so to Norremberghe, where Mr. Parvis hath a factor lying, with whom I will take order that they shall be conveyed unto me in the University where I abide. I beseech you, my good brother, if you think it good, let them be sent with all the haste they may, for I mean not to see Casimir often before I receive them. And thus commending myself no less to the everlasting continuance of your love, than I commit you to the God of all love and mercy, and remembering regardfully my sweetest sister with my best wishes, I take my leave of you both this 1st of November.

3. To Edward Wotton.

Stowe MS. 697, f. 151, transcript. Henry Wotton’s journey from Stade to Heidelberg.

Lunga vita et bel morire. I cannot express unto you, my most dear brother, how glad I am, above the common measure, to talk with you in this sort. Many thousand degrees there are in perfect love, which my pen cannot reach; the nature of affection being in the whole course of life observed infinite in itself, and nothing able to add more unto it than absence. I would I had leisure to abide longer in this argument. It is, believe me, a pleasure unto me to speak myself, or hear my pen when it speaks, of that brother, from whom I receive the comfortablest hope of my life. But I will commend the rest to your thought, and study to be as brief as I can.

I am at this present 14th of December at Heidelberge, unto which place I came the 26 of November. The cause of my coming so late in the month hither is this: upon the 1st of November I departed Stoade with two English, bound for Venice, and an High Allemaign, whose farthest was to Erdforde ^[1]; we kept together up the country as far as Brunswick, the chief city under the Duke of that name. Thither came we on the 5th of November. That town divided us; the three taking to Norremberge, and myself, the fourth, open to accept all occasion to Franckforde. But here fortune crossed my hasty spirit, and laid a pause upon me of eight days. All the coaches and company for Franckforde were gone the day before; and I must live there and expect my chance, or hire a coach for my single self. I could ⟨bargain⟩ to no price under twenty-six dollars, in English money 5li. 15s. 8d. The sum was full of persuasion to make me stay, which I did eight full days; and then found I two companions good for nothing but to take down the price of travel; believe me, my dear brother, two of the worst natures in the worst part of Germanye, and against whom I had nothing to keep myself safe, but to imagine them to be worse than they were. Their company, with all their ills, brought the twenty-six dollars to eight; so casting my expense in the time of my resting—which came to two dollars and one half—I find myself wealthier than I should have been by fifteen dollars and a half.^[2] When we came to Frankforde, my companions did me the pleasure to let me alone, and so I cast about for new company, but could find none in two days. And a worse ill, every meal stands a traveller in the third of a dollar ^[3] in that town. This made me hire a coach myself alone, rather than multiply my charges by sitting still. My way was short, for I came to Heydleberge in two days; and yet did that cost me largely as much as any five days before.

At my first entrance I lighted upon a Scottish doctor, Jonston ^[4], whom the Prince, upon deserts, hath honoured with the government of a college there. He made me the first sport in Germany with laughing at his dialect. He presented me presently to Dr. Junius ^[5], who welcomed me above German courtesy, but I live ⟨not⟩ at his table, for he gave over the care of that thirteen years since. I hold his acquaintance dear; but he is by birth French, and his authority but private. This Doctor Jonston hath provided me a chamber and a table,^[6] where I live with especial good company, and brought me into acquaintance with the men of desert; yet is this in some sort respective courtesy, and not of free quality; for he means to travel into England this next year, and conceals not from me that he means to have my letters of commendation—which, my loving brother, your name, known in this place, adds worthiness unto. And besides, I carry myself after the younger Plinnie’s precept, Tanti eris aliis quanti tibi fueris.^[7]

I have apparelled and booked ^[8] myself, and am in this wiser than I was before, that I have hitherto been a fool, and am to begin the world at one and twenty, with more settled care of my life. We have in this place three Professors of Law, all doctors; they read twelve times every week, and we have twice disputations. The doctors teach so as we may weigh every syllable. I am of this opinion ⟨that ^[9]⟩ a student in the Laws of five years beyond the seas, may leave a doctor in England of ten years behind, if there be an equality of wit in both. In this place how long I shall live I cannot assure you (my most dear brother)—this persuade yourself, my mind is from all changeableness free. But I aim at a singular fortune, and it is this, to get Franciscus Hotomanus ^[10], the second lawyer in the world, to be preceptor unto me, as Hadrianus Turnebus ^[11] was to him. He lives at Basill, and I have directed my letter unto him, and another unto one Mercer ^[12], a French gentleman with the King’s ambassador at Strosberge—one to whom I showed the courtesy of my power in England. I wrote unto you, my dear brother, from Stode, to procure me the letter of some nobleman to Casimire. It shall come now in high opportunity, for I will, upon the receipt, make suit unto the Duke for his letter unto Hotoman in my behalf. If it shall please you, in your love towards me, to join with the letter to Casimire some twenty lines by the same nobleman to F. Hotoman, commending me wholly to him, and promising recompence of courtesy in England, you make me licentiate before I pass into Italie. For before God I mean not to rest with time; and if any of my friends have conceived a loose humour in me, let them correct it for an error, and assure themselves this, that I can teach my soul to run against the delights of fond youth. If this matter go forward, as I hope it will, I mean to go to F. Hotomanus, this next Mart of Franckforde, fourteen days before Easter.^[13] In the meanwhile he and I will often speak together by letters, and I will live where I am in the honour of the best preparing myself for Hotoman.

I find myself the only Englishman in this town, and therefore am the more desired by the great men here, for the news of those parts; so that every letter of occurrences in England adds unto me honour. The charges that I stand at for chamber, victual, wood, service, and the rest are great; for here is at this present so great a scarcity of all things, through the whole Palatine’s government, as in memory hath not been the like—of wine one measure, somewhat more than one quart, costs seven wespheninge, as we call it, and was wont to be bought for one and a half. Besides this, in receiving my money at Stoade, I took rose nobles after 20s. 4d. and they yield me here but four gildernes and four botz.^[14] It proves dear ignorance unto me. Notwithstanding these purse-crosses, I find myself notable well able to carry the state of a gentleman with sufficiency. I keep a book of my particular expenses, and so observe the sliding nature of money. Since I wrote my mother’s letter, there is fallen out here a variance between a doctor in Law called Julius Pacius ^[15], and Doctor Junius, concerning the printing of certain Theses Theologicae, the one an Italian, the other French. Doctor Junius is a man of a marvellous high stomach, and caring ^[16] the profession of the better law, will not yield unto the lower. It is thought he will leave the University in rage. And therefore, my loving brother, I beseech you to direct your letters to one Dr. Jonstone, Scot, and Rector of the College, which they call the Burse ^[17]. The milliner in Abchurche Lane serves the Prince’s Court with gloves, and can convey your letters with great security. The air agrees wonderful well with me, I praise God; and yet did I never behold town better situated for the wealth of physicians than Heydleberge. You shall receive the news of this place in my next letter, and I will in writing follow Seneca’s counsel in bestowing his benefits, saepe ponas ut aliquando ponas bene.^[18] I will not mention unto you the letter of credit, lest you think me ready to use the service of that letter, which I hope never to stand in want of;^[19] only I may blamelessly say that security is a good kind of life.^[20] Thus having signified unto you where I am and how I live, I will for this time commend my dearest loving brother to the joys of his life, and desire God to multiply them in the highest sort, to whose eternal mercy I leave you.

4. To Hester Wotton ^[1].

All your desires be unto you e’en as your own heart wishes them. I cannot begin my letter better, because I know they are all good, and being so, they must needs be fortunate. No addition would I wish unto them but this, that when they get a little leisure from their better cares, they would make a poor traveller a part of their thought. Where I live I have most largely showed my most unfeignedly dear brother; I know he will upon entreaty give you leave to read Heidleberge in my letter. The distance of that place from you, my sweetest sister, is great; the love you have ever, with the free consent of your friendly heart, showed towards me is as great, and so is there nothing in this world that can make your faith towards me little. And if you live in that opinion of me, you do me no wrong with your thoughts. If in some odd, happy hour, when your pen lies silently by you, you would take it up and bestow six lines towards Germanye, I will preserve them from all hazards of fortune, and command all my pens to wait upon you that pen with faithful service. In the meanwhile I commend the mistress of it to the full accomplishment of her good heart’s requests, which the God of all happiness make good in haste.

5. To Edward Wotton.

Stowe MS. 697, f. 153 b, transcript. Henry Wotton begs for letters of introduction to François Hotman at Basle, and tells of his life and studies at Heidelberg.

Quae posteriores literae corrigent in prioribus (ne repetitio saepe fiat) ipso facto irrita sunto.

Lunga vita et bel morire. From Heydleberge this second of the new year I commend myself unto you (my dearest brother), and the more gladly because I conceive some security in the delivery of this letter, my messenger being a gentleman of this Court, and now travelling for England. How late in November I came to this University, what was the cause of my stay, in what sort I carried myself here, how I find my purse to agree with the country, and the full determination of my mind, I hope you received in my letter from Heydleberge, which I directed to Mr. Parvis, as this also, having no better course to provide for their safety than to let them pass as papers of importance. In this letter I showed my dear brother a purpose which I had set up in my mind, that would make me most fortunate if I could compass it. It was, and is this, to procure F. Hotomanus, the second lawyer of the earth, to be master unto me in that study, as Turnebus was to him, that I might live with him wholly until I pass into Italy. As I then wrote, he lies at Basell; and to that purpose had I written a letter to one Mercerius, secretary to Monsieur Shansie, the King of France his ambassador ^[1]—a man whom I had, in the sort and ability of a younger brother, bound unto me in Oxforde. The very day that my letters were going towards him, he came with the ambassador to this place, whom I went unto and made myself my letter. I found him somewhat cold in remembering of courtesies,^[2] and utterly unable to do anything in this, because the very next day he was to pass secretly to the King of Fraunce. Besides, as he told me, he had never seen the face of Hotoman; which I wondered at then, and should yet, but that I hear he was scholar to Cuiacius ^[3], the immortal enemy of Hotoman, and only better lawyer than him that lives. This blanked me, sed cum non succedit prima, alia agrediendum est via;^[4] for the purpose is unalterable. In our conference together I learnt by him that Hotoman hath a son in England ^[5], who was sometime secretary to the Earl of Lester, and he is about the Court. I remember sometime my brother Jhon ^[6] to have named him unto me. If by your good means (my dearest brother)—which most earnestly I entreat you—I may from that son of his, and from some Councillor, to whom that son is beholden, receive letters commending me effectually unto him, the whole matter will be soon concluded, and you make me licentiate before I pass into Italy. This I leave to your judgement, care, and love. I live here in Heydleberge ^[7], as I wrote unto you, after the younger Plinie’s precept, tanti eris aliis quanti tibi fueris, a stranger to common familiarities, and impudence in thrusting myself into the friendships of the great men, which goes in Germanie for gravity. I determine so long to remain here, until I receive those letters from Englande, which I am bold to trouble my loving brother withal, and then to remain altogether with Hotoman, until I forsake Germanye. I do most earnestly bestow one hour in the day upon the German tongue; wherein I have profited so much, as I dare boldly say that before I visit Italy there is no German that shall not take me for a German. And I mean by God’s grace to be many degrees beyond an Italian’s discovery.

Since I wrote my last letter, the Civil Law here is grown somewhat naked, two of our chief professors, D. Pacius and D. Crestingus, being preferred from the University—the one to Englestad, the other to Spiere, where the causes of the Empire are treated. We despair to have better in their room. I am, my loving brother, since I came hither, nothing wiser than I was before, but only in this, that hitherto I have been a fool, and mean to begin my world at one and twenty—in which God of all wisdom and knowledge lead me on in His fear. All other particulars I wrote in my last letter; and I will add no more unto this, but that my dearest and most loving brother may assure himself this much, that every hour shall add unto my unfeigned faith towards him, and that, by ⟨his ^[8]⟩ example, I will spend the wandering part of my life as well as ever any but himself did before me.^[9] And thus commending with my whole heart’s desire yourself to the furthest degree of this world’s happiness, in all love I take my leave of you this 2nd of January from my stove in Heydleberge Ab anno Christiano CIƆIƆXXCIX.

I wrote unto my sweet sister a letter, the last time of my sending into England, which I hope hath found her ready to bestow a fine Charles upon you, my dear brother, for the best New Year’s gift in the world. And I pray God add His Amen unto it. I come very shortly with another. I beseech you, my dear brother, to regard that my money be conveyed unto me at Franckforde Mart, which begins fourteen days before Easter, there will I be present to receive it. Mr. Parvis is a man of good conveyance in these matters. And so to the Lord Jesus ⟨I⟩ leave you; speaking not a word of the letter of credit, because I thank God I want not his service. Yet securitas est tutissimum bonum.^[10]

6. To Eleanor Wotton.

Hofbibl. MS. 9737, z. 17, f. 106. Wotton’s good resolutions, his journey to Vienna, &c.

After the letter of credit received here, which my brother sent me, I remembered this duty to you both the next day, because he desired haste in the answer. Since then this is the first in which I have nothing to advertise you concerning mine own state any way, save that the same merciful hand holds me in health that did before. There is no alteration with me; and while I am as well as I find myself this present, I wish no better. To hear the like of all those whom I hold dear, and must reckon for my friends, shall be a comfort unto me; and to hear the like of you shall be the comfort of us all. There wants nothing to my greatest contentment but that; for though all the world went with me well, you may (my dear mother) persuade yourself it were nothing else than the deep grief of my soul, if I should not receive the like of you. I pray for you daily that God will draw forth the sweet time of your life with ceaseless mercy. My most good and kind mother, let no cares taken for your sons be cause of less comfortable thoughts unto you. The ground they live upon is the promise of Him which never fails them that live in His fear; without that surety we were miserable, and with it we are happy. And for other fears which your love towards us may often lead you unto, as the not well-bestowing of our time, the danger of sorting ourselves with ill company, the too much pleasure taken in the manners of the people, let the same love discharge you of them, and ascertain ^[1] yourself for my part, that my child’s years are fully out, which were wont so regardlessly to look upon themselves. It is high time to draw my mind to the certain course I mean to follow, which I hope is now to begin. If (my dear mother) you ask my opinion what it is that I have unchangeably set down with myself to make myself happy with, I must in the faithfullest troth I owe you answer this: it is knowledge I seek, and to live in the seeking of that is my only pleasure. The God of Heaven lead me the true way unto it.

I have lived now almost half a year with the lawyer to whom I was from Heidleberg commended by the letter of my great friend Franciscus Junius. As I have advertised you before, I determine myself shortly to Vienna. I hear there are great learned men there in the profession I follow, but all marvellous devout Papists. That troubles me not, because the point I study daily is to converse with all sorts, and yet in mine own manner and conscience. How it succeeds with me there you shall receive the certainty from thence.

With this, I have sent a letter to my sister Partridg and in that one to my sister Deeringe ^[2]. I would be glad to hear of my brothers in England and Flanders. The rather from my brother Morton ^[3], because methinks it is much against the nature of so near a fellowship as is between us, to live in one country so long without any manner of intelligence the one from the other. If he be well, I will hear it more gladly than read his letters, though both with a most willing heart. And so I pray, my dear mother, when you see him, advertise him from me.

To his wife ^[4] (my dear sister) I write not now, because she lives with you, and hears often of me. Words can do her no pleasure; if they could, they stand me not in such charges but I could afford her many. I tell her not that I faithfully love her, because I have nothing to brag of more in that than is duty. As I owe it, so will I ever perform it.

The all-merciful Lord keep you (my dear mother) in His mercifullest protection both now and ever.

I pray, my dear mother, send these letters to my sister Partridg bound as they are, that by her means they may be conveyed to my sister Deering, for so I have advertised in them.

7. To Lord Zouche ^[1].

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 585. Wotton writes to Lord Zouche at Altdorf of his arrival at Ingolstadt, of a disgraced Englishman he found there, and of the reported election of a new Pope.

In the first beginning of this duty unto your Honour, I crave pardon to entreat thus much; that whatsover I shall be bold by the like means at any time to utter unto your Honour, it may please you to accept no otherwise than spoken with unfeigned troth and faith toward you. You have (my Lord), so far above mine own deserts, held me worthy of your Honour’s love, and charged yourself so much with showing it, as wheresoever I am, I must ever live in the dear remembrance of your good favour, and be glad with all service to testify my regard of it.

I have delivered your Honour’s letters, and for their sake have been right friendly entertained. The Doctor ^[2] to whom they were directed I found in his lodging, placed very fitly and well in my opinion, and the day of my coming was the third of his reading. Mannering returned the evening before to his master. They are both preparing for England. The man sent for them I was acquainted with before at Brownswick, when I came up the country,^[3] where he gave himself forth for a merchant, and his trade at Venice. Now he tells me that his farthest journey then was to this town. Oportet mendacem esse memorem.^[4] I assure your Honour, he brought letters of dangerous advice to the son, from the father then ^[5]; and not much better in the purpose of his coming now; otherwise the gentleman might be sent for by a less chargeable means, than a man over the country. The students tell me he never spares our Queen in his common table discourse, but rails impatiently upon her, as having detained from his father, without any cause but her own pleasure, the use of his goods and livings; no doubt upon this ground, giving himself forth for a Baron (which I understand here of him); some cause must be alleged why he maintains not the state of it; which objection is very thoroughly answered, that the Queen detains the money that should do it.^[6] He invited me to supper, and as I came at five to his chamber to inquire him out, he sent me down word by the maid that he was not above. The Cardinal di Santa Severina ^[7] is Pope, and surnamed Julius the Fourth. The Jesuit College here is advertised the news from Rome, where their Rector is at this present to salute him in the name of the whole society.

Other occurrences worthy your Honour’s hearing we have none. The particulars of the election, if the town afford it, your Honour shall be advertised from Vienna. And thus (my Lord) commending myself with all duty to your honourable good favour and opinion of me, I beseech God to accomplish unto your Honour, in their best time, the noble desires of your own heart, and so in haste most humbly take my leave.

8. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 587. Wotton’s arrival at Vienna, his life there; the Austrian Archdukes; news from abroad.

Having from Engolstade advertised your Honour the state I found the town in, after my rude manner then, it is my duty to continue the like service from hence in some little better sort. I came to Vienna the 11th of this month, being St. Martin’s Day. Your Honour understands well the course of the journey with your own experience; for our parts, that travelled it now, we saw nothing more than ordinary. The second day after my landing here, I dealt with Petching concerning fit room to lodge your Honour in his house, and received answer, he had lately entertained a stranger in the chamber he made promise of; to provide your Honour as well otherwise, if that place be not void at your coming, he will take the care upon him. The first man in England he asked me for was my father, to whose house he often resorted, being then in the service of my uncle; by that means I can do something with him, but have ——^[1] him so far, as I dare affirm unto your Honour, he is no ——^[2] man. How I shall find this town for charges of table, I can say nothing, being as yet come to no certainty that way. Thus I have learnt, that students are forced here to live with better fare than they would. The reason is manifest, because, as the times are, a man may with more gain keep an ordinary of seven messes at a ducat a person weekly, than of four at a florin: for the Dutch ^[3] will drink the like at both, and meat is cheap with us, but the wine dear; so, though in these east parts there be more plenty of all things generally than in the centre of the realm, where your Honour lives, yet am I likely to find little help in that; unless I would table myself after the manner of Italy, which I stand yet in some question upon. I had to this town eight letters of commendation, which ⟨I⟩ signify unto your Honour, because one of them was from D. Gifanius to the Master of the Imperial Library, and one effect of your Honour’s favour to him in my behalf; two others were directed to persons of more authority, the one to the Emperor’s Receiver, the other to a principal man ^[4] in his Majesty’s favour, and chief in the ——, chosen unto it upon his sufficiency in matters of state and government, though his religion be contrary. With this gentleman I have remained ever since, free from all expenses, and have friendly liberty granted me to continue it, till he hath provided me with some learned man —— that I may apply myself to my study. Of my estate otherwise I have nothing more to advertise your Honour, save that I live right well contented, and (as I am with your most favourable love showed towards me bound ever) at your Honour’s service and commandment. The estate and occurrences of the present are thus. Matthias ^[5], one of the Archdukes of Austria, hath been governor of this town some six weeks. He was called hither from his Court at Lintz, at the departure of Ernestus ^[6], who yet remains a mourner at Gratz for the death of Charles ^[7] his uncle. We look not for his return. I was yesterday presented before him ^[8] as he sat at his table—I stood a man’s length from him, the half dinner time, where I had the leave and honour given me to behold the service of the Court, and of everything was worth the noting. The Archdukes drink but twice or thrice at the most in their meals, which I have learnt to be the difference of state from the other Almaigne princes; that which I have often heard the Dutch say, that our Queen was in some mind toward him, and swore him her servant by order of her Garter, is merely false, for I find that he travelled England disguisedly, and concealed his state there; which, since my departure from your Honour, was objected unto me as a point of wisdom in him, to be able to deceive a whole nation. He is a man of a slight presence, rather modest than courtly; of all the brothers, as they say, the nearest natured to the Emperor; as Catholic as any of them, but not so hot in it as Ernestus; more of him I know not. . . .^[9]

The Assembly at Franckfordt is dissolved without anything done,^[10] and much disagreement between the Palatine agent and the Bishop of Wirtsburg ^[11]. I heard the Venice ambassador’s secretary tell an Italian so much with wonderful joy. Other important matter we have none. As the times alter, this my plain kind of service shall be very ready to let your Honour know it. The secretest debates about the Empire I have good means to learn by the gentleman with whom I live yet, and he hath given me promise of meeting in half way, for exchange of the like out of England. I will always take care to write that which I think is least known unto your Honour. What the Intelligentiary Letters of Augsburg, Lyons, and Venice bring, Mr. Osborn I know fails not to advertise. My duty and best diligence shall be bestowed upon that which no money or charges can come unto. Otherwise I could enlarge this now with much more, as of the Prince of Parma’s entrenching himself in a wood by Maese ^[12], and his fortune there, of the besieging of Corbel, of the King’s army divided in Picardy, Normandy, and Champagne, of the money sent out of the Low Countries toward the Duke’s ^[13] camp, that yet lies in Kennow; but I have held your Honour long. Concerning the model of the Emperor’s lust-house ^[14], your Honour may trust me with it. I hope to send withal a view of all the present Almaigne princes, their Courts, chief affinity, riches and strength, and their inclinations, as they lean to this or to that extremity, no otherwise than they are found this year 1590. I have lighted upon a notable man, and good books in that kind of argument; what else I can with labour come unto that belongs to the state-life, or may any way delight your Honour, I am bound to be right willing and glad to perform. There are certain mathematical authors to be sold here, in my opinion wonderful good cheap, whose names and price I have thought good to set down a basso delle lettere. If it please your Honour to have them, upon conference with Pretorius ^[15], how he finds them priced elsewhere, I will upon word received lay out the money, and take order for the conveyance; if not, there is no harm done. The books rest till I hear from your Honour. And thus (my good Lord) having with many words done nothing else than showed how glad I would be to do something, I will commit your Honour now to the living God, whom I beseech to bring you to the end of all your journeys in perfect health and happiness; and so most humbly I take my leave.

9. To Lord Zouche.

The last duty unto your Honour is I hope received; wherein I was bold, after my plain manner, to advertise the course and state of these parts, as I found them then. If it might be no trouble to your Honour’s better cares, I am bound to do it often, and to hold no pains or time so well bestowed, as when with many such slight services I may show how right glad I will be to wait upon your Honour in greater. . . . If any service of my life may stand your Honour in use here or anywhere else, I will very faithfully perform it. The plot of his Majesty’s pleasure house shall in convenient time be provided. I am come now to a certainty for table and chamber with Dr. Blotius, Master of the Imperial Library,^[1] which I have gotten by great means made unto him, and am the only person in his house besides his own family. My study joins upon the library, and I have that to my free use, besides such discourses of state and observations of his own, as he hath in his travel and service of the Emperor gathered together. There is as much good to be done in Germany for matters of right and state as in the best grounded Government of Europe, I except not the Signiory of Venice. Your Honour sees how unwilling I am to end. The merciful God keep you, and bring you (my good Lord) to the happy end of all your journeys, and help us together in a joyful time and state.

10. To Lord Zouche.

This is the third duty remembered to your Honour since I arrived at Vienna. As I had sealed up my second, and delivered it to the merchant whose means I use in the conveyance, I found with him one from your Honour of the 10th of November, wherein it pleased you to answer my poor service from Engolstade with a far greater labour. If certain points had not required further talk with Petching, I had then, notwithstanding the carrier’s hasty departure, sent this with it; but upon that occasion I was forced to satisfy the commands of your Honour’s letters by the next post. . . .

Petching’s first answer unto me, that he had entertained a Franckfordt merchant in the chamber he promised, I wrote your Honour before. Since the receipt of your letter I dealt with him, whether he thought the man would depart before your coming, that we might grow to some surety; he held absolutely no. I think it folly upon that second answer to talk further with him for charges of table, being very unfit to provide your Honour a table in one place and lodging in another; especially in Vienna, where the walking in the streets by night, or anything late, is as dangerous, as in the wantonest town of Italy.^[1] The seeking of a convenienter place we have deferred, till we receive the certain determination of your coming, which if it please your Honour to assist us some two months before, you shall not need to doubt of your provision here, and our care in it. The state of Altorph, for dearness of victuals, in respect of this town, I find generally almost double, and yet great complaint with us of scarcity. The pound of beef with us seven pfennings, at Altorph twelve and thirteen, as I remember. The measure of wine here at my coming six kreuzers, fallen since to five; at Altorph three;^[2] and yet our most a fourth part larger than yours. And the like rate in the rest. For charges of horse, the matter is reasonable, a man being able to keep one in any part of the nether Austria, for less than half the expenses they stand your Honour in the heart of the realm. And in that part we desire to be certified, whether you intend to retain the horses you have, or dispose them otherwise, and furnish yourself newly at Vienna? Because if that be your Honour’s purpose, we shall not need to employ our service in providing stable room. The short of all is, that for board, chamber, stable, and the like, you are likely to find these parts very good to live in, and especially if it stands with your Honour’s liking, as you conveniently may, to table yourself after the manner of Italy, which course I had taken, but then I must have been forced to prepare mine own meats, or live at the charge of a servant, and my time for that was not yet come. I am now at two florins a week ^[3] chamber, stove, and table; lights he finds me; wood I buy myself; in which respect I hold your Honour right happy that you come in the summer, for we can hardly come by them here without two dollars the closter ^[4], though we border upon Bohemia. Wine I have as much as it pleaseth me, for my friend and self, and not at a stint, as the students of Altorph. All circumstances considered, I make my account that I spend more at this reckoning by five pound four shillings yearly, than a good careful scholar in the Universities of England. The reason why travellers receive no great benefit by the cheapness of Austria, that live at a hired table, I wrote your Honour in my first from this town; the state of our east country for living is so. News goes thus with us; his Majesty’s ambassador we hear nothing of, since his hard escape at Buda ^[5]; what happened there I advertised before. There is some little rumour of sending another for his release; not that we receive news he is taken, but that upon the Turk’s commandment the way may be made clear for him; some stick not to say, that the Emperor’s poverty makes him negligent of his agent’s life. Maximilian ^[6], the elected King of Poland (so he styles himself, and will read no letters unless they come with that title), is lately marvellous malcontent, and a great reader of magic books. There is something feared in him; this is very secret, and dangerous to speak, but that I know to whom I write. The King of Poland ^[7] that possesses the Government, we are certified will surrender his crown upon the death of the old King in Suecia, and retire home, being wise in this, that he had rather reign among his native people, after Henry the Third’s example ^[8], King of France, though the comparison in the kingdoms be unequal. The Emperor is said within these three days to have directed a letter in secret to Ernestus at Gratz, to wish him that he cast about for the crown, as loving him more entirely than Maximilian. We are likely very speedily to have a great stir in the house of Austria. I have much more worth the advertising, but want time, so as I must desire your Honour it may serve for my excuse. And so wishing your Honour all happiness and health, I most humbly take my leave.

I have herein included one to Gontrius, with the epitaph of Urban the Seventh. It is no great matter worth your Honour’s seeing, but will please him well enough, because it is his vein, and the better in that he receives it with glory: for which I crave pardon. The next Wednesday I will advertise the whole state of this country more perfectly, and of the process in Rome at the Pope’s election, whom we hear to be a Milanese born, and of a great family.^[9] I assure your Honour this is written in great haste.

11. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 601. A house in Vienna for Lord Zouche. News of Vienna. Wotton’s writings and studies.

The answer which it pleased your Honour to make to mine of the 20th of November, dated Altorph the 6th of December, I received at Vienna, the last of the same month, in our style; the odds of time being fifteen days.

The continuance of your favourable love towards me, I read in it most gladly; and my poor service (which I find so well accepted) is encouraged to this further troubling of your Honour, which I wish to come secretly unto your hands, because it contains some points of dangerous advertisement. The four books I have trussed up safely, and delivered to Dayner this day, who will convey them to another merchant of the same name in Nuremburg, whose means I have likewise used in my letters to your Honour. I have joined one with them to Mr. Hunnings,^[1] to whose lodging they shall presently be carried upon the receipt. They will come at the least eight days slower than this, because occasions of carriage by land are not ever so convenient as by the river to us. The learning, not the beauty of the books, must commend the bargain, though the schoonen opera ^[2] are very well worth ——. Judgement is mean.

To get the plots of both the lust-houses the foundation is laid; and I stay only upon the breaking up of the weather with us. The next fit day for it, it shall be done in, and those circumstances of length, height, and breadth be regarded.

Petching’s house being not able to receive your Honour, I went two days since to view another room, belonging to the Master of the Emperor’s Library,^[3] in a house of his that came unto him by marriage. The lord Divelt, one of the ancientest families of Austria, is yet in possession, but departs shortly. There are altogether in the same place stoves, chambers for yourself and servants, kitchen, cellar, stable, and a kind of gallery, with a pleasant prospect into the Danube, and well retired from the trouble of the town; which is the fitter, because your Honour intends to come unknown. The inconveniences are these. First, the price high, after 100 dollars ^[4] the year. Next, your Honour must be sure to keep house yourself, and consequently want the conversing with the Dutch, which I know you desire. Thirdly, the solemnity of so many rooms, your meaning being not to stay long, is to little purpose. The commodities and discommodities are so, which it is my part to signify; the election is your Honour’s. If this displease, there is no fear but your Honour will find other fit places; and I will not be idle. The occurrences of Vienna I hasten unto, which (after the style of Rome in all dates) are thus.

The danger that the Emperor hath escaped we cannot hear the ground of; those circumstances advertised your Honour before are right. A Flemish priest he was, found in the privy chamber, with an instrument in a wide sleeve, after the form of a cross-bow. It is so strange that a Papist should seek the life of the temporal head of all Papists, as great things are feared, and no man dares speak much; yet some even of great place spare not to say that his Majesty is lately half converted in religion. So far is certain, that a Lutheran having leave from him to preach in Prague, but limited to one church, was found after his first sermon himself and servant slain in his chamber. Whether the same cause wrought a like effect toward the Emperor, we are not hasty to affirm: many think shrewdly that way.

Maximilian, the fourth brother of the house of Austria, had since my last unto your Honour a strange vision at Neustad. A terrible shape appearing the first night unto his chamber-gentleman in the next room, and shaking him out of sleep on both arms, beheld him a while and departed. The next night in like sort unto him again. The third to the Duke himself, who having the curtains of his bed drawn, this genius tore one of them in two equal parts, and so standing in the place, looked steadfastly on the Duke, afterward growing higher and higher (at last) as the Duke imagined (whom I conceive in that case able to imagine anything) seemed to offer to fall upon him in his bed; and so suddenly went away.^[5] He hath in like sort of late escaped another of no less danger than the Emperor his brother. A Polonian having conspired with his Secretary of State to poison him, and the secretary behaving himself so as the other had some suspicion he would open all, the Polonian gave him the poison in a cup, otherwise prepared for the Duke, who finding it in his body, ran presently, and discovered the whole, and afterward took his horse in haste, and rid to Our Lady’s Church in Styremarke, thinking by the virtue of a relic there to stop the operation; such was his vainness. The Polonian escaped into his country in the meantime, and the secretary the next morning was found dead on the way by a waterside. They fear he will come to be their king, and whatsoever the matter is, have no mind to this house of Austria. Our lawyers and statesmen say they have great reason, lest in few years the free crown of Poland come to be an investment of the Empire, as Bohemia.^[6] . . .

I have herein included a simple discourse of mine own, which I ended at Altorph, and am bold to present it unto your Honour for the poor pledge of my service. I crave of your Honour the keeping of it secret, because it concerns some gentlemen of estate, though the theme be general, and I hope I have kept myself within the compass of my promise; if not, I beseech those that love me to blame me for it. I live here daily at the charges of two servants, which I maintain only to write out such manuscript books as I have found of this State, and other matters of weight. Some things I have very worthy the seeing, as two written books of the whole worth of the Empire, the names of the officers, charges of the Court, their stipend, and the like, and another of the import of Venice. As for the discourse of all the princes in Germany, their livings and strength, (which I promised your Honour before) I will make perfect. And both that, and the rest, and myself ever shall be at your Honour’s commandment. The Lord keep your Honour in all happiness.

The prices of the books are trussed up with them. As for conveying your Honour’s letters unto me, you hit the right course in your last.

12. To Lord Zouche.

I have since my coming to this town received from your Honour three letters of the 10th of November, 6th and 18th of December; the last superscribed unto me in Latin, which I take the reason to have been because you doubted the delivery of the rest, being directed in an unknown tongue.

I cannot but assure you (my good Lord) that they have all been read with especial comfort unto me, to be so far regarded by your Honour, and to find in them the performance of my service so well accepted, that am witness unto myself of mine own meanness. To advertise your Honour the alterations of each week with us I will faithfully continue, and crave pardon in this for such as want of leisure hath made me use less care in, than might well beseem me. . . .

I have herein sent your Honour a supplication written by Johannes Sturmius ^[1], under the name and in the cause of Gifanius, to Maximilian the Emperor, very worthy the sight in a dangerous matter, of high prejudice, which I have added on the back side. If I had writ it in Latin, my letter intercepted might bring me into the like peril. Your Honour likewise receives included Johannes Trithemius ^[2] his preface to his book of Steganography, which I have caused to be written out of a book in his Majesty’s library. I came a little too late, or had lighted on the work itself, which yet I despair not to help your Honour unto; it is a notable piece of work for a statesman, but an instrument of great ill, if the hand be not good that holds it, as the author disputes in his preface; I promise nothing, because your Honour shall, I hope, not find me false. If I chance to send it, you are wise (my Lord) to keep it secret: otherwise the bare having of the book is to call in our state many eyes about us to observe our actions, which is needless to tell you. We have no other news, save of the taking of Paris,^[3] which till better grounds I affirm not. The all-merciful God keep my good Lord in all health and happiness, and help us together in a joyful time and state.

13. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 609. Books sent to Lord Zouche. The Emperor’s library. Wotton’s studies and plans.

I received in Vienna your last of the 12th of January the 14th of this. Wherein I find that mine unto your Honour, with Trithemius’s preface and Gifanius’s supplication included in it, was yet on the way, and my poor discourse (that shows your Honour my vanity) read, and far better accepted than the quality of it deserves.

That I advertised nothing this last week I crave pardon; the post’s more sudden departure than ordinary on Thursday morning deceived me, and by that reason I was forced to leave it in the merchants’ hands till the next occasion. It were my great shame to be taken in the like fault again; your Honour so often, and with such favour remembering me, who am able to do nothing that comes not far short of my duty. Your Honour’s books which I delivered very safely, trussed up to the merchant, upon conference with him, I thought convenient to stay a while, till his next sending of certain wares upon the river towards Nuremburg, because I understand it to be somewhat dangerous to venture a little packet with the Suralauf ^[1], few being willing to trust them further, than with such great carriages as they cannot well forget. No haste being upon the matter, I hope I have not done ill. The safest counsels seem to me the best. As for the price, they cost all four two florins, which is far under my first note unto your Honour, and I should not have got them so good cheap, if it were not a town with us rather of traffic than learning, which yet perhaps I foolishly persuade myself. The sum is not great, and if your Honour would allow me leave to be so bold, I would crave the employing ^[2] of it in a better use for me there, because here (I thank God) I want no money for as far as my affairs go. At my being in Altorph, I remember myself to have dealt with Glasianus ^[3] for a Polybius in Greek, which he signified unto me he could well help me unto: if by his means I might procure me a copy of that author ancienter than MDXXX (because I have Perot’s edition ^[4] of that year already), I should be very glad, and most earnestly entreat your Honour at his visiting of you, to motion it unto him in my behalf.^[5] I desire the bare Greek without the Latin version, if it be possible. You see (my good Lord) how bold your favourable words make me beyond my duty.

The going forward with providing of your lodging, I have upon receipt of your letters let alone, till certainer commandment from your Honour that way. That service shall, upon your first pleasure, be regarded carefully, and in the meantime the commodities of the town looked unto; so you counsel in your last.

We have here in his Majesty’s library notable discourses of military matters, and in that sort a book of especial estimation, written in Italian, having many experiences of fortification in it, and the like. If your Honour have a fancy to it, I will cause it to be written out, which I desire to hear in the next, because the book is in quarto of a reasonable quantity. If in any other particular state-point you crave the like, no doubt whatsoever the argument be, amongst 9,000 volumes (whereof the most part are manuscript) we shall find some author to please your Honour. For my part my chief care and charges are bestowed in Greek and Dutch writers and secret letters of the Empire, of which, in my profession, I have some that might make a great man beholding to me; but I will not flatter myself so far. Whatsoever it be, or can become unto by exchange of those I have, or gain otherwise, shall ever be, and most worthily are, only at your Honour’s commandment.

Concerning Constantinople,^[6] I had never any thoughts or inclination that way, but gave it forth among the English merchants in Nuremburg upon this reason, that they might satisfy themselves with opinion that I was gone that way, and I in the meantime cross up the country in secret; and my intent is not to be seen by them again till I come into Italy, because it might much endanger me, to have any know the time of my going thither; as the circumstances and grounds of my travel have (before I came forth) been laid at home. So far your last hath made me confess, which I did not at any time before, either in your presence, or by letter, but have rather both spoken and written the contrary; and I most humbly commend this to your Honour’s wisdom and love, as a secrecy of my private estate, which (I faithfully vow unto your Honour) was never yet uttered but in this letter, and may far hinder me, if others hear it; I hope the merchants are in that mind yet, or otherwise I will trust the old Cardinal’s rule no more.^[7]. . . .

14. To Lord Zouche.

By our last post I held your Honour with many words, I fear too long, and so recompensed the failing in my duty the week before with a new fault. The occurrences of our town were somewhat more than ordinary, and your Honour’s most favourable letter to me required in some points large answer; otherwise matter, and not words, is that which both I know you desire to hear, and myself travel to learn; and though your Honour might receive it penned with greater wisdom from others, yet none that acknowledges himself more bound to take this little pains, nor that with greater care will look in the house of Austria, to be able to advertise the ground of our princes’ actions. . . .

Your Honour hath a book of the arms of England added on the margent, with a short designment of every pedigree applied to the arms, as I take it, in quarto. If it please you (my good Lord) to give me leave to be so bold, I most humbly crave the borrowing of it some little time. The Lord of Fricdestraime ^[1] entreated me to help him to the sight of some of our coats, as they call them, having a work in hand of arms, which he means to set forth; for so it is with us, every gentleman in Austria that is possessed in the land (as the Dutch phrase of their law speaks), is a great dealer in these matters, the reason, because defending themselves to be the best nobility of Germany (as having some way or other alliance or descent from the house of the Empire), they all seek to beautify their own family. Your Honour knows that the Dutch are not behindhand that way in the higher parts, with us much forwarder; and he that will win a gentleman’s love here, must first learn whence he is descended, and work upon that ground with discretion, as occasion shall give. The book shall (God willing) be faithfully restored unto your Honour again.

And so (my most honoured Lord) I beseech God to keep your Honour in all health and happiness, and help us together in a joyful time and state.

15. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 619. Books and manuscripts for Lord Zouche. Wotton’s plans. News from England.

Your letters from Neureinburg the 25th of January, were received in Vienna the 18th of the next month; the confirmation of your love (which I humbly desire ever) is in all duty right dear unto me; my unableness to deserve it any way, though it pleaseth your Honour’s most friendly nature not to regard in me, I hold it my part to confess. Fortune hath given me little, and my virtue is less to amend it; and when I have sought all means I can to show my service where I owe it, I must then acknowledge, that a younger brother’s best desert is his own honesty and faith; of which I make an assured promise unto your Honour, when it shall please you to employ me.

Tritemius’s book (which is the first point in your letter) I remember myself to have put your Honour in no further certainty, than that I would go near the getting of it: so far I continue. The plot of the Emperor’s lust-house and that will, as I guess out of the circumstances, come to your hands about one time; and if then I find not the ordinary means safe, I will hire some honest man for the purpose, and join with the other two some one of my manuscript books of the state of Germany, to make his carriage worth his hire; but I determine nothing, because I would be very sorry to lose any part of credit with my good Lord. Charges shall not hinder, for though I played the good husband a little in Altorph, dreaming upon some occasions to spend in Vienna, yet (if I err not in mine own nature) money is not dearer unto me than wisdom, nor any other of my foolish humours able to let ^[1] my desire to be thankful; always provided a care to keep myself within my own compass, lest I run in debt in a strange land, which I hold little better than misery at home. The courses of my travels I will boldly acquaint your Honour with, and you shall receive the advertisements from time to time, though in another language, as the circumstances of my state and the place shall require. He travels with mean consideration in my opinion, that is ever one countryman: your Honour knows the rest. Of Constantinople, I signified the whole in my last, where you counsel me to go to the borders. I was beforehand offered means unto it by one Heiberger, who shall by his Majesty be employed in a commission about the end of March that way. I have resolved nothing, but howsoever, I will in my letters to Nuremburg give it forth very soundly that I am gone thither, or the other voyage; the reason I acquainted your Honour with before, and I humbly crave the help of your Honour’s wisdom in it no further to acknowledge to the merchants of me, than as if I were gone, which you can in better sort help forward than I prescribe. The occasion your letter makes mention of, I find not included nor received by the merchants; peradventure the Trayner ^[2] of Nuremburg forgot to put it in his letter, wherein he transported yours, otherwise I cannot imagine how it hath miscarried on the way. The re-examination of Sir John Parrat ^[3] my brother did not advertise me in my last; some matters are newly discovered in Ireland belike: once suspected and ever nearly looked into is the custom of England. Concerning the blow in the Council Chamber, which your Honour writes of (I name him not), it may perhaps cost him dear. The D. of N. gave my L. of L. a box on the ear, that he paid his head for.^[4] The story is well known unto you. Mr. Killigrew’s ^[5] marriage will hinder his rising, I wonder how he was brought unto it; there was some Italian device or other in it; no doubt the new professor in Altorph takes the matter at the highest; my Lord of Essex and Sir Charles Blunt’s ^[6] fray will draw many quarrels on, being the only two gentlemen whom the younger brothers, that were not students, did follow for preferment. It may be the name was miswritten for Sir Christopher Blunt ^[7], because your Honour knows of the old quarrels between my Lord and him; it is an easy error. . . .

Of France and Italy I have nothing worthy advertisement. I have herewith sent your Honour a letter of Sleydan’s ^[8] to the French King, thought worthy to be represented to the Emperor, and reserved in his library. No doubt you shall find in it right worthy matter, the author being a man of great judgement, and the times when he writ it full of action. I crave of your Honour to hasten the writing of it out, if you shall hold it worthy, and the sending of it again in your next letter, with your judgement of it; it is not to be gotten elsewhere, and besides, no man is privy to my sending of it but myself in which respect it requires the greater secrecy. Other Dutch letters, wherein great matters are contained, I will furnish your Honour with, as the occasion gives, or when we meet. I wrote in my last of a certain pasquil concerning the election in Poland, that touches every man’s inclination how he was then affected toward the Crown, but dare not send it till you counsel me, because it is perilously looked unto by the Dukes of Austria. If your Honour shall write that you hold it safe enough, I will transport it with the next after. I have held my most good Lord too long from better cares. The All-merciful God keep your Honour in health and happiness, and help us together in a joyful time and state.

As I had written this, I was called to the viewing of certain manuscript discourses offered to Maximilian the Archduke to be bought; wherein I found one of all the Pope’s revenues and expenses; another of all the ports and fortresses in England, and the Queen’s uttermost strength; a third, the revenues of the State of Venice, of which I had the import before; besides all such relations as the ambassadors of Italy have made since many years, at their return from England, Germany, Poland, Constantinople, &c. And the conclavi at many of the Popes’ elections, with the present Pope’s ^[9] life and actions hitherto. I have means to come to all these, but with double charges, because I must pay for the writing of such out as I will have twice, once for him that helps me to them, and for myself, which I will not spare to do, and am half agreed. I thought good to signify it to your Honour, to whom the benefit of it belongs as well as to myself.

16. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 625. Wotton’s plans and studies; books for Lord Zouche; news of Vienna.

I received the 26th of February, from Altorph, your Honour’s letters of the 1st of January, having answered one the week before, dated Nureinberg the 25th of the same month. What the cause might be that those which were of twenty-five days’ fresher date than the other should come to my hands eight days before, I can no way imagine, unless perhaps being both delivered to the Trayner of Nureinberg about one time, and he not able to include them in one letter, sent by chance the first dated last away. Howsoever it were, I am right glad they are safely come unto me, because in them I received two of your Honour’s letters toward Constantinople, which I hope shall without miscarrying be delivered as their directions tend. For my part, I have before faithfully signified unto your Honour my whole purpose in it,^[1] and do (as in all other points) foolishly persuade myself I have greater matters in hand, at least more concerning my studies and state. Notwithstanding, your Honour’s letters shall carefully be regarded, and I shall no doubt find many that will strive for the charge, if I can handle the cause so as they may be persuaded to have means by it of coming to acquaintance with the English agent ^[2], which hope will make them be better looked unto than otherwise. Of Kreckwitz the appointed Orator’s religion, your Honour is misadvertised.^[3] The last with the tribute was a Protestant, and that wondered at in the Court. As for the lieger ambassador, it is a general rule in Austria, that either he must be a Catholic, or at least, taken for one: other offices, even near the Emperor, and of principal credit in the State, are supplied for the most part with Lutherans, and one Calvinist, which is the Master of his Majesty’s Architecture. I distinguish them unto your Honour after the manner of Germany.

Concerning Trithemius his book, and the plot of the lust-house, I make all possible haste that may be. It were my shame, after so many bountiful friendlinesses received at your Honour’s hands, to be negligent in anything that might be taken of my service and duty, which I hope I shall very shortly show. The determined time of your Honour’s departing Altorph I most humbly crave to hear, because of sending a manuscript book with certain other matters of State unto you, wherein is more to be learned in three weeks’ study, than in the observation of many years otherwise, as having the offices and governing of the Empire, the princes, free towns, religious orders, earls and nobility of the land, all added in place as their degree is, with every man’s contribution as he was sessed ^[4] against the Turk, after the rate of his living; besides the salaries of the magistrates, and charges of the Empire in all embassies, and much other good matter, which I know both your Honour is delighted withal, and my duty not to hold it from you. I account it the dearer, because it is written in Dutch; other tongues are more common in our State, and for such points as are to be learnt in them, one that hath a care of his time at home shows himself often as well provided as a man of good experience in other commonwealths; whereby the poor younger brother traveller loses his reward; though I must confess, as far as my mean fortune goes, to have a piece of your honourable virtue, to deny my friend nothing. I speak that (my good Lord) without relation to your Honour, because I am unworthy of the name, neither account myself farther than your servant, and shall be ever right glad, if I may by any possible means deserve a number amongst them.

What it shall please you further to employ me in, I beseech may be done betwixt this date and our Easter ^[5], because I determine to stay no longer in Vienna than till then, waiting daily upon letters out of England, to resolve myself in some points concerning mine own private estate. For that book of the Empire, with I hope Trithemius and the other, they shall all in the time between, as far as my labour and care can compass, be conveyed unto your lodging in Altorph; and although myself should not be present at your Honour’s arrival in this town, yet will I with Petching take such order, as I hope you shall find at your coming some reasonable good provision.^[6] How right glad I would be, once again in Germany, to see my good Lord in perfect health, nothing can assure your Honour more than your own most kind and friendly nature towards me, which if it fall not out, my next wish and care shall be to bestow my time, as I may be more worthy of your love; and wheresoever I am, I will not fail to crave at the hands of my God the prospering of your Honour’s travels and noble desires every way, which I speak unfeignedly.

The occurrences of this last week with us are few. I advertised your Honour before of the great marriage between the Earl of Halm’s wife’s daughter ^[7] and Septimius Freiherr van Leicstentein ^[8], but forgot, if I misremember not, to add what happened there. It was celebrated toward Hungaria not far from the borders, and the Turks, using the advantage of the present occasion, made an assault upon them, in which a principal leader of their side was taken by Septimius, for an honour of his marriage. We hear of great matters in reward to the soldiers, but I dare not affirm anything. It came to our town much increased, that the bride was taken and carried away by the Turks; so hardly can we trust intelligence in these times. Of our Landtaye ^[9] we hear nothing yet, but the necessity is such as it must be shortly, or the Emperor will feel it. The question at Gratz ^[10] stands as it did without alteration since my last. It is told me the Hungarians begin to stomach his ^[11] absence there, because he is his Majesty’s Lieutenant-General in the causes of the country, much after that quality that my Lord of Leicester was in Flanders, save that he deals not with the war, and can determine nothing finally without a post to Prague: not because the Emperor hath not given full power, but the Hungarians will have such points as nearly concern their commonwealth twice confirmed; a subtle people to handle with. Of France we have nothing worthy the advertisement, save that all things are reasonable good cheap in Paris. If that be true, it will teach the King the difference between wisdom and piety.^[12] Those books which I advertised your Honour of in my last, Maximilian the Archduke hath prevented me in, and bought them all. I assure your Honour, I would double the price to come by them, but great persons must be first served. Since then I am helped to a book which both is rare to be gotten, and dangerous to keep, if it were known; it is the Sigl book ^[13] of the Empire. Out of which I must only gather notes, because to write it out myself I have no leisure, and dare not commit it to others.

My good Lord, the God of all mercy keep your Honour in health and happiness, and help us together in a joyful time and state.

17. To Lord Zouche.

The books which you have long looked for your Honour doth now, I hope, safely receive. This convenient occasion offered me by one of Nureinberg, whose honesty I have inquired good testimony of in this town, I could not but use. In the merchant’s lodging they had lain, since ⟨the⟩ date of that letter, wherein your Honour was first advertised of their being there, and waited there till his next sending up the river, because to commit them to the Turleut ^[1] was dangerous. The letter which I joined with the packet to Mr. Hunnings I now retain, being merely unnecessary by reason of the direct delivery of them to your Honour’s hands. There are some, treatises ex abundanti, more than was signified in my first note of them, and amongst the rest a disputation of the superiority between the Pope and the Emperor; a question looked more nearly unto in former times than now. It is joined in the end of Picus Mirandula’s book against Astrology ^[2] in a blind letter. I have likewise herein sent your Honour the pasquil upon the last election in Poland, because the occasion is somewhat safe, and much more to be learned in it than perhaps in a discourse of many pages. He hath written it in way of company, the Polonians, and brothers of the house of Austria, with the Trojans and Greeks, using Virgil’s verses, which in my opinion hath showed his judgement more than if they had been his own. The author is unknown, and if I be found out to have acquainted your Honour with it I shall feel it here; even slight matters are made great, if men have the handling of them. I know, my good Lord, to whom I write, and therefore say no more. Concerning those books of state which I promised in my last, they shall be sent unto you faithfully between the determined time, and myself will ever live in most regardful duty toward your Honour, as I am bound.

The God of all mercies bring my good Lord to his travels’ end happily and well, in a joyful time and state.

The right understanding of the pasquil, for the several persons, your Honour cannot fail in, who hath travelled the State. As for such points which must be interpreted out of our princes’ actions, I have added them in the margent.

18. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 639. Wotton’s attempts to get a copy of the Steganographia of Trithemius; state of Austria, and the Emperor’s position.

I received your last from Altorph the 24th of March, the 15th of April in our style, with the book ^[1] safely returned, and in right convenient time. To make it more perfect than it is (as I wrote your Honour this last week), I cannot promise. The man I have sounded as far as my mean discretion would give me leave, and think he had not denied it me, if himself had been able to perform it perfect, because I have done him, since my coming to Vienna, as great a pleasure, in as secret a matter; but I am soon deceived, and all men are not thankful, and I haste not to conclude anything upon mine own conceit. Concerning the 100 crowns, they persuade far in these times, but the person is of so great a living and authority, as I dare hardly close with him that way. He hath children, and amongst them a son of some twenty-three years, whom I intend to undermine with that golden instrument, and through him the father, but this very secretly, because if the son may by chance be drawn to help me to it, without his father’s knowledge, I am not likely to refuse it; or if he signify the offer to his father, and he be content to let his son receive the money (for parents do now and then things by their children, which they are ashamed to do by themselves), I can likewise suffer it; or lastly, if the son may move the father not to be curious in the receipt, using such arguments as youths are wont to do, it will be all one to me, so I get it; I stand not much upon the means, if it be honest. What is done, I will leave with Trayner in a letter to your Honour, and if I happen upon the desired effect, it shall (God willing) be sent withal; if not, yet my hope is that I shall help your Honour to it with a cheaper bait. I am to travel far, and I will not fail to inquire with good care after it, and in case that either in Italy, or Germany, or elsewhere, I attain it, let me never return home if I look to keep it from my good Lord; I use that imprecation, because I fear by a word or two in your last letter, that your Honour suspects such a matter in me. Whither I intend to go, your Honour hath received this last week.^[2] If it please you to signify unto me the course you intend to take at your departing Altorph, that so I may find a means to direct my letters unto your Honour, Carolus Clusius at the French bookbinder’s house, Der Frauen Kirchen in Franckfordt on the Main, shall be left order with to convey them unto me, whither your Honour may conveniently subscribe them; but I beseech your Honour not to convey your letters by the English merchants’ means unto him. The reason depends upon mine own private state, as I have only acquainted your Honour with before; for the most favourable, and above my deserts, most friendly conclusion of your Honour’s letter, I humbly acknowledge myself thankful in all duty ever. As I had written thus far, I was called out of my study to receive another letter, from your Honour of ancienter date than the former by nine days, which is only concerning the Steganographia. The doubts which your Honour doth cast are wisely conceived, and are such points as without considering them, I had most rashly proceeded; but I assure your Honour, that of those, and the like, I spent a good time in discourse with him, and besides your Honour’s objections, alleged further, that the copy was unright, because mention was made in the letter of using no incantations, or malignis spiritibus, which was unperformed in the book. He answered one himself in these words, ‘Die warheit zu rechnen ^[3] ich halt nicht viel darauf,’ ‘to say truth, I esteem it but little’; but notwithstanding was of opinion, that the author himself had writ it. To prove that true or false, I took the book with me into the Emperor’s library, where I had before found certain letters that Tritemius had written to Maximilian the First. I could observe no difference in the hands, which, as I writ your Honour, was my best argument. Out of it I guessed thus far, that it was an unperfect part of the first copy as it came from the author, in which sentence I remain, notwithstanding your Honour’s most probable conjectures of the contrary. My reason and further confirmation to maintain either mine own error or judgement in it ⟨is⟩ drawn from the style, which I dare pronounce to be no man’s but Tritemius’s; and to judge whether a book be the right or no, it is the means that cannot fail; otherwise there is no greater cozening in these times, than in these matters. I will not seek to defend it further than as a part of that book which your Honour desires; how great a part I strive not, neither am I able, as being utterly rude in such cases, of easy belief, too hasty an humour, and soon handled as they please to deal with me. That it was ever printed, I shall hardly think till I talk with him that hath seen it, or light upon the printed copy myself. What I have done, was done in that duty which I held myself bound in toward your Honour. No further charges concerning that book, than the seven florins for the post’s hire; and I am right sorry that your Honour doth account his carriage not worth so much. My hastiness in discovering mine own want of discretion upon others’ cost, either years, or experience, or repentance must teach me to correct, mine own nature being so bad a master that way.

And now because I am leaving of Austria, I hold it my part to advertise my dear Lord the estate of the country, that he may the better judge of the truth of such relations as shall come to his hands hereafter, which I desire that I may do with his good leave. The Emperor’s condition and circumstances of his state are this present 1591 strange to consider, being greatly in debt to the merchants of the Empire, matters of slight expenses hindered for lack of money, complained on generally as owing more than he is able to pay in three years, if he should live as a private gentleman, and his whole revenues be put to interest. Notwithstanding, in the judgement of many, there are evident reasons that he should have a greater force of present money than any of his predecessors, at least, than his father, as holding the three crowns, Roman, Bohemian, Hungarian in his own hands, which in Maximilian’s reign went otherwise; not mingling himself in the actions of the League, that he might charge the Empire; leading a retired life, with slender expenses of his Court, untroubled with wars either defensive or offensive, save the guarding of the borders. His three brothers’ annuities discharged for 120,000, himself 24,000 pound sterling, the sister ^[4] principally maintained out of the Crown of France, the remainder his own, two-fifths of Hungaria (the rest being the Turks), yielding him more in the tale of cattle that come to the market of Vienna, than former Emperors have made of three-fourths, every ox being stinted in former times at half a dollar, and now raised a dollar and a half higher, which we may well account to bring him to the kingdom 90,000 dollars yearly, after 60,000 to the market, which number is in some years too scant. Now for mines of all sorts, import of merchandise, fruitfulness of the land, and the like, he hath certainly less to complain than others before him.

The consideration of these circumstances have drawn some into opinion, that it is rather a feigned poverty in him than otherwise, and that either he helps the League secretly with supply of money, or reserves his revenues for some great action in hand; as for his borrowing, it is a known device of latter times for great men to pretend a poverty, and shadow it with running in debt. Against this opinion, I have yet seen no greater grounds than that probably he would not let his actions at home remain in so loose an estate, if that were true; especially concerning the sending away of the Orator of the Empire, which should have been done in March, and was a condition of the Turks in confirming the League to 1600, not without notable prejudice to the State. The other party that defends the house of Austria to be in no less misery than the appearance is, allege the seeking to introduce an inquisition into the land to have been the principal cause of weakening the Emperor, as having drawn the nobility and gentlemen and chief burghers of Austria against him, and so disunited the Princes of the Empire from him with the free States, as he rather now seems to bear the title of Emperor for fashion sake, than authority to command by virtue of it. So that whereas before in time of the States, or his private necessities a —— was wont to be his ultimum refugium, and best pawn in borrowing money (because the manner was to refer his creditors to the next day), now the princes maintaining themselves upon stomach against him at home, will be called to no contribution, every man live upon his own, and revenge private quarrels with public pretences, a known practice of ancient times; which of these two are the truer, I cannot without further intelligence determine. The Emperor may mend the matter when he will, by yielding every man his conscience at liberty, which either he must do shortly, or peradventure Rodolph the Second will end the Empire after three hundred years’ continuance in the house of Austria.^[5] . . .

Other circumstances there are of great importance, but too long for a letter; and out of these may well be observed, how much either ambition, or prodigality, or inforcing of consciences, or lastly, lust and pleasure, have decayed almost the noblest house of Christendom, in the descent of one degree. I leave all to your Honour’s judgement and wisdom, and myself to his love; and I beseech our merciful good God to grant us an happy meeting in sweet England.

19. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 647. Books and plans for Lord Zouche; the Steganographia; an English adventurer.

I have this present returned unto your Honour the book of arms and descents. The picture of the States of the Empire sitting in Parliament, which belongs to an empty page toward the end of the Dutch book, is likewise sent withal. Concerning the Steganography, I can by none of those means that I advertised this last week of, pass further than I have, and I am afraid I have gone too far, because in your last letters I find some displeasure. No man is more sorry of his own faults than myself, and especially then when I think to have done well, which I let rest as one of my follies to his love and judgement that hath pardoned many of them. The portraiture of the lust-houses I have not gotten, nor by reason of my short abode here cannot. The reason of failing in my promise is truly this: some eight or nine weeks since I determined to take a painter with me upon the next fair day, which I signified by letter. In the meantime (while I waited on the weather), D. Blotius signified unto me, that the Master of his Majesty’s Architecture had it in length, breadth, and height, ready modelled and squared out, with all proportions. I found means quickly to have him moved in my behalf, and myself was present. His answer was unto me, that he had lent it out to a certain Italian, who was not as then in Vienna, but to return shortly, upon his first coming home he would meiner gavislich ingedanck sein;^[1] those were his very words. I renewed the promise afterwards by others’ means. The Italian was not yet come; yesterday I went myself unto his house in the town, and received answer, that he was not in the town, but himself and whole family in a house a mile from hence, where he meant to summer. I walked out unto him, and maintained his promise, who gave me answer, that he had dealt with the Italian, but could not recover it again of him, and besides added, that it was a matter of some suspicion; by which word I well perceived that he had it, but without some crowns to still the suspicion I could not come to it. So is the manner. I would willingly (my good Lord) have offered him secretly that which I easily understood to be his desire, but mine own fury hindered me, and I departed from him in such a chafe, as I would not have given a Dutch heller ^[2] to have saved his life, that had so little regard to save his promise to me, and consequently mine to your Honour; but I excuse him in this point, and desire to have the whole fault laid upon myself, that trusted a fool so far; I use these unreverent words unto your Honour more than beseems me.

In my last I advertised the general state and condition of the brothers of the house of Austria, with the incident circumstances. We have since received intelligence of a dangerous matter discovered at Gratz,^[3] where a massacre of the Lutherans should have been committed, and the complot written in ten sheets of paper, with ^[4] a Bandito (as some, and the most say, receiving from Rome; others, feigning and devising himself), sent by his servant to the Chapel Master in the Jesuit College, commanding him to deliver it to his own hands. The messenger went unright, and took his way directly to the Chapel Master of the Lutheran side, by error of the word, who read the discourse openly in the Council House, caused the gates to be well guarded, expostulated the matter with the Duke, made the Italian to be drawn in, advertised the Emperor of it by post, and sent the copy withal. His Majesty’s mandate is expected, further we hear not yet. There is a certain English northern man in this town, born at Newcastle, who hath served the King of Denmark, Suecia, and Poland, travelled the Seventeen Provinces, Moscovia, Liefland, France, been taken prisoner in Spain, cozened by another Englishman in Italy of all his money and apparel, lives now by sweetening of gloves, shall marry with a concubine of the Jesuits, as some say, but as I hear more probably with a common courtesan, upon condition if he can be made burgher of Vienna. He hath lately given up a supplication to the Archduke to be entertained in service, and received a round answer that touches our whole nation, that the Dutch can get no service in England, and the English are like to find the like here: but if he want money to bring him home, or buy him some honest apparel, for the honour of his Queen he shall have so much given him. This answer was sent him yesterday by one of the Duke’s servants. His name is Abraham Miller, of a very low stature, a great drunkard, full of words and lies, not able to keep his own dishonesties close, which he tells with a pride, red-faced; if he come unto your Honour, you may know him by this description. And thus (my most honoured Lord), craving pardon for the faults of my former letters, which either want of leisure or judgement have been cause of, I leave your Honour to the Almighty’s protection, and myself to the continuance of your friendly love, which I humbly desire.

20. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 651. Wotton’s journey to Rome and Naples; his return to Florence.

Any point in this that concerns myself, I beseech that no man may see but your Honour.

I can defer this duty no longer, though my leisure be this present little, to perform so much as is occurrent unto me, concerning this last journey of mine, or rather adventure, which (leaving all unprofitable words apart) hath been in this manner. Since taking of my humble leave of your Honour in Padoa,^[1] have passed three months, of which time I have spent one month and two days in Rome, eight in Naples, the rest in continual motion, till the 25th of April, on which day I returned to Florence. From Venice to Rome I had the company of the Baron of Berloc, with whom, not withstanding his Catholic religion, I entered into very intrinsical familiarity, having persuaded him that I was half his countryman, himself being born, though under the Duke of Cleeve, yet not far from Collen, which went for my town. I found him by conversation to be very undiscreet, soon led, given much to women, careless of religion (qualities notably serving my purpose), for while a man is held in exercise with his own vices, he hath little leisure to observe others; and besides, to feign myself an accommodable person unto his humour in all points, was indeed most convenient for me; looseness of behaviour, and a negligent worldly kind of carriage of a man’s self, are the least faults that states fear, because they hurt only him in whom they are found. To take the benefit of this, I entered Rome with a mighty blue feather in a black hat; which, though in itself it were a slight matter, yet surely did it work in the imaginations of men three great effects. First, I was by it taken for no English, upon which depended the ground of all. Secondly, I was reputed as light in my mind as in my apparel (they are not dangerous men that are so). And thirdly, no man could think that I desired to be unknown, who, by wearing of that feather, took a course to make myself famous through Rome in few days. These judgements and discourses of the people passing by me, and some pointing at me, I was fain to suffer. Safety, and a conscience clear before my God, were the things I sought there. Credit is to be looked unto in England. And thus stood my entrance.

Ten days after my arrival in Rome, I departed toward Naples, occasioned by a fever that had taken me the day before, which I imputed partly unto the strait and rascal diet of that town in Lent, and in part to the ill weather which we had on the way; though perhaps indeed it were not without some disorder, after the Dutch manner, amongst as mad priests as I think may be found in this world. To Naples I came on the 18th of March, certainly through the goodliest country that God hath allotted unto mortal men to run their glory in, if virtue were as frequent as pleasure. From this town I departed on the 25th of the same, by water, in a wherry of Genoua, that I might so consider the maritime towns, as before I had seen the principal mediterranean ^[2] of that kingdom: a course not without danger, as well in respect of the Turk’s corsairs, as likewise smallness of the vessels prepared for transport of passengers: yet was the event good, and I arrived at Neptune ^[3] in two days. Neptune is a town situated upon the bank of the Tirrhen, thirty-six Italian leagues from Rome by land, and from Ostia by water, belonging to the house of Colonna, though in the Pope’s territories: in commodity of fish thought to bring yearly about 13,000 crowns; of reasonable strength, but meanly peopled, and (as it seems) some colony of the ancient Greeks, whose attire the women yet hold, though the men, as commonly more stirrers from home, have heard of the Italian civility. Here I kept my Easter, occasioned by change of the wind from full east to full south, which otherwise I determined to have done at Ostia; for on Easter Day ^[4] I meant not to accompany the Pope to St. Lateran. When the Easter was for the chiefest part past, occasion wanting by sea, I returned to Rome on the Tuesday by land, and there continued three weeks; and my purpose was to have made longer abode there (notwithstanding the rumour of the solemn day to be celebrated here by the Great Duke ^[5] on the 26th of April), because I found very profitable points to be learned of the Pope’s Court, and was grown somewhat cunning in the practick of Rome; but Fortune hath her part to play in all human actions, and I was driven away by intervent of that gentleman that only hath seen your Honour’s licence ^[6]; I desire pardon to describe him no farther. This man was by chance invited by a Scottish gentleman unto supper in the place where I had my table, calling me unto a sudden and dangerous deliberation, standing upon these two doubts: first, whether it were best for me to sup there, or no, that night; secondly, if to change my lodging, or leave Rome, were the discreetest part. The first I had drawn into no question, but that the circumstances stood perilously. The table was covered, the salad (our first dish) served in, all the gentlemen in the chamber save the Scot, and amongst them myself, every man ready to take his place, and in that instant came the Scottish gentleman in with his guest, whom belike (after the manner of his country) he sent first into his chamber; giving me so much time to resolve the first doubt, as till he came forth again. In short, I supped not with him, making the best excuse of departure that I could accommodate unto the time. For determination of the second doubt I had a night’s respite; that the man was dangerous, I set down for certain. His conversation in Venice with persons suspected, practice and familiarity heretofore with the old Earl of Northumberland ^[7], which I had received from his own mouth, travelling to Rome without language, discovery of himself there to the English and Scottish nation, were points that pleased me not. Not to hold your Honour long, I resolved to leave Rome as secretly, and with as great expedition, as might be; which I performed, my state seeming unto me not unlike a bad game at Mawe ^[8], wherein the first vye being seen, the cards are given up before the second.

And now (most Honourable) having advertised the generality of this my journey, before I come to matter of public use, I crave pardon to say something of myself. No Englishman, containing himself within his allegiance to her Majesty, hath seen more concerning the points of Rome than I have done; which I speak absolutely without exception: I have been present at three solemnities of the Roman Church, the consecration of the Rose ^[9], marriage, and distribution of dowries unto the virgins, and the taking of possession ^[10]; which is accounted the principal sight that may be seen in these parts. The whore of Babylon I have seen mounted on her chair, going on the ground, reading, speaking, attired and disrobed by the cardinals, or rather, by Montalto ^[11] alone, in both her mitres, in her triple crown, in her lettica ^[12], on her moyl ^[13], at mass, and lastly in public Consistory. Certain other private points, which are not to be committed unto letter (because I know not the event of a piece of paper), I will defer till the rendering of myself unto your Honour’s sight and service. Of Rome, in short, this is my opinion, or rather indeed my most assured knowledge, that her delights on earth are sweet, and her judgements in heaven heavy. Now will I deliver briefly unto your Honour such accidents as have been occurrent during the time of my abode in Rome and in the realm of Naples, concerning this Pope’s humour, and inclination of matters there, upon which certainly do depend the greatest and most important conjectures of Christendom in the consequences of estate. Clement, the eighth of that name ^[14], and third Pope of Florence, is a man of scant reasonable stature, sooner pale of complexion than otherwise, gross of body, of countenance apt enough to authority, and hath indeed the greatest presence amongst the cardinals, except Montelbero ^[15], and Cajetan ^[16]; which some account one of his helps to the seat. His years, fifty-five, he bears well, though his spirits have been somewhat weakened with the gout; yet some say, that he feigns that disease, being very accommodable to excuse a coming forth now and then where the occasion requires; as hath been noted in other Popes, and in him once since the coronation. The colour of his face was, as all generally agree, more fresh during the time of his cardinalship than since; and certain speculative wits, that search out the causes of things, have found that upon a pasquinata set forth against him in form of a prophecy, wherein stood expressed the 28th of March for the day of his death, he fell into trouble of mind, which is taken to have wrought that effect in his body; a report truly, though mixed with envy, yet not wholly without ground, as hath appeared by the sensible alteration of his countenance since April began; and upon the expiring of that day in March, he is said to have used unto Don Diego del Campo ^[17], very cheerful words at night concerning that prophecy. Superstition never impaired the complexion of St. Peter, though it have a stroke in his successor.

To proceed further unto his inclination and nature, which rather hath been gathered by public edicts, or out of certain open facts done by his authority, or lastly, by observing the course of the court; I speak during my time in Rome, because in this letter I will advertise your Honour of nothing which I have not in part, or wholly seen myself. Public edicts, or bandi, from the time of my coming to my departure, have been six. 1. In the first was contained the renovation of the taglia concerning the banditi, prohibition of weapons by day or night, even to a knife. A box of the ear given in the suburbs made capital, &c. Matter of ordinary use in all Popes’ times, but now commanded with more severity. 2. In the second, all ^[18] dishonest donne are banished out of the corps of the city to the Piazza Padella or hortaccio; by which remove, the governor of the town hath openly confessed himself to have gained 15,000 crowns with artificial handling of the matter; and the Pope being desirous to know the number of these women, the censo was found 40,000 and certain hundreds, as the Baron of Didrichstein ^[19] reported from the Pope’s mouth. 3. The third edict was wholly against the Jews, imposing upon them, of three things, necessarily one; either to keep against the banditi 400 horse in Campania, or to maintain the bread at one baiocho ^[20] the pound, or imbagagliare. A proposition scarce to be expected even in tempi santascuorim ^[21], as the Hebrews say; but we heard of no execution, for (as some hold) his Holiness, besides extreme unction, hath been anointed with Crowns of the Son ^[22]. 4. In the fourth bando, the Julios of Bolognia ^[23] are disvalued two quatrini, and some order taken for other money; certainly a point of most necessary consideration in Rome, where great are the disorders that way; notwithstanding some think that Palgotto ^[24] will retract the bando if he come to be Pope. 5. In the fifth edict, all strangers are forbidden to carry out of the city above the value of five crowns of gold; a statute very discommodious, profitable to merchants, and therefore feared that the first motion came from the bank. 6. The sixth and last, which I have seen, is an extension of the two, wherein all dishonest women of open profession are prohibited to wear any sort of silk or gold, either in suits or lace, to turn up or curl their hair after the manner of Rome, with the like; and in this matter hath Clement the Eighth gone in short time further than Sixtus the Fifth thought possible ^[25] to effect, as he often said, during the time of his life. Upon my departing from Rome, there was speech that the Pope meant to set forth an edict concerning the brewing of beer in Rome, which he hath determined to make as common there as in the towns of Almaigne, and order taken for import of hops. The second means whereby I have been able to guess at his inclination, is by certain open facts in the administration of justice, done upon his authority, wherein the mortality of the Popes going before, suspicion of some present, his experience by travel in the humours of men, the exasperated minds of his competitors, and lastly, the examples of his own home, have made him a man of a very round and perilous proceeding. . . . To conclude, all points considered together, it is thought that not only by the strength of his body, but further, by the craftiness of his proceeding, he will live long. Of the making of cardinals, peregrination of Maximilian Archduke of Austria to Rome, matters of Poland, some points of the realm of Naples, and such accidents as have had their occurrence here for the Great Duke’s Court since my coming, your Honour shall (God willing) receive in my next, by the first occasion. My Lord Zouch and Henry Wotton are especially laid wait for in Rome, and through the King of Spain’s dominions, as I have been signified; and here in Florence I find the beginnings of a notable villany, for one (either of Venice or Padoa) hath written unto a certain Florentine, of great practick with strangers, to inquire after me amongst the Dutch nation; which was done not long after my departure from Venice. I have not yet searched out the bottom of it.

Most Honourable, pardon my many words, and hold me in your favour; and so commending your Honour’s safety unto the Lord’s protection, I rest at your service.

If any English gentleman of your Honour’s acquaintance have occasion to repair to Florence, I humbly desire he may be commended to me, who will be ready to show him all service, and am now very desirous of the English company.

21. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 664. Wotton’s illness; the visit of the Archduke Maximilian to Rome, &c.

Since my last, written unto your Honour from Florence, till this present, I have had a very unquiet time; I was with my last journey much distempered, which could not cause less than an ague. In sickness we have care of our life, and forget our duties: so that I have rested your Honour’s debtor ⟨for⟩ the peregrination of the Archduke Maximilian ^[1] to Rome three posts, which I will now pay.

His Highness arrived in the city on Tuesday in the Settimana Santa, as they term it, accompanied with three others, of which one went for the master of all. The Archduke was attired in slight leather, without any manner of trimming, his hat buttoned up on the one side, his cloak clasped together in the neck, and turned over upon his shoulder, the one side of his face, and a good part of his forehead, handled like a servant newly come from blacking his master’s saddle. The first, second, and better part of the third day, he spent in religious services, as beholding the relics, visitation of the seven churches, &c. On Thursday toward evening, he discovered himself to two Jesuits, that were lately come from Vienna, in meaning to be brought by them unto the Cardinal Madrutz ^[2]. The Cardinal used practick to bring him to the Pope, which then was not easy, for an accident had fallen out in Rome, that occasioned the Pope to feign himself sick from Thursday before Easter to the Saturday after Easter, as I signified unto your Honour.^[3] Notwithstanding Madrutz dealt in it with exceeding diligence, and the Archduke came to conference with the Pope in the Vatican on Friday at night before Easter. The cause of his coming was more conjecturable than certain; for though men of great judgement held that it was only to withstand the marriage between the King of Poland ^[4] and daughter of Austria, yet wanted not some that said the Archduke had given over those desires; the time was too scant for such an effect, the match crossed not his proceedings; and further, the Pope was not to be dealt with that way, who had delegated some thirty days before the Cardinal Razevil ^[5] into those parts to no other effect, than to consummate the marriage; so that it was rather to be thought he came to have the Emperor solicited by Papal letters to surrender unto him the Roman crown, or that of Hungaria: this was the second opinion. Since his departure (which was presently after the Holy Days) we hear the marriage day (appointed as on the 26th of April past), to have been rejourned till that day three weeks following. Some stirs are expected. The Pope’s present unto him at his leave-taking was a medaglia in gold, of his own person, and a hollow jewel, having in it a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified (as he made him believe) and annexed unto it an indulgence of 8,000 years (notable religion!). . . .

Touching my private self, I continue in the house of Signor Bacchio Boni, in Via Larga, where I am reasonably well accommodated, but for my ten crowns a month.^[6] The times are dear in extremity. I think to remain in these parts this summer; and, as I imagine, between your Honour’s departure out of Italy and mine, there will be no great difference. If anything occur wherein I may serve your Honour, I beseech it will please you not to let me be ignorant of it. And so (my good Lord) recommending myself unto your most honourable favour and love, I humbly take my leave for this present 29th of May, 1592.

22. To Lord Zouche.

I received your letters of the third of June, on the eleventh of the same, and am glad to hear that your Honour is so royally well accommodated. My cousin Wrath ^[1] gave me some intelligence of his departure by his of the 13th of May; the cause he sought to hold from all, belike standing in terms of some uncertainty, the reason which your Honour adds is not small. You are fallen (my Lord) into a punishment with the opening of Wickam’s ^[2] letter, which is that I entreat your Honour to do the like with all the rest, if any arrive to your hands; there can never be written any secret to me, which I will not faithfully be glad to have you know before me. It is likely enough that Wickam will come shortly to Padoa unto the brother of his Baron (as I take it) resident there, a gentleman of some eighteen years. I have of news better store than leisure to write them, which yet I will leave unto your Honour’s wisdom in short sums. The Grand Duke grows (as weapons do) rusty with peace, and we have an action towards with the State of Genoua about Sarezana ^[3], a town pledged unto that commonwealth for money, and retained as forfeited; because the contract being that the sum should be revalued by a certain day, before the noon Ave Mary; the Duke keeping (as the manner of princes is) just his hour, was deceived by the Genuesers, who caused it to be sounded an hour or two before ordinary. The King of Spain’s counsel hath been asked in it, as I hear, and the Duke been admonished to recover it by force of arms. It is not amiss to put him in negotiation at home. What the end will be I know not, but all the great artillery are carried to Pisa, and by night, one after another, for secresy sake: soldiers are mustered dispersedly; some think the Duke will have a cast at Lucca, both under one, but those are words. As it shall grow to a further maturity, your Honour shall receive the circumstances. . . .

Of mine own estate I have little to signify. Private men, when they are once settled, receive small alteration, because Fortune hath, in such as I am, not much to work upon. I leave the care of the world to kings. If any matter of weight stir in Florence, it shall not fail in five or six days to be with your Honour, whom I humbly desire not to trouble his better cares with answer, because I write not to that end, but to the performance of the duty that I owe, though I will ever (my Lord) keep your letters as most preciously dear unto me. And so with humble recommendation of myself unto your favour, I wish your Honour (in our Tuscan phrase) a most happy repatriation.

Unto the deliverer of this, I beseech your Honour to dar del buon viso. He hath seen you in Altorph, and is a gentleman of so good practick in matter of fortification, as the Grand Duke hath used him in divers things; and no doubt he had obtained a very important office in this State, but for the implausibility of his person, which princes regard. In other points he is Dutch.

23. To Lord Zouche.

. . . Out of England I have received no letters since my last unto your Honour, which I sent by a Dutch gentleman. On Thursday, amongst other solemnities, all the cities and towns of the Dukedom were called in order, which is promised me written, and (if men fail not with me), your Honour shall receive it by the next post. I would there were any other good thing in these parts that I might with friendship or industry obtain to show my duty in, and to satisfy in some little part mine own desire to do your Honour service. Machiavil’s Tales, and certain other works of his, not commonly seen, I am in some hopes to come unto. For mine own matters there is no alteration. I live here in a paradise inhabited with devils ^[1]. Venice hath scarce heard of those vices which are here practised; my best commodity is the conversation of certain gentlemen, and their vulgar very pure and correct; so that here we have good means to speak well and to do ill. I will not further hold your Honour from your better affairs, but commending myself humbly unto his love, in some haste, and all faithful duty, I take my leave.

24. To Lord Zouche.

My last I sent by a Dutch gentleman, who departed Florence the 14th of June. The week following was very barren of good matter; since, the store is increased. Our Pope is fallen from the violent use of the temporal sword to spiritual severity, and hath lately called, in the church of St. John Lateran, the whole clergy of Rome to examination, deposed certain unfit, preferred the able, sent home non-residents, and in short, done many things that were not amiss, if they had a good ground. On St. Peter’s day no cardinals were made, in the meantime charges are saved; and such as reckon the revenues of the Church at 3,600,000 crowns the year, say that the Pope hath laid up in contanti ^[1] 1,200,000 since his election, allowing him 300,000 for all expenses. Others, that take the Church to be poorer in these times, cast the account according to the former proportion. Pier Maria Aldobrandini ^[2] (with whom I spake yesterday) is returned from Rome very melancholy, finding the Pope exceeding cold in the advancement of his friends. He is no builder, the League is not supplied, his affinity blow their fingers, we can hear of no money sent to the Catholic princes; so that it is held for certain, that the Pope is by nature a gatherer, to what effect no man can say yet with ground. . . . I can but add a fortune of mine own to make your Honour merry. I have almost, after my three years’ travel, found a person here in Florence so like me as we are saluted in the street one for another, and, as they make me believe, very hard to be distinguished; so that now I determine to pass no further, having met with the spirit of myself. It is one of the Capponies. A copy of all the towns in the Duke’s territories I have not yet obtained. Our Florentine promises go the crab’s pace. I am deeper another way in your Honour’s debt, and crave pardon for that and other faults in the defect of duties toward you. And so (most Honourable) I commend your continual safety unto the Lord.

In the beginning of this, I err, taking my last unto your Honour to have been sent by a Dutch gentleman, for now looking upon my calendar, I find that to have been dated on the 12th, and my last on the 26th of June; it was an error in my memory. Sir Charles Davers ^[3] is in town.

25. To Lord Zouche.

Your letters of the first of July I received the sixteenth of the same. I am unworthy of so favourable lines, which is my old confession. But since your Honour is pleased to work an opinion in me of myself, it shall, with your leave, be this; that no person upon the earth is more desirous to serve you, neither for any other respect, than because I know your Honour most worthy of it, and myself most bound to do it, which before God is true. If the Dutch gentleman cannot find the way unto your house, a suo danno, I beseech that my letters unto your Honour may be cause of no farther trouble than the reading of them. . . . For matters about us this week there is little alteration. The Grand Duke attends the furnishing of Pisa with corn. There is some rumour that the Archbishop of Pisa ^[1] will buy the Cardinal’s Cap, and the Duke will allow it him out of the Treasury. [That I must cry here in the market,] the price of a cardinalship is an hundred thousand crowns, for a bishop of certain years standing, which comes not to the Church, but is the Pope’s peculiar. The Pope, in this last general examination of the clergy in St. John Lateran, hath deposed four canonists of that church, the one, for having Plutarch’s Lives found on his table, the rest for failing in declining of nouns and verbs; the particulars are very ridiculous matter to write. Roan ^[2] we hold yet not ⟨to⟩ be victualled by the letters of Antwerp of the twenty-fifth of the past. I have lately understood of a gentleman of very good credit, that the Duke of Parma, joining in this last action with the Duke of Mayn ^[3], would not proceed forward to the succour of the town, unless the Duke would swear fidelity (as Lieutenant-General of the League) unto the crown of Spain. A point of very great importance, which I will inquire after with more care, and advertise my Lord in the next. And so (most Honourable) ever resting with all faithfulness bound unto you, I humbly take my leave.

I have a great fancy to pass with your Honour out of Italy, and leave you on the Rhyne stream.

26. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 684. News from England; death of Hester Wotton; Henry Wotton’s brother; Lord Darcy expected in Florence.

Your last, written on the 29th of July, came to me on the 6th of August; I thought the bearer would return by Venice, till the post of the last week was departed, and so am forced to use this next. Mr. Parvis ^[1] hath persuaded me that your Honour wisheth him well; he wanteth no more to make me travail for his good; I receive him as recommended unto me by the delivery of your Honour’s letters, though his name be not in them; so apt I am to think that I am bound to serve them that bring me but even a paper from you, but this was more; for it hath pleased your Honour to fill it with words of your most great favour, which (before God I speak it) is my exceeding comfort to read. The offer in the conclusion is the chaining of him whom your Honour had bound before, wherein your bounty makes me bold to say thus much, that I am not the richest man that way this present. My Roman voyage did stand me 146 crowns, with the best frugality I could use, so that though there were pleasure in it, and (I hope) some profit, yet did it pinch the shoulder of a younger brother. There is no weather beats us more than the storm of expenses. I will come to news with your Honour’s pardon, which this week, concerning public matters, are wild and raw. The execution of Sir John Parrat is refuted. I have received letters from my brother Edward of the 20th of June, style of England, wherein, by reason of grief, he wrote little. God hath taken to His mercy his wife ^[2], who died on the 8th of May, a gentlewoman in my opinion of most rare virtue. This will make him (as I imagine) resolve to enter the State, both for certain other private respects (which I would tell your Honour if I were present), and besides, to wear away sorrow with negotiation, a frequent custom in the ancients. My brother James ^[3] is gone to serve in the Low Countries; my brother John ^[4] retired to a solitary life, and at some difference with his lady. These private points I beseech your Honour only to know, from whom I will (per Dio, per Dio) keep nothing. Concerning others, we expect the Lord Darcy ^[5] here this week, as Mr. Guicciardin ^[6] told me, and I am informed by Corsini ^[7], that he hath recommendatory letters from the Lord Treasurer unto the Great Duke, which to me (because I am through your Honour’s favour acquainted with your restraint) is very strange. This is ventured. Hereafter, between your Honour and me, I desire myself may stand for the Lord Treasurer, Doctor Blotius for the Great Duke, and John de Taxis for the Lord Darcy. The particularities shall be sent as they occur. We hear the Queen of Scots, with a Scottish Earl (of whom she was enamoured), conspired the King’s death, which proceeded so far to execution, as to slay some of his Court, with compelling the King to run away; the certainty I am promised the next week.^[8] . . .

Antonio Perez ^[9] (heretofore Spanish Secretary), having been with the King of France, is gone to her Majesty, whom he promiseth notably to inform to the hurt of the King of Spain, and is, in my opinion, a knave for his labour. Of important news there is no more come unto me since my last duty unto your Honour. I crave (my most dearly honoured Lord) to have all my faults pardoned, and myself held in your good grace, your most faithful servant ever.

27. To Lord Zouche.

. . . Since my last unto your Honour (contrary to the expectation of all) is the marriage of Leonora Ursina ^[1] accomplished at Pratolin ^[2], where the Cardinal Sforza ^[3] arrived on the 16th of August, and gave the ring on Sunday last. I hear the gentlewoman to be in some pensiveness of mind and to have abandoned her cithern, on which she was wont to play, having rather been the wife of the Prince of Transylvania ^[4] than of the Count di Santo Fiore, but that, since she saw him, or rather (as some say) since she tried him. To grace her husband the better, they style him Duke Sforza, which here we laugh at. From Rome thus: the Pope hath lately burned six or eight persons for the fault for which Sodom was burned. A fact of horrible villainy was found in the Amphitheatre of Titus, namely a gentleman of Rome murdered, and for farther revenge upon the dead body, a dog (being kept hungry before) tied in such manner unto it, that he might eat human flesh. For the discovery of this deed the Pope hath set a great taglio, but as yet none can be found that knows the dog. The two sons of the Duke of Bavaria are expected in Rome, where their father will have them spend this next winter ^[5]. The Baron of Bernstein hath dispatched his legacy in Poland, saluted the Emperor in the Pope’s name, crossed Moravia, and is returning to the city, where he hopes to receive the Cap. Two bandi are come forth in Rome, the one against the Hebrews, not to chase them away, but to limit their knavery, and in exceeding strait terms. The other contains the banishment of all Spanish courtesans from Rome, which the Pope put forth at intercession of the Duchess of Sessa, wife to the Spanish Orator ^[6], who had received by their means I know not what disgrace. John de Taxis ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ is not yet arrived here. I imagine that he stayeth for some present out of his country to present, &c. Thus much in haste to keep myself in the exercise of my duty unto your Honour, whom I will never cease to serve most faithfully; and till I am able in greater matters, I take pleasure in these little.

28. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 682, dated ‘sixth of August’, which must be a mistake for September, as previous letters of August 15 and 27 are referred to. News of Italy; Lord Darcy; Wotton’s plans.

We have this week little store of either rumour or effect. Since my last unto your Honour, of the 27th of August, the points of any substance are these. Sfondrato, the Duke of Monte Marciano (who was General of that Pope’s forces in France), and Peter Cajetan (Lieutenant of his Horse) have fought in their shirts a little beyond Mantua, and are both dangerously hurt. The present Pope is greatly offended with the fray. Our Great Duchess departeth (as we imagine here) the ninth of this month, per la Madonna di Loretto.^[1] . . . The plague is gotten into Vienna. John de Taxis ⟨Lord Darcy⟩, writing a letter to Lorenzo Guicciardini here (one of the Forty-Eight ^[2]) did, in the sealing, mistake it, and sent one hither that was written to his mistress in Venice. A shrewd error. Unless my letter unto your Honour of the fifteenth of August be delivered, this cannot well be understood. I have, about some two days since, put forth a book to be copied for your Honour, of which I will make all possible haste that may be. Of mine own estate I am uncertain, because I have received instruction to remain in Tuscany, not far from the Great Duke’s Court, till I receive letters of recommendation; so that I wait to whom I shall be addressed.^[3] This fell out since my last unto your Honour. Notwithstanding, I am certain to depart out of Italy in six months after the date of this, and determine to pass a year after in some nook of France; which done, I shall within a while show at home the effects of time badly bestowed abroad. For those hasty lines, I beg your Honour’s pardon, and wish him with all my soul (which is at his commandment) all prosperity.

29. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 695. Wotton about to travel to Siena. Lord Darcy’s arrival.

. . . I am preparing to remove to Sienna, as I signified to your Honour before, but not directly, because I intend first to see a port or two of the Great Duke’s. I imagine to depart Florence this next Thursday, which will be the 24th of this month.^[1] I only stay for certain things for your Honour, which I have mentioned in my former letters, which I will send by the Procaccia of this next week to Heldevir in Merzena, and give order to Mr. Hungerford for the conveyance. I beseech your Honour to pardon all my boldness, and not to deny me your continual favour; and so with my humble reverence I take my leave.

John de Taxis ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ is arrived, and, in my opinion, a most exceeding courteous gentleman. He asked me for your Honour, and whether you had not yet seen these parts, adding that he heard your Honour to have been in Rome; which was once told me before of another. So that you have (my Lord) the report, without the effect. Your favour turns wholly to my credit, for such as are desirous to inquire of you repair to me, who can press from me no other than most worthy reports of your virtue, because (by God) I know no other.

30. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 696. Books for Lord Zouche; Wotton’s removal to Siena; Lord Darcy.

Your last of the second of September I received the twenty-third of the same. It seems to have lain in Mr. Pinder’s ^[2] window a post or two, being good not to dispatch matters rashly. All words are laid aside and titles, and whatsoever else that is not the sincere profession of my heart; yet shall your prosperity be ever in my prayers to God, and your praise in my mouth to men, which both are the fruits of your love, and of your favour, which is rather in true experience than in hope.

The book that I put to be copied for your Honour is not yet ended, nor the tariffa of all the towns in the Grand Duke’s territories, in my hands; for which I have tarried eight days in Florence longer than my determination. I use a gentleman ^[3] in my matters, upon whom the Prince hath lately bestowed two offices of great importance, which hath hindered me. So that what I promised from Florence I must necessarily perform from Sienna, toward which town I am going on Monday, in the company of my Lord Darcy and his brother; we take the course of Poggio, Prato, Pistoia, Luca, where I shall leave them, and so from Pisa and Livorno to Sienna.

In that which I sent by Mr. Pinder, it pleased your Honour to mistake me.^[4] I was bold to discover mine own estate, fearing to be thought unmindful of that I owe already, and not desirous to proceed farther. Your Honour’s trouble that way I desire this may prevent, and do withal render him great thanks. Concerning John de Taxis ⟨Lord Darcy⟩, I will sound out the matter with better ground, and without delay advertise it from Sienna. Our journey serves that effect. From my friends in England I have this week received nothing. And so in most great haste I make an end, recommending myself without end unto your favour.

31. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 698. Wotton’s journey to Siena and his residence there in the house of Scipione Alberti; his future plans.

Through Prato, Pistoia, Luca, Pisa, and most of the towns which are situate in the plain of Hetruria, I am at length arrived at Sienna, in the company of those persons whom I signified unto your Honour in my last from Florence. I continued to Pisa; there we brake off, they taking their course to Volterra, and I to the port of Ligorno, where all the galleys of the Great Duke were now come on the day before, and there manned for Marsilia. This was on the ninth day of this present October. Concerning John de Taxis ⟨Lord Darcy⟩, and that point, wherein your ⟨Honour⟩ doth so much desire to be certified,^[1] I imagine myself to have almost sounded the bottom of it, but because it hath dependence upon other secrets, I am bold to stay the signifying of all, till I receive answer from Mr. Hungerford that he hath from Venice dispatched this letter to your lodging in Padoa, because perchance there may be some alteration in your Honour’s estate. I have included a cipher, which I will observe. The former sent before stands per niente.

The cause of my staying in these parts of Tuscany, not far distant from the Great Duke’s Court, I did my duty in acquainting your Honour with before.^[2] Concerning my debts, I fear to lose your Honour’s good conceit of me, which I protest I would not do, for more than I know my fortune is born to. When your determination is to depart out of Italy I humbly crave pardon to desire to know, that I may take order for the payment. I do now with this post send to Florence for the book of cultivation, which I put out forty days since to be copied for your Honour, and hope withal to receive the tariffa of all the towns in the Great Duke’s estate, which shall presently be sent away to Venice, that so I may show myself desirous to perform though the least grateful point unto your Honour, to whom I owe omnia mea desideria, labores omnes, omnes curos. My next stirring will certainly be towards Venice, and I think to cross the Genouesato and Dukedom of Milan. Few are likely to know of that, for those parts grow dangerous, and the Pope more and more receives spirit; but I defer that matter until my next. I am here by the means of certain persons (to whom I was recommended), gotten into the house of Scipione Alberti ^[3], an ancient courtier of the Pope’s, and a gentleman of this town, at whose table I live, but dearly. With such letters as are sent me, I take this course to have them recommended, Al Signior Agostino, detto il Meschino, Cancelliere delle Poste, who is instructed to that effect. So have I been bold thus to acquaint your Honour with my particular motions and designs, which I would they were anything else than a most perfect description of the bad use of time; yet comfort I myself that in wandering up and down in a strange land, I imitate though not the nature, yet the fortune of virtue, which certainly is peregrina in terris, in caelo civis. I beseech you, my good Lord, to continue your favours towards me, and to love me for the will I have to serve and honour you. And so I commend your Honour’s safety unto the Almighty.

32. To Lord Zouche.

I have, for fourteen days, expected certification from Mr. Hungerford, whether my letters unto him (wherein my last unto your Honour were enclosed) have been delivered; that I might satisfy your Honour’s demands concerning the Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ and Monsieur du Plese ⟨the Lord Treasurer⟩^[1]; which I could not conveniently do till my former were received; but being yesterday from my friend advertised that your Honour resided still in Padoa, and that my last were recapitated ^[2] thither, I now proceed to effectuate your will. That the Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ was recommended by Monsieur du Plese ⟨the Lord Treasurer⟩ to the Master of the Vatican Library ⟨the Grand Duke of Tuscany⟩, I think to be false; neither was there in that packet (of which I wrote your Honour before) any such recommendatory letter; yet he told me that the Master of the Vatican Library ⟨the Grand Duke⟩ had showed him especial favours, which I understand to have been by defending him from the Inquisitor of Rome. The point stood in these terms. There was a book written against La Nowe by Possevinus ^[3] the Jesuit, comprehending matter of infamous consequence; your Honour knows the imaginations of men; this book, the Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩, having no other way to resist or retract, bought up all the examples. The matter ascended to about two hundred crowns. Upon this, the Inquisitor of Rome began to stir against him. The Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ solicited the Master of the Vatican Library ⟨the Grand Duke⟩ to back him in it; who authorized the fact; commanding (as far as in him lay) the Inquisitor to silence. The Inquisitor, not daring directly to proceed further, informed the College of it, as the manner is in such cases. In this deliberation, by the diligence of the Master of the Vatican ⟨the Grand Duke⟩, and gracious speech of the Cardinal Mendouir ^[4] (who greatly favoured the cause of the Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩, a thing to be noted of some to his great danger), there was no farther dealing against him. But, I hear, one informing him afterwards that the book would be printed again in some other Italian town, and that in the preface there would be some dishonourable mention made of him to his prejudice, he then began to alter his countenance, and very much to repent him that he had ever dealt in it so far. But howsoever that may prove, sure it is this matter hath mightily kindled the coals against his nation, and greatly enraged the Inquisitor. Especially, because he hath been informed, that the very same Frenchman ⟨Lord Darcy⟩ hath had his hands in more secret plots, as that he doth exercise a kind of correspondency with a servant of the Cardinal Mondouir.^[5] There are likewise others of his nation suspected, so far as perhaps may go near to cost an head or two. As, for better exemplification, I have heard one ^[6], with very sound probabilities, accused, during his abode in Rome, at midnight to have entered the house of the forenamed Cardinal, delivering him a packet of letters from his father. I will name the man unto your Honour in my next. This is all that, by direct or indirect means, is come to my ears.

Concerning mine own estate, I am right sorry that my coming to Venice is rejourned a month or two longer, upon the occasion that I wrote your Honour before, and I do most humbly crave to know (if your good leave afford it me) when your determination is to draw towards England, that I may provide some convenient means to pay your Honour those thirty crowns, to whom I am besides in debt as much as my soul can compass. Our occurrences, which are many, I will defer till the next ordinary. False news is very current; for I am by Mr. Nevil lately informed, that there runs a voice in Venice that I have been in the Inquisition, which, if it be proceeded as far as your Honour, I fear lest it may very much prejudice my credit, that held it from him to whom I am so much bound to reveal all; and therefore do now, to prevent the rumour, affirm it to be false. Of that other book which I put out in Florence to be copied for your Honour, I have, notwithstanding my writing thither, as yet received no answer; but it shall most certainly be provided for you. And so recommending myself ever in great particularity to your Honour’s favour and love, and good report of my bad deserts, I leave him for this present in the merciful defence of God.

Being yesterday with Mr. Nevil, he most expressly charged me at my next writing to remember his duty unto your Honour.

33. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 704. Lord Darcy; Wotton’s interview with Bellarmine at Rome; news of Siena and from England.

In my last unto your Honour from this town, I made answer to the commandment of your letters received in Florence eight days before my departing thence. The case required close proceeding, which made me use such a manner, as I cannot be understood without receipt of all my former from Sienna: so that upon doubt lest some have miscarried, I have in this included a post-cipher, serving for the letter that I sent by our last ordinary, which was enclosed in one to Mr. Hungerford. I find his means better than that of Pinder. If your Honour have occasion further to touch any of those points (pleasing him) it shall not be amiss to use the same names. I do in this make haste, being written by the extraordinary; which is here our best course, because otherwise our packets breathe in Florence from Wednesday noon to Sunday morning; so disconvenient is the postage in towns di passaggio, as they term them. I cannot keep from your Honour that I lately have received information that there are two books written in Italy against my Lord Treasurer, the one in Latin, the other in our vulgar. They were printed in Rome, and thought to proceed from one Banes ^[1], who is an attendant of our Cardinal, and with whom certain English are run too deep in correspondency. I have about that matter much to deliver in your Honour’s ear I dare not trust; yet this I will venture to signify, that I conjecture there was lately from hence dispatched a man of purpose to obtain an example of those books in Rome, who went upon the Frenchman’s ⟨Lord Darcy’s⟩ charges, of whom I advertised your Honour in my last, and now in the enclosed cipher. This I do hazardously, that your Honour may have it while the action is warm. Concerning this point, there run certain other suspicions, in part dependant upon it, and partly consequent; which it hath happened unto me to look into with the rest, and hath occasioned me to change my resolution of keeping secret the conference I had with Robert Bellarmine ^[2] during my abode in Rome, signified your Honour in my first from Florence, and as yet to no other person living. My reasons are two. First, because it can import me no danger, my second, having proceeded no further with him than to ordinary talk in matter of learning, and besides, as a poor Dutchman ^[3]; secondly, I find some (that think their badness secret) so likely to be deceived, as I begin to confess all, fearing lest whatsoever is close have shortly the name of ill; to which estate I see things receive an inclination. In this your Honour’s advice is humbly desired. Concerning other points of my estate, I depend upon letters out of England, and am till then nailed in Tuscany. Of my good Lord’s determinations, with his pardon of my boldness, I shall be most glad to hear. We have for matter of news few effects, but mighty expectations; for it is thought the next promotion at Rome will be very numerous. The two younger princes of Bavaria, Philip Bishop van Regenspurg, and his brother Ferdinando, were seen here this last Friday. They supped with the governor, and dined with the Bailo and departed the next day toward Rome. Their entertainment was gallant here, and the like commanded through all towns of his Highness’s estate, so that we are put into a bisbiglio, and some say, that between the house of Medici and Bavaria there is a match in hand; Maria Medicea ^[4], the Duke’s niece, doth lose years. These two princes were accompanied with two Jesuits, who do only sit at their table, and suffer ——; a regularity now become the companion of a prince. Out of England I have very lately received nothing to participate with your Honour. Sir Walter Raughly out of the town, which the great prize ^[5], lately taken, wherein he had the best venture, is thought to have hastened; the sea, and earth, and all the elements, are for him. My cousin John Wrath ^[6] is yet in antichi termini, and concerning that place in Constantinople, her Majesty’s conceit toward the agent there ^[7] doth daily increase by the singular good demeanour of himself. My brother Edward (which I only writ to this end, because I am bound to write all) hath either against his will (as some say) or with it (as I say) been knighted. I have no more, but rest with earnest desire to have your Honour’s favour continued towards me, which I beseech him not to deny me; and so leave him in God’s protection.

I desire, so it please him, that the fire may keep this from others. The name that I promised your Honour in my last is Thomas Sackvill.

34. To Lord Zouche.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 707. Headed ‘Rome (rather Sienna)’, but plainly written from Siena. News from Rome.

Having in my three last unto your Honour signified by cipher certain dangerous points, I will in this set down the occurrences in matter of public estate. The great expectation which ran of these last four tempora, concerning the number of cardinals, is fallen out quite contrary; the Pope having on Wednesday morning in the Consistory used to the Illustrissimi these words; ‘Ora sono Papa, fin ora non son stato Papa, non adherirò a nessun Principe, non farò de’ Cardinali, Iddio vi benedica’; words directly proceeding against the opinion of all, but crossing none more immediately than the Father Toledo ^[1], toward whom the Pope is known to have particular inclination. Thus much is certain, that Toledo having given order to one of the Buonacorsi in this town to be ready upon his call, did dispatch a courier for him the Saturday before the four tempora, something seeming to have fallen between the calicem supremaque labra ^[2]. The College hath lately lost the Cardinals Canano ^[3], Mondovio ^[4], and Sans. The first died in Modena, to the especial discomfort of the house of Este, as if all stars that gave light that way were under the horizon. By the death of the other two, the Conclave hath received little alteration; though Mondovio were papable ^[5], and a great soggetto in the list of the foresters ^[6], and sometime schoolmaster to the King of France. The two princes of the house of Bavaria (who passed by these parts toward Rome, as it were making haste), were entertained a while at Caprarola ^[7] upon the Pope’s commandment, that things might be prepared the better in the meantime, as it is interpreted. Of the elder brother’s promotion there is now general silence, men seeing servitors of the Court, and even nephews neglected; which, some say, the Pope hath done to conclude his first year with a point of great moderation. In the Great Duke’s estate there is little change, or inclination to change, save that Signieur Silvio is made admiral of his galleys; either for his own sufficiency that way, or (as some think) to sweeten the humours of that family, not a little inasperated by the death of Alfonso ^[8]. Don Pietro di Medici ^[9] we hear to be married in Spain to the daughter of the Duke of Alba Regale, having obtained of the King the chancellorship of the great Order of St. Jago. The marriage of the Prince Doria ^[10] with the daughter of Marcantonio Colonna (sometime Viceroy in Sicily) hath been gallantly celebrated in Genoua. The elder Baron of Harrach is expected daily to pass by these parts, as the Emperor’s lieger in Rome, whom I hear to be a gentleman of very mature judgement. The death of the Duke of Parma ^[11] hath put many into disputation about the successor, and some are of opinion that the King will divide the charges, placing in the Low Countries two persons, the one regent for his Majesty, the other Lieutenant-General over the garrisons, artillery, munition, and all points military. The Prince’s death was in the manner of a dropsy, occasioned through drinking of too much water, which was counselled him against his gout. His Requiem they sang in Rome on the seventeenth of the present, the Cardinal Duartes ^[12], his son, as then retired out of the city. It is said to have caused some slight mutiny in Antwerp. The effects that are to follow will, I hope, afford me better matter for my next unto your Honour; of whose estate I most humbly desire to hear. And so in great haste (my good, good Lord) I commend myself unto the continuance of your Honour’s favour and love towards me, wishing him in earnest a blissful end of his designs.

35. To Lord Zouche.

No man that knoweth your Honour can doubt of your prosperity, of whom, I humbly thank you, that I am one. I write this to congratulate with your safe return into your country: as I rejoice to do, and as I am many ways bound to do. It hath been signified me by divers, and even now in one from my friend Charles Cluse, of the 23rd of July, mentioning your Honour’s unto him of the 6th of June from London.

We concur both in the faithful desire of your happiness. Since my last unto your Honour, I have not only changed place, but nation. For after I had seen the better towns of Lombardy, as Genoua, Milan, and the rest, I took my course through the Grisons to Geneva, leaving a discreet country in my opinion too soon.

Here I arrived the 22th of June, style of England. The town seems unto me marvellous unpleasant, and the French a badly grounded people; so that my abode here depends upon my profiting in the language, which I am fain to seek upon these skirts of Savoy.

About the beginning of the next spring (when nature doth put in all things motion), I determine (if it please God) through a part of Switzerland and certain provinces of the Low Countries to end this patience.

Here I am placed to my very great contentment in the house of Mr. Isaac Casaubon ^[1], a person of sober condition among the French; and this is all that I can signify of myself, my little affairs allowing me not much to speak of. Concerning news, your Honour knows we are here rather scholars than politicians, and sooner good than wise: yet this much I must say, that the state of the town is undone with war, even in manners; for certainly I have not seen worse temptations in Italy. Not to let your Honour be melancholy, I cannot abstain to tell you that since the days began to shorten, the women (before seeming to have digested certain humours with walking) do now shell hemp till an hour or two in the night, upon the banks in the street, and fires before them made of those shales; a custom drawing with it many pretty examples and opportunities. In short, it was three days since forbidden with the sound of the trumpet.^[2] Some excuse the war, and lay the fault upon the Dutch, as having brought into the town intemperance and ebriety, and such other evils as follow them. To end your Honour’s torment out of these trifles, we have lately changed the form of our prayer for Henry of Borbon ^[3], who hath changed himself, and forsaken the God whose mercies he had seen, and whose judgements he must expect: an example calling us with great amazement to the consideration of the inconstant state of men, among whom there is nothing certain under the heaven that covers us.

Before I conclude this, I must advertise your Honour that I have certain papers for you, and amongst the rest, the manner of service in the courts of Rome, with points appertinent ^[4], described at my request by Scipione Alberti ^[5], my host in Sienna, and sometime majordomo of the Duke of Paliano. I was the more earnest with him, remembering your Honour to have wished for such a thing in the cloister of the Duomo at Padoa, which I engraved in a bad memory. I have likewise, written by the same man, the death of the Duchess of Paliano, in the bloody times of Paulus the Fourth. Farther, I expect daily certain other discourses in matter of State from the nephew ^[6] of the Cardinal of Verona, one of my very intrinsical acquaintance, and that hath some light of the truth. I will end, beseeching the continuance of your Honour’s favour towards me, and so I commend his safety to God.

36. To the Earl of Essex(?).

Cecil MS. 99, f. 38, transcript. Without date or address. Wotton gives an account of the acquaintances he had made abroad, whom he found useful as political correspondents. It was probably written not long after his return to England in the autumn of 1594, and addressed to the Earl of Essex.

For advertisers of occurrences out of the parts where I have been, the ablest of my acquaintance are these. In Italy Scipione Alberti ^[1], a gentleman of Siena, well experienced in the matters of Rome, as having been there a resident courtier twenty-five years, and majordomo to the Duke of Paliano, nephew to Paulus IV, whose whole actions, and at last even his death, passed through his hands. In this man’s house I lay five months, and have from him received divers letters. During my abode in Siena I made acquaintance with one Girolamo Emo, a gentleman of Venice, whom by long practice I perceived to have knowledge of the Truth: he had been out of his country two years, as upon a malcontentedness, of which he gave out the cause to be love, and although in familiarity he revealed to me at length the right, yet desired he I would with all Venetians make good the false; which I have done with Sig^r Bassadonna ^[2] and others. From this gentleman, during my abode in Florence, I had continual intelligence from Verona and Siena; and I have left with him a cipher. In his last he signified his intention to go to Rome, and live awhile with his uncle Valerio, the Cardinal of Verona. I have likewise received letters from certain other gentlemen of Siena, but more ceremonies than matter. At Florence I lay eleven months in the house of one Baccio Buoni ^[3], who, through his wisdom and badness together, was great with the Duke Francisco ^[4], and in this Duke’s time hath been put down by worse than himself. I have received from him many letters written at large and freely of the State. There is further in Florence one Dethick ^[5], an English factor, and withal a very good scholar, who, no doubt, to your Lordship, will be a most sufficient instrument in this kind.

From Naples, Milan, Genova, being the King of Spain’s, or at his devotion, by reason of my little stay I had no means to be acquainted.

At Chiavenna among the Grisons, I lay in the house of one Scipione Lentulo ^[6], now a minister, sometime secretary to a cardinal, who recommended me to his son, a man well travelled and languaged, and, for his sufficiency, entertained of the town of Bern, where he hath good means for the knowledge of such affairs as occur between the Cantons and the Grison League. He hath been brought up most part of his life in England.

In Geneva I had familiar resort to one Rigotier (one of the Twenty-five ^[7] there) and master of the artillery and fortifications; a man of most excellent natural parts, and great experience in the actions of Savoy, as I hope shall appear unto your Lordship by his letters.

For High Germany: there is a certain Westphalian by name Joannes Sturio ^[8], resident, as he wrote me in his last, at Spire, in the chamber of the Empire, a man of very sharp and clear judgement and a free speaker and writer.

In the Palsgrave his Court two of the sufficientest persons in my knowledge are Hippolitus a Collibus ^[9], of Italian blood, and one Lingelsheim ^[10], sometime schoolmaster of the Prince, now his chief favourite, a man of a notable style to deliver circumstances of state. There is besides in the town of Heidelberg an English gentleman married there, very inquisitive to know, and as bold to advertise what he knows. His name is Jacob Medouse ^[11].

At Basil the ablest referendary is one Castelione ^[12], Italian merchant, and citizen of the town, learned, and of the Religion. At Vienna in Austria I lay in the house of the Baron of Fridesheim ^[13], one of the Emperor’s Presidents in the Lower Court of that province, from whom I have best occasion to hear of those parts.

At Prage there is one Hammon, a kinsman to your Lordship’s servant of that name ^[14], very well learned and, through his long abode, well known in the matters of Bohemia.

In the Low Countries the sufficientest of my acquaintance are one Jo. Werckhovius ^[15] at Utrecht, and Pet. Scapius ^[16] in the Hage, both Doctors in the Civil Laws, of good judgement, diligent, and free.

37. To Sir Robert Cecil.

Cecil MS. 41, f. 26, holograph. Wotton writes to Cecil from Plymouth (two days before the sailing of the Cadiz expedition) about a promised letter from Queen Elizabeth recommending him for a lease of College property.

I have understood by my brother, Sir Edward Wotton, that it hath pleased your Honour to promise the procuring of her Majesty’s letters to New College ^[1], in my behalf upon the satisfying of Heeton.

I have written to my brother to satisfy him, and to acquaint your Honour with a point or two which, by your favour, I humbly crave to have remembered in her letters and (if I return) I will acknowledge it ever unto you with such poor service as you shall think me fit to do you. So in this busy time of embarking being constrained to be short, I wish unto your Honour all prosperity and rest.

38. To Isaac Casaubon.

Cas. Epist., i, pp. 644-5, addressed ‘Clarissimo Viro, Isaaco Casaubono, Amico antiqua fide.’ Casaubon had evidently written to Wotton’s acquaintance at Heidelberg, Jacob Medouse (ante, p. 300), complaining of Wotton’s silence, and expressing a fear that Wotton’s feelings towards him had changed. Wotton hearing of this, wrote the following letter, in which he protests he is constant in his affection, blames Casaubon for doubting him, and makes an ingenious if not very convincing apology for his silence.

‘Immutari meum erga te animum! amicitiae nostrae vinculum frangi ita ἀποτόμως! te amaturum me vel invitum, et a te alienum!’

Hae voces, mi Casaubone, altius descendunt in me quam putas, et Deum testor, qui καρδιογνώστης ^[1] et καρδιοπλάστης est, amicitiam nostram adhuc vivere et valere; de qua decet me primo loqui.

Veni ex Italia Genevam; quo nihil vocare memini praeter memoriam virtutis tuae apud me in congressu nostro inter Heidelbergam et Francofurtum quadriennium ante depositam.^[2] Conditio mea, cum Genevam venirem, non nimis laeta recipiebat se in hospitium tuum; unde post quatuordecim menses redii per Helvetios et Rhenana loca in illam patriam, quae iam me biennium habuit. Sic ab Italia relicta ad hunc usque diem (qui Decembris xii est) non tantum praeteriit temporis, quantum ab illo primo congressu (quem cum laetitia repeto) ad renovatam Genevae familiaritatem. Num igitur cum notitiam tui in transitu vel salutationem verius tantum non quadriennium deleverat, delebit minus aevi nostri spatium illas dulcissimas horas, illas hilaritates, illos amplexus et amores; postremo illa beneficia tua? Non est ita, mi clarissime Casaubone; urget me dies noctesque amoris tui conscientia, et saepius ad te respirans a negotiis hos oculos flecto, tam tui oblivisci nescius quam numquam te amasse. Igitur epistola tua ad Medousium cuiusdam sollicitudinis rea est contra sanctissimas amicitiae nostrae leges. Sed quia et ego vereor accusationem silentii, imitemur semel corruptos aulicos, qui (ut iurisconsultorum voce utar) depaciscuntur ^[3] invicem crimina, vel (quod magnus Thucydides, quem sine te neque amaveram neque intellexeram, observat inter mores Graeciae, sed Graeciae depravatae ^[4]) imponamus peccatis nostris honestiora nomina. Silentium sit modesta taciturnitas; diffidentia tua sollicitus amor, addam, et vehemens; nam diffidentiam magnam esse in vehementi amore me docuit Heliodorus tuus: ὴπίστεις (inquit) κατέχοισα·^[5] nosti locum. Hasce interscindere me cogit praeter exspectatum supraveniens occasio, sic ut caetera in proximam septimanam premenda sint. Interim velim scias eundem tibi me esse qui ut sim es meritus, eundem fore quem esse velis, nec amicitia tua esse cariorem ipsum in patriam reditum aut quicquid hic possidet vel sperat mediocritas nostra; quod videbis, nisi me vita deficiat. Salve, Amice, Hospes, Praeceptor et Vir optime.

Salutes, quaeso, amicissimis verbis istos omnes bonos viros, et prae aliis magnum Christiani orbis lumen, Theodorum Bezam ^[6].

39. Isaaco Casaubono.

Cas. Epist., i, p. 642. Casaubon left Geneva in November or December, 1596, for Montpellier (Pattison, p. 83). Wotton’s letter of Dec. 12, 1596, seems to have travelled to Geneva, and to have been sent back to England. Wotton then forwarded it again with the following note.

Inclusas ad te dederam ante tres menses; et iterum redierunt ad meas manus; metu longi itineris an neglegentia mercatorum nescio. Aliquid audivi de tuo discessu ⟨a⟩ Geneva; sed adhuc, ut ille ait, sum similior ambigenti, et a te ipso exspectabo veras rationes. Spero eundem Deum qui nos dispersit ita animos et vota nostra gubernaturum, ut iterum viventem valentemque videam Casaubonum meum. Hasce ad te curat deferri pro sua humanitate Domini Perotti ^[1] adolescentior filius, quem nostratem feceramus nisi haereditas abripuisset. Maximum natu (quem intelligo apud te esse) rogo a me salutes quam poteris humanissime. Yale, salve, et ex hac festinatione velim coniicias quam non abundo otio.

40. To the Earl of Essex.

Reliq., 4th ed., p. 712. Inscribed in the Reliquiae ‘To the Earl of Essex, from Sir H. W. then his Servant, 1597’. This is the only addressed letter from Wotton to Essex which has been preserved. Wotton had just come back from the Azores expedition, which returned to Plymouth Oct. 26, 1597. His letters had presumably just been sent to him from London, and finding one from Switzerland, he sends the news it contains to Essex, who was then at Court.

This morning I have received a letter from one Paolo Lentulo ^[1], an Italian resident at Bern among the Switzers, of no very ancient date, wherein (giving his judgement of the present condition of that popular state) he writeth thus: ‘Ne’ Suezzeri v’ è molto disgusto contra il Re di Francia per cagion delle gran somme (cresciute gia col interesse di tempo) che deve, tanto al universale come alli particulari; e perche gli anni della Confederatione con Francia sono ultimamente spirati ^[2], Il Re di Spagna cerca ^[3] con large promesse e doni (mediante il suo Oratore) tirargli a se; onde molti delli Capi, che per pagar i soldati che hanno condotti in Francia sono stati costretti di vender le case e beni loro, non essendo stati pagati dal detto Re, e promettendo il Re di Spagna di voler pagar tutti i debiti di Francia ed accrescer ancora le pensioni militari, vi sono molto inclinati.’ I could not in my duty forbear to advertise your Lordship (though in the midst of these your nearer cares) of so great a point as this diversion of the cantons: touching immediately France, but consequently her Majesty, by the necessity (which will grow if it be effected) of English infantry in the King’s wars. He likewise writeth that the Emperor hath restrained the liberty of religion in all his hereditary dominions; whereupon his natural subjects, being (as he saith) in worse condition than his elective, refuse to contribute to his wars.^[4]

The rest of his letter is only of his private estate, in which part he seemeth to intreat me, that I make him known unto your Lordship for a man desirous to do you service in those parts; for which I will with all possible haste presume to deliver him thanks from you; being indeed, besides his learning and sound affection to this State, a man well tumbled and practised in the world. Before I conclude this, I will most humbly beseech your Lordship, that if there grow any actions between her Majesty and the Emperor, wherein your Lordship may make any use of that time which I bestowed in those countries, and in this Court, it please you to employ me.

41. To Sir Robert Cecil.

S. P. Dom. Eliz., cclxv, No. 65, holograph. Wotton was evidently expecting to be sent by the Queen on a diplomatic mission to Germany, and writes to Cecil begging that his employment might not be too inferior to that of John Wroth, who was going to Germany at the same time.

Being kept by some indisposition of body from your Honour’s presence, I presume to make my humble request unto you by letter, that it may please your Honour to regard my poor credit so much in this her Majesty’s employment, as not to suffer it to be disgraced with great inequality between Mr. Wrath ^[1] and me; to whom, although I do every way yield in the question of his sufficiency, yet must he about these tender points pardon in me a little emulation.

I have no argument for myself to move her Majesty’s gracious opinion of me, and less to win your Honour’s particular favour; but do in all humbleness beg both your honourable mediation unto her, and your own authority and power in it; which shall bind unto you my honest services and endeavours, wheresoever there may be made any use of them.

I have presumed to enclose a note of such princes, as through your Honour’s kind favour, I desire to be directed unto; leaving unto Mr. Wrath the prerogative of the highest person, and the next unto him, in that part of Germanie.

42. To John Donne?

Burley MS., f. 295, transcript. This letter, without date, address, or signature, occurs among a collection of Donne’s letters (most of them apparently addressed to Wotton) and almost certainly belongs to the lost Wotton and Donne correspondence. The mention of Beaumaris (see note 1) gives the approximate date.

I must wonder that since my coming to London, I have not many times heard from you, from whom I expected a truer representation of those parts where you live, than from any other vessel of less receipt. And indeed, besides your love, you should yield somewhat in this to our present humours, which, if they have not matter of truth to work upon, are likely to breed in themselves some monstrous imaginations. We are put into Beamorris ^[1] by the scanting of the wind upon us, which to me is a preparative for Ir. st^m.^[2] May I after these, kiss that fair and learned hand of your mistress, than whom the world doth possess nothing more virtuous. Farewell suddenly, for if I should give way to myself I should begin again.

Sir, it were not only a wrong, but a kind of violence to put you in mind of my business, and therefore the end of this is only to salute you. Farewell. You must not forget septics in hebdomada to visit my best and dearest at Thr.^[3]

43. To Edward Reynolds.

Cecil MS. 179, f. 2, holograph. Addressed ‘To the right worshipful, my assured loving friend, Mr. Edward Reynolds, Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, at Court’. Wotton writes to his fellow secretary, Edward Reynolds, of the Earl of Essex’s arrival in Ireland.

This noble and worthy gentleman, our lord and master, took the sword and sway of this unsettled kingdom into his hand on the fifteenth of this month, in the cathedral church of Dublin, after a very grave and wise and learned sermon preached by the Bishop of Meath.^[1]

There can yet be given no judgement of what will follow. These beginnings are spent in resolutions and counsel. All things are in a good train and inclination, and though all arms be subject to sudden accidents and inconveniences, we have yet felt none of them. Only Sir H. Wallop ^[2] died within an hour after my Lord’s arrival here, and we yet miss my Lord of Kildare ^[3], who put from Holyhead with the same wind that brought us from Beaumaris, whence I first wrote unto you. Of these wars in general I will be bold to say this, that if they end by treaty, the Earl of Tyrone must be very humble. And so, till I have more matter, I will be only contented to tell you that I am

Sir, I beseech you to cause the enclosed to be safely delivered, and to give me certain knowledge thereof, because they concern some payments and discharges of money.

44. To John Donne?

Burley MS., f. 253 b, transcript. No date, address, or signature, but written from Ireland, and probably from Wotton to Donne (see ante, p. 306). State of Ireland; the actions of Essex misrepresented at the English Court.

It is worth my wondering that you can complain of my seldom writing,^[1] when your own letters come so fearfully, as if they tread all the way upon a bog. I have received from you a few, and almost every one hath a commission to speak of divers of their fellows, like you know whom in the old comedy that asks for the rest of his servants. But you make no mention of any of mine, yet it is not long since I ventured much of my experience unto you in a piece of paper, and perhaps not of my credit; it is that which I sent you by A. R.,^[2] whereof, till you advertise me, I shall live in fits or agues. I do promise you not only much, but all that which hath hitherto passed, in my next; of the future I would fain speak now, if my judgement were not dim in the present. Whatsoever we have done, or mean to do, we know what will become of it, when it comes amongst our worst enemies, which are interpreters. I would there were more O’Neales and Macguiers and O’Donnells and Macmahons ^[3], and fewer of them. It is true that this kingdom hath ill affections and ill corruptions; but they where you are have a stronger disease, you diminish all that is here done; and yet you doubt (if you were nearly examined) the greatness of it; so as you believe that which is contrary to as much as you fear. These be the wise rules of policy, and of Courts, which are upon earth the vainest places. I will say no more, and yet peradventure I have said a great deal unto you. God keep you and us in those ways and rules and kinds of wisdom that bring mortal men unto Himself.

45. To John Donne?

Burley MS., f. 253 b. No date, address, or signature. A second letter from Ireland, probably from Wotton to Donne. A German going to England; the Irish; a town captured.

This bearer, a gentleman of Germany, is worthy of your acquaintance. He ⟨came⟩ out of Scotland by the north of Ireland, through the best of rascals of our enemies, of whom he can well discourse in most languages. I like his judgement, and his desires, that did lead him to look after light of a prosperous estate upon a miserable; for calamities do better instruct than felicities. [Especially a passenger that cannot stay long for his letters], I commend him heartily unto you. And thus much farther of him; he hath here found himself in some necessity of money, in which kind of business, either actively or passively, I have always to do. I stand bond for him, and entreat you, within some ten days after his arrival, frame some such speech with him as may see whether the money be paid or no, but with due precaution that there be ministered no conceit with him of any distrust in me, which I should be sorry for, though men commonly call this wisdom. Germaines are not suspicious naturally, but they are naturally very retentive of such impressions as they receive. I will address him unto you, and your discourse may rise from some general questions of the security of his voyage from robbing, or manner of his exchange, or the like heads, that will bring on the rest, which known, I expect speedy advertisement. The enclosed letter, after you have read, seal and deliver it. You must neither be ignorant of the matter, nor know all; it is enough that he perceive me to expect from you, or himself by your conveyance, knowledge how that matter proceedeth, and you may know I have appointed him to receive the money; but if you desire to know more, you taste the forbidden tree.

I may now discourse of our condition here. This town of Dublin is rather ill inhabited than seated; the people of good natural abilities, but corrupted, some with a wild, some with a loose life; and, indeed, there is almost nothing in this country but it is either savage or wanton. They have hitherto wanted nothing more than to be kept in fear, which (by God’s grace) they shall not want hereafter. They are inclined, more than any nation I have seen, to superstitions, which surely have crept in between ignorance and liberty. In their hospitalities there is fully as much unhandsomeness as plenty. For their general parts, their bodies are active, and their minds are rather secret than nimble. When I have gotten a little authority of experience here, I intend to enlarge myself unto you in my opinion of them. For our wars, I can only say we have a good cause, and the worthiest gentleman of the world to lead it. The God of Wars and Peace keep you in His favour.

I must not forget we took last night a town of Oralois ^[1] ⟨?⟩ for our quarter, where we found infinite store of all manner ⟨of⟩ country provisions—ducks, hens, geese, and such like—as if he had lived in much peace of conscience. This man’s guests we were a night, but so ungrateful that we left him this day not so much as seges ubi Troia fuit. We are here amongst bogs and woods; that is, where they would have us to be, while they are only unfortunate in this, that they scant know what is left them more to desire. Certainly obedience and good public ends brought us hither, not our own wisdom, I dare warrant it.

46. To Edward Reynolds.

Cecil MS. 130, f. 183, transcript. ‘To my honest true friend Mr. Edward Reynolds.’ Wotton writes of his journey abroad, and of a debt owing to Reynolds. As Wotton went to France in November, 1600 (ante, p. 36), I place this undated letter here.

I do receive at this time (wherein I suffer some little indisposition of body), your letters very kindly, as friendly visitors; yet if you think they have added anything to my remembrance of you, then you take from their kindness. In your opinion of my honesty I will never deceive you, and therefore be constant in it, for I was born to be one of them that must live by it, if it be possible; and yet I understand many things of more hasty preferment. The profession of your love is welcome unto me in this barren age of true friends. I will keep it, and always yield you an accompt of the like. For that sum of money which I owe you, at my going abroad (which I think will be to-morrow), I will strain a friend to leave you satisfied, though I purposed to pay all my debts together, with the mortgage of my lease ^[1], which I expect on Monday, for till that be done, I am peradventure unquieter than other men. I will conclude with your own words and mind, that I am,

47. Isaaco Casaubono.

Burney MS. 366, f. 348, holograph. Wotton’s arrival in Florence; the change in his fortunes due to the fall of Essex, &c.

Venio nunc ad te (mi Casaubone) quantum possum; non quidem pedibus, quanquam et ita vellem lubentissime, sed animo et affectibus, quemadmodum itur ad Deum; et sic apud te sum ut coniunctior esse nequeam.

Florentia me iterum habet; ubi dum alii inter Agyrtas et Circulatores oblectant otia sua, parum abest quin ipse etiam in frequentissima urbe de solitudine querar. Imposuit mihi fortuna hanc peregrinationem; nec incongruens esse videtur ut cuius anteactam vitam falsa spes elusit, eius illa quae superest pars erroribus debeatur.

Vides (Vir Excellentissime) quam vix ingressus epistolam, abripior recenti memoria malorum; cum me ad te scribentem potius deceret toto animo regredi ad illa tempora, ad illa loca, ubi te praelucente versabar inter incorrupti aevi authores, qui de virtute scripserunt antequam cuiquam nocuisset esse bonus. Manet sane apud me perpetua tuorum erga me meritorum conscientia, virtutis et sanctissimae vitae veneratio, et in hac mea cassa conditione eo diligentius amandus es, ne videar et tui recordationem inter aliarum rerum naufragia amisisse; vellem quidem mihi liceret de Aula dicere quod Mercator ille de Aesopo quem tribus obolis emit: οὐδὲν κατεθέµην καὶ οὐδὲν ἐπριάμ⟨ην⟩.^[2] Sed multa mihi deperierunt, et hoc unum mihi superest ostenta⟨ti⟩onis genus, non ingratum exiisse.

Ex his locis scrib⟨am⟩ ad te singulis octiduis minimum semel: scies quid faciam, scies quid sperem. Et quamvis nos antea maria, nunc montes dividant, animarum tamen nostrarum mentes in summo bono (ut sic loquar) συγκεντρίζονται: nempe in litterarum honestissima voluptate, qu⟨ae⟩ in se satis praesidii habet, non solum ad iniuriarum omnium contemptum, sed etiam ad privatam quandam et suo testimonio contentam immortalitatis laudem.

Serius multo incipio te salutare quam pro amore nostro debueram: sed in caus . . . fides in curandis litteris: quo me metu . . . Iuntae ^[3] humanitas: qui hic Typographicam ex⟨ercet. artem⟩ . . . Philippo bono sene his proximis diebus ex Angin . . . Is Parisiis institoris loco utitur opera cuiusdam Bibliopolae vestratis (cui Somnio ^[4] nomen) ad signum della biscia: quod quia serpentis genus est nolo familiarius exprimere. Per istum hominem quicquid recte curatum, &c. In novissimo loco a te (qui solebas esse meae Athenae) duo haec per omnia amicitiae iura peto, ut ad me velis saepissime scribere, et ut Graece; atque ego tibi polliceor me eadam ⟨sic⟩ lingua responsurum, tam procul certe ab omni ostentatione quam ab omni elegantia. Sed ita remotiores erunt nostri sensus a vulgo, et me fortasse aliquid putabunt quibus hic continget videre tuas ad me ληκύθους. Per proximam occasionem habebis statum Reipublicae Literariae citra montes.

PS.—Accepi literas tuas per Corsinios: praeter indicia invaletudinis tuae, cetera gratissimas: unde necesse est ut iterum atque iterum dicam Vale.

48. Isaaco Casaubono.

Burney MS. 367, f. 75, holograph. Attributed to ‘Campanella’ in the catalogue of the Burney MS., but identified as Wotton’s by Mark Pattison. (Pattison, p. 379 n.) Wotton writes from Florence of his literary occupations, and his return from Germany.

Causa diuturni silentii mei haec fuit. Iam diu sum in adornanda commentatione quadam nostra de Fato ^[1], quam composui Graece; i.e. illa lingua quam ipsi etiam Apostoli videntur ceteris omnibus praetulisse, ut non loquar de Philosophis: sed et alia sunt, si non maiora, propinquiora saltem argumenta quae me praecipitarunt in hanc audaciam. Illa ex me post hac satis tempestive intelleges. Nunc autem praedico me destinasse in honorem tuum hoc ipsum qualecunque futurum opus. Et quamvis adeo mihimetipsi infantiae meae vere conscius sim, ut facile fatear me nimis alta petere, nolebam tamen aliquid levius inire, ne non modo labores mei sed ipsa etiam res te indigna esset. Praeterea, post illos casus et naufragia quae vidimus (ah) nimium, videtur mihi iam Fortuna ipsa magister reliquae vitae: nempe ΦιλοσοΦητέον; quae vox (ut nosti) solebat magnum oratorem consolari in luctu publico.^[2] Sed de his rebus fusius tecum postea loquar per epistolam. Decreveram quidem omnino silere, nec te privatim salutare antequam aliquod extaret publicum (quamvis cum ignominia authoris) beneficiorum erga me tuorum testimonium; nimirum, animi mei ingenua confessio qua saepe repeto illos dies, et reposco a Deo ipso, in quibus (ut tuis verbis utar) solem una condebamus.^[3] Haec sunt quae gestio consignare litteris et praemittere fatali illi θεωρίᾳ,^[4] quam prae manibus habemus. Nec quisquam est quem magis vellem patronum mei in gravissima re, et in controversia quae omnia fere saecula exercuit. Et sane opus erit in me tuendo magna amoris erga me tui constantia, nam necesse plane esse video ut perdam et veterum et recentium gratiam; sed ita ut cum Martiale vellem, si quid sit in nobis ingenii illud novissimum laudari.^[5] Editionem sola moratur spes, quae mihi a quodam Veneto facta est, de integro fere Hierocle ^[6] Graeco MS.: cuius vidi excerpta a Photio, sed in re huius momenti non sum contentus eclogis: sane ex iis quae hactenus vidi, apparet verum esse elogium Suidae de illo viro, cuius laudat µεγαλογνώµονα Φρόνησιν ^[7]; quod me facit avidiorem exemplaris Graeci, quia Latinum quod extat est valde mutilum. Salve Excellentissime vir: nam mihi somnum suadet et conciliat provectior nox.

Florentia hasce ad te scribo xxº Iunii, emendatis Fastis. Huc redii e Germaniis ante tres septimanas, ubi contigit mihi refricare memoriam tui in colloquio familiari cum ornatissimis viris DD. Bongartio ^[8], Freherio ^[9], et Hoeschelio ^[10]. Scribam ad te hinc per cursorem Romanum, quoties praeteribit hanc urbem nostram Galliam versus: nam non habemus (ut loquuntur) ordinarium. Potes rescribere (et id ut facias per Genios nostros obsecro) per Ioannem Sonnium, Bibliothecarium et Impressorem Parisiensem, qui curabit litteras ad Modestum Iuntam ^[11], Ph. filium, mihi amicissimum iuvenem. Iterum vale, et uxorem tuam totamque familiam a me quam officiocissimis verbis salutes.

49. To Belisario Vinta.

Arch. Med. 4185, f. 319, holograph. Inscribed, ‘Qualità di Re di Scotia, che fü poi d’Inghilterra.’ To an undated Latin letter, signed ‘Henricus Wottonius’, in which Wotton recommends an unnamed Englishman to Vinta, he adds in Italian, ‘Piglierò ardire fra tre ò quatro giorni di ricordar v. Sig^a d’ alcune cose intorno al servitio di S. Altezza Serenissima et di Re di Scotia, le quali scriverò in lingua Toscana.’ (Ibid. 1219, f. 264.) The document which follows, giving Wotton’s impressions of the Court of James VI, is no doubt the one to which this postscript refers, and was probably written in June, after Wotton’s return to Florence.

Questo é quanto ho potuto osservare intorno alla persona del Re di Scotia, et la qualita di quella Corte.

Il detto Re nacque nell’ anno 1566, pur al giudicio della vista non mostra pin di 28 anni, ó in circa. É di statura mediocre, di complessione gagliarda, le spalle larghe, il resto della persona in giu piu tosto sottile ch’ altramente. Nelli occhi, et nella forma esteriore del viso, apparisce una certa bonta naturale tirando al modesto. Discorre volentieri in materia di lettere, et principalmente di Theologia. Gran amator di concetti arguti, et il suo discorso proprio ha assai del dotto, et anchora pin dell’ eloquente. Porta li capelli corti, all’ imitatione del suo avolo Giacobo Quinto, chi fu il primo delli Ré di Scotia che disprezzava la zazzera. Patientissimo delli travagli, et poco curioso ó nelle vivande, ó nelli habiti. Nel maneggio d’ affari grandi è tenuto per un di piu secreti Principi del mondo, ma non spedisce ne anche le minime cose senza consiglio. In casi subiti ha fatto molte volte dimostratione d’ animosità, et specialmente nella congiura del Conte di Gouri, et nell’ haver ridotto a buoni termini d’ ubidienza et di quiete quasi tutti li spiriti piu feroci del Conte di Bodwel, in fuori ch’ é bandito. Per le spesse creationi di Marchesi, Conti et Baroni, si possa congietturare che non sia troppo soggietto ad ingielosirsi de’ grandi; benche alcuni pensino che questo si fa piu spesso là che nel Regno d’Inghilterra, perche il Re cerca d’obligarsi li suoi con honori et titoli; non havendo altro modo di beneficarli.

Soleva essere piu governato dalli ministri ecclesiastici che non é addesso. Fra le sue buone parti non risplende piu in nessuna che nella castita di vita, in che s’é conservato fin adesso, senza alcuna machia, contra l’essempio di quasi tutti li suoi magiori, i quali, col gran numero di bastardi che lasciavano, inturbidavan lor regni.

La Corte sua é governata piu alla francese ch’ all’ inglese. Ogni uno puo intrare quando il Re mangia. É servito con berette in testa; parla con quelli che gli stanno intorno mentre ch’ é alla tavola, secondo l’occasione, et essi a lui. Finito pranso, suole restar un pezzo inanzi che si retiri, sentendo burle et motti; di che ne piglia gran gusto. Fra gli suoi domestici et gentilhuomini di Camera si mostra molto famigliare. Fra gli grandi sta piu sul grave, et sul severo. Non tiene guardia ordinaria adesso intorno a sua persona, ó schifandone le spese, ó fondandosi sopra l’amor delli suoi, che suol chiamare la vera guardia di Principi.^[1]

La Corte sua é fornita di gran numero di gentilhuomini per la quantita del paese; fra gli quali é cosa molto difficile per un forestiere di viver sconosciuto, perche subito che vi arriva un viso nuovo, domandano, ó per curiosita naturale, ó per sicurita della persona del Re, chi sia, et che pretende. In summa mostrano tutti gran zelo verso lor Padrone.^[2]

50. To Thomas Wilson.^[1]

I have delivered those enclosed in your letter unto me of this week. I am glad to hear of her Majesty’s prosperity in Ireland,^[2] and I pray God it be a sound prosperity. Here is no news, but that Don Giovanni ^[3] is to depart tow⟨ards⟩ the Low Countries on Monday next, where he must be before the end of this month; and whether somebody here would be rid of him, or they there glad of him, I cannot tell you; but methinks it is a piece of a riddle (of which princes’ heads are full), to see him engaged in the Spanish service, out of which he is to draw a stipend of 500 Crowns the month. The Court here hath this week discoursed much upon the conspiracy in France against the person of the King ^[4], of which pray send me word what you certainly understand; for if it be true, it is likely to produce les septiesme troubles, and in my logic that is good for us.

Men grow more and more to opinion that the Spanish preparations ^[5] are but defensive; or, for some other attempt (perhaps as vain as the former) within the straits. For if it did threaten Ireland, why should the fleet (say they) be composed partly of galleys, whereof there is little use in the Irish Ocean, and a great deal of hazard? Nay, it seemeth more probable to divers that he will enter our Channel; where his galleys, being in danger of either ships or storms, may recover the ports of France.

I am not deep enough to judge of great actions; and therefore let princes do what they will, and we will love one other.

51. To Sir Robert Cecil.

The good opinion which it hath pleased your Honour first to conceive in your self of me, and then to deliver it unto my brother (who is in nature and in love the nearest unto me), doth assure me that how full of care so ever the times are now at home (whereof I can easily understand the greatest weight, next his Majesty, to lie upon your wisdom), yet that you will pardon in me this troubling of you from abroad, and honourably interpret the offer of my poor service, though it come both unseasonably and late.

Sir, I will gain your favour with plainness, which is my best occupation, and when I step out of it I do nothing handsomely. Therefore it may please your Honour to give me leave to tell you, that of all those which some time were of that unfortunate family,^[1] I only peradventure had reason to deliberate whether, after the death of our master (between whom and your Honour there was so public unkindness), it were fit for me to apply myself unto your service, because mine own person having been removed unto these parts (either of purpose or by accident), from the knowledge and participation of ill, the world (which must somewhat be satisfied) might think me more obliged to a tender and reverent remembrance of my master, than they that knew him worthy of opposition. And yet as I owed him a double duty—the duty of fidelity to his person while he lived, and the duty of reverence to his memory after his death—so I think I may justly say that he owed unto me in some respects more regard of me than I found about him; which I would not confess unto your Honour, but rather cover my disestimation, if from that interest, first of kindred and then of affection, into which it pleased your Honour to receive my brother, had not (as I may speak it) reflected some little distrust on me, wherewith the corrupt instruments of families did work upon one that was not worth the considering.^[2]

Your Honour seeth how I tumble myself up and down, strengthening and weakening the obligations of a servant. It is not (I protest unto your Honour) ingratitude, or new ambition, or tediousness of my present estate, how narrow soever it be; but as I was free by birth, so I seek to prove myself free by reason; and being so, I must confess unto your Honour that first, the obligations of nature do take hold of me, which bind me to carry towards your honourable person the same unfeigned zeal and devotion with my brother’s; next, the height and dignity, rather of your wisdom and virtue than of your place; and lastly, your Honour’s good and gracious conceit of me, wherewith it pleaseth you to deceive yourself.

Right Honourable, I should have presumed to have written thus much unto your Honour, albeit there had fallen out no difference between the times when my brother dated his letter (wherein he sent me that noble testimony of your favour), and the present. But besides those private respects, it may now please your Honour to receive a poor traveller, for his part, into the public obligation; since, contrary to malicious imaginations, God hath made you in this great business so apparent an instrument of the unity and glory of that whole island.^[3]

I am at this present with my nephew, upon our departure from Venice; a Signory that with long neutrality of State is at length (as it seemeth) almost slipped into a neutrality of religion; which I add to give your Honour a short accompt in what condition I leave it.

We bend ourselves towards Fraunce, but with some circuit about the civilest of Germanie. That country can yield me little sober matter to entertain my duties with your Honour. I shall be in Franckfurt on the Mayne this next September, about the time of the Mart, whither, if it may please your Honour, by any of your servants, to direct unto me your commandments, and with them to fashion me unto yourself, I do engage my brother’s word, and mine own honesty, for my perpetual fidelity and observation towards you. And indeed it is necessary, even in the order of nature, that your Honour should with your excellent instructions first inable ^[4] my understanding to your service, and then apply it.

This State hath newly chosen two principal gentlemen to be sent ambassadors to his Majesty, Pietro Dodi ^[5] and Nicolo Molini ^[6]; the first to congratulate, the other to reside. Pietro Dodi hath performed before ambassages to the Emperor and King of France, with good opinion. Nicolo Molini is at this present Savio di terra firma, an office of great reputation among them. They think to depart about the beginning of August, accompanied with divers young Clarissimi, who (since the introduction of horsemanship into this city) are more subject than they were to novelty and motion. Carolo Scaramella must return home for want of nothing but nobility, being otherwise esteemed one of their ablest instruments.^[7]

52. To Ralph Winwood.

Winwood Mem., ii, p. 24. Wotton begins his official correspondence with Ralph Winwood, English agent at the Hague. His journey to Venice; the negotiations for peace with Spain.

The enclosed unto you from my Lord Cecyll ^[1] is rather of course than necessity, for there is sufficient argument to breed a correspondence between us in the very combination of our affairs and services, besides our ancient friendship and natural curiosity. In God’s name, then, let it begin; for my part in it, I will not only interchange with you the offices of a public minister, but as diligently and more affectionately the respects and duties of a friend; wherein I have more skill, and hope to show it you on diverse occasions.

I send you herein a cipher ^[2] as you advised me; and I commend unto you the bearer hereof, Sir Thomas Gates ^[3], whom I entreat you to love, and to love me, and to assure yourself that you cannot love two honester men. I take the way of Amiens, and so through Lorraine to Strasburgh and Augusta. The ship that transported me to Bulloigne is to return, so that she may be ready with the rest, to fetch the Constable of Castile ^[4] over, who is expected here within eight days, or, if you will, somewhat longer, for Spanish gravity’s sake, and to cover his Majesty’s appetite unto this peace; whereof you have reason to know more than I, because it is more pertinent to the States of the Low Countries than those of Italy. I will therefore entreat you to advertise me in the first letters, as much as you shall think fit for me to know, concerning the resolution of the States upon this argument, whereof I now speak as of a thing in esse.

Your letters (according to your very friendly promise) I will hope to find in the hands of James Higgens ^[5] in Venice at my arrival; and I expect you, upon the receipt of this, to begin our weekly intercourse of writing by way of ‘provision’, as you term it; which I will begin in Augusta, or sooner if I can gather anything by the way. And so, commending your safety to the God of Heaven, I rest,

53. To the Viscount Cranborne.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Addressed ‘To the Lord Secretary’. Undated (for date see note 1, p. 321). Wotton writes to Viscount Cranborne (Robert Cecil’s title from Aug. 20, 1604, to May 4, 1605, when he was created Earl of Salisbury), of Sir James Lindsay’s audience with the Pope.

This State resolved to send for me into the College on Monday next, and there to give me their resolution about the propositions of our merchants that touch the general benefit, as also in two particular causes which I moved in the Senate ^[1] this last week, of which things his Majesty shall receive an accompt by one Coitmar ^[2] (who is to depart hence within three or four days), and withal some other matters which require a sure messenger, as I judge him to be. I am at this present, through the asperity of the weather, fallen into a little febrous indisposition, and was resolved to have written nothing by this post unto your Lordship, but that I am roused with a letter from Rome, whence an Italian (who I can assure your Lordship liveth there in sinu Apostolorum) doth advertise me that Sir James Lyndsay ^[3] on the 22 of December had audience (so he calleth it) of the Pope, and on the 24 had much speech with the Cardinal Aldobrandino ^[4], and sayeth he, li suoi negotii hanno un buon principio, perche non se n’e scoperta ancora alcun’ oppositione delli Cardinali Franzesi. Neither doth he speak more of it unto me, as if he spake to one that had some former information. If your Lordship understand anything by these words, it is sufficient. To me surely (as I must confess) they are very strange; for at his being here he disavowed unto me all employment, and said he had only from your Lordship a cipher to use upon occasion, and rather for Spayne than Rome. And I dare presume by your greater favours, that if his Majesty had, since my departure, resolved to apply him to any particular ends in that Court, your Lordship would have given me some light of it. Therefore, till I hear from your Lordship about the point (which I beseech you not to deny me), I will think that his business is wholly intrusive and voluntary. And so, beseeching the God of Heaven to grant your Lordship a prosperous course of this new year, which will begin to-morrow in the Roman style, I always rest,

54. To the Viscount Cranborne.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. No date, but written on Feb. 6, 1605, N.S., the day before the audience mentioned below, which was on Feb. 7. A complaint about an attack made upon a Venetian ship by some English pirates.

. . . I shall be called to-morrow (as I hear, though I am not yet warned) into the College to receive their complaint upon a fresh accident of a Venetian ship ^[1], assailed in the mouth of their gulf by a small barque (as they pretend) of Plimouth, into which have been gathered up in these parts a ramass ^[2] of rogues, some of Genova, some of Savoye, some of Barberie, and the master of her is English. They took very little out of her, forbearing the rest upon the entreaty of some English passengers, with more temperance than I thought had been in these kind of men. And I am glad of this occasion to speak again in Senate how vehement his Majesty will be to punish these enormities, and to redress both this and any other of their complaints, if they will but acquaint me with the means. Our complaints are, indeed, as I conceive them, far different from these, because they are laid, not upon outlawed vagabonds, but upon the very officers of this State ^[3]. The treaty here with me about their general grievances in the point of commercement ^[4] is suspended (as I advertised in my last) till they understand what hath been proposed by Mr. Secretary Harbert ^[5] there; at which delay I have taken no exception, because it seemed unto my poor judgment no incivility to let his Majesty complain first.

I stand generally very well with them since I began to be somewhat plain, and therefore (with his Majesty’s good liking) I will continue that style when there is occasion. I have no more now to say unto your Lordship, having discharged the rest by Coitmar. And, therefore, the Lord of Heaven preserve you.

Postscript.—Their ambassador resident ^[6] with his Majesty is by his private friends advised to return upon the death of two of his brothers, since his being there, through which his estate is in disorder. If he demand leave it will be granted by the Pregati ^[7], and (as I hear) there will be much competition to succeed him.

55. To the Viscount Cranborne.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Discrimination between merchant vessels and pirates. The murder of an English merchant.

. . . Here is nothing yet determined in the late deliberations about the means of securing their seas from piracy ^[1], wherein they are desirous to understand his Majesty’s will about the regulation of the duties of our mariners in occasions of encountering with their galleys; which surely, between insolency on the one side, and obstinacy on the other, hath been the ground of much disorder. . . .

The case of Nicolo Balbi ^[2] standeth now thus: two days since, the Advocate Finetti (of whom I wrote) was with me; and again very freshly this morning, running over the matter at the first time very rhetorically, wherein I gave him good breath; and when he had spent himself, I told him that though Balbi very well knew how to take away the life of another man, yet it seemed he was mistaken in the saving of his own; which indeed was not to be done by the choice of a wise advocate, or any such means, but by dealing plainly with me, who had such information of the matter that I would now accuse him to have been not only the author, but the instrument of the death of Parde. Therefore, since he was the protector of that oppressed name (as he styled himself), he should do well to give the party in prison better counsel to deliver the moneys and writings, and so to dis-exasperate his Majesty, whose minister I was; for which I would yet grant him the deliberation of four or five days, and promised at my next audience (which should be this day) not to touch that cause. So this day morning, after my audience, he came unto me again, and persisting in his former desire of justifying the party, and armed now with certain testimonies of his own mariners in the ship, that Pard should die naturally,^[3] I told him that because I was not the judge of Balbi, but now (by commandment) his accuser, I would defer the hearing of what he could say, till I went to the Senate, which should be some time this week, where (the custom of the State bearing it) he should be introduced, not only with my leave, but at my requisition; and if he could then remove from Nicolo Balbi that which I would lay upon him, I would rejoice heartily in his innocent estate. Always thus much I entreated of him (which I perceived to trouble his imagination), that since I had offered the said Balbi a course of saving his life by his Majesty’s means, and by open dealing with me (which he seemed as yet obstinately to neglect), the said advocate would discharge me, in all event unto the nobility of Venice, of precipitation in the pursuit of such causes against them. This he said he was bound to do; and being ready to depart, he broke forth into a wonder upon what grounds I should speak so constantly. I told him I had no commission to tell him that in my chamber, but he was likely to hear them in the College. And so he took his leave, resolved outwardly to prepare himself for the day; but (as I think) resolved inwardly to return again unto me before.

Right Honourable, I know that public ministers, in relations of this kind, should provide a little for their own credit, and not affirm too much of the event, but leave a certain latitude for the variety of will and opinion in a strange state; yet am I, besides the rule of wisdom, so warm in this case (which your Lordship hath particularly commended unto me), that I dare conclude he cannot possibly escape, without some most inimaginable accident. Therefore I am preparing of myself for it on Wednesday or Thursday next, unless he prevent me.^[4]

There is yet no Pope ^[5]; nor, since the inclusion of the cardinals, any certain judgement to be made. Parsons ^[6] is returned to Rome, and I have much to advertise his Majesty by the next post of that vile creature, whereof I am yet sounding the truth.

56. To the Viscount Cranborne.

S. P. Ven., holograph. No date or address, but plainly sent to Cranborne; and, as the references to Parsons show, written shortly after the above dispatch. Rowland Woodward sent to Milan, George Rooke to Naples.

Your Lordship receiveth herein (apart from other businesses) the draft of two instructions given unto two of mine own family ^[1]; whereof the one hath succeeded ill by a sudden accident, the other is yet in contingency. Of these it is fit for me to inform his Majesty both in respect of the things themselves, and also provisionally against such complaints as may peradventure be laid upon me from the Spanish side, as I have been already battered by the French.^[2] Therefore, though the enclosed papers contain the substance of my intent, both in the one and the other; yet I am desirous to speak unto your Lordship somewhat more particularly of them, as also of the parties employed, and mine own conceit upon the event. The first was that to Milan, unto which I was drawn by divers considerations. I saw it to be the place where all the Spanish aids for the Low Countries were either originally levied, or through which they must pass: I had understood by your Lordship’s letters of the 23 of January his Majesty’s ends touching the subsistence of the States; I found that there was much hope laid upon the preparations of this year,^[3] and upon the person or purse of Spinola, who was then expected to come by Barcelona into Lombardie, and there to take the view of the Neapolitans and others, albeit afterwards he fell down through France.^[4] Lastly, I believed (and so I do still) that the matter between Fuentes ^[5] and the Grisons would in conclusion produce extremities, according as the next Pope should prove after Clement VIII (who was then newly dead), or as the French King might take it.

These respects made me resolve to bestow an instrument of mine own in Milan, whence I did hope to derive some reasonable judgement upon what would follow, as well within Italie as abroad: neither did I much care (to confess the truth unto your Lordship) to breed a little amusement in this State about it, if it should be known; which indeed would give me here the more opinion.

The party whom I employed was one Rouland Woodward ^[6], a very honest person, and (notwithstanding his failing in this), I will be bold to say, of a very capable spirit, besides furnished at home by his own industry with good beginnings of the French, Italian, and Spanish languages; whereof he spoke the last best. I accompanied him, besides his instructions,^[7] with a letter to the Count Fuentes dormant in his hand, upon occasion lest, if he should encounter there with any that knew him to be one of mine, it might offer much jealousy; and in that case he was to deliver the letter, which under plain terms, recommended him to the Count as a gentleman that had come with me into these countries, and was now desirous to obtain more perfection of the Spanish language (whereof he had already some taste) in Milan, where that nation was very frequent, before his passage into Spain: which occasion I took likewise to commend unto him mine own service, having the honour to be placed so near him, and the like. Being in this sort arrived in Milan, and settled there according to my directions at board, where there was company of great quality, on Good Friday last ^[8] at dinner he was taken rudely from the table by some forty sbirri, and thence carried into the prison of the Inquisition, all his papers surprised, and among them the letter to the Count before then undelivered. The fourth day following he was set at liberty, and brought before Fuentes, who excused his not having sent for him sooner, with those solemn days of devotion; and very handsomely bestowed the whole matter upon the Inquisitors, saying, questi religiosi sono sospettosi, causing his papers and all things else to be rendered again unto him. Whereof being advertised, upon considering the circumstances that his papers had doubtlessly been perused, and his ends discovered in them (though there was not so much bewrayed ^[9] by anything that either Fuentes or the Inquisitors said), I drew him hither again. This was the carriage and the end of that matter.

Now the judgement that is to be made upon it is, in my opinion, very obvious; for it was surely nothing but a device to get a sight of his papers, shadowed with religion. The jealousy that moved it I take to have proceeded from the brother ^[10] there of Sir William Standly, a pensioner of Spayne, and dependent upon the Court of Milan; who peradventure was the interpreter of his papers, and then met he with his own name in a cipher, which was taken about the party; yet after his releasement, meeting divers times with him, the countenances were (as he telleth me) clear enough between them. With the event of this matter I am myself little troubled, being as ordinary in the course (which I now am in) as blows are to soldiers or gusts to mariners; with which I must comfort both the party employed, and myself, the employer of him upon mine own curiosity, and upon my desire not to be the barrenest instrument of those whom your Lordship ⟨hath⟩ planted in his Majesty’s service. But whereas I might justly expostulate with Fuentes the dealing against a subject of his Majesty’s by way of inquisition, I am bound to silence by the discovery of the party’s employment. Only thus much I will add, that if by chance there should be framed out of it any complaint, it may please your Lordship to answer for me, that there hath been here from that side the like practices upon me; for having but one servant in my family of a contrary religion, the King of Spayne thought him a fit subject to work upon: which the party himself hath detected unto me, and I am contented to let the practice run on. These are, my Lord, the effects of this mining and countermining profession.

I will now pass to that other matter wherein, as your Lordship seeth, I have taken advantage under the merchants’ businesses, to do a little right unto myself. The whole design appeareth in the instructions.^[11] Only, I have concealed in them (as was meet) the words which Parsons used of his Majesty’s to the Viceroy of Naples, which were, ‘(1) That his Majesty had since his coming to the Crown of England taken the bread of the Sacrament out of his mouth and flung it away contemptuously; (2) That the peace with Spayne is grounded upon nothing but an advantage of taking breath, his Majesty’s estates being exhausted; (3) That Papists are grown and growing even in the Court every day; (4) That though his Majesty hath been forced in his beginnings, as all new kings, to be moderate, yet he is likely, by little and little, to be worse than the late Queen against the Papists. That his Majesty is naturally inclined to Fraunce, and can never be a good friend unto Spayne.’ These were the speeches delivered by him to the Viceroy, who is a gentleman, as I hear, of easy impression. The man that gave him access unto him (but who are inaccessible to Jesuits?) was his secretary, a Spaniard, with whom he had old acquaintance in Spain. Of Parsons I speak more unto your Lordship in another dispatch. The gentleman of my house sent thither is one George Rooke ^[12] of Kent, a very industrious and discreet person. He is departed from me within these three days; and as I shall hear from him, your Lordship shall receive it. In the meanwhile I most humbly crave his Majesty’s resolution whether I shall (as out of myself or by his commandment) do anything for the obviating of these reports, or let them vanish like other imaginary bodies of the Devil.

The God of Heaven conserve his Majesty and his estates, and grant your Lordship under him long felicities.

57. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 168, f. 62, dictated, extract. Wotton sends Sir Thomas Edmondes, English ambassador at Brussels, the news of Italy.

I have likewise received the second from your Lordship of the 15 of June. I am sorry that you are likely to lose by the bargain, in writing to us here that are idle, or, as we call it, quiet, out of a province in action ^[1]; but I will study to entertain you always with somewhat, as the times shall beget it. We study at this present what the Pope will prove, for he is yet nothing.^[2] The Emperor hath sent unto him for money; whereof he is contented, upon such a holy intent, to gather in so much as may besides mend his own coffers, which have been empty, as the Cardinal Aldobrandino sayeth, more in one month under Leo XI, than in the thirteen years of his uncle. There is nothing yet so certain of the Pope as that he loveth money very well; and therefore we conclude he must love Spayne, for Fraunce yieldeth him nothing. . . . Your Lordship hath heard of the killing of Mr. Arthur Poole ^[3], a fruit of the Roman Court. He was found dead in the street of three wounds, on his finger a jewel of great value, in his purse fourteen Spanish doubles ^[4], about his neck a clock of artificial workmanship, his sheath in the hanger at his side; his hat, cloak, and sword he had lost. These were the circumstances of his end on St. John Baptist Eve; the next day he was buried at the Jesuits’ College by the Cardinal Farnese very solemnly in the Farnesian tomb. I shall write more of this hereafter; thus much have I dictated unto my secretary, my own hand being, with the extremity of the hot weather, faint. God will keep your Lordship in safety.

58. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., transcript, extract. Methods of converting Englishmen to Roman Catholicism. Rome under Paul V.

The report being come hither from divers places, and diversely censured, of a late tumultuous insolency committed by the Papists about the edge of Wales ^[1], whereof generally they make this use that their party is grown, I am moved by this occasion to present unto his Majesty, in all humble zeal, my poor opinion touching that part which cometh nearest my charge; I mean the restraint of his Majesty’s subjects abroad (as far as may be) from that foul contagion; which I think to concern me more particularly than any other of his Majesty’s ministers, since it is his gracious pleasure to be served by so weak an instrument in these countries, where the root of that evil doth lie.

I will therefore take the liberty (under his Royal favour) to speak plainly of it; and I am not afraid of offending even the narrowest confiner and circumscriber of an ambassador’s duty within matter of state; for he that taketh religion in these countries to be anything else than a point of state may peradventure be deceived. I see there are two main springs of this corruption: some are sent home, and some are sent, or come voluntary abroad, to corrupt and to be corrupted, as it falleth out in the conclusion of both for the most part, or for a great part of them. Of such as are sent home, as Jesuits, priests, or seminary scholars and friars (for there are of late some travelling Benedictines), I have little to say, because neither the annual number of them can be set down; partly being uncertain in itself, and partly magnified by the General of the Jesuits to the Pope, and by Parsons to him for their own glory; neither is it much available to learn their names, which they change when they come to the College, and their College names when they begin their travel homeward, and sometimes those at home which they have borne upon the way.

And for the course of their journey, there is less possibility of tracking it now than under the late Queen, by reason of the extent of his Majesty’s kingdom and opening of his ports to all nations. They are likewise much encouraged by the facility of recovering themselves (more than formerly they could) in this or that ambassador’s house upon their arrival in London; as Doctor Thornel ^[2], that was lately protected by the Venetian ambassador there; for which adventure I have seen him glorified in the copy of a letter written from Bagshawe ^[3] in Paris to Mr. Nicholas Fitzharbert ^[4]; but this perhaps the said ambassador did as to one of his own State being beneficed in Vicenza. Whatsoever the colour were, I am sure that upon this example, one Browne (born in Edinburgh, a man of dangerous parts) departed hence a month since with intention (after conference with Thornel) to hide himself likewise in that ambassador’s house for some time (as I did learn by very curious means); but he hath since been stayed with a Lectorship in Genua; so as for the keeping corruptors from finding a hole homewards, it appeareth upon the matter that it is grown, and groweth daily harder than formerly; and I see, as I have said, little fruit to be hoped in the prevention of it from the industry of his Majesty’s ministers abroad, unless we light upon something accidentally.

Touching the other part of such as are sent, or come voluntarily forth, it shall not be digression to represent unto his Majesty the nature of this Pope, and how things have been altered since the days of Sixtus Quintus.

Sixtus Quintus carried all things, and even the matters of religion, violently. Between him and Clement VIII there was none that had time to show himself. Clement VIII ⟨was⟩ generally moderate either by nature, or (as some have written) the counsel of the Cardinal Telledo ^[5], (which seemeth more probable) out of fear of the great and sudden mortality of Popes before him. Howsoever, whether this indifferent humour were innated ^[6] or infused into him, or taken by accident, I am always sure that his times were unto us more pernicious than any of his predecessors, and ⟨not⟩ so much by the length, as by the very quality of them. For whereas before the English Protestant that came in fear to Rome, either lived disguisedly, which by consequent kept him from the company of ill persuaders, or craved at his first coming the protection of the Cardinal Alen, obliging himself to depart within a day or two, when he had seen the antiquities (for in other form the said Cardinal, who was himself a subject to the Inquisition, could not yield unto it); I say whereas before these were the two courses of our countrymen (neither any third shift imaginable); under Clement VIII (mutatis artibus), began not only permission and connivency, but invitation and allurement of all nations and religions promiscuously. Through which freedom and conversation they began by little and little to take hold of such as came thither, entering into them (where they saw them weakest), not as they were wont, with certain arguments of the school, which they found to be but an overlading of young capacities, and the longer way, but working now upon every discontentment in the party (which by conversation they discovered), and upon every outward scandal at home, deriding, commiserating, and running through all affections; catching first the fancy, and by that the judgement and conscience, with certain popular observations (as I may term them) upon this or that accident; as for example, that of three Catholic men which wrote against the Jesuits, and Parsons in particular, God suffered two priests to be executed for that very crime whereof they especially accused him, and brought the survivor (meaning Anthoney Copley ^[7]) out of England hither to ask him pardon; whereupon said one of them: Opera manuum Dei veritas et iudicium ^[8]. Of this kind is the rest of their stuff, wherewith they transport divers, being now true of them (which was an ancient note of false and dangerous teachers), that in their order of converting, primo persuadent et postea docent. I must not forget a point surely of great consideration, that they have certain houses, whereof I am well informed, wherein they duly meet and confer together what hath been done, and what arguments or kind of discourse hath wrought most upon this or that disposition. Now Parsons perceiving these effects, and seeking as a Jesuit to appropriate to himself the work of conversion (for they begin to call that their essential difference from other orders), made three attempts under the said Clement VIII to reduce all English men at their first coming to the English College; making this motion twice in his own person, and lastly Sir James Lindsay was (as hath been formerly advertised) drawn, I know not how, to be the mover of it; which indeed had taken effect, but for the opposition of Paulino the Datary, an enemy rather to Parsons himself than to the matter. Thus stood things under Clement VIII. Leo XI came strangely to the Popedom, and went doubtfully out of it; and that is all I can say of him.

Now this Paulus V, as he was a creature of Clement, so by the present probabilities he is likely to prove an imitation of him. For though at first, his countermanding of his kindred back to Siena that were upon the way towards Rome, and his choosing of a Dutch colonel to lead his aids to Hungary, rather than some brother or nephew of his own, with two or three such-like circumstances, had almost planted an opinion that he would prove as absolute as Sixtus Quintus, yet now we see that he hath, with much ado forsooth, resigned his Cardinal’s hat to his sister’s son, and laid upon him the affairs, and rebaptized him Borgesi (whose name was Carafalla ^[9]), as it were to answer to the name of Aldobrandino under Clement VIII (which I could not but remember unto your Lordship by the way, being likely in the opinion of wise men to breed a fashion that the nephew of a Pope, whom he will invest with greatness, shall hereafter carry the name of his uncle); well then, for the manner of proceeding in Rome, things begin to take the very form of Clement’s time; but it is more pertinent for me to consider how he standeth towards his Majesty, and how his Majesty’s subjects are like to be used.

I am advertised divers ways, (as I think) very infallibly, of this Pope’s affection towards the King my master, and of his imitation of Clement VIII in that also; which they confirm unto me by his course while he was Cardinal, by his honourable speeches of his Majesty since he was Pope, by the ratification of all the pensions and provisions of our countrymen, by the civil usage of our merchants in his harbours, by taking the Primate of Ireland ^[10] into near credit about him, a man suspected by the Jesuits; by the continuing likewise of Paulino, though not as before in the place of Datary, yet in more estimation than was expected upon the change; but principally by the Pope’s proceeding towards Parsons since his return from Napels. Parsons hath since his said return to Rome had two personal audiences; the first (as I hear) for the most part only congratulatory and complimental, yet mingled with the promise of his industry about the reconciliation of England (as they term it), and how he had spent the time of his late absence from Rome (as far as the indisposition of his body would suffer), in finishing certain imperfect discourses for the good of the Church, and so forth. The second was more particular, laying down some projects for the said conversion (which I am promised, but have not yet received them), imploring the Pope’s round assistance in it, and amplifying the present persecutions of the Papists at home; at which time he presented unto the Pope four priests whose names (as then) were these: John Wilson ^[11], Henry Orland, Roberts ^[12], and Somersyde, which were to be sent into England, and (as I heard) by the way of Spayne. The Pope blessed his priests, but gave him otherwise very small countenance, answering that he had better hope of his Majesty, whom he knew to be a wise Prince and the like. Not long after, this holy instrument dealt with the General of the Jesuits, to reduce the Scottish Seminary at Rome to the English College, indeed for the increase of his own power, but with appearance of other reasons, both because the nations were now united, and the said Seminary (as it stood) was but a weak body of some six or seven scholars, ill maintained and ill overseen. The scholars resisted this purpose violently with arms, and by the Datary’s means appealed to the Pope, who hath not only confirmed them as they were, but added thirty crowns monthly to their maintenance, and given them (whereof Parsons is wonderfully sensitive) the said Datary for their overseer. Thus standeth the Pope in his affection at the present. I will not argue whether it be likely to continue, against some that affirm the Pope’s daily inclination more and more to the Jesuits, into which conceit they seem carried by the example of the Cardinal Bellermine, whom he hath persuaded to resign the Archbishopric of Capua, and drawn him about his person into the palace. But I will be bold to say, that from the present facility of the times there as they yet stand, the gentlemen that come abroad are likely (in my poor opinion) to receive more hurt than they could do, or were wont to do, from the contrary humour; unless it may please his Majesty (which I remit with all humble reverence to his high zeal and wisdom) to lay an absolute prohibition upon all his subjects, from all conference and conversation in their travels with Jesuits, priests, seminary scholars or friars of their own language, which may be done without any local restraint or breaking of national amity. And his Majesty’s ministers in other places, as myself here, shall be able from time to time to give him an accompt of his subjects’ courses by our secret intelligences, and shall be glad to do it by particular commandment.

Thus have I taken the boldness, in a plain and confused manner, to discharge unto his Majesty my conscience and duty about this matter; and I have done it as ex officio, so ex voluntate, through your Lordship’s hands, of whose warm affection and care in the cause I have sufficient knowledge, even from those that could wish it otherwise. God, whose truth it is, will bless you for it, and you shall be guarded with the prayers of honest men.

PS.—Monsignor Paulino (Datario under Clement VIII) hath upon occasion been thrice above mentioned in this letter. This gentleman is much devoted to our nation, and when my Lord of Erskins ^[13] (son to the Earl of Marr) was in Rome, he made a secret offer unto him to procure the banishment of Parsons thence, if his Majesty would express his desire of it. My Lord of Erskins (out of zeal to his Majesty) gave me present knowledge hereof, demanding my opinion. I thought it a motion fit to be entertained by him in suspense till the King’s will might be known; but for my private conceit (which yet was to be concealed from the Datary), I held his being there not so hurtful, where he had many enemies to temper him and to over-spy him, as it might be somewhere else. Yet since upon further debatement, I have changed my conceit herein, and I think surely that if the said Paulino himself (which peradventure he may effect) were made overseer of the English College in the room of Parsons, or some other priest of contrary faction to the Jesuits, there would be still, though the same effects of nourishing and sending out converter⟨s⟩, yet less malicious and virulent. If his Majesty shall in his higher wisdom find it convenient, this matter may be yet pursued. Howsoever the said Paulino seemeth surely to merit thanks for his good intention towards his Majesty’s person, which yet he shall not receive from me till I am commanded.

59. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 168, f. 179, dictated, extract. Wotton’s return to Venice after the September villeggiatura.

I have indeed (as your Lordship did courteously conjecture in your last of the 21 of September) been in villa, as likewise all the public ministers of this place, except the Imperial, who is fixed here with indisposition of body. The town is now full of us again, and of our discourses, every man for his master. The French doth aggravate the late practices against that King, as it was first said against his person, but lastly against some of his towns ^[1]. The matter is laid confusedly upon the Duke of Bouillon ^[2]; the Spanish ministers, and the relics of the family and friendship of Byron. The Spaniards extenuate the loss at Bergken op Zome ^[3], whereof your Lordship writeth. And as for the making of the Marquis grandee ^[4], they shrink up the shoulder, as if it were a greater matter than we are aware of. For my part, I rail upon a report spread here of an attempt upon his Majesty’s person in the late progress, which had won much credit here in Italy, as many other vain things.^[5] . . .

I will conclude this with the commendation of my humble service unto your good Lady ^[6]—a duty before very quickly forgotten. And so the Lord will always bless you both.

60. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I have stayed the dispatching of that gentleman (whereof I wrote unto your Lordship in my last), till the beginning of this next week, in which time we shall surely see the event of the Prince’s sickness, who at this present is clear of his ague, but yet so as his physicians do much doubt of him. I shall by the foresaid messenger give your Lordship a great deal of trouble; and therefore in this I will even out of good manners be the shorter, remaining always, as I am bound by your great favours,

61. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

The last night the Prince departed this life. The Cavalier Lunardo Donato, having been chosen eight days since extraordinary ambassador to the Pope, hath stayed his journey, and is almost the infallible concurrent; only two things hinder him: first, his sufficiency; next, the inclinations of the time to troubles, whereby the State may seem to want a wise man for uses abroad. The State is quiet, rather through good laws than good dispositions.

62. To Edward Barrett ^[1].

Harl. MS. 1579, f. 125, transcript. The deaths of Pickering Wotton and the Doge Grimani.

I have, since your departure from hence, received two very friendly letters from you, and with the later thereof you have made me also partaker of the fruits and collections of some part of your travail, for which I do owe you more thanks than so troubled a mind can tell how to yield you handsomely. Believe me, Sir, the reports of my nephew Pickring’s ^[2] end have been heavy unto me many ways; but we have against this and all other accidents, only that foundation which the Saviour and Judge of the world hath left us in the form of His prayer; and though He were God himself, yet sealed it in the patience of His humility, Voluntas tua fiat Domine. I received yesterday the enclosed from the Cavalier Vinta ^[3], which signifying the Duke’s sudden departure upon your access alla campagna, and his taking of my letter with him, it hath put me into a conceit that he was afraid of the contents, and so deferred the reading thereof.

We poor men are enough to make wise princes start; but till I know the truth from you, I will not foster in myself these apprehensions.

For the state of things here, the Prince hath been dead eight days.^[4] The public is quiet, ⟨more⟩ peradventure through good laws than good dispositions. Yesterday the Prince was buried in foul weather; this day the Correctors give in their verdict unto the Grand Council, and upon their approbation of it or otherwise, they will to-morrow proceed to the election of the future Prince.

The Correctors are five of the principal gentlemen of the State in knowledge and merit, being chosen to propose what shall seem fit unto them to be altered in the form of the next election, as time hath discovered this or that inconvenience—and this ⟨is⟩ always the first act after the vacancy. There are also chosen three Inquisitors, who are to censure the carriage of the dead Prince. And about these offices have been spent this week.

To-morrow (if the solemnity of the day do not hinder it) will be chosen the first thirty Electors, upon which dependeth the judgement of what will follow. The concurrent of greatest appearance is the Cavaliere and Procuratore Leonardo Donato, who surely will be the successor, if he be not the fittest. This is the inclination of the present with us here.

From home I have had indeed (as you imagine) besides private letters, a very large and particular dispatch from my Lord of Salisbury about the late practices,^[5] which arrived somewhat late in my hand, having been sent by the way of France a day after the departure of the Antwerp post. And it appeareth therein what the fruits are of that viperous brood, nourished in foreign seminaries under the colours of religion and charity, and the holy use of their absolution, by which a priest had assured the conscience of that Johnson or Vaux ^[6] (for he hath divers names), some two days before he should have put fire to the train.

I will say no more hereof unto you, because you write that the particulars were come to Florence.

For those other instructions of the state of Spayne, I will suspend the courtesy of your offer therein until your return thither.

You have already furnished me with the most necessary observations about a Prince, which are of those that guard his person with arms, and his estate with wisdom; and you have obliged me thereby not to keep from you anything that I shall think worthy of you. I pray return very heartily my long affection to your brother, and my desire to serve him. And our dear Saviour keep you both.

63. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

I have received from your Lordship no letters these last two months, which occasioned in me likewise an intermission of that correspondency which was begun, and some time continued so well between us. This silence on my part, I very seriously protest unto your Lordship, hath proceeded from nothing but the apprehension of your sickness, in which case it were unfit to entertain you with novelties; though it might peradventure, in some sort, comfort you to see as well politic, as natural bodies, subject to alteration and infirmities. We have here lost the old Prince, and the Cavalier Leonardo Donato is chosen in his room, a wise and beaten ^[1] man in the world, eloquent, resolute, provident; and of all this the State seemeth to have very much need, being fallen into terms of great contumacy with the Pope.^[2] Whereupon hath ensued a monitorial brief, summoning the Signory to obedience, and in defect thereof menacing the excommunicatory sentence, which indeed they have incurred ipso facto, or lata sententia ^[3] (as the canonists term it). And therefore the manner of proceeding with them hath been somewhat indulgent (as hath been very well urged by the Nuncio here). The causes of this breach have been denial of decime, prohibition of immovable legacies to holy use, and the like. But especially the laying of secular hands upon men of the clergy, as on an abbot ^[4] accused of many foul crimes, and a Canonico ^[5] of Vicenza for dishonouring a virgin; which last is, in this corrupted country, esteemed the most heinous and prejudicial to papal authority of all imaginable cases. They have here chosen the Cavalier Duodo ^[6] (who was sent to congratulate with his Majesty) extraordinary ambassador to the Pope about this business—so applicable are their instruments to contrary offices. And so, wishing your Lordship health (if you want it) and always all prosperity, I rest

64. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 168, f. 334, holograph, extract. The quarrel with the Pope, and the news of Venice.

. . . In this business there are two remedies, the one, to do that which the Pope desireth, the other, to give him sufficient reason why they should not do it. They have resolved even from the beginning upon the second. And I must needs tell your Lordship, not in sport, but in very good earnest, that this breach hath put many kinds of men into work. The politiques ^[1], how to find delays; the canonists, how to find distinctions; the divines, how to find a new religion: which last point they divided into two resolutions, either to force their Latin priests to say mass after the excommunication, or to pass to the Greek faith. Our new Prince is warm in the cause, and very well skilled in the Roman Court, where he hath been nine times in quality of ambassador. He hath since his assumption been congratulated first by the ambassador of the Duke of Urbin ^[2], a kind of liege prince to this State, and yesterday morning by the Duke of Mantova. I have had two audiences with him, and find that we shall lack no good words under his government. Yesternight late a secretary was sent unto me from the State, to give me knowledge of a dispatch which they have newly received from Constantinople, touching a great defeat of Cigala ^[3], who hath lost 50,000 men, all his carriages and artillery, and is retired as far as Aleppo; which is likely to deliver unto the Persian the dominion of Asia, and to give our Emperor some ease in the matters of Hungary. I will hearken for the arrival of the Marquis Spinola ^[4] in Genova, of which State he is, since the death and division of the goods of the Prince Doria, absolutely the wealthiest. And so, desiring to hear often from your Lordship, whom I do very much love and honour, I rest,

65. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Death of the Doge Grimani, and character of his successor, Leonardo Donato.

Marino Grimani, Duke of Venice (weakened with a double tertian, and more with age itself, and with apprehensions of his own end), on the 23rd of December towards morning departed out of this world. He had lived almost seventy-five, and governed the State, rather in quality than degree of a Prince, nine years and nine months. He was a man of a grave and benign aspect, not eminently eloquent or wise, adorned with some learning and with much goodness, of a young but a numerous and wealthy house, magnificent while he was private, and afterwards as far as was lawful; his youth unstained with any notorious disorder; in his settled age, instead of faults, they taxed him with too public charity, against which, after his rising thereby, there passed a decree in Senate to as much shame as safety of the State, and therefore it hath since vanished, though rather by silence than abrogation. His father had borne before him good credit in the Commonwealth, and came to stand for the Princedom, and himself had passed through all the best charges and employments. He was generally a zealous patriot, and a great conserver of the public plenty; which is the only popular virtue allowed here in a Prince. The sovereignty he carried from two great competitors: Leonardo Donato (who now hath succeeded him) and Giacobo Foscarini ^[1]; who, hindering one the other, and protracting the election, he was advanced to the place by the general cries and almost tumult of the people, in whom he hath left such impression as his successor must surely build his fame (if he will have any) upon other virtues. His times were quiet, and his end, peradventure even in that respect, opportune. In the extremity of his sickness, the physicians record one memorable passage. He was visited by his friends, whom, welcoming with a very high and strained voice, and they taking knowledge thereof as a sign of much strength and life in him, ‘No’ (said he) ‘I speak aloud like our boys, that being sent of errands in the night, sing by the way when they are afraid.’ So conceitful was his soul not long before the separation. He left by will great distributions to the poor, and annuities to hospitals and convents; and surely, as he was a good Prince for this State and in himself a good man, so he would have been a good Christian, if he had been well taught. These were the circumstances of his end, which, falling into a solemn time, was not published till the Monday following.^[2] Now, after the publication thereof, the first care is the ordering of the palace, where the Signory (represented by the Councillors and some others) are during the vacancy to reside in the rooms of the dead Prince; thereby figuratively signifying (as they will have it) the immortality of the Commonwealth.

The next care was to keep the body of the State in quiet; whereupon, because the Carnival was presently to begin, which licentious season might produce some bad accidents, it was thought fit for a time to suppress all mascaradas, and such public follies. Things thus ordered, the nobility began to work the people to wish and to discourse upon this and that successor, to open their affections and their hate, to compare merits and persons together, as the manner is in such cases. Among the nobility there were three competitors of eminent consideration: Leonardo Donato, Alvise Priuli ^[3], and Marc’ Anthonio Memo ^[4], all three Procuratori di S. Marco ^[5], all three of great age; and in several respects much to be said, much to be hoped, of each of them.

Donato had been employed by the State in the most important services, and besides other, had been nine times at Rome in quality of ambassador, with great reputation at home and fame abroad of his wisdom and integrity. His friends pretended that he had received a disgrace, and (where they durst speak more freely) a wrong, even to miss it at the last election, though against greater concurrents; and being now arrived at the seventy-second year of his age, what further hope could he have if his reward were again deferred? It is true that they were all bound to do their best for the public good; but who would serve it cheerfully if there were no recompense? . . . It was notable to hear the arguments that were searched for the exclusion of Donato. His merits were known, his wisdom confessed, and rather indeed amplified than denied by his adversaries; but great understandings were rather to be wished in Princes that are absolute. They had been ruled and swayed by his advice, even before the death of Giacobo Foscarini ^[6], and the ecclesiastical preferments of Delphino ^[7]; and much more since, though in a private condition: what would he do when he should be Prince? The Commonwealth in this fashion might come by little and little to the form of a monarchy: for what difference was there in the effect between being subject to one man’s counsels and to one man’s authority? Besides, he had been chosen six days before, and was indeed the meetest of all men to be sent to the Pope, and for such foreign uses. It was true that his behaviour was outwardly modest; but who knew whether that were a part of his nature or of his wisdom? The importance was what he would be when he had obtained his last ends. As for his former service and employments: shall every man that serveth his country be angry if he be not made Prince? With these and the like speeches and murmurs they sought to weaken him: certainly not altogether out of cunning for the present, but from a true feeling of his greatness and eminence, which had been long, and (I may say), according to the nature of this State, somewhat strangely endured.^[8]

66. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton sends two intercepted letters to Salisbury.

Your Lordship receiveth herein two papers. The first is the original of an intercepted letter, sent from Rome hither to the Jesuit Possevino ^[1] by one of his order, of whom I know no more than the two first letters of his name—if those underwritten be so, and not rather some characters between them.

I have found a means to take up such things as these are, now and then, upon the way; and I must confess myself to have a special appetite to the packets that pass to and from those holy Fathers.

67. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., dictated, autograph signature. Wotton’s illness; the reception at Venice of the sentence of excommunication.

Having been these four days (and so at the present) much tormented with the headache and toothache together (of which I had felt neither in twenty years before), I am not only troubled with the pains thereof, but (I protest unto your Lordship) as much with the very season, being fallen upon me in a time which yieldeth such entertainment to his Majesty and the rest of the world. It may therefore please your Lordship to excuse with my present infirmities the shortness of this dispatch, which I am forced to dictate on my bed, from whence if I should never arise, yet it would be a great comfort to my soul to have lived to see a Pope notoriously despised by a neighbour State.^[1] The farther particulars shall come (God restoring me health) by the next post. Only to give his Majesty a little taste of our spirits here, it may please him to know that within this hour hath been published in the chief places of this town, by sound of trumpet, a proclamation to this effect: That whosoever hath received from Rome any copy of a Papal Interdict published there, as well against the law of God, as against the honour of this Commonwealth, shall presently render it unto the Council of Ten upon pain of death. Whereunto all the rest of their proceedings hath been (as I must bear them witness) in all circumstances very suitable; and hereby your Lordship seeth not only the Pope’s temporal usurpations, but his spiritual, defeated by laying upon him the public note of having erred against the Word of God itself, in a consistorial and cathedral conclusion, as the schoolmen term it. This is all which his Majesty can receive from me till the next post. In the meantime I hope Mr. Partridge ^[2] will arrive with other matter of much consideration through the way of France, unto whose dispatch (having been then forgotten) I desire now to add the departure of Sir Robert Basset ^[3] and Mr. Geoffrey Poole ^[4] from Rome towards the Low Countries. And so I rest humbly and always,

Signor Molino ^[5] arrived here yesterday, and hath this morning been in College.

68. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . The Jesuits here finally refusing (though at first they gave some hope of the contrary) to perform any ecclesiastical duties when the Pope’s interdictum should come actually in force, the State hereupon, three days since, did pass a decree in Senate to banish them out of all their dominion, with this notorious circumstance comprehended in the decree, that an under secretary of the Senate, with a Comandatore or pursuivant, should take an inventory of their movables, not permitting them to transport with them anything but their quotidian habit, and their breviaries; which hath accordingly been executed here.^[1] Now before their going, one of the principalest and boldest of them (called Il Padre Barone ^[2]), having obtained a private access unto the Prince, made offer unto him of interposing his Society for the reconcilement of the Pope. This was on Saturday last in the morning; at which time he had from the Prince this noble answer, that ‘the State of Venice had never before used such instruments and would not now begin’; and therefore he willed him ‘to forbear the employment of themselves either much or little in this matter, and rather to spend their time in considering that they had been already too busy in the world’. And so he departed.

I must not be transported with the secret comfort that I take in these things, and in mine own relation of them, from giving his Majesty an accompt of a particular duty performed by myself here in College this very Saturday morning above named, which was the first day of any ease unto me, almost these three weeks. The subject of my speech was to declare the just causes upon which our criminal statutes against the Jesuits were grounded, and to defend herein his Majesty’s equity and honour, which had (as far as might be by them) been blemished with certain articles that, for the preoccupation of men’s judgements, had been dispersed through Italy (as I had from divers places particular knowledge); which articles the Jesuits pretend to have been proposed unto their Provincial lately taken, and hereof I sent your Lordship a copy by Mr. Partheridge. Now, as I spake herein with much length, and (as I must confess) with much will, and finally opened unto the Signory out of your Lordship’s last dispatch (which came very seasonably) the guiltiness of the foresaid Provincial ^[3], whose innocency they had preached here; so had I great attention and applause, the time more favouring me than mine own ability; and the Prince gave me an answer full of zeal towards his Majesty and full of these impressioni indelibili (as he called them) which this State and the world had taken of his Majesty’s justice and wisdom and goodness and magnanimity; and he doubted not but God would prosper both his realms and his person from attempts, whether they were open, or covered with the veil of religion. This was the substance of that day. And so I humbly rest,

69. To the Earl of Salisbury.

The differences between the Pope and State of Venice being now grown so far, that neither of the parties can retire without notable loss of reputation, I had once determined by this post to represent unto his Majesty’s high wisdom the judgements that are here made upon the event. But this duty will be more seasonably performed by the next; for at the date of the present, I can assure your Lordship that neither the State here, nor any particular man, can tell whether the Pope hath yet actually pronounced the excommunication in Rome or no; for Monday last was the day wherein it should regularly have been done (as I have formerly advertised), but the freshest letters that we have from thence are of Sunday.

Now, in the dependency of this business, many things have been done here provisionally; some in judgement, some in passion, some in earnest, some in sport, some in contempt, and nothing (that I have yet seen) in fear: which I will set down by way of rhapsody, like the very nature of the time itself. First, the ambassadors are departed from both sides, the Nuncio first, and with leave demanded and granted civilly and easily. The Venetian from Rome with violence, for the Pope by a bishop commanded him to be gone, unless he would remain there in private quality, which he refused; and is this very day expected here from a town but five miles from hence, where he lay the last night. . . .

I have been called twice to the College ^[1] by them since the heat of the business; and as they have been careful to acquaint me with their proceeding therein, so I must give them this testimony (as far as my weak capacity may censure ^[2] so grave a State) that they have carried hitherto every circumstance thereof with most exemplar ^[3] wisdom and magnanimity. And I hope God hath appointed the re-entrance of His truth by such a beginning into this goodly country, which hath so long slept in error and ease. And as his Majesty shall have the honour, so I will have my part in the comfort, that this poor family hath given them the first example (and I hope without any notorious scandal to our profession) of God’s incorrupted service on this side of the mountains, since the Goths and Vandals did pass them, and confounded the marks and limits both of State and of religion. And so I humbly and always rest,

70. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Undated, but sent with letter to James I of May 26. Feast of Corpus Christi at Venice. How the Benedictines contrived to elude the Pope’s sentence of excommunication. Wotton asks for more secret-service money.

. . . Yesterday was the Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated by express commandment of the State (which goeth farther than devotion), with the most sumptuous procession that ever had been seen here, wherein the very basins and ewers were valued in common judgement at 200,000 pound sterling, besides many costly and curious pageants, adorned with sentences of Scripture fit for the present, as Omnis potestas est a Deo,^[1] Date Caesari quae Caesaris et Deo quae Dei,^[2] Omnis anima subdita sit potestatibus sublimioribus ^[3] Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo,^[4] and the like. The reasons of this extraordinary solemnity were two, as I conceive it. First, to contain the people still in good order with superstition, the foolish band of obedience. Secondly, to let the Pope know (who wanteth not intelligencers) that notwithstanding his interdict, they had friars enough and other clergymen to furnish out the day.

The process of the Jesuits dependeth still before the Council of Ten as a criminal cause.

The monks of St. Benedict (which draw 200,000 crowns of yearly revenue out of the Venetian State) have found a notable way to delude the Pope’s authority, not yet daring to deny it, which is this: they have caused a chest to be made without a lock, fast nailed on all sides, and in the top thereof a little hole, into which they throw all letters that are directed to their convent without exception, lest they might receive some prohibition from their General, and so mean to save their consciences by the way of ignorance: which point of subtle discretion is likely to be imitated by other orders. . . .

The State useth me with much kindness, and I protest unto your Lordship I think hereafter they will come nearer unto his Majesty, not only in civil friendship but even in religion. I have, upon the inclination of things that way, begun to take order for an Italian preacher ^[5] from Geneva whatsoever it cost me, out of shame that in this kind, the disseminators of untruth do bear from us the praise of diligence. . . .

The quality of the time tending towards unquietness (wherein it shall be necessary for public ministers to have moneys about them) maketh me in the conclusion hereof, to take the liberty to say somewhat unto your Lordship about my private estate, whereof it hath pleased you to be no less a protector than of all things else that are weak in me. I do first give your Lordship very humble thanks for the expediting of my extraordinary allowances at £200 a quarter ^[6]; though with just protestation that I shall be a loser by it, for I have laid at the chargeablest, so the best, means and ways of the world to furnish his Majesty with the knowledge of the secretest practices out of the very packets of the Jesuits themselves, and herein the seat of this town (fit for interception) doth somewhat advantage me; and mine own zeal, not to be altogether unfruitful, hath made me likewise bestow some instruments in other places that are places of passage. So as for that money which I spend of his Majesty’s abroad, I presume, according to the measure of my understanding, that I shall tender him at least an accompt of my honest industry: I call that honest which tendeth to the discovery of such as are not so, by what means soever, while I am upon the present occupation. And in this course I am infinitely comforted with his Majesty’s gracious acceptance of my poor labours, expressed unto me in many of those letters wherewith your Lordship hath honoured me. Only the remembrance of that 1,000 marks (which I owe at home, and can possibly never pay out of my present receipts) doth so clog my spirit and conscience, that if I did not fear to have been already too bold a suitor unto your Lordship about it, I should renew that importunity which your former graces have given me. And this is all that I have to say at the present, beseeching the God of Heaven to preserve your Lordship, which I do as heartily for the public as for mine own benefit.

71. To the Earl of Salisbury.

The matters here between Venetians and Pope go forward with great appearance of war,^[1] by which I hope God hath appointed in His eternal counsel to purge this country.

Of these things I determine by the next post to make unto his Majesty a very particular dispatch; whom at the present I will take the liberty only to entertain with the enclosed intercepted letter written from Rome by one Lorenzo Terzo, a famous Jesuit, since his banishment from Venice. And in this kind I am resolved to sacrifice my poor service unto his Majesty, for which I have laid very good instruments, that I may light upon some of their plots and practices as they pass from college to college, or from their colleges to courts. Wherein God prosper me, and keep your Lordship long in His dear protection.

72. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I was on Tuesday last ^[1] called to the College, as I had been divers times since the heat of this business between the Pope and them, to be informed (as other public ministers) of their proceeding. I have had likewise some voluntary audiences, to set forward our own causes in a time of this quality, as also to deliver unto them my poor conceit upon the present. It is a State that whether it be in fear or otherwise, heareth all men speak willingly.

In these accesses I have been free of myself, and spareful of the King my master; yet, being loath (as I shall not need to protest unto your Lordship) to hinder these troubles, I have always affirmed, as I may safely, that since the 18th of August, 1604 (the day wherein the treaty was signed with Spayne) his Majesty’s harbours have been open to all princes, and his subjects left in their natural liberty. Meaning (as they did easily take me) that even the Pope (in quantum a temporal Prince) might peradventure get some out of his Majesty’s realms to his service (and I would for my part he had them all), but that if they should need any voluntary good fellows from thence, their share would be the greater.

. . . On Wednesday next are to depart hence certain English merchants (come newly from Aleppo) by whom his Majesty shall receive through your Lordship’s hands a most important intercepted letter from Rome (for in that course I proceed), which I dare not adventure by the ordinary post; and I must confess I am at the present yet somewhat staggering whether I shall send it by an especial messenger. In the meantime I have now taken the liberty to discourse unto his Majesty some few points touching those troubles which are yet in fieri:^[2] it is my meaning in these presumptions to submit them, in their passage, first unto your Lordship’s view and judgement, as they are also by the counter-cipher (that lieth in your secretary’s hand) to be deciphered in some places; neither am I so fledge ^[3] either in this or any other profession, that I dare trust myself upon mine own wings. And therefore (good my Lord) let me humbly beseech you to exercise, as well your severity as your compassion, upon my follies and weakness. And so I commit your Lordship in my prayers to the God of Heaven.

73. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Process against the Jesuits. Character of the Doge Donato.

. . . Here the differences between the Pope and this State are grown on both sides to such passion, and to such irrevocable terms, that upon the gathering in of the harvest (which is almost all in the barns), we expect it will break forth into action.^[1] In the meantime they have here newly concluded in Senate the process of the Jesuits, who, with great unity of consent, are banished out of all their towns and territories for ever; and because their skill is known in working into states out of which they have been ejected, there are here decreed three provisions against the possibility of their return: first, that they must pass le strettezze delle balle (as we term it) in the College, and have the whole twenty-seven balls in favour, before the proposition be admitted into the Senate. Then, that in Senate they must carry five-sixth of the voices, which are 150 of 180. And thirdly, that in both places (before proceeding to the ballotation) the whole process must be read, both of that matter which hath been hitherto alleged against them, and shall be hereafter. And this last provision was proposed by the Duke himself, as well for irritation as for delay; of whom, both in this particularity, and in all other circumstances of this great business, there cannot surely be sufficiently spoken, being in all men’s opinions worthy, in a time of this nature, to be not only the Duke, but the Dictator of the State;^[2] and God (who forgetteth nothing in that He will have done) hath furnished him with seasonable virtues for the present: as great experience of the Roman Court, great dexterity in the conduct of affairs, a clear and extemporal ^[3] judgement, much eloquence, and readiness of conceit, a violent patriot, and the like; unto which we may assuredly add (that which seasoneth the rest) a very great degree in him of illumination in God’s Truth,^[4] which, upon my secret knowledge, is likewise in very many of the rest. And this having been subodorated ^[5] in Rome, they have there newly proposed in Consistory the processing of the Duke by way of Inquisition, wherein how they will go forward we yet know not. Neither at the present will I trouble your Lordship with any farther matter. Remaining for ever

74. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . Of the Jesuits (first dismissed and afterwards banished from hence), some settled themselves in Mantova; whereof two, the one (as I take it) a Florentine, the other a Paduan (by name Padre Gagliardo), seeing the hope of their return retrenched, began in that State to preach against the enormities of Venice, charging it not only with the height of moral vice, but likewise to be the root of atheism and defection: whereof the Prince there ^[1] being informed, and being himself a gentleman of Venice, and many ways obliged to them, he was tied at least to remove the said turbulent Jesuits out of his estate; which he did, and accordingly advertised the Signory by his resident here of his own proceeding in the defence of their honour. Hereupon there was a Senate called, wherein was decreed that there should, in the solemn place of the Rialto, a proclamation be published (which was done on last Tuesday morning), whereby the said Padre Gagliardo, Jesuit, and their subject, was summoned to appear, and to answer unto what should be objected against him, within the term of six days; which not doing, they have resolved to proscribe his person as a rebel, and to set a very extraordinary taglio upon his head for him that shall kill him. A proclamation not only for the rarity thereof in these parts, but in divers other considerations very notorious, as it is here conceived: for first there is not allowed him sufficient time to consult with his General, by whose direction all the inferior wheels of that order do move; and secondly it doth directly encounter one of the principal causes of the Pope’s first excommunicating of them (lest he should doubt of their perseverance therein), which was their proceeding against religious persons in criminal causes immediately. I am also secretly informed that upon these irritations, and upon the well weighing more and more the justness of their own grounds, and the interest which all princes have in the cause, they have in College given the French Ambassador ^[2] warning to deal no more with them by way of intercession. And surely (my Lord) I should now believe that the matter will presently resolve into some action, if the probability of a peace in Hungary ^[3] and the departure of the Hollanders from the coast of Spain ^[4] do not water our wine.

I send your Lordship, by a young gentleman of return from hence, divers epigrams, pasquils, and such sport of the time; and his Majesty shall have an accompt of the earnest when it is visible. In the meanwhile the Lord of Heaven cover his royal person and estates, and give your Lordship long happiness.

75. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The Republic of Venice sends thanks to James I for his expressions of sympathy to their ambassador. Their determination to maintain their liberty. Wotton’s speech to the Cabinet.

I come this morning, being Friday (which in other times had been the day of audience for the Nuncio), from the College, whither I was called to receive knowledge of a dispatch, which they determine by the post of this day to make unto their ambassador, whereof the substance will be this.^[1] To give his Majesty very humble thanks for that affection which it pleased him to show towards them unto their said ambassador, upon his relation of the present troubles ^[2], and to render unto him a farther accompt that since then the Pope, not contented with his first exorbitations, hath proceeded to the levying of men, and to the charging of the frontiers with them.^[3] That the King of Spayne hath by letters to the Pope declared himself in his favour, and made dispatches accordingly to all his ministers in Italy; which point they refer unto his Majesty’s great wisdom to consider whither it may tend. That for their parts, as they have hitherto stood upon the defence of their civil liberty and jurisdiction (which without recognition of any superior but God himself hath now been on foot 1,200 years), so they continue united in their judgements and spirits to spend their goods, their children, and their lives in the maintenance thereof, and do accordingly seek to make such provisions as shall be convenient; not fearing in the general cause of all princes to be destituted of friends, when their justifications shall be well understood, and particularly assuring themselves of the continuance of his Majesty’s love towards them. They have likewise especially commanded their ambassador to give your Lordship very affectionate thanks for your noble demonstrations towards them, and to express unto you their desire of demeriting ^[4] a friend about his Majesty of so singular wisdom. And herein they did me the honour to entreat me in consonantia with them (as the Prince termed it) to accompany this their office unto your Lordship also with my letter.

I replied that I was glad to be any way their instrument in so Christian a cause; that by a dispatch received from your Lordship but the day before (of the 18th of June in our style ^[5]) I had understood how his Majesty, upon the relation of these things (both from their ambassador and from me), had taken all the affections that became a King (their friend) of so excellent knowledge. He was sorry for their trouble and disquietness, he rejoiced in the glory they had gotten by their magnanimity, he comforted himself with the example of a State, famous both for antiquity and wisdom, and did hope that other princes (how late soever) would learn by them; and finally he was confident that God, who is the protector of just and honest resolutions, would work all for the best.

76. To the Earl of Salisbury.

We had yesternight certain advertisement (or at least it is such as the State believeth) that the King of Spayne’s galleys have made a descent into the continent of Greece, and sacked Durazzo ^[1], at the entrance of the Gulf, which will be imputed to the connivancy of the Signory of Venice by the Turk,^[2] and doth not a little trouble them, falling out in such a conjuncture of other cases.

I have, touching the other main business, much sport and much earnest to deliver, which can find no passage out of me; being this week wholly confounded with that letter wherewith it pleased his Majesty to overcheer his poor and humble servant in a foreign land,^[3] unto which mine own answer shall come by the next courier: for I protest before God I should otherwise fear to commit some monstrous incongruity by the present elevation of my mind. But in the meantime I very humbly beseech your Lordship (through whom these favours stream upon me) to express unto his Majesty some part of that joy which those dear lines have brought me, and withal to assure him that although at first they have filled my heart, not only with comfort and encouragement, but I fear likewise even with some vanity, yet the final operation of them shall be the humble and prostrate acknowledgement of mine own weakness, which it hath pleased him to sustain with his grace.

I shall then likewise give your Lordship an accompt what hath been done upon these instructions which accompanied his Majesty’s said letters. And so for the present leaving your Lordship in God’s blessed protection, I rest

77. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Two intercepted letters. Money for secret service.

. . . I send your Lordship herewith two intercepted letters ^[1] in the one whereof your Lordship is mentioned, in the other myself. For mine own part, I protest before God (whom I serve) that they cannot do me a greater comfort nor honour than to make me worthy of their hatred or of their jealousy; and as I am in my charge abroad subordinate unto your Lordship, and bound (besides your graces towards me) by the reverence of your zeal and wisdom to conform myself and my ends unto you, so if I may partake of some part of their malice (which your Lordship hath found in a greater proportion), I shall think it a sufficient reward of my poor labours. And since I am now speaking of this trade of intercepting letters (wherein your Lordship in your last of the 16th of July doth confirm mine own conceit of the fruit that may arise thereby, and authorize it by his Majesty’s approbation ^[2]), I will, from the encouragement of the said dispatch, take the boldness to tell your Lordship that I have placed instruments already to that purpose in Rome, Milan, Turino, Francfort, and here (which long since seemed unto me the fittest corners of Europe for it). I am also very well acquainted with the seals of the Jesuits and with their confidents and dependants, and so are they whom I employ; but the time now by reason of the present troubles is somewhat strait.

In this course I will also increase as I shall find occasion, and God bless us in it. Now, because my expenses will hereby grow more and more (for though there be great store of knaves, yet honest men are cheaper), I must humbly beseech your Lordship, in your quarterly passing of my extraordinary allowances unto my Lord Treasurer, to favour me somewhat above the former proportion; which presumption your last hath given me.

78. To James I.

I have received those most dear and most inestimable lines wherewith it pleased your Majesty to overcheer the heart of your poor servant in a foreign land; which, having often read and considered with that reverence and modesty which doth become the humbleness of mine own mind and desert, I acknowledge, and feel myself bound to render up again unto your Majesty all that, which out of your infinite grace, hath been attributed unto me. It is all as justly your Majesty’s, as your goodness is your own. And so, with the continual prayers of this poor family unto the God of Heaven for the long preservation of our dear Lord and Sovereign, we prostrate ourselves at your royal feet.

79. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I see when Kings meet, it occasioneth as much discourse among politiques, as amongst astrologers at the conjunction of stars, and as vainly many times, in the one as in the other. Here it is believed and spoken and written, and I think it will shortly be printed, that his Majesty and the King of Denmark ^[1] are making a league into which shall be received the Signory of Venice, the States, the German Princes of the Religion, and the French King if he will, or at least those of the Religion in that kingdom, and in Poleland and Hungaria, &c. Now as one rainbow (though they be but false colours) begetteth another by reflection (your Lordship will pardon my wantonness in these comparisons), so it is withal whispered, and hath won some credit (because it is grounded indeed upon more probabilities) that the Pope also doth secretly manage a league with Spain, the Emperor, and the Italian Princes, which your Lordship knoweth to have been the old disease of Italy: I mean, secret combination. And hereupon some in their discourses with me have gone so far as to affirm this to be the reason why the present troubles have not hitherto broken forth into action; because (say they) the Pope is not yet colleagued according to his design.

80. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton’s offer of English aid and forces. The return of his chaplain, Nathaniel Fletcher.

It seemeth very suitable and proper for me to render unto his Majesty an accompt touching your Lordship’s dispatch of the last of July,^[1] by this bearer, because the matter which it contained hath much sympathy with his vocation.

I received the said dispatch on the second of this month, which was Saturday. On Tuesday following ^[2] I had audience thereupon in a very full College, where I delivered the subject thereof with much asseveration on my part, and attention on theirs. The main point of his Majesty’s concurrence with them I resolved into his parts, for the more impression and noise: namely, that it should be with all his counsels, friends, and forces, both terrestrial and maritime,^[3] sincerely and seriously. The restriction was, quanto la conditione delli suoi Regni ne comporti.^[4] And for the better sounding of the State’s intent in the farther pursuit of this cause, I took the liberty to make this conclusion of my speech. That sithence his Majesty had herein no ends unworthy of his own greatness or goodness, as either his particular utility, or fomentation of others’ differences, or opposition of himself to any Prince that had or should enter into the cause, they were likewise bound to think him for his own part (as became a Prince of so Christian magnanimity) far from the apprehension of either paura or vergogna. But because the first of his Majesty’s inducements was his obligation to God, and the second his obligation to his friend, I thought fit, upon some considerations taken here from the place, to refer unto the wisdom of the Prince how he would have this his Majesty’s resolution (which did secondly contemplate their benefit) governed here by me, either palesemente or secretamente, because out of the knowledge of his Majesty’s excellent mind (which resolveth nothing that he will not avow unto the world) I stood ready for my part to publish it unto the ministers of foreign princes. The Duke hereupon (with eyes of much affection and tenderness) made me this answer in substance.

That the message which I had delivered was, in the highest degree that might be conceived, dear unto them.

That they had understood the same (though not so expressly) from their own ambassador: in whose behalf they were likewise bound unto his Majesty for admitting him unto his royal presence (as I had touched out of your Lordship’s instructions) among the days of his entertainment, and (as he would also believe) of his great affairs with the King of Denmark.^[5]

That his Majesty might likewise promise himself from this State, according to their abilities (which to my opinion he spake rather by way of modesty than of restriction), altrettanta prontezza et altrettanta devotione in any occasion that should concern his service and honour.

Touching the point of form which I had referred unto him, he would therein not trust his own judgement, but desired me to expect the answer of the Senate.^[6] . . .

I will conclude (under your Lordship’s pardon) with a few words touching the said bearer, from whom it may further please you to receive some things that I have committed to his trust. His name is Nathaniel Fletcher ^[7], son to the Bishop of London, that was so called. He is drawn home by his own urgent occasions, having been here with me now two years: and as he is the first that hath preached God’s Truth on this side the Alpes, since the main deformation thereof, so it hath pleased God also to bless his peregrination with the sight of this memorable and, I hope, eternal variance between the Pope and a neighbour State, upon the point of his authority; which, as it was built and conserved by ignorance, the great mystery of this Church, so being now called into examination and discourse, is likely by all human reason to lose much of that foolish reverence which maintained it. For himself, I am bound to say that we have in this poor family received much benefit by his painful and learned instructions, and much contentment in his discreet behaviour, and we hope (though with humble acknowledgement of our infirmities) that our course hitherto hath been no shame abroad unto that truth whereof we make profession. This is that testimony wherewith I found myself charged to accompany him unto your Lordship, whose great favours towards myself, and those that have come from me, do embolden me to make two humble suits in his behalf: first, that by your honourable means he may be put into the list of the preachers at the Court this next Lent; which I protest unto your Lordship I do not crave out of his or mine own ambition, but that he may before so religious a King, and in so noble an assembly, with that good spirit and those good gifts wherewith God have indued him, even according to the charge of the gospel, annuntiare quae vidit ^[8]; and I think I may add as followeth in the same place, that the blind here have received sight. Next I very humbly beseech your Lordship, out of your own noble favour towards a poor scholar, rather than for the merit of anything that can come from me, to allow unto these papers which he bringeth the estimation of a packet ——^[9]. And so Christ Jesus bless your Lordship and all your purposes.

81. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . A certain poor old man, called Benedetto Altavilla, born at Vicenza, and, for lack of a better trade, by profession an astrologer, cometh on Saturday morning to one of the house of Diedo, a principal Senator, and extremely panting (though liker a man in haste than in fear) denounceth unto him the impendent destruction of this State, which he had foreseen by his art; ‘and the thing is,’ said he, ‘a practice of gunpowder, conveyed into a corner of a room, right under the hall of the Gran Concilio, where it is determined that to-morrow morning the whole nobility’ (which till the end of this month assemble in the mornings) ‘shall be blown into the air.’ Diedo not crediting a thing that sounded so vainly, is brought to the place, where he findeth between sixteen and twenty pounds of gunpowder, laid as the party had related. Hereupon is called a Council of Ten, as the supreme criminal magistrate, and indeed instituted for such sudden and secret occasions, who, instead of a reward (which the Vicentine would have capitulated ^[1]), determine it fit to put him to the cord, because he persevered in his first asseveration; and before the torturing of him, they cause the hair of his head and beard, which was somewhat long, to be shaven, lest therein should lie (according to the fancies of this place) some supernatural strength or witchcraft. To be short, this feeble old man thus handled, hath not only endured the pains of the torture, which they gave him in all extremity, but (which is almost miraculous) when they thought him fallen into a sound ^[2] therewith, he was found asleep upon the cord; so insensible of his present grief had the assurance of being hanged the next morning made him, rather than, as some think, it to have been the power of the Devil to maintain the vanity of his art. Howsoever, there is since then, and there can be no more proceeding against him, and so he continueth still affirming that he foresaw it by his skill in the stars; though it be very probable that he conveyed it thither himself, with hope of getting, in a time of such jealousy, and after the like example in a foreign State, some better recompense for the discovery thereof.

Thus your Lordship seeth the images here of truths with us, lest the world should lack matter to talk on. And having nothing more to entertain you withal at the present, I leave your Lordship under God’s dear protection.

82. To the Earl of Salisbury.

Albeit honest men be very precious here, yet I have resolved to send one of them home unto your Lordship (who is this bearer Rouland Woodward ^[1]), for the respects which it may please you to receive from him: whereunto I will add the enclosed papers.

The few lines (intermingled with cipher) are of great importance and secrecy. That in Latin is the judgement of the Spanish Ambassador there upon the death of Garnet, which I caused to be secretly copied out of the letters of one of the Governors of Avignon with whom he holdeth correspondence; and I think I shall light upon somewhat more that way. As for this, I have confronted it here (not discovering the author) with the testimonies of Captain Pinner ^[2], and his servant (lately arrived) who were both at the execution: and as in divers other circumstances, so especially in that which he allegeth about the silence of the people, I find it to be most impudently false: adeo (sayeth one very rightly) mendacia stare non possunt sine mendaciis. And for my part, I protest unto your Lordship it shall teach me hereafter that very rule which the Jesuits give to their scholars: to believe nothing which any of the contrary side shall say.

My letter unto his Majesty ^[3] I humbly first present unto your Lordship (as I have done the rest) unsealed: knowing that these poor duties have no other value than such as they take in passing by your noble hand. And so I leave your Lordship in God’s blessed and dear protection.

83. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton sends a discourse on the designs of Spain, believed to have been written by the Doge. The Jesuits and the Interdict.

Having here by secret means gotten the copy of a discourse ^[1], whereof the Prince of this State is esteemed (and I think very rightly) to have been the author, I do most humbly present the same unto your Majesty, both in the original, and as I have translated it, for a trial whether the strength thereof consisted in the natural phrase, or in the substance of reason. And sithence your Majesty, out of your infinite goodness, hath been pleased to receive and to pardon even some of mine own poor observations, I have been glad of the present occasion to entertain more proportionably and properly your excellent mind with the conceits of a personage, as in his place and institution, so likewise surely of conspicuous and eminent wisdom, touching a problem of great and notorious consequence to all Christendom, though handled peradventure by him (if it may become me to say so much) more to the peculiar advantage of his own dominion, than in some part thereof to the precise truth of the matter. For I must humbly confess unto your Majesty that for mine own part I have here, by discourse upon the place, deeply received into myself an opinion that the Jesuits were the first moving cause of the present troubles, and not as instruments of the Papal or Spanish, but of their own greatness, either to divert the Pope (as some, expert in the Roman Court, conceive) from decision of the controversy between them and the Dominicans ^[2], to whose side he more inclined; or that, in a troubled and active time, they might be sure, through their intelligence abroad, to carry him even from his own cardinals, and to be the masters first of his ear, and within a while of his determinations. And so, with all humbleness begging of your Majesty, for my present and former presumptions, that pardon which nothing can deserve but the zeal of my soul towards your sacred and dear person, I rest

84. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Secret service money; payment of Wotton’s debts.

. . . My Lord, I have besides this place of my charge, in divers other, pendentes hamos, and men to whom I give provision, and I protest unto your Lordship very truly that within a while the invisible part of my expense will exceed the apparent; for I find knaves dearer than honest men, and in this country fully as necessary. In consideration whereof (being encouraged by a former letter from your Lordship) I will not only beseech you humbly to be favourable unto me in some increase of my quarterly tickets, which pass through your approbation unto the Lord Treasurer, but likewise take the presumption to renew with your Lordship my old suit touching the defrayment of my debts. For whereas my Lord, my brother hath signified unto me that your Lordship did nobly offer to move his Majesty in my behalf for some suit of greater benefit, I must confess that I was at first, and am still, very unwilling to make any base or unworthy use of your favour; but I consider that it shall be double goodness in your Lordship, not only to heal my wants (who am your own), but theirs also that want now for having sent me; and I must repeat again that though his Majesty’s bounty herein cannot make me a more faithful servant than I am, yet it will make me a more cheerful. I beseech your Lordship to pardon this filling up of paper and disturbing your great affairs with my private remembrances, and to impute it unto indigence itself, which is naturally impudent. And so the God of Heaven give your Lordship long happiness.

85. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. A certain English spy arrested at the request of Wotton.

. . . The case of Captain William Turner is this:^[1] he came hither upon these rumours out of the Archduke Ferdinando ^[2] his Court, where he had been practising with English Jesuits and their disciples (whereof I had particular knowledge), as it is indeed a nest of very evil persons, and that Prince the most abused of the world. Here he fell in with a priest who doth the business of the said Archduke, ⟨and⟩ under colour of having been persecuted at home, and long imprisoned for religion, and so out of zeal, undertook to betray the present cause; promising from time to time to acquaint him with his Majesty’s preparations in favour of this State, which he would find a means to derive from me; and for a beginning of his service, making a dispatch to the Archduke, wherein he undertook to advise him about the stopping of the passage through Stiria and Carinthia, upon having understood in my house that the Baron Colonitz ^[3] was newly come hither to offer the service of himself and of his brother, a famous leader, unto this State, with certain private aids of Austria.

This matter was discovered unto me by the very instrument whom he used in the nature of an interpreter (as I take it) between him and the forenamed priest, who had not sufficient Dutch to understand him so perfectly as he desired, after he had taken a taste of some nimbleness in the man. And withal he gave me knowledge of certain letters which this captain had to Don Francesco di Castro ^[4]. Whereupon, seeing his mind to be naught, and his understanding how poor soever, yet busy and practical, as appeared by his dealing with the minister of another Prince even under mine eyes, against a cause wherein his Majesty was declared, I thought fit to have him laid up in close prison till we may see how the business will incline,^[5] having withal a desire by this means to come to the perusing of his papers, among which was a letter that he kept about him for an opportunity to send it, which, upon his apprehension, he would have torn with much violence (as he had reason), but was prevented by the sbirri. This letter is written to an English Jesuit in Gratz, concerning his secret practices and intentions here, wherewith he desired the Prince might be made acquainted, and withal he telleth him, that in this town he hath met with a merchant who was content to furnish him with moneys; which I conceive to be the jargon between them, signifying peradventure the party to whom he had been addressed here by those Jesuits for the receiving of some exchange, which they would have concealed; for otherwise I can see no reason why he should brag of such a fortune to them, but rather insist upon his wants.^[6] I have troubled your Lordship too much with this matter, for the rendering an accompt of mine own proceeding herein, and the reason thereof; which if I had suffered the State to do (from whom his practices could not have been long concealed), it had surely gone worse with him. When he is out of prison I will see if there may be made, of such a knave, any use for the redeeming of his fault, in a country where they are almost as necessary as honest men.^[7]

86. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The arrival of the Spanish ambassador extraordinary; the talk of Venice about his errand.

Don Francesco di Castro, son to the Conde di Lemos (who died Viceroy of Naples) and nephew to the Duke of Lerma, having here received one public and three private audiences, in quality of ambassador extraordinary sent from the King of Spain to treat upon the present affairs,^[1] it seemeth a part of my duty to render unto your Majesty (with your gracious leave) some accompt of what may hitherto be gathered upon the place, touching the event of the said negotiation.

Of this gentleman (as a Spanish instrument) there are two doubts: the first, whether he can do anything with this State in the cause; the other, whether he would do anything.

Concerning the first of these, it is discoursed that what he can do must be done either by persuasion, by entreaty, or by menacement.

For persuasion. His years are few, his ability of speech (they say) not extraordinary, the matter itself (as I may term it) very rebellious and unmanageable, the minds of the Senate united in the main point, which is to revoke none of their decrees; and lastly, if there were nothing else, yet after such writing and discoursing upon every article of the variance, even for very reputation sake, it will hardly be acknowledged that he can bring hither any new reason which had before not been thought on.

For the way of entreaty. It seemeth first not to stand with the greatness and nearness of the King his master, to beg the quiet of Italy, having formerly given forth that he can enforce it, or some such speeches to that purpose. Then, it were surely all one (and so the most of them conceive it) as to entreat the Prince not to be a Prince, or the State not to be a State. And one of them, in a late discourse about these matters, hath laid it down somewhat plainly before the Pope (which it is hard to say, likewise, how the Great Duke will digest) that he ^[2] could be contented, even out of very spite, to see all commonwealths in subjection like that of Siena, his own mother. But besides the absurdity of the request, they have here looked also into the inconvenience, importing no less on their parts in all judgement than a breach with France, or some notorious distaste, if they shall yield more to the entreaty of a king in opposition than they have done to a king in neutrality; for in these terms the two kings do stand as yet towards them in the present cause.

Touching the third way of working by menacement. There was here a rumour (while Don Francesco was on his journey), dispersed peradventure rather by some who thought it wisdom to apprehend the worst, than upon any intelligence or other probability, that he was sent to denounce war; till the ordinary Spanish ambassador, some few days before the arrival of this other, declared in College that his coming was peaceable. Yet the Prince, at his public audience (as having to deal with a Spaniard) for the preventing of all opinion that the State might be terrified, did in his speech let fall two notable points: the first, that their predecessors had maintained the reputation of the commonwealth in times of more difficulty, when the public treasure was exhausted; the other, that they had made the war when all princes almost were combined against them,^[3] and therefore would not be so unworthy of their ancestors as to faint in the present cause; ‘wherein’ (said he) ‘we shall, besides our own strength, not want friends, and even those that are also friends of the King your master’: a word as indeed of much weight and very seasonable, so likewise much noted, both in respect of that use which they make of your Majesty’s most glorious and princely declaration, and because it was spoken plurally by the Duke, as being peradventure at that time not unwilling that withal should be comprehended some subintendment of the French King. And this his speech he concluded by way of advice unto the ambassador, that if he sought peace he should go where it was first disturbed, because for their parts they would neither demand it nor procure it. So that hereby it appeareth (the Prince his words being obligatory because they were public) that by the way of menacement he will not be able to do much.^[4]

87. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. No date, sent by John Fenton, who bore a dispatch to James I dated December 6. The accident to Rowland Woodward. An English Councillor reported to be in the pay of Spain.

. . . I have in this interim pursued the matter of anchorage,^[1] and had good answer from the Prince, expecting within a few days to hear the resolution of the Senate therein.

Now, touching the causes of my sending home the bearer ^[2] hereof with some speed, having an able body and an honest mind.

The first motive was a disastrous accident happened to the person of another of mine, whom I dispatched likewise certain weeks since towards your Lordship, and have newly received knowledge that in his passage through Lorraigne (which way he was carried by the company of Sir Thomas Crompton ^[3] whom he met in Milan) they were both together assailed by three on horseback with pistols: where the knight, after some valiant resistance was slain, and Rouland Woodward (the party employed by me) wounded in three or four places, and left as dead upon the place, but afterwards conveyed thence into an inn thereby, whence he is said to have sent such papers as he carried from me to his Majesty’s ambassador in Paris: among which was a letter unto his Majesty written with much freedom touching wholly the French King ^[4]: about the miscarriage whereof I am very solicitous, and have thereupon addressed this gentleman through France to receive the truth at Paris and to take some course about my said writings. . . .

It seemeth fit for me, out of that dispatch which was sent by Rouland Woodward, in all event to repeat this peculiarity received from the party at Milan. That one of his Majesty’s counsel doth hold continual intelligence with the ambassador of Spain in England, who advertiseth the things that he receiveth first to Milan and from thence to Rome. The particular name he promised to signify unto me which he hath not yet done. And therefore, though I was bound in my allegiance to relate unto your Lordship what I had received, yet I very humbly beseech you to represent it for mine own defence with this addition unto his Majesty, that I was and am far from thinking it sufficient (without more particularity) to stain the reputation of any ordinary person, and much less of the most honourable.^[5]

88. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . Touching Sir Robert Dudly ^[1], I have so enormous news that being mingled with the compassionable case of an honourable gentlewoman, I had rather your Lordship should receive it in those languages (wherein it is this week written to me) than in my own words. Only thus much I will add hereunto, that whereas I had once determined to deal with the Great Duke herein (as was signified unto your Lordship by Rouland Woodward), upon a second intelligence that the Great Duke had his hand in the business, I resolved not to stir in it any farther, although whither it leadeth is very apparent by the instrument that hath been employed therein, namely Eliot. And I will be very careful to look into the farther proceeding thereof.

To make his Majesty, after these serious things, some little sport, I have taken the boldness to enclose herein a few words written from this place to a merchant of Raguza.^[2]

My very good Lord, I do by this post send a petition, to be presented unto your Lordship for my extraordinary allowances, from September to December; upon which occasion I will take the presumption to remember your Lordship that knaves in this country are dear, even where they are plentiful; and I think the reason is, because they know themselves to be necessary.

89. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton’s account of his own attitude during the quarrel with the Pope.

. . . In my audiences here (which are very frequent) I do carry myself between the charitableness of wishing their tranquillity upon honourable and just conditions, which I know they shall never have, and the encouragement on the other side, which it becometh me to give them in so good a cause.^[1] And in my private discourses touching the person of Don Francesco di Castro with others, I do conform them to such a style as I held with himself, tending to this sense, that though the kings our masters be in all other points good friends, and so mean to continue for aught I know, yet in the present controversy we are the ministers of kings declared on contrary sides; and therefore that I will do against him all the offices I can to keep up so just a cause as the present, and to hold the State in remembrance of their own dignity.^[2] And so for this week I very humbly take my leave, resting

My Lord, within these two days is to depart hence, a son of Mr. Garaways ^[3], the merchant, by the way of France homewards post, who bringeth from me unto your Lordship an intercepted packet of Parsons of good importance.

90. To Edward Barrett.

Harl. MS. 1579, f. 125 b, transcript. Thanks for music sent from Florence. The arrival of Sir Robert Dudley in Italy.

I have received your last token of Spanish airs, whereof the first is one of the best that I have ever heard. The rest we have not yet tried, because they are without basses. One thing doth make us young musicians wonder, to see them set in no measure,^[1] like the Spanish spending, as I have heard you describe it. What thanks I shall render you I know not for so many kindnesses, being nothing which you will command from hence. I shall hope shortly to hear from you of the arrival of Sir Robert Dudley and his lady, and the circumstances of their reception. I must now be short, being encumbered with writing this extraordinary day into England by an express courier, which the State dispatcheth. Therefore I pray tell Mr. Boughton ^[2], that touching the business whereof he wrote unto me, I must crave to be excused, and hope to satisfy him with very good reason by the next post. God have you all in his dear protection.

91. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . The Cardinal Joieuse ^[1] is here arrived this very day, which how far it may have been beyond the expectation of others I know not; but for my part I must acknowledge that it hath overthrown my whole reason: for I had settled in myself (upon such arguments as have formerly been signified unto his Majesty) that the said Cardinal would either not come hither at all, or not before the departure of Don Francesco di Castro, or lastly (at the extremest) without any appearance of the Pope’s consent therein. All which three points are subversed, for the said Don Francesco is not yet departed hence, and the Cardinal’s lingering so long in Ferrara and upon the borders, with intermessages from Rome, may sufficiently argue (though he were not a pillar of the Church) that the Pope is participant of his commission. Yet in the public order given to the Podestà of Chioggia (where he was encountered by the French ambassador) for the receiving of him, and in all other dispatches of the State, he is styled Ambasciadore di Sua Maestà Christianissima. And the clergy here, having in College demanded leave to go and meet him, have by the Prince, upon that reason, been denied it, because he cometh not in quality of a papal legate. The manner of his entertainment (which is likely to be very pompous) and the subject of his employment, with such symptoms as it shall here produce, I will advertise his Majesty by the next post. In the meantime I cannot refrain to say thus much; that if Don Francesco can digest the hovering of the said Cardinal so long upon the frontiers, where he might hear how matters did pass, as if he meant first to let the Spanish spend all their breath, and having seen that the said Don Francesco could here obtain nothing more than had been granted before upon intercession of the French: nay, that with striving in the matter, he had united the Senate, and with his importunities, enforced them to confirm their former decrees with a new, and that after the understanding of these things, the said Cardinal is now, in quality of a French instrument, come hither with hope (as we are bound to believe of him) to work them farther: I say if Don Francesco can digest this, then hath he surely optimum ventriculum. What mine own poor labours, opposed to the wishes and plots of so many negotiants can, with the Divine assistance, operate here to the keeping of this cause on foot, shall be affectionately spent, as my duties require towards God and his dear servant the King. And indeed (besides mine own obligations) I am urged here by divers of themselves who differ not much from my opinion touching the Pope to appear (as I do) often in College: labouring in my discourses nothing but the mere point of sovereignty, under which religion will slide along.^[2]

Before I end, I must beseech your Lordship to make known unto his Majesty my intention of sending him by a special messenger, all the books that have been written since the beginning of the controversy, which are now grown to a pretty bulk; but this I stay, either for the next courier which the State shall dispatch into England, or for some other important occasion at his Majesty’s service, wherewith I may accompany it. And so for this week taking my humble leave I rest

92. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton’s reasons for not visiting the Cardinal de Joyeuse.

On Friday last at evening the Cardinal Joyeuse arrived here as ambassador extraordinary from the French King. He was met three miles off at one of their islands by some threescore, all senators, in their best robes, with the barges of the Prince, whereas other ambassadors are commonly received in gondolas. . . .

He hath been already visited by all ambassadors and ministers of foreign princes, except myself; who have been so far from doubting herein of my duty, that I determine not so much as to excuse the matter unto the French King by his ordinary ambassador here, unless he move it unto me himself, as he hath done in some sort already by his secretary to one of mine. For, to omit the scandal which in respect of our religion would reflect from it (though but a ceremonious interview) upon the King my master, I cannot besides, without prejudice of his civil honour, yield unto certain prerogatives of form, which cardinals have gotten through the superstitions of some, and policy of other kings and their instruments ^[1]; and especially in a time when the point of sovereignty is questioned even between the Roman Church and a State of the same faith in other opinions, which would aggravate the scandal on my part. Unto which respects might be added (if there were any need) that the Nuncio of the Pope,^[2] whom I found here at my first coming, did fail of his duty towards me; neither can the form of a French minister (under which he cometh) alter the case, since he carrieth such a badge of Rome upon his back, and hath been publicly received in the form of a cardinal. These are the reasons that have made me conclude it unfit for me to visit him; or so much as to treat with the ordinary French ambassador about the ways how it might be conveniently done for both sides, lest I should thereby peradventure give him the advantage of denying me access unto him, which the Cardinal were likely to take in respect of his own person. And this is all which hath occurred as yet to be said of him. . . .

My Lord, I am, as God help me, tired in my very soul with the sluggishness of this business, which doth yield me nothing yet wherewith to entertain his Majesty’s excellent mind, but receptions of ambassadors, convocations of senates, fair answers, and the like stuff. But this is my hope that the Divine Providence will lead on that which he hath begun for His glory, through a secret and sweet disposition of these inferior causes; wherein His will be done. And so for this week I very humbly take my leave of your Lordship, resting

Right Honourable, I must humbly thank your Lordship for your favours towards Mr. John Fenton ^[3], whom I sent home, and whom his Majesty hath since made (as I understand) one of his officers in Scotland; having received from him a very sensible acknowledgement of your Lordship’s goodness towards me and all mine. And as I am bound unto your Lordship more and more for your favours past, so I have a new occasion at the present of begging your Lordship’s passport and encouragement for one Mr. Beadle ^[4], whom I shall be very glad to have with me in the place of Chaplain, because I have very singular commendation of his good gifts and discreet behaviour. It may therefore please your Lordship (when he shall take the boldness to present himself before you) to set forward also this piece of God’s service.

93. To Edward Barrett.

Harl. MS. 1579, f. 127, transcript. Sir Robert Dudley and Elizabeth Southwell. The state of affairs in Venice.

I have received your last of the seventh of February, for which I do give you and owe you many thanks.

It is true that I had before understood from the very fountain how that business was conducted by Captain Eliot ^[1], whom the Pope is now likely to charge with surreption (as the Canonists call it) or concealment of circumstances; and this that holy instrument must suffer, not for conscience sake, because the thing is ill, which he hath procured, but for policy sake, because it is scandalous.

In the whole matter I do much compassionate the case of the gentlewoman, whose mind, as her blood, was assuredly noble but deceived. If you chance to see her—which methinks should be worth a step to Pisa—I pray do me the honour to kiss her hand from me; not under the name of her master (as it pleased her sometimes to call me), but now as her fellow traveller, since we have both tasted of peregrination.^[2]

The event is yet involved in much obscurity, between the natural aversation ^[3] of the parties against war, and the irreconcileableness ^[4] (as I may term it) of the matter itself.

The Cardinal Joyeuse arrived here yesterday was seven-night, in quality of ambassador extraordinary from the French King, and on the morning following he had audience as a Cardinal, the Prince with his assistants in College descending three rooms to meet him; and so, leading him up on his left hand, between himself and the ordinary French ambassador, he placed him on an equal form appointed for that purpose, before the regal seat, in the same order as he had led him, and brought him afterwards down to the last stairhead of the place. On Sunday he was revisited by the Prince; on Tuesday he had his first private hearing in the College, as others, but conveyed thither through the secret lodgings of the Prince, without rumour, or the appearance of almost so much as a French lacquey in the palace—which silent and mysterious carriage (so contrary to that nation) is thought to have been affected, either to increase opinion of the business, or to be (as they have been in all the rest) directly opposite to the Spanish ostentation. This night shall his proposition be introduced into the Senate, and within a while we shall catch some of it.

My opinion is, in the meantime, that coming as an ambassador of another Prince, there is nothing will be credited which he shall say on the Pope’s part.

I pray commend me very affectionately to your brother and cousin, and when you shall understand anything more of the entertainment of those pilgrims, favour me with it. And so God bless you all.

94. To the Earl of Salisbury.

As I was ready to shut up this packet, the Prince sent one to signify unto me that the English merchant at Lucca (who hath undertaken to furnish the Pope with powder and other munition) is called Stephen Stock:^[1] against which, and against all other the like upon this example, it may please his Majesty to provide such timely remedy as unto his wisdom shall seem convenient. And hereof your Lordship shall do me a special favour (because it is a remembrance of the Duke) to take some notice thereof unto the Venetian ambassador.

95. To Edward Barrett.

I have received your judgement upon the Spanish accident ^[2], for which I must give you many great thanks. It is written hither this week that the King intendeth to put the Conde di Villa Lunga (for so indeed was he called, as you have rightly taught me) to public death.

In Fraunce the King armeth and looketh towards Lyons. In the Low Countries the discourses of a truce are resolved into a notable attempt upon the Count Frederick van den Berg, whom the Count Henry of Nassau has taken prisoner by surprisal, and defeated certain companies of horse and foot.^[3]

Here, within these few days (as the Prince was yesternight advertised) will arrive the Duke of Savoye ^[4] and the Marchese di Castiglione, both in commission from the Emperor; so as then the business will be carried by double ministers, French, Spanish, and Imperial; myself only am single and naked, as indeed the truth should be.^[5] If you have an intention to bestow yourself again upon this uncivil part of Italy, I could wish you to hasten it, because the town will be full of great things. But before your coming away let me beg a favour of you, to provide me a little firkin of the Tuscan small olives, for which I will be your debtor till I see you.

George Rooke is free of his ague, and so bragg ^[6] of his legs that he is gone to Padua.

Pray always remember me to your brother and cousin. And so God keep you all in his dear favour.

96. To James I.

Add. MS. 19402, f. 13, holograph. A proposal of the French ambassador De Fresne-Canaye.

I received by the last post a form or rule under your Royal hand, both how to carry myself generally in this great cause, and also in the point which had passed between the French ambassador and me;^[1] touching the latter whereof your Majesty commandeth a full dispatch from me compared with all other intelligences. Hoping therefore that the imperfections of my judgement may now come with more boldness before your Majesty, under the veil of my obedience, I will represent herein these things unto your high wisdom as particularly as I can out of my memory set them down.

When I had repeated unto the French ambassador on the second of this month the substance of his own overture, with interlacement of all those points commanded by your Majesty, and had (according to the postscript of your Royal letters) subjoined thereunto: that be the minds of princes never so well prepared, and the love between them never so great, yet before they leap into any important treaty one with another, it seemeth as necessary to have a good ground from whence to rise, as another to fall upon; in which consideration, although your Majesty’s breast was very open and Royal to receive, and upon sound foundation likewise, to pursue any convenient motions of common interest between yourself and dear brother the French King, yet I did not see (for my part) how your Majesty could possibly take any handsome bound into that matter, which I had upon my last conference with him represented unto you, unless he should be contented to have his name mentioned therein. He answered, that he did full well remember the day and the matter that had passed between us, and had since then often repeated it unto himself, as seeming unto him, and being indeed of most important consequence to both our masters, but by my speech he perceived that I had much mistaken him; for I might recall to remembrance how at that time he bent his speech to the uniting of their Majesties whom we served, in a round assistance of the States, which afflicted people would otherwise be overwhelmed by the Spanish power, to the manifest prejudice of both the neighbour crowns, though in a nearer degree (as he must confess) of his master’s kingdom; but since he perceived that my words now inclined not that way, nay, moreover since he had been advertised by the French King how your Majesty seemed so far removed from the consideration of the States’ extremities, that you had lately demanded those moneys (which had been lent by Queen Elizabeth) both of the States and of the French King, without regarding their misery, or his continual charge in relieving them with levies and moneys, for the retarding (as far as might be done on his part) from the Spanish Monarchy: these things considered, he thought it unnecessary to frame any particular answer unto the scruples which I had made. Yet concerning the last thereof thus much he would say: that if I had any certainty of your Majesty’s willingness to join with his Majesty in sustentation of the States, he would not only not be tender of his name, but give me a letter to Rhosny ^[2] for introduction of the treaty, and also assure me that your Majesty should find the King his Majesty very correspondent ^[3] therein. Hereunto I replied, that if that which he had now deduced were at first the drift of his discourse, I must confess I was not only mistaken ⟨in rendering to my Lord⟩ of Salisbury’s hands an accompt of the cause, as it standeth, and of mine own carriage therein conformable to your Royal instruction.

It remaineth that I render unto your Majesty (having nothing else that is mine in this world) the humble sacrifice of thankfulness and of zeal for your Majesty’s so gracious acceptation of my poor endeavours, expressed to my eternal comfort now twice under your Royal hand, which is the stamp of your own goodness.

The God of Heaven cover your dear and sacred person and estates with His particular providence, and upon this city (seated in the midst of waters) breathe more and more with that spirit of light and truth, which, while the lamp of the world was yet dark and confused, incubabat superficiei aquarum.^[4]

97. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The settlement of the dispute probable; Wotton’s speech to the Doge on the subject.

As I advertised his Majesty by the last post, so I must now upon better grounds assure him, that our troubles here are likely, and almost certain to be concluded, with more honour unto this State and the cause, than ever hath happened in these countries since the Deformation of the truth; whereof I forbear to signify the full particularities till the return of the Cardinal Joyeuse ^[1] from Rome, whom we expect here on Sunday, which will be the eighth of this month.

In the meantime, it may please his Majesty to receive knowledge of an office which I thought fit to perform two days since in College, where (for better sounding the truth of the present voices) I told the Prince that I was come that morning to congratulate with him and the State, for the hope which I found to be generally conceived of a peace. And because there was no public minister here resident (great or small) who did not (as I was informed) pretend in behalf of his master to have had a share in this effect, I thought myself overrun by the nimbleness of others, having more reason than any one whosoever, or perhaps than all together, to affirm there before them, that next their own magnanimity, the conclusion of this business was to be ascribed absolutely unto the King of Great Britannie, my master. For though so just, so clear, and so common a cause might be well supposed to have many secret favourers, yet I assured myself that neither the present age nor posterity would rob his Majesty of this glory, to have been the sole declared Prince in favour of the right; and so, with his patronage, to have drawn the cause to an honourable and memorable conclusion. I added farther hereunto that for my part, as I had been a beholder of the carriage of this great business, so I was bound to testify unto the world, and perhaps likewise unto future ages, that it had been governed by them hitherto with excellent wisdom and magnanimity, assuring myself that having now passed the tempestuous part of the business, they would (being so good navigators) never suffer any piece of their ancient liberty and jurisdiction to shipwreck in ipso portu.^[2]

These were all, and the very formal words (as far as I can remember) that I said; which I have related unto his Majesty, not for respect of themselves, but of the Prince his answer, which was the most fervent, serious, and affectionate that I had ever noted . . . . He thanked me for that office of congratulation. He concurred with me in the likelihood and quasi certezza (said he) d’un accommodamento, for so they will have it styled, not a rebenediction or absolution. He told me (which I knew before) that the French ambassador and Don Francisco had related in College the Pope’s agreement, but yet that the further particularities were to be expected by the Cardinal Joyeuse; yet thus much they knew by the relation of the French ambassador, and by their own means at Rome already, that the matter would be concluded col decoro della Republica, without revocation or suspension of their decrees, and with a perpetual exclusive ^[3] of the Jesuits;^[4] the Pope seeming satisfied with observing the return of Capuchins and Tolentini or Theatini. He protested for himself, and in the name of the Signory, their eternal obligation unto his Majesty, which should not only be imprinted in the hearts of the living, but delivered over to their posterity for ever; affirming seriously (out of his own judgement as I had touched it) that the glory of this conclusion was to be attributed unto his Majesty’s so clear, so magnanimous, and so disinterested ^[5] protection of them.^[6] He lastly assured me, and intreated me to assure his Majesty, that what change soever yet should occur in the Pope, they would never be brought, either by menacement or persuasion, to diminish any part of that liberty and jurisdiction which they had received from their predecessors, and that herein only they besought his Majesty to think them worthy of his friendship. This was all that the Prince said; the rest his Majesty shall receive by the next post. And so, with my hearty prayers to heaven for the preservation of his sacred person and estates, and for your Lordship’s long happiness, I rest

98. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

I have, through my being in the country, discontinued the course of writing one week, in which time the Cardinal Joyeuse is returned from Rome by the way of Ancona (as he went), like the Dove of the Ark, with the olive branch in his mouth. And the time since his arrival here having been spent in certain petty difficulties (which fall commonly into the conclusion of great businesses), it is now expected that to-morrow morning (which will be Saturday, the 21st of April) he shall in College revoke the excommunication, without any public shows of joy, without any solemn mass, or any other circumstance whatsoever that may imply acknowledgement of validity in the Pope’s interdict. Yet thus much they seem to have accorded unto him, or rather to have left to his discretion ex consequenti, that being a priest (as he is) he may say mass in what church he will, except the Cathedral, and without intervention of any of the Signory, or of the Senate, or perhaps of the whole nobility. Thus hath a business of great noise and great consequence been drawn to the most memorable conclusion, that, in a thing of that nature, hath ever been seen since the Deformation of God’s truth amongst this people, through their own Christian magnanimity and wisdom, and under the sole protection of the King, our master on earth. The further particularities shall be made known unto your Lordship by the next post, and till then, being at the knitting up of these matters diversely troubled, I will crave pardon to leave you, resting

99. To the Earl of Salisbury.

On Saturday last the Cardinal Joyeuse went to the College, by the private lodgings of the Prince, as in his other audiences, and there revoked le censure, without any bell ringing upon pain of death, or any other public note of gladness, or of so much as acknowledgement. The conditions and all other circumstances of this honourable and almost Christian conclusion, as well substantial as formal, shall be represented unto his Majesty through France by an extraordinary messenger, who bringeth likewise the books that have on each side been published.

100. To Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Burley MS., f. 103, transcript unsigned. Italian translation (as sent to Ferdinand) S. P. Ven., May 16. Wotton’s complaint of an English priest at Leghorn.

Having expounded here unto your Highness’s resident those weighty occasions which, as a servant of his Majesty, I felt myself to have of complaining unto your Highness, touching the deportment of some of your ministers who (as it becometh me to believe) have abused your authority,^[1] there resteth yet one of such consequence that I am enforced to present it in writing immediately unto your own princely person.

I have had knowledge some good while of a certain English priest, called Sherwood, who on Easter Eve last arrived in the port of Ligorno, with intention, as I am advertised, to practise and corrupt there the subjects of his Majesty, and to mislead them from their natural obedience, under that vulgar and worn pretext of zeal and religion. Now your Highness and all the world, knowing by examples as yet fresh of horrible memory,^[2] into what kind of effects the like practices and operations are wont to resolve, I ought to be confident in your great wisdom, goodness, and moderation, that your Highness will not suffer this, or the like instruments, to nest themselves in your dominion, and to preoccupate the ports and places of commercement, as most proper to their designs. Neither can it appear strange unto your Highness that I thus insert myself into things which pass under your protection, having, besides the common obligations of a vassal, also particular commission to render accompt unto his Majesty of whatsoever shall appear unto me within the confines of all Italy, in what manner soever pernicious unto the most precious health of his royal person. And I hope that as your Highness in time past was contented to make use of my poor service, in representing then unto his Majesty the excellent dispositions of your mind towards him, so you will now also be pleased to be informed from me by your said resident, and by this present writing, of such things as did appear unto me very unworthy of that particular friendship which runneth betwixt his Majesty and your Highness. And so, with all devoted reverence, I kiss your Highness’s hands, beseeching from Heaven your long felicity.^[3]

101. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 169, f. 40, dictated; signature and postscript holograph. The settlement of the dispute with the Pope.

Having formerly given your Lordship a general accompt of the conclusion of this great business, it shall be now fit for me in divers respects to represent unto you the particularities thereof, and principally for the honour of the cause, which was the cause of God and of princes, his immediate ministers on earth.

1. That the two ecclesiastical delinquents, namely the Abbot of Nervesa and Canonico di Vicenza, be granted at the requisition of the French King to the Pope.

2. That the Pope revoke his interdict, and signify the revocation thereof simply in College.

4. That the Prince notify the agreement unto the clergy of their dominion by another manifesto repealing the former.

5. That the three decrees particularly mentioned in the Pope’s interdict, and all other their laws remain inviolable, only with promise to the French and Spanish Kings to use them moderately (according to the clemency of their ancestors); and this to be understood during only the time of farther informing the Pope upon what just respects they are grounded.

6. That all regular orders departed or banished hence upon this occasion, be licensed to return to their convents in the State, except the Jesuits.

Thus stand precisely the articles of the agreement, wherein both the books written in justification of the cause, and the persons of the writers (two of the mainest, and in all opinions most irreconcilable points), have been passed over on the Pope’s part, as it is thought with advantageous silence, as meaning peradventure to reserve the said writers to an ordinary course of proceeding by way of Inquisition. The Senate after the conclusion of the rest, put it to ballotation what should be done with those men, by whom they had been so zealously, so learnedly, and indeed so necessarily served; whereupon there passed a decree (worthy surely to be registered among the memorable resolutions that ever have been) not only to give them perpetual protection, but likewise perpetual pension. And it appeareth that there will be yet more use of them than of armour, which is hanged up after wars in some idle room, and oiled for fear of rusting; for by our letters from Rome of this week, we find that the Pope’s instruments continue to write, and as maliciously as before, which presently shall be answered here; and so I hope we shall keep on foot the war of the quill.

Now in the formal or executory part of this agreement were observed the circumstances following.

First, on Friday, the 20th of April, a secretary of the Senate, accompanied with the captain and other officers of the prisons, and for more abundant and rigorous caution with a public notary, bringeth unto the ordinary French ambassador at his house the foresaid two delinquents, consigning them unto him as prisoners granted to the Pope at the requisition of the French King his master, without prejudice of the State’s jurisdiction in like cases. These by the said ambassador were consigned unto the Cardinal Joyeuse (as then in his house) in the presence of the said secretary; in whose hearing (for he thought it ill manners to come away suddenly, as indeed he should have done) the ordinary French ambassador telleth the Cardinal that the said prisoners were granted by the State unto the Pope, in whose favour he omitted the repetition of the rest. And so the Cardinal received them, as now the Pope’s prisoners, the secretary as then saying nothing more; through which too fraudulent silence on the one side, and peradventure too modest on the other, there remaineth yet betwixt them some seeds of debate; the Signory thinking themselves saved (as justly they may do) by the form of the consignment and protestation, registered by a public notary; and the Cardinal thinking the Pope saved by that form which the ordinary French ambassador used to him. And this was all that the Pope hath had before the revocation of his censures, which he might have had in that form six months since, without any great offence to the cause, in my opinion.

Now the morning following, the Cardinal cometh to the College, the Senate having first allowed the day; and there, after some little preambles of the Pope’s fatherly goodness, pronounceth that he did levare le censure, still as a French ambassador, though this were the act of a Legate. From the College he goeth to the Church di Castello, whereof he seemeth to have made choice, for being the Patriarch’s parish, having been by precise order excluded from celebrating the mass in the Cathedral Church of St. Mark, and wheresoever without intervention of the Signory, without music, without noise of bells, or of artillery at the elevation, without any form of benediction or absolution, except the ordinary of the missal benedicat nobis Deus, &c., finally without any public note of gladness or thankfulness, or so much as acknowledgement on their parts here. And so was the thing in all points performed; unto which albeit there concurred ^[1] the Spanish ambassadors and an abbot or two as assistants at the celebration, and those of the baser multitude, humorous of novelties, yet were neither the canons, nor musicians of the said church there, nor any of the Signory, nor above two of the whole nobility, and those such as might easily make their excuse of not being there for devotion; neither I think in the memory of man was there ever known so still a day at the conclusion of troubles, nor universally so composed silence. This was the end of the business both in form and substance, if it so end.

I have annexed hereunto a copy of the articles of this conclusion as it was sent me from Rome, that your Lordship may see the golden fancies ^[2] of that Court, and how they work upon the common man. The cessation ^[3] with you there (signified in your last of the 18th of April) doth seem unto all that have yet heard it the most prodigious thing of the world.

102. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Congratulations on the termination of the quarrel.

. . . From the ambassador of this State sent to Rome there is yet no news since his departure, nor of the Nuncio ^[1] destinated hither. Only we hear that the Pope disposeth himself to take good air at his ville, with much serenity of countenance and spirit, and that, since the end of these differences, he hath put on the form of a wiser man than he did appear in the whole action.

All the ministers of other princes resident here, have congratulated with this State in the name of their masters, for the present tranquillity, except the Great Duke’s ^[2], who pretendeth that the resident of this State at Florence hath not yet, or had not some few days since, acquainted the said Prince with the conclusion that hath ensued. And I must likewise except myself, who expect from his Majesty in what form it will please him to have it done; having in the meantime assured them upon the generality, that as his Majesty did not intend the fomentation of their troubles, but only the sustentation of them in a rightful cause, so he had left the management thereof unto their own wisdoms, and could not but be well satisfied with that which hath ensued, since the jurisdiction of princes (which they hold immediately from God) hath been so justly and so magnanimously maintained by them.

103. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 169, f. 52, dictated, extract. The Pope; the peace negotiations in the Low Countries.

. . . From Rome we hear that the Pope having bought a new villa, is resolved to take his pleasure therein, much content with the end of his troubles, having taken upon him the form of a wiser man than he appeared in the whole action. And this is all that I will now say unto your Lordship, to punish your silence of this week with a short letter; for I would otherwise have told you how much we here start at your proposition of peace, and yet withal how hollow and unsound we think it. But now God keep your Lordship and all yours in His dear protection, as He hath promised to His own.

104. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . This State will likewise shortly expect some compliment touching his Majesty’s opinion of the conclusion of their business with the Pope, wherein they do not smally glory. And I will conclude this letter with assuring your Lordship (wherewith I know his Majesty’s heart will be comforted) that the light of God’s truth increaseth here apace, through the grounds that have been laid by the public writings, and more by the private discourses of Maestro Paulo and his assistants; not unlike (as one perhaps suitably enough though spitefully hath noted) unto the fruitful labours of St. Paul at Corinth, the most licentious city otherwise of the world at that time.

And so having no more to say unto your Lordship at the present I very humbly rest,

105. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The uprising among the Grisons, and the triumph of the Protestant party among them. Rowland Woodward.

. . . The means how this trimestral torrent ^[1] (for so it was, and somewhat more) hath been dried up I have not yet, through the shortness of the time since the news came, understood sufficiently; yet I thought it my duty to acquaint his Majesty with the effect, and with the precedent circumstances as soon as might be, because I know it will much cheer his Majesty’s religious and royal heart to see the prevailing of Christ’s cause and truth against the enemies thereof, according to His own promise unto His servants, that they shall participate, not only of His afflictions but of His victory.

For myself, I must protest unto your Lordship that though I am not unsensible of that gladness which becometh me at the prosperity of honest men, yet hath, I know not how, my present function (wherein I am a poor instrument of State) so far prevailed over my nature, that for respect of a greater benefit, which might from thence have been hoped for, I could have been content this sollevation of the Grisons had set all Italy on fire, and divided the princes that now are bound together with superstition.^[2]

The deliverer hereof unto your Lordship is that poor unfortunate follower ^[3] of mine, so much bound already unto your great goodness and encouragement of him since his return home, nay, to your Lordship’s noble care and compassion even while he lay under his hurts, as was long since signified unto me from his Majesty’s ambassador at Paris ^[4]. So as he is not only your Lordship’s by that which he is unto me, but we are jointly yours by your gracious patronage of us both. I have now charged him with a few remembrances unto your Lordship, and therefore thought fit to renew some mention of his person and of mine own trust in him, which, besides his long approved honesty, he hath now twice merited by suffering under my employment, the first time at Milan, and this other on the way home. And so most humbly recommending both our poor estates through your Lordship unto his Majesty I rest,

106. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 169, f. 96. Dictated, postscript holograph. The uprising in the Grisons. Conversion of Tobie Matthew.

Your Lordship’s of the 11th of July (for which I give you many thanks) hath this week almost settled my opinion touching the issue of those affairs, which seem to propend unto a peace; and I think we should here be much troubled therewith, if we were not called to the consideration of nearer evils, whereof I will give your Lordship a short accompt. It may please you therefore to know that the Grisons (I mean the honester part of them) having prevailed over the Spanish side, so far as to execute some of the principal dependants of Spaine, and to put the Bishop of Coyra to flight, the Count Fuentes employed thither one of the Visconti of Milan, who, being as it seemeth, as cunning an instrument as Giulio della Torre was (who laid the first seeds) hath reduced the matter to a bandying of religions, upon this ground, that the parties were executed only for their conscience and Catholic faith; and so hath embarked not only the Popish Cantons actually in the cause, but likewise, as it is feared, the Archduke Maximilian (Vicegerent for the Emperor in the County of Tyrole) who had some particular interest in the person of Dominico Beli, one of the executed. And now the resident of this State at Coyra writeth hither very desperately of the matter, having sent to the Senate the copy of a letter written from the Popish Cantons to Fuentes, wherein is this phrase: V. Eccellenza lasci la cura a noi di castigare questi furfanti, meaning the party of the Grisons opposite to the Spanish. These things breed here long and late consultations, and would likewise peradventure very much trouble the French ambassador, if he were not a gentleman of so able a spirit. God produce out of it His own glory, and open a passage for His truth into this country.

I have more to say which shall be said by the next post, and your Lordship will give me leave to spend the rest of this paper in bewailing unto, and with you, the fall of Mr. Tobie Mathew ^[1] (a common acquaintance unto us both) from God’s only saving and single truth, to this idolatrous church, which (as hath been written unto me this week out of England) he did upon his arrival there not only plainly but boastingly profess unto my Lord of Salisbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury. And I have cause to be somewhat the more moved therewith, because he had, while he was in Florence, used my means in clearing that calumniation (as he called it) at home; and at his coming this way he gave me very hearty thanks for the offices I had done therein. Neither do I think that before his meeting with that mountebank Bagshaw ^[2] at Paris he was wholly apostamated ^[3]. Now albeit upon this or the like accidents I am no more troubled in my own conscience and judgement, than if one had brought me news (according to our Italian proverb) of the death of a fly in Apulia; yet I cannot but be sensible of that scandal which will hence arrive to our Church, through his being the son of so great a prelate, and through the eminency of his own natural abilities, which will be the theme of the Jesuits to draw divers foolish inferior wits by his example. And so recommending your Lordship and your whole family unto the protection of our Lord Jesus, I humbly rest,

I have not written unto your Lordship by the two last posts through my absence in the villa, whither I was driven with extremity of heat. But being now returned, I will be careful to continue our course and to deal here with the postmaster as you wish me.

107. To the Earl of Salisbury.

After the finishing of these few lines (which I write to your Lordship on the 22nd of August at night) I determine to make as much haste as my grief will suffer me towards Padua, to see Mr. Richard Cave ^[1] (if I can arrive in time) before his soul’s departure to heaven; for by all judgement that may here be made out of the relation of his present estate, God hath appointed him this particular blessing of calling him to Himself in the days of his youth. To my lady his mother ^[2] (in whose letter I perceive much tenderness), I have forborne to make it known, especially being yet remaining some little latitude of hope; but to your Lordship (whose heart is strengthened with Christian wisdom) it was my duty to signify the moments and degrees of his infirmity. And so, being unfit at the present to write either more of this or anything of public businesses, I commit your Lordship to the protection of the Lord Jesus.

108. To the Earl of Salisbury.

It finally pleased God on Sunday morning, the 26th of this month, to call Mr. Richard Cave to a better life out of the present, after fourteen days of sickness in his bed, whereof I was continually with him the three last. The strength of his heart and youth were overcome with the multiplicity of his infirmities, as a continual fever, but yet very gentle till some six or eight hours before his end. . . . Thus he finished the short course of his days here below; with whose untimely loss I must profess seriously unto your Lordship that, besides all other respects, I am the more grieved by the remembrance of his own firm and sweet dispositions, so well settled and seasoned in God’s truth, and in the detestation of these foreign fooleries, whereof he gave us good proof, not only in his ordinary discourse, but likewise with certain passages in the midst of his extremity; so as I have not alone herein to bewail the extinguishment of private acquaintance, but the good that he was likely to do hereafter in God’s service at home. His body we brought up that night to Venice, and the next morning it was accompanied with almost all the gentlemen of our religion and my family to the port of Malamocco, and there buried without in the gulf, where Sir Edward Rochester ^[1], had been before; for although I think both the State here (who in their respect towards your Lordship had taken honourable notice of him while he lived) would likewise no doubt in the same respect, upon my motion, have suffered him to be buried in any of these churches with their ordinary solemnities; or that we might perhaps without public leave have found means to lay him in the Eremetana at Padoa, where the Almaigns of all religions are buried with Popish rites, yet we could yield to none of these courses for two reasons: first, because, howbeit the body were insensible and inculpable ^[2], yet our consents must have concurred therein to those foul abuses of God’s glory; secondly, it would have been presently (according to their fashion of working even by false examples) voiced through Italy, and written from Rome into Spain (with which country they interchange lies) that he died in this faith, and was buried with these rites; and thereby, in respect of his relation to your Lordship, more scandal might have risen and more triumph amongst them. Upon these considerations (which I conferred with the other gentlemen, and with my chaplain, a man of excellent learning and life, and particularly with Mr. Charles Bussie ^[3], who is reduced with grief and watching into ill estate himself), we resolved rather to commit his body ^[4] to the sea, which, in the expected day of our Redeemer, shall yield up her dead; contenting ourselves out of the necessity which this place doth lay upon us, only with a meeting together privately at a sermon in my house for the solemnization of his remembrance.

This sad relation it was my duty to make unto your Lordship of what hath passed before and after the death of this sweet gentleman, which I will conclude (being unfit now to intermingle therewith any other matter) with beseeching your Lordship to comfort both yourself and his other friends with your own Christian wisdom, and to be pleased to assure them that on our parts here nothing was wanting which might be provided by human reason.

And so, beseeching God to send your Lordship long and much joy in your own, I humbly rest,

109. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Portrait and character of Paolo Sarpi. (This letter was first discovered by Signora Eugenia Levi, who printed a portion of it in the Athenaeum, Sept. 2, 1905.)

Your Lordship receiveth by this gentleman ^[1] the books that were written upon the points of the late variance on either side, which come later unto his Majesty than had been meet, through the want of commodity and danger of the portage.

I send your Lordship withal a very true portrait, in portable form, of Maestro Paulo the Servite,^[2] taken from him at my request, presuming that since it pleased his Majesty to bestow upon him some gracious and honourable words (which have been written hither very precisely by their ambassador,^[3] and have given him and the Senate, where he is greatly esteemed, much satisfaction), it may be likewise some pleasure unto his Majesty to behold a sound Protestant, as yet in the habit of a friar; which I affirm unto your Lordship, not out of that vanity (which maketh Jesuits register every great wit in their catalogue), but upon assurance thereof given me by my chaplain, who hath sounded him in the principal points of our religion. By him I deal with him for less observation in divers things of importance, and they spend upon agreement together every week almost one half-day.^[4]

In their very last conference he acquainted him from me with the taking of Blackwell ^[5], and with some things in the late published book touching the said person, which had been sent me, wherein (p. 39) is mention made of a breve of the Pope’s, containing, among other things, an admonition against the oath which, as appeareth (p. 11), met Singleton at Siena.^[6] A copy of the which breve he hath desired me by all means to procure, that he may out of it inform the Senate palpably and authentically that the Pope’s ends are to resist all natural obediences and finally to dissolve the jurisdiction of Princes and States. And on this he is the more eager because he holdeth this position, that it is the point of sovereignty under which other parts of God’s truth must be replanted here. Now, to say yet a little more of this man, upon whom and his seeds there lieth so great a work. He seemeth, as in countenance so in spirit, liker to Philip Melanchton than to Luther, and peradventure a fitter instrument to overthrow the falsehood by degrees than on a sudden; which accordeth with a frequent saying of his own, that in these operations non bisogna far salti.^[7] He is by birth a Venetian, and well skilled in the humours of his own country. For learning, I think I may justly call him the most deep and general scholar of the world, and above other parts of knowledge, he seemeth to have looked very far into the subtleties of the Canonists, which part of skill gave him introduction into the Senate.^[8] His power of speech consisteth rather in the soundness of reason than in any other natural ability. He is much frequented, and much intelligenced of all things that pass; and, lastly, his life is the most irreprehensible and exemplar that hath ever been known. These are his parts, set down (I protest unto your Lordship) rather with modesty than excess.

There cometh herewith, through your Lordship’s hands and wonted patronage, a letter unto his Majesty of too great a subject, I must confess, for the compass of my judgement,^[9] but his gracious encouragements have made me move, as I see even flies do, when they feel the warmth of the sun. And now, having for this present spent my matter, I must render unto your Lordship this right honest gentleman (whom surely no country of the world can make otherwise), with my humble thanks for that acquaintance and friendship which it pleased you to give me with him, and with my suit unto your Lordship, rather for mine own credit than his, that he may present my humble zeal and letter unto his Majesty. And so, beseeching our good God to bless your Lordship with long health and happiness, I rest,

I must beseech your Lordship to deal with his Majesty, that the copy of the breve above mentioned may be sent hither with all convenient speed.

110. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. A scheme for kidnapping Capt. Eliot, and exchanging him for Salvetti. The Anchorage tax removed.

. . . I am moved to set down among these things, the steps of an imperfect business (having so opportune a messenger), to this end, that his Majesty may therein express his good pleasure whether I shall proceed or no. George Rooke (when he was employed by me about the Privy Seals into Tuscany ^[1]) upon a traveller’s curiosity made a step to Lucca; where the rumour being before him arrived of what he had done, and thereby the said State imagining him to be an immediate messenger from his Majesty, they broke with him about a business of their own, touching one Alessandro Interminelli, who, under another name, had long lived in his Majesty’s kingdoms; which said gentleman is the only male survivor of the line of Castruccio Castracani ^[2], the famous Guelf, sometimes Lord of Lucca; and therefore they have, for fear of that pretence, found either just or unjust means to extinguish the whole race, save this one who is escaped, for the obtaining of whose person from his Majesty they dealt with the said George Rooke.^[3] He referred the matter to me, and upon his return we agreed it should be fit to entertain this casual proposition, out of a conceit that peradventure the said State might (to facilitate their own desire) be moved to seize upon the person of Captain Eliot (who haunted their town very frequently upon pleasure), as a thing which I was willing enough to say would be well taken by his Majesty, if he might be afterwards conveyed into England out of their harbour of Viareggio. To make short, there passed between that State and me divers letters hereabouts, and likewise a special messenger of quality whom they sent unto me, and I fed the business, till having brought it to some maturity, it fell out that the Great Duke, having prospered ill in the Cyprian attempt ^[4], would yet set out a second fleet, and hath therein made the said Eliot captain of a company, and given him charge of the principal scaling ladder, which, for the present, disturbed our design. Now in the conduct hereof I always kept the King my master from engagement (as I had indeed no power to oblige him), referring the second part, touching their subject, to his higher wisdom, as it should please him upon the case; wherein always I saw for his Majesty’s excuse sufficient disparity, for they have nothing to lay against the above-named Alessandro Interminelli but presumptions, whereas Eliot hath been in open rebellion against his country, as he did even himself not deny.

Thus standeth this affair at the present, which I will either smother or revive upon the return of Eliot, according to the signification of his Majesty’s will.^[5] The reasons which moved me to take hold thereof were, first, because I had heard that Sir George Carew in France had commandment to seize upon him, and next because he was likely to do much harm in the Tuscan Court; for besides the things contained in a letter (which cometh herewith) he was the introducer of Sherwood, the priest, among the English there, having put him into great hopes, which I have lately understood out of the said Sherwood’s own confession. For my part, if in any of these occurrences (now represented unto his Majesty) I have gone farther than was convenient, I hope that his great goodness will be pleased to excuse in some sort with my humble zeal, the imperfections of my judgement. And it shall be for mine own conscience (which God beholdeth) a sufficient comfort that I have done that which did appear to be my duty, with what danger soever of offence to either private persons or princes. For the conclusion of this tedious dispatch, it may please his Majesty to understand that in the Senate of last Wednesday ^[6] here was finally determined the matter of anchorage in favour of his subjects, surely with much alacrity, which is indeed wholly to be attributed to that general love which his Majesty hath won amongst them, as the Prince (who yesterday in College gave me accompt thereof) desired me then to signify with many other affectionate protestations (often and earnestly repeated) of gratitude in themselves and in their posterity for ever, towards his royal name.^[7] By the remission of this impost the English vessels that shall here arrive are delivered of a very heavy charge, having heretofore paid in the name of anchorage every way some thirty, some forty lb. sterling, according to their burdens;^[8] which point of benefit to us and discapito to this State was never touched in the carriage of the business, neither by your Lordship in your conference with Molino, nor by me here; but the point of honour and equality was principally urged, as the most decent and most persuasive form. And so craving pardon for the trouble I have given your Lordship, I very humbly rest,

Albeit nothing that cometh from me can be worthy of reward to the bearer; yet because this honest gentleman ^[9] hath run great hazards at Milan, and hath here, before my knowledge thereof, bought again those books for his Majesty, which were taken from him by the Inquisitor, I must humbly beseech your Lordship to recommend his care and pains unto his Majesty.

111. To the Earl of Salisbury.

Having lately troubled your Lordship with so tedious a dispatch by Mr. Charles Bussy, I thought this place would not have produced again any extraordinary subject of discourse so soon as it hath done, as may appear unto his Majesty by the enclosed sentence of the Council of Ten yesterday published,^[1] whereof I have thought fit to explain in the margent certain terms of their tribunal. Now, seeing I am discharged of the historical part of the fact itself (which the said sentence doth so particularly comprehend), there remaineth only the critical part, touching what may be thought will ensue thereupon. And first it may seem somewhat strange for me to represent unto his Majesty for one effect thereof the likelihood at the present of the Pope’s Nuncio’s death: who is upon it fallen in so dangerous a distemperature both of his body and mind, as this morning, in the place where the residents and other instruments of State do meet, there was some discourse held of who might be fit to succeed him. And yet are not the physicians more troubled about him than the politiques in guessing at the ground of his disease: some affirming that it groweth out of a deep and sensible consideration of what difficulties this new and enormous accident is likely to breed in the point of perfect reconciling this State to his master. Nay, indeed, what exacerbation and virulence doth already appear in the voices and faces almost of all, from the senator to the gondolier, in their murmurings, in their circlings together, both open and private, in the pursuit of the offenders with no less provisions than if the Prince himself had been assailed, in the public care about the person offended, who hath been visited by the whole Signory, and Aquapendente ^[2] (the most excellent anatomist and surgeon of the world) fetched from Padua by commandment about the cure, with divers other demonstrations, which surely will win this State more honour, and purchase unto them truer service, than anything that hath happened since the foundation of the city.

Your Lordship seeth how I have been transported into this long period with the pleasure (as I must confess) which the matter giveth me. To resume therefore the causes of the Pope’s Nuncio’s disease of discontentment. Some attribute it to the fashion of the Duke of Venice towards him the Sunday morning, following the Friday of the attempt, at which time coming of course ^[3] together, the Duke of Venice said nothing unto him, not so much as by way of entertainment touching the said accident; out of which silence he might easily gather that the root thereof was thought to be in Rome. Some derive this perturbation of his mind from a late accident not otherwise fit to be mingled with so serious matter as the present. The Prince and he were going in a procession, and passing by a convent of certain nuns, the patriarch’s vicario (whether there by chance or so appointed) came forth of ^[4] the church belonging to the said convent, with two other attired in sacerdotal habit, and offered unto the Prince and him the brush wherewith they sprinkle holy water; which in that company (being so surprised) he could not well refuse to kiss, though the said vicario be the very man for the avoiding of whose conversation the Pope’s Nuncio hath hitherto, since his coming, refused to sit in the Court of Inquisition, as hath been formerly signified unto your Lordship. Howsoever these causes, either singly or together, may have wrought in him, certain it is that this State is not over tender in professing their conceit that this late practice hath been fomented by the Pope, whereof his Majesty may perceive some kind of impression in the very sentence itself, as I have been bold to note it out of the common observation here. And for his further information I will add (as I have learnt by curious means) that there is a post dispatched to their ambassador now in Rome, with express commandment that he shall keep his house, yea though the Pope should send for him, till farther order from hence; as if indeed they were desirous to be understood in their present jealousy. This is all that I can as yet discourse unto his Majesty touching the affections that are likely to ensue.

The friar is almost recovered of his hurts, which were not so dangerous nor painful as they are described ad pompam in the sentence, nor the stilet poisoned, as was thought, by being left in the wound: but surely altogether it may serve for a pattern of God’s miraculous Providence, as we all hope that he hath determined in His invisible wisdom to work great effects upon it.^[5]

And so humbly beseeching your Lordship to excuse this hasty dispatch in a confused and troubled time, I rest,

112. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . It is generally noted that the Pope hath been cast by this accident into an inevitable dilemma. If he complain of the State’s proceeding criminally against the priest Viti (one of the complices) he shall breed some jealousy of his own approbation (at the least) of the fact. If he say nothing, he then alloweth the said proceeding, which was (as your Lordship knoweth) the principal member of the late controversy. All ears in this place are greedy and open to hear how he will wade between these difficulties, wherein it is thought that the present infirmity of his minister is fallen out to his advantage.

113. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . For the course of things in this place, Maestro Paulo (whose case is yet the only subject of our speech) being now well near recovered,^[1] it hath seemed good unto the Senate not to be behind the Council of Ten in publishing their care of him, as will appear unto your Lordship by the enclosed proclama. Of the assassinates that are fled, all the certainty we have hitherto is this, that Poma, the priest, and the Florentine were seen on the 15th of the last month in Ancona, and on the 21st in Rome, with harquebuses; which circumstance is much urged here, being weapons otherwise prohibited in the Pope’s towns, and consequently a point of especial favour. As they went along they gave forth in every village that they were moved to this attempt immediately by the Holy Ghost, as it were meeting with a question which was likely to be asked, who had set them on work, whereof there hath been here likewise some hold taken. Unto their ambassador in Rome order is given to spare no money for the finding of the bottom of it.

114. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . Your Lordship’s of the 12th of November came yesterday into my hands very opportunely, being then ready to dispatch Captain Pinner ^[1] towards his Majesty upon weighty and secret occasions, whom I have now retained a day or two, that he may bring with him the picture of P⟨adre⟩ P⟨aolo⟩,^[2] which his Majesty shall now, through the miscarriage of the former, receive with the late addition of his scars. And I have this morning communicated with him those papers as from his Majesty, whose gracious remembrances ^[3] he taketh very dearly and tenderly.

115. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . I advertised his Majesty long since of one Stephen Stoake, English merchant, who hath of late concluded a contract with the Pope to furnish him with store of munition and artillery. Which bargain being advantageously made, he hopeth to perform by the help of some other man’s credit (for without Rome he hath little of his own) and is come newly to Ferrara, where, and at Bologna, he was royally received by the Pope’s officers. From thence he intendeth to pass into Fraunce, and so into England, where your Lordship may peradventure hear more of him from Mr. Ofeley, of London,^[1] to whom (I take it) he was some time servant. This trade of contracting for our munition with foreign princes is grown now so notorious that the Resident of the Great Duke here, among other justifications and defences of his master’s late actions, allegeth that in all the three ships which he hath taken, part of the lading was munition for the Turk; which, though it cannot justify him, yet was it my duty not to conceal from his Majesty so pernicious an exhaustion of his own estates.

116. To the Earl of Salisbury.

This gentleman, Mr. Hugh Holland,^[1] came out with his Majesty’s licence, wherewith he acquainted me at his first arrival here, as likewise he hath since in his travels held intelligence with me. And being now to return home, is desirous through your Lordship to render unto his Majesty an accompt of his loyal behaviour abroad, to which it seemed fit for me to give him by your favour this introduction. And the present being for no other purpose I humbly rest

117. To Henry, Prince of Wales.

Harl. MS. 7007, f. 170, holograph. Wotton sends a New Year’s gift to Prince Henry by Captain Pinner.

Having had occasion for his Majesty’s service (wherein your own is always included) to dispatch home this honest captain, I have presumed by him (with the remembrance of my hearty zeal) to present unto your Highness a poor New Year’s gift.

Our Lord Jesus bless you with many happy years, and make your Highness a great defender of His truth, which is the chiefest of your hereditary titles. And so humbly kissing your sweet and princely hand, I rest,

118. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Foreign news delayed by wintry weather. Sentence on Angelo Badoero. Death of a son of Sir Julius Caesar.

The last week we had the letters of Flanders very late, and this week none at all, the courier of Antwerp being (for aught we yet know) drowned on the way in the snows, which through Italy are increased, and in the nearer countries, beyond memory and almost example. Yet we have cleared ourselves of the vain conceit touching the surprise of Bolduc.^[1]

The Diet of Germany ^[2] is as cold as the weather, some princes refusing to send thither so much as their ambassadors, and few appearing personally, through a general distaste taken against the Emperor for making the Archduke Ferdinando his representant, a prince wholly in the power of Jesuits.

Here the case of the Cavalier Angelo Badoero ^[3] hath been now published in the Grand Council in this form, that having passed determinately between him and the public minister of a prince here resident, with consent of two friars, in the cell of one of them, a secret conference from two hours before sunset till more than two hours of the night, without any notice thereof given by him to the State, either before or after; he hath therefore been sentenced by the Council of Ten to remain one whole year in prison; which term expired, to be afterwards for ever uncapable at home of entering into any of the secret councils, and abroad of receiving any annual benefit from any foreign prince, in which case he shall be understood guilty of rebellion; moreover that if ever he shall depart out of the Venetian dominion he shall be understood ex tunc definitely banished, and his goods confiscated. The two friars in twenty-four hours to depart the city, and in three days the dominion, upon pain of death; which hath been accordingly executed, notwithstanding the Nuncio his intercession against that point only of the sentence, with notorious simplicity and derision, being an interested party in the case, and (to make up the sport) he is said in College to have let fall these words, that the Pope should know of it, as it were by way of commination, at which they could scant even before him hold their countenances. Thus have I now once more troubled your Lordship with this gentleman’s process, wherein I must add this farther, that he failed in the first ballotation, but two balls of losing his head on a public scaffold and the friars of being drowned. . . . For the conclusion of the present, I must advertise your Lordship of the disastrous end at Padua of Sir Julius Cesar ^[4] his eldest son, who two days since in the morning was slain in the public street by the usher of a fencer, from whom he had the day before in his own school received some affront. I have advertised his father of the particularity thereof by Captain Pinner, whom my letter will overtake in Augusta, being departed hence but two days since with a very important dispatch unto his Majesty, and the picture mentioned in your Lordship’s last. And so for the present I commit your Lordship to the God of Heaven.

119. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 169, f. 269, dictated. The severe weather; death of Sir Julius Caesar’s son.

Your Lordship hath had no letters from me this fortnight, through some indisposition of body into which the asperity of the weather with us hath cast me,^[1] and through the small store of matter that hath been able to arrive, the ways being all shut up with frosts, and snows of such depth as ten days since did pass all memory and example, and now all description, insomuch as the affections of curiosity and hearkening after news are turned rather into counsels of necessity and hearkening after meat; neither is the time stranger in itself than the accidents, the gentlemen breaking their heads with falls in the street, some citizens that went a-fowling frozen to death, a friar’s hand coming from Padoa stupefied and gangrened with the cold, the procaccio of Rome drowned, the courier of Feltri and his horse eaten up with a troop of wolves that were driven with famine down into the plain, with the like; and while Venice is thus grown dry, Rome is grown wet (I think lest they should agree), for there the Tiber hath overflown a good part of the city, and besieged the ambassadors and cardinals in their houses. Now in this defect of other matter I am heartily sorry for a grievous accident happened at Padoa amongst the little number of our nation there, where Sir Julius Cesar’s son and heir was, on the 16th of this month, fatally slain by the usher of Bartolomeo Tagliaferro, a fencer. And this is all wherewith I can trouble your Lordship at the present, whom our dear Saviour keep in His safe protection.

120. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. No date, but endorsed ‘January, 1607’. Wotton sends a lampoon in dialect.

Besides the other papers wherewith your Lordship hath now been troubled, I have been bold to enclose herein, for his Majesty’s entertainment, a famous letter written to the French King under the person of a fisherman of Caorli, by the very same gentleman who was author of that same other from a fisherman of Burano to the Pope, wherein his Majesty took, as I have heard, some pleasure. And for some ease unto your Lordship in the interpretation of this peculiar dialect to his Majesty (whereof the grace lieth in the very rudeness), we have here amongst us translated it and postilled it, though with much loss of the naturalness and force, and perhaps also now and then of the sense: for surely in the original it is one of the most ingenious and best fitted things that I have ever yet seen of the kind.

I am preparing for your Lordship’s own delight some things about the subject of architecture, ⟨which⟩ shall be within a few days sent you in picture ⟨as⟩ you command, and I was sorry they could not be ready by this opportunity. I have taken the boldness twice by Rowland Woodward, as I will now myself, to remind you of your promise.

121. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The procedure of the Venetian Government in its negotiations with ambassadors. Stephen Bogdan, a pretendant to the throne of Moravia.

Touching the points demanded in your Lordship’s dispatch of the 7th of January,^[1] of the receipt whereof I gave you accompt by the last post, true it is indeed that, as far as the nature of their government here will permit, I have always found under both the Princes (though the former was of a weaker expression) much willingness to hear me and to satisfy me; which hath increased sensibly in them according to the straitening of their friendship with his Majesty, which they now esteem to be very solid. But the place here whither public ministers resort (called by the name of the College), is a place (as I conceive it) of distribution, and not of determination of affairs, out of which not only the Senate itself, or Council of Ten, or other such high and regardful members of the Commonwealth, but even their meanest magistrates are fed with such causes as belong to their several jurisdictions; the majesty of the State in the meanwhile residing there rather virtualiter than operative, as the schoolmen distinguish; for the Prince (who receiveth our propositions, or, in his absence, the eldest of the Savii Grandi ^[2]) is bound by an essential circumstance of his oath to answer no public representant determinatively. So as I do not see, upon the whole matter, how their ambassador could justly allege that myself, or any other, in any occasion here, either criminal or civil, have received immediate satisfaction in the place of our recourse; unless his meaning were by silent analogy to resemble their Senate to his Majesty’s council board, which I think he might do without any danger of absurdity, except only in this (wherein himself had the vantage), that no representant here can be personally admitted into their Senate, whither the subject of our errands is usually transported by a secretary of the State and withal as near as may be our passions and pauses: Quì si scaldava l’Ambasciadore, Quì si fermava l’Ambasciadore, and the like; and so it seemeth was their ambassador’s meaning by those conjunctures of state, wherewith he valued his intercession before your Lordships, which are here likewise only conoscible ^[3] and determinable in Senate.

Here is lately arrived a certain pretendant to the Princedom of Moravia ^[4], who spendeth his Majesty’s name very frankly, as being to recover his right under the protection of the Crown of Great Britainie. At his first abord, he caused himself to be landed at my house, and in my absence took possession of it with a portmanteau or two. At my coming, the language he held with me was to this substance: that he had letters of recommendation from his Majesty to his ambassador at Constantinople, who had likewise order to furnish him with moneys to the sum of 40,000 dollars, and to settle him in his right. And though he had in this town of his own parentage, and did also not despair of honourable reception by the State, which was acquainted both with his cause and his person, yet being under his Majesty’s support, and wholly his, he thought it fitter to lodge in my house, till the departure of the next frigate for the Levant, and the rather too for the closer carriage of his purposes. I protest unto your Lordship, at the first I knew not whether I should take it for a species of frenzy or cozenage. But howsoever, perceiving the matter to require no easy answer, I told him his fashion was fair enough to make me believe much of him, but it was not my fashion to believe men upon so small acquaintance; and therefore, if he could not show me some order from the King my master, I must desire him to provide another host. Whereupon he asked me very wonderingly whether I had no direction touching him from your Lordship, nor from my Lady Arabella, with a few other wild questions; and so we parted. Thus have I been bold to entertain your Lordship with this carnival accident. Since, I have understood that he is not altogether a counterfeit, in the generality at least of his pretence to the Princedom, though void of all hope both by the way of Poland and Turkey, who have undertaken the backing of several pretendants.

122. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I will only this week entertain his Majesty with the enclosed paper.^[1] By the next post your Lordship shall have a full discourse of these great marriages.^[2] The voice is here newly arrived that Warde ^[3] hath taken another Venetian vessel of good value, so as the hatred of him increaseth among them and fully as fast the fear of him. These are his effects. Now to give your Lordship some taste of his language. One Moore, captain of an English ship that tradeth this way in the course of merchandise, was hailed by him not long since a little without the Gulf, and answering that he was bound for Venice, ‘Tell those flat caps’ (said he) ‘who have been the occasion that I am banished out of my country, that before I have done with them I will make them sue for my pardon.’ In this style he speaketh. From Florence I am informed of the evil proceeding of our businesses, into which I forbear to enter, because his Majesty hath there at the present an immediate messenger.^[4] It was my purpose in the beginning to make this short, yet I cannot end it before I tell your Lordship that in Rome there is much ado amongst them about a miraculous apern ^[5] that casteth flames in London, and the Pope hath been told that even il Cicilio (for that is the style you bear there) confesseth this to be a miracle. As for us here in this country, we are so used to these tricks, that miracles have almost changed their nature, and are turned into familiarities. And in conclusion, certain it is which was said long agone, that mendacia non possunt stare sine mendaciis. And so I humbly rest,

123. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. The King’s Apologia sent to Venice; Wotton asks for more books to be sent, for the purpose of Protestant propaganda.

Having at the present sufficiently troubled your Lordship with the enclosed papers, I will defer the discourses and opinions of this place touching the Act of Renunciation ^[1] (which you require in the postscript of your last) till the next post, by which time I shall also have perceived what effect those books ^[2] (which came with your said dispatch) are likely to work here. In the meanwhile, it may please his Majesty to know that before I could convey one of them handsomely to the hands of the Duke of Venice (for publicly in some respects which shall be signified I forbare to do it) he had gotten one from England, and communicated the same with the party ^[3] your Lordship knoweth, whom he sent for of purpose to his private lodgings. Since then the matter is dispersed among the residents and other instruments of state upon the place, and it is grown (as is fit it should) a subject of much discourse.

I beseech your Lordship (according to your promise) that I may have more of them, and likewise of those other authors (whereof you have sent me a catalogue) touching the progress of reformation and steps (as I may call it) of the Truth, which, because they will make a bigger bulk, may be sent by sea; and I assure your Lordship here is a State where we shall find vent for a great many of them, in which respect I must be bold to wish that Jewell’s Apology ^[4] were reprinted in the little form, and some two hundred of them sent me, for being besides the matter eloquently penned, and in respect of the smallness of easy dispersion, I can think of nothing so proper for these young Christians. My next unto your Lordship is likely to be very troublesome, in foresight whereof I will here end the present; committing your safety to the God of Heaven, and for all your favours humbly resting,

Our news out of Austria inclineth to some notable division between the Emperor and his brother Mathias, who having (as it should seem by sufficient warrant) confirmed unto the Hungarians and adjacent provinces the liberty of conscience,^[5] which the Emperor would retract, the matter beginneth to grow unto public arms, Moravia being already in motu. God bless His own cause.

124. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Calendared in the Cal. S. P. Irish, 1606-8, p. 651. The Earl of Tyrone in Italy.

While the Irish fugitives ^[1] passed through France, and afterwards rested in Brabant, your Majesty was from your worthier servants in those Courts advertised of their proceedings. But being now come upon the Italian ground, it falleth to be a part of my charge to give your Majesty an accompt of them.

It may therefore please you to be informed that the late Earl of Tirone, with his wife and above forty more of their crew, arrived by the way of Switzerland this last week in Milan on horseback, well armed with harquebuses and pistols, to no small wonder of the beholders; the Governor there having formerly denied entrance into the city with arms of that quality, even unto the ambassadors of great princes; who also (besides this favour) sent unto them immediately upon their arrival his Cameriere Maggiore, with banqueting stuff and such other refreshments, and with words of much affection. And there it seemeth (by such knowledge as we can have yet) they determine to rest, till answer shall be had from Spain about them, and accordingly to take their journey to Rome or otherwise; though withal there went some voice that Tirone himself meant in the meantime to make a step privately to the holy place of Loreto; which howsoever it might fitly serve to mask his purposes with the show of religion, yet I cannot believe that he will divide himself from the rest of his company, for he walketh with much jealousy.^[2] . . .

Of Tirone’s further steps in this air your Majesty shall receive an accompt from time to time, for I will hold particular espial over him. And besides the Duke of Venice hath, upon my first mention of him long since, given order to all his instruments both public and secret to be vigilant in your Majesty’s behalf.

There now remaineth, before I end the present, that among my many bounden duties and obligations I render unto your Majesty most humble and most hearty thanks, for that precious token of your continued favour towards me, which came with my Lord of Salisbury’s last dispatch. Your Majesty hath sent a better ambassador ^[3] to Rome than you could find in the world besides, and if he be but entertained there as well as he hath been of the best here, he cannot repent him of his journey. For myself, upon whom it pleaseth you to bestow so gracious opinion, your Majesty may dispose of me to the ends of the earth, for I have no fortune but your goodness, nor no merit but your grace. In the meantime it is more honour for me than I can tell how to bear that your Majesty hath been contented to be served here by my weakness, in a turbulent time when God’s own cause was drowsily betrayed (as far as lay in them) by the connivancy of some princes, and the same defended first by your Majesty’s power, and now by your learning, to your own immortal glory: whereof God give you (after He hath long blessed us with your happy reign) the true reward in Heaven.

125. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I must give your Lordship humble thanks, apart from the rest of my great obligations, for your picture wherewith it hath pleased you to honour me, which I now expect here within few days, having been long since shipped from thence. And when it cometh I shall be bold to put it into another material.^[1] I would likewise beseech your Lordship (if it might so please you) to send me your Coat armour in the true colours, with the mantling and crest; for I have thought that being done here in mosaic, it may afterwards be very fitly placed in the front of your buildings over the portal,^[2] wherein shall be observed here such breadth and height as you will direct. And I assure your Lordship I have seen the like in this country stand with great decency and dignity. This your Lordship may send safely in one of your packets. I promised by Captain Pinner to present unto your Lordship some drafts of architecture, for which I am, as God help me, ashamed, having yet not been able to make them ready, out of which impatience in the meantime I have adventured to entertain your Lordship with two or three poor things (for I will break none of your commandments) that are sent in a ship called the Martha of London, whose master is one Sammon. There is a picture of this famous Duke ^[3], done truly and naturally but roughly, alla Venetiana, and therefore to be set at some good distance from the sight. There is also a figure (I take it) of Prometheus devoured by the eagle, done by Giacobo Palma in concurrence with Titiano, which for the emulation between two painters (both of no small name) I dare almost say to be worthy of a corner in one of your Lordship’s galleries. I have added to these a map of Italy (the country where by your favour I have received my first credit), distinguished not by provinces, but according to the estates and governments. They shall be brought unto your Lordship by one Harry Cogan ^[4], an old and honest servant of mine, whom since the placing of Rouland Woodward with my Lord of London, I have taken again into my small uses at home. And your Lordship may in the conveying of your packets or other commandments unto me trust him very confidently, being both careful, and (as far as I can judge) discreet.

126. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. No date sent with following dispatch. The high exchange, and increased expense of life in Venice. Two important propositions sent to James I.

I have sent home purposely this gentleman William Parkhurst ^[1], with the present dispatch. He hath there little fortunes, and consequently as little business as myself about his or mine own particular, yet I have committed unto him upon this occasion some few remembrances, and especially the settling of the course of my exchanges, wherein no merchant now will serve me under threepence sterling more than I was wont to pay in every ducat. So as between this increase, and the exchequer fees, a good portion of my entertainment doth exhale; yet I should not groan so much under it, if the price of all things here were not likewise raised to a most unimaginable proportion. For I protest unto your Lordship (upon my faith) that I pay forty-six ducats now for so much wine as cost me but eighteen when I first came hither, and so in the rest. I am ashamed to trouble your Lordship with these domestici sospiri, but in them is included my thankfulness, for without your favour I had never come so far as to feel any degrees of want.

Now touching his Majesty’s affairs. There cometh herewith unto him a troublesome letter closely written for the safer conveyance, and without cipher, that his Majesty may see it the sooner at the arrival. It consisteth of two propositions.^[2] If his Majesty shall be pleased to make any answer unto the first of them, I humbly desire it may be sent away by the first ordinary post. If to the second, that this bearer may bring it, whose honesty and carefulness is indubitable, and the use of him necessary about me.

127. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Partly printed in Cal. S. P. Irish, 1606-8, pp. 657-9. An offer to assassinate the Earl of Tyrone; the means of furthering religious reform in Venice.

There occur to be represented unto your high wisdom two propositions, for the conveyance whereof I have made choice of a very trusty hand; the secrecy of the one and the importance of the other seeming to require it. The first is this. Four days since came unto me an Italian of middle age, sober in countenance, well clothed and well fashioned, and, by the accents and phrase of his speech, undoubtedly a Lombard, or long bred in that part of Italy. This man delivereth me a credential ticket, whereof the copy is enclosed, and will, I think, appear unto your Majesty to have been penned not improvidently. Hereupon coming to conference, I understood the subject of his message to be this.

He was sent from a gentleman banished by a Prince with whom your Majesty might do much, which gentleman had understood that in Milan were arrived certain dangerous rebels against your Majesty, whereof there was one said to be the head or leader of the rest, whom he would find a means to send a casa del Diavolo (that was his phrase), if he might be assured that it would be so acceptable a piece of service unto your Majesty, as might merit your favourable letters for his repatriation. This was the substance of what he had to say, desiring me withal that, till I should be able either out of myself, or by particular commission from your Majesty, to certify him of your will herein, I would forbear to demand either his quality or name that had sent him, or the present place of his abode; and content myself with this, that he was a man both of spirit and understanding for a business of that nature, and (though unknown) had been long devoted to your Majesty’s service. He added also that when the thing should be effected, he would not only discover himself unto me, but likewise peradventure far un salto into England.

I must humbly confess unto your Majesty that I was somewhat troubled with the latter part of his speech, whereby he retrenched all curiosity; neither could I upon the bare subject discern sufficient cause of so much wariness, the party being (as was confessed) a banished man, who are commonly not over dainty of their names in treaties of this kind; whereupon I resolved to answer him likewise with some reservation and ambiguity, as near as I remember in this manner, word for word.

I told him that it was more easy for me to abstain from asking him questions, than to answer that which he demanded touching the acceptableness of the foresaid piece of service. For first, the persons whom he seemed to mean were so far from being dangerous (as he had termed them) that they were indeed most contemptible, being run away because they could do no harm at home; and your Majesty was a King so tenderly beloved of your own people, and so renowned among strangers for the justice of your government, that your honour could not be hurt with what bruit soever such a handful of traitorous vagabonds should scatter as they go.

Next I told him that, albeit the thing which he proposed might no doubt be done very justly (the parties standing in actual proclaimed rebellion), yet it was somewhat questionable whether it might be done honourably, your Majesty having not hitherto (for aught was come to my knowledge) proceeded to the open proscription of them to destruction abroad, neither was it a course so familiar and frequent with us as in other States. I was ready to speak forward when he interrupted me, methought somewhat eagerly, saying that the gentleman who had sent him knew not tante distintioni. The sum and substance was this, that if he might but be assured that it would be well taken by your Majesty, the thing should be done; and then for his conscience that should do it, sua Maestà, said he, lasci far a lui, just in the style (as I must confess) of a fellow that were fit for the purpose. I replied that since the point which he only or most required to know was, how acceptable it would be, I would take the liberty to tell him mine own conceit, that services of this kind unto princes were commonly most obligatory when they were done without their knowledge.^[1] Intendo vossignoria, said he smilingly. I answered that he might peradventure understand me too far; and therefore with his leave I would explain myself, that what I had said I meant not directly of your Majesty, but of the general rules and affection of other princes in the like cases; with that he fell into a direct laughter, and said I was troppo geloso. I answered, that himself seemed rather so, by such concealment of the parties from whom he came. ‘Let not that trouble you,’ said he, ‘for the effect shall show that he is un galant’-uomo e gran servidore di sua Maestà; neither doth he demand any favour till the execution of what he hath promised.’ I answered, that he seemed indeed an honest man by his hating of those that were nought; and honest men your Majesty loved in all countries, and was desirous likewise of their love, and that by nature you were the thankfullest Prince of the world; ‘but,’ said I, ‘the gentleman may perhaps not yet have understood that these traitors (according to the fashion of such men) go very sufficiently armed, and are of no certain abode in any one place.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘they will abide some time in Rome, and thence into Spain, if they be not prevented’; which I think he took out of the common voice; for of particularities I found him so ignorant, that he could not name the man whom he offered to kill, otherwise than the head and leader of the rest. As to their being armed, he could scant keep himself from laughing again at that ‘poor circumstance’, as he called it. And thus we spent some other voluntary words to and fro of no great substance; till at last I told him that though he had barred me from all inquisitiveness about him that had sent him, yet I would be bold, with his favour, to demand his own name. This he also denied me, saying that to know him, or not to know him, importava niente al negozio. He was for his part but a messenger, and here had no other business than only to speak with me; which having done, he would that very evening depart; yet he had order to leave first a note in my hands how he might hear from me, addressing my letters to one in Mantua, his friend, without any superscription.

The note I received, and so he departed; neither do I yet know any more of him, nor can conjecture anything of the person that sent him, save that by all likelihood he is some one banished out of this State, and hovering about the Court of Mantua, which hath caught this news at the first voice, and found it to be a fit means to his own restitution. As for my part, I have left him in the motions of his own will; and as your Majesty shall be further pleased to command me I will proceed in it. This is the first proposition concerning your Majesty in particular, if the consideration of such distracted runagates can any way concern you.

The second is touching the common Christian good, wherein your own is included: a proposition of transcendent nature, surmounting in the end and object all other whatsoever, and worthy of a secret room in your zealous and royal heart. It may therefore please your Majesty to be informed that the party ^[2] here and some others, having considered the effects of the late variance, how much thereby the Pope’s credit hath been shaken, and how many eyes have been unsealed, and withal perusing the rest of Christendom, have made me believe that at the present a notable opportunity is open to set forward this work, if by your Majesty’s persuasion (which they hold the most potent) there may be initiated a strait correspondence between the States of the United Provinces and this Signory and agents ^[3], with public authority interchangeably established here and there, into which proposition they have been drawn by these considerations.

The King of Spayne’s pretences unto the said Provinces are renounced, and thereupon a likelihood (as they conceive here) of peace, or a large truce to ensue; so as Spayne can hereafter take no offence at whosoever shall seek their amity, standing in quality of his own friends, and of a free people; whereof otherwise this Signory might perhaps be somewhat tender. The traffic of the Flemish vessels into this harbour (which is more plentiful than almost from any other part) and the number of the inhabitants of that nation here, besides the great contracts which this State useth to make with them for corn in necessitous times, seem to require it.

The Pope’s wonted interpositions against the introduction of foreign friendship, and ministers of princes of contrary religion into Italy, are now here of so small reckoning, that the necessity of providing external help against him will be a principal argument indeed to induce it.

The benefits that the Christian cause will receive by it are two; first, the mutual assistance that will pass between your Majesty’s instruments here, and those of the United Provinces, in the advancement of God’s Truth from time to time, according to the occasion. Secondly, as this State shall grow either in truth or in appearance stronger in outward friendship, so will they by proportion inwardly grow stouter; and when fear shall cease (which is it that now only holdeth up the Pope) they will most undoubtedly, upon the least sensible affront from him, give way to the liberty of preaching. In which consideration it were likewise to be wished (as the party sayeth) that through your Majesty’s means the King of Denmark might be wrought to place some public minister here; which if it were once moved, would no doubt find very ready correspondence on their parts, for I have noted since the variance a wonderful desire in them to spread as great a noise as may be of their foreign helps. And I can assure your Majesty that it is one of the essential points in the instruction which they give to their resident ambassadors abroad, to be very conversant in open view with your Majesty’s servants; insomuch as their ambassador Priuli, newly arrived from Spain, hath here related to their no small contentment how, through his frequent visitation of Sir Charles Cornwallis ^[4], he was in that Court called Lutherano. In these petty circumstances I hope there will appear unto your Majesty semina magnarum rerum. And more I have not to say touching the proposition itself, neither dare I affirm whether the party hath taken it out of his own zeal, or by some light from the State of their appetite therein, which seemeth upon the matter not improbable.

Thus your Majesty seeth how fruitful this air is of propositions and instruments of all kinds: wherein when your just and religious soul hath determined what shall be most convenient for your own and the public good, your Majesty hath no servant in the world, according to the proportion of my capacity, that shall more zealously perform your will. And so having through my Lord of Salisbury’s hands represented unto your Majesty what further occurreth at the present for your royal service, I will end, with the continual prayers of this poor family unto the God of Heaven for the long preservation of your dear and sacred person and estates.

128. To Henry, Prince of Wales.

Harl. MS. 7007, f. 185, holograph. Partly printed in Birch’s Pr. Henry, p. 107. Marriages of Italian princes.

I was advertised by Captain Pinner how graciously it pleased you to receive that poor unworthy present which I sent by him, and withal how carefully and kindly your Highness inquired of the state of things here; which I took occasion to make known unto the Prince and Senate,^[1] who I think will express by their own ambassador how glad they were to be a part, not only of your remembrance, but of your love and solicitude at these years. If I have erred in doing this without your own commandment, my defence must be that my zeal towards you is my commission. Here all is well; the Prince of Savoye and his brother at the present with us on their way towards the Court of Mantua, where shall be solemnized the marriage of their elder sister. Their second sister newly conducted to Modena in the company of that Prince, her husband. The Prince of Tuscan (which reneweth the remembrance of my first service to your Highness, when a poor counterfeit Italian brought you his letters) is to be married to the sister of the Queen of Spayne, and great preparations in hand for it. There is also some whispering about a match between the Prince of Savoye and Princess of Tuscan.^[2] Methinks I see your Highness start at this list of marriages, and bestowing of Princes’ daughters, wherewith I have presumed to entertain you.

Fear not, sir, there will be left for you a good wife, I warrant you, and whatsoever she be, she shall be glad of it.^[3]

And so humbly craving pardon for the time that I have taken from your Highness with these presumptuous lines, upon occasion of dispatching home this gentleman for the King your father’s service, I end with my prayers to God Almighty for the preservation of His sweet blessings in you, and particularly of your delight in His truth, which is the highest of His blessings.

129. To Sir David Murray.

Lansd. MS., 90, f. 139, holograph. Sir David Murray (1567-1629) was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Henry (D. N. B.). Wotton sends him a present, and asks him to get Prince Henry to write to Venice requesting the release of a Venetian criminal.

I have sent home this gentleman ^[1] for the King’s important service. He returneth thence within fourteen days or three weeks at the most; being dear unto me for his honesty, and necessary for his use. He bringeth upon this occasion a letter likewise from me unto his Highness: wherein if I have been too familiar, it is but the security of an honest mind. And while you are there I have a friend to cover my faults, which you know is the right property of love. I had no time to prepare any token worthy of you, and therefore I have sent you and Mr. Newton equal portions of our Venetian commodity.^[2] You may use it safely when you have need of it, for it is of the very best, and made purposely with balsam, instead of the oil of nutmegs, which is the baser ingredient commonly taken to save charges.

I have even in the very moment of the messenger’s departure thought upon a suit, wherein I must beseech your favour and Mr. Newton’s to the Prince in my behalf, or rather in the behalf of my friend. It is to sign a letter unto the Prince and Senate here for the delivery of one, to whom I have been much beholden, out of prison; whither he hath been condemned for five years. The case is very honourable, having been only for striking another with his dagger upon words of sudden heat and injury. The party recovered, and the peace made between them. These circumstances are contained in the draft of a letter, which I have thought good to send readily for the saving of so much pains there and winning of so much time. I should safely have spared his Highness this trouble, if I were not here engaged for another,^[3] and thereby am barred to speak for mine own friend.^[4] One circumstance will make his delivery very sure and very speedy, if the Prince will be pleased to express his desire thereof unto the Venetian ambassador somewhat warmly by yourself or some other sent unto him, or sending for the ambassador himself or his secretary; provided that the suit seem to come from the Prince himself without a solicitation, who will urge his ⟨com⟩mandment here with the more ⟨stre⟩ngth. The rest I have committed ⟨to⟩ be said unto you by this bearer. And so God’s blessing cover you.

130. To Lord Roos.

S. P. Ven., holograph, unsigned. William Cecil, Lord Roos, grandson of the Earl of Exeter, came to Italy in this year with his tutor, John Mole or Molle (see Appendix III). Lord St. John and his tutor, Mr. Lomax, were in his company. They visited Venice, and Wotton presented Lord Roos and Lord St. John to the Doge on Dec. 16, 1608. Wotton had heard that Lord Roos had applied for a safe-conduct to visit Rome, and had written to Mole about it. Lord Roos thereupon wrote to Wotton denying this report. (S. P. Ven., 1608, undated.) The following is Wotton’s answer to that letter. It is inscribed, ‘My answer to my Lord Rosse, his letter touching the safe-conduct.’

I am much bound unto you for taking so kindly that which I wrote unto Mr. Molle out of public duty, as well as private to yourself. But whereas you require to know the author of my intelligence, I must therein crave your Lordship’s pardon, for although I pay (as I think wiser men do) oftentimes for false news, yet we are tied by natural equity to conceal our instruments.^[1]

Touching the matter itself, I could wish (if so much boldness might become me) that your Lordship would make at least so far your profit of an untruth as thereupon to unresolve your Roman journey. For the Pope having been solicited for a safe-conduct in your behalf, through the means (as I am bound by your letter to believe) of some that meant you well, without your knowledge, and having constantly denied the same to a cardinal that importuned him (whom if it were necessary I could name unto you) I cannot conceive after this how your passage thither may be secure for you, especially considering how you are descended and allied.^[2]

I must not forget to tell your Lordship that I have hereof advertised my Lord of Salisbury more particularly, both because it was a thing (as I took it) of public consequence, and for that it seemed unto me in your Lordship a point both of politic and Christian wisdom to provide for yourself, before your going, a safe-conduct that might secure as well your conscience as your person; so as in the relation hereof, howsoever you take it, I presume to have done you no dishonour.

For those kind words wherewith it pleaseth you to conclude your letter, I perceive it is my advantage that I am not known unto your Lordship, for thereby you overvalue me. But such as I am you shall always command. And so I commit you to God’s dear protection.

131. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, undated. Printed in Cal. S. P. Ireland, 1606-8, p. 655. Tyrone left Milan about the middle of April. On May 9 Wotton wrote, ‘All Italy doth ring of his reception in Rome.’ (S. P. Ven.; Cal. S. P. Ireland, p. 657.) The following ‘particulars’ were sent probably later on in May.

He hath visited (for the most part in the company of the Primate of Ireland ^[1]) the cardinals and ambassadors. From the Cardinals Farnese and Mont’ Alto ^[2] he received kindest words and countenance, according to his own opinion of them.

Among other coaches that encountered him before his entry there was one (which Parsons had borrowed) sent as from the English College, wherein were Thomas Fitzharbert ^[3], John Sweete ^[4], and a third (whose name is not signified) in quality of speakers for the rest. Among the English that met him in the city he spoke reverently of his Majesty, and railed on your Lordship most extremely. Upon the sight of Sir Anthony Standen ^[5] he is said to have used these words—‘Sir Anthony, it is better being poor in Rome than rich in prison in England.’ He hath had two private audiences with the Pope, who seemeth to have promised him a consistorial hearing. He is lodged in the Palace ^[6] where the Persian ambassador and Sir Anthony Sherly were placed, and the Pope intendeth to reduce his board to twelve persons: at which they say he hath taken much discontentment. In his coach (as is written unto me) he commonly sitteth in portella à basso (peradventure to be seen) and the Primate in capo, and Tirconel ^[7] on his left hand. The speech runneth in Rome that the King of Spain hath assigned a pension in grosse of ten thousand crowns per annum for the sustentation of the Irish there: whereof I shall penetrate the truth by farther means. His wife is much commended and admired for her beauty and modesty of behaviour: yet one writeth unto me somewhat wantonly of the matter, that he hath done well to bring her to Rome in case all other means should shrink. I protest unto your Lordship I cannot abstain from mingling sport with this subject; which seemeth every day unto me more and more contemptible and inconsiderable, as I shall take the boldness to discourse unto his Majesty in my next.^[8]

132. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract, addressed ‘To the Lord High Treasurer of England’, which office was conferred on Salisbury after the death of Thomas, Earl of Dorset, in April, 1608. The Prince de Joinville; a new quarrel between Venice and the Pope; a picture of Antichrist.

No longer than yesterday morning Monsieur de Monplaisir presented his letters from the Prince Janville ^[1] in College. To-morrow I am there to handle the same business from his Majesty, according to your instructions of the 21st of February. If other circumstances were answerable, the time is very opportune for us, for between the Pope and this State there beginneth to boil a new quarrel, partly about decime ^[2] and partly about matter of inquisition, whereof his Majesty shall have an accompt by the next post.

At the present I dare not interrupt with any serious matter that recreation which I know his Majesty will take at the enclosed picture, whereof there was but one copy sent hither this week to the Signory, which I have gotten so long into my hands as to take a draft thereof from the printed original. The sport it hath yielded here in Senate is inexpressible, and I protest unto your Lordship I think unfeignedly it will do more good than all the books that have ever been written against the Papacy, being the most perfect idea of Antichrist that all the angels of darkness can form. Your Lordship shall receive withal Pasquil’s Epitaph upon the Cardinal Ascanio Colonna.^[3] And the next week will I hope bring you more sober matter, till when and always I humbly rest,

133. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Discourse in Venice about the colony in Virginia and the rebellion in Ireland.

. . . There is here much discoursing of his Majesty’s footings and foundations in Virginia,^[1] which I pray the God of Heaven to prosper; for never to my poor understanding did anything sound more beneficial to us, both for the diversion and amusement of Spain, and venting of our own people, and the commodities that may be hoped from thence, besides the enlargement of the Christian faith, which is the supremest end. And who knoweth but that in time it may come to be a good portion for some sixth or eighth son of his Majesty’s? For which considerations I protest unto your Lordship that, if I had anything of mine own (for that which my gracious master doth now allow me is his), I would, out of my zeal to my country, contribute my part unto those colonies. And your Lordship will I hope pardon me in this transportation.

On the other side the Pope’s instruments here do much amplify the motions of Ireland ^[2] which I have taken occasion to touch on in College, where I told them it was and could be no wonder unto them, for running rebels in the most boggy and woody part of that kingdom, to hold out a few weeks against all the kings of the world, when a Marco Shara,^[3] for four or five years together, did, with an handful of banditti, keep the Pope at bay in the very plains and highways of his territory, and entering into one of his best towns (by name Nocera) did there in scorn of him hold a consistory and create his companions cardinals: so as I think I have stilled in some part here the exaggerators of our present alterations.

134. To Henry, Prince of Wales.

Harl. MS. 7007, f. 202, holograph. Partly printed in Birch’s Prince Henry, p. 114, and completely in Ellis, Original Letters, 1825, I, iii, p. 98. Wotton introduces young Vincenzo Correr, son of the new Venetian ambassador, to the Prince.

This young traveller, son to Signor Marc’ Anthonio Correro (whom this Signory now sendeth to reside with his Majesty), seemed unto me of so sweet a spirit, that it made me bold to undertake the presenting of him unto your Highness with these few lines, and in them mine own humble and hearty zeal. And because your Highness hath (as they are here well informed) been pleased sundry times to inquire with much affection of the course of their affairs, and quality of their ministers, it shall be fit for me to give you some accompt of the present ambassador, who is the third since the renewed friendship between Greate Britannie and this famous Republic,^[1] in the royal person of our good King your father.

Il Signor Marc’ Anthonio Correro is a gentleman of a very noble ⟨house⟩, but none of the four-and-twenty, which they call their ancient houses. Strong in parentage on both sides, himself a sole heir in his own line, for one brother which he had is dead. His estate greater than both theirs together that have preceded him; and he is likely not to be inferior to either in the conserving of it. His complexion (as it should seem) not strong for a long voyage, which increaseth the merit of his goodwill thereunto. He was here (and so were none of the other two, nor any that I have yet seen employed either to Fraunce or Spayne) actually a senator; and besides hath refused for this honour the regiment of Bergamo, unto which he was chosen, being one of their principal towns in Lombardie.

Of his internal habilities I am insufficient to judge, neither hath the jealousy of this Government suffered me much to practise him; but by such discourse as hath passed between us, he appeareth to be of a very modest and ingenuous temper, and professeth towards his Majesty great reverence and devotion. This is as much as I can say of him. And so, with the hearty prayers of this poor family to the God of Heaven, for the continuance of His excellent graces and blessings upon your Highness, I humbly kiss your sweet and princely hand, and rest,

Postscript.—Having above made mention of twenty-four ancient houses, and imagining thereupon your Highness might ask which they be, I have thought fit to include herein a note of them, that you may know all other Venetian names to be more modern; which yet here is no disadvantage, for the younger families do commonly carry the princedom.^[2]

135. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Marriage of Prince Cosmo of Tuscany to the sister of Ferdinand of Styria; English Catholics at Florence.

. . . The Great Duke hasteneth the marriage ^[1] of his heir before the cold weather, having to that end sent the eldest son of Don Virginio Orsino (who passed yesternight cross ^[2] these lagune) towards Graitz to perform the dispensation, and to conduct thence the Infanta (as the Florentines style her) to Trieste, where shall be ready to transport her over the Gulf ten galleys of this Signory; so much seem princes and states in this point less happy than private men, that they must now and then lend their help where they bear small goodwill.

Since I am fallen upon Florence (though it be out of my care especially at the present, his Majesty having there so sufficient a servant ^[3]), yet I cannot but lament unto your Lordship the danger that I foresee of corrupting many in that Court; whither many are drawn of our English gentlemen, by the beauty and security of the place, and purity of the language. For there is in that town at the present a certain knot of bastard Catholics, partly banished and partly voluntary resiants ^[4] there, whereof Tobie Mathew is the principal; who with pleasantness of conversation, and with force of example, do much harm, and are likely to do more, considering the correspondency they hold with the English in Rome, through whose means they seem to undertake the securing or endangering (and I think both easy enough) of any Englishman that shall go thither, according to his quality, by their recommendation and advice of him.

I had rather your Lordship should hear (as I am sure you have) some late particular effects from others than from me, who will only, in consideration of the future evil, take the humble boldness to refer unto his Majesty’s wisdom whether it were not fitter to enlarge Tobie Mathew (if he be forbidden access to Rome, where he can make nothing worse than it is), than to suffer him to continue in that intercepting place among a great confluence of English.

136. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 170, f. 155, dictated, extract. Wotton asks Edmondes to write once a week.

There hath indeed (as your Lordship doth justly blame me) been of late on my part some intermission, rather of writing, than of respect and love towards you; which hath proceeded partly from my secretary ^[1] his absence, whose hand I was wont to use, and partly through the suspense and apprehension wherein I have stood now six weeks of his loss on the way—enough to trouble, both in private and public respects, a stronger mind than mine own. Yet have the letters which your Lordship hath received from me been as many in number, though not so constant in the course of sending them, as those which I have received from you; and I must upon this occasion touch a point, with your favour, of some moment in this matter of intercourse between us, which is this: that your Lordship’s letters coming but every fortnight unto me, I do thereby lose either the whole or a great part of their fruit and benefit, except the testimony of your affection; for all that your Lordship doth advertise me of that Court ^[2] doth here arrive before, so precisely written by Flemmings and Italians, that no accident of that Court is omitted, and so truly, as your Lordship’s letters have in all points (whereof I have been a narrow observer) accorded continually with the precedent reports. Therefore, since your love will well bear it, I could wish that your Lordship would be pleased hereafter to write weekly, as I will oblige myself to do without fail, when I am returned from the Lago di Garda ^[3], whither I am going within these two days, and shall there remain some fourteen.

137. To Philippe Duplessis-Mornay ^[1].

Quae nunc sit conditio rerum cisalpinarum, intelleges ab hoc ipso egregio viro, per quem adeo humaniter aperuisti mihi viam ad amicitiam tuam. Quae posthac dies vehet, quo tutius tecum communicem liberiusque, visum est cifram (ut vocant) hisce adnectere.

Aeternum numen veneror ut qualescunque hos melioris aurorae radios diffundere usque quaque velit, urbemque hanc in medio aquarum positam, illo, illo, spiritu fovere, qui tum etiam cum adhuc informis esset mundi moles ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοὓ ὓδατος.

138. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton wrote that the Pope had sent a ‘Jubilee’ (an extraordinary and plenary indulgence) to Venice, but only a tenth of the nobles, ‘a tithe of blind souls,’ had taken advantage of it. After giving the gossip of Venice about this indulgence, and how it was thought to be due to the Pope’s wish to conciliate Venice, owing to the trouble in the Austrian Imperial family, he continues:

. . . These are the discourses of this place touching the Jubilee, represented unto his Majesty with that humble plainness which his wonted grace doth allow me. And upon occasion thereof, I have thought it part of my duty here to remember this Signory (as far as my poor judgement hath been fit to do it) of that fable in Aesop ^[1], touching the fellow on the hill, about whom the sun and wind did strive which of them should first make him lay off his cloak: seeming indeed unto me to have much resemblance with their own present case; for the cloak and, as I may call it, the robe of state whereof the Pope would strip them, is apparently their jurisdiction, which, when he could not effect with the blasts and storms of his excommunication, he now seeketh to do it by warming their backs with the flattering heat of his indulgences and benedictions. And so for the present week I humbly take my leave of your Lordship, resting,

139. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

. . . This morning, il Signor Georgio Fuggero (one of that pecunious race of Augusta) hath had his public audience in College, being to reside here for the Emperor, as it is said upon his own charge. He is a gentleman not far from threescore years, and seemeth to have transported hither from Trent (where was his ordinary habitation) his whole family, for his wife is said to have with her some twenty women, which, according to the ancient proverb, is bringing of owls to Athens.^[1]

140. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . Stephano Bogdan, one of the pretenders to the Princedom of Moldavia (for there is another walking about Germany, and a third settled by the Polonians), hath written hither from Constantinople ^[1] to the Archbishop of Philadelphia, to dissolve a marriage long since consummated between him and a gentlewoman in this town, alleging as a ground of this request to the said Archbishop (who is here the chief of the Greek Church) that finding his Majesty’s recommendation of him to his ambassador with the Grand Signor insufficient to advance his purposes, he determineth to fly unto the Persian, and would be sorry (as I conceive his reason) to have this match lie upon his conscience. The matter is come to the hearing of her friends, who make no small noise at it, and the rather for a certain report, scattered here by the said pretendant at his last passage this way (when he came from England), of some motions that had passed between him and the Lady Arabella of marriage, to succeed when he should be settled in his princedom; which now the friends of this woman affirm (out of conjecture) to have been not only the ground of that favour which he found in his Majesty’s Court, but also the true cause of the letter written to the foresaid Archbishop, that when this former match shall be disannulled, he may colourably prosecute the other. Thus standeth the matter in discourse here, and in more rumour than I could wish, through the occasion of the foresaid letter, whereof some of her friends have a copy, which I cannot yet procure; but the Archbishop ^[2] (with whom I am very familiar) hath confessed the truth thereof unto me, and that in very indignation (if I may believe a Greek) he burned the original.

141. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 170, f. 236, dictated, extract. Scandal in a Venetian convent; dowries of the daughters of Venetian noblemen.

This week hath produced here a very unexpected piece of justice, which yet I think will discover more evil than it will amend. On Wednesday last in the night were broken up eleven several doors by the public officer, for the apprehension of so many persons (whereof nine were gentlemen of principal houses) accused to have lasciviously haunted the Nunnery of St. Anna, and thence to have transported those votaries to their private chambers, and up and down the town in masking attire at festival assemblies. And the parties (who could want no warning) being not found the said night in their houses, were the very next morning (which seemeth a circumstance of rigour and haste) publicly summoned to appear by a crier in the usual place. Thus far the State hath proceeded already; and having now overpassed the first brunt of the public shame, no doubt they will go forward, if it be but to recover some reputation to the State by exemplar severity. In the meantime it hath occasioned much discourse and introspection into other defects of government, for it is found that the immediate cause of filling cloisters with such willing and wanton creatures, proceeded from their parents, who to spare so much marriage money, impose commonly that life upon three daughters at least if they have five, and so in proportion. The fathers, on the other side, excuse themselves with the excessive rate unto which marriage portions are mounted here; no gentleman’s daughter requiring less for the bestowing of her than twenty-five or thirty thousand crowns in present money, which some two hundred years since was a good provision in the public treasury. Now the causes of this access they find to be two, the one common to other States, which is the opening of the Indies and increase of money, the other more proper to this Signory, where, by the ancient customs, the gentlemen could not intermatch with other than gentlemen; but the citizens growing to great wealth, for the purchasing of some credit and strength in the State, or at least for saving of themselves from injuries, were contented among the nobility to buy a son-in-law at a great rate, which induced the corruption of giving so much with daughters. These are the discourses that have grown upon the present occasion, which are intermingled with some remembrance of Monsignor Ofredo ^[1], who died here in time of his nunciature not long after my coming; a man very familiar in the above-named cloister, under the prerogative of his habit and charge. And it is somewhat notable that in the time of the late variance, these very nuns, and some other of not much better fame, were exceeding zealous champions and brogliste, as we call them, for the Pope.

142. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 170, f. 250, dictated. The Convent scandal; Mole in the Inquisition; arrival of the treasure fleet in Spain, &c.

Here are arrived Cardinals Doria of Genoa ^[1], and Plata of Milan ^[2], to take a sight of this town, without train or noise. The first of them lieth in a camera locanda, the other in a monastery. The State taketh knowledge of neither as yet, being good at that piece of wisdom. For the business of the nuns, wherewith I acquainted your Lordship by the last post, it is likely to breed here a most exceeding confusion; the sentence of the first nine gentlemen being (as it should seem) deferred upon the detection of more, which have been accused by one Celestina Semiticala, a gentlewoman sister of the Nunnery of St. Anna, who hath been this week very severely tortured upon the cord; a rare example without the case of treason, wherewith the Nuncio is much scandalized, because the whole process is formed by the civil arm. From Rome we have the imprisonment of Poma, the assassinate of Friar Paolo the Servite, about whom I shall give you more knowledge by the next post. There poor Mr. Mole ^[3] continueth in the prison of the Inquisition; and upon the return of the Barons Ross and St. Jhon ^[4] from Naples there was one Lane, an Englishman (who, I think, came in their company), also suddenly apprehended, who carrieth himself as I hear exceeding stoutly. This piazza is full of noise touching the arrival of the Indian fleet in Spain, the merchants glad, the politiques troubled therewith; and if it have truth in it, it may peradventure breed some substantial damage in your treaty.^[5] This is all that the week yieldeth. And so I rest,

143. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

B. M. Stowe MS. 170, f. 258, dictated, unsigned. News of Venice; the Spanish-Dutch treaty, &c.

The nine gentlemen and one secretary of the State, which were processed for the debauchment of the nuns of St. Anna, have now had their sentence, which is the confination of six of them fifteen years, and of the other four (in whose faults there was found some difference) for twelve, in several islands of this dominion; which verdict is milder than was expected (and indeed unproportionable to the fury of the beginning) through a respect of State therein, that, as oftentimes else, hath drowned the respect of justice. The fear was this, that much practice might be grounded in foreign states upon so many gentlemen, discontented and strong in parentage, if they had been banished at large, and without limitation of time or hope of return. This was the fear, or at least with this they cover the lenity of the sentence.

There is boiling between this State and the Pope a new quarrel about a litigious wood, lying on the confines of Ferrara, whereof I hope there will be more to be said to your Lordship by the next post.

The Duke of Nevers ^[1] is now pompously arrived in Rome, with divers gentlemen of the Reformed religion in his train, notwithstanding the proclamation, whereof I wrote unto your Lordship in my last, as I remember.

What will become of Poma, the assassinate of the Friar Paolo, whom the Pope holdeth still in prison since his resistance of the sergeants, we yet know not.

In Florence is, I hear, arrived Sir Jhon Harrington,^[2] with many gentlemen, who, I think, touched upon your Lordship in his passage.

Your Lordship’s postscript of this week touching the Indian fleet doth likewise make much noise here; and I think on my conscience this State was never glad before now for the arrival of the Spanish moneys; for they draw this consequence (as every man in Italy is a logician for himself) that it will raise the spirits of Spain, and so perchance trouble your treaty, against which without doubt all Venetian saints do pray, even St. Rocco, whom the Pope hath not yet received into his calendar.^[3] I am fain to make a little sport with your Lordship, for lack of more serious matter, and so to pass over this post with you, still remembering my hearty love and good wishes to yourself and whole family.

144. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Ridolfo Poma in Rome; another plot against Sarpi; Lord Roos in Venice; Wotton’s plan to procure the release of Mole by means of Nicholas Fitzherbert.

. . . From Rome we hear that Poma (the suborner of him who gave the blow to the Friar Paulo) flying thither, was received by the Cardinal Ascanio Colonna then living, who was the head of the practice which he had consulted with the Cardinal Borghesi. This Poma of late, upon some private accusation (whereof the secret is yet unknown) having been apprehended by the Pope’s sergeants in the resistance of them (for which even the minions of cardinals have lost their lives), was hurt, and is now (though in prison) much cherished by the Pope, who seemeth to stand in a great dilemma. If he let him go, how palpable will be his protection of assassinates; if he punish him, who will give any more blows for the Church?^[1]

There is detected two other conspiracies against the person of the said friar, the one revealed unto him by his own converso, a Roman, who had been practised withal to make him away, by two sent hither of purpose (his kinsmen) from Viterbo.^[2] The other instrument should have been one of his own order in Padua, who (as I hear) likewise revealed it himself. These are the effects and proper character of that purpurissata meretrix. . . .

Here is newly arrived the Lord Rosse, and St. Jhons, who hath been ill welcomed with a violent fever, whereof yet we hope the worst is past.

With the Lord Rosse I have dealt very seriously touching the Roman journey, and find in his speeches a most vehement detestation of that foolish religion. Touching Mr. Mole, I have propounded a course unto my Lord Rosse for his delivery, which shall be to transport by oblique means to the hands of Nicholas Fitzherbert ^[3] some portion of money, as well for the present necessities of the said Mole, as also to be disposed to the helping of him out, by the discretion of Fitzherbert, to whom I mean to write that by this deed he shall win good opinion from his Majesty, by whose grace he hath long desired to return home. This is the probablest way that we can take for the helping of that poor gentleman, without spending any suit in it.

145. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, no date, endorsed ‘rec. pr. Jan’. Flight of the Patriarch’s vicar to Rome; John Finnett, &c.

Having both extraordinary occasion and a fit opportunity of writing to your Lordship within three or four days, by an Italian gentleman (whom I shall be bold, among my other presumptions, to recommend unto your honourable favour), I should by this post say nothing, were it not for an accident happened here this last week of much noise.

Monsignor Ribetta ^[1], the vicar here of the Patriarch, and one of the seven Theologi (who jointly published certain propositions against the validity of the Pope’s excommunication), under pretence of some business abroad, is secretly fled to Rome; induced thereunto partly by the example of Fulgentio the Franciscan ^[2], whom the Pope useth not ill (as they have indeed the art of fostering examples), and likewise by the persuasion of the Patriarch himself (as hath been since known), who, in hope of a cardinalship, undertook the working of this man. He hath hereby increased the ill conceit of the Senate towards him, where it is taken very sensitively; but himself being at the present hectical ^[3], and not likely long to escape, they have manifested their anger no farther than in the limitation of that faculty, which the Pope gave him, to dispense the intrate which the Jesuits drew out of this State, amounting (as I am now informed by the particulars) to the point of 20,000 crowns per annum. For having been well considered that the Pope might buy a great deal of goodwill with such a sum laid out to his advantage yearly, the Senate seemeth resolved only to take a note from the Patriarch of such persons as shall seem fit unto him, and to make the distribution afterwards as shall seem fit to themselves. Now there is likely to ensue upon this a secondary good, that the clergy, priests, and friars (who shall participate of this intrata) will leave no saint unprayed unto to keep out the Jesuits, somewhat (in a smaller proportion) like unto that course of Henry VIII in the division of the abbey lands, for which the only wise God be ever thanked.

This is all wherewith I will trouble your Lordship at the present, being in a little time to make a very important dispatch unto his Majesty, by the joint deliberation of the best affected here. It shall be fit for me to conclude with many humble thanks, as for the rest of your favours, so for the late honours which it pleased your Lordship to do unto mine honest countryman and friend, Mr. Jhon Finnet ^[4], and in him to me, and for the confidence which your Lordship hath, and may justly repose in him, for the serving of my Lord your son ^[5] in his travels; whom, according to your Lordship’s speech unto me in your bed at my departure (whereof I have forgot nothing), I may now hope to see in this poor house, before his Majesty call me from this charge, where I have been so unprofitable unto him, and resolve me again into those plain and simple elements whereof I am compounded. In the meantime and always I humbly rest,

I have herewith sent unto his Majesty the first leaf of a book newly arrived here from Bologna, where it was printed, that his Majesty may see in the front of the epistle how the Pope’s titles are grown;^[6] which indeed is an effect of his former depression, for the more his authority hath been lately questioned so near him, the more his penmen set him up. The book itself shall be sent through Fraunce, whereof the greatest triumph will be that a Venetian was the author.

146. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 170, f. 278, dictated. The Dutch-Spanish treaty; flight of Ribetta; message to Lady Lovell, &c.

I have of late received weekly from your Lordship very kind information of such things as occur with you there, which bindeth me to be very careful on my part of requiting (if the matter will yield it) your pains, or at least your goodwill.

The present with us is very empty, all our thoughts hanging—and very droopingly—upon that treaty; and the more for that every day increaseth with us the opinion that the French King doth press the truce at the request of the Pope, who I think would fain have the King of Spain at rest from thoughts abroad, that their united powers, which embrace more than two-thirds of Italy, may be the more formidable to this State, of which the Pope cannot have his will over-easily.

They stand here likewise much aux éscoutes to hear how his Majesty will resolve about the Florentine businesses, Sir Steaphen Leasure being by likelihood ere this arrived at home.

From Constantinople we have news that the plague was entered into Sir Thomas Glover his house, and his lady is said to have been infected.

From Rome we hear that the late fugitive Ribetta, seduced, as I wrote to your Lordship, by the Patriarch, hath received from the Pope a pension of quaranta scudi di camera the month (which is excellent money), and an allowance of meat, with chambering for himself and two servants. My Lord, believe it (and I speak it unto you with suspiration) we are short of them not only in the skill, but in the zeal of multiplying their side.

Hence departed two days since the Lord Rosse towards France. The Lord St. Jhon lieth still here sick of the small-pox, and the town is full of that, and the measles, and such other popular diseases.

Here is newly arrived Sir Jhon Harrington, who speaketh much honour of your Lordship, and hath showed me a list of your English nuns there; which giveth me occasion to beg this favour, that some one of your Lordship’s gentlemen may deliver my service to the Lady Lovell ^[1], not only as a Kentish lady of rare spirit and noble courtesy (when she was in the world), whereof myself have been often witness, but also for that particular friendship which passed between her husband and me. This is the trouble which this week can yield your Lordship, to whom, remembering my hearty love, I commit your safety to the God of Heaven.

147. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

The Pope hath finally bestowed the Abbey of Loredano ^[1] (whereof I wrote your Lordship in my last) upon his nephew, notwithstanding that it had continued many years in the body of this nobility; which although it be of itself a very sensible subject, yet is likely to be the worse taken, for that his said nephew, having been before the variance made a gentleman of Venice (as all Pope’s nephews commonly are), hath been now put in by his uncle into this rich thing under that jest. Neither have we this week any other matter of moment or entertainment. And therefore I commit your Lordship to the God of Heaven.

148. To James I.

S. P. Ven., dictated, unsigned. Wotton introduces Giovanni Franceso Biondi to the King.

The presenter hereof (by name Francesco Biondi ^[1]) is a gentleman born in the confines of Italie towards Dalmatia, whom God hath endued not only with the knowledge, but with the zeal of His truth, which made him long since resolve to seek some employment under your Majesty’s protection and grace, where he might profess his conscience with more freedom. He hath been bred in learning and in affairs, and was secretary to the Cavaliere Pietro Priuli ^[2], resident for this State in the French Court, during the whole time of the late variance with the Pope, where he opened himself also to your Majesty’s servant Sir George Carew, and brought from thence on his own charge the library of a gentleman of the Religion, with much hazard of his person, which was afterwards here disposed by him into sundry hands. He hath here held correspondence with divers principal men of the Reformed Churches among the Grisons, in Geneva, and in some other parts of France, and hath from those places been recommended to me very confidently, and I have both generally found much integrity in him, and in sundry occasions that have occurred here, very particular devotion towards your Majesty’s royal person and name. In which considerations I have presumed to accompany him with my poor and humble testimony unto your gracious presence; and the rather, for that upon this opportunity Maestro Paulo (who I think would trust few other) hath resolved to propound certain propositions by him unto your Majesty’s renowned wisdom and piety for the general good.^[3] And so, having no other subject for the present, I beseech our Lord Jesus to cover your Majesty and your estates with his particular protection and love.

149. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. The preaching of Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio; money bequeathed to the Jesuits.

Being most assured that I shall yield your Majesty much satisfaction with the matter that occurreth at the present, I have immediately directed it, with all humble reverence, to your own royal hand. Fulgentio the Servite ^[1] preacheth here daily this Lent (except the Saturdays) out of his own convent, at the Church of St. Lorenzo; his sermons are wholly orthodoxal, his speech forcible, his conceptions sharp and grave, his countenance modest and attractive; but above all his heart full of zeal and courage. And surely this immortal praise must be given him, that he is the first which, in a quiet time, hath entered the list against the Pope.^[2] For Fulgentio the Franciscan ^[3] preached only during the variance, and more against manners than doctrine. The concourse unto him on the feast days is great in number, and great in quality, consisting of the principal senators and gentlemen. The rest of the week he hath never less than between 500 and 600.^[4] And we hope, that besides the present fruit and penetration of his speech into his hearers, it will also excite much curiosity of conference with him after Lent. To these beginnings the Nuncio opposed himself, and would have put him out of the list of the preachers, but the Duke of Venice kept him in. And for his greater encouragement there fell out a memorable accident.

It is the manner before Lent that all the preachers appear at the office of the Inquisition, and there enroll their names. This office (rather fearful in voice than in substance) consisteth of six persons, the Patriarch, his vicar, the Nuncio, the General Inquisitor, and two Venetian gentlemen, without whose consent (though the rest agree) nothing is done. Hither came the preachers, upon whom the Inquisitor commonly bestoweth some short admonishment, who at this time, by some divine inspiration (being otherwise a most superstitious friar) told them they were to teach two things, good life, and the means how to be saved, ‘which both’ (said he) ‘are plainly delivered in the Holy Scripture. There you shall find it, and farther you are not to seek.’ These words Fulgentio repeated from the mouth of the Inquisitor in his first sermon, and thereupon promised his hearers that he would not depart out of the limits of God’s word prescribed him, and in all events he intendeth to ground thereon his defence. It shall be fit for me likewise to advertise your Majesty that this Fulgentio with others hath been lately received (which peradventure gave him the more boldness) into a straiter protection of the State than before upon this occasion.

Francesco Ribetta (sometimes vicar to this Patriarch, and one of the seven Theologi that wrote in the time of the variance) was in Rome first of the fugitives put to public penance and abjuration of his book; which being signified hither by their ambassador, the interest of the cause, and the open contumely, moved the Senate to pass a decree (with all balls but six) to this substance.

That the Theologi remaining should have an increase of their annual pension from 200 to 400 ducats during their life.

That there should be chosen others into the place of those that were fled, to keep the first number full.

That the Prince should call them into the College and commend their constancy verbis idoneis, and promise them the defence of the State.

This was performed, as may appear unto your Majesty by the speech of the Prince (which I have hereunto annexed, as it was taken from him) and the names of the Theologi, whereof three are Orthodoxal, Maestro Paulo, Fulgentio, and Marsiglio ^[5], the rest boni cives. And so your Majesty seeth that we have here a visible and certain number of divines successively maintained by public authority, and under public pension, against the Pope, whereof one is openly entered into the field.^[6]

I cannot conclude without adding to these former things (for some recreation of your Majesty’s more serious thoughts) a late accident which hath yielded us here much sport. The Bishop of Ceneda ^[7] (a Venetian gentleman of the house of Mocenigo) had a sister widow, rich in money, who had been a penitent of the Jesuits. This gentlewoman dying, disposeth in her will that her body be conserved within a coffin of lead in the nunnery of the Citelle, or Virgins here, and thence transported to the church of the Jesuits, when they shall return; to whom she leaveth ten thousand crowns, to be consigned unto them with the interest of the money likewise, at their return, and in the meantime to remain in the hands of her brothers.^[8] Now hereby she hath, in the judgement of them that well understand this Government, against her own meaning, out of the fatal blindness of superstition, absolutely excluded the Jesuits for ever, or done much towards it. For whereas before the Mocenigi was one of the most suspected families, we are now sure they will never give a ball to the return of those Fathers, to whom they are to pay such a sum and the fruit of it; besides that the State hath taken hereby new observation (which will want no urging) whither the Jesuits tend in their absolutions of such penitents.

Our Lord Jesus cover your Majesty and your estates with his particular providence and love, and augment here more and more his own kingdom.

150. To Sir Julius Caesar.

Add. MS. 12504, f. 259, holograph. A plan to entrap Brochetta, who killed young Julius Caesar (ante, p. 410).

It hath not been (as I can truly profess) any want of duty towards your honourable person, which hath kept me so long from giving you an accompt of the process that was formed here against the murderer (as I must justly call him) of your son. But principally the cause of my silence was this.

George Rooke, a Kentish gentleman heretofore of my family (who, for the experience I had taken of his discretion and care in some other important occasions, was employed by me in the pursuit of this unfortunate cause at Padua), did there light upon an Italian, who offered after the banishment of Brochetta, to hold so good espial upon him, as that he made no doubt within little time to catch him beyond the bounds limited in his sentence; in which case he was condemnable to the galleys. This proposition the said Italian (while George Rooke lay sick at Brescia in his homeward journey) came purposely hither to propound unto me, from whom he seemed to desire (for it was done somewhat tenderly) some portion of money beforehand, either as part of a reward, or part of that expense which he was to make in watching the fellow’s steps. I fomented the proposition as much as I could—with words, but with no money; telling him, that of being rewarded he could not be doubtful, for there was a reward annexed to the sentence of Brochetta alli captori di lire seicento; and likewise I bade him repose himself upon me for some further recompense. With this he parted fairly from me; and hath been with me again once or twice since with the same language, still keeping me in hope of effecting it, even till this present week, wherein, understanding from home the arrival of the foresaid George Rooke, and conceiving that his relation unto your Honour of the process would be very lame, without such papers as he sent me from Padua, and as passed between me and the Podestà touching the business, I have thought fit to transport the same unto you herewith. And if this other purpose (which hath kept me in suspense) shall fall out, I will take it de lucro. I had hoped likewise with these papers to send your Honour (for your especial comfort) a Greek Testament wherein your son, before his meals, was wont every day to read two chapters, as I am since informed; which giveth me this assurance, that though his end was fatal and sudden, yet he had always good thoughts about him, even in the midst of some imperfections, rather of his age than of his nature. But this book I can by no means recover out of the hands of the Inquisitor, whom I have urged so far both by private and public means, as that he hath been forced to deny the having of it.

I will conclude with begging your Honour’s pardon for my former silence, and with beseeching God to give me some more comfortable occasion to serve you.

Post.—Your Honour hath, I think, been already acquainted with some moneys that were disbursed by me in the process and burial (the Caponi refusing to do it); whereof you shall now receive an accompt, under the hand of George Rooke, who dispensed the same, which it may please your Honour to discharge unto Mr. Nicolas Pey, the presenter of the said accompts, at your conveniency.

151. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The Pope’s comment on Fulgenzio’s preaching.

. . . The resident ambassador of the Signory at Rome hath written to this Duke that the Pope himself having (after the Cardinal Lanfranco) expostulated with him touching the sermons of Fulgentio ^[1] he gave him this answer, that the said Fulgentio (as he had been informed from hence) did preach but the Gospel and word of God. Et non sapete voi (replied the Pope in a great passion) che il predicare la pura Scrittura et il puro Evangelio è un voler ruinare et distruggere la fede Catholica‘?’^[2] These were his formal words; which being rehearsed in Senate out of the ambassador’s letter, did cause a general murmur and scandal amongst them. And Padre Paulo is of opinion that nothing was to be wished more for the opening of their eyes here than such a voice from the Pope himself.

152. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton sends to England the mosaic picture of Lord Salisbury.

I will present unto his Majesty no other occurrence by this post than the enclosed paper ^[1], for which God’s eternal will and wisdom be praised. In the rest of this sheet I will take the boldness to advertise your Lordship, that having here caused your picture to be made in mosaic, as the best present that I could conceive for my Lord of Cramborn, your son, in humble acknowledgement of my great obligations towards your own noble person and memory, and having long expected an opportunity to transport the same into England by sea, I have this week adventured it on a ship called the Thomas of London, bound directly homewards, whereof the master is one Gardiner, whom, that he might take the better care thereof, I have here delivered by intercession with the State of some difficulty wherein he stood.^[2] His vessel doth not exceed 100 ton, but she is a well conditioned ship, and himself hitherto fortunate in his voyages. The picture is made precisely according to the draught of that wherewith your Lordship upon my humble request did honour me; I mean, as nearly as the natural colours of stone can approach to artificial, and so near indeed as I must confess unto your Lordship hath much exceeded mine own expectation. Only there is added a year more unto your Lordship’s age, and to your titles Gran Tesauriere d’Inghilterra, the rest being likewise in Italian; for the workman would by no means give his consent (nor I neither) to the French superscription. It is directed to your Lordship in this time of my Lord of Cramborn’s absence, whom I have advertised thereof by the way of Lions; and it is the workman’s special suit and remembrance, that it may be set in his true light, and at a little more height from the eye than a coloured picture would require. I will hearken after the success of it on the way, that if it should chance to miscarry (which I hope it will not), yet I may cause another to be made by the same hand and pattern. And so, having discharged this small duty towards your Lordship, which mine own conscience and sense of your favours imposed upon myself, I must humbly rest as I am bound,

153. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Monks punished; Wotton going to the baths of Abano.

. . . They have here within these two days sentenced to ten years’ close imprisonment the friar who, a year since, was banished for lending the Nuntio and Angelo Badoero ^[1] his cell during their secret conference, and now presumed to return, not only within their territory, but to his former convent in this city, where he was apprehended. And it is said that another monk of Perugia (who under some colours came hither to practise the death of Maestro Paulo) was this week by sentence of the Council of Ten drowned secretly in the night. Thus do I entertain your Lordship with nothing but the chastisement of friars, while from other of his Majesty’s servants abroad you receive subjects of greater noise; but I hope God doth, under these small accidents, intend some excellent and admirable work in this place. I must now humbly crave your Lordship’s pardon for this next fortnight’s silence, unless some important occasion of writing fall out; for I am advised by my physicians after my late sickness ^[2] to take a little fresh air, and to drink of a mineral water near Padua at the Baths of Abano ^[3], against a calcular disposition whereof I am somewhat afraid. God keep your Lordship in His safe and dear protection.

154. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. No date, enclosed in dispatch of May 23. Directions for sending letters to Venice.

A remembrance for your Lordship’s secretary that it may please his Lordship hereafter to send all his letters hither under the packet and by the means of Signor Philippo Burlamachi ^[1] there, an Italian of the Religion, and that they be made up with a file of burnt wire ^[2] to prevent their opening here under pretext of contagion. The said Burlamachi hath here very safe respondents, and none of his packets have ever failed.

155. To the Earl of Salisbury.

Cecil MS. 105, f. 162, holograph, postscript to a long dispatch entitled ‘A few humble remembrances about the proposition of my employment to some of the German Princes in my return’. In this paper Wotton proposes that on his return from Venice, he should visit ‘as out of mine own curiosity to adumbrate the business’ the Courts of the principal German Princes, or at least the four lying almost in the route of his journey, the Duke of Würtemberg, the Count Palatine of Neuburg, the Landgrave Maurice of Hesse, and the Count Palatine of the Rhine. He suggested that he should urge them ‘to a more strait correspondence and vigilancy over the common good, and from this generality to excite them to the planting of some friendship by fit instruments and colours with this Republic, for fomenting tacitamente of the quarrel so well-rooted between them and the Pope upon the point of civil power’. He might also (if James I approved) ‘sound how the said princes stand disposed to a defensive combination or unity, both among themselves and with others, under the title and form . . . “of procuring and maintaining a temporal security of their persons and estates against the encroaching Babylonian Monarch” ’. He might also suggest that those Princes should exact from their subjects an oath of allegiance similar to the one devised by James I, and that they should ‘inhibit by their absolute authority all writings against one another, and abstain from advancing hot and eager-spirited theologes’ as James I had urged in his Premonition. ‘These,’ he adds, ‘are the private cogitations, which, out of discourse here with some of the best affected, I have thought it my duty to offer unto his Majesty’s high and Christian consideration, as a lump of unformed matter, which it may please him by his instructions, to cast into a better mould.’ In this postscript he tells of a suggestion of Sarpi’s that the United Provinces should send an ambassador to Venice to announce the conclusion of the truce. As the truce was concluded on April 9, 1609, and Cornelius Vandermyle was sent to announce it to Venice in the following September, this undated paper of Wotton’s was probably written about June in this year, when there was some talk of his return to England.

Postscript.—Before the departure of this bearer M. P.^[1] did secretly confer with me a conceit of his own not impertinent to the premises, which was this in substance: that if the States of the United Provinces, might by his Majesty’s means, be incited to give by an ambassador some accompt of the issue of their treaty to this Signiory, it would be corresponded with the like, and so a farther friendship might kindle between them, upon a fair occasion, for the common good. And he added that if the Marquis of Brandenburg shall be settled in the Dukedom of Cleves ^[2] (as is likeliest by our intelligence) the like occasion may be taken by him also, which I shall have opportunity to further in the German journey. I replied (out of a former letter from your Lordship) with some marvel why this Signory did not by their own resident in England motion ^[3] the matter to the resident there of the States rather than addorse ^[4] it upon his Majesty. And he answered, that his Majesty was here contemplated for the balancer of Christendom, who therefore had a proper interest in all such good propositions. ‘Besides, this State (quoth he) will not seem to seek it, but I know they will take it if it be offered, being governed at the present con una certa specie di prudentia piu tosto passiva che attiva.’

If your Lordship have not before the arrival of this bearer dispatched Biondi ^[5] (much bound unto you as he professeth in all his letters), then it may please his Majesty, according to his royal resolution about my journey, to let him prepare the way against my coming in any of those Courts through which he passeth, being a very faithful and zealous negotiator.

156. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Postscript to dispatch of June 18. Another English tutor imprisoned by the Inquisition.

About the time of this bearer’s departure, there is occurred an accident in these parts to one of his Majesty’s subjects; which seeming unto me a matter of public consequence, I have thought it my duty to represent the same unto his Majesty’s higher wisdom as an appendix to this dispatch.

My Lord Wentworthe ^[1] on the 18th of May, coming towards Venice (as then immediately from Florence), accompanied with his brother-in-law Mr. Henry Crafts, one Edward Lichefeld, their governor, and some two or three other English, through Bologna, as they were there together at supper the very night of their arrival, came up two Dominican Friars, with the sergeants of the town, and carried thence the foresaid Lichefeld, with all his papers, into the prison of the Inquisition, where he yet remaineth. Thus standeth this accident in the bare circumstances thereof, not different, save only in place, from that of Mr. Mole at Rome. And doubtlessly (as we collect now upon the whole matter) if Sir Jhon Harrington had either gone the Roman journey, or taken the ordinary way in his remove hitherwards out of Tuscany, the like would have befallen his director also, a gentleman of singular sufficiency; for it appeareth a new piece of counsel (infused into the Pope by his artisans the Jesuits) to separate by some device their guides from our young noblemen (about whom they are busiest), and afterwards to use themselves (for aught I can yet hear) with much kindness and security, but yet with restraint (when they come to Rome) of departing thence without leave; which form was held both with the Lords Rosse and St. Jhons, and with this Lord Wentworthe and his brother-in-law at their being there. And we have at the present also a like example or two in Barons of the Almaign nation of our religion, whose governors are imprisoned at Rome and Ferrara; so as the matter seemeth to pass into a rule. And albeit hitherto those (before-named) of our own be escaped out of that Babylon (as far as I can penetrate) without any bad impressions, yet surely it appeareth very dangerous to leave our travellers in this contingency; especially being dispersed in the middle towns of Italy (whither the language doth most draw them) certain nimble pleasant wits in quality of interceptors, who deliver over to their correspondents at Rome the dispositions of gentlemen before they arrive, and so subject them both to attraction by argument, and attraction by humour.

I must not conceal from his Majesty that (according to my intelligence from Rome) the above-named Lichefeld was there reconciled (as they term it) in the novitiate of the Jesuits;^[2] which, being incompatible with his present imprisonment, and much more with his own confusion at the time of his taking, I dare not believe, growing every day to me (as I must confess) more and more uncertain whom I shall think white or black, through the skill of the Jesuits, who knowing that example and number have vim aggregandi, work upon report and, either dead or alive, blemish all alike.

157. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton sends the King the Earl of Gowrie’s arms, taken from a dancing-school at Padua.

I have taken the boldness of this my nephew ^[1] (a poor scholar and member of that College in Cambridge whereof your Majesty is especial patron) to transport unto your royal hand a strange relic out of this country, which I have here received from Sir Robert Douglas.^[2] This right honest gentleman, some few days after his arrival in these parts, falling at Padua into the company of one of his countrymen, who had spent some time in that town, and out of former speech (which he had heard at home) inquiring after a certain emblem or impresa which the Earl of Gowrie ^[3] had left in some place of this Signory, was unexpectedly directed by the same man unto it in the public school of a dancer, where it hung among divers other devices and remembrances of such as had been his scholars, through time somewhat obscured and blemished with dust; of which, when he had taken a sight and procured a copy, under show of bearing much affection to the memory of the gentleman, he came immediately to acquaint me with the quality of the thing; and we agreed together that it should be fit (if possible) to obtain the very original itself, and to leave in the room thereof the copy that he had already taken, which he did effect by well handling the matter.

Thus hath your Majesty now a view in umbra of those detestable thoughts which afterwards appeared in facto, according to the said Earl’s own mot. For what other sense or allusion can the reaching at a crown with a sword in a stretched posture, and the impersonating of his device in a blackamoor, yield to any intelligent and honest beholder?^[4]

I will conclude (as I am justly moved by the occasion) with humble and hearty thanks to God both for this, and many other his vigilant and loving preservations of your dear and sacred person, to whose happy sight again hoping by your gracious pleasure to be shortly restored,^[5] I most humbly rest,

158. To Henry Prince of Wales.

Harl. MS. 7007, f. 27, holograph. Printed in Birch’s Prince Henry, p. 171. Wotton recommends Albertus Morton to the Prince.

Having upon occasion of his Majesty’s service, sent home this poor scholar my nephew, I have taken the presumption to represent unto your Highness my humble reverence by him, who is a domestical witness, how often I do here profess myself bound unto the same, for that gracious inclination which it pleased you to show towards me in my bold suit for your letters to this Signory; whereof I was long since, to my exceeding comfort, informed very particularly by your Highness his worthy servant, Mr. Newton.

Of our affairs here I shall not need to render your Highness any accompt in this paper, having particularly instructed the bearer for your better information in whatsoever it shall please you to demand; whom most humbly recommending to your good favour, and beseeching our Lord Jesus to multiply His sweet graces and blessings upon your princely person, I rest,

159. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I have presumed to address unto your Lordship this young negotiator, with my humble answer unto your last dated the 23th of March; concurring withal some other occasions which it may please you to understand from him. And so beseeching your Lordship to patronize the imperfections, both of the sender and of the messenger, I commit your safety in my hearty prayers to our Lord Jesus.

160. To Viscount Cranborne.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton presents the picture in mosaic of Lord Salisbury to his eldest son, Lord Cranborne.

It is long since I undertook (as some about your Lordship are able to tell you) a presumption and yet withal a duty, in causing my Lord your father’s picture from a copy of Jhon de Creet’s ^[1] draught, to be transported here by no ill hand into mosaic. Not that his Lordship can need any such visible representations to make his memory last, having with his noble labours and his Christian counsels and intentions (wherewith I dare boldly say no servant of his Majesty’s abroad is through his favour better acquainted than myself) prepared long since a more permanent monument; but only out of mine own humble thankfulness, whom he hath received into his patronage, and many ways bound to study the honour of his name.

Now (my Lord) to whom could I more properly dedicate this poor present than to yourself, who are his better image, and to whom he will finally (though God long defer it for the public good) leave his estate, and that which you do and have reason much more to esteem and contemplate—his example? Your Lordship therefore may be pleased to give order home for the disposing thereof, whither it was sent long since, with a direction unto you, in a ship called the Thomas of London, whereof was master one Edmund Gardner. And so hoping to kiss your Lordship’s hands here before my departure, and to present you (for my last service) into the arms of this famous Duke,^[2] I commit your Lordship to God’s blessed protection.

161. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The Abbey of Vangadizza; a Venetian gentleman hanged.

The Pope hath made a proposition to this State by their new ambassador resident ^[1] with him, that if they will first admit his nephew to the possession of the Abbey of Vangadizza, he shall immediately resign the same again a qualche confidente della Republica. That was his very phrase; whereunto the Senate hath made answer that, for their parts, they have not contentiously or passionately resisted his said nephew, being desirous of the common quiet, but only out of the patronage of that right which they conceive the Monks of Camaldola to have in the succession of the abbey. This hath been their answer hitherto in substance; wherewith, albeit the Pope have reason, in my understanding (his own principles always supposed) to be more scandalized than with any point of the former variance, especially having adjudged this thing to his nephew solemnly in the Rota at Rome ^[2]; yet do we not see that either he hath excommunicated the Convent of Camaldola, out of which the Abbot Fulgentio, who is in present possession, was chosen, or the Abbot himself, to this hour. So indulgent a father, or so thrifty a husbander is he grown of his excommunications!—and I think will so continue, till the word be again disfamiliarized, which now will scant trouble a gondolier. . . .

To-morrow morning at the point of day, for the less disgrace, is here to be publicly beheaded one of their gentlemen of the house of Bolani, for having assailed another gentleman with a pistol (himself masked) as he came from a dicing redotto, and taken some moneys from him. With this rarity (for so are surely the executions of their gentlemen) I will end, committing your Lordship to God’s blessed favour.

162. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . The Pope hath renewed his complaint personally, to the now Venetian resident with him, about the Bibles ^[1] introduced into this State by me, and it pleased the Prince, at the time of the advice in Senate, to express some goodwill to me upon the occasion. Here hath been scattered a report by the Pope’s seminators that his Majesty had granted leave, at the suit of the ambassador Correro, to have mass sung in a little old church by his house—which I have suppressed as a notorious untruth.

163. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 171, f. 128, holograph. James I’s Apologia pro Iuramento Fidelitatis, and its reception by foreign princes.

I have been of late wantonly much abroad, flattering ^[1] myself since my sickness, which hath caused some empty weeks between us, neither do our affairs here yield indeed any great entertainment. The principal subject of discourse at the present through Italy is our good Master’s excellent work,^[2] which the Devil would fain hurt. France is said to have much and openly approved it, Spain to have refused it. How your Lordship hath framed that Court we yet know not. Here no doubt it will be kissed, when I can have opportunity to present it, for at the present our famous Duke is a little confined within his chamber by a humour fallen down into one of his legs. The litigious abbey will, I think, be agreed upon to the advantage, and almost to the appetite of this State; but of that hereafter. Sir Jhon Harrington is on the German journey. And being slipped into the mention of voyaging, I must congratulate with your Lordship for the news I hear of your own leave to return into our sweet England. For myself, his Majesty hath been pleased to tolerate my poor endeavours here somewhat longer, out of that goodness by which he first called me so much above my merit unto his service.

164. To the Earl of Salisbury.

This worthy Duke, being recovered of that little indisposition (advertised in my former), I presented unto him on Saturday last (which was St. James his day) his Majesty’s book and letters,^[1] telling him (by way of preparation) that the congiuntura di quel giorno (wherein I then performed this office) was fallen out (though casually) non senza buon augurio, being the day of his Majesty’s happy coronation, wherein the Almighty God had set over us so learned, so wise, and so just a King. And from hence, falling into some discourse of the book, I told him farther, that when princes (who have so many public cares and diversions of their mind) do dispense any portion of their time in writing, every one ought to believe the subject to be most important and proportionable to the height of their degree; as this indeed was which his Majesty had handled, whereof the scope would best appear in the occasion. And hereupon I fell to deduce unto him the first motive thereof from the powder treason, which occasioned our supreme Court of Parliament (then assembled) to institute an oath of fidelity or allegiance, for the future safety of his Majesty’s royal person (with whom God had so much blessed us) against the practices of the Pope, who by his Jesuits (whom I termed his istrumenti politici) sought (as was now most palpable) in all kingdoms and Signories to nourish a private party against the public obedience. In which consideration, his Majesty (being tied to some princes by affinity, to others, by particular affection, but to all communi vinculo Maiestatis) did hold it his duty to justify the general cause, and to incite them fraternally to a weighty and serious care thereof in their several dominions. For as the Pope (with which comparison I took the boldness to entertain them) did hold many consulte, and had appointed a special congregation of cardinals to deliberate about the means how to stop the inundations of the Tiber, and to contain the same within his own channel or bounds, so was it now grown as necessary for other princes to consult together how to stop the inundations of Popes themselves, and to contain them within their spiritual pretences;^[2] for the question now in hand went no farther. True it was, that his Majesty had in this his book interjected a summary of his own faith, and likewise a short declaration of the criminal proceedings in his kingdom, somewhat beside the main scope of his work; whereunto he had been forced by the impertinency of his slanderers, who, leaving the subject in hand, had taxed his person of heresy, and his government of persecution, moving him to clear himself of these defamations, which yet he had done with all moderation, and without any intent of leading other princes farther than the mere point of civil and absolute jurisdiction in their own estates. And upon this I insisted much, assuring the Prince that his Majesty had given me especial commandment to protest herein the truth of his intention, though (as I said) to them it was less necessary, who had likewise themselves in the time of their own variance, had experience of the malice both of black and cremisin Jesuits,^[3] in charging them with heretical opinions; when neither the cause then on foot nor their intent, nor their defenders went farther than the point of temporal authority.

This was the substance, and (as near as I can remember) the whole sense and order of what I then said, in conformity with his Majesty’s letter and the occasion. The letter was publicly read by one of the secretaries; and the Prince having kissed both that and the book with a very cheerful and ingenuous countenance, answered to this effect. That his Majesty (to whom this State was already so much obliged) did not need to heap upon them any more tokens of his love. That yet whatsoever came from him was dear unto them, especially so precious a work as that must be to which un Re tanto dotto et tanto illuminato had set his own pen, and the dearer for that he perceived both by me, and by his royal and loving letters (which had been read before him) that his Majesty did merely respect the common right of princes senza alcun altro fine quì dentro ^[4]. That it should in Senate be consulted in what form they might best thank him for such an extraordinary favour; and in the meantime he besought me to represent unto his Majesty how kindly they had received it. I replied that I would do it willingly, and would inform his Majesty (whereof I knew he would be glad) that he was here rightly understood. These were the passages of that morning.^[5]

165. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. The Pope’s censure of the King’s book; Wotton wishes more copies to be sent to Venice; Sarpi’s opinion of it; its reception in Florence, Turin, &c. Wotton’s return to England.

I have now by secret means gotten a copy of that censure ^[1] (for so they call it) which the Pope with his own hands delivered to the Venetian ambassador’s secretary (the ambassador himself being as then sick) to be immediately (as it was) sent hither, with intention to forebar ^[2] this State from receiving your Majesty’s blessed labours. And the Pope seemeth (upon the computation) to have dispatched the like to all other princes of his own colour with so incredible celerity, as for my part, though the enclosed notes be (as your Majesty seeth) in Latin, yet I cannot but believe them to have been extracted either by Parsons or by Sweet (his nurseling) out of the English original first printed, whereof the truth will easily appear by confronting the quotations, which at the present I could not do for want of a Latin copy.

I am here secretly solicited by divers to procure them copies, and I think on my conscience if one of your Majesty’s best ships were laden therewith and sent to this port, we should find means to vent them; which giveth me just occasion to thank your Majesty most humbly for your gracious determination to honour my poor nephew ^[3] with the portage of some of them hither (as he writeth) at his return. In the meanwhile, for anticipation of time (which was never dearer), my chaplain ^[4] (whom I am bound to commend unto your Majesty’s goodness for a person of singular learning and zeal) hath translated the whole work into this vulgar, conferring the progress of his labour weekly twice or thrice with Padre Paolo and Fulgentio, who both much rejoice that your Majesty hath interserted therein the admirable summary of your own faith, which the world may now see to have been most impudently slandered, as likewise the equanimity and moderation of your royal government; and they hope that as God did pass over the days of David, though otherwise excellently blessed, and accomplished His temple under a more learned king, so hath He indued your Majesty with an eminent measure of wisdom and knowledge, above all your predecessors, and with a zealous heart, and with great opportunity ⟨for⟩ the propagation of His truth, not only in Christendom, but likewise in that removed clime of your own Nova Britannia, which I can assure your Majesty doth breed here no small discourse.

I could willingly let my pen run on among these cogitations, into which the mention of your Majesty’s immortal work hath led me;^[5] but every week more and more subject will arise, to entertain your Majesty therein, according as the opposition against it shall increase, and proportionately the desire of having it. Therefore (under your gracious pardon) I will conclude the present with a private duty.

I have understood from my Lord Treasurer the change of your Majesty’s resolution about my return before winter, which I am bound to receive, not only with much cheerfulness, but also with all humble thankfulness, since out of the same mere grace whereby your Majesty first called me to the honour of your service, so far above my merit, you have been likewise pleased to tolerate somewhat longer my poor endeavours here; although I must not deny, but rather glory to profess it to all the world, that I cannot be void of a fervent desire to behold again the face of so good a master as God hath given us; whom commending in the hearty prayers of this poor family to God’s heavenly and dear protection, I most humbly rest

Postscript.—This state hath newly intelligence by credible means that the Grand Duke ^[6], having received one of his Majesty’s books (whether by special messenger, or sent by his agent is here yet unknown) consigned the same to his confessor, who by order of the Inquisition there hath burned it.

The Spanish ambassador here giveth forth that it hath been refused by the Duke of Savoye, though the ambassador there of this Signory hath written only hither that the said Duke stood ambiguous.

That the Pope hath forbidden it in Rome by public edict, and for the greater defamation, coupled it with Bezae’s Confessions ^[7], is this week (no doubt purposely) made a piece of the gazetta from thence. The more opposition (as the best and wisest say here) the more curiosity.

166. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 191, f. 147, holograph. Death of the Duke of Cleves; the King’s book; illness of the Doge Leonardo Donato.

I have, by your Lordship’s letter of this week, understood the ambiguous state of that question there about the Dukedom of Cleves, for which I much thank you. And I think the French King will be put to a great jump in it.^[1] We have here this week store of discourse touching the Turks’ and Spaniards’ preparations, great in voice and commonly small in effect. There are likewise levies in Savoye, to what purpose no man can foresee; for that Prince is dark in his purposes.^[2] The difference also between this Republic and the Pope hath strangely taken new flame when it was almost extinguished;^[3] but all these cogitations whether far off or near, and all other must now cease, and give place to our present evil, or at least to our present solicitude, about the person of the famous Duke, who hath been for two or three days in such question of his life, through a casual distemperature (occasioned by leaning long with his breast on the edge of a table, while he read certain papers which transported his mind) that public broglio (as we call it) hath been made for his place, by some upon plain ambition, by others with some mixture besides of malice, which neither good nor bad princes can want in a world of this shape. Yet now he is free of any fever, and passed the last night with good rest, and I hope the Almighty God will spare him longer unto us. His Majesty’s excellent book hath been here exceeding kindly received, notwithstanding the Pope’s open opposition against it: and I long to hear from your Lordship how those Archdukes have tasted it.^[4]

This is all that the grief of my mind, and the suspensiveness wherein we stand here will suffer me to produce at the present. And so I commit your Lordship to God’s blessed favour.

167. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. The circulation of the King’s book prohibited in Venice.

It may please his Majesty to be informed that, since the acceptation of his book here in that kind manner (which I have formerly advertised) there hath order been given to all the booksellers of this town, out of the office of the Inquisition, to consign immediately to the General Inquisitor all the copies that have or shall come to their hands of a book intituled Apologia pro iuramento fidelitatis.^[1] This was the precise form of the mandate which, when I first heard, I must confess unto your Lordship that I was much distracted between the just reason which I had to resent it, and as just not to believe it; but having researched the matter to the bottom, I find (by secret intelligence) that the Nuncio here, under the opportunity of the Prince his absence (whose sickness continueth to our inestimable grief) had in College (which is at the present the most superstitious member of the State) procured a consent to the foresaid prohibition, by urging those points of faith comprehended in the Pope’s censure, which I sent his Majesty in my last; yet there was observed therein either such cunning or such respect (for I am in doubt how to call it) as not to nominate his Majesty for the author, nor to impose on the booksellers any penalty usual in other like cases. And myself the day after, for trial how far they meant to obey this commandment, employing Francesco Biondi ^[2] underhand as out of his own curiosity, to deal with one of them for a copy or two of the said books, he drew him into a corner of his shop and told him they had been newly in a sort forbidden; ‘but notwithstanding’ (said he) ‘if you return within a few days I hope to furnish you, for we expect some from Basil, where we hear it hath been reprinted.’ This was Ciotti ^[3], the Sanese, of all our stationers the most Jesuitical. Now, albeit it may appear unto his Majesty by these circumstances, that this prohibition will do nothing in this place, but increase the desire and price of the thing prohibited (to which end I have known the like, since my being here, procured by the booksellers themselves), yet on the other side, many and weighty and most infallible considerations do move me to intercede publicly against it;^[4] for which purpose I have demanded audience to-morrow morning.^[5] And by the next post I will render a very particular accompt unto his Majesty both of the motives and of the event. Till when I very humbly leave your Lordship in God’s protection, resting,

168. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Sent with dispatch of Aug. 28. Money for Sir Robert Douglas.

I have addressed unto your Lordship three bills,^[1] all of one tenure, certifying the receipt here of £700 sterling, whereof Sir Robert Douglas hath received £600 by order from your Lordship, in your letters which bear date the 12th of July, and the remainder I have taken up a buon conto by order of a former letter by Francisco Biondi (dated the 20th of May) whereof I will render his Majesty by the next post a more particular accompt. These moneys have been received at sixty-four pence sterling for the Venetian ducat, which we were wont to have at fifty-four and less; so as upon the reckoning Sir Robert is likely to lose, through the height of the exchange, in that which he shall spend for two or three horses, the price of the best gelding in England.

I have consigned likewise unto him the letter of recommendation to the Viceroy, which I received yesterday in your Lordship’s last dated the 26th of July; whereunto I shall have occasion to make farther answer this next week, being in the meantime very much grieved at a little shadow of offence which I may, by some words therein, fear your Lordship hath conceived towards me; but I am secure that it cannot be for any want of zeal towards your Lordship on my part, or on my nephew’s, as far as he is mine. And for my faults of indiscretion, they have been long within the experience of your pardon.

169. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Undated, but sent with following dispatch of Sept. 18. Wotton writes privately to Salisbury to ask him to represent to the King in a favourable light his action in regard to the prohibition of the Apologia.

Although I have been often bound unto your Lordship for your noble patronage of my imperfections, and have always much needed it, yet never more than at the present, being now forced to confess that it is easy sailing (as I remember Seneca somewhere sayeth) in fair weather, but then is the understanding troubled ubi rudentes stridunt, et anchorae rumpuntur, et malus gemit. I do therefore now most humbly beg your Lordship’s favourable representation unto his Majesty of the subject herein contained, and of the carriage thereof on my part. What the issue will be I yet know not, but I have already in mine own person learnt hereby the definition of a Republic: it is a kind of government where one may lose all the goodwill in a morning which he hath hardly gotten in five years. And so our good God be with your Lordship.

170. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton gives an account of his proceedings in regard to the prohibition of the King’s book.

. . . Albeit at the first I inclined (as I must confess) to resolve the matter into irrision, as being likely to breed no other effect here than only the greater appetite of the book, and the greater price; yet afterwards (through secret means) understanding that it had been done by the facility of the preconsultors, in absence of the Prince, and without the participation of the Senate; and farther, the thing being already gone much into voice, and some of the best affected Senators wondering (as they secretly signified unto me) that I abstained from open complaint, besides the instigation of such (whose judgements I have most reason to trust) who thought it would not only be reversed in Senate, but likewise the preconsultors be much reprehended: I say, upon these after-considerations, I determined to deal in it, and not perfunctoriously, but to the uttermost extremity, as the occasion should lead me; taking this ground for most infallible, that they here make great foundation upon his Majesty’s friendship: in confidence whereof I demanded audience on Monday was fortnight, some three days after that both they had from their ambassador, and I from your Lordship, received the relation of that accident at home about the viperous libel,^[1] which issued out of their ambassador’s house. In this audience ^[2] I told them of such a mandate sent from the office of the Inquisition to the bookbinders here, with my great and just wonder that a friar (for of themselves I would take no notice) in the capital town of their dominion, and under the eyes of the Signory, durst presume to forbid his Majesty’s book, which had been so newly and so kindly received by the State as a particular pledge of his friendship; desiring them to take that just, and loving, and speedy course in the redress of it, as was to be expected from a State his friend.

At this time I went no farther, but spent the rest of my speech in relating the accident at home in the fairest manner I could, rather to the commendation than otherwise (as the matter indeed itself seemed to incline) of their ambassador, and I gave them a taste ^[3] of some passages in the book, full of blasphemy and sedition, which were two of the highest heads of the violation of majesty, both divine and human, that it might appear how respectfully his Majesty had proceeded towards their ambassador, and in him towards them in so foul a case. To this the Savio della settimana (as they here call him) answered me (the Prince keeping yet his chamber) that the reverence and love borne his Majesty in this State was grandissimo et incomparabile. That these things which I had motioned should be put into consultation, that whatsoever displeased his Majesty ought likewise to displease them; and the like. After this there passed twelve days without revoking the prohibition, or giving me any authentic answer; for the preconsultors had indeed been troubled how to introduce my complaint into Senate to their own advantage, and in Senate had passed divers harangues full of extreme passion touching that accident in England against their ambassador, even upon his own relation; till out of mine his friends took some subject to defend him. Upon which delays I demanded a second audience.^[4] At which time I told them (the Prince still in his chamber) that if the King of Great Brittanie my master, were the most inconsiderable Prince of Europe, yet did the love which he bare this State merit more respect than I found in so just a complaint as I had made. That to suffer his book now to be forbidden, was a greater affront than not to have received it, because the acceptation would run in the conceit of the world per atto ceremonioso, but the exclusion per atto reale. That myself having presented the book unto them, as a pledge of his Majesty’s friendship, and they having in that form received it, by excluding the same afterwards, they did consequently exclude his friendship; which I besought them to consider, because in my sense it could bear no other interpretation; and I added hereunto, that perceiving so cold a respect of his Majesty, as not to have remedied the matter in twelve days, I was bound to think it did grow from some default of not well expressing myself at my last audience, and therefore I would now speak more distinctly; and so I demanded of them either the personal chastisement of the Inquisitor for so presumptuous an act (still covering my knowledge that it was done by their consent), or otherwise some equivalent public demonstration of their respect towards his Majesty. This was the sum of what I then said; to which I was answered by the same gentleman as before, formally with little variance. The next day (which was Friday last) they sent for me again to the College. And there ex scripto (as the manner is) was read by one of the secretaries two sheets of paper containing the Senate’s resolution, partly concerning my complaint here, and partly that accident at home.^[5]

. . . I told them (having resolved what to say before I came, in all event) that these things were but an artificial cover to hide the want of that respect towards his Majesty, which was due for his tender love of them, and which I might challenge here upon so many protestations. And therefore considering, for all the reasons before alleged (whereof I made a short recapitulation) that this disrespect in the Senate was a point that could not stand with the present friendship, I told them I would intercede no farther as a public minister, but besought them to esteem me (as I would myself) in private condition, till his Majesty should be pleased to specify his own farther will and disposition of me.^[6]

171. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., extract, holograph. Wotton describes his audience of Sept. 15 when he returned to the Collegio after hearing of the appointment of a special ambassador to England (see ante, p. 106).

. . . I cannot forbear to signify unto his Majesty that at this audience, as soon as I began to touch a little mine own late complaint intermingled, with much commendation of that gentleman whom they had chosen,^[1] all the Papalini (as they term such as have any parentage with men of the Church, howsoever otherwise their affections stand) suddenly arose and departed out of the College to the number of six or seven, and among them the Cavalier Giorgio Giustiniani,^[2] being nephew to the Bishop of Padua, who extremely blushed, peradventure out of some doubt of my conceit that he should be thought more partial on the Pope’s side, than on his Majesty’s, as the law here presumeth him.

This had never before occurred in my presence; nay, the same very men (that now retired into the next room) had, during the Prince his sickness, been the hearers, and some of them the greatest crossers of my complaints; whereupon, having searched farther into this novelty, I find that they continued before in College rather through connivancy than of right; out of which Council they ought no less to be excluded in all deliberatives anyway concerning the Pope than out of the Senate itself.

172. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. A remark of Paul V’s about the King’s book; Wotton’s witty comments on the same.

I am advertised from Rome by assured means, that the Pope lately, upon occasion of your Majesty’s book, did in public use these very words:—

‘Io credo’ (said he) ‘ch’ il Re d’ Inghilterra habbia perso il cervello, perche hora, ogni volta che mi piacerà, posso escommunicarlo senza monitorio.’

Whereupon, or otherwise perhaps out of wild discourse, is grown here some voice touching such an intent in the Pope, and a public minister of this place (who serveth the Dukes of Modena and Bavaria) having in a late conference with me tentatively (as it seemed) sounded my opinion therein, I hold it my duty to give your Majesty an accompt of mine answer, directly as it passed between us.

I told him I should best express my opinion about that matter in a few questions which I would take leave to ask him.

2. Whether a King of Great Britannie, and a King so loved for his justice and other excellencies, were a lesser prince than a Queen of England?

3. Whether excommunications and such like stuff, did bear still the same rate as in blinder times, or were of late somewhat fallen in the market?

And lastly, whether after he shall have excommunicated your Majesty, his Jesuits and their nurselings have anything worse in store than the powder treason, which was before any excommunication? These were the questions that I opposed to his demand, wherein I most humbly crave your Majesty’s pardon, not only for the plainness of my speech, but likewise for the contemptibleness of the subject, wherewith I have presumed to entertain you; being in all event (as I know it will appear unto your Majesty), even at the highest, consideration not above the value of Garnet’s straw.^[2]

Touching the occurrent businesses here, it may please your Majesty to receive, through my Lord Treasurer’s hands, my humble opinion. And so, with continual hearty vows commending your Majesty’s sacred and dear person unto our Lord Jesus His particular protection, I ever rest

173. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Arrival of a Dutch ambassador; Tyrone, Sir Robert Sherley and Tobie Mathew; the Emperor Rudolf II.

. . . At the present I have nothing to signify but the arrival here this day of an ambassador from the States,^[1] whom I have sent to meet, both in the respect of the good neighbourhood between our masters, and likewise to rid him of some scruple, which otherwise he might have about the first visiting of the French ambassador or me. His coming yieldeth great umbrage; and it is voiced by the malevolent that he is sent to treat a league against the Pope and the King of Spain. This peradventure may breed some study about the tempering of his entertainment. Hitherto they have only made a choice of fifty senators to receive him in the Senate of yesternight. The rest his Majesty shall understand in my next.

Tirone is still in Rome, neither do I hear anything of his purpose to depart. Only sure it is that the Count Fuentes did lately send Edward Stanly ^[2], his countryman, from Milan unto him about some practices as may well be imagined, and the rather for that I am informed (though yet somewhat doubtfully) that the said Stanly is to be sent into Spain in the company of Sir Robert Sherley ^[3]; who, by the way of Loreto is from Rome returned to Milan, uncertain whether thence by Genua he should embark himself for Spayne, or by land pass through a skirt of Fraunce. His habit, and half of his train, and most of his language is merely Persian, except a jewelled crucifix (given him by the Pope) which he carrieth in the top of his turbant.

Tobie Mathew doth accompany him into Spayne, upon the familiarity woven between them in Florence. He was welcome to the Pope, rather for the glory of being far sought unto, than any great fruit of his errand, which seemeth to tend unto the keeping of war on foot between the Emperor and the Turcke; which maketh wise men much sport to see in what a fair case he findeth the Emperor for such a purpose, being not able (as his brothers have handled him) to oppose himself now to the burghers of Prage.^[4]

I know not, my Lord, how I am fallen into these discourses, one thing leading on another, till I am forced to end in the contemplation of a Prince, highest in name and least in virtue, punished from heaven most justly by the fatal lethargy of his own affairs; in whose case the Divine wisdom seemeth to have held this proportion, that for his superstitious obedience and servility to the Pope (appearing then most when the common cause of princes was in hand) he now wanteth the obedience of his own.

But your Lordship will pardon me these transportations, whom otherwise it were unfit for me to trouble so much with my private thoughts. And so I humbly rest,

174. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Postscript to dispatch of Dec. 18. Young William Lytton in Italy.

I received some while since a letter from your Lordship by Mr. William Litton.^[1] He is a gentleman that hath brought an excellent good mind into this country, and one that without doubt will carry it home again, and will enrich it abroad with the best observations. He is at the present in Padua, where he bestoweth his time (as I hear all say) exceeding industriously. And this accompt of him was due unto your Lordship from me, whom, besides your other favours, it pleased you to honour with so easy a commandment—as I shall think it—to serve him.

175. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton apologizes for his over-zealous conduct in regard to the prohibition of the King’s book.

This day being the New Year’s Eve with us here, and remembering that I have been so unfortunate this year, more than in the former, as to stir some public complaint unto your Majesty against me from this State, I find myself bound to perform two duties, before my entrance into the year that followeth. The first is a duty which I owe unto your Majesty of most humble thanks, as for all other your great benignities towards me, so in particular for that most gracious reply unto the Venetian ambassador in my behalf at the time of his complaining, whereof I have been by my Lord Treasurer informed to my most exceeding comfort. The other is a duty which I owe unto myself, of humbly beseeching your Majesty to forgive the immoderation of my proceeding here. Wherein yet I cannot but hope to have rather offended your Majesty’s wisdom than your justice, though always with this humble acknowledgement, that I have no defence for myself, either in this or the rest, but the infirmity of mine own judgement, by which it was as necessary for me to commit many errors, as it is proper for your Majesty’s goodness to pardon them. And so wishing your Majesty both this, into which we are entering, and many more most happy years, with that hearty zeal which is only worthy of your acceptance, I most humbly rest,

176. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. A Greek captain insults the English ambassador, and is punished by the Venetian government.

. . . I was taking the air in my gondola, and being told of a galley newly come in, wherein was an English slave unjustly detained, I thought it both duty and charity in me to understand his case; so coming to the galley’s side (which lay almost in my way home) and talking there with the poor fellow, a certain Greek bred in Spain (who was at that time the chief commander on board),^[1] being half drunk, and by nature unpityful, stroke down the Englishman with a great cudgel before my face; and besides, for my approaching so near, gives me very uncivil language, with some menacement, even after he had understood who I was; whereupon I sent my secretary to complain the next morning. To be short, the Greek was by present order from the College drawn out of the galley to prison through the common piazza, with a long chain at his heels, like a slave; and the Senate taking the cause into their own hands, did sentence him to perpetual close imprisonment, neither did he miss above four or five balls to be hanged. And I protest unto your Lordship, they handled the matter so kindly and so cunningly together, that I found it afterwards a harder suit for me to deliver him.^[2] As for his Majesty’s subject, he was likewise by the Senate not only freed of the galley (where he had been held for lack of one to tell his case) but pardoned also some small debts, into which he was run for apparel and other things. This it was fit for me to relate unto his Majesty, whose poor creature I am, and otherwise no way considerable. And so wishing your Lordship (according to the phrase of this place, and with the heart which is so truly yours) le buone feste per molti et molti anni, I humbly rest,

177. To James I.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Henry IV’s attempts to hinder the Protestant movement in Venice, by sending copies of an intercepted letter to the Pope and the Doge.

I present herein unto your Majesty, with that humble plainness which my duty and the truth require, the whole circumstances of a business strangely pursued here by the French King, and withal such discourses as it hath bred in the relation, whereof I am necessarily forced to begin with myself, being through that honour wherewith your Majesty hath been pleased to clothe my unworthiness, some little part of the present subject.

I drew hither from out of the Italian Church at Geneva one Giovanni Diodati ^[1] (a gentleman of singular erudition), upon those honest intents which have been formerly signified unto your Majesty. Here he stayed but a while, in respect of his own occasions at home: neither was there more proposed at the first than to make a trial, which might afterwards be farther prosecuted. Now being returned to Geneva, he wrote thence not long after to a councillor of the Court of Dijon in Borgognie his own conceit of these affairs, somewhat comfortably (as it should seem) and hopefully; which councillor he thus describeth unto me by way of discharge: Huomo maturo, gravissimo, avisato di questi medesimi fatti da più luoghi, isperimentato, per⟨ò⟩ affettionatissimo et zelantissimo alla parte: il quale tiene ancora gran maneggio nelle cose delle chiese riformate et modi di consiglio et prattiche da giovare. This letter, not by prodition or carelessness (whereof neither seem compatible with the description of the man), but by some accident as yet unknown either to Diodati or me, came to the hands of Father Cotton.^[2] Cotton showeth it to the French King; he sends two copies thereof, the one to the Pope, the other to his ambassador here, commanding him to present the same here in some fit season. The ambassador retaineth the same in his hands (as hath been precisely collected) two and twenty days, and then produced it when the Prince kept his chamber. The cause of the delay is diversely interpreted. Some think it only grew from the suspensiveness of his own judgement, as deferring it still to some farther opportunity. Others conjecture he had order to take the Pope’s directions therein, and so to expect answer from Rome.

But the most probable opinion is, that he had conferred the matter secretly with some of the Papalini here (as they term them), who were first to prepare the Senate with harangues, that when the letter should come to be read there, it might make the more impression. And true it is that certain pathetical speeches indeed were before used, as it were lamenting the decay of religion, upon so little apparent occasion, that when the letter was afterwards produced, the conceit did easily arise that between the French ambassador and those orators (which were but two or three) there had been some former understanding, which in truth was salus negotii; for of this the honester side took hold, to render the matter more odious, urging nothing so much as that there was an evident train in the business. And some went so far, between sport and passion, as to say that if these beginnings were not resisted, the French King would be shortly il vescovo della Republica: whereupon an answer was framed unto him, full of thankfulness, but intermingled with some glances at the malignity of informers; for the Senate had heard of Cotton’s subministration in the matter. Yet hath the French King twice since pursued here the same subject, both by way of advice and of exclamation; warning them from nourishing instruments of novelty and unquietness, and from those clouds, falling to the express nomination of Padre Fulgentio (whose sermons the last Lent have laid him more open than the rest), though all their Theologi were implicitively enfolded in his admonition. Neither contented with verbal demonstrations of his devoutness, he hath farther (as a point indeed of more reality) attempted by his ambassador the moving of Maestro Paulo to demand the Pope’s rebenediction, with examples (for I have been privy to the conference) of the like humility even in kings; where the French ambassador had this answer, ‘that if the Pope will bless him, he may do it at Rome as voluntarily as he did there curse him; but for his part, he found his conscience to stand in no need of it.’ Wherewith the French ambassador, not satisfied, demanded a second meeting with the foresaid party, who (to retrench all importunity) excused himself by the qualification of his person, which did not admit any solemn conference with a public minister, without public leave, and in that case he must relate what should pass between them, whereof he besought him to consider.

These are the late offices of the French King done here by his instrument Monsieur de Champigni ^[3]; and he hath urged the like himself, as an instrument of the Pope, unto the Venetian ambassador in his Court,^[4] who (though well affected to the better side) hath out of duty signified hither his vehemency in a dispatch or two; which pursuit on his part, not proceeding (as it is taken, even by those that most favour it) from much inward zeal, and concurring also with a time otherwise of no small jealousy in respect of his present treaty with the Duke of Savoye, hath bred here two important conjectures upon the whole matter. The first, that in contemplation of some enterprise upon the Dukedom of Milan, to be undertaken after the alliance, by secret accord between him and the foresaid Duke of Savoye, he now studieth as it were provisionally, to oblige the Pope unto him, and for all good respects to purchase beforehand the name of a great Catholic.

The other, that these offices, sprinkled with such tenderness of care in the point of conscience, are but preparatory to a farther intercession here for the restoring of the Jesuits, whom he would have silently understood to be the men that must keep up devotion; a conceit much increased by the late arrival here of the Cardinal Delfini, who, after his congratulation with the Great Duke as ambassador from the French King, hath likewise presented credential letters from him unto this State, and was accompanied at his audience with the ordinary French ambassador. Upon which employment of a Cardinal from one court to another by a King, some here (if I may be bold to intersert so much for the recreation of your Majesty’s more serious thoughts) have not unseasonably taken occasion to blame Bellarmin, that being great with the Pope, could not prevent such a degradation of his order; which in his late answer to your Majesty’s book ^[5] he hath compared in a chapter by itself, nay preferred, before the regal dignity. So as it had been more suitable (say they) to the Catholic faith that the Cardinal Delfini should have sent hither the French King.

178. To the Earl of Salisbury.

. . . Before I end, I must not forget again to render your Lordship very humble thanks for your last, wherein I received, after the uncheerful subject of the former, a sweet reconfirmation of your favour, which it is your Lordship’s goodness not to take from me for the faults of my indiscretion; and I am most assured never to lose it with any default of zeal towards your noble person and name—which longing to profess in your presence, that your Lordship may see my heart in my face, I rest till then and ever,

179. To Sir Arthur Throckmorton ^[1].

Reliq., 1st ed., p. 405; 3rd ed., p. 275, undated. In Feb. 1610, N.S., Nicholas Bacon, brother of Wotton’s nephew by marriage, Sir Edmund Bacon, travelled from Venice to England, bearing dispatches from the ambassador dated Feb. 12, N.S. In one of these the ‘high thoughts’ of the Duke of Savoy are mentioned, and it is probable that this letter was sent at the same time.

I have been desirous of some fit opportunity, to render you humble thanks for a very kind letter, which I received from you; and I cannot have a fitter, than by the return of this gentleman, who beareth much devotion to your name. I will therefore, by his honest hand, present you the service of a poor scholar, for that is the highest of my own titles, and in truth, the farthest end of mine ambition; this other honour (wherewith it hath pleased his Majesty to clothe my unworthiness) belonging unproperly unto me; who, I hope, am both born, and formed in my education, fitter to be an instrument of truth than of art. In the meanwhile, till his Majesty shall resolve me again into mine own plain and simple elements, I have abroad done my poor endeavour, according to these occasions, which God hath opened.

This gentleman leaveth Italy in present tranquillity, though not without a little fear of some alteration on the side of Savoy; which Prince seemeth to have great and unquiet thoughts, and, I think, they will lack no fomentation from abroad.^[2] Therefore, after the remembrance of my most affectionate poor service to yourself, and to my honourable ladies, your wife and daughters, and your whole house (with which we are now so particularly conjoined),^[3] I commit you and them to our merciful God,

180. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton asks to be sent, on his return home, to the Protestant Princes of Germany, to procure their assistance in the Protestant propaganda in Venice.

The time drawing now onwards apace which his Majesty hath prefixed for my return (according to a dispatch from your Lordship which I preserve among your other dear remembrances), I am thereby moved to renew (by your favourable mediation) unto his Majesty my humble suit, that it may please him to cast upon me some employment unto those Almaign Princes of the Reformed Faith that lie in my way homewards; which I am the bolder to propound, for that it seemeth his Majesty shall both oblige them in some sort unto him with the participation of these affairs here, by the mouth of his own creature, who hath lived upon the place; and likewise, I hope, draw them for the future to a more cheerful concurrence in the general good. Besides, in truth, my Lord, I have that confidence in his Majesty’s opinion of mine own zeal in this honest cause, that it maketh me hope it may stand in his gracious sight for some supplement otherwise of my unworthiness. Yet if your Lordship (on whose favour I only depend) shall esteem this motion too presumptuous for me, I very humbly beseech you to suppress it in your own hand.

In the meanwhile, till I shall understand from your Lordship his Majesty’s resolution about the disposing of myself, I will here endeavour to collect as good a view, as may be taken by my capacity, of the nature of this place in their fashions and ends, for the last accompt unto his Majesty of the charge wherewith it hath pleased him so much to honour me above my merit: although in this the subject be very variable, changing more I think than can be found in any other State of the world, upon the quality of things abroad, and surely participating much in their counsels of the fluctuation of that element wherein they are planted: Adeo ubique (sayeth he) ingenia hominum situs formant.^[1]

And so, having by an extraordinary opportunity represented newly unto your Lordship the matters here of most moment, I will crave pardon not to mingle any public discourses at the present with mine own private motions, ever resting.

181. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The intercepted letter of Diodati; the Government of Venice temporarily unfavourable to the Protestant cause; Wotton’s return home; the telescope, and Galileo’s discoveries.

. . . The matter touching Diodati is almost forgotten, and we are unwilling in truth anyway to revive it: being of the nature of those infirmities which are better cured with repose than with physic: and besides the present constitution of things here is somewhat disadvantageous, whereof I will set down a short view. The Gran Concilio are the best patriots, I mean in general the youth and middle age; the Senate indifferent this year, the Dieci never better, the Collegio never worse; which being that member of the State, where (as in the stomach) all things are first digested and preconsulted, seemeth of much importance to the whole; for surely not only in a natural, but likewise in this politic body (as far as I have yet seen) errores primae concoctionis raro corriguntur in secunda aut tertia.^[1] To conclude this summary representation of things as they stand here, I am forced to say unto his Majesty, that as no doubt that ancient apothegm of a philosopher who was caught in a bath, may be well applied to this place, Ingredere: nam et hic Deus est,^[2] so on the other side it seemeth proper for me to remember that admirable conclusion of a better master: Si lumen quod est in te, tenebrae sunt, ipsae tenebrae quantae?^[3] And thus much touching the two points demanded by his Majesty in your Lordship’s last.

The postscript in your Lordship’s own hand which rejourneth my return till Alholantyde,^[4] I must humbly and cheerfully obey, as whatsoever else his Majesty shall be pleased to impose upon his poor creature; though in truth (my Lord) I had already devoured in mine own cogitation, some part of that comfort and happiness which I shall receive, when, by your Lordship’s mediation unto his Majesty (the full complement of your other favours), I may have the grace again to see him. Wherein, I have besought my Lord my brother to present farther by your Lordship unto his Majesty this humble suit, that a month or two of the prefixed time may be shortened, for the more commodity of travel. . . . Now touching the occurrents of the present, I send herewith unto his Majesty the strangest piece of news (as I may justly call it) that he hath ever yet received from any part of the world; which is the annexed book ^[5] (come abroad this very day) of the Mathematical Professor at Padua, who by the help of an optical instrument (which both enlargeth and approximateth the object) invented first in Flanders, and bettered by himself, hath discovered four new planets rolling about the sphere of Jupiter, besides many other unknown fixed stars; likewise, the true cause of the Via Lactea, so long searched; and lastly, that the moon is not spherical, but endued with many prominences, and, which is of all the strangest, illuminated with the solar light by reflection from the body of the earth, as he seemeth to say.^[6] So as upon the whole subject he hath first overthrown all former astronomy—for we must have a new sphere to save the appearances—and next all astrology. For the virtue of these new planets must needs vary the judicial part, and why may there not yet be more? These things I have been bold thus to discourse unto your Lordship, whereof here all corners are full. And the author runneth a fortune to be either exceeding famous or exceeding ridiculous. By the next ship your Lordship shall receive from me one of the above-named instruments, as it is bettered by this man. Now to descend from those superior novelties to these below, which do more trouble the wise men of this place.

Our discourses continue with increase, rather than otherwise, touching the secret purpose, accorded between the French King and the Duke of Savoye, to assail the Dukedom of Milan,^[7] whereof I am unripe to render his Majesty any farther accompt. Always this is certain, that the French King hath, by his ambassador here, newly propounded unto this State a straiter colligation with him (as I take it) both defensively and offensively, enfolding some future great purpose sotto parole tacite. But I can assure his Majesty that the gravest here do neither trust the propositions of the French King, nor believe that he and Savoy can trust one another. And the thing which I much fear is this, that the very apprehension of the entering of foreign arms into Italy, will conjoin this State in better terms with the Pope; which a few days will discover.

182. To the Marquis of Hamilton (?).

Burley MS., f. 58 b, transcript. Without address or signature, but plainly by Wotton, and probably to James, second Marquis of Hamilton (1589-1625), whom Wotton had presented to the Doge on Jan. 13, 1610 (Cal. S. P. Ven., xi, p. 409). Wotton dissuades his correspondent from visiting Rome.

That small service which your Lordship left in my hands is now come to a kind of conclusion, Don Francesco di Castro ^[1] having signified hither that the Pope hath passed his consent unto him for your Lordship’s security, provided that your stay in Rome do not exceed eight days, or such a matter, and presuming withal that yourself and your company will carry yourselves without open scandal, which Don Alfonso della Queva ^[2], the Spanish ambassador here, came purposely yesterday to tell me. And he added thereunto, that your Lordship should need no more than an address of your person from him to the foresaid Don Francesco di Castro, which he would send me this morning; as he hath done accordingly, and your Lordship doth herewith receive it. This is the point unto which it is driven. Now I must crave pardon from your Lordship to set down my poor opinion upon the whole subject, which in plain terms is this, that it shall be unfit for you to accept it, for these reasons.

First, having been already such public notice taken of your Lordship’s person and quality in the Italian Courts through which you have passed, and even at Rome itself, before your coming thither, your whole carriage will be more espied, and yourself the more cumbered with such as the Pope will insert into your company. Next, we have no apparent safe-conduct, but only the Pope’s bare word, passed to an ambassador. What if either or both should die while your Lordship is there, or before your return from Naples? What if the Pope should disavow it? Who will contest with him? What if, confessing such a thing in the generality, he should say it was with condition, either expressed or understood, of conforming yourself to the place, and so pick a quarrel upon some part of your particular carriage?^[3] What if Don Francesco di Castro (which yet I cannot believe, being indeed of very honourable fame) should be contented to venture your Lordship’s safety upon his own credit in the Court, without having dealt with the Pope beforehand?

These are the doubts which I thought my duty to propound to your Lordship’s better consideration, in whom I have first, by your favour, the interest of a noble friend, secondly I am bound, as a poor vassal of his Majesty’s, by his bounty towards me, and by the honour he hath done me, so far above my merit, to be solicitous, in more than an ordinary degree, of your Lordship’s security, in whom we all noted here so well seasoned a mind, and so excellent parts for his Majesty’s service hereafter. And in truth (my Lord), to bind up the whole matter, I must confess myself to have been made the more apprehensive by the fresh example (though it be in a lower condition) of Fulgentio the Franciscan ^[4], who having been trained from hence to Rome under a most ample and authentic safe-conduct ^[5] (whereof I have at the present the copy in my house), and having, for colour’s sake, been some good time suffered to walk at large there—yet always with espial upon him—hath newly by the same Pope (though peradventure upon some other pretences which that Court can coin as fast as they do pardons) been cast into the Inquisition, and there sentenced to the galleys, according to our intelligence of this very week.

But I have troubled your Lordship too far; for though I know that you will accept my goodwill, yet I must remember that you need not my counsel. And therefore wishing your Lordship very happy success in all your resolutions, I humbly rest.

My Lord, if your Lordship shall resolve to turn your head homeward, I think the matter will be best excused to this Spanish ambassador and to the other, by saying very plainly that you durst not trust the Pope; which office it may please you to lay upon me.

183. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Undated, but docketed on back ‘re. 27 Ap. 1610’. As letters took twenty-two days to reach England from Venice, the date is probably about April 5. Wotton’s return home adjourned.

. . . Mr. Nicholas Bacon, and my servant Harry Cogan, have likewise both this week signified unto me the gracious speeches which your Lordship was pleased to use unto them, touching the rejournment of my return till next autumn; which I had only understood in one from your Lordship of the 8th of February, though my said servant make mention of two.

My Lord, I can easily consider how unfit it is for me to importune a release from this employment, wherewith his Majesty did first honour me so much above my merit, and then more by the toleration of my poor endeavours here. But your Lordship, by whose recommendation I came unto it, and by whose patronage only I must acknowledge myself to have been kept in his Majesty’s good opinion, will, I hope, likewise continue the same favour in excusing my desire, which at least is not unnatural; for all natural bodies do tend to their own centre. In the meantime I shall proceed very cheerfully, for his Majesty, I see, hath not only pardoned my errors by his goodness, but healed them with his wisdom; and I protest unto your Lordship, it is inexpressible how glad they are here of those testimonies of his love, which their extraordinary ambassador hath sent before his own arrival.^[1]

184. To the Earl of Salisbury.

On Saturday last about noon, arrived here an extraordinary dispatch from Signor Gregorio Barberigo, their ambassador in the Court of Savoye, with advertisement that the same Duke had called him unto his presence, and told him how he understood, by two express couriers from Paris, that the French King had been killed in his coach by a Walon ^[1]; whereupon was assembled a Senate, and therein concluded that there should be no credit given unto it till farther advice; for that it might peradventure have been artificially east forth to relent ^[2] the provisions of Spain, or some other such end. But as the Senate was ready to dissolve, there arrived a courier from Signor Foscarini, their ambassador in Fraunce, with the truth of this fatal accident. The perturbation which it hath here bred (coming newly after the denial of the passage which the King of Spayne demanded for the levies of Tirole) your Lordship may easily imagine, and the town is full of variable discourse upon the future; all agreeing only in this, that as the end of that King (whether natural or violent) could never have happened better for the inward affairs, than when an army was actually ready to secure the successor, so never on the other side worse for the outward, being likely hereupon that the Pope, Imperials, and Spanish will join more openly in the cause of Cleves. And what will become of Savoye is doubtful, whose counsels have been newly detected, that on the 28th of this month he intended by agreement with Fraunce to assail Novarra on the confines of Milan, or at least it is so believed by the Spaniards, quod idem valet. Of these things what plight they take his Majesty shall be farther advertised by the next post. In the meanwhile, although it cannot become me to be ingeniosus (as he sayeth) in alienis malis ^[3], especially in evils of so high a nature; yet I must crave pardon for the private comfort and benefit of mine own conscience, to note these two visible circumstances of God’s heavy judgement in the fall of that King: first, that he wanted in his extremity the Sacraments of that Church which had abused him, having with the blow (as we hear) been strangely deprived of all speech, though not of life for some hours after it. Secondly, that he was taken away by that doctrine to which he had passed: for that which he did abandon is no killer of princes, nor no rewarder of homicides with Paradise.^[4]

I will conclude (as I am justly moved by the present occasion) with my hearty prayers to our merciful and vigilant God, for the long preservation of his Majesty’s dear and sacred person, against the malicious designs of the Prince of Darkness and his children. And so likewise committing your Lordship to His gracious blessing, I humbly rest,

185. To the Earl of Salisbury.

Being this week in a villa, some two or three miles out of Venice, I was there advertised by letters and messages of a great confusion grown in the city, upon a report out of the letters of certain Fleamings from Antwerp, that his Majesty had been shot through one of his shoulders with an harquebuse, by a carpenter or joiner that was working in his Court or (as some had written) in his very chamber ^[1]; whereupon the Prince sent immediately for an Italian my secretary (whom in any occasion of mine own absence I leave on the place), and after he had, with exceeding tender words, professed how dear they held his Majesty’s health, and how much they ought to be moved with the least voice that may any way concern the safety of his royal person, he told him farther, that neither in the letters of this week from Signor Correro, bearing date the 19th of May, according to this style, from London, nor in the letters of Signor Contarini, their extraordinary ambassador to the States, of the 23rd, from the Haghe, did appear any sparkle of this sinister report; whereupon they could not but conclude that it had been moulded in some malignant brain, and had perhaps taken credit from the late lamentable accident in France, which had opened men’s conceits to such apprehension.

Now (my Lord), for my part, although both the letters of our merchants here and mine from home, agree in date and silence of this thing with the fore-mentioned from Signor Correro, and that I should think it not only indiscretion to believe so headless a rumour, but even a sin also to distrust the mercy of our God, which covereth all His own, and most especially His greatest and dearest servants, yet I thought it my duty to relate unto his Majesty at the present how much, and by what means, this city hath been possessed with the said false dissemination, as I hope I may confidently call it; though as yet we are ignorant upon what ends it may have been formed. In the meantime, est quidam usus mendaciorum (as he sayeth); for by this his Majesty hath had as great an argument how much he is loved here (if we may judge by the general impression of countenances) as he had once upon the like occasion of the love of his own people at home, when they strewed the way, and wet the streets with tears of gladness before him, as I remember was hither advertised.^[2] The present subject is incompatible with other matter. And therefore again and ever commending his Majesty’s preservation to our vigilant God, and sospirando quell’ hora wherein I may by his good grace, and your Lordship’s mediation, be restored unto his happy sight, I humbly rest,

186. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Position of the Duke of Savoy after the death of Henry IV.

It will be strange to tell his Majesty (though very true) that since the death of the French King, we are here in more jealousy of some troubles on the side of Savoy than before; as if the thoughts of that Duke, which were once in motion, must needs do somewhat. Certain it is that he is the most discontented prince of the world, and while the Spaniards are in the bowels of his estate, can take small ease, wherewith he hath very sensibly made the other Italian princes acquainted. And particularly this State this very week, having by his new ambassador thrown himself into their counsel and help; which two days after was seconded by the French ambassador, in such sort that it appeared not obscurely he had had fresh commission to favour the purposes of Savoy. Truth it is (and I think I may set it down unto your Lordship very boldly) that unless that Duke be French, he must be Spanish; and certainly which way soever he lean, he will trouble one of the two by the other.^[1]

187. To the Earl of Salisbury.

It hath pleased the Lord my God to deliver me of a painful fever, which, falling into these canicular heats (that have here this year been very excessive, and almost beyond example), did in the space of three weeks bring me to a greater weakness than my former long infirmity. Now this being the first day wherein I find any release of pain, and some cheerfulness in myself, I am bold, by the hand of another, to acquaint your Lordship with my estate; whereof it hath many ways pleased you to take more loving and noble care than I can ever merit. I hope by the next post to continue my ordinary duty, and to acquaint his Majesty with the state of these affairs, which are even yet somewhat ambiguous. And so humbly commending your Lordship to God’s blessed favour I rest,

188. To the Earl of Salisbury.

I can truly say that your Lordship’s last of the 4th of July ^[1] (received this week) hath brought me new blood and new strength; wherein first I find occasion to give your Lordship most humble thanks, for having been pleased to participate with me the matter therein contained, in a time of so extraordinary cares at home, whereof I can easily conceive with how great a portion you are pressed. My next duty is humbly to kiss your noble hand for that assurance, which your Lordship hath given me, of my discharge from hence about Allholentyde;^[2] being now in truth desirous (if mine own desire may stand with his Majesty’s pleasure) to lay off this garment that doth so little become me, and to present myself unto your Lordship in that outward and inward plainness whereof I make profession, and wherewith I can only and am ever bound to serve you. As for the incommodiousness of the season towards winter to journey in, your Lordship will be pleased therein to take no care of us, for no doubt the maxim is good, that no season or weather can be ill to go homewards; and besides we are now uccelli di bosco et di riviera, after the trial of many airs.

189. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. A Frenchman attempts to get money from the ambassador by a report of a project to kill James I; the trial of Fra Fulgenzio Manfredi.

. . . Not long since a gentleman of some forty years (accompanied with another, that seemed rather his friend than servant, though he acted at this time the part of attendance) demanded of my men below some opportunity to speak with me, in such a fashion as they told me it was some point of importance; whereupon leading of him into a chamber (his friend remaining as he would have it without) he began with me after a little pause, very gravely and gnomically in this manner: ‘Signore’ (said he) ‘Li Ministri di Principi non debbono disprezzare alcun minimo aviso che appartenga alla salute di lor Padroni.’ To which myself answering, ‘V. Signoria dice pur benissimo,’ he followed, that if himself and his brother had been believed, the French King should be now alive, and withal told me he was by nation French, though bred a long time in the Roman Court. There his brother was secretary, as I remember, to some cardinal; there himself also had managed great business. That was the school, that was the centre of practice and curiosity, and from thence he was come purposely to tell me a matter touching the safety of the King my master, which was this in substance: that in the church of the Jesuits at Rome, he spied a while since a young gentleman of a desperate countenance; with whom insinuating himself, he found him to be of our nation, and full of open complaint that all his friends had been persecuted for the Catholic faith, and himself thereby impoverished, which had drawn him to the Pope’s feet for relief; and some small matter he had gotten, with which he would return home again. ‘And’ (said he) ‘I have that here in my pocket which, within six months, shall purchase me ten thousand crowns’: wherewithal he showed him a stilett.

This was the matter that he was come postingly and purposely from Rome to tell me, leaving the farther inferences and deductions to mine own conceit. Whereupon first I asked him the name of that fellow whereof he had spoken, which he told me he knew not. Then I prayed him to favour me with his own, which after entreaty that I would say nothing of him to the French ambassador, he told me was Claudio de’ Giuberti, or, in his own vulgar, Claude de Jubert. I was so unmannerly as to ask him why he was so loath to be mentioned to the foresaid ambassador, whereunto his answer was very prompt, lest he might take some shadow at his dealings with me, as there is always (said he) jealousy enough between public instruments. And so he brake away, methought as not willing to abide more questions, yet with an intention to return within a day or two, and in the meantime he besought me to consider of this service. The next day, though I perceived sufficiently by what trade he lived, yet being desirous, as was my duty, to have some better accompt of the man, because upon the credit of his condition would depend the credit of his speech, I communicated the matter (notwithstanding his former request) to the French ambassador, who told me who he was, before I had finished to describe him; adding that himself likewise had sundry times been molested with some of his frivolous speculations. To conclude the whole, he came afterwards unto me, in plain language, for a reward, and went away without it. For I told him I had considered the value of his tale, and of that idle nameless person, and I wished him to busy himself about better grounded fears; for though there was a late heavy example of the Divine permission, yet it was not so easy an occupation to kill kings as he might peradventure think it. In these terms we parted. And although the whole hath not merited the trouble of your Lordship in reading it, yet I hope to be excused with the tender sense of my duty, being fitter for me in all such cases as these to exercise my zeal than my judgement. There remaineth yet another matter to be represented unto his Majesty, unto which I was drawn with just indignation. In the process of Fra Fulgentio the Franciscan ^[1] lately executed at Rome, was openly read in the church of St. Peter’s, for one of the mainest articles, that he had held correspondence and practice with his Majesty, through the English ambassador at Venice, about conveying of him thence to London. This having been related unto me, first by letter, but more authentically by one that was present at the publication of the process, I repeated it here of late at one of my audiences in College: telling them that, though I could not restore that poor soul his life, yet I was bound in honour and conscience, and in the feeling of humanity, to discharge him of all that which had pompously been inserted into his process touching his Majesty and me, the unworthiest of his se⟨rvants⟩, which I aff⟨irmed upon⟩ my salvation to be as feigned and as false as I believed all the rest to be of the Roman Court; which asseveration, when it was afterwards related verbatim in Senate, your Lordship cannot imagine what a general assent there was of those that cried, ‘Per Dio, l’ è vero.’ And so having troubled your good Lordship with discharge of these duties I humbly rest,

190. To Henry, Prince of Wales.

Reliq., 1st ed., p. 419; 3rd ed., p. 318. Undated, addressed ‘To the Prince’. Written apparently from Venice, and probably to Prince Henry. (See note 1.) For want of other indications I place it here, before Wotton’s departure from Venice. Wotton sends the Prince an account of an invention for preserving gunpowder.

Beside that which I have now represented unto your Highness, by my letter to your worthy secretary ^[1], I must humbly crave leave herein to be delivered of a boldness wherewith my pen is in travail. I have observed in your Highness, among other noble endowments of your mind, a quick and delightful apprehension of the fundamental causes of all secrets, both natural and artificial, that have been brought to your view; which surely is the highest pleasure of a discoursive soul. Now of this part of your Highness his delectation I am desirous to take hold. For having been a long lover of philosophy, and from the contemplative part being slid into the practical, I shall hope for pardon, if I take so much freedom from the ingenuity ^[2] of mine own nature and studies, as to entertain your Highness now and then with some experiments, especially such as do not end in wonder, but reach to public use; for mere speculations have ever seemed to my conceit, as if reason were given us like an half moon in a coat of arms, only for a logical difference from inferior creatures, and not for any active power in itself. To begin therefore by your gracious leave this kind of intelligence with your Highness, I have charged this gentleman with the humble presentation of a secret unto you, not long since imparted to this State, and rewarded with a pension to the inventor, and to his posterity; the scope being indeed of singular use, and at the first hearing, of as much admiration: namely, a way how to save gunpowder from all mischance of fire in their magazines, to which they have been very obnoxious by a kind of fatality. The thing itself in a small bulk, with the description thereof, according to mine own trial and observations, will be consigned to your Highness apart from this letter.

And so, having laid a beginning to these poor philosophical services, with hope of encouragement therein by your favourable acceptation, I will conclude with my humblest prayers to the Sovereign Lord of all nature, and fountain of all knowledge, to continue His sweet and dear blessings upon your Highness. To whom I remain, &c.

191. To Sir Dudley Carleton ^[1].

Having my pen in my hand to write unto your Lordship, Gregorio ^[2] is opportunely arrived with your letter and with your desires, which will now be speedily satisfied. For my Lord of Cranborn and Mr. Haward ^[3] have determined their departure on Saturday morning towards Padua, so as upon Monday or Tuesday following your Lordship may remove hither with your whole family; and upon your signification of the day, I will prepare these rooms for your reception, which will be sufficient, with a little help abroad, to contain us both for those few days of mine own abode here after your coming; whereof I shall be glad, both that the friendship between us may be the more confirmed under one roof, and that my Lady be not disobeyed by any want on my part in her just commandment. Of these things I shall write unto your Lordship before the time set down more particularly. Your portal clothes will be ready by the end of this week, so as your Lordship may, after a day or two of repose here, make your public entry, and the next morning be received in College, as is of custom, which I leave to your resolution upon the place.

One thing I must be bold to say provisionally, that it were fit for all those English gentleman and students there had some civil warning to come hither with you; which point I touch the rather because our nation is in truth (as I have noted) more defective therein than the French.

And this is all that I need say at the present, committing your Lordship and yours to God’s continual blessing.

192. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton’s farewell audience, and introduction of Sir Dudley Carleton.

Having now resigned my charge here in College to Sir Dudley Carleton, it seemeth my last duty upon the place to inform his Majesty both how my successor hath been received,^[1] and in what terms they have dismissed me, wherein I will be bold to begin with myself, not by the order of merit, but of charity which (as they say) incipit a seipsa.

After I had spent some speech (as likewise Sir Dudley at more length and with more impression) about the constancy and clearness of his Majesty’s friendship, and in showing what false philosophy it would be in any to argue the change of ends by the change of instruments, it pleased the Prince to bestow in public upon me his very loving testimony touching my carriage here, not so much (as mine own conscience must conceive it) for any value of my poor travail, as that withal he might take occasion (for so he did exceeding properly) to touch the little scandal that had happened in my time, notwithstanding some diversity of religion between the nations: a thing no doubt purposely insinuated for some contentment of the Pope’s spies, of which there was good store at this public audience. This made me (contrary to an express agreement at home between Sir Dudley and me) to resume in my reply the same subject by way of discharge, affirming unto the Prince that his Majesty (of whose intentions I had through his Grace been made capable from the beginning) had no other meaning here, than to pursue those courses that might become a respective and real friend, without considering any differences in point of conscience and private opinion; the times being indeed such as yielded princes business enough to maintain, without affront, the point of their jurisdiction and civil authority. And so I left that matter without any farther resuscitation; for (as I have said) Sir Dudley and I had determined before our going to consume the morning only in compliment, without offering to the audience (whose ears we knew would be greedy) any certain matter of discourse or design; especially the College itself being at the present composed (as I informed him) very untowardly; for these things depend upon vicissitudes. This is as much as I have to say of myself; being loath to tell your Lordship what an unproportionable present I am likely, according to my intelligence, to have at my parting, if it be compared to the good words I have had before, which in this country are cheaper than chains.^[2] Only my hope is that his Majesty will both out of his own clemency, and by your Lordship’s favourable intercessions pardon my weak endeavours, which is a greater reward than any other can give me, or than I can justly expect. Now concerning my successor, for the point of his first reception, I may boldly affirm in the plainness and truth of an humble servant, uncorrupted with any duty of a private friend, that he had honestissimum diem, both for the number and fashion of his company, and for the singular respect that was had in appointing the gravest senators to conduct him; and lastly, for the good taste which he gave of himself, appearing generally in their countenances: which I have presumed fitter for me to relate than himself, because I had more leisure, while he spake, to note them. And in truth (my Lord) as I find him to be a gentleman fit to supply here my defects, in which respect I must rejoice for the public use, so on the other side I am glad of that fraternity (as I may call it) which your Lordship’s patronage of us both hath bred between us. And so humbly taking my last leave of your Lordship for this place, though reserving somewhat more to be said from Padua, when I shall be free from the encumbrances of a remove, I rest in the meantime and ever

My Lord, your Lordship hath an accompt of my lord your son from Doctor Lister ^[3] by this post, of whom I have deferred to write till I enjoy him again, which will be (God willing) within these three days.

193. To Sir Dudley Carleton.

Having understood by Mr. Wake ^[1] of a small difference fallen out there between your Lordship and the Jew, touching a parcel of those things left by me, I have thought it fit for me to write unto him these few lines enclosed about that matter, which I hope will put an end unto it.

There was left, among the other furniture at your Lordship’s house, a new carnation satin coverlet, which is none of the Jew’s accompt. And therefore it may please my Lady ^[2] to dispose of it as her own, pardoning my boldness that have presumed to confer so poor a relic towards the keeping of her from the cold of this winter, for her noble fashion towards me there hath given me a great interest in her health. And so, intending to trouble your Lordship with a larger salutation before my departure hence, that hath hitherto depended upon a continual hope of my Lord of Cranborn’s amendment, which now beginneth to appear, I rest in all places

194. To Sir Thomas Edmondes.

Stowe MS. 171, f. 360, holograph. Wotton writes to Edmondes (now English ambassador in France) of his expected arrival in Paris.

I have from Briare dispatched to Paris before me this gentleman my secretary, to see there how I may be accommodated at the Hotel de Venise, to which place I have some peculiar fancy for the very name’s sake, and because I understand my successor ^[1] lay there in his passage. I am desirous that my coming thither may be with little observation, and therefore I must beseech your Lordship to take as small notice of me as indeed I merit; for otherwise that stamp which your courtesy (wherewith I have been long acquainted) might put upon me, would subject me to much visitation and ceremony, with which I have been almost cloyed in this journey, having in truth been used in the Courts, by which I have passed, with more grace than I can express. Yet I will not deny that when I shall be in Paris, I shall hold it a great honour for me to see those Majesties ^[2], if it may be done easily and quickly; which, till I see your Lordship, I will leave in bilancia, as we Italians use to speak. This is all in effect that I had now to write, referring the relation of our accidents on the way to the bearer, and some matter of private discourse to our meeting; at which wishing to find your Lordship in cheerful health I rest,

195. To the Earl of Salisbury.

Having spent much time on the way already, and being now retarded likewise here, through the indisposition of five or six of my company,^[1] even so near the good scent of our own country, and embracement of our friends, I have thought it my duty to present before me, through your Lordship’s hands, my humble excuse unto his Majesty by my nephew Albertus Morton; of whom it may please your Lordship to understand the many honours and favours that in respect of his Majesty have been openly and professedly and (I may yet say farther) affectedly and studiously done me in the Courts where I have passed, alla barba of the Pope’s Nuncii, and other instruments residing in those places. But because into this relation of good intreatments, there must enter some little mixture of the contrary, which occurred in the place where I did least expect it, namely between the Constable of Castiglia ^[2] and me at Milan, I crave pardon to trouble your Lordship with the report of that under mine own hand; fearing lest I may be traduced for uncivil by the Spanish ambassador resident with his Majesty ^[3], who being near kinsman to the said Constable, hath perhaps been instructed in the case.

I arrived in Milan towards night, and the next morning sent my nephew and my secretary, accompanied with two or three more of mine in reasonable honest fashion, to signify so much to the Constable, and withal my desire to offer him my poor service. This they did by his secretary, ⟨on⟩ whom they lighted in one of his outward chambers, who, after he had made them attend a good hour and somewhat more (when they expected, as was likewise my meaning when I sent them, to be called in), came forth and told them in Spanish (as if they had been bound to understand it) that I might come to the Court the next day if I would about the same time, and I should be welcome—which dispatch, though it seemed unto me very phlegmatic, yet I was resolved to pass it over, and to attribute it to their natural gravity; but with this reservation, that if the matter were not mended that day with some handsomer message unto me, in answer of mine, I would then take mine own course. In the meanwhile the Venetian resident there ^[4] informeth me that it was not the fashion of the Constable to return message for message to ambassadors upon these occasions; which he exemplified unto me in one or two representants of some of the small Princes of Italy that had been so used. Withal he told me that there had been some counsel taken about me, and that the Governor was resolved to receive me in his ante-camera: a circumstance (as it should seem) of respect. Moreover, that he had warned some gentlemen of title to be there the next morning, somewhat earlier than ordinary, for the better ornament of his Court. Now things standing thus, and no message coming to me that day in answer of mine, contrary to the form even of kings themselves, and much more of their lieutenants (between whom and ambassadors in the point of representation there is no difference), I say, these things considered, instead of going the next morning to the Court (to speak plainly to your Lordship), I went to breakfast. And when we were ready to depart, with our riding suits on our backs, a gentleman of the Constable’s chamber (sent by all likelihood to spy what I meant to do, for the hour of their expecting was now past) came up unto us, and there, either by order, or out of discretion upon the present, told me that the Constable, ‘through the troublesomeness of the time’ (a point somewhat strangely confessed by a Spaniard), ‘could not send to me sooner, but now he offered me whatsoever should be di mio gusto,’ and the like stuff. To which I made answer, as the dignity of the King my master required, that ‘by the Constable not sending unto me the whole day before, in answer of those whom I sent to him, nor his admission of them to his presence, I did indeed conjecture that I was fallen into a busy time with him; for which I was sorry, because I was desirous to offer him my service; but now we had put on our riding habits, and our things were already in the coaches’ (as he saw), ‘and therefore I would take leave to depart con la sua buona gratia.’ In the rest, I used the gentleman with all possible respect. And this is the precise accompt of what passed between the Constable and me, which I most humbly recommend by your Lordship unto his Majesty’s favourable censure. And so, referring the rest of our passages to the relation of the bearer, ⟨who is⟩ your Lordship’s obliged servant, both by your goodness to himself, and by all the right I have in him, I humbly and always rest for mine own particular,

196. To Sir Edmund Bacon.

Harl. MS. 1086, No. 2. Letters to B., p. 1. William Bedell and Gaspar Despotini going to Suffolk.

It is very just, since I cannot personally accompany this gentleman ^[1], yet that I do it with my letter; wherein, if I could transport the image of mine own mind unto you, as lively as we have often represented you unto ourselves abroad, then I should not think us asunder while you read it. But of my longing to see you, I am a better feeler than a describer; as likewise of my obligations towards you, whereof it is not the least, that I have been by your mediation, and judgement, and love, furnished with so excellent a comforter of my absence, and so loving and discreet a divider and easer of my travels; after whose separation from me, I am ready to say that which I remember the younger Pliny doth utter with much feeling, after the loss of his venerable and dearest friend Corollius Rufus; vereor (saith he) ne posthac negligentius vivam.^[2] But herein my case is better than his; for I cannot but hope that some good occasion will bring him again nearer me: and I must confess unto you, I should be glad to see him planted for a while about the King or Prince, that so, if his own fortune be not mended by the Court, yet the Court may be bettered by him in that which it doth more desperately want. Now, Sir, besides himself, there cometh unto you with him an Italian Doctor of Physic, by name Gaspero Despotini ^[3]; a man well practised in his own faculty, and very philosophical and sound in his discourses; by birth a Venetian, which though it be not urbs ignobilis (as St. Paul said of his own mother-city)^[4], yet is his second birth the more excellent; I mean his illumination in God’s saving Truth, which was the only cause of his remove; and I was glad to be the conductor of him where his conscience may be free, though his condition otherwise (till he shall be known) will be the poorer. This stranger I was desirous to present unto you as my friend, in his company, whose testimony may more value him than mine own. And so committing them both to your love, and yourself with all that family to God’s blessing hand, I rest,

197. To Sir Arthur Throckmorton.

I am sorry that having so good opportunity to write unto you, joined with so much obligation, I have withal so little matter at the present; yet I will entertain you with a few rhapsodies.

My Lord my brother is returned a day sooner than he thought out of Kent, for that the King (who is now at Hampton Court) hath appointed all his counsellors, and all the judges, to meet him here to-morrow about matters of the Mint, as it is voiced, perhaps to cover some greater subject; and yet money is a great one.

On Saturday the King goeth to Windsor, there to honour with his presence both his sons and his favourites at their instalments.^[1]

On Sunday last the new Venetian ambassador ^[2] had his first audience at Greenwich, at which time the old took his leave, and received from the King three honours, an addition of the English lion to his coat armour, knighthood, and the sword with the furniture from the King’s side, wherewith he had knighted him; which last, being more than was done to any of his predecessors, and done to him who had deserved less than any, is enough to prove that wise kings know how to do graces, and hide affections; so mystical things are Courts.

Now, to lead you a little abroad, for I have no more to say within our own visible horizon, we have advice out of Germany, that they have extorted from the Emperor his consent to make Matthias King of the Romans: so as having first spoiled him of obedience and reverence, next of his estates and titles, they have now reduced him to so low a case, that he is no longer patron of his own voice.^[3] Howsoever, this violent cure is likely to settle the motions of Germany; out of which country, when they are quiet at home, they may perhaps send us some suitors hither. This is all (Sir) that I can write at the present, which is your advantage; for if there had been more, you had been farther troubled. And so with many hearty thanks for your kind letters, and with many hearty wishes for the prosperity of your whole house, I humbly rest

198. To Sir Edmund Bacon.

It is late at night, and I am but newly come to the knowledge that my Lord ^[1] is to send a messenger unto you to-morrow morning; yet howsoever, I have resolved not to be left out of this dispatch, though in truth I had rather be the footman myself, than one of the writers. But here I am tied about mine own business, which I have told you like a true courtier ^[2]; for right courtiers indeed have no other business but themselves. Our Lord Jesus bless you all as you are now together, and wheresoever you shall be.

199. To the Earl of Salisbury.

S. P. Dom., Jas. I, lxv, No. 280, holograph. Wotton’s illness; Mole in the Inquisition at Rome.

Mine own body being not yet in such strength that I can wait upon your Lordship where you are, I have howsoever taken the boldness to remember you by letter of that business touching Mr. Mole, by this bearer, one Lovelace, a milliner, who, in contemplation of some moneys due unto him that depend upon the return of Fitzharbert, would take the journey to Rome, and is indeed very eager in it. For my part, I have no other ends in this motion, as God knoweth, than the discharge of Christian charity.^[1] Therefore I humbly leave it to your Lordship’s wisdom and goodness to be either smothered without any more trouble, or otherwise revived, if you shall think it worthy of his Majesty’s second consideration.

And so, with all thankfulness acknowledging, besides my other obligations, your Lordship’s loving care of me in this time of my sickness, I beseech God to give me strength of body and judgement to show myself,

Abano, baths of, i 454.
Abbas, Shah of Persia, and Sir A. Shirley, i 37-8.
Abbot, George, Archbishop of Canterbury, receives De Dominis, i 149;
  letter about, ii 229 n;
  HW presents Elements of Arch. to, 285 n;
  — i 162, ii 19, 150 n, 155.
Abbot, Maurice, Trade Commissioner sent to Hague, ii 73 n, 74, 77-8.
Aberdeen, i 233 n.
Abergavenny, Edward Neville, 6th Baron, ii 37.
Abraham, ii 348.
Accoramboni, Vittoria. i 22, 285 n.
Achmet I, Sultan of Turkey, i 438, ii 239 n.
Acuña. See Gondomar.
Adam, ii 205.
Adda, the, i 179.
Addison, Joseph, ii 466.
Adelmare, Caesar, physician to Queen Elizabeth, i 410 n.
Adige, the, i 436 n.
Adriatic, the, pirates in, i 73, 163;
  Venetian claim to dominion of, 148, 154, ii 170 n;
  to right of search in, i 74;
  HW suggests English ships should be sent to, 80;
  English ships in, 154-6, ii 146 n, 152, 155;
  Dutch ships, i 155;
  Ossuna’s fleet in, 152, 154, 157, ii 112, 128 n;
  Venice forbids Spanish troops to cross, 163, 177, 179 n;
  — i 50, 72, 323 n, 357 n, 398 n, 452 n, ii 18, 158, 169, 256.
Aerssens, Francis, Dutch ambassador in Paris, i 476 n, ii 48.
Aesop quoted, i 311, 437.
Africa, i 54, 159, ii 150 n.
Aga, Pacha, ii 239.
Agostino, Signor, at Siena, i 290.
Aires. See Ayres.
Aix-la-Chapelle, taken by Spinola, i 137;
  — i 140 n, ii 45 n, 65 n.
Akester, John, elected from Eton to King’s College, ii 380.
Alba Regale, Duke of, i 296.
Albanians, attack English soldiers, i 156;
  in Venetian service, ii 152, 246.
Albert, Archduke, co-ruler of Spanish Netherlands, offers Act of Renunciation, i 416;
  refuses to receive Premonition, 468;
  and fall of Wesel, ii 70, 72;
  and Juliers-Cleves controversy, 42-5, 47;
  and Treaty of Xanten, i 139-41, 143, ii 54-5, 59, 65, 74 n, 75, 78, 80, 82 n, 84 n;
  letter to Philip III, 65 n;
  and Corona Regia, 92 n;
  — ii 19, 49, 494.
Alberti, Scipione, HW’s host at Siena, i 21, 28, 290, 298-9;
  his ‘Delphian oracle’, 22, 220, 327 n, ii 364, 382.
Albertini, Ascanio, ii 184, 186-7.
Albizzi, Tuscan envoy to Venice (1618), his reception, i 52 n;
  difficulties about visiting, ii 158.
Aldobrandini, the, ii 272.
Aldobrandini, Hippolito. See Clement VIII.
Aldobrandini, Pietro, brother of Clement VIII, i 281.
Aldobrandini, Pietro, Card., nephew of Clement VIII, i 321, 329.
Aldrovandi, Ulisse, ii 378-9.
Alen, Cardinal. See Allen.
Aleppo, i 342, 353, ii 246.
Alexander VI, Pope, ii 497.
Alexander VII, ii 212 n, 276 n.
Alexander, Sir Robert, ii 17.
Alexander, Sir Sigismund, ii 17.
Aleyn, Godfrey, secretary to Antonio Perez, enticed from Paris by HW, i 30.
Alisbury. See Aylesbury.
Alkind, Mr., ii 407.
All is True, play at Globe Theatre, ii 32-3.
Allen, William, Card., protects English travellers in Rome, i 17, 332;
  — i 65, 294, 331 n, 442 n, ii 455.
Allet, Thomas, ii 292-3.
Almaigne. See Germany.
Alps, the, HW crosses, i 18, 49, 113, 120-1, 145, 147, 192, ii 94, 96, 175, 193, 207, 280, 282;
  — i 160, 363, ii 25, 255, 462.
Alsace, ii 183, 237 n, 246.
Altavilla, Benedetto, astrologer of Vicenza, pretends to discover gunpowder plot in Venice, i 364.
Altdorf, HW at, i 12-3, 164, 239-40, 248-9, 252, 255, 258, ii 161, 482;
  Lord Zouche at, i 13, 241, 250, 260-2, 265-6, 280, ii 161;
  — i 246 n, 255 n, 259.
Altezza, title of, demanded by Prince of Condé, ii 250 n;
  by D. of Mantua, 270.
Altorph. See Altdorf.
Alva, D. of, ii 482,
Ambassadors, extraordinary, i 46;
  resident, when first appointed, 46;
  duties of, x, 331;
  qualifications, 109;
  etiquette, 63-4, 437 n, 503-5, ii 158, 217-8, 259, 271, 275;
  HW’s definitions of, i iii, 49, 111, 126-7, ii 9-11, 123 n, 211, 237;
  reception and negotiations of, at Venice, i 51-3, 413-4;
  life in Venice, 60, ii 145;
  reception of, at the Hague, i 136.
Ambassadors, special, resident, envoys, agents, &c.
  Bavarian:
    In Venice, i 475.
  Dutch:
    In England. See Caron.
    In France. See Aerssens.
    In Venice. See Vandermyle, Berg.
Ambassadors, English pay of, i 46-7;
  household, 47-9.
  English:
    To Emperor. See Carlisle, Wotton, Bristol.
    In Flanders. See Edmondes, Trumbull, Bennet, Gerbier.
    In France. See Cobham, Richmond, Carew, Edmondes, Lord Wotton, Herbert, Morton, Scudamore.
    In Germany. See Dickenson, Wotton, Morton, Conway, Portland, Nethersole, Chichester.
    In Holland. See Winwood, Wotton, Dorchester, Boswell.
    In Savoy. See Wotton, Morton, Parkhurst, Wake.
    In Spain. See Cornwallis, Bristol, Roos, Aston.
    In Turkey. See Barton, Glover, Pindar, Ayres, Roe.
    In Tuscany. See Le Sieur.
    In Venice, i 190. See Wotton, Dorchester, Monti, Branthwaite, Wake.
  Flemish:
    In England, ii 17, 65.
  French:
    In England. See Harlay, Bisseux.
    In Germany. See Sancy.
    To Grisons. See Paschal.
    In Holland. See Maurier, Reffuge.
    In Savoy. See Béthune.
    In Spain. See Vaucelas, Bassompierre.
    In Venice. See Fresnes-Canaye, Joyeuse, Champigny, Bruslart, Villars, Estrées.
    In Vienna. See Angoulême, Béthune, Preaux.
  German:
    In England. See Sticke, Buvickhausen, Dohna.
    In Venice. See Dohna, Lenk, Calandrini.
  Grison:
    In Venice. See Salice.
  Imperial:
    In Rome. See Harrach.
    In Venice, i 60, 184, ii 232-3.
      See Castiglione, Fuggero.
    In Turkey. See Kreckwitz, Gallo.
  Modenese:
    In Venice, i 475.
  Papal:
    In Flanders. See Bentivoglio.
    In Venice, i 60, 184, 320 n, 341, 349, 356, ii 210, 271.
      See Offreddo, Gesse, Monte Fiascone.
  Of Parma:
    In Venice, i 60.
    In Vienna, ii 275.
  Savoyard:
    In England. See Cartignana, Pergamo, Gabaleoni, Scarnafissi.
    In France, ii 2.
    In Holland. See Scarnafissi.
    In Venice, i 185 n, 493, ii 173.
    In Vienna, ii 200.
  Spanish:
    In England, i 372 n.
      See Castile, Zuniga, Velasco, Gondomar.
    In Rome, ii 93, 226, 228.
      See Olivares, Sessa, Castro.
    In Venice, i 51, 60, 184, ii 262.
      See Cardenas, Bedinar, Castro.
    In Vienna. See Ogniate.
  Tuscan:
    In England, ii 257.
      See Lotto, Salvetti.
    In Venice. See Montauto, Albizzi, Sachetti.
  Venetian:
    Reports of, i 15.
    In England, i 77.
      See Scaramelli, Duodo, Molin, Giustinian, Correr, Francesco Contarini, Foscarini, Barbarigo, Lionello, Pietro Contarini, Donato, Lando, Valaresso.
    In France, i 433, ii 239, 266.
      See Badoer, Priuli, Foscarini, Contarini, Pesaro.
    In Germany. See Gussoni.
    To the Grisons, i 395.
    To Holland, i 155.
      See Contarini, Morosini.
    At Milan. See Marchesini.
    In Rome. See Duodo, Nani, Contarini, Mocenigo, Zeno.
    In Savoy. See Badoer, Barbarigo, Gussoni, Donato.
    In Spain, i 433, ii 210.
      See Francesco Priuli, Piero Priuli.
    In Turkey. See Valier.
    In Tuscany. See Lio.
    In Vienna, ii 200, 204.
America, treasure-ships from, i 356 n, 440-1.
  See Virginia.
Amiens, HW at, (1604) i 320, (1612) ii 1;
  — ii 475, 477.
Ammanati, Barthol., i 21 n, 196.
Amsterdam, ii 45, 346.
Anchorage tax on English ships in Venice, i 73, 371, 372 n;
  HW’s attempts to obtain removal of, 79, 371, 372 n;
  removal of, 403.
Ancona, Henry Bertie imprisoned at, ii 108, 110-1;
  — i 19, 156, 386, 407, 470 n.
Ancre, Marechal d’, ii 107 n;
  murder of, 113.
Ancrum, Sir Robert Ker, 1st E. of, ii 319.
Andalusia, ii 497 n.
Andernach, ii 31.
Angel, the, English ship treated as pirate, i 322 n.
Anglesea, ii 480.
Angolesme. See Angoulême.
Angoulême, Duc de, French ambassador at Vienna, i 172, ii 191-7, 200, 202, 204, 206;
  his rebuff to ambassador of Parma, ii 275.
Anhalt, Prince Christian of, sends Christopher von Dohna to Venice, i 91;
  visits HW at Heilbronn, ii 176;
  answer of, 179 n.
Anhaltische Canzlei, the, i 175 n.
Anne of Austria, i 274 n.
Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, i 119, ii 52, 390.
Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, reported plot of, against James VI, i 284, 285 n;
  favourable to HW, 123;
  letter to Grimani, ii 490 n;
  sends jewel to HW, ii 6 n, 474;
  Overbury’s rudeness to, 19;
  death, 160 n, 166;
  — i 118 n, 165, 199, 501 n, ii 20, 22, 24, 25 n, 29, 32 n, 42, 44, 51 n, 87, 157 n.
Ansbach, Marquis of, HW visits, ii 176;
  answer of, 179 n.
Antaeus, ii 498.
Antelmi, Venetian secretary, visits HW, i 177.
Antelminelli, Alessandro. See Salvetti.
Antelminelli, Bernardino, execution of, i 35, 36 n.
Anthony, Mark, ii 253, 331, 395 n.
Antichrist, the Pope identified with, i 71, 378 n, 431, 444 n, 466 n, ii 473;
  in Premonition, i 101, 103.
Antonio, Don, of Portugal, ii 456.
Antonio, Fra, of Viterbo, plots against Sarpi, i 442.
Antwerp, fall of, i 231;
  HW at (1615), ii 84, (1616) 91, (1623) i 192, ii 282;
  letters from, i 283, 339, 409, 491;
  — i 232, 245 n, 253 n, 297, ii 115, 248, 280.
Apennines, the, i 17.
Appleby, HW M.P. for (1614), i 132, ii 36 n.
Apsley, Sir Edward, ii 475.
Apuleius, Apology of, edited by Casaubon, i 25-6.
Apulia, i 396, ii 107 n.
Aquapendente, Fabricio d’, treats Sarpi, i 405.
Aquileia, ii 256.
Arabia, ii 386.
Arandell. See Arundel.
Archaeologia, letters of HW published in, i vi, 146 n.
Archdukes, the. See Albert.
Archpriest controversy, the, i 333 n.
Archy. See Armstrong.
Arcturus, ii 160.
Ardagh, Bedell, Bishop of, i 378 n, ii 463.
Ardennes, the, ii 352 n.
Argentina. See Strasburg.
Aristophanes quoted, ii 353.
Aristotle, Casaubon edits, i 11;
  quoted, 485 n, ii 146, 268, 402.
Ark Royal, ship of Essex, at Cadiz, i 31.
Arklow, i 310.
Arles, negotiations at, ii 265 n.
Arlow, i 310.
Armach. See Armagh.
Armada, the, i iii, 9, 24, ii 479 n, 498.
Armagh, i 301.
Armstrong, Archy, ii 18.
Arnauld, Nicholas, HW’s letter to, ii 244 n.
Arnehm. See Arnheim.
Arnheim, ii 51, 71.
Arundel and Surrey, Alethea, Countess of, resides in Venice, i 184;
  report that Foscarini has met foreign envoys at her house [Transcriber’s Note: page number missing];
  Dynely sent to warn her, she comes to HW’s palace, 185, ii 232-3, 470;
  audience in Collegio, i 186, ii 232-5;
  resolution of Senate about, i 186;
  second audience, 187, ii 232;
  animosity against HW, i 185-9, 192;
  HW writes of to her husband, ii 240-2;
  returns to England, i 190 n.
Arundel and Surrey, Henry Howard, 3rd E. of, HW presents to Doge, i 190, ii 240;
  marriage of, i 189 n.
Arundel and Surrey, Thomas Howard, 2nd E. of, visits Venice, ii 240 n;
  his wife in Venice, i 184;
  reports about his wife denied to, i 186;
  unpopular in England, 188;
  his view of HW, 189, ii 241 n;
  letters of, i 189, ii 241 n;
  HW’s letter to, 240-2, 447;
  his marbles, i 195;
  — ii 17, 40, 180 n, 234, 395.
Ascham, Roger, i 47 n.
Aschausen, Joann. Gottfried von, Bp. of Bamberg, ii 15-6.
Ascoli, Cardinal d’. See Berneri.
Ashley, Sir Anthony, HW witness at trial of, i 30 n.
Ashley, Sir Jacob. See Astley.
Ashton, Thomas, chaplain to Essex, i 316 n.
Asia, i 342.
Asselinau, M., French physician in Venice, ii 102 n.
Asti, i 122;
  treaty of, 144, 148, 152, ii 94 n, 103, 474.
Astley, Sir Jacob, 1st Baron Astley, ii 395, 399.
Aston, Sir Walter, 1st Baron of Forfar, English ambassador in Spain, ii 336 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 112, ii 213, 220-2, 223-5, 444-6.
Athenaeus, edited by Casaubon, ii 497.
Athenians, the, ii 112 n.
Athens, i 437.
Atticus, ii 408.
Atilla, ii 256.
Aton. See Ayton.
Atylas. See Atilla.
Aubonne, ii 464.
Augsburg, HW at, (1604) i 49, 126, 320, (1619) 165, ii 172-3, 176, (1620) i 171, ii 189, 192, 205 n;
  Welser at, i 127, ii 9;
  plan for intercepting letters at, 147-8;
  — i 245, 314 n, 437, ii 9, 10 n, 193, 198, 207, 479.
Augustus, ii 253, 331.
Auldbar, Laird of. See Lyon.
Austria, i 16, 166, 171, 264, 267, 305 n, 368, 417, ii 205 n, 209, 306;
  House of. See Habsburg.
Austro-Spanish powers, the dominion of, in Europe, i 75;
  hostility of Venice to, 50, 76;
  combinations, or attempted combinations, against, 75-6, 182, 484 n;
  Henry IV’s ‘Great Design’ for attacking. See Henry IV.
Auvergne, ii 356.
Auvergne, Count d’, i 336 n.
Avein, battle of, ii 352 n.
Averrhoes quoted, ii 255.
Avery, Dudley, difficulty about his election to Eton, ii 367-9.
Avery, Joseph, agent at Hamburg, ii 367.
Avery, Samuel, ii 367-9.
Avicenna quoted, ii 392.
Avignon, i 365.
Aylesbury, ii 394.
Ayres, Sir John, ambassador at Constantinople, ii 221.
Ayton, Sir Robert, wishes to be Provost of Eton, i 199, 200 n.
Azores expedition, the, i 30 n, 33, 37, 304, ii 469;
  HW’s opinion of, i 31.
 
Babylon, Rome identified with, i 71, 101, 113, 173, 274, 455, 457, ii 473.
Bacherach (Bacharach), ii 31.
Bacon MSS. at Lambeth, i 31.
Bacon, Anne Lady, mother of Sir Edmund, ii 21.
Bacon, Anne. See Meautys.
Bacon, Anthony, i 9, 32 n, 189;
  letter to Sir Edward Wotton, 29 n;
  to E. Reynolds, 31 n;
  to Essex about HW, 32;
  letter to, from E. Reynolds, 31 n.
Bacon, Sir Edmund, marries HW’s niece, i 118, 318 n;
  recommends Bedell, 378 n, 505;
  HW’s friendship with, 117-8;
  HW visits, see Redgrave;
  with HW at Bocton, ii 322, at Canterbury, 390;
  HW thanks for help, 336-7;
  mentioned by Sir T. Browne, 396 n;
  his will, 330 n;
  letters of, 337 n;
  HW’s letters to, i v, 118, 130, 142, 208, 221, 505, ii 13-41, 81, 289, 312, 317, 319, 322-4, 330, 336-47, 374, 392-401, 405, 433-4, 436, 450-3;
  biographical note, 460-1;
  — i 483, ii 311 n, 312, 328, 345 n, 462, 471.
Bacon, Francis, Viscount St. Albans, cousin and friend of HW, ii 461;
  wishes to be Provost of Eton, i 199;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 497;
  early letters, i x;
  letters of, sent by HW to Sir G. Clifton, ii 352, 461;
  corresponds with HW, i iii, ii 461;
  letter to HW, 204 n, 412;
  HW’s letter to, i 171, 197, ii 204, 412, 444;
  Essays, i 196, ii 494 n;
  Novum Organum, i 415 n, 485 n;
  sent to HW, ii 204;
  Historia Vitae et Mortis, quoted by HW, 338, 371;
  Confession of Faith sent by HW to Sir E. Bacon, 393;
  — i 9, 161 n, ii 12 n, 14 n, 34 n, 38 n, 332.
Bacon, Francis, page of Queen of Bohemia, ii 311-2, 318-20, 322-6, 342, 345.
Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, ii 204 n.
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, Lord Keeper, i 117-8, 410 n, ii 460.
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, father of Sir Edmund, ii 21, 460.
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, of Gillingham, i 483, 489, ii 18, 38.
Bacon, Philippa Wotton, Lady, wife of Sir Edmund Bacon, i 118, 318 n, 507 n, ii 21, 23, 31-2, 38, 40, 82, 460-1;
  her death, i 209, ii 289, 294 n, 312, 342, 374, 405.
Bacon, Sir Robert, brother of Sir Edmund, ii 311 n, 345 n.
Bacon, Robert, ii 345.
Bacon, Thomas. See Southwell.
Baden-Baden, Edward, Markgraf of, visited by HW, i 30.
Baden-Durlach, George Frederick, Margrave of, i 181, ii 176, 179 n.
Badnedge, Thomas, gentleman of Lord Cork, conducts the Boyles to Eton, ii 355 n, 358-9.
Badoer, or Badoero, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n, ii 128.
Badoero, Angelo, arrest of, i 410, 453.
Badoer, Angelo, ambassador in France, ii 128 n.
Badoer, Gregorio, Venetian envoy at Turin, i 467.
Baerle, Suzanne van, ii 411 n.
Bagshawe, Christopher, Catholic Controversialist, i 331, 395.
Baker, Sir Richard, at Oxford with HW, i 5, ii 369;
  sends HW his Meditations, 369;
  biographical note, 461;
  HW’s letter to, 369-70, 452.
Balan, Henry, in service of HW (1620), i 170 n, ii 195.
Balbi, Venetian family, ii 141.
Balbi, Nicolò, murders Nicholas Pert, i 323-5.
Balcanquhall, Walter, Dean of Durham, ii 395, 397, 405;
  his Declaration, 407;
  letter of, 194 n, 195 n.
Baldi, Ottavio, assumed name of HW, i 40-2, 112;
  HW’s letters signed, 367, 383, 419, 425, 450, 459, 467, 476, 478, ii 53, 100.
Baldwin, Wm., kidnapping of, ii 117;
  proposed exchange for Mole, i 488 n, ii 126-7;
  release of, 169 n;
  in Rome, 169.
Baltimore, Sir George Calvert, 1st Lord, appointed secretary, i 165, ii 166, 167 n, 476;
  HW congratulates, 167;
  says HW is blamed for conduct to Lady Arundel, i 188;
  HW’s letters to, 165, 178, 183, 190 n, ii 167, 189, 192-4, 200, 207, 210, 214-20, 223, 225-31, 235, 239 n, 242, 246, 250-2, 258, 265-73, 276 n, 277, 279, 442-9, 470;
  letters of, i 454 n, ii 201 n, 241, 258, 264;
  — ii 166 n, 286 n, 464.
Bamberg, ii 15.
Banbury, Wm. Knollys, 1st E. of, ii 40, 492 n.
Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, i 395.
Bandon Bridge, Lord. See Boyle, Visct.
Banes. See Baynes.
Barbarigo, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Barbarigo, Gregorio, Venetian ambassador at Turin, i 490, 500 n;
  describes HW’s reception at Turin, 114;
  ambassador to England, ii 85.
Barbarigo, Piero, General of Venetian fleet, ii 131;
  executes English mutineers, i 155-6, ii 152-6, 158-9;
  his treatment of Southake, 155 n.
Barbarini, Maffeo. See Urban VIII.
Barbaro, Procuratore, ii 276, 278.
Barbary pirates, i 322.
Barcelona, i 326, ii 365, 498.
Barclay, John, ii 92-3;
  his Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon, 93.
Barclay, William, ii 93.
Bargrave, Isaac, Dean of Canterbury, HW’s chaplain (1616-8), i 145 n;
  returns to England, ii 143;
  HW’s bequest to, i 218;
  death, 224;
  biographical note, ii 461-2;
  letter of, 115 n;
  HW’s letter to, 148-51, 441;
  Leete’s letters to, i 58, ii 144 n, 145 n, 157 n, 471;
  — i 216, ii 160.
Bargrave, John, i 217 n.
Bargrave, Thomas, executor of HW’s will, i 216, 217 n.
Barklay. See Barclay.
Barkshire. See Berkshire.
Barneveldt, John of, HW’s interviews with, i 136, ii 43 n, 44, 64, 71, 73-6, 84 n;
  conducts negotiations about treaty of Xanten, i 140-2;
  fall of, ii 160 n;
  — i ix, 99, 134, 476 n, ii 50, 82-3.
Barnham, Sir Francis, ii 390.
Barone, Giovanni, Jesuit, i 347.
Baronius, Cardinal, his advice to Paul VI, 356 n;
  attacks HW, ii 10.
Barozzi, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434.
Barrett, Charles, of Belhus, i 338 n.
Barrett, Edward Lord, of Newburgh, sends HW observations about Spain, 340, 375 n;
  Spanish music, 375;
  HW’s letters to, 338-40, 375, 379-81, ii 420, 423.
Barte, Bartie. See Bertie.
Bartlet, Sir Thomas, ii 29.
Bartoli, Giorgio, secretary to Montauto, in Venice, letters quoted, i 336 n, 479 n, 486 n.
Bartolist school of legal study, i 10.
Barton, Edward, English ambassador at Constantinople, i 261, 295.
Barvicke. See Berwick.
Basegio, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Basil, Basile. See Basle.
Basing House, siege of, ii 365 n.
Basle, HW intends to study at, i 9-10, 228, 230, 234, 237;
  HW visits, (1612) i 123, (1616) 145, ii 94, (1623) i 192, ii 281;
  — i 300, 301 n, 469, ii 115, 117, 120.
Bassadonna, Zuane, Venetian agent in England, i 299, ii 494.
Bassani, the, portraits by, i 55.
Bassano, Jacobo de Ponte, ‘Seasons’ of, bequeathed by HW to Windebank, i 218.
Bassano, Leandro, ii 349.
Basset, Sir Arthur, i 386 n.
Basset, Sir Robert, pretender to English crown, in exile, i 346;
  returns from Italy, 346 n.
Bassompierre, François, Baron de, ii 239.
Bastard, Thomas, his epigrams addressed to HW, i 32 n.
Bath, ii 3 n, 20, 22, 387.
Bathori, Sigismund II, Prince of Transylvania, i 285.
Bathori, Stephen, K. of Poland, ii 456.
Batier, M., ii 356.
Battista, Gian, and Foscarini case, ii 261-2.
Bavaria, HW in, (1619) i 165, ii 174-6, (1620) i 174-6, ii 207-9;
  Dukes of, see Maximilian, William;
  Prince Albertus of, ii 174;
  Prince Ferdinand of, see Cologne;
  Prince Philip of, i 286, 294, 296;
  — 14, 475; ii 168.
Baynes, Roger, secretary to Cardinal Allen, i 294.
Beadle. See Bedell.
Beamorris. See Beaumaris.
Bearn. See Berne.
Beaumaris, Essex sails to Ireland from, i 306-7;
  letters dated at, 306-7.
Bedell, William, HW’s chaplain at Venice (1607-10), HW asks for passport for, i 378;
  arrives in Venice, 86, 103 n;
  and the number of the Beast, 444 n;
  acts as intermediary between HW and Sarpi, 56, 86-7, 399, 406 n, ii 302;
  his friendship with Sarpi denied, i 103 n;
  reproves HW for keeping an ape, 59 n;
  praises HW, 86;
  describes HW’s plans for religious propaganda, 90-1;
  translates Sandys’s Europae Speculum, 91;
  the Premonition, 102, 466;
  discourses in house of HW, 91, 96;
  translates Anglican liturgy, 91;
  books imported by, 96, 416 n;
  helps Fulgenzio to compose sermons, 98, 447 n;
  leaves Venice, 114;
  HW writes to Sir E. Bacon about, 505;
  returns to Bury St. Edmunds, 505 n;
  his translation of Sarpi’s History of Interdict, 128-9;
  HW recommends for Provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, ii 301-2;
  reported help to HW, 352 n;
  death of, i 224;
  biographical note, ii 462-3;
  letters of, i xi, 86, 90-1, 407 n, 441 n, ii 301 n, 463, 466;
  — i 398, 496 n, ii 467-8.
Bedell, William, jun., his life of his father, ii 301 n, 468.
Bedmar, Marquis of (Don Alfonso della Cueva), Spanish ambassador in Venice, relations with HW, i 61, 158;
  HW remonstrates with, about Tyrone’s reception at Milan, 418 n;
  keeps criminals in his house, 67 n;
  and plot of 1618, 157, ii 142;
  mentioned in Table Talk, 492, 497;
  — i 467, 476 n, 487-9, ii 154 n, 210, 261.
Beecher, Sir William, ii 475;
  wishes to be Provost of Eton, i 299;
  bargain with HW, 200, ii 316.
Beeli, Domenico, Catholic leader among the Grisons, executed, i 395.
Bel, Beufre, i 397 n.
Belhaven, Visct. (Sir Robert Douglas), buys horses in Italy for Prince Henry, i 458 n, 470;
  finds Lord Gowrie’s arms at Padua, 458;
  goes to Naples, 470 n.
Belhus, Essex, i 338 n.
Beli. See Beeli.
Belkanquel. See Balcanquhall.
Belknap, Alice, grandmother of Eleanor Wotton, i 3 n.
Belknap, Anne, grandmother of Thomas Wotton, i 3 n, ii 461.
Belknap, Sir Henry, ii 461.
Bell, Captain Henry, ii 22 n, 129, 148;
  biographical note, ii 463.
Bell, Nicholas, father of Lady Winwood, ii 106 n.
Bellamy, N., captured and sent into England, i 231 n.
Bellarmino, Roberto, i 100;
  HW visits, 294;
  in favour with Paul V, 335;
  on dignity of cardinals, 482;
  — 464 n, ii 93, 117, 169, 493.
Belvoir Castle, James I at, i 124.
Bembo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Bembo, Filippo, ii 133.
Bembo, Giovanni, Doge XCII, i 147, 149;
  election, ii 133, 137;
  character, 133-4;
  HW’s audiences, i 147, 154, ii 97 n, 111 n, 112 n, 113 n, 122 n, 125 n, 126 n;
  thanks James I for his remonstrances with Philip III, 122 n;
  letter from James I to, ii 463;
  death, i 161, ii 127 n, 132-3, 135, 141.
Bembo, Pietro, Card., historian of Venice, ii 484.
Bene, ii 497.
Benedictines, the, i 331, 350, ii 136.
Benedictus á Benedictis, book by, i 444 n.
Benevento, Count of, Viceroy of Naples, i 328-9.
Beni, Paolo, his Anticrusca, ii 485.
Bennet, Sir John, describes HW at Court, i 507 n;
  special envoy to Brussels, ii 92 n.
Bentivoglio, Card., Nuncio at Brussels, ii 65 n.
Bercke. See Rheinberg.
Berg, ——, Dutch ambassador in Venice, ii 258-9.
Berg, Duchy of, ii 56-7.
Bergamo, i 433, ii 131, 259.
Bergen-op-Zoom, i 336, ii 248.
Bergh. See Rheinberg.
Berkeley, George, 13th Baron, ii 29 n.
Berkeley, Sir Maurice, i 22 n.
Berkshire, ii 399.
Berkshire, Thomas Howard, 1st E. of, ii 16-7.
Berloc, Baron von, travels with HW to Rome, i 17, 271.
Bermudas, the, i 153 n, ii 87.
Bernadoviz, Zacharias, ii 98.
Berne, MSS. at, i 314 n;
  — i 33, 300, 304, ii 94, 179.
Bernegger, Kepler’s letter to, ii 205 n.
Berneri, Hieronymus, Cardinal d’Ascoli, protests against HW’s presence in Venice, i 95.
Berni, Francesco, his Opere, ii 485.
Bernstein, Baron von, papal legate in Poland, i 286.
Berry. See Bury St. Edmunds.
Bertie, Henry, imprisoned at Ancona, ii 108, 110-1;
  removed to Rome, 110, 114.
Berwick, ii 410 n;
  fortifications of, ii 399 n.
Bethesda, pool of, ii 264.
Béthune, M. de, French ambassador at Turin, i 145;
  at Vienna, 172, ii 191-7, 200, 202, 204, 206.
Bexley, Kent, i 279 n.
Bèze, Theodore de, HW sends greetings to, i 303;
  his Confessio, i 467.
Bible, the, i 87, 211, 399 n, 447 n, ii 170;
  translated by Diodati, i 351 n;
  circulated by HW in Venice, 90, 96, 462;
  quoted, 126-7, 302, 333, 338, 350, 356 n, 363, 383, 485, ii 10, 64, 208, 213, 225 n, 249, 304, 336, 348, 351, 353, 370, 401, 407, 463.
Bie, Count de, ii 199.
Bilderbeck, ——, ii 91, 280-1.
Bilford, ——, i 118 n, 119 n.
Billingsley, Capt., his soldiers mutiny, ii 153 n.
Biographia Britannica, Life of HW in, i xii, xiii, ii 456.
Biondi, Sir Giovanni Francesco, in HW’s service, i 48 n;
  carries letter of Bedell to England, 90;
  his return, 456;
  lays Sarpi’s proposals before James I, 93;
  161, 446-7, ii 79, 149, 490 n;
  received by James I, 469 n;
  given pension, ii 80;
  sent to Turin, i 493 n;
  goes with HW to Turin, 120;
  with HW at the Hague (1614), sent to Brussels, ii 43 n, 80;
  sent to arrange truce, 49-50;
  HW recommends to Winwood, 79-80;
  biographical note, 463-4;
  his letters, i 117, ii 35 n;
  — i 469, 470.
Biondi, Mary Lady, ii 464.
Biron, Duc de, i 336.
Bisseux, Samuel Spifaine des, French ambassador in London, ii 35, 37.
Bitonto, Antonius de, his Sermones, ii 485.
Blackwell, George, archpriest, arrest of, i 399.
Blithe, Samuel, ii 479.
Blochinghen, ii 189.
Blotius, Hugo, librarian of the Imperial Library at Vienna, HW’s host (1590-1), i 14, 244, 247, 251, 269;
  letters to, 14 n, 17-9, 29, 32, ii 417-20;
  his wife, i 14.
Blotius, cipher name for Ferdinand I, i 284.
Blotz. See Blotius.
Blunt, Mr., merchant, ii 106.
Blunt, Sir Charles. See Devonshire.
Blunt, Sir Christopher, i 259.
Blunte, Capt., ii 56.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, his Decamerone, ii 485.
Bocton Malherbe, HW’s birthplace, i 1-3, 49, 215, 225, 228 n, 238 n, 284 n, ii 29, 34, 38 n, 391;
  HW revisits, i 212, ii 321-2, 327, 403, 405, 409;
  Queen Elizabeth at, i 4.
Bodin, Jean, i 291 n.
Bodley, Sir Thomas, ii 106.
Bodwel. See Bothwell.
Bogdan, Stephen, Moravian pretendant, takes possession of HW’s house, i 413-4;
  proposed marriage with the Lady Arabella, 414 n, 438;
  goes to Constantinople, 414 n, 437.
Bohan, Mr., ii 313.
Bohemia, i 249, 252, 268 n, 301, 305 n, 507 n, ii 212, 306;
  revolution in, i 160, 164-73, ii 158, 160, 163, 170 n, 175, 180 n, 182-207;
  conquest of, i 173, 175, ii 193, 195-207, 209;
  Kings of, see Rudolf, Mathias, Frederick;
  Queen of, see Elizabeth.
Bohemia, Grand Chancellor of, visits HW, ii 190 n.
Bohemian Directors, the, i 166, ii 180 n.
Bois-le-Duc. See Hertogenbosch.
Bokenham, Capt., friend of Sir E. Bacon, ii 330 n;
  his sons, ii 330.
Bolani, beheaded in Venice, i 461-2.
Bolduc. See Bois-le-Duc.
Boleyn, Anne, i 472 n.
Bologna, i 22 n, 39, 276, 392 n, 408, 444, 456, ii 103, 208 n, 379, 492.
Bolton, Edmund, mentions HW in Hypercritica, i 164 n.
Bond, Mr., ii 86.
Bongars, Jacques, HW visits (1602), i 43, 314;
  Casaubon writes to, 26;
  — i 428 n.
Borbon. See Henry IV.
Bordeaux, ii 210.
Borghese, family of, i 370 n.
Borghese, Scipio, Card., complains of HW, i 95;
  made abbot of Vangadizza, 98, 446, 461;
  resigns, 468 n;
  — 333, 442, ii 211, 272-3, 276.
Borgognie. See Burgundy.
Bossuet, his opinion of Sarpi, i 88.
Boston, Lincs., ii 318.
Boswell, James, ii 205 n.
Boswell, Sir William, secretary to John Williams, ii 236;
  English resident at Hague, 349;
  — 300 n.
Boterg, Jesuit, ii 497.
Bothwell, Francis, 5th E. of, i 315.
Boughton. See Bocton.
Boughton, Edward, i 375.
Boughton Monchelsea, ii 390 n.
Bouillon, Duc de, i 336, ii 202.
Bouleaux, the, ii 131 n.
Boulogne, HW at (1604), i 45, 320;
  (1612), 120, ii 4.
Boyle, Hon. Francis. See Shannon.
Boyle, Lewis, 1st Visct., HW recommends tutor for foreign travel, ii 355-7;
  in France, 359-60.
Boyle, Hon. Robert, at Eton under HW, i 203-4, ii 355, 357-61;
  his description of HW, i 204, 211.
Bozzolo, D. of, ii 104 n.
Bozzolo, Princess of, Cardinal Gonzaga marries, ii 103.
Brabant, i 417, ii 72 n, 93, 384 n.
Bracciano, Paolo Orsini, D. of, i 285 n.
Brach, Tycho. See Brahe.
Brackley, ii 480.
Brackley, Sir Thomas Egerton, 1st Visct., Lord Chancellor, i 428 n, ii 86.
Bragadin, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Brahe, Tycho, ii 396; his Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica, presented by HW to Bodleian, i 210, ii 347.
Brand, Susan, ii 468.
Brandenburg, Anna Sophia, Princess of, proposed marriage, ii 57.
Brandenburg, Count Ernest of, represents his father in Juliers-Cleves territory, i 135, 138-9, ii 48, 50 n, 54-9, 77;
  meets HW, 51;
  signs treaty, 61-2.
Brandenburg, George William, Elector of, ii 176.
Brandenburg, John Sigismund, Elector of, proposed sending of envoy to Venice, i 455;
  claims Juliers-Cleves, 135, 455, ii 57, 68;
  his forces take possession of Juliers, i 135;
  — ii 51 n, 463.
Brandolin, Count, abbot of Nervosa, imprisoned, i 78, 341;
  released, 84, 389-90.
Branthwaite, Michael, with HW (1620-3), i 170 n, ii 189-90, 192-4, 200, 219, 231;
  left by HW in Venice, i 192, ii 279, 292, 382;
  at Eton (1626), 290-2;
  tutor to James Scudamore at Paris, 364-5, 382;
  HW gives Milton letter to, 382;
  biographical note, ii 464-5;
  letter of, 146 n, 260 n.
Brasil. See Brazil.
Brazil, Dutch victory in, ii 345.
Breda, ii 246 n, 248, 341.
Breisach, ii 183;
  siege of, 395, 400.
Bremen, i 229 n, 230, ii 400.
Brenner Pass, HW crosses, i 176.
Brent, Sir Nathaniel, ii 479.
Brenta, the, i 57, 185, 325 n, ii 102 n.
Brentford, ii 407.
Brescia, i 436 n, 450, ii 112, 131, 478.
Breslau, ii 201, 203 n.
Briare, HW at, i 502.
Bridgewater, John, 1st E. of, ii 465.
Brill, ii 146 n.
Brindisi, ii 159.
Brisach, Brissac. See Breisach.
Bristol, Sir John Digby, 1st E. of (Lord Digby) recommends J. Wake, i 501 n;
  ambassador in Spain, 134, ii 226 n, 245, 480;
  in Vienna, i 175, ii 215;
  his disgrace, 319 n;
  restored to favour, 319.
Britannicus, Johannes, his De Re Metallica, ii 379.
Brittany, ii 473.
Brochetta, Tomaso, kills Julius Caesar, i 410-2, ii 478;
  plan to entrap, i 450.
Broge, Col., i 136 n.
Broghill, Lord. See Orrery.
Brooke, Fulke Greville, 1st Baron, i 3, ii 315 n.
Brown, Mr. Horatio F., i xi, 53.
Brown, Rawdon, i xiii.
Browne, ——, Catholic in Italy, i 331.
Browne, Edward, ii 479.
Browne, Sir Thomas, i v, ii 396 n.
Brownswig. See Brunswick.
Bruce, Lord, i 41 n, ii 86.
Bruce, Sir George, i 41 n.
Bruce, Mrs. Hervey, i xv, ii 466.
Bruno, Giordano, at Frankfort, i 12;
  at Padua, i 12;
  at Venice, 87;
  trial of, i 469 n.
Brunswick, HW travels through, i 10, 232-3, 242;
  war between city and Duke, ii 48 n;
  HW’s proposed mission to, 48, 58;
  Heinrich, D. of, i 306;
  Friedrich Ulrich, D. of, ii 48, 58;
  Duchess of, ii 51 n;
  Prince Christian of, i 181, ii 248, 275.
Bruslart, de Leon, French ambassador in Venice, ii 157-8, 232;
  his quarrel with Carleton, i 64, ii 217.
Brussels, proposal to send HW to, i 117, 118 n;
  Italian troops sent to, 326 n;
  news from, sent to Venice, 435;
  HW sends Biondi to, ii 43 n, 80;
  ambassadors at, see Ambassadors;
  — i 135-6, 168-9, 245 n, 283 n, 329, 454 n, ii 28, 45, 56, 65, 78 n, 83, 87, 92, 213, 244, 248, 293 n, 345, 377, 389 n, 391, 399, 456, 464, 494 n.
Brussolo, treaty of, i 487 n.
Brydall, John, MS. of, at Queen’s College, i 63.
Buck, Sir Peter, ii 22.
Buckhurst, Lord. See Dorset.
Buckingham, George Villiers, D. of, acts as secretary, ii 122 n;
  patron of HW, i 165, 167;
  HW collects pictures for, 60, ii 243, 257-8;
  sends presents to, 211-2;
  James I’s Meditations dedicated to, 169;
  his letter to Gondomar, 203;
  HW requests leave to return home, 258 n, 267-8;
  goes to Madrid, i 181, 199, ii 267 n, 290-2;
  becomes Duke, 282 n;
  HW’s bargain with, for Provostship of Eton, i 199-200, ii 294, 316;
  in Paris, 286 n, 476;
  accused of poisoning, i 209, ii 290-3, 295-6;
  impeachment of, 293-5;
  Charles I’s friendship for, 296;
  his zeal for Queen of Bohemia, 297;
  goes to island of Rhé, 303;
  petition to, from Eton College, i 209;
  letters to HW, ii 243 n, 266;
  HW’s letters to, i 165, 170 n, ii 130, 132, 180, 210 n, 211, 242-4, 256-8, 282-4, 286-7, 290-3, 412, 440, 443-4, 464;
  HW’s Parallel with Essex, i 206, ii 413, 487;
  Life and Death of, i 206, ii 297 n, 414;
  — i 195, ii 123 n, 180 n, 307 n, 335, 415, 483.
Buckinghamshire, Archdeacon of, and Eton, ii 305 n.
Bucknames. See Bokenham.
Bucquoi, Count, ii 180 n, 199;
  death, 208 n, 215.
Buda-Pesth, i 249, ii 197.
Buonacorsi, of Florence, i 296.
Buoni, Baccio, HW’s host in Florence, i 21, 277-8, 299.
Burano, i 412.
Burbage, Richard, ii 17 n.
Burgh, Sir John, i 295 n.
Burghese. See Borghese.
Burghley, William Cecil, 1st Baron, title of Lord Treasurer used in cipher for HW, i 284;
  his supposed letter introducing Lord Darcy to the Grand Duke, 284, 289-96;
  books in Italy against, 293-4;
  letters to, 262 n, 284 n, ii 467, 482;
  — i 2, 29, 58, 253 n, 284, 396 n, ii 335, 487, 498.
Burlamachi, Philip, letters sent by means of, i 454;
  HW’s debt to, ii 7-8;
  writes to Lord Cork, 356 n;
  note on 465;
  — 130, 193, 316.
Burley-on-the-Hill, MS. at, i xiv, 61 n;
  ii 469, 489.
Burlymachie. See Burlamachi.
Burnet, Gilbert, repeats story about HW, i 103 n;
  — 356 n, 378 n, 444 n.
Bury St. Edmunds, HW visits, i 201, 212, ii 285, 409;
  — i 505 n, ii 13, 146 n, 462, 467-8.
Bushy, Charles, accompanies Richard Cave to Italy, i 398 n;
  letters sent to England by, 398, 400, 404;
  arrest of, in Milan, 399 n, 403-4, ii 478.
Busse, the. See Hertogenbosch.
Bussie. See Bushy.
Buvickhausen de Walmerode, Benjamin, ii 58, 63, 188;
  envoy of Protestant Union to James I, i 174 n.
Byron, Lord, his palace in Venice, i 184.
 
C. C., Sir, his poems, ii 401;
  HW’s letters to, 385-6, 453.
Caddè, Grison League, i 179.
Cadiz, the expedition to, i 2, 30-2, 284 n, 301-2, 320 n, ii 469, 481, 493.
Caesar, Sir Charles, carries letters to England, ii 101, 105;
  Master of the Rolls, i 167 n.
Caesar, Julius, fragment by HW on, i 206, ii 375 n, 414.
Caesar, Sir Julius, Master of the Rolls, i 167, 200, ii 86, 243 n, 287, 316 n, 337 n, 470;
  Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii 7;
  bill signed by, i 470 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 450, ii 7, 429, 433;
  — i 69, 106, 410-2, ii 101, 289.
Caesar, Julius, jun., murdered at Padua, i 69, 410-2, 436 n, 450-1, ii 478.
Caffarella. See Borghese.
Cajétan, Henrico, Card., i 274.
Cajétan, Peter, i 286.
Calabria, ii 97.
Calais, i 1, 368 n, 489 n;
  HW at (1615), ii 84.
Calandrini, the, merchants of Nuremberg, ii 193.
Calandrini, Filippo, sent to Venice by Frederick V, ii 238 n.
Calbi, the, ii 128.
Caligula, ii 155, 341 n, 467.
Calvert, Sir George. See Baltimore.
Calvin, John, ii 122 n;
  his Institutes distributed by HW in Venice, i 90.
Calvinists. See Religion.
Camaldola, order of, i 446 n, 461.
Cambrai, ii 473;
  League of, i 50, 371 n, ii 498.
Cambridge, HW visits, i 131, 212, ii 15-6, 18, 29, 32; i 7, 57, 298 n, 378 n, 397 n, ii 122 n, 169, 170 n, 315 n, 318, 330-1, 393-4, 398, 468, 474-6;
  — Clare Hall, ii 479;
  — King’s College, i 457, ii 181, 370-1, 394 n, 409;
  elections to, from Eton, i 204, 216 n, ii 327, 329, 350, 380, 389, 397;
  Provost of, see Collins;
  — St. Mary’s, ii 394;
  — St. Peter’s College, book of HW’s in library of, i 217 n;
  — Sidney Sussex College, ii 314 n;
  — Trinity College, ii 482.
Camden, William, ii 37 n;
  his Britannia, i 11, 233 n;
  letter to HW, 118 n;
  letters to, 11, 233.
Campanella, Thomas, i 312;
  his Magia Naturale, ii 486.
Campden, Sir Baptist Hickes, 1st Visct., ii 468.
Campden, Baptist Noel, 3rd Visct., ii 327 n, 410 n.
Campden, Viscountess (Hester Wotton), ii 326, 342-3, 392 n, 409-10.
Campo, Don Diego del, i 275.
Campori, Pietro, Card., ii 211, 276.
Canano, Julio, Card., i 296.
Candia, ii 258 n;
  War of, 212 n.
Candishe. See Cavendish.
Canea, i 74.
Canterbury, HW visits, i 116, 209, 212, 221, ii 162, 320-1, 327, 388-91, 393, 397;
  asks for Deanery of, i 205, 208;
  defeated for Parliament at, 208 n;
  — i 239 n, ii 29, 300 n, 344, 361 n, 462, 478;
  — St. Augustine’s Priory, i 116, ii 389-90;
  — See of, refused by Nicholas Wotton, i 2;
  Archbishops of, see Bancroft, Abbot, Juxon;
  Deans of, see Nicholas Wotton, Bargrave.
Caorli, fisherman of, i 412.
Capella, Bianca, ii 497.
Caporali, Cesare, his Rime, ii 485.
Capponi, merchants in Venice, i 451, ii 115.
Capponi, ——, his resemblance to HW, i 282.
Caprarola, villa of, i 296;
  HW sends plans of to Buckingham, ii 286.
Capua, i 335.
Capuchins, return of, to Venice, i 385.
Caraffa, family of, i 22.
Caraffa, ——, Jesuit, dedicates book to Paul V, i 444 n.
Cardenas, Don Inigo de, Spanish ambassador in Venice, i 336, 371, 391;
  HW’s relations with, 61;
  says HW has applied for Spanish pension, 63.
Cardinalship, price of, i 282.
Carew, Sir George, English ambassador in France (1605-9), i 366 n, 372, 394, 402, ii 490;
  death of, 8.
Carew, Mary, ii 469.
Carew, Richard, ii 359, 361.
Carew, Robert, tutor to young Boyles at Eton, ii 355 n, 358;
  his misconduct, 360-1;
  Robert Boyle’s description of, 361 n;
  letter of, quoted, 359 n, 360 n.
Carey, Sir George, Treasurer at Wars in Ireland, i 307 n.
Carey, Sir Henry, ii 129 n.
Carey, Thomas, ii 286-7.
Carie. See Carew.
Carie, Lord. See Totnes.
Carier, Benjamin, D.D., ii 41.
Carignan, Prince of, defeated at Avein, ii 352 n.
Carinthia, i 368.
Carleton, Sir Dudley. See Dorchester.
Carleton, Dudley, jun., letters of, i 200 n, 201 n.
Carleton, Jane, ii 124 n.
Carlisle, James Hay, 1st E. of (Viscount Doncaster), ambassador to Germany, i 164, 166, ii 165 n, 166, 183;
  letter to, ii 241 n, 476;
  — i 120, ii 17, 341.
Carlyle, Thomas, mentions HW, i vi.
Caron, Sir Noel de, Dutch ambassador in London, i 143, 455.
Carr. See Ker.
Carrier. See Carier.
Carthage, i 93.
Cartignana, Claudio di Ruffia, Count of, envoy from Savoy to England, i 119, ii 1 n, 477.
Casa, Giovanni della, his Orazione, ii 485.
Casale, ii 345;
  siege of, 318 n.
Casaubon, Isaac, i 61;
  HW meets, 11-2, 302-3;
  HW’s host at Geneva, iii, 12, 23, 25, 298, ii 480;
  gives HW letters of introduction, i 25;
  HW’s debt to, 25-6;
  goes to Montpellier, 303;
  to England, 128;
  complains of HW, 128-9;
  edits Polybius, 15, 255 n;
  Apuleius, 25-6;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 490, 497;
  letters of, i 23, 25, 26 n, 36 n, 128, 298 n, 301 n, 313 n, 314 n, ii 9 n;
  HW’s letters to, i xiv, 32-3, 36, 302-4, 311-4, ii 419.
Casaubon, Madame, i 312.
Casimir, John, Administrator of Palatinate, i 231, 233, 235 n, 314 n;
  HW asks for letters to, i 231-2, 234.
Castagna. See Urban VII.
Castelione. See Castillione.
Castelvetro, Lodovico, his works, ii 485.
Castiglione, Marchese di, Imperial envoy in Venice, i 381.
Castile, Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Constable of, ratifies peace of, 1604, i 320;
  Governor of Milan, ii 26;
  rudeness to HW, i 503-5.
Castillione, Guanerio, of Milan, i 300 n.
Castillione, J. F., of Basle, i 300 n.
Castle, George, ii 465.
Castle, Dr. John, note on, ii 465;
  HW’s letters to, i 220, ii 377-80, 383-4, 387, 402, 408, 452-4.
Castracani, Castruccio, Lord of Lucca, i 35, 401.
Castro, Don Francesco di, special Spanish envoy to Venice, i 369;
  his arrival, 369;
  discourse about, 370-1;
  HW’s attempt to cause distrust of, 370 n;
  HW visits, 371 n;
  HW’s attitude towards, 374;
  his negotiations, 374 n, 376, 385;
  ambassador at Rome, 487-8.
Catena, Giovanni Girolomo, his life of Pius V, ii 485.
Catherine de’ Medici, ii 299 n.
Catholic League, the, i 135, 140-1;
  and Clement VIII, 281.
Catholic Reaction, the, i x, 16, 18, 20, 75.
Cato, M. Porcius Censorius, ii 331 n, 370 n.
Cato, M. Porcius Uticensis, ii 127.
Cave, Eleanor, Lady, i 396 n.
Cave, Margaret, Lady, i 396.
Cave, Richard, illness and death of, i 396-8.
Cave, Sir Richard, ii 401.
Cave, Roger, i 396 n.
Cave, Sir Thomas, i 396 n, ii 249 n.
Cavendish, Sir Charles, ii 2.
Cavendish, Henry, HW meets at Stade, i 230;
  his journey to Constantinople, 230 n.
Cavendish, Sir Wm. See Newcastle.
Cebes, quoted, ii 371.
Cecil MSS., i 29, 301.
Cecil, Sir Edward. See Wimbledon.
Cecil, Sir Robert. See Salisbury.
Cecil, William. See Burghley.
Cecyll, Lord. See Salisbury.
Cenci, the, i 22.
Ceneda, i 449.
Cenis, Mont, ii 3.
Centanni, Angela, i 427 n.
Ceres, ii 402 n.
Cerroneo, Tomaso, Jesuit Praepositus sent to England by HW, i 161, ii 114-9, 480;
  his journey, 120;
  in England, 122;
  his tale, 123 n;
  sent out of England, 123 n;
  in Venice, 123 n;
  HW’s letters to, 116 n, 438-9.
Chamberlain, John, in Venice, i 498 n;
  his opinion of HW, 123 n, 131-2, 189;
  letters quoted, 48 n, 118 n, 123 n, 124-6, 130 n, 131-2, 134 n, 166, 169-70, 194, 199, 201 n, 208, 292 n, 459 n, ii 1 n, 2 n, 3 n, 6 n, 9 n, 24 n, 27 n, 28 n, 32 n, 62 n, 119 n, 123 n, 284 n, 286 n, 473, 475, 487;
  letters to, i 126 n, ii 118 n.
Chambers, ——, ii 468.
Chambéry, ii 95;
  HW at, i 121, ii 5.
Champagne, i 245, ii 4, 497 n.
Champigny, Jean Bochart de, French ambassador in Venice (1607), protests against Protestant propaganda, i 98-100, 481-2;
  HW consults, 495;
  — 409 n, 426 n, 476, 487, 493.
Chandos, Grey Bridges, 5th Baron, ii 17.
Chapman, George, i 47 n, 48.
Charing, Kent, i 1, 241 n.
Charles V, Emperor, i 202, ii 221 n, 495.
Charles I, K. of England, childhood, ii 300;
  wishes to fight for Venice, i 81 n;
  proposed marriage with Savoy princess, 116, 131-2, ii 26, 477;
  with Spanish princess, i 180-1, 183, ii 186, 222, 226 n, 237 n, 245, 247, 251-2, 267, 274, 481;
  HW’s secret information about, i 181, ii 225-6, 230;
  goes to Madrid, i 181, ii 267 n, 269, 292;
  helps HW to obtain Provostship of Eton, i 200, ii 316, 397;
  HW sends Elements of Architecture to, i 199, ii 284;
  Survey of Education, i 210, ii 331-3;
  reign of, i 195;
  marriage, ii 286 n;
  commissions HW to examine Anne Lyon, 291, 295;
  HW writes of, to Q. of Bohemia, 296;
  writes to, about taking orders, 300-1, 304-5;
  about his debts, 315-6;
  asks HW’s opinion of pictures, i 210;
  HW begs preferment of, 205, 221, ii 317, 397;
  increases HW’s pension, i 205, 209, ii 315, 351;
  goes to Scotland, 343;
  HW’s poem on his return, i 210, ii 415-6;
  Plausus et Vota, i 206, 210, ii 348-9, 413, 457;
  letters about Eton elections, 326-7, 329, 334;
  and Court quarrels, 338-43;
  and Q. of Bohemia, 348;
  and HW’s arrest, 351;
  and Juxon, 363-4;
  and Covenanters, 383 n, 385 n, 410;
  HW’s bequest to, i 216;
  execution of, 224;
  HW’s letters to, 19, 76, 202, 208, 221, ii 284, 298-302, 304-5, 315, 331-3, 397-8, 450-1, 453;
  — i 120, 189 n, 214, 501 n, ii 42, 229, 286, 303, 310, 312 n, 317-9, 335-6, 345 n, 352 n, 354-5, 366-7, 386 n, 390 n, 395, 397 n, 405, 407 n, 462, 470, 480-1.
Charles II, K. of England, i 42;
  HW’s poem on birth of, 210;
  created Prince of Wales, ii 378 n, 387 n;
  bequest to, i 217, ii 297 n;
  — i 42, ii 384 n.
Charles IX, K. of France, i 249 n, ii 456.
Charles, Archduke, i 278 n.
Charles, Duke of Styria, i 244, 263 n.
Charles Emmanuel I, D. of Savoy, in Venice (1607), i 381;
  Premonition sent to, 101, 467;
  warlike preparations, 467-8;
  joins in ‘Great Design’, 98, 107, 113, 482-4, 487, 490;
  position after death of Henry IV, 113, 492-3;
  negotiates for English marriage, 63, 113-6, 119-25;
  receives HW (1611), 114-5;
  HW’s mission to (1612), 120-3, ii 1-7, 80;
  gives HW pension, i 63, 131-2;
  renews marriage negotiations, 131-2;
  goes to war about Montferrat, 140, 144, ii 25, 28, 32, 79 n, 94 n, 476;
  sends Parkhurst to Geneva, i 131 n, ii 477;
  Dutch send aid to, i 140, ii 79 n;
  James I aids, i 144, 151;
  Venice sends money, ii 109, 173 n;
  HW’s mission to (1616), i 145-7, ii 94-6;
  proposed league with Union, 88;
  position of (1616), i 144, 148;
  war with Spain renewed, 151-2, ii 102-3, 107, 109, 113, 173 n, 229;
  ended, 121 n;
  HW reported to be inimical to, i 159 n;
  proposed league with France, ii 153;
  Venice refuses to join in attack on Austria, i 160;
  intrigues for partition of Empire, 175 n;
  forms league with Venice, 146, ii 171;
  engagement with France, 227;
  league, i 180, ii 244 n, 265-6;
  portrait of, at Whitehall, i 124 n;
  — i ix, 23, 193, 320 n, 490, ii 111 n, 145 n, 464, 475.
Charles Louis, titular Elector Palatine, in England, ii 363;
  defeat of, 399, 400;
  loses Meppen, 401;
  — 345, 395, 404 n, 410.
Charlotte, Princess, daughter of Queen of Bohemia, ii 313 n.
Charlton, ii 16 n.
Chateauneuf, Marquis de, imprisonment of, ii 340.
Châtillon, Maréchal de, ii 51;
  defeats Prince de Carignan, 352.
Cheri, ii 498.
Chertsey, ii 470.
Chesterfield, Catherine Wotton, Countess of. See Kerckoven.
Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, 1st E. of, ii 312 n, 322.
Chesterfield, Philip, 2nd E. of, ii 312 n, 412.
Chevreuse, Duchesse de, comes to England, ii 391.
Chiavenna, i 49, ii 271;
  HW at, i 300.
Chichester, ii 405 n.
Chichester, Arthur, 1st Baron, ii 281.
Chichester, Bp. of. See Montague.
Chigi, Fabio. See Alexander VII.
Chilham, Kent, ii 474.
China, ii 394.
Chioggia, HW visits gardens at, i 59, ii 220;
  — i 376, ii 270.
Chitock, Mr., ii 346.
Christian III, K. of Denmark, ii 157 n.
Christian IV, K. of Denmark, arrives in England, i 360;
  at Greenwich with James I, 81, 362;
  proposed league with Venice, 360, 361 n;
  proposed ambassador from, in Venice, 424;
  in England, ii 44;
  — i 169, ii 44, 48, 400.
Christina, Princess, daughter of Henry IV, negotiations for her marriage with Prince Henry, i 125;
  with Charles I, ii 58 n;
  marries D. of Savoy, i 426, ii 399 n.
Christina, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, i 287.
Chrysostom, edition of, published by Sir Henry Savile, i 428 n.
Chur, capture of, i 180, ii 245 n;
  Bishop put to flight, i 395.
Churchey, George, ii 306 n.
Chute, Sir Walter, ii 37, 41.
Cicala, Turkish general, defeated by Persians (1605), i 342.
Cicero, M. Tullius (Tullie), quoted, i 227-8, 236, 239, 313, ii 11, 38, 331, 348, 371, 384 n.
Cicilio, il, Salisbury so called, i 416.
Cigala. See Cicala.
Cinque Ports, the, ii 40-1, 282 n, 483.
Ciotti, Giambattista, Venetian bookseller, i 469.
Cirencester, ii 471.
Civita Nova, ii 97.
Civita Vecchia, i 442 n.
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, 1st E. of, ii 340 n.
Clark, William, execution of, i 332 n, 333 n.
Claudian, quoted, ii 14.
Cleaver, John, Vicar of Windsor and Fellow of Eton, ii 366, 375.
Clement VIII, Pope, character of, i 77, 274-5, 281;
  Rome during pontificate of, 332-4;
  edicts of, 275-6, 296;
  Sir A. Sherley visits, 37-8;
  gives audience to Sir James Lindsay, 321;
  protests against HW’s religious services, 77;
  death of, 78, 325 n, 326, 328 n;
  — 39, 286, 290, 320 n, 329 n, 335.
Clesel. See Klesel.
Cleveland, Thomas Wentworth, 1st E. of (Lord Wentworth), his tutor imprisoned at Bologna, i 456-7.
Cleves, Duchy of, i 137, 455, ii 56-7, 62, 72, 84 n.
Cleves, John William, D. of, i 137, 271;
  death of, 98, 135, 467 n.
Clewer, living of, ii 304 n.
Clifford, Lord. See Cumberland.
Clifford, Sir Conyers, defeat of, in Ireland, i 308 n.
Clifford, Frances, marries Sir Gervase Clifton, ii 328 n, 465.
Clifton, Notts., ii 465; MS. at, i xv, ii 466.
Clifton, Sir Gervase, ii 324;
  visits Eton, 313, 352;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 307, 327, 333, 352-4, 450-2, 461;
  papers of, in British Museum, 352 n;
  his son at Eton, 307;
  sent abroad with T. Hobbes, 307 n;
  biographical note, 465-6.
Clifton, Gervase, jun., ii 328 n.
Clogy, Alexander, son-in-law of Bedell, i 59 n, 103 n, ii 352 n.
Clotworthy, John, mutineer, hanging of, ii 153 n.
Clusius. See Lecluse.
Cobham, Sir Henry, ambassador in France, ii 456-7.
Coblentz, ii 31, 281.
Cockaine, owner of the Merchant Royal, i 338 n.
Coenders, ii 75.
Coeuvres. See Estrées, duc d’.
Cogan, Henry, in service of HW, i 48 n, 420, 489;
  note on, ii 466.
Coire. See Chur.
Coitmar, Roland, captain of the Lucky Elisabeth, HW sends letters by, i 321, 323.
Coke, Sir Edward, ii 29-30, 34.
Coke, Sir John, Secretary, i 217 n, ii 303, 351 n;
  HW’s letter to, 450.
Colchester, ii 480.
Colen, Collen. See Cologne.
Colli. See Collibus.
Collibus, Hippolitus à, acquaintance of HW at Heidelberg, i 300.
Collins, Samuel, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, ii 475;
  visits Eton, i 204, ii 466;
  signs letter to Laud with HW, 367-8;
  HW sends portrait of Sarpi, 371, 479;
  deprivation of, i 224;
  note on, ii 466-7;
  letter to HW, 394;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 181, 318 n, 370, 380, 394, 412, 443, 452-3.
Cologne, HW pretends to be a native of, i 271;
  HW at, (1612) 123;
  (1616) 145, ii 88, 91-4;
  (1623) i 192, ii 280-2;
  — i 232, ii 31, 386, 400.
Cologne, Ferdinand of Bavaria, Elector of, i 286 n, 294, 296, ii 31, 45 n, 55, 224 n.
Colonia. See Cologne.
Colonitz, John George, offers his services to Venice, i 368, 369 n.
Colonna, family of, i 272.
Colonna, Ascanio, Card., i 431, 442.
Colonna, Fabrizio, i 296 n.
Colonna, Giovanna, i 296 n.
Colonna, Marc’ Antonio, i 296.
Comet of 1618, the, ii 160-1.
Comitolus, Paulus, attacks HW, ii 10.
Commines, Philippe de, his definition of an ambassador, i 110.
Como, lake of, i 179.
Conaway. See Conway.
Concini. See Ancre.
Condé, Henri II, Prince of, in rebellion, ii 84;
  imprisonment of, 107;
  in Italy, 273;
  claims title of Altezza, 250 n;
  visits Sarpi, 250-1, 372;
  mentioned in Table Talk, 492, 494.
Condé, Louis II, Prince of, ii 250 n.
Condominium, the, in the Juliers-Cleves territories, i 135;
  abolished, 139.
Conestaggio, Girolamo Franchi de, his Dell’ unione, &c., ii 484.
Confluentia. See Coblentz.
Constantinople, HW’s intention to visit, i 17, 230, 256, 258, 261;
  HW superior of ambassador at, 69;
  English trade with, 72-3;
  English ship burnt at, 338 n;
  news from, 342, 445, ii 197, 239;
  ambassadors at, see Ambassadors;
  patriarch of, ii 98;
  — i 9, 150, 260, 279 n, 295, 414 n, 437, 454 n, ii 15.
Contarini, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Contarini, Angelo, ii 250.
Contarini, Francesco, Venetian ambassador in Rome, i 405, 407, 449, 451, ii 463;
  Pope complains of HW to, i 95, 399 n;
  special ambassador to England, i 105-7, 474, 489, ii 278-9;
  Doge XCV, i 192, ii 277-80;
  mentioned in Table Talk, 492-3, 496.
Contarini, Nicolò, ii 142.
Contarini, Pietro, Venetian ambassador in France, ii 208;
  in England, 145, 146 n, 152, 155, 163, 471.
Contarini, Simone, ii 271.
Contarini, Tomaso, Venetian ambassador to the States, i 492.
Conway, Sir Edward, 1st Visct., ambassador to Prague, i 169, 173, ii 185 n, 191, 194, 195 n, 199 n, 310 n, 311;
  Secretary of State, i 199, ii 335;
  letter to, 407 n, 443.
Cooke, Anne, ii 461.
Cooke, Sir Philip, ii 461.
Cooke, Lady, ii 461.
Cooke, Lord. See Coke.
Copley, Anthony, imprisonment and pardon of, i 332, 333 n.
Corbeil, siege of, i 245, 254 n.
Corbet, Richard, Bp. of Norwich, ii 304 n.
Corbett, Mr. Julian, i 154.
Corby Castle, ii 2 n.
Corbye, John, i 1.
Cordova, Don Gonzalo Fernandez de, defeat of, ii 248.
Corduba, ii 498-9.
Coreglia, Giovanni da, assumed name of Diodati, i 91.
Corinth, St. Paul at, i 393.
Cork, Richard Boyle, 1st E. of, sends his sons to Eton, i 203, ii 355-61;
  his diary, 355 n, 356 n;
  letters to HW, 357-60, 361 n, 362 n;
  HW’s letters to, 355-61, 452.
Cork, Richard Boyle, 2nd E. of, 1st E. of Burlington (Lord Dungarvan), ii 357.
Corner, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Cornwallis, Sir Charles, English ambassador in Spain, i 96, 102;
  his relations with the Venetian ambassador, i 425;
  arrest of, ii 38-9, 41;
  letters of, quoted, i 380 n, 425 n, ii 482, 490;
  HW’s letters to, i 425 n, ii 421.
Cornwallis, Jane, Lady, ii 337 n.
Corona Regia, HW tries to discover author of, i 145, ii 88, 92-3, 280-1.
Correr, Marc’ Antonio, Venetian ambassador in England (1608-11), i 455, 462, 491-2;
  appointment of, 432;
  HW describes, 433;
  writes of HW, 108 n, 459 n;
  his account of Premonition, 100;
  sees James I about prohibition, 105, 478;
  copies of Pruritanus found in house of, 472-3;
  leaves England, 506.
Correr, Vincenzo, HW introduces to Prince Henry, i 432-3.
Corsini, the, forward Casaubon’s letters to HW, i 312.
Corsini, Filippo, Florentine merchant in England, i 284;
  letter from Ferdinand I to Elizabeth about, 284 n.
Corsini, Lorenzo, i 284 n.
Cortsela, i 155, ii 153 n.
Coryate, Thomas, in Venice, i 60;
  in Padua, ii 114 n;
  his Crudities quoted, i 60, 119 n, 438, ii 478.
Cosens Manor, Kent, ii 384 n.
Cosenza, ii 269.
Cosmo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, i 316 n.
Cosmo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, sends letter by HW to Prince Henry, i 40, 426;
  desires matrimonial alliance with James I, 120;
  his marriage, 426 n, 434;
  reported relations of HW with, 159 n;
  — 373 n, 482, 486 n, ii 110, 257, 496 n.
Costley, the, English ship captured by Venetians, i 74.
Cottington, Sir Francis, 1st Baron, ii 310, 351, 354 n.
Cotton, Pierre, Henry IV’s confessor, gives Henry IV intercepted letter of Diodati, i 480-1;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 492.
Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, HW’s letter to, ii 297, 450;
  his library, 297 n.
Covenant, the, in Scotland, ii 383 n, 384, 407 n, 408.
Coventry, Thomas, 1st Baron, Lord Keeper, ii 339 n;
  HW’s letter to, 373-4, 376, 452.
Cowley, Abraham, i 224;
  his Elegy on HW, ii 412.
Cowper, family of, ii 390 n.
Cowper, William, i 224.
Coyra. See Chur.
Crafts, Anne, marries Lord Wentworth, i 456 n.
Crafts, Henry, i 456.
Cranborne, Visct. See Salisbury.
Crane, Sir Robert, ii 468.
Cranfield. See Middlesex.
Craven, Wm., 1st E. of, ii 399 n, 400.
Creets. See Critz.
Crema, ii 213.
Crestingus, ——, Professor of Law at Heidelberg, i 238.
Crewe, Sir Clipsby, ii 385 n.
Critz, John de, his portrait of Salisbury, i 460.
Croatia, i 148.
Crocio, ——, ii 31.
Croker, John Wilson, i 217 n.
Cromer, Sir James, ii 18.
Crompton, Sir Thomas, killed in Lorraine, i 372.
Cromwell, Oliver, ii 470.
‘Crowned Elector.’ See Frederick.
Croydon, ii 368.
Cueva, Don Alfonzo della. See Bedmar.
Cuffe, Henry, secretary of Essex, i 34.
Cuiacius. See Cujas.
Cujas, Jacques, enemy of Hotman, i 9, 238.
Culmore, Ireland, i 432 n.
Culpepper, Sir Thomas, ii 390;
  letter of, i 210.
Culross, i 41 n.
Cumberland, Henry, 5th E. of (Lord Clifford), HW invites to Eton, ii 307;
  his daughter Elizabeth marries Lord Dungarvan, 357 n;
  — 17, 328 n, 465.
Curlews, the, defeat of, Sir Conyers Clifford at, i 308 n.
Curtius, quoted, i 485.
Curzola, ii 112, 146 n.
Cyprus, i 50, 402.
 
Dallington, Robert, his Method of Travel, i 278 n.
Dalmatia, i 155, 446, ii 100 n, 152, 463.
Dampierre, Count of, ii 193.
Danahe. See Dohna.
Dandolo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Daniel, ii 37.
Dante, Henry IV’s attitude compared to the Inferno of, i 355 n;
  his Opere, ii 485.
Danti, Egnatio, his Prospettira di Euclide, ii 486.
Danube, the, i 251, 262 n, ii 190, 197, 205, 348.
Danzig, i 231.
Darci, Mlle., ii 399.
Darcy, Lord. See Rivers.
Darford. See Dartford.
‘Darimplius,’ sent to Venice by Savile, complains of HW, i 428 n.
Dartford, ii 322.
Datchet, i 220.
Davers, Sir Charles, in Florence, i 282.
David, King, i 466, ii 257, 296.
Davies, Sir John, ii 29 n.
Davison, Francis, his travels, i 15 n, 35 n, 227 n;
  Poetical Rhapsody, 33 n, ii 415.
Davison, Wm., i 35 n.
Day, William, Provost of Eton, ii 397 n.
Dayner, ——, Viennese merchant, conveys letters for HW, i 250, 259, 261, 265.
Dee, John, i 253 n.
Deering, Edward, HW’s steward, ii 225.
Deering, Elizabeth, HW’s sister, i 240, 241, ii 391 n, 461.
Deering, John, marries HW’s sister, i 240 n, ii 391 n, 462.
Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ii 252.
Delfino, Giovanni, Card., i 344, 482.
Delft, i 247 n, ii 368.
Delphos, ii 307.
Demetrius, i 198.
Democritus, picture of, i 217.
Demosthenes, ii 169, 170 n, 310.
Denbigh, Basil Feilding, 2nd E. of (Lord Feilding), marriage, ii 300 n. 340 n;
  duel, 340-1.
Denbigh, Sir Wm. Feilding, 1st E. of, ii 257 n, 300 n.
Denbigh, Countess of, HW sends picture to, ii 257, 265.
Denmark, i 270, ii 53 n, 482;
  HW travels through (1601), i 40, 41 n;
  Kings of, ii 89, see Christian.
Dering. See Deering.
Derry, i 432 n.
Desmond, Sir Richard Preston, 1st E. of (Lord Dingwall), ii 17;
  wishes to enter Venetian service, i 153, ii 97, 119 n.
Despenser, Hugh le, ii 500.
Despotini, Gasparo, accompanies HW to England, i 114;
  HW writes to Sir E. Bacon about, 505-6;
  HW visits, 201, 212, ii 285, 409;
  biographical note on, 467-8.
Dethick, Humphrey, English factor in Florence, i 300;
  goes to Scotland to kill James VI, 40 n, 43 n;
  note on, ii 468-9.
Deux Ponts. See Zweibrücken.
Deventer, i 327 n.
Devonshire, ii 18, 471.
Devonshire, Sir Charles Blunt, 1st E. of (Lord Mountjoy), i 259;
  defeats Tyrone, 316 n;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 497.
Dickenson, John, agent at Düsseldorf, with HW, ii 53-6, 64, 72;
  goes to England, 67.
Dickenson, ——, Clerk of Council, ii 339.
Dictionary of National Biography, the, i ix;
  life of HW in, i xiii, 131 n.
Dideguires. See Lesdiguières.
Diedo, ——, Venetian senator, i 364.
Dieppe, ii 359;
  HW at (1595), i 30 n.
Dietrichstein, Baron von, i 275.
Digby, Sir John. See Bristol.
Digges, Sir Dudley, ii 317 n.
Dijon, i 480.
Dingley, Richard, ii 470.
Dingwall, Lord. See Desmond.
Diodati, Charles, i 480 n.
Diodati, Giovanni, i 116, ii 477;
  asked by HW to send Protestant preachers to Venice, i 86, 351;
  his opinion of Sarpi, 88;
  his translation of the Bible distributed by HW in Venice, 90, 462;
  comes to Venice on invitation of HW, 91-3;
  his conversations with Sarpi, 400 n;
  letter of, intercepted by Henry IV, 98-9, 480-2, 485;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 490, 498;
  letters quoted, i 90 n, 92, 99 n.
Dionysius Periegetes, his De Situ Orbis, ii 397.
Dioscorides, Pedanius, HW recommends works of, ii 486;
  bequeaths to Q. Henrietta Maria, i 217.
Diston, Wm., ii 50.
Divelt, ‘the Lord,’ his house in Vienna, i 251.
Dix Droitures, Grison League, i 179-80.
Dodi. See Duodo.
Doherty, Sir Cahir, his insurrection in Ireland, i 432 n.
Dohna, Baron Christopher von, goes to Venice to see Sarpi and HW, i 91-3;
  his interviews with Sarpi, 89, 92, 98 n, 354 n, 424 n, 447 n;
  with HW, 426 n;
  envoy to England, ii 164.
Dolfin, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Dolo, Lady Arundel’s villa at, i 185, ii 232.
Dominicans, the, i 367, 385 n, 456.
Dominis, Marc’ Antonio de, archbishop of Spalatro, goes to England, i 149, 150, ii 97, 100, 120;
  reports about, in Rome, 110, 222;
  pamphlet against, 171-2;
  his writings, i 150, ii 178;
  Giacomo Torre offers to kill, i 65 n;
  returns to Rome, 149-50, 183, ii 228-30, 239-40, 252, 372;
  his Palinode, 268, 372 n.
Don Quixote, quoted, ii 104.
Donato, Antonio, ambassador at Turin, i 146, ii 96;
  in England (1618), 173 n, 180;
  accused of embezzlement, 173.
Donato, Leonardo, Doge XC of Venice, election, i 78, 337, 339-40, 343-4;
  HW congratulates, 53-4;
  describes, 78, 340, 354;
  Sarpi describes, 89;
  leader of Liberal party, 77, 97, 341;
  his hatred of the Papacy, 89;
  in favour of religious reform, 92, 354;
  his rebuke to Jesuits, 347;
  speeches about James I, 348, 362, 403;
  alleged discourse of, sent to James I, 366;
  speech to di Castro, 371;
  forbids clergy to meet Card. de Joyeuse, 376;
  visits De Joyeuse, 379;
  answers to Nuncio’s complaints about HW, 96;
  advises HW about duck-shooting, 59 n;
  attitude after attack on Sarpi, 405;
  apologizes for detention of books, 416 n;
  shows Apologia to Sarpi, 416;
  gives orders about Tyrone, 418;
  portrait sent to Salisbury, 419;
  HW asks Prince Henry to write to, 427;
  illness of, 103 n, 462;
  answer to Nuncio’s complaints about Premonition, 103;
  HW presents Premonition to, 102-4, 463-5, 468;
  letter from James I, 463-4;
  renewed illness, 106, 468-9, 471-2, 474;
  rebukes HW, 106;
  HW’s farewell and reception of Carleton, 108, 499-501;
  HW’s audiences, 33, 54, 59 n, 68-9, 74, 80, 82-3, 85, 102-4, 106, 108, 256 n, 342, 348, 357 n, 359 n, 362, 368 n, 371 n, 374 n, 381 n, 384, 385 n, 396 n, 403, 411 n, 413, 416 n, 417 n, 426, 435 n, 441 n, 452 n, 458 n, 463-5, 468, 481, 490 n, 491, 498, 501, ii 10 n, 471, 474;
  praises HW, i 69, 108, 462, 500;
  HW’s letter to, ii 426;
  death of, i 149;
  portraits at Hampton Court, 216;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 490, 492;
  — i 118 n, 366, 380-1, 387, 389, 428, 431 n, 444 n, 448-9, 451, 461, 476 n, 481, 491.
Donato, Nicolò, Doge XCIII, ii 173 n;
  election of, 134-9;
  death of, 132, 138, 141.
Donauwörth, i 410 n, ii 209.
Doncaster, Visct. See Carlisle.
Donkercke. See Dunkirk.
Donne, John, note on, ii 469;
  at Oxford with HW, i 5;
  on Cadiz expedition, 31;
  complains of HW’s seldom writing, 308;
  in Germany (1619), 166 n;
  HW sends cipher to, ii 265;
  HW’s proposed Life of, i 205, ii 404;
  Walton’s Life of, i v;
  note on, ii 469;
  verse-epistles to HW, i 27-8, 32 n, 45 n, 308 n, ii 469;
  MS. poems of, 489;
  letters to HW, i 117 n, ii 469, 473;
  HW’s letters to, i xiv, 33, 89 n, 306-10, ii 1 n, 419;
  — 37 n, 411 n, 415-6, 461, 479, 481.
Dorchester, Anne, Viscountess, i 498, ii 15, 124;
  HW’s gift to, i 502.
Dorchester, Sir Dudley Carleton, 1st Visct., related to HW, ii 124;
  wishes to be sent to Venice, i 459 n;
  ambassador to Venice, 107, 149, 151, 494 n, 498 n, 499-501, ii 95 n, 105, 172, 210, 219, 221, 473, 477, 479;
  his house in Venice, 96, 101;
  description of Venice, i 55-6;
  quarrel with French ambassador, 64, ii 217;
  objects to HW’s History of Interdict, i 118 n;
  inimical to HW, 123 n, 126 n, 189;
  invites Sarpi to England, 151;
  presents Savile’s Chrysostom to Doge, 428 n;
  wishes to be transferred to Hague, 134 n, 144, ii 62 n;
  goes to Turin, 103 n, 105, 160, 473, 475;
  ambassador at the Hague, i 165, ii 230 n;
  at Synod of Dort, 329 n;
  wishes to be Provost of Eton, i 199;
  letter of Savile to, 199 n;
  Secretary of State, ii 315 n;
  Vice-Chamberlain, 319, 331;
  helps HW to pension, 315, 316 n;
  letter to HW, i 498 n;
  HW’s letters to, 156, 165, 498, 499 n, 501, ii 14, 101-4, 123-5, 141, 157, 208, 218, 221 n, 222, 231, 237, 238 n, 244, 249 n, 269, 273-7, 277 n, 320-1, 328, 432-3, 437-9, 441-2, 444-9, 451;
  letters of, i 55-6, 67 n, 118 n, 121 n, 126 n, 459 n, 499 n, 501 n, ii 118 n, 123 n, 124 n, 472, 475, 477;
  letters to, i 48 n, 62 n, 118 n, 123 n, 124-6, 131 n, 134 n, 142-3, 170 n, 194, 199, 292 n, 459 n, 507 n, ii 3 n, 24 n, 27 n, 28 n, 35 n, 62 n, 99, 103 n, 104 n, 112 n, 119 n, 123 n, 286 n, 464, 473, 476;
  — i 46, 150, 502, ii 350 n, 474.
Dorckcombe, ——, servant of Lord Salisbury, ii 488 n.
Doria, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Doria, Andrea, Prince of Malfi, i 296, 342.
Doria, Giovanni, Card., i 439.
Doria, Prince, ii 269 n.
Dorislaus, Isaac, at Cambridge, ii 315;
  letter to HW, 390.
Dormer, Jane. See Feria.
Dormer, Sir William, ii 156 n.
Dorset, Richard Sackville, 3rd E. of, i 125, ii 17.
Dorset, Thomas Sackville, 1st E. of, i 292 n, 307 n, 359, 367, 431.
Dorsetshire, Lord Cork’s estate in, ii 361.
Dort, Synod of, ii 329 n.
Dortmund, treaty of, ii 54 n.
Douai, Jesuit College at, ii 114, 147, 151 n.
Double Marriage, The, Fletcher and Massinger, ii 333 n.
Douglas, Sir Robt. See Belhaven.
Dourishe, John, with HW, (1615) ii 80, (1616) i 145 n, (1619) ii 168;
  note on, ii 469-70.
Dourishe, Robert, ii 469.
Dourishe, Walter, ii 469.
Dousa, Janus, i 25.
Dover, HW at, (1604) i 45, 319, (1616) 145, ii 87, (1620) i 170;
  Lord Zouche at, ii 282;
  plague at, 391;
  — 21, 23, 41, 471.
Doway. See Douai.
Downes, Andrew, Prof., reported conversion of, ii 169-70.
Dresden, i 169, ii 195 n.
Dromand, Sir Maurice. See Drummond.
Dropmore MSS., letters of HW in, i 165 n, 170 n.
Drummond, Sir Maurice, ii 341.
Drummond, William of Hawthornden, his conversations with Ben Jonson, i 42, 130 n.
Drury, Anne Bacon, Lady, ii 21 n, 460.
Drury, Sir Drue, ii 318.
Drury, Sir Robert, i 316 n, ii 21, 28, 460.
Dublin, HW in, i 33, 306 n, 307, 309;
  — ii 356 n, 359;
  — Trinity College, Bedell, Provost of, 301-2, 462.
Dubravius. See Dubraw.
Dubraw, John, HW sends his De Piscinis to Strafford, ii 306.
Dudley, Mrs. Elizabeth. See Levenstein.
Dudley, Sir Robert, comes to Italy, i 69, 373, 375;
  marries Elizabeth Southwell, 373, 379 n;
  HW summons to England, 401 n, 428 n, ii 478.
Dürer, Albrecht, i 198.
Düsseldorf, ii 53 n.
Dunfermline, James VI receives HW at, i 41-2.
Dungarvan. See Cork, 2nd E.
Dungarvan, Lady, ii 357-8.
Dunio. See Downes.
Dunkirk, HW at (1616), i 145, ii 87;
  pirates from, i 10;
  — 180, ii 221.
Dunne. See Donne.
Duodo, Pietro, Venetian ambassador to England (1603), i 319;
  in Rome, 341.
Duplessis-Mornay, Philippe de, i 291 n, ii 473;
  his writings about Rome, i 71;
  advises Diodati to go to Venice, 91;
  sends De Liques with letter to HW, 92, 436 n, 437 n;
  HW’s letters to, 219 n, 436, 447 n, 448 n, 449 n, 452 n, 454 n, ii 428-9.
Duppa, Bryan, ii 469.
Durazzo, in Greece, sack of, by Spanish fleet, i 357.
Durham, Dean of. See Balcanquhall.
Dutch Republic. See United, Provinces.
Dyce, Rev. Alexander, edits HW’s poems, ii 415.
Dyer, Edward, i 3.
Dymock, Sir Edward, ii 105 n, 130.
Dynely, Anthony, at Eton, ii 308, 311, 326.
Dynely, John, HW’s secretary, (1616) i 145 n, (1620) 170 n;
  sent to warn Lady Arundel, 185, ii 232-3;
  tutor to Queen of Bohemia’s son, 308;
  secretary to Queen of Bohemia, 348;
  his hopes of preferment, 310, 389-90;
  biographical note, ii 470-1;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 302, 308, 310, 318, 321, 326, 348, 367, 389-91, 401-4, 406-7, 410, 450-1;
  — ii 313, 318, 320, 323, 464.
Dynely, Mrs., ii 402, 410, 470.
 
East India Company, the, ii 73 n.
Eastwell, Kent, i 2.
Eckenberg. See Eggenberg.
Edinburgh, i 41 n, 331, 458 n, ii 349 n.
Edmondes, Clement, ii 73 n, 74, 77-8.
Edmondes, Magdalen, Lady, i 336-7, ii 3, 45, 58.
Edmondes, Sir Thomas, English ambassador at Brussels, i 112, 435, ii 494 n;
  at Paris, i 116 n, 459 n, ii 1, 35;
  HW’s letters to, i 112, 329, 336-7, 340-2, 386, 389, 392, 394, 397 n, 411, 434 n, 435, 437-41, 445-6, 454 n, 462, 467, 475 n, 502, ii 1, 44, 56-8, 420-1, 423-30, 433-5, 460, 489 n;
  Carleton to, i 459 n;
  letters of, 116 n, 329, 435, ii 490.
Edward III, K. of England, i 3, ii 368.
Edward VI, K. of England, i 46 n, 50.
Egerton, Kent, ii 391 n, 462.
Eggenberg, Prince von, HW negotiates with, at Vienna, ii 190 n, 192, 202;
  — i 174, ii 216, 271.
Egiock, John, ii 328 n.
Eglisham, George, accuses Buckingham of poisoning, i 209, ii 290 n, 291-3, 295-6.
Elbe, the, i 229 n.
Elben. See Elbing.
Elbing, levy on, i 231.
Elector Palatine. See Frederick.
Eliot, Sir John, ii 317.
Eliot, Capt. Robert, HW negotiates for capture of, i 67, 401-2;
  procures dispensation for Sir R. Dudley’s marriage, i 373, 379;
  note on, ii 471.
Elizabeth, Queen, reign of, i 8, 75, 195, 225;
  visits Bocton, 4;
  HW praises in State of Christendom, 24-5, ii 455-6;
  writes to New College about HW, i 301;
  HW at Court of, IV, 37;
  anger at treaty with Tyrone, 34;
  plots against, 17, 65, 430 n, ii 456;
  last years of, i 28-9;
  death expected, 40;
  death of, 38, 43, 318 n, 346 n;
  libelled in Pruritanus, 472 n;
  letter to Ferdinand I, 292 n;
  from Ferdinand I, 284 n;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 490, 492-3;
  — i 2, 17-9, 20, 32 n, 42, 50, 58, 118, 217, 227 n, 228, 230 n, 231, 242 n, 245, 259 n, 260, 270, 285, 292 n, 304, 316, 319 n, 328, 331, 379 n, 383, 410 n, 475 n, ii 37, 335, 352 n, 460, 467, 482, 485, 489.
Elizabeth, daughter of James I, Electress Palatine, Q. of Bohemia, proposed marriage with Prince of Piedmont, i 114, 119, ii 1 n;
  marries Frederick V, i 119, 130, 145, ii 12-5, 17, 55 n;
  leaves England, 18-9, 22, 31;
  HW visits (1616), i 145, ii 88-91;
  difficulty about precedence, 89;
  A. Morton, secretary to, i 145, ii 91 n;
  HW’s poem on, i 170-1, ii 415;
  offended with HW, i 173, ii 194 n;
  leaves Prague, i 173, ii 197;
  HW refuses Emperor’s gift on account of, i 174;
  criticizes James I, 177;
  John Dynely with, ii 308, 389, 406;
  writes to Charles I in Dynely’s favour, 310;
  HW recommends Frank Bacon, 311-2, 318, 320, 324-6, 342;
  mentioned in HW’s prose writings, 297 n;
  HW sends writings to, 309;
  messages to, 249 n, 265, 274;
  devotion to, i 208, ii 194 n;
  bequeaths portrait of, to Charles II, i 217, ii 297 n;
  recommends boys for Eton, 322, 325-6;
  letter to HW, 308;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 194 n, 293, 311, 322, 324-5, 327, 342, 348, 362, 450-2;
  children of, see Frederick, Charles Louis, Rupert, Charlotte;
  — i 433 n, ii 55 n, 175, 183, 191 n, 238, 313, 323-4, 336, 367-8, 400, 463, 465, 470.
Elizabeth, wife of Charles IX of France, i 267.
Ellesmere, Lord. See Brackley.
Elsatia. See Alsace.
Elvis. See Helwys.
Emmanuele Filiberto, D. of Savoy, ii 5 n.
Emmerich, ii 46, 70;
  taken by Count Maurice, i 138.
Emo, Girolamo, HW meets at Siena, i 299.
Emperor. See Charles V, Rudolf II, Matthias, Ferdinand II.
Emperor, election of, ii 137; HW’s discourse on, 414.
Engadine, the, ii, 245 n.
Englestad. See Ingolstadt.
English ambassadors. See Ambassadors.
English galley-slaves, i 68, 478-9.
English refugees in Italy, i 33-4, 67, 401-2, 417-8, 420-3, 429-30, 476.
English ships, HW proposes sending of into Adriatic, i 80, 84;
  hired by Venice, 154-6, ii 143, 146 n, 152-6, 159;
  loan of requested, i 155, ii 170.
English soldiers, HW proposes for Venetian service, i 80, 153, ii 213;
  Molin’s opinion of, 153, see Bell, Desmond, Mainwaring, Herbert, Oxford, Pinner, Yorke;
  in Dutch service, come to Venice, see Vere;
  in Friuli, ii 178;
  under Sir Henry Peyton, see Peyton.
English trade with Venice, amount of, i 403 n;
  HW’s negotiations about, 72-4, 108, 321-4, 371, 403.
English travellers in Italy, i 17-8, 70-1, 330-2, 335, 395, 428-9, 434, 440, 442, 457, 487-9, 508, ii 108, 110-1, 126-7, 214, 256-7;
  James I forbids to visit Rome, i 70 n.
Entragues, Count d’, i 336 n.
Erdforde. See Erfurt.
Erfurt, i 232.
Eridge, Kent, ii 476.
Erizzo, Procuratore, ii 276.
Ernestus, Archduke of Austria, i 244, 249, 268 n;
  Governor of Hungary, 263 n;
  of Netherlands, ii 456.
Erskine, John, Lord, in Venice, i 335.
Essendon, i 319 n.
Essex, i 338 n, 375 n.
Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd E. of, his foreign correspondence, i 29;
  HW in service of, 29-34, 75;
  Cadiz expedition, 30-2, 320 n;
  Azores expedition, 31, 33, 37;
  writes to New College in HW’s favour, 301 n;
  in Ireland, 33-4, 306 n, 307;
  treaty with Tyrone, 33-4;
  his disgrace, 34, 36, 311, ii 96 n, 456;
  HW in disfavour with, i 34, 44, 317-8;
  death, 34;
  HW defends memory of, 316 n;
  HW’s Character of, 130;
  Parallel with Buckingham, 31, 206, ii 413-4, 487;
  letters of, i 29 n, 34 n;
  HW’s letters to, 32-3, 299-301, 304-5, ii 419;
  mentioned in Table Talk, 58, 490, 492-4;
  — i iv, 2, 9, 30, 43-4, 75, 238 n, 259, 284 n, 379 n, 430 n.
Este, house of, i 296.
Este, Maria d’, ii 5 n.
Este, Marquis d’, ii 5.
Estrées, François Annibal Duc d’ (Marquis de Coeuvres), extraordinary ambassador to Venice, ii 212 n, 218, 242;
  attempts to procure readmission of Jesuits, 216-8;
  his reception, 216-7;
  HW visits, 217-8.
Esture, Kent, i 241 n, ii 474.
Eton, Archdeaconry of, ii 305 n.
Eton College, the Provost of, his duties, i 203;
  salary and perquisites, 204-5, ii 316, 402 n;
  HW Provost of, i iii, xiv, 59, 194, 199-225, ii 207 n, 254 n, 285-410;
  elections at, i 204, ii 308, 320, 322-3, 325-30, 334, 350, 367-9, 380, 387, 389, 397;
  audit at, 401;
  Greek play at, 313;
  floods at, 336;
  fellows of, i 201, see Cleaver, Hales, Harrison, Weaver;
  fellowship annexed to living of Windsor, ii 366 n;
  letter from to Buckingham, i 209;
  petition from to Lord Coventry, ii 373-4, 376;
  HW’s bequest to, i 218;
  MSS. at, vi, xiii, 146 n, 165 n, ii 152 n, 194, 412;
  pictures at, i 52, 60, 167, 210-1;
  motto, possible origin of, 191 n;
  — ii 460, 464, 466, 474, 476.
Etruria, ii 298-9.
Eupolis, ii 384 n.
Exeter, ii 300 n, 370 n.
Exeter, Thomas Cecil, 1st E. of, i 428, ii 18 n, 473.
Ezekiel, ii 37.
 
Fabricius, ‘defenestration’ of, ii 158 n, 197 n.
Fabritio, Signor, nickname of HW, i 118 n, 123 n, 125 n, 126, ii 25 n, 27 n, 118 n, 124 n.
Fabritio, young, nickname of Sir Albertus Morton, ii 27 n.
Fachinetti, Card. See Urban VII.
Falier, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Falkland, ii 121.
Falmouth, ii 471.
Fanshawe, Sir Henry, i 118, 131.
Farnese, Odoardo, Card., i 278 n, 297, 330, 429.
Farnham Royal, living of, ii 304 n.
Fawkes, Guy, i 340.
Feilding, Lord. See Denbigh.
Feilding, Col. Richard, ii 403 n.
Feltri, i 412, ii 492.
Fenton, John, ii 462;
  bears dispatch to England, i 371-2, 378.
Ferdinand I, Emperor, i 244 n.
Ferdinand II, Duke of Styria, Emperor, i 16;
  his minority, 249, 263;
  Capt. Turner offers information to, 368-9;
  represents Rudolf II at diet of Ratisbon, 410;
  his sister marries Prince of Tuscany, 426 n;
  was with Venice, see Uscock;
  becomes King of Bohemia, ii 140 n;
  King of Hungary, 140;
  marriage, 271;
  Bohemians renounce allegiance to, i 160, 165, ii 158 n;
  Doncaster’s embassy to, i 164, ii 166, 183;
  besieged in Vienna, i 166;
  elected Emperor, 167, ii 140, 168;
  HW’s embassy to, i ix, 167-74, ii 184-208, 213, 230-1, 464;
  HW’s negotiations with, 190 n, 191-2, 196, 199, 202;
  proposed negotiations with Frederick, 195 n, 201-3;
  ban against Palatinate, 196 n, 202;
  HW takes leave of, i 174, ii 207-8, 213, 216;
  and Bethlen Gabor, 204, 206, 208, 239;
  and Maximilian I, i 165, 175, ii 175, 209;
  and restitution of Palatinate, i 180-3, ii 215 n, 222, 237 n;
  Digby’s embassy to, i 175, ii 215;
  transfers Palatine electorate to Maximilian, i 168, 175, ii 223-5;
  — ii 170 n, 189, 193-4, 197-8, 226 n, 331, 404 n, 496 n.
Ferdinand III, Emperor, ii 404, 407, 498.
Ferdinand, Archduke, i 263 n.
Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, his marriage, ii 299;
  quarrels with Genoa, i 279-80;
  letter to Queen Elizabeth, 284 n;
  from Elizabeth, 292;
  HW introduced to, 37-8, ii 298;
  sends HW to Scotland, i 37-42, 45, 314, 388, ii 300, 316;
  his knowledge of poisons, i 40 n;
  HW asks for money, 62, 388 n;
  gives money, 338 n, 388 n, 389 n;
  HW negotiates with, 69, 338 n, 373, 387-8;
  protects English pirates, 74, 387 n;
  forces English ships into his service, 338 n, 387 n;
  employs Sir R. Dudley, 373 n, 387;
  employs Capt. Eliot, 387 n, 401 n, 402;
  employs English slaves in galleys, 387 n;
  offers to mediate between Venice and Pope, 353 n;
  attempts conquest of Cyprus, 402;
  death of, 426 n;
  HW’s character of, ii 298-300;
  letters to, i 338 n, 339, 387, ii 421, 424, 489 n;
  mentioned in Table Talk, 493;
  — i 21, 29 n, 35, 63 n, 101, 273, 276, 282, 284, 285 n, 287-91, 296, 300, 315 n, 370, 373, 392, 408, 430 n, 434, 467, ii 269 n, 468, 471, 482, 494 n.
Ferdinand, Card., Governor of Spanish Netherlands, ii 345, 388-9.
Ferentz, Sir Thomas, ii 400, 402.
Feria, D. of, Viceroy of Sicily, detains English ships, i 328 n;
  Governor of Milan, ii 156;
  HW’s remark about, 156 n;
  and Valtelline, i 179, ii 221 n, 246, 271;
  refuses to carry out treaty of Madrid, i 180, ii 235;
  sends Scioppius to Rome, 211;
  attempts to send troops across Venetian territory, 213, 215;
  and Venice, 246.
Feria, Duchess of (Jane Dormer), ii 156 n.
Fernel, John Francis (Fernelius), ii 366, 380.
Ferrara, i 18, 376, 408, 441, 457, ii 272;
  Dukes of, 498;
  Governor of, 222.
Fialetti, Odoardo, picture of Venice by, at Eton, i 210;
  pictures by, at Hampton Court, 48, 64, 216.
Fiano, D. of, ii 268.
Finch, Catherine, Lady, HW’s grandmother, ii 124 n, 384 n.
Finch, Mr. G. H., i xv, ii 489.
Finch, Henry, i 3 n.
Finch, Sir Henry, ii 317 n.
Finch, Sir John, 1st Baron, Speaker of House of Commons, ii 317-8;
  HW visits, 390.
Finch, Sir Thomas, i 37 n.
Finch, Sir William, HW’s maternal grandfather, i 2, ii 474.
Finet, or Finett, Sir John, ii 481;
  accompanies Lord Cranborne to Italy, i 444.
Finetti, Venetian advocate, defends Nicolò Balbi, i 323-4.
Firenzuola, Agnolo, his Rime, ii 485.
FitzGerald, Edward, i 224.
Fitzherbert, Sir Anthony, i 442 n.
Fitzherbert, Nicholas, sends secret information to HW, i 65, 331, 428 n, 442;
  wishes to return to England, 508.
Fitzherbert, Thomas, i 430.
Five Ports. See Cinque Ports.
Flanders, i 241, 263, 409, 486, ii 66, 125, 392 n, 476.
Flavius, Christophorus, printer at Cologne, ii 92-3;
  plan for kidnapping, 280-1.
Flechammer, Giovanni Giorgio, ii 198.
Flechammer, or Fleckammer, John Christopher, of Augsburg, HW writes definition of ambassador in album of, i 49 n, 126, ii 10, 198 n.
Fleming, Sir Thomas, Lord Chief Justice, ii 30.
Flemings, the, ii 258.
Fletcher, John, i 48, 363 n, ii 275 n, 333 n.
Fletcher, Nathaniel, HW’s chaplain at Venice (1604-6), i 48, ii 462;
  returns to England, i 86, 363.
Fletcher, Richard, Bp. of London, i 363.
Fleurus, battle of, ii 248.
Florence, Council of, ii 98; HW in, (1592) i 20, 271-89, 293, 299, 300, (1593) 22, (1601) 36-7, 39, 311-12, ii 298, 300, 481, (1602) i 42-3, 312-14, 316;
  Edward Barrett in, 338 n, 340;
  Sir Stephen Le Sieur, envoy to, 415, 434;
  English Catholics in, 434;
  Tobie Matthew in, 395, 434, 477;
  — Via Cavour, i 277 n;
  Via Larga, 277, 278;
  Pitti Palace, 21, ii 298;
  Archivio Mediceo, HW’s letters in, i vi, xiv, 29 n, 42-3, 315 n;
  Laurentian Library, 43 n;
  — i 17-8, 62, 70 n, 392, 404 n, 406 n, 456, 494, ii 110, 111 n, 113 n, 299, 382, 468, 471, 473.
Flushing, ii 46, 63, 64 n, 66, 476.
Fonthill, MS. at, ii 114 n, 117 n.
Fooks, Mr., i 170.
Ford, John, i 22.
Fordwich, ii 317 n, 390 n.
Foscari, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Foscarini, Antonio, ambassador in France, i 476 n, 482, 490;
  in England, 119, 124, 183, 506, ii 17, 163 n, 477 n;
  first trial of, HW congratulates, i 184;
  HW visits, ii 163 n, 164 n;
  second trial and execution, i 56, 183-90, ii 231-4, 261, 470;
  his innocence declared, i 190, ii 263.
Foscarini, Girolamo and Nicolò, establish innocence of their uncle, ii 262-3.
Foscarini, Giacobo, i 343-4.
Fox, Mr. A. W., his life of HW, i xiii, 103 n, ii 456.
France, Wars of League, i 10, 24, 263, ii 455;
  HW’s intention to visit (1592), i 287;
  HW in, (1595) 30, (1600) 36, 310, (1603) 44, 318, ii 316, (1612) ii 4-5;
  proposed league with (1606), i 80, 349 n;
  Protestants in, offer their service to Venice, 352 n;
  change of policy after death of Henry IV, 107, 147;
  troubles in, ii 49, 52;
  proposal to send HW ambassador to, i 134, ii 35;
  intervention in Juliers-Cleves controversy, i 141-2, ii 52;
  and Valtelline, see Louis XIII;
  news from, i 263, 283, 316, 381, 409 n, ii 41, 113, 245;
  travellers in, i 346, 387, 408, 417, 435 n, 444-5, 477, ii 339 n, 365, 382;
  war with (1627), ii 303, 313, 318;
  peace concluded, 313 n;
  kings of, see Charles, Henry, Louis;
  ambassadors from and to, see Ambassadors;
  — i 12, 27, 43 n, 49, 58, 178, 217, 259, 270, 286, 326, 328-9, 339, 349 n, 370, 374, 402, 433, 444-5, 447, 462, 472 n, 492, ii 4 n, 7-8, 19, 24 n, 41, 90, 128, 153, 157, 160, 208 n, 212, 221, 246 n, 248, 250, 276, 299, 307 n, 323, 349, 386 n, 400 n, 410, 455-7, 465, 473, 480-1.
Francesco de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, i 300, ii 299.
Franciotti, Marc’ Antonio, Lucchese spy, i 36.
Franckendal. See Frankenthal.
Franckforde. See Frankfort.
Franco, Niccolò, his Dialoghi, ii 485.
François Hyacinthe, D. of Savoy, death of, ii 399.
Franconia, ii 344 n.
Frankenthal, ii 248.
Frankfort, HW at, (1589) i 10, 233, 235, 239, 302, (1590) 11-2, (1591) 16-7, (1603) 44, 318, ii 481, (1612) i 123;
  HW’s spies in, 65, 359;
  the Mart at, 12, 25-6, 44, 239, 318, ii 9;
  — i 245-6, 253 n, 255 n, 262 n, 266, ii 68, 185, 482.
Franquezza, Spanish Secretary, his fall, i 380 n.
Frascati, ii 107.
Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, HW wishes to be sent to, (1597) i 306, (1609) 454;
  — 231, 300, 426 n, ii 90 n.
Frederick V, Elector Palatine, K. of Bohemia, marries Princess Elizabeth, i 119, 125, 130, ii 12-4, 17;
  leaves England, 16, 18, 22;
  and Juliers-Cleves, 55;
  HW at Court of, i 145, ii 88-91, 93-4;
  visits Maximilian I, 140, 175;
  Director of Union, 164, 176;
  at Heilbronn, 173, 176-7;
  intrigues for Bohemian crown, i 172, 175, ii 185;
  elected K. of Bohemia, i 165, 167-9, 171-2, ii 185-8, 190 n;
  at Prague, i 173, ii 195;
  HW’s negotiations with, i 171-2, ii 191, 195;
  offended by HW, i 173, ii 194 n, James I sends ambassadors to, see Conway, Portland;
  flees from Prague, i 173, ii 197;
  Hungarian mission to, 201-2;
  ban against, i 174, ii 196 n;
  loses Palatinate, i 176-7, ii 248;
  electorate transferred to Maximilian, i 168, 175, 183, ii 223 n, 224-5;
  in campaign of 1622, i 181-2, ii 237, 248;
  help for requested from Venice, i 182, ii 227-8, 238-9, 241 n;
  letters of, ii 88 n, 164 n;
  — i 146, ii 36, 63, 68, 108, 117, 150, 183-4, 281 n, 327;
  Ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors, German.
Frederick, Prince, son of Elector Palatine, ii 55, 88, 308-9, 463, 470.
Freeman, Sir Ralph, Master of Requests, i 199.
Freher, Marquard, HW introduced to, by Casaubon, i 25;
  HW visits, 43, 314.
Freistadt, ii 195.
French Conspiracy, the. See Venice, plot of, 1618.
French, Sergeant, officer under Peyton, hanged, ii 163 n.
French soldiers in Venetian service, ii 213.
Fresnes-Canaye, Philippe de, conversion of, i 61, 345 n;
  French ambassador at Venice complains of HW, 61;
  HW at festa given by, 59;
  warned not to attempt to intercede in quarrel with Pope, 355;
  meets Cardinal de Joyeuse, 376;
  his proposals to HW for a combination to help Venice, 382-3;
  Venetian criminals taken to house of, 390;
  his recall, 382 n;
  his gift at departure, 500 n;
  HW’s letter to, 61 n, ii 420;
  letters of, i xi, 354 n, 357 n, 371 n, 374 n, 378 n, 400 n;
  — 51, 60, 336, 377-9, 385, ii 493.
Friburg, ii 94.
Friedesheim, Baron von, Wotton’s host, at Vienna (1590), i 14, 244, 257, 301.
Friedesheim, Helmhard, HW’s letter to, ii 418.
Friesland, ii 71.
Friuli, HW travels in, i 57;
  HW sends James I map of, ii 104, 106;
  war in, see Uscock;
  — ii 103, 131, 139-40, 142, 158, 171, 174, 178, 228.
Fuentes, Count, Governor of Milan, i 101, 326, 328, 476;
  releases Rowland Woodward, 327;
  threatens the Grisons, 382 n;
  interferes with, 395;
  receives Tyrone at Milan, 417 n, 418;
  death of, 503 n.
Fuggero, Giorgio, imperial envoy in Venice, i 437;
  quarrel with HW, 437 n.
Fulgenzio. See Manfredi, Micanzio.
Fulgenzio (monk of order of Camaldola), i 446 n, 461.
Fulgenzio, Abbot, ii 245 n.
Fuller, Corporal, officer under Peyton, hanged, ii 153 n.
Fuller, Thomas, ii 467;
  his account of De Dominis, ii 229 n.
Fusina, i 185, 499 n, ii 223.
 
Gabaleoni, Battista, agent of Savoy in England, i 124, 125 n, ii 25-6.
Gabor, Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, elected King of Hungary, i 174, ii 196 n;
  negotiations with, 200 n, 202, 206;
  resigns crown of Hungary and makes peace, 208 n;
  — 197, 199 n, 204, 239.
Gabriana, Baron di, HW’s host at Venice (1620), i 172, ii 190 n;
  Baroness di, HW presents jewel to, 174, 175 n.
Gabriel, Greek Bishop in Venice, praises HW to Coryate, i 438 n.
Gage, George, ii 247.
Gagliardo, Padre, Jesuit expelled from Venice, i 355.
Gainsford, Erasmus, ii 124 n.
Gainsford, Sir John, ii 124 n.
Gainsford, John, ii 384.
Gainsford, Richard, ii 384 n.
Galen, quoted, ii 347 n.
Galicia, ii 98 n.
Galilei, Galileo, his discoveries, i 107, 486;
  his Discorso, ii 486.
Gallienus, Emperor, quoted, ii 328.
Gallo, Cesare, imperial ambassador at Constantinople, ii 197.
Game of Chess, A, by T. Middleton, HW witnesses, i 201.
Garda, Lago di, ii 261;
  HW travels to, i 57, 435, 436 n.
Gardiner, Edmund, captain of the Thomas, i 452, 460.
Gardiner, S. R., his history, i xiii;
  his view of HW, 115 n.
Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, i 16 n.
Gardner. See Gardiner.
Garnet, Henry, and the Gunpowder Plot, i 54, 348;
  death of, 365;
  miraculous straws from execution of, 475.
Garrard, Wm., letters quoted, ii 304 n, 348 n, 351 n, 386 n, 408 n.
Garraway, Wm., i 470 n.
Garroway, Thomas, merchant, i 320 n, 374.
Garway. See Garraway.
Gascony, ii 499.
Gates, Sir Thomas, ii 50;
  HW commends to Winwood, i 320.
Gaunt. See Ghent.
Gaynsford. See Gainsford.
Gedney, Linc., ii 105 n.
Geheerten Provinces. See Netherlands, Spanish.
Gein, Jacques de, ii 193.
Gelderland, ii 42.
Gellius, Aulus, i 485 n.
Geneva, Casaubon at, i 11-2;
  HW at, 12, 22-5, 297-303, 311, 313, ii 96 n, 456-7;
  Diodati at, i 86, 91, 98, 480;
  church of, 91, 98 n;
  lake of, 145;
  — i 26, 93, 131 n, 255 n, 351, 447, 481 n, ii 95, 359, 477.
Genoa, HW at, i 22, 297, 300;
  pirates from, 322;
  Raleigh’s proposed attack on, 151;
  reported league against, ii 153, 156;
  — i 41 n, 272, 279, 296, 331, 342, 439, 477, 507 n, ii 382.
Genovesato, the, i 290.
Gentili, Alberico, Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, i 5, 7, 10;
  his De Legationibus, 6, 109 n.
George, Robert, ii 471.
Georges, John, with HW (1616), i 145 n, ii 127;
  note on, ii 471.
Gerard, John, his Herball, ii 365.
Gerbier, Sir Balthazar, ii 391, 481;
  HW’s letter to, 388-9, 453.
Gerini, Bernardo, nephew of Filippo Corsini, i 284 n.
Germain (Jermyn), Henry. See St. Albans.
German gentleman in Ireland, i 309.
German gentleman carries letter from HW to Lord Zouche, i 280-2.
German Protestant Princes. See Union.
Germany, HW in, ii 140, (1589) i 10-4, 229-42, (1601-2) 40, 43, 312, 314, (1603) 44, 318, ii 96 n, (1604) i 49, (1619) i 165-6, ii 174-9, (1620) i 171, ii 182, 184-8;
  HW’s acquaintances in, i 300;
  wishes to be sent to, (1597) 32, 305-6, (1607) 84, (1610) 113, 454, 484;
  condition of, (1613) ii 16, (1619) ii 168, 177;
  war in, i 215, ii 331, 344-5, 348, 353;
  ambassadors from and to, see Ambassadors;
  — i 9, 27, 39, 91, 182, 247, 262, 266, 276, 505-7, ii 11, 463, 493.
Gerusalemme Liberata, by Torquato Tasso, i 5.
Gessi, Berlinghero, Papal Nuncio, arrives in Venice, i 391 n, 392 n;
  spies on HW and Sarpi, 87;
  keeps watch on HW’s house, 91;
  sends news about Protestant Propaganda to Rome, 95;
  illness of, 404-5;
  complains of books imported by HW, 96;
  of Fulgenzio’s sermons, 98, 448, 451 n, 452 n;
  of the Premonition, 102-3, 469;
  his despatches quoted, 65 n, ii 463, 472, 474;
  — i 399 n, 410, 437, 440, 476 n, ii 217 n.
Ghent, ii 240, 255.
Gibillotta, Mt., ii 5.
Gibraltar, Straits of, ii 159.
Gieswaldi, family of, ii 272.
Gifanius. See Giffen.
Giffen, Hubert van, professor at Ingolstadt, i 242, 244, 253-4.
Gifford, Richard, pirate, i 387 n.
Ginevra. See Geneva.
Ginnasi, Domenico, Card., ii 276.
Giovanni of Florence, attempts to assassinate Sarpi, i 404 n, 406 n, 407.
Giovanni, ——, servant of HW, ii 322-4, 328, 346.
Giuberti. See Jubert.
Giunta, Filippo, i 312 n.
Giunta, Modestus, i 312, 314.
Giustinian, Giacomo, ii 134-9.
Giustinian, Zorzi or Giorgio, Venetian ambassador in England, i 323 n;
  audiences with James I about quarrel with the Pope, i 81, 83, 347 n, 362 n;
  instructed to close with James I’s offer, 83;
  instructed to thank James I, 385 n;
  demands an immediate answer to a request, 413 n, 414;
  dispatches of, quoted, 84, 347 n, 399, 492 n, ii 477;
  — i 380, 426, 428, 433 n, 474, ii 474.
Glacianus, Georg, Professor at Altdorf, i 255.
Glasgow, ii 394 n.
Gloucester, D. of. See Richard III.
Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, 8th E. of, ii 500.
Glover, Sir Thomas, English ambassador in Turkey, i 414, 445;
  Glover, Lady, i 445.
Goad, Christopher, his sermons in Cambridge, ii 394.
Goad, Roger, ii 394 n.
Godfrey, Mr., merchant, ii 105.
Goltzheim, ii 31.
Golzius, ii 193.
Gomitulus. See Comitolus.
Gondi, Cardinal, i 263 n.
Gondomar, by T. Middleton. See Game.
Gondomar, Count of, Spanish ambassador in England, caricatured in A Game of Chess, i 201;
  relations with De Dominis, ii 229;
  — i 154, ii 20, 203, 472.
Gontrius, ——, i 250.
Gonzaga. See Mantua.
Gonzaga, Eleanor, marries Ferdinand II, ii 271 n.
Goring, George, Lord, duel with Lord Feilding, ii 340-1;
  marries Lady Lettice Boyle, ii 360.
Goring, Lady, HW sends Francis and Robert Boyle to, at Lewes, ii 360-1.
Gosse, Mr. Edmund, his Life of Donne, i 27, 166 n, ii 469, 481.
Gothic architecture, HW’s condemnation of, i 196.
Goths, the, i 78, 196, 349.
Gouldesburroughe, ——, in Venice, ii 157 n.
Gouldinge, Quartermaster, ii 79.
Gouri. See Gowrie.
Gowrie, John, 3rd E. of, at Padua, i 458 n;
  his plot, 315, 458 n, ii 263 n;
  HW sends arms of, to James I, i 458.
Gradenigo, ‘old’ family of Venice, 434 n.
Gradisca, siege of, ii 120.
Graisen, ——, HW consults about journey abroad, i 227-8.
Gran, ii 197.
Grand Signor. See Turkey.
Gratz, capital of Styria, massacre of Lutherans plotted at, i 270;
  Jesuit college at, 270;
  — i 244, 249, 263, 369, 434.
Grave, letters dated at, ii 88, 93.
Gravesend, ii 320-1, 323, 382.
Gray, Andrew, 7th Baron, in Venice, ii 144, 157 n.
Gray, Thomas, i 224;
  suggested origin of his Distant Prospect of Eton College, i 222 n.
Graziani, Fra Gian Francesco, his plot against Sarpi, i 442 n, 453.
Greece, i 357;
  Bey of, invades Poland, i 230 n.
Greek, Wotton studies with Casaubon, i iii, 23;
  promises to write to Casaubon in, 312;
  work on Fate in, 312.
Greek Bishops, proposed sending of, to England, 149, ii 97-9;
  HW’s friendship with, i 438 n.
Greek Church, proposal for Venice to join, i 341.
Greeks, the, i 264.
Green Cloth, officers of, ii 76.
Greenland, dispute about whale-fishing near, ii 76.
Greenway Court, ii 390 n.
Greenwich, HW at, i 170, 507, ii 39;
  — i 81, 358 n, 362 n, ii 19, 25, 29, 32, 240 n.
Gregory XIII, ii 149, 456;
  his Calendar, i xvii.
Gregory XIV, i 250;
  his character, 260 n.
Gregory XV (Cardinal Ludovisio), at Turin (1616), ii 103;
  becomes Pope, 208;
  his character, 208;
  his policy, i 178-9, ii 208-9;
  sends Jubilee to Venice, 210;
  illness of, 210-1, 214-5;
  and Valtelline, i 179, ii 211, 215, 221, 244 n, 266 n, 271;
  and Spanish marriage, i 181, ii 222 n, 226, 247 n;
  pasquil on, 223;
  and De Dominis, 228-9, 252, 372-3;
  and Venice, 245-6;
  edict about Protestants in Catholic territories, ii 248-9;
  forbids burial of Sarpi, 260 n;
  illness of, 268;
  death, 272;
  — 212, 214, 217-8, 247, 257, 259, 274, 276.
Grenoble, ii 464.
Grey, Thomas, 15th Baron Grey of Wilton, ii 23.
Griffith, Mr., ii 320-3, 325;
  his son with Queen of Bohemia, 325-6.
Grillo, Angelo, his Lettere, ii 484.
Grimani, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Grimani, Marino, Doge LXXXIX, character of, i 342;
  letters to, 45, ii 490 n;
  receives HW, i 52;
  HW’s audiences, 322 n, 325 n, 413;
  death of, 78, 337, 339-40, 342-3;
  HW’s condolences, 339 n;
  book belonging to, presented by HW to Bodleian, 210, 339 n, ii 337.
Grisley, Walsingham, ii 245.
Grison League, the, i 179.
Grisons, the, HW travels through, (1593) i 22, 297, 300, (1623) ii 278;
  HW describes, ii 96;
  league with
Venice, i 326 n;
  Fuentes quarrels with, 326;
  uprising in, 393-5;
  league with Venice terminated, ii 96 n;
  close passes to Venice, i 144, 148, 155, 166, ii 96 n, 113;
  HW negotiates with, about Seminaries, i 162, ii 149-50, 480;
  attempt to restore league with Venice, i 166, ii 96 n, 179, 180 n;
  and Valtelline, see Valtelline;
  renewed troubles in, i 179-80, 182-3, ii 223 n, 227-8, 236-7, 238 n, 239, 249;
  Archduke Leopold attacks, i 180, ii 245 n, 246;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors;
  — 113, 251, 259, 495.
Gritti, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Groenland. See Greenland.
Groningen, ii 51, 75.
Grotius, Hugo, ii 73 n.
Guastalla, Ferdinand Gonzaga, Prince of, ii 269 n;
  in Venice, 270.
Guastalla, Vittoria, Princess of, in Venice, 269-71.
Guelders, ii 341, 345.
Guernsey, ii 482.
Guiana expedition, the, ii 87 n, 489.
Gucciardini, Lorenzo, informal English agent in Florence, i 284, 287, 292 n.
Guise, Cardinal de, ii 245 n.
Guise, Charles de Lorraine, 4th D. of, HW lodges in house of, i 116;
  offers his services to Venice, i 431.
Guises, the murder of, i 24.
Gunpowder Plot, the, Salisbury writes to HW about, i 339;
  HW’s speech about, 339 n;
  imitation of, in Venice, 364;
  — 54, 80-1, 100, 156, 158, 388, 463, 475, ii 117 n, 151 n, 489.
Gunter, Thomas, English Consul at Venice, i 163 n.
Gurckfeld, Frederick, secretary to HW (1616), ii 92.
Gussoni, ——, HW rents palace and villa from, ii 101-2.
Gussoni, Vincenzo, Venetian ambassador at Turin, ii 476;
  describes HW’s reception, i 121-2, ii 2 n;
  mission to Germany (1616), 151, ii 107 n, 108.
Gustavus II, Adolphus, K. of Sweden, lands in Germany, ii 331;
  victories of, i 215, ii 341 n.
 
Habsburgs, the, i 16, 94, 160, 243-5, 249, 257, 507, ii 168, 187, 224 n, 281 n.
Hagenau, i 255 n, ii 372.
Haghe, the. See Hague.
Hague, The, HW at (1614-5), i 134-43, 176, ii 41-50, 62-83, 464, 475-6, 480;
  departure from, 83-6;
  Queen of Bohemia at, i 208, ii 325;
  Carleton at, 118 n, 142;
  Dynely at, 308, 310;
  A. Morton at, 286 n;
  — i 123 n, 155, 210 n, 301, 476 n, 492, ii 18, 110 n, 224, 248, 265, 319, 323, 390.
Haies, Mr., ii 343.
Hainhoffer, Philip, offers to intercept letters at Augsburg, ii 147, 172 n.
Hales, Edward. See Lichfield.
Hales, Sir Edward, ii 344 n.
Hales, Lady (Ann Wotton), ii 344, 412.
Hales, John, Fellow of Eton College, visits HW with Milton, i 220, ii 381;
  made Prebendary of Windsor, 408;
  conversations with HW, i 222-3;
  expelled from Eton, 224;
  — ii 306, 315, 329 n, 395.
Hall, Joseph, ii 370 n, 460, 469;
  his epistle to Sir E. Bacon, ii 460-1;
  to Bedell, 462;
  to John Mole, 473.
Halm, Count von, i 262.
Halstead, ii 460.
Hamborough, Hambro. See Hamburg.
Hamburg, HW at, i 42;
  congress of, ii 386, 400;
  — i 10, 229 n, 230 n, ii 367, 399, 482.
Hamilton, James, 2nd Marquis of, in Venice, i 487;
  HW dissuades from visiting Rome, 487-8;
  HW’s letter to, 487, ii 431, 490 n;
  alleged plot to poison, ii 290, 292-3, 295.
Hamilton, James, 1st D. of, sent to Scotland, ii 385 n, 403.
Hammon, ——, at Prague, i 301.
Hammond, John, M.D., 301 n.
Hamond, John, ii 470.
Hampton Court, i 506, ii 35;
  pictures at, i 52 n, 60, 217 n, ii 297.
Hanford, Dorset, ii 480.
Hannah, Rev. John, his edition of HW’s poems, i xii, ii 415.
Hannibal, i 49, ii 95.
Harbert. See Herbert.
Hardy, Sir Thomas Duffy, his report on documents in Venice, i xii, ii 146 n.
Harington, Sir James, ii 283 n.
Harington, John, 1st Lord Harington of Exton, his patent for coining farthings, ii 308 n.
Harington, Sir John, 2nd Lord Harington of Exton, in Italy, i 441;
  in Venice, 445;
  HW presents to Doge, 441 n;
  letter to Prince Henry, 459 n;
  goes to Germany, 462;
  — 456, ii 17, 20 n.
Harington, Lady, ii 91 n.
Harison. See Harrison.
Harlay, Christophe de, Count de Beaumont, French ambassador in England, Henry IV writes to, about HW, i 61.
Harnett, goodwife, i 116.
Harrach, Baron von, Imperial ambassador at Rome (1592), i 296.
Harrington. See Harington.
Harringworth, ii 482.
Harrison, John, head master of Eton, i 216, ii 321, 355 n, 366, 396, 401.
Harrison, Sir Richard, ii 399.
Hartlib, Samuel, ii 381 n.
Harvey, William, at Padua, i 405 n.
Harwell, Lieut., officer under Peyton, hanging of, ii 153 n.
Hatfield. See Hatzfeldt.
Hatfield House, pictures at, i 60, 419 n, 453.
Hatzfeldt, General, defeats Charles Louis, ii 399 n, 400, 401 n.
Haultain, Admiral, commands Dutch fleet off coast of Portugal, i 356 n.
Haward. See Howard.
Hawkesworth, secretary to Cornwallis in Spain, ii 482.
Hawkins, Dr. Henry, sent by Essex to Italy, i 31;
  his letters of introduction said to have been intercepted by HW, 32.
Hay, Lord. See Carlisle.
Heath, Sir Robert, Attorney-General, i 200, ii 316, 317 n, 470.
Heatley, Alexander, secretary of D. of Richmond, ii 290-3.
Hebrews. See Jews.
Hebrun, Alexander, recommended by HW for English Consul in Naples, i 328 n.
Heeton. See Heyton.
Heiberger, ——, i 258.
Heidelberg, HW at, (1589-90) i 10-1, 232-40, 301 n, 302, (1591) 17, (1594) 25, (1616) 144-5, ii 88-91, 93-4, 96, 311;
  his acquaintances at, 300;
  A. Morton at, i 145, ii 94, 234, 475;
  fall of, i 181;
  university of, 11, 234, 235 n;
  — 151, 302, ii 22, 55 n, 120, 482.
Heilbronn, HW at (1619), i 165-6, 193, ii 176-9, 180 n;
  League of, ii 344 n.
Hein, Peter, captures Plate Fleet, ii 318 n.
Helbre, Essex at (1599), i 306 n.
Heldevir, ——, i 288.
Heliodorus, quoted, i 303.
Helvetia, ii 96;
  baths of, 281 n.
Helwys, Sir Gervase, ii 23 n, 24.
Henrietta Maria, Q. of England, marriage of, ii 286 n;
  visits HW at Eton, i 212;
  HW’s bequest to, 217;
  — i 116, 210 n, ii 339-42, 399.
Henry III, K. of England, ii 499, 500.
Henry V, K. of England, i 1.
Henry VI, K. of England, founder of Eton College, i 202, ii 304 n, 305;
  HW’s account of, i 206, ii 254 n, 414.
Henry VII, K. of England, i 46, ii 408.
Henry VIII, K. of England, i 2, 444, 458 n, 472 n, ii 32-3, 332.
Henry III, K. of France, i 24, 237 n, 249, 296 n, ii 456, 492.
Henry IV, K. of France, wars with the League, i 18, 24, 245, ii 456;
  siege of Paris, i 16, 245 n, 254, 263;
  conversion of, 298;
  relations with Swiss, 33, 304;
  marriage, 36, 294 n;
  plots against, 316, 336;
  complains of HW, 61;
  attitude during Interdict, 80, 83, 353 n, 355 n, 365 n, 371;
  Salisbury’s suspicions of, 83;
  sends Cardinal de Joyeuse, 84-5, 375, 377, 379;
  settles dispute, 84-5, 389-90;
  proposed alliance with James I, 360, 382-3;
  wishes Jesuits to be readmitted to Venice, 385 n;
  forwards HW’s dispatch about himself, 365 n, 372;
  his ‘Great Design’, 97-9, 107, 113, 135, 467, 468 n, 482, 484 n, 487;
  receives Premonition, 101, 462;
  exposes Protestant propaganda in Venice, 89, 97-100, 480-2, 485;
  prepares to attack Juliers, 135, 467;
  assassination, 97, 107, 135, 490, 492, 495-6, ii 37;
  HW’s speech about, i 491 n;
  mention of in Table Talk, ii 490, 492-6, 498;
  — i 180, 237 n, 285, 296 n, 314 n, 319, 326, 354 n, 381, 412, 426 n, 430 n, 445, ii 58 n, 276, 473.
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, HW carries letter to, from Prince of Tuscany, i 40, 426;
  portrait in HW’s palace, 57, 426 n;
  shown to Doge, 441 n;
  HW suggests marriage to Palatine Princess, 426 n;
  praises Venice, 426;
  would like to fight for Republic, 81 n;
  HW asks to intercede for Venetian criminal, 427-8;
  friendship for Sir John Harington, 441 n;
  Sir R. Douglas purchases horses for, in Italy, 458 n, 470;
  A. Morton introduced to, 459;
  negotiations for Spanish marriage, 119;
  for Savoy marriage, 63, 114-6, 119-25, ii 1-7, 477;
  his opinion of HW, i 117, 118 n, 123, 126;
  writes to HW, ii 7;
  death of, i 115 n, 125-6, 128-9, 131, 206, ii 9, 12, 14 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 409, 425, 432, 459, 497, ii 426-8, 430, 433, 474;
  — 505, ii 39 n.
Heracleitus, i 217, 485 n.
Herbert, Edward, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, wishes to raise troops for Venice, ii 119 n;
  in Low Countries with HW, ii 53 n;
  ambassador in Paris, i 112, ii 119 n, 465.
Herbert, George, i v, ii 364 n.
Herbert, George, officer under Peyton, ii 153 n.
Herbert, Sir John, Secretary of State, negotiates about trade with Venice, i 323.
Hercules, ii 158.
Herefordshire, conflict with Catholics in, i 330 n.
Hero of Alexandria, his Automati and Spiritali, ii 486.
Herrick, Robert, ii 385 n.
Hertford, Francis Seymour Conway, 1st M. of, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton’s papers in possession of, i 217 n.
Hertford, Francis Charles Seymour Conway, 3rd M. of, gives Throckmorton’s papers to Record Office, 217 n.
Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), reported capture of, i 409;
  siege of, ii 320, 323, 327 n.
Hesse-Cassel, Maurice, Landgraf of, i 306, 454, ii 176.
Hetruria. See Etruria.
Hey. See Hay.
Heydleberge. See Heidelberg.
Heyton, ——, lease of Stanton St. John promised to, i 301.
Hickes, George, i 103 n.
Hierocles of Alexandria, i 313.
Higgins, James, factor in Venice, i 320, 470 n.
Hippocrates, quoted, ii 313.
Hippolytus, acted at Eton, ii 313.
Hobbes, Thomas, ii 307 n.
Hoechst, battle of, i 183.
Hoeschel, David, HW visits, i 43, 314;
  letters to, 43, 312 n, ii 419, 432.
Hog hath lost his Pearl, The, acted at Whitefriars, ii 13.
Hohenzollern, Count, envoy from Matthias to Xanten, ii 58, 65;
  HW’s reply to, 58 n.
Holderness, James Ramsay, 1st E. of, ii 258;
  HW’s letter to, ii 263-5, 448.
Holinshed, Raphael, account of Wotton family in his Chronicle, i 2 n.
Holland, i 12, 486 n, ii 42, 152, 312 n, 315 n, 321 n, 346 n, 369.
  See United Provinces.
Holland, Sir Henry Rich, 1st E. of, challenges Lord Weston, ii 338-40;
  HW’s bequest to, i 218;
  — ii 17, 341.
Holland, Hugh, HW recommends to Salisbury, i 408-9.
Holland, Sir Thomas, ii 480.
Hollanders, the. See United Provinces.
Holstein, Duke Joachim Ernest of, with HW in Venice, ii 157 n, 164 n;
  travels with, i 165;
  ii 174-5;
  at Munich, ii 174-5.
Holy Land. See Palestine.
Holyhead, i 307.
Hone, John, Stanton St. John leased to, i 302 n.
Honeywood, Robert, grandfather of Albertus Morton, i 241.
Honorio, Fra, execution of, ii 159 n.
Hooton, i 327 n.
Horace, quoted, ii 254 n, 327, 329, 386.
Horne, Mr. Herbert, i 194 n.
Horningsheath, Suffolk, ii 302.
Horton, Milton at, i 220.
Horwood, Alfred J., ii 489.
Hoskins, John, ii 37, 39, 41, 415.
Hotman, François, Professor of Law at Basle, i 12, 109 n;
  HW wishes to study under, 9, 10, 12, 234-5, 237-8.
Hotman, Jean, in England, i 238;
  his l’Ambassadeur, 109 n.
Howard, Sir Francis, goes to Turin with HW, ii 2.
Howard, Henry, i 498, ii 16, 40.
Howard, Lord Thomas. See Suffolk.
Howard, Sir Thomas. See Berkshire.
Howard, Lord William, ii 2, 39-40.
Howards, the, i 121 n.
Howell, James, in Venice, i 60, 179;
  his Letters, 169, 179;
  Discourse of Ambassadors, 109 n;
  State of Venice, 358 n;
  HW’s poem to, ii 416.
Hudson, Mr., of Windsor, ii 354.
Hugeinus. See Huygens.
Hughes, Mr. Charles, ii 456.
Hume, Major Martin S., i 63 n.
Humphreys, Philip, carries letters to England, ii 230.
Hungary, i 174, 263, 267, 278, 305 n, 326 n, 333, 342, 356, 360, 417, 507 n, ii 15, 185, 197, 200 n, 201-2;
  kings of, see Rudolf, Gabor, Ferdinand.
Hungerford, Mr., i 288, 290-1, 293.
Hunnes. See Huns.
Hunnings, Francis, i 250, 264;
  HW’s letter to, ii 417.
Huns, the, ii 256.
Hunt, Richard, Dean of Durham ii 397.
Huntley, E. of, kills E. of Moray, i 285 n.
Hurst, Berks, ii 399.
Hushai, the Archite, ii 296.
Hussen, ii 57.
Huygens, Sir Constantine, ii 411.
Hyacintho, Capuchin friar, his despatches stolen, ii 223, 225.
Hyrat, ——, stationer of Cologne, ii, 281.
 
Iceland, stones from, collected by Sir E. Bacon, ii 396, 397 n.
Ignatius. See Loyola.
Impositions, HW speech on, i 132.
Indies, the, i 153, 391 n, 416 n, 439, ii 471.
Indies, the East, trade to, ii 76 n, 247.
Infante, Card. See Ferdinand.
Inferno. See Dante.
Ingolstadt, i 14, 238, 263 n;
  letter dated at, 241-3, 247, ii 481.
Ingram, Sir Arthur, ii 76.
Innocent X, Pope, ii 276 n.
Innsbruck, ii 209;
  HW at, i 176, ii 207.
Innspruck. See Innsbruck.
Inojosa, Marquis of, Governor of Milan, ii 103 n.
Inquisitor of Rome, takes steps against Lord Darcy, i 291.
Interdict. See Venice.
Interminelli. See Antelminelli.
Iper. See Ypres.
Ireland, HW in, i IV, 30 n, 33-4, 306-10, 417 n;
  news from, 259, 316, 432, ii 29;
  — i 70 n, 153, 316, 334, 429, 491 n, ii 343, 356, 360 n, 368, 467.
Irish Ocean, the, i 316.
Irish proverb, quoted by HW, i 385 n.
Isabella, the Infanta, sovereign of Spanish Netherlands, i 40, ii 42 n, 341 n, 345 n, 389 n, 468.
Isaiah quoted, i 126, ii 10.
Isel. See Yssel.
Isidorus Hespalensis, quoted, ii 320 n.
Island. See Iceland.
Istria, ii 96, 112, 128.
Italian authors selected by HW, i ix, ii 414, 484-6.
Italian Night Masque, The, ii 333.
Italy, HW’s first visit to, i 17-22, 28, 235, 238, 256, 266, 277-300;
  condition of, (1591) 18, (1616) 148-9, ii 102;
  compared with Geneva, i 298;
  HW in, (1601-3) 34-9, 43-4, 311-9, (1604-10) 46-115, 320-506, (1616-9) 146-63, ii 94-172, (1621-3) i 176-92, ii 207-80;
  war in (1629), 318-20, 331;
  Milton visits, i 18, ii 382;
  — i 3, 9, 27, 54, 178, 180, 225, 248, 259, 270, 302, ii 339 n, 365, 455-6.
Ivry, battle of, i 245 n.
Jacob, dream of, ii 21.
Jacobo. See James.
James V, K. of Scotland, i 315.
James VI, K. of Scotland, James I of England, reported plot against, (1592) i 284-5;
  HW sent to, (1601) 40-5, 388, ii 300, 316;
  HW describes, i 42, 314-5;
  plots to assassinate, (1601-2) 40, 43 n, ii 468;
  sends for HW, i 44, ii 316;
  sends HW to Venice, i 45;
  his ambassadors, 48;
  his foreign policy, 61, 75, 122, 144, 146;
  policy about trade and piracy, 72-3, 322-3;
  remark about Spanish pensions, 62 n;
  sends Sir J. Lindsay to Rome, 321 n;
  reported speeches of, 328;
  reported attack on, 336;
  pleased with intercepted letters, 66, 351, 359;
  supports Venice in quarrel with Pope, 81-5, 182, 374 n, 381 n, 384, ii 474;
  aid of, offered by HW, i 82, 361-2, 384-6;
  gratitude of Venetians, 85, 356-7, 361 n, 385, 464;
  proposed combination with France to help Venice and the Dutch, 382-3;
  publishes Apologia, 100;
  his respect for Sarpi, 408 n;
  Sarpi’s proposals to, 93-5, 161, 447;
  invites Sarpi to England, 151;
  publishes Premonition, 95, 100-7, ii 474;
  receives Correr, writes to Salisbury about HW, i 105-6;
  defers HW’s return, 466;
  reported assassination, 256 n, 491;
  reported plot against, 494-6;
  sends troops to Juliers, 135;
  recalls HW, 494 n;
  gives pension to HW, 117, ii 351;
  negotiates for Savoy marriage, i 114-6, 119-23;
  sends HW to Turin, 120-3, ii 1-7;
  acts as his own secretary, i 124, ii 122 n;
  confronts HW with his definition of an ambassador, i 126-7;
  takes HW into favour again, 132, ii 35-6;
  and Juliers-Cleves controversy, i 134-43, ii 41-84;
  sends HW to Hague, i 134;
  expostulates with Archdukes, ii 47;
  demands explanation about fall of Wesel, i 137;
  explanation sent, ii 68-73;
  accepted, 75;
  complains of HW’s not writing, 63;
  brings about league between States and Union, i 140, ii 63-4;
  sends commissioners about trade disputes to the Hague, i 142, ii 73-4, 77-8;
  forbids fishing on English coasts, 76 n;
  negotiations about treaty of Xanten, i 140-3;
  proposes formularies, ii 69, 74-5, 78 n;
  proposed promise to, 78 n;
  suggests omission of his own name, 82, 84 n;
  recalls HW, i 142, ii 83 n;
  receives HW, 86 n;
  attacked in Corona Regia, i 145, ii 92 n, 93;
  attempts to unite anti-Spanish powers (1616), i 144-6;
  helps Savoy, 144, 151;
  sends HW to Venice, 143, 147;
  HW defends, 146;
  forbids English travellers to visit Rome, 70;
  visits Scotland, ii 122 n;
  head of German Union, 107 n, 164;
  Venice asks for more help for Savoy, 107 n, 109 n, 122 n;
  remonstrates with Spain, i 155, 163, ii 122 n, 170;
  sends ships to coast of, ii 163, 171;
  allows English ships to come to Venice, i 154, 163;
  and plan for Protestant seminaries, 162, 165-6, ii 143, 150 n, 177-9;
  and Bohemian revolution, i 168-9, iii 165 n, 182;
  sends Doncaster, i 164, i 166, 183;
  sends HW to German princes and emperor, i 167, 169;
  determines to defend Palatinate, ii 199, 202;
  writes to German princes, 199 n;
  negotiations about, 215 n, 222, 237 n;
  asks help of Venice, i 181, ii 227, 265;
  general disesteem of, i 169, 176, 181, 192, ii 227;
  requested by Venice to help Protestants, i 180;
  negotiates for Spanish marriage, see Charles I;
  HW sends seeds, ii 220, 253, 258, 264;
  HW dedicates his Historia Veneta to, 253-5;
  writes to Doge about Lady Arundel, i 190, ii 240;
  about Spanish marriage, i 181, ii 267, 273-4;
  recalls HW, i 181, 192;
  appoints HW Provost of Eton, 199-201;
  promises Deanery to HW, i 205, ii 317;
  his opinion of HW, i 45, 107, 108 n, 110-2, 117, 164, ii 162;
  death and funeral, 208;
  alleged poisoning of, ii 290 n, 295;
  — letters to HW, i 70, 81 n, 358, 494 n, ii 74, 121, 490 n;
  to Salisbury, i 105;
  to Donato, 106-7, 431, 463, 465;
  to Bembo, ii 463;
  to Priuli, i 181-2, 190, ii 227-8, 238 n, 240, 265, 267, 273-4;
  to De’ Monti, 474;
  to German princess, 199 n;
  to Philip IV, 222;
  — HW’s letters to, i 112, 353 n, 360, 365 n, 366, 369, 382, 407 n, 417, 421, 446-50, 457, 465, 475, 478, 480, ii 41, 51, 68-73, 77, 86, 88-93, 97, 104, 122, 143, 163, 172 n, 174, 182, 190, 201, 253-5, 259-63, 277, 412, 421-7, 429-31, 434-44, 448-9;
  — Works of, Basilikon Doron, i 469 n;
  Apologia, 100, 103 n, 126, 416, 418, 469 n, 482;
  Premonition, composition and character of, 95, 100-1, 455;
  sent to princes, 101-2, 462, 467;
  presentation and prohibition in Venice, 102-7, 463-5, 468, 471-4;
  Paul V’s censure, 465;
  HW asks for more copies, 102, 465-6;
  translated by Bedell, 102, 466;
  remark about, 475;
  Meditations on Lord’s Prayer, ii 169;
  translation of Psalms, 309;
  — mention of, in Table Talk, ii 490, 492, 494, 497-8;
  — i 32 n; 320;
  — ii 284, passim, 299 n, 302, 308 n, 316, 335, 352 n;
  383 n, 397, 399 n, 411 n, 461, 463-4, 468, 471-2, 477-9, 482, 488.
James. See Vary.
Japan, i 391 n.
Jars, Chevalier de, imprisonment of, ii 340.
Jaye, duel with Walter Raleigh, ii 79.
Jeannin, Pierre, ii 56.
Jerusalem, i 126, ii 396.
Jesuits, the, HW intercepts letters of, i 65-6, 345, 351-2, 359, ii 147-8;
  HW’s opinion of, i 65, 80, ii 184, 242, plan for opposing 178-9;
  and Gunpowder Plot, i 54, 80, 339-40, 348, 463, 475;
  sent into England, 331, ii 214;
  expelled from Venice, i 79, 347, 350, 352, 354, 373 n, 385, 389, ii 128, 212, 496;
  preach against Venice, i 355;
  attempts to procure readmission, 85, 178, 385 n, 482, ii 212, 216-8;
  return to Venice, (1657) 212 n;
  believed by HW to be cause of trouble between Venice and Pope, i 366-7;
  spread false reports about accommodation, 391 n;
  controversy with Dominicans, 367;
  influence with Ferdinand II, 410;
  with Henry IV, 353 n;
  income in Venice, 443;
  bequest to, 449-50;
  and attack on Sarpi, 406 n;
  and assassination of Henry IV, 491 n;
  in Louvain, ii 93;
  Munich, 174;
  Nancy, 184;
  Rome, i 332-5, 442 n, ii 269;
  Styria, i 368-9;
  maxims of, 365;
  mention of, in Table Talk, ii 491, 493, 495;
  colleges, see Douai, Milan, Rheims, Rome;
  General of, see Vitelleschi
  — i 20, 70, 126, 183, 396, 399, 445 n, 456-7, 464, ii 45 n, 101, 120, 127, 200, 206, 224, 281, 307.
‘Jesuitesses.’ See Ward, Mary.
Jewel, John, his Apologia pro Ecclesia Anglicana, distributed by HW in Venice, i 90, 417;
  his Enchiridion, ii 252.
Jews, edicts in Rome concerning (1592), i 275, 286.
Joachim, Albert, of Ter-goes, ii 71, 74.
Job, i 173, ii 200.
John, of Florence. See Giovanni.
Johnson. See Fawkes.
Johnson, Dr. Samson, ii 470.
Johnson, Samuel, ii 205 n.
Johnson, Thomas, HW’s letter to, ii 365-6, 452.
Johnston, John, head of a college at Heidelberg, i 11, 233-5.
Joinville. See Guise.
Jones, Mr., of Windsor ii, 387.
Jones, Inigo i, 159-6.
Jones, Thomas, Bp. of Meath, preaches at Essex’s assumption of command in Dublin, i 307.
Jonson, Ben, tells Drummond about HW, i 42;
  — 13, 16, 130, 164 n, 408 n, 414 n, ii 10 n, 37 n, 79 n, 105 n, 130 n, 306 n.
Joyeuse, François de, Card., sent by Henry IV to settle quarrel with Pope, i 84, 375, 377;
  HW’s remarks on, 376;
  HW’s reasons for not visiting, 377-8;
  his negotiations, 379;
  goes to Rome, 384;
  returns, 386;
  receives criminals, 390;
  revokes censures, 85, 387, 390-1.
Jubert, Claude de, visits HW, i 495.
Jugurthine War, ii 150 n.
Juliers (Jülich), Leopold driven from, i 135;
  occupied by Dutch troops, 135, ii 60;
  negotiations about withdrawal of troops, i 134 n, 136, 139, ii 44, 45 n, 77;
  about possession of, 56-7, 84 n;
  — 62, 251 n, 345.
Juliers-Cleves controversy, the, i 134-43, 179, 193, 455, 467, 490, ii 43-62, 65, 73-5, 77-9, 81-5, 492 n.
Julio, Roman coin, i 276.
Julius II, Pope, ii 251 n.
Junius (Du Jon), François, i 13, 233-5, 240.
Junius, Melchior, Casaubon’s letter to, about HW, i 25.
Jupiter, satellites of, discovered by Galileo, i 107, 486.
Jurea, ii 498-9.
Juvenal, quoted ii, 189.
Juxon, William, Bishop of London, becomes Lord Treasurer, ii 236 n, 354 n;
  HW describes to Q. of Bohemia, 362-3;
  kindness to HW, 375;
  letters of HW to, i 208, ii 354, 363, 452;
  HW’s bequest to, i 217;
  — ii 236 n.
 
Keire, Mr., ii 143.
Kelser, Father, ii 209.
Kenilworth, Sir Robert Dudley deprived of, i 373 n.
Kennow, i 246.
Kent, HW re-visits, i 222, ii 19, 277 n, 312, 320, 326-8, 330, 383 n, 394, 408-9;
  — i 2 n, 3, 48, 57, 118 n, 215, 221, 228 n, 445 n, 506, ii 22, 29, 361, 384 n, 390 n, 391 n, 406, 476.
Kepler, John, shows HW Camera Obscura, i 171, 197, ii 205-6;
  HW invites to England, i 171-2, ii 205 n;
  letter of, 205 n.
Ker, Henry, Lord, turns Covenanter, ii 408.
Ker, Sir Robert. See Ancrum.
Kerckoven, Catherine, Lady Stanhope and Countess of Chesterfield (Catherine Wotton), marries Lord Stanhope, ii 312 n;
  — 312, 322, 326-8, 412.
Kerckoven, John Polyander à, marries Catherine Wotton, ii 312 n.
Kerrey, ii 359.
Ketler, Col., ii 57.
Kevet. See Knevett.
Keyes, Sir John, ii 24.
Kiddlesworth Hall, i 318 n.
Kildare, William, E. of, drowned on voyage to Ireland, i 307.
Killigrew, Sir Henry, his marriage, i 259.
Killigrew, Sir Robt., imprisonment of, ii 22-4.
Kilmore, Bedell, Bishop of, i 378 n, ii 463.
Kinalmeaky, Viscount Boyle of. See Boyle, Visct.
King, Henry, Dean of Rochester, ii 405, 469, 479.
Kinsale, battle of, i 316 n.
Kirby Hall, ii 111 n.
Klesel, Card., ii 94, 156, 168, 245 n.
Kloster Neuberg, HW at, i 172, ii 190 n.
Knebworth, i 477 n.
Knevett, Sir George, ii 322, 325 n, 326.
Knole Park, MS. at, i 175.
Knowls, Lord. See Banbury.
Koran, MS. copy presented by HW to Bodleian, ii 347 n.
Kreckwitz, Imperial ambassador to the Porte, i 261, 268.
 
Lacedaemonians, the, ii 112 n, 268.
Lagny, captured by Parma, i 245 n;
  recaptured by Henry IV, 254 n.
Lake, Sir Thomas, appointed Secretary, ii 121 n;
  suggests that HW is unfriendly to Venice, i 158, ii 121 n;
  disgrace of, i 165, ii 121 n, 166-7;
  daughter marries Lord Roos, 127 n;
  letters to, 463, 476;
  HW’s letters to, i 164, ii 121, 122 n, 124-32, 139, 152 n, 439-42.
Lamb, Charles, i 224.
Lambecius, i 485 n.
Lancaster, i 506 n.
Landgrave, See Hesse.
Lando, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Lando, Girolamo, Ven. ambassador in England, ii 222;
  HW visits, 180;
  instructed to declare innocence of Lady Arundel, i 186-8;
  report about HW, 188.
Landsciott, Federigo, spy on Salvetti, letters from, i 36 n.
Lane, ——, imprisoned in Rome, i 440.
Lang, Mr. Andrew, his book on the Gowrie Conspiracy, i 458 n.
Langlade, ——, and plot of 1618, i 157.
Languet, Hubert, i 21;
  meets Philip Sidney, 12.
La Nowe, François de, Possevino writes against, i 291.
Lans, Marchese di, receives HW at Chambéry, ii 5-6.
Lanz. See Lans.
Lashe, George, witness to HW’s will, i 219.
Laud, William, Abp., acts as Visitor to Eton, ii 367 n, 368;
  report on HW as Provost, i 210;
  HW’s bequest to, i 217;
  HW’s letters to, ii 366-8, 398, 452-3;
  — 181 n, 351 n, 354 n, 408.
Lauria, Vincenzo, Card., i 296 n.
Lauro, Giacomo, his Antichità di Roma, ii 486.
Lausanne, ii 464.
Law, Roman, study of, at Oxford, i 6, 9;
  compared with Germany, 234;
  Bartolist and Humanist, schools of, 10.
Lawes, Henry, his edition of Comus sent to HW, i 381 n.
Lecluse, Charles (Clusius), HW meets, i 12;
  gives HW a letter to Pinelli, 18;
  letters from, 246, 297;
  letter to, 255 n;
  letters sent to address of, 266.
Lee, Mr. Sidney, his life of HW in D. N. B., i xiii, 131 n, ii 456.
Leeds Castle, ii 390 n.
Leek, Sir Francis, ii 328 n.
Leek, Lady, marries Sir Gervase Clifton, ii 328 n.
Leete, Giles, ii 471.
Leete, Margaret, ii 471.
Leete, William, HW’s steward (1616), i 145 n;
  arrest of, 161, ii 144-5;
  death of, i 179, ii 219;
  note on, ii 471;
  letters from, quoted, i 58, ii 144 n, 145 n, 157 n, 469-70, 480.
Leghorn, HW visits, i 289;
  Cecil writes to English merchants at, about HW, i 69, 328 n;
  the Merchant Royal at, 338 n;
  English priest at, 387-8.
Legnano, i 436 n.
Leicester, Robert Dudley, 1st E. of, i 238, 259, 263, 373 n.
Leiden. See Leyden.
Leigh, HW sails from, (1589) i 10, 228-9.
Leith, HW at, i 42 n, ii 252 n.
Leman Lake, the, ii 95.
Lemberg, Bp. of, ii 98.
Lemos, Count of, Viceroy of Sicily, i 369, ii 482.
Lenk, Johann Baptist, agent in Venice for Protestant Union, i 99, 480 n.
Lennox, 2nd D. of. See Richmond.
Lennox, Esmé Stuart, 3rd D. of, ii 336 n.
Lenoncourt, Philippe de, Card., i 296 n.
Lentulo, Paolo, writes to HW, i 304, 305.
Lentulo, Scipione, i 300, 304 n.
Leo XI, Pope, i 325 n, 329, 333, ii 491.
Leon, M. de. See Bruslart.
Leopold, Archduke, driven from Juliers, i 135;
  HW visits, (1620) 193, ii 182, 184-7, 203;
  Governor of the Tyrol, i 180;
  attacks Grisons, ii 245.
Leopoli. See Lemberg.
Lepanto, battle of, i 52, ii 133, 141, 155.
Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius, ii 395.
Lepington. See Monmouth.
Lerma, Duke of, i 148, 355 n, 369, 385 n.
Lesdiguières, Duc de, ii 26.
Le Sieur, Sir Stephen, English envoy to Florence (1608), i 387 n, 415, 434, 445.
Lesina, ii 112, 463.
Lesina, Bishop of, ii 159 n.
Leukonar. See Lewknor.
Levant, the, i 73, 150, 414, ii 108, 111, 197, 471.
Levant Company, the English, i 72.
Levenstein, Countess of (Elizabeth Dudley), ii 91, 324, 349.
Levi, Signora Eugenia, i 398.
Levistain. See Levenstein.
Lewes, ii 360-1, 500 n.
Lewknor, Sir Lewis, ii 85.
Leyden, HW at, i 26;
  — 25, 246 n, ii 70 n, 79, 324, 326, 349.
Lichefield. See Lichfield.
Lichfield, Edward, imprisoned at Bologna, i 456;
  becomes Jesuit, i 457 n.
Lichtenstein, John Septimius Freiherr von, i 262, 263 n.
Licklama, ——, visits HW with Barneveldt, ii 71.
Liefland, i 270.
Liège, i 192;
  Mary Ward’s order at, ii 283.
Ligorno. See Leghorn.
Limerick, i 310 n.
Lincoln, Bp. of. See Williams.
Lincolnshire, ii 318;
  salt marshes in, granted to HW, ii 105 n, 130 n.
Lindsay, Bernard, ii 215;
  informs James VI of HW’s arrival, i 41.
Lindsay, David, i 41 n.
Lindsay, Sir James, sent by James I to Rome, i 320-2, 333;
  his letter about HW, 321 n.
Lindsay, Jeremy, i 41 n.
Lindsay, Thomas, ii 215.
Lingelsheim, George, acquaintance of HW’s at Heidelberg, i 300;
  letter about HW, 428 n.
Lintz, HW meets Kepler at, i 171, ii 205;
  — i 244, ii 188, 190.
Lio, Roberto, Venetian resident in Florence, i 392.
Lionello, Ven. Sec. in England, his report about HW, i 158-9, 163;
  invites HW and Lady Arundel to Collegio, 187.
Lions. See Lyons.
Lipsius, Justus, i 11.
Liques, David de, brings HW letter from Duplessis-Mornay, i 92, 436 n.
Lisbon, ii 255.
Lisle, Visct., ii 58 n.
Lister, Lawrence, elected from Eton to King’s College, ii 350.
Lister, Sir Matthew, accompanies Lord Cranborne to Italy, i 501;
  letters of, quoted, 501 n.
Lister, Sir Wm., ii 350 n.
Litton. See Lytton.
Livy, quoted, ii 370, 375 n.
Llanfihangel, Anglesea, ii 480.
Lloyd, David, ii 466.
Locke, John, i 87.
Lodes, M. de, ii 5.
Loire, the, i 502.
Lomax, Mr., tutor to Lord St. John, i 428, ii 473.
Lombard, Peter, Primate of Ireland, i 334, 429-30.
Lombardelli, Orazio, of Siena, writes book to help Wotton in his study of Italian, i 22, ii 484.
Lombards, the, i 196.
Lombardy, HW in, (1593) i 297, (1611) i 503 n;
  — i 70 n, 326, 433, ii 26, 128, 131, 246.
London, HW in, (1589) i 227-9, (1594-1600) 29-30, 34, 306, 310, (1604) 45, (1611-14) 116-9, 124, 145, ii 7-41, (1616) 87, (1623-4) i 192, 201, (1625-39) 210, 212, ii 320, 337, 342, 345, 350-2, 355, 357, 407, 469;
  Bishop of, see Ravis, Juxon;
  Corporation of, 343;
  — i 32, 105 n, 284 n, 297, 302 n, 319 n, 320 n, 331, 363, 408, 415, 452, 491, 492 n, 496, 498 n, ii 11, 16, 20, 22, 32, 76 n, 78 n, 81, 92, 120, 255, 264, 287 n, 288, 303, 306, 312, 321, 327, 331, 353, 374-5, 378-9, 383 n, 388, 391, 394, 401, 403, 408-9, 492.
  Abchurch Lane, i 232, 235;
  Bankside, the, ii 32-3;
  Bishopsgate Street, 393;
  Black Friars, i 118 n;
  Bow Lane, 227-8;
  Bridewell, ii 14;
  Chancery Lane, 369 n;
  Charing Cross, 27;
  Cheapside, 468;
  Clink Prison, i 30;
  Essex House, 32 n, ii 492 n;
  Exchange, the, 490;
  Fleet Prison, 22-3, 28, 461-2;
  Fleet Street, 369 n;
  Friday Street, i 380 n;
  Gatehouse, the, ii 351, 463;
  Globe Theatre, burning of, described by HW, i 131, ii 32-3;
  Green Dragon, the, Bishopsgate Street, 393;
  Haymarket, 340 n;
  Hyde Park, 340;
  Inner Temple, 476;
  Kensington, 339;
  King Street, 296;
  HW’s lodgings in, i 117, ii 14, 85-6;
  Knightsbridge, 340;
  Lambeth Palace, i 149, ii 285 n;
  Lincoln’s Inn, i 338 n;
  Lombard Street, ii 346, 407;
  Marshalsea, 28;
  Medleys’, 306-7;
  Middle Temple, 480;
  HW enters, i 29;
  Newgate, 231;
  Panton Street, ii 340 n;
  Piccadilly Hall, 340;
  Prince of Orange Inn, 340;
  Public Record Office, MS. of HW in, i vi, xiv;
  MSS. in, 39, 57, 65, 217, 231 n;
  Read Cross Street, see Red Cross;
  Red Cross Street, 227;
  Rolls, the, ii 319, 337;
  St. Bartholomew’s, 44, 343;
  St. Martin’s Lane, 353;
  HW’s lodgings in, 27, 336-7, 342;
  HW arrested in, 351;
  St. Paul’s, 249, 378;
  St. Paul’s, Dean of, see Donne;
  Savoy, the, De Dominis Master of, i 149;
  HW asks for Mastership of, 205, 221, ii 397;
  Shoe Lane, 345;
  Snow Hill, 365;
  Somerset House, HW’s will in, i 219 n;
  Southwark, ii 343;
  Spring Gardens, 339;
  Star Chamber, the, 23;
  Strand, the, ii 407;
  Tower, the, i 120, 189, ii 19, 21, 23-4, 28, 38, 39 n, 169 n, 341, 379 n, 403;
  Wallingford House, 316, 351;
  — Westminster, i 117, ii 8, 14, 290, 292, 320, 351;
  St. Margaret’s, 462, 465;
  Westminster Hall, 490;
  Westminster School, 303, 330;
  Whitefriars, 13;
  Whitehall, i 117, 124 n, 210, 469 n, ii 30, 35, 292, 464;
  York House, 204 n.
Londonderry, ii 343 n.
Lopez, Roderigo, supposed plot of, ii 456.
Loredan, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Loredano, Abbot of Vangadizza, i 446.
Loretto, i 287, 418, 477, ii 250 n, 269.
Lorkin, Thomas, letters of, ii 47 n, 129 n.
Lorne, Lord, i 189 n.
Lorraine, HW travels through, (1604) i 320, (1620) ii 182-5;
  Louis, Cardinal of, i 256 n;
  Charles III, D. of, 381 n;
  Charles IV, ii 395;
  Christine of, 299;
  Henri II, D. of, HW visits, 182-5;
  Princess Nicole of, 183;
  René II, D. of, 182 n;
  — i 40, 208 n, 365 n, 372, ii 246 n.
Lotich, Johann Peter, poems of, at Eton, i 165 n.
Lotich, Peter, 165 n.
Lotto, Tuscan agent in England, i 388 n.
Louis V, Emperor, ii 168, 176.
Louis XIII, K. of France, his legitimacy, i 353 n;
  his marriage, ii 4 n, 52;
  HW received by, i 116, 502;
  and Juliers-Cleves controversy, ii 42, 45, 47, 52, 54-5;
  proposed promise to, about treaty of Xanten, i 141-2, ii 74 n, 78 n, 80;
  suggested omission of his name, i 141-2, ii 82-3, 84 n;
  sends ambassadors to Vienna, i 169, 172, 191 n;
  and Valtelline, 179-80, 192, ii 216, 239, 244, 246, 268, 271;
  engagement with Savoy and Venice, 227-8, 244 n, 251, 259;
  league with, 244 n, 265-6;
  war with England, 303, 313, 323;
  — 105, 113, 245 n, 339 n, 359, 395, 399 n.
Louis XIV, birth of, ii 390 n.
Louisa Juliana, wife of Frederick IV, Palatine Elector, ii 89 n, 90.
Louvain, i 145, ii 92-3, 110.
Lovan. See Louvain.
Lovelace, ——, milliner, i 508.
Lovell, Lady, i 445-6, ii 224.
Lovell, Sir Robert, i 445 n, 446.
Lover’s Progress, John Fletcher, ii 275 n.
Low Countries, HW travels through, (1594) i 25, 298, (1612) 123;
  his acquaintances in, 301;
  the sovereignty of, 416;
  HW’s Discourse on, ii 414;
  see United Provinces;
  — i ix, 10, 43 n, 58, 63, 152, 154, 245, 284, 297, 316, 320, 326, 346, 381, 441 n, ii 160, 176, 193, 224, 343, 368, 399 n, 455, 498.
Low Provinces. See Low Countries.
Loyola, Ignatius, canonization of, ii 212.
Lucan, quoted, ii 200, 206.
Lucca, MSS. at, i vi, 34-5, 36 n, 401 n, 402 n;
  HW visits, (1592) 289;
  the Republic of, attempts to kill Salvetti, 35-6, 39;
  negotiates with HW for kidnapping of Salvetti, i 39, 67, 401-3, ii 478;
  — i 280, 380, 465, 471, 495.
Lucchezini, Jacopo, Lucchese assassin sent to Paris to murder Salvetti, i 36.
Lucilius, ii 324.
Lucky Elizabeth, the, i 321 n.
Ludlow Castle, ii 381 n.
Ludovisio, Alessandro, Cardinal. See Gregory XV.
Ludovisio, Ludovico, Cardinal, ii 226, 235 n, 268, 273, 276, 372.
Lumley, Percival, mutineer, ii 153 n.
Luniburge, letters dated at, ii 3, 4.
Luther, Sarpi compared with, i 191, 400, ii 260;
  HW’s proposed life of, i 205;
  his Table Talk, ii 463.
Lutherans. See Religion.
Luynes, Duc de, ii 113 n.
Luzzati, Isaaco, HW hires furniture from, i 501 n, 502.
Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts, i 396 n.
Lyon, Anne, HW’s examination of, i 209, ii 290-3, 295-6.
Lyon, Sir Thomas, land of Auldbar, Master of Glamis, ii 290-2, 295.
Lyons, HW at, (1601) i 36. (1612) 120, ii 1 n, 3-5;
  — i 245, 253 n, 373 n, 381, 453, ii 251, 475.
Lyster. See Lister.
Lythe. See Leith.
Lytton, Sir Rowland, i 477.
Lytton, Sir William, in Italy, 477-8, ii 476.
 
Maas, the, i 245 n, ii 84, 345.
Mac Cowley, Ever, i 34.
Mac Giure, i 34.
Mac Gonnis, Carmoc, i 34.
Machiavelli, i 281, 291 n, ii 491 n.
McMahon, Con McColl, i 308 n.
McMahons, the, i 308.
Macrobius. See Marcombes.
Madre de Dios, captured by Raleigh’s fleet, i 295.
Madrid, i 181, ii 210;
  treaty of, (1617) i 152, ii 121 n, 239;
  treaty of, (1621) i 179-80, ii 214, 221;
  treaty of, (1630) ii 313 n.
Madruzzi, Card., i 278, ii 94.
Maese. See Maas.
Maestricht, ii 320, 341 n.
Magellan Straits, the, ii 346.
Maggio, Sig., secretary to French ambassador, ii 105.
Maguire, Sir Hugh, i 308 n.
Maguires, the, i 308.
Mahomet, i 231, ii 495.
Mainwaring, Sir Henry, ii 146 n;
  letter about poem of HW, i 170;
  in Venice, ii 161 n;
  carries letter to Zouche, 161-2;
  note on, 471-2.
Malamocco, i 397.
Malcontents, the, i 230.
Malipiero, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Mallary, Thomas, HW meets in Stade, i 230.
Malta, ii 498.
Maltravers, Lord, HW presents to Doge, ii 240;
  death of, ii 240 n.
Manchester, Henry Montague, 1st E. of, i 351 n.
Mancicidor, Don Juan de, ii 65.
Manfredi, Fulgenzio, preacher against Papacy, i 448;
  flies to Rome, 443, ii 229;
  arrested, i 488;
  burnt for heresy, 448 n, 496;
  mention of, in Table Talk, ii 490, 496-7.
Mango, lutes of, ii 119.
Mani, Marc’ Antonio, HW addressed as, i 442 n.
Manilius, quoted, ii 189.
Mannering (George?), in service of Sir A. Sherley, i 242.
Mannheim, ii 248.
Mansfeld, Count Charles, i 229.
Mansfeld, Count Ernest, in Upper Palatinate, i 181;
  appointed General of Venetian troops, 182, ii 227, 238;
  Frederick V joins, 237 n;
  dismisses, i 183;
  reported defeat of, ii 246;
  enters Dutch service, 246 n;
  goes to France, 276;
  — i 175 n, ii 180 n, 223, 248, 251 n, 273.
Mansfeld, Count Peter Ernest, i 229 n.
Mansfield, Sir Robert. See Mansell.
Mansell, Sir Robert, arrest and trial of, ii 27-31.
Manso, J., Baptist, i 20.
Mantua, i 60, 144, 287, 355, 423, 426, ii 158, 210 n, 271, 476-7, 494;
  — Vincenzo I, D. of, i 342, 355 n, ii 26, 271;
  Francesco V, i 426, ii 26;
  Ferdinando I, 26, 104 n, 269-71;
  Vincenzo II, 103 n;
  Charles (Duc de Nevers), i 441, ii 246;
  Catherine, Duchess of, 269-71;
  Margaret, Princess of, i 426, ii 26.
Mantuan succession, war of, ii 318-9, 331.
Mar, John, 7th E. of, i 41 n, 335 n.
Marano, ii 131.
Marca d’Ancona, ii 246.
Marcello, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Marchesini, Giovanni Francesco, Venetian resident in Milan, i 504 n.
Marck, ii 56-7.
Marcombes, M., tutor to Lord Cork’s sons, ii 356-9.
Maria, Infanta of Spain, proposed marriage to Charles I. See Charles I.
Maria Madelina, sister of Ferdinand II, her marriage to Prince Cosmo of Tuscany, i 426, 434, ii 496.
Marie de’ Medici, Q. of France, her marriage to Henry IV, i 36, 294 n;
  HW received by, 116, 502;
  anxious for peace (1616), 148;
  influence on Paul V, ii 106-7;
  escapes to the Hague, 390;
  comes to England, 390 n;
  her manifesto, 399;
  — i 125, 294, ii 26, 47, 84 n, 113 n.
Marlborough, ii 3 n.
Marne, the, ii 182.
Marseilles, i 289, ii 251, 382.
Marsiglio, Giovanni, i 95, 449 n.
Marsilia. See Marseilles.
Marston Moor, battle of, ii 340 n.
Marta, Dr., ii 101 n;
  plan for sending Greek bishops to England, 97-9;
  HW pays, 141;
  biographical note, 472-3;
  letters of, 104 n.
Martha, the, HW sends pictures from Venice by, i 419.
Martial, quoted, i 313, 490, ii 201.
Martin, Richard, introduces Coryate to HW, i 60 n.
Martinengo, ii 213.
Martinitz, Jaroslav von, ‘defenestration’ of, at Prague, i 160, ii 158 n;
  goes to Passau, 197, 199.
Marvell, Andrew, i 224.
Mary I, Q. of England, i 2, 46 n.
Mary Q. of Scots, i 13, 24, ii 169, 182 n, 455, 482.
Mary of Guise, ii 182 n.
Mason, ——, ii, 336.
Mason, Charles, scholar of King’s College, ii 331 n.
Massa, Daniele da, Lucchese spy, i 37 n, 38 n, 39, ii 481.
Massaciucioli, M., HW’s letters to, ii 424-5.
Massinger, Philip, ii 10 n, 333 n.
Matthew, Tobie, Archbishop of York, i 395 n, 396.
Matthew, Sir Tobie, becomes Roman Catholic, i 395-6;
  in Florence, 434-5;
  goes to Spain, 477;
  at Wesel, ii 58.
Matthias, Archduke, afterwards Emperor, at Vienna (1590), i 244-5, 268 n, 270;
  quarrels with Rudolf II, 417, 507;
  becomes Emperor, ii 6 n;
  reported death of, 45;
  proposed promise to, about treaty of Xanten, i 141, ii 65, 82 n;
  sends envoy to Xanten, 58;
  his anxiety for peace, i 148;
  HW appointed ambassador to, ii 165;
  appointment cancelled, 165 n;
  death, i 167, ii 45 n, 140 n, 166, 168 n, i 148;
  — ii 15-6, 45 n, 48 n, 94.
Mattioli, Pietro Andrea, his Dioscoride, i 217, ii 486.
Maurice, Count, of Nassau. See Orange.
Maurier, Aubrey du, French ambassador at the Hague, HW’s negotiations with, i 136, ii 44, 49, 71, 82-4;
  goes to arrange truce, 50-1;
  joins HW at Wesel, 53;
  at Xanten, 55;
  leaves Xanten, 61.
Maurier, Louis Aubery du, ii 44 n.
Maurolico, Francesco, his Cosmographia, ii 486.
Mawe, game of, i 273.
Maximilian I, Emperor, i 266, ii 496.
Maximilian II, Emperor, i 244 n, 246 n, 247 n, 249 n, 253, 267.
Maximilian I, D. of Bavaria, Frederick V visits, ii 140, 175;
  HW visits, (1619) i 165, ii 174-6;
  HW accredited to, (1620) 188, 190, 197;
  invades Upper Austria, i 171, ii 205 n, 209;
  Bohemia, i 168, 173;
  HW visits, i 174-6, ii 207-9, 231;
  transference of Electorate to, i 168, 175, 183, ii 223 n, 224-5;
  — i ix, 135, ii 193, 348.
Maximilian, Archduke, i 249, 251, 260, 263, 268 n;
  visits Rome, 276-8;
  Governor of the Tyrol, 395.
Mayenne, Duc de, General of the forces of the League, i 245, 283.
Mayerne, Sir Theodore Turquet de, ii 66, 464.
Mayn. See Mayenne.
Mead, Joseph, letter of, ii 300 n.
Meath, Bishop of. See Jones.
Meautys, Anne, ii 204 n.
Meautys, Henry, ii 204 n.
Meautys, John, with HW, (1620) i 170 n, ii 207.
Meautys, Sir Thomas, ii 204.
Mechelen. See Mechlin.
Mechlin, ii 389, 391.
Mecklenburg, Duke of, restored by Gustavus Adolphus, ii 331.
Medici, Don Giovanni de’, i 316.
Medici, Isabella de’, Duchess of Bracciano, i 285 n.
Medici, Don Pietro de’, i 296.
Mediterranean, England as force in, i 154.
Medouse, Jacob, Englishman at Heidelberg, i 300;
  Casaubon writes to, about HW, 302-3.
Mei, Fabrizio, Lucchese spy, i 123 n.
Melanchthon, HW compares Sarpi to, i 191, 400, ii 260.
Memmo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Memmo, Marc’ Antonio, Doge, XCI, i 344, ii 135 n, 137.
Mendouir. See Mendoza.
Mendoza, Cardinal, i 291 n, 292.
Mentz, ii 31, 185 n.
Menzo, the, ii 128.
Meppen, capture of, ii 401.
Mercerius. See Mercier.
Merchant Royal, the, English ship in Tuscan service, i 338 n, 387 n.
Mercier, Jean, i 237 n.
Mercier des Bordes, Josias, HW entertains at Oxford, i 234, 237;
  meets at Heidelberg, 237.
Merzena, i 288.
Meshanski. See Martinitz.
Mespelbronn, Julius Echter von, i 245 n.
Messina, Straits of, i 387 n.
Miani, Marco, ii 262.
Micanzio, Fulgentio, or Fulgenzio, Fra, reads scriptures with Bedell, i 87, 399 n;
  Bedell declares to be a Protestant, 88;
  helps translate Premonition, 466;
  preaches Protestant doctrines, 98, 102, 219 n, 447-9, 481, ii 178;
  Paul V’s remark about, i 451-2;
  letter to De Dominis, ii 252 n;
  present at death of Sarpi, 259-60;
  writes Sarpi’s life, i 150, ii 478;
  portraits of, in England, 479;
  — i 91, 444 n, 496 n, ii 99, 100 n, 101, 171 n.
Michael Angelo da Buonarroti, i 198.
Michiel, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Michiel, Maffio, Governor of Zante, executes English pirates, i 322 n.
Middleborough, i 232, ii 388 n.
Middlesex, Lionel Cranfield, 1st E. of, Lord Treasurer, HW sends Elements of Architecture to, i 199, ii 285;
  letter to, 285, 449;
  — i 201 n, ii 230 n, 243 n, 357.
Middleton, Robert, ii 73 n, 74, 77-8.
Middleton, Thomas, his Game of Chess, i 201.
Milan, HW in, (1593) i 22, 290, 297, 300, (1611) 114, 503-5, (1612) 122-3;
  HW’s spies in, 65, 359, 372;
  Rowland Woodward sent to, 325-8, 394, ii 481;
  Tyrone in, i 70, 417 n, 418, 421, 429;
  Charles Bushy arrested in, 399 n, 404, ii 478;
  proposed attack on, i 107, 113, 482, 487, 490;
  Inquisition in, 327, 399 n, 404, ii 462;
  S. Fidele, Jesuit College, i 161, ii 114-7;
  Dukes of, 498;
  Governors of, see Fuentes, Toledo, Castile, Feria;
  — i 17, 50, 101, 151, 180, 372, 395, ii 26, 103 n, 109, 115-7, 120, 124 n, 149, 153, 213, 221, 246, 255, 271, 320, 345, 480.
Milanese, the. See Milan.
Milain. See Milan.
Milborne, Cuthbert, in HW’s service, ii 59-60, 82.
Miller, Abraham, English adventurer in Vienna, i 270-1.
Milton, John, sends Comus to HW, i 220, ii 381, 382 n;
  visits HW, i 220;
  HW’s letter to, 22, 220-1, ii 381-3, 453, 465;
  in Italy, i 18, 20;
  at Geneva, 480 n;
  Early Poems, 197;
  Lycidas, ii 381 n;
  Ode to Rouse, 381 n;
  Comus, HW criticizes, i 220, ii 381;
  Defensio Secunda, i 220, ii 383 n;
  — i 18, 20.
Minn, Capt., ii 50.
Mirafiore, villa near Turin, i 121-2.
Mirandola, Pico, i 264.
Mnisck, Francesco, Count of, ii 98.
Mocenigo, family of, i 449, ii 135 n.
Mocenigo, Agostino, ii 492.
Mocenigo, Giovanni, Venetian Ambassador at Rome (1601), i 38, 411-2, 465.
Mocenigo, Leonardo, Bp. of Ceneda, i 449.
Mocenigo, Leonardo, exile of, ii 127-9, 142.
Modena, i 60, 223, 296;
  Dukes of, ii 498;
  Alfonzo d’Este, D. of, i 426, 475;
  HW’s letter to, ii 421.
Moldavia, i 437, ii 414.
  See Bogdan.
Mole, John, tutor of Lord Roos, HW writes to, i 428;
  imprisoned in Rome, 71, 439 n, 439-40, 456, ii 111;
  HW’s attempts to procure release of, i 161, 442, 508, ii, 126-7, 256-7;
  biographical note, ii 473.
Molin, ——, ii 498.
Molin, Nicolò, Venetian Ambassador in England, informed by Cecil that HW has been appointed ambassador to Venice, 45;
  conducts negotiations about piracy, 73;
  about trade, 323 n, 403;
  returns to Venice, 323 n, 346;
  his opinion of English soldiers, 153;
  — i 319, 331, 433 n, 506 n.
Molsheim, ii 187 n;
  HW at, 184.
Moluccas, the, i 153, ii 76.
Moluceos. See Moluccas.
Mondovi, ii 106.
Mondovio, Card., i 296.
Monjoy, Barony of, ii 57.
Monkshorton, Kent, ii 478.
Monmouth, Robert Carey, 1st E. of (Lord Leppington), ii 286 n, 287.
Monplaisir, M de, sent by Prince de Joinville to Venice, i 431.
Montague, Lady Mary Wortley, her palace in Venice, i 184;
  quarrels with English envoy, 190.
Montague, Richard, Bp. of Chichester, ii 304 n.
Montague, Walter, ii 339.
Montalto, Alessandro Peretti, Card. of, i 274, 429, ii 272.
Montauto, Count Asdrubale di, Tuscan resident at Venice, his character, and relations with HW and other envoys in Venice, i 62-3, 494 n, 498 n, ii 471;
  secret gift of money to HW, i 63, 338 n, 389 n;
  HW negotiates with, 387 n;
  HW remonstrates with, about English galley-slaves in Tuscan fleet, i 68 n;
  his doubts about HW, 69;
  letters of, xi, 374 n, 388 n, 389 n, 494 n, 498 n, ii 471;
  — i 40 n, 63 n, 392, 408, 437 n.
Monte Feltre, ii 272.
Monte Fiascone, Bp. of, Papal Nuncio at Venice, ii 212, 217-8, 232-3, 242, 271.
Monte Marciano, D. of, i 286.
Monte Oliveto, HW at, ii 379.
Monteagle, Wm., 4th Baron, ii 489.
Montecchio, the, fort erected by Fuentes on, i 236 n, 237 n.
Montelparo, Cardinal, i 274.
Montferrat, i 441 n, ii 499;
  war of, ii 144, ii 25-6, 94 n, 477.
Montfilan, Daniel de, ii 119 n.
Montfort, Simon de, ii 500.
Montgomery, E. of. See Pembroke.
Monti, Gregorio de’, Italian Secretary to HW, (1604) i 48 n, 491, 498, (1616) 149, ii 145 n, 154, 472, (1621) i 177;
  to Carleton, ii 105, 160, 172, 219;
  left in charge at Venice, (1619) i 163, ii 160, 172;
  his pay, 105;
  testimonial from James I to, 172;
  his death, i 179, ii 219, 221;
  biographical note, ii 473-4.
Moore, ——, English captain, meets the pirate Ward, i 415.
Moore, Mr., ii 87, 101.
Moravia, i 166, 286, 414, 417, 507 n, ii 180 n, 198, 306.
Moray, Earl of, killed by Lord Huntley, i 285 n.
Moresini, the, attacked by English pirates, i 322 n.
Morgan, Marmaduke, mutineer, hanging of, ii 153 n.
Morgan, Thomas, ii 455.
Morisini. See Morosini.
Mormillian, ii 5.
Moro, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Morosini, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Morosini, Andrea, ii 1;
  meetings at palace of, i 77;
  his History of Venice, ii 484.
Morosini, Michael, Doge, ii 135 n.
Morosini, Signor, ambassador at the Hague, ii 275.
Morrison, Alfred, MSS. in possession of, ii 114.
Morton, Sir Albertus, parentage, i 241;
  accompanies HW to Venice, 48;
  sent to England, 457;
  HW introduces to Prince Henry, 459;
  to Salisbury, 460;
  Sir J. Harington describes, 459 n;
  brings copies of Premonition, 466;
  leaves Venice, 114;
  sent by HW from Paris, 503-5;
  goes to Cambridge, 118 n;
  to Turin with HW, 120;
  sent to England, 122, ii 6-7;
  returns, i 123;
  accident to, ii 27, 29;
  agent at Turin, i 146, ii 95 n, 477;
  accepts pension from D. of Savoy, i 131, 132 n;
  in favour with Buckingham, ii 294;
  Clerk of Council, i 131 n, ii 30;
  at the Hague, 83;
  agent to Union, and secretary to Elizabeth, i 145, ii 91 n, 94, 294 n;
  wishes to be Provost of Eton, i 199;
  appointed secretary, 209, ii 167 n, 286 n, 303 n;
  goes to Paris and the Hague, 286 n;
  death of, i 33 n, 209, ii 288, 294, 311-2, 405;
  HW’s poem on, i 33 n, 209, ii 415;
  letters of, 476-7;
  HW’s letters to, 264-5, 286-7, 448-9;
  biographical note, 474-6;
  — i 500 n, ii 32, 64 n, 118 n, 236, 399 n.
Morton, Albertus, junr., executor of HW’s will, i 216, ii 409.
Morton, Elizabeth, wife of Sir Albertus, ii 475;
  HW’s epigram on, i 209, ii 311, 415.
Morton, George, HW’s half-brother, i 241, ii 474.
Morton, Mary, wife of George Morton, i 241.
Morton, Robert, 1st husband of Eleanor Wotton, i 3, ii 474.
Morton, Sir Robert, i 216, ii 64, 409.
Morton, Sir Thomas, ii 399, 403.
Moryson, Fynes, his Itinerary and Shakespeare’s Europe, i 10;
  quoted, 17, 230 n, 233 n, 234 n, 236 n, 244 n, 279 n, 294 n.
Moryson, Sir Richard, i 47 n.
Moscovia. See Muscovy.
Mose, the. See Maas.
Moseley, Humphrey, printer of Milton’s Poems, ii 383 n.
Moselle, the, ii 281.
Mote, the, HW visits Lord Finch at, ii 390.
Motley, J. L., i 139.
Moulin, Mons., ii 492.
Mountford, Dr., ii 476.
Mountford, Osbert, carries HW’s dispatches to England, ii 43;
  drowning of, 61, 67;
  letter of, 43 n;
  note on, 476.
Moyle, Anne, mother of Sir A. Sherley, i 37 n.
Moyle, Catherine, i 37 n.
Mülheim, ii 65 n.
Mulzhaim. See Molsheim.
Munich, ii 224 n;
  HW at, (1619) i 165, ii 173-6, (1620) i 175-6, ii 207 n.
Murano, i 59, 188, 316 n, ii 119, 138, 235.
Murray, Sir David, ii 50;
  letter of HW to, i 427, ii 427.
Murray, Sir Thomas, Provost of Eton, i 199, ii 397 n;
  letter of HW to, 437.
Muscorno, Giulio, brings charges against Foscarini, i 183;
  imprisonment of, 184.
Muscovy, i 54, 270;
  Emperor of, ii 98.
Mustafa, Sultan, ii 239.
Mynne, Sir Henry, ii 50.
 
Nancy, ii 184.
Nani, Agostino, Venetian ambassador in Rome, i 349, ii 495;
  candidate for
Dogeship, (1618) ii 134, 136-9, 142, (1623) 278.
Nanton. See Naunton.
Naples, HW visits, i 19-20, 271-2, 276, 300;
  Tasso at, 20;
  George Rooke sent to, 69, 325, 328-9, ii 478;
  naval preparations at, i 155, ii 170 n;
  Viceroy of, see Ossuna;
  — i 17, 50, 148, 152, 157, 178, 239 n, 440, 470 n, 449 n, 488, ii 127 n, 142, 494-5.
Nasuf Bassa, ii 15-6.
Nassau, Count Henry of. See Orange.
Nassau, Count John Ernest of, serves Charles Emmanuel, ii 79 n, 111 n;
  brings Dutch troops to Venice, i 153, ii 111, 113 n;
  HW’s praise of, 111 n.
Nassau, Count Maurice of. See Orange.
Nassau, Count William Louis of, ii 46, 47 n, 51.
Nassau-Dietz, Ernest Casimir, Count of, ii 51 n;
  Countess of, 51.
Naunton, Sir Robert, appointed secretary, ii 122 n, 143;
  HW’s letters to, i 164, 178, ii 143-8, 151-3, 155-7, 159-61, 165-73, 193-200, 212, 441-5, 462;
  De’ Monti to, ii 474;
  letters of, ii 150 n, 156, 161, 165, 196, 201-2;
  — ii 166, 181, 190, 201.
Navarre, i 65 n.
Neapolitans, character of, ii 99.
Negri, Pietro, Venetian criminal, i 427 n.
Neile, Richard, Archbishop of York, i 132.
Nepos, Cornelius, quoted, ii 408.
Neptune, ii 162, 235. See Nettuno.
Nervesa, Abbot of. See Brandolin.
Netherlands, Spanish, i 230 n, 316 n, 326, 416, ii 344, 345 n, 389 n, 414, 456;
  Rulers, see Albert, Isabella, Ferdinand;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors.
Nethersole, Sir Francis, English agent at Prague, ii 191, 194, 202, 390, 470;
  letter to, i 210 n.
Netterville, Visct., ii 336 n.
Nettlestead, i 456.
Nettuno, HW at, i 272.
Neuburg, Philip Louis, Count Palatine of, HW wishes to visit, i 454;
  claims Juliers-Cleves inheritance, 135;
  death of, ii 55.
Neuburg, Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of, and Juliers-Cleves, inheritance, i 135, 138-9, ii 48, 50 n, 54-7, 65, 77;
  letters intercepted, 52;
  visits HW with Spinola, 54;
  signs treaty, 59, 61-2;
  writes to James I, 67, 69;
  HW’s letter to, ii 59, 435.
Neuhaus, ii 215.
Neustadt, i 14, 251, 252 n.
Nevers, Charles, D. of. See Mantua.
Nevers, Louis, D. of, ii 497.
Nevil, Mr., at Siena, i 292-3.
Neville, Sir Christopher, ii 37-8.
Neville, Edmund, ii 87.
Neville, Sir Henry, i 125, ii 24.
Neville, Ralph, ii 499.
New England, ii 483.
Newbury, Humphrey, steward of, Windsor, ii 367-8.
Newcastle, i 270, ii 385 n.
Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, ii 2 n.
Newcastle, William Cavendish, 1st D. of, goes to Turin with HW, i 120, ii 2, 4.
Newmarket, i 70 n, ii 317.
Newmegen. See Nimeguen.
Newnham Paddox, seat of E. of Denbigh, picture at, i 60, ii 257 n.
Newport, i 338 n.
Newton, Mr., of New College, his description of HW, i 301 n.
Newton, Sir Adam, letter from Bedell to, i 90, ii 463;
  HW sends triaca to, i 427;
  HW’s letter to, ii 7, 433;
  — i 459, 497 n, ii 323.
Newtoni, Foggo. See Newton.
Nicholas. See Oudart.
Nicholas, V, Pope, ii 276.
Nicholas, Edward, ii 395 n.
Nicolson, George, English agent in Scotland, writes of HW’s arrival in Scotland, i 41.
Nimeguen, ii 46 n, 71.
Nisard, Charles, ii 479-80.
Nocera, i 432.
Nombre de Dios, Panama, ii 78.
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 4th D. of, i 259.
Normandy, i 245, ii 182.
Norremburghe. See Nuremberg.
Norris, Sir Thomas, puts price on head of Tyrone, i 491 n.
North, Mr., i 170.
North, Dudley, 3rd Baron, ii 17.
North, Sir Roger, ii 460.
Northampton, Lord Henry Howard, 1st E. of, ii 23, 41, 38-40.
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 1st E. of, ii 304 n.
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 8th E. of, i 238 n, 273.
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 9th E. of, i 2, 43 n.
Northumberland, Sir Robert Dudley made Duke of, i 373 n.
Norwich, ii 370 n;
  Bp. of, see Corbet.
Norwich, George Goring, E. of, ii 360 n.
Nottingham, Lord Charles Howard, 1st E. of, Lord High Admiral, ii 37;
  accepts money from pirates, i 73.
Nova Britannia. See Virginia.
Novara, i 490.
Noventa, ii 157 n;
  HW’s villa at, i 57, ii 102.
Nowel, Alexander, Dean of St. Paul’s, i 213.
Nuis. See Nys.
Nuremberg, i 12, 232, 250, 254, 256-61, 264, ii 169, 176-7, 193, 198.
Nys, Daniel, ii 258 n;
  employed by HW to collect pictures, ii 210.
 
Oath of Allegiance, the, i 455, 463.
O’Donnell, Hugh Roe, i 308 n.
O’Donnells, the, i 308.
Ofeley. See Offly.
Offly, Robert, merchant trading to Venice, i 408.
Offreddo, Monsignore, Papal Nuncio at Venice, HW’s relations with, i 60, 377-8;
  death of, 439.
Ogle, the barony of, ii 2.
Ogniate, Count of, Spanish ambassador at Vienna, quarrel with French ambassadors, ii 196, 197 n;
  HW visits, 203;
  — ii 225, 275.
Oldebare. See Auldbar.
Olinda, Brazil, ii 345.
Olivares, Count, Spanish ambassador in Rome, ii 496.
Oliver, Isaac, painter, i 118 n, 119 n.
O’Neill, Hugh. See Tyrone.
O’Neiles, the, i 308.
Oralois, i 310.
Orange, Frederick Henry, Prince of (Count Henry of Nassau), at marriage of Princess Elizabeth, i 125, ii 12;
  meets HW, i 136, ii 42;
  besieges Hertogenbosch, ii 320, 323, 327 n;
  — i 381, ii 31, 46, 84 n, 309, 311 n, 319 n, 325-6, 341.
Orange, Mary Princess of, daughter of Charles I, ii 312 n.
Orange, Maurice, Prince of (Count Maurice of Nassau), accompanies Princess Elizabeth, ii 31;
  general of Dutch armies, i 134;
  meets HW, 136, ii 42;
  message of James I to, 42 n;
  conducts campaign of 1614, i 137-8, ii 46-7;
  letter about HW 47 n, 48 n;
  remark about treaty of Xanten, i 141, ii 78;
  about German Princes, 68 n;
  HW negotiates with, ii 44, 74-5;
  credential letters sent to, 49;
  meets HW at Rees, 51;
  his desire for war, 52;
  HW visits, 54 n;
  his army described, 54 n;
  disagrees with Spinola, 62 n, 69 n;
  at siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, 248;
  — i ix, 125, ii 12, 50 n, 59, 72, 79, 82-3, 464.
Orange, William I, Prince of, ii 90 n, 491.
Orange, William II, Prince of, ii 312 n.
Orkney, Master of, i 41 n.
Orland, Henry, English priest, i 334.
Orleans, ii 4, 456, 492.
Ormuz, capture of, ii 247.
Orrery, Roger Boyle, 1st E. of (Lord Broghill), HW recommends tutor for foreign travel, ii 355-7;
  in France, 359-60.
Orsini, Leonora, marriage of, i 285.
Orsini, Paolo. See Bracciano.
Orsini, Don Virginio, i 434.
Osborn, Mr., i 245.
Osman, Sultan, ii 239.
Osroy, taken by Spinola, i 137.
Ossuna, D. of, Viceroy of Naples, fleet of, threatens Venice, i 148, 152, 154, ii 112-3, 121 n, 128 n, 140, 162, 171;
  fight with, 138, 140-1;
  connexion of, with plot of 1618, i 157, ii 142;
  conspiracy of, 239;
  recall of, i 178;
  — i 159, ii 156, 159, 471.
Ostend, the fall of, i 326 n, 336 n.
Ostia, i 272.
Otway, Thomas, his Venice Preserved, i 156.
Oudart, Nicholas, in service of HW, ii 384, 387-8, 394, 395-6, 398;
  goes to Mechlin, 389;
  writes to HW, 389 n, 391;
  returns, 392;
  — i 219 n, ii 398.
Overbury, Sir Nicholas, father of Sir Thomas, ii 24.
Overbury, Sir Thomas, arrest of, i 130-1, ii 19-22, 28-9;
  murder of, i 144, ii 102 n, 250 n;
  poem of HW, published in Wife of, i 130 n.
Ovid, quoted, ii 318, 324.
Owen, Hugh, Jesuit, ii 494.
Owen, Lewis, his Running Register, ii 482.
Owen, Sir Roger, i 132.
Oxford, HW at, i 5-6, 23, 57, 59, 225, 234, 237, ii 469;
  HW revisits, i 212, 222, ii 288;
  — 122 n, 330, 363, 375, 381 n, 382, 384, 402 n, 500.
  All Souls Coll., i 32 n, ii 276 n, 465;
  Balliol Coll., 476;
  Bodleian Library, MS. of HW in, i vi;
  HW’s presents to, 210, 339 n, ii 347;
  portraits in, i 1 n, 167, ii 479;
  librarian of, see Rouse;
  Brasenose Coll., ii 480;
  Corpus Christi Coll., i 5 n;
  MS. of HW in, vi, 10, 146 n, ii 413;
  Exeter Coll., 469;
  Hart Hall, 470;
  HW at, i 5, ii 461;
  Magdalen Coll., 480-1;
  Magdalen Hall, 471, 476;
  Merton Coll., i 438 n, ii 397 n, 465, 479;
  New Coll., HW at, i 5;
  leases Stanton St. John to HW, 32, 301-2;
  letter from Warden and Fellows of, 301 n;
  Queen’s Coll., 338 n;
  HW at, 5;
  MS. at, 63;
  St. Alban’s Hall, 375 n;
  St. John’s Coll., ii 236 n, 362 n.
Oxford, Edward de Vere, 17th E. of, builds house at Venice, ii 113 n.
Oxford, Henry, 18th E. of, ii 108 n;
  in Rome, 110, 111 n;
  in Venice, 113, 144;
  HW describes, 114, 119-20;
  HW presents to Doge, 113 n;
  wishes to raise troops for Venice, i 153, ii 119;
  at Padua, 124;
  death of, 110 n.
 
Pacius, Julius (Pacio de Beriga), Professor of Law at Heidelberg, i 255, 238.
Paddlesworth, Kent, ii 41 n.
Padovano, il. See Varotari.
Padua, HW visits, (1591-2) i 12, 18-9, 271, 298, ii 482, (1607) i 396, (1610) 114, 501, (1618) ii 153, 157, (1619) 165-6, 173, (1621) i 178, ii 219-21, (1622) i 182, ii 238 n;
  HW well known at, i 68;
  Bruno at, i 12;
  Galileo at, 486;
  J. Caesar killed at, 69, 410-2, 436 n, 450-1;
  English students at, 51, 57, 292 n, 396 n, 398 n, 410 n, ii 114 n;
  oath imposed on, 214;
  Erematana, i 397;
  S. Giustina, 197;
  Bishops of, 474, ii 245 n;
  — i 17, 276, 290-1, 343 n, 381, 397 n, 405, 412, 442, 454, 458, 478, 498 n, ii 98, 114, 124, 128, 138, 160, 233, 456, 471-2, 478, 484-5.
Paget, Charles, ii 455.
Pagliano. See Palliano.
Paiton. See Peyton.
Palatinate, the, scarcity in (1589), i 235;
  invasion of, (1620) 168, 174, 176, ii 185, 188, 195 n, 196, 203, 221, 335, 475;
  English forces in, 186;
  ban against, i 174, ii 196 n;
  James I negotiates for restitution of, i 181, ii 215 n, 222, 244;
  asks help of Venice, i 182, ii 227-8, 238-9, 265;
  restoration of, 345;
  — i 179, 231 n, 314 n, ii 55 n, 248, 281 n, 470.
Palatine Church, the, i 91, 98.
Palatine Elector. See Frederick IV, Frederick V, Charles Louis.
Palatine Electress. See Louisa, Elizabeth.
Palatine Electorate, transferred to Maximilian I, i 168, 175, 183, ii 233 n, 224-5, 226 n.
Palestine, ii 399.
Paliano. See Palliano.
Palladio, Andrea, i 18, 195-8;
  his theatre at Vicenza, ii 157;
  his Architettura, 486.
Palliano, D. of, i 21, 22 n, 298-9, ii 382.
Palliano, Duchess of, HW sends account of her death, i 298.
Palma, HW visits, i 499 n.
Palma, Giacobo, Giovane, i 419, ii 257.
Palotti, Card., i 276.
Pamphili, Giovanni. See Innocent X.
Panama, ii 78 n.
Paolo, Maestro. See Sarpi.
Papacy, the, book on revenues of, i 260;
  increased power of, 75;
  combinations against, 75, 76, 93-5;
  plans for attacking in Italy, 109, 161;
  relations of Venice with, 76, 77;
  conflict of with Venice, see Venice, Interdict;
  relations with Spain, ii 107, 208 n, 226.
Papillon, ——, in Venice, i 91-2.
Parckins, Wm. See Perkins.
Parde, Nicholas. See Pert.
Paris, besieged by Henry IV, i 16, 245 n, 254, 263;
  Wotton visits, (1595) 30, (1600) 36, (1603) 44, ii 481, (1611) 99, 116, 119, i 502-5;
  the Bastille, ii 245 n, 250 n, 340;
  — i 36 n, 112, 135, 314 n, 366 n, 372, 394-5, 476 n, 490, 498 n, ii 26, 44, 48, 84, 119 n, 266, 286 n, 339, 350 n, 359, 382, 456-7, 463, 465, 475-7, 480.
Paris, Matthew, ii 500.
Parkhurst, John, ii 476.
Parkhurst, William, in Venice with HW, i 48 n;
  sent to England, 1608, 420, 427 n;
  in England, 118 n;
  returns to Venice, 435 n;
  goes to Geneva, 131 n;
  biographical note, ii 476;
  — ii 466, 490.
Parkinson, John, mentions HW in his Paradisus, i 59.
Parliament, ‘the Mad,’ ii 36, 500;
  of 1606, i 463;
  of 1614, 132, ii 13, 36-9;
  of 1623, 295;
  of 1625, i 132, 208;
  of 1626, ii 293-5;
  of 1628, 307;
  of 1629, 317-9;
  — 18, 497-9.
Parma, ambassadors of. See Ambassadors.
Parma, Alexander Farnese, D. of, invades France, (1590) 16, 245, 254 n, (1592) 283;
  death of, 297, ii 491;
  — i 229 n, 231 n, 330 n.
Parrasio, Alessandro, attempts to assassinate Sarpi, i 404 n.
Parry, Henry, D.D., ii 252.
Parsons, Robert, writes about Sir A. Sherley, i 242 n;
  at Naples, 1604, his remarks to the Viceroy, 328-9;
  returns to Rome, 325;
  his activities there, 331-5;
  HW intercepts letter of, 375;
  — 100, 380 n, 430, 442 n, 465, ii 107.
Parsons, Sir Thomas, ii 18.
Partheridge. See Partridge.
Partridge, ——, HW’s sister, i 240-1.
Partridge, Edward, carries letters to England, i 346, 348;
  note on, ii 476.
Paruta, Paolo, historian of Venice, ii 484.
Parvis or Parvish, Henry, merchant trading to Venice, i 228, 237, 239, 288 n;
  factor of, at Cologne, 232.
Parvis, Henry, in Venice, i 283.
Parvis, Jacob, i 288 n.
Paschal, Charles, French envoy to Grisons, i 395.
Pasquall, of Bitonto, attempts to assassinate Sarpi, i 404 n.
Passau, ii 197, 199.
Passienus, Crispus, ii 253 n.
Pattison, Mark, letter of HW identified by, i 312;
  his Life of Casaubon, i xiv, 127-9.
Paul II, Pope, ii 498.
Paul IV, Pope, i 22, 298-9, ii 251 n, 276 n.
Paul V, Pope, election and character, i 78, 325 n, 329, 333, ii 161;
  regard for James I, i 334;
  quarrels with Venice, 77-85, 94, 103 n, 118, 128, 147, 182, 340-1, 346, 348-9, 356-7, 361-3, 366, 370-1, 374-82, 418-9, 439, 443, 447, 496 n, ii 79, 98, 128, 133, 136, 178, 238, 250, 278, 302, 371, 474, 487;
  excommunicates Republic, 346, 348;
  dismisses Venetian ambassador, 349;
  levies troops, 356;
  reported league with Catholic princes, 360;
  agrees to settlement, 384-7, 389-93;
  writes to Venice, 392 n;
  his breve, 399 n, 400;
  complains of HW, 95-6, 462;
  treatment of Sarpi’s assassins, 406-7, 440-2;
  purchases English ammunition, 408;
  denies safe-conduct to Lord Roos, 429;
  receives Tyrone, 430;
  new quarrels with Venice, 431, 441;
  sends Jubilee, 436;
  and number of Beast, 444 n;
  makes his nephew Abbot of Vangadizza, 98, 446;
  dispute about, 461, 468;
  reported saying about preaching the Scriptures, 98, 451-2, ii 496;
  censure of Premonition, i 102, 465, 467-9;
  remark about James I, 475;
  about HW’s quarrel with Venice, 106;
  Henry IV sends Deodati’s letter to, 98;
  and Savoy marriage, 122;
  and Juliers-Cleves controversy, ii 42;
  his spies, 101;
  and Savoy war, i 151, ii 103 n;
  reported change of policy, 109 n;
  and Marie de’ Medici, 106-7;
  and De Dominis, 110, 172;
  illness of, 108;
  and Ossuna, 159, 162;
  reported death of, 167-8;
  and election of Emperor, 168;
  and Professor Downes, 169;
  and Protestant seminaries, i 162;
  death of, 178, ii 208 n;
  mention of, in Table Talk, 495-7;
  — i 59, 69, 331, 399 n, 408, 410, 412, 415, 424, 432, 441, 445, 448-9, 456, 457 n, 463-4, 474, 476-7, 481-2, 487-9, 495, 500, 503, ii 66, 93, 97-8, 123, 127, 129, 149, 156, 158, 165, 170 n, 175, 178, 245 n, 472-3, 478.
Paulerspury, Northants, ii 288, 343 n, 481.
Paules. See London, St. Paul’s.
Paulet, Sir Amyas, ii 489.
Paulino, datario under Clement VIII, i 333-6;
  offers to procure banishment of Parsons, 335.
Pauls Perry. See Paulerspury.
Paz, Don Julian, chief archivist at Simancas, i 63 n.
Pechius. See Pecquius.
Pecquius, Peter, Chancellor of Brabant, ii 72.
Pembroke, Philip, 4th E. of, ii 16, 343;
  his impresa, 17.
Pembroke, Wm. Herbert, 3rd E. of, ii 16-7, 20, 40;
  HW’s letters to, i 121, ii 3, 6, 433.
Pen, Mr., ii 34.
Pennington, Sir John, ii 395 n.
Peover, Cheshire, ii 471.
Percy, Alan, in Florence, i 43 n.
Percy, Henry, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick, ii 339.
Percy, Lady Lucy, marries Sir John Wotton, i 2, 238 n.
Peretti, Card. See Montalto.
Perez, Don Antonio, secretary of Philip II, comes to England, i 285;
  his murder of Escovado, 285 n;
  HW in Paris with, 30;
  HW defends in State of Christendom, ii 458;
  mention of, in Table Talk, 494;
  his letters to Essex, i 30 n;
  his Pedaços de Historia, ii 458.
Pergamo, Fulvio, secretary of Savoy in England, i 122.
Pericles, ii 384 n.
Perkins, William, his Problem, i 90.
Perkins, William, Lord Cork’s tailor, visits HW, ii 356-7.
Pernambuco, Brazil, ii 345 n.
Peron. See Perron.
Perron, Card. du, James I’s answer to, ii 111.
Perrot, Charles, Minister at Geneva, his son in England, i 304.
Perrot, Sir John, i 259, 284.
Perotti, Nicolas, publishes text of Polybius, i 255.
Persia, i 477 n;
  Sir A. Sherley’s mission to, 37;
  defeats Turkey, 477 n, ii 16;
  Shah, see Abbas.
Persian nobleman, accompanies Sir A. Sherley to Europe, i 37;
  his quarrel with Sherley, and death, 38.
Persians, the, defeat Turks, i 342;
  capture Ormuz, ii 246-7.
Persico, Panfilo, his Segretario, ii 484.
Persius, quoted, ii 326.
Pert, Nicholas, English merchant, murdered by Nicolò Balbi, i 69, 323-5.
Perugia, i 442 n, 453.
Pesaro, Venetian ambassador in France, ii 222.
Pescelius. See Pezelius.
Petching, ——, i 243, 247-8, 251, 262.
Petworth, living of, ii 304 n.
Pey, Nicolas, has charge of HW’s affairs in England, i 451, ii 8;
  letters to HW, 219;
  HW’s letters to, i 201, 208, ii 75, 285, 288, 436, 449-50;
  mentioned in HW’s will, i 216;
  HW’s bequest to, i 218;
  — ii 105, 118, 211, 230-1, 236, 264, 330.
Peyton, Sir Henry, commands English ships in Venetian service, i 154-156, ii 143, 155;
  his pay, 146-7;
  arrival of 152-3;
  HW presents to Doge, 146 n;
  troops of, mutiny, 146 n, 152-6, 159;
  his requests, 154;
  the answer, 154 n;
  at Martinengo, 213;
  Lady Arundel consults, i 186;
  death of, 156, ii 146 n;
  letters of, ii 146 n;
  — 207, 209, 469, 472.
Peyton, Thomas, ii 146 n.
Pezelius, Christoph., Prof. of Theology at Bremen, HW’s intention to visit, i 230;
  Moryson visits, 230 n.
Pfaltezburg. See Pfalzburg.
Pfalzburg, Lorraine, Protestants at, ii 183-4.
Phaeton, ii 319.
Phelips, Sir Edward, Master of the Rolls, ii 30, 86.
Philadelphia, Greek Archbp. of, i 437, 438, ii 496.
Philip II, K. of Spain, war with England, i 17;
  mention of, in State of Christendom, 24-5, ii 456;
  in Table Talk, 494;
  death of, i 456;
  — 40, 276, 280, 285.
Philip III, K. of Spain, and HW’s secretary, i 328;
  attitude during Interdict, 80, 84, 353 n, 356, 360, 476 n, ii 133;
  HW suggests as arbitrator, i 363 n;
  sends Don Francesco di Castro, 370;
  renounces his pretensions to United Provinces, 416, 424;
  reported pension to Tyrone, 430;
  and Premonition, 102;
  negotiates for English marriages, 114, and see Charles I;
  HW questions title, ii 49-50;
  his designs on Germany, 68 n;
  forbids execution of Treaty of Xanten, i 139, ii 62 n, 65, 67;
  desires peace in Italy, i 148, 151-2, ii 121 n;
  James I remonstrates with, i 151, ii 122 n;
  and Ossuna, i 152, ii 162;
  naval preparations, 163, 169;
  declares he has no designs on Venice, 170, 171 n;
  and Bohemian troubles, 192, 202-3;
  and Gregory XV, 208 n;
  death, i 178, ii 210, 226 n;
  — i 38, 320 n, 328, 357, 381, 389, 441 n, 445, 454 n, 476, 477 n, 490, ii 26, 77, 107, 109, 165, 275, 299.
Philip IV, K. of Spain, James I negotiates with, about Spanish marriage, i 180-1, ii 226 n, 245, 251-2;
  about restitution of Palatinate, i 181, ii 222;
  and De Dominis, 228-9;
  and Valtelline, 237, 239, 268;
  and Ossuna, 239;
  letter of James I to, ii 222;
  — 223, 224, 246, 313, 320, 323, 345 n, 389 n, 395.
Philippson, Johann (Sleidanus), i 259.
Phoenix, the, HW sends pictures by, ii 257.
Photius, extracts in, from Hierocles, i 313.
Picardy, i 245, ii 4.
Piccardini, Rustico, riding-master at Florence, i 43 n.
Piccolomini, Alessandro, his Rafaella, ii 484.
Piccolomini, Alfonso, i 296.
Piccolomini, Silvo, i 296.
Pickering, Mr., ii 285.
Pickering, Sir Wm., father of Hester Wotton, i 236 n, ii 342.
Piedmont, HW sends map of, to James I, ii 104, 106;
  war in, i 151, ii 103 n, 104;
  French soldiers in, 178;
  fertility of, 499;
  Prince of, see Victor;
  — ii 94, 109, 172, 299.
Piero, ‘Conte,’ arrests Will Leete, ii 144-5.
Pierre, Jacques, and plot of 1618, i 157, 159, ii 131 n.
Pignerolo, ii 345.
Pilsen, ii 139.
Pim, Mr., i 323.
Pindar, Sir Paul, in Venice, i 288, 289, 293;
  ambassador at Constantinople, ii 111 n.
Pine, John, ii, 479.
Pinelli, Gian Vincenzo, i 18-9.
Pinner, Capt. Nicholas, offers his services to Venice, i 365;
  takes gifts to Prince Henry, and Sarpi’s portrait to England, 407, 409, 419, 425, ii 479.
Piombino, ii 299; Princess of, 492.
Piracy, English pirates in the Adriatic, i 322;
  HW’s negotiations about, 73-4, 163, 323;
  offer of pirates to Venice, ii 215, see Ward.
Pisa, HW at, (1592) i 289, (1601) 36, 401 n;
  Cecil writes to English merchants at, 69, 328 n, ii 490 n;
  Sir R. Dudley at, i 379, 401 n;
  — 22 n, 280, 282, ii 469, 478.
Pistoia, HW travels through, i 289.
Pitzca, Bohemia, ii 193.
Pius V., Pope, i 475.
Plantagenet, Prince Arthur, i 346 n.
Plantagenets, the, i 346 n.
Platina. See Sacchi.
Plato, quoted, i 102, ii 335, 401.
Plato, Card., i 439.
Plautus, ii 402 n.
Plese, Monsieur du (cipher for Burghley), i 291.
Plessen, Volrad de, ii 91;
  letter of, 91 n.
Plinnie. See Pliny.
Pliny the elder, quoted, i 239 n, ii 37, 306.
Pliny the younger, quoted, i 234, 238, 505, ii 241.
Plutarch, quoted, ii 69, his Lives, i 283.
Plymouth, HW at, ii 33, 304;
  ship from, 322.
Po, the, i 354 n.
Poggio, HW travels through, i 289.
Poictiers, ii 222.
Poland, invaded by Turks, i 230;
  disputed election in, 249, 252, 259, 264;
  Kings of, see Bathori, Sigismund;
  Prince Casimir of, ii 404;
  — i 260, 270, 276, 286, 360, 414, ii 123 n, 197, 349.
Polani, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Pole, Arthur, killed in Rome, i 330.
Pole, Geoffrey, i 330 n, 346.
Pole, Reginald, Card., i 330 n.
Polenza, ii 499.
Polini, Girolamo, prints libellous book about Queen Elizabeth, i 292 n.
Polonia. See Poland.
Polybius, HW studies text of, i 14, 255.
Poma, Ridolfo, attempts to assassinate Sarpi, i 404 n, 407, 440-2.
Pomerania, ii 331 n;
  Borgislas XI, D. of, i 306.
Pommern. See Pomerania.
Pompey, ii 395 n;
  fragment by HW on, i 206, ii 375 n, 414.
Pont Hercule. See Port’ Ercole.
Pontebba, ii 103 n.
Poole. See Pole.
Pope, Alexander, ii 280 n.
Porie. See Pory.
Porta, Giovanni Battista della, his Magia Naturale, ii 486.
Porta, Count Paolo, gives fête at Vicenza, ii 157.
Port’ Ercole, ii 299.
Portingals. See Portuguese.
Portland, Jerome Weston, 2nd E. of, ii 338-41;
  marriage, 336.
Portland, Sir Richard Weston, 1st E. of, ambassador to Prague, i 169, 173, ii 185, 191, 194, 195 n, 199 n, 310 n, 335;
  Lord Treasurer, i 205, ii 309;
  favour with Charles I, 310, 313, 336;
  his treatment of HW, 375;
  HW arrested after visiting, 351;
  HW’s character of, 333-5;
  death of, 351 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 309, 333-6, 443, 450-1;
  — 300 n, 338 n, 339 n, 340 n, 463.
Portsmouth, i 415 n.
Portugal, i 356 n, ii 455, 494 n.
Portuguese, the, i 54;
  trade of, to East Indies, ii 76 n;
  Ormuz taken from, 247.
Pory, John, secretary at Constantinople, ii 111;
  MS. by, i 132;
  letter of, ii 473.
Possevino, Antonio, i 464 n;
  letter to, intercepted by HW, 345;
  HW’s negotiations and interview with, 345 n;
  attacks HW, ii 10;
  book by, i 291;
  letters to HW, 345 n;
  HW to, 345 n, ii 420.
Powel, Mr., ii 401.
Powell, Gabriel, the de Antichristo of, distributed by HW in Venice, i 90.
Pozzo, Antonio del, Archbishop of Pisa, i 282; ii 299.
Praetorius, Johannes, i 246.
Prague, Rudolf II at, i 16;
  HW at, 16, 301, 305;
  rebellion at, 160;
  ii 158, 174, 197 n;
  Frederick V at, i 168-9, ii 311;
  Conway and Weston at, i 169, 173, ii 186, 190 n, 195;
  HW communicates with, i 172, ii 191-6;
  fall of, i 173, 175, ii 196-201, 209;
  papers discovered at, i 174-5;
  — 37, 251, 263, 477, ii 165.
Prato, HW travels through, i 289.
Pratolino, i 39, 285.
Preaux, M. de, French ambassador at Vienna, i 172, ii 191-7, 200, 206;
  goes to Hungary, 200 n, 201-2.
Preslau. See Breslau.
Pressburg, i 417 n, ii 193 n, 196 n.
Price, ——, in HW’s service, i 118 n.
Price, Herbert, duel with Mr. Eliot, ii 342-3.
Priuli, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Priuli, Alvise, candidate for Dogeship 1605, i 343.
Priuli, Antonio, Doge XCIV, candidature, ii 134-8;
  election, i 161, ii 139-40, 142;
  character of, 135 n, 140;
  introduction of, 132, 139;
  HW congratulates, 145-6;
  HW writes to, about English mutiny, i 155, ii 153;
  HW’s farewell, i 162-3, ii 172 n;
  receives Lady Arundel, i 186-8, ii 232-5;
  HW presents Lady Arundel’s sons to, i 190, ii 240-1;
  illness of, 244;
  recovery, 246;
  receives Duke of Mantua, 270-1;
  illness and death, i 192, ii 276-8;
  speeches of, i 183, 186-8, ii 154 n, 232-5, 241;
  letter to James I, 227, 230;
  letter from James I, i 181, 190, ii 227-8, 238, 240, 265, 267, 273-4;
  HW’s letters to, i 155, ii 145 n, 153, 238, 441, 447;
  HW’s audiences, i 18, 175, 181-4, 186-8, ii 145 n, 151 n, 164, 171-2, 219 n, 232-5, 238-41, 258 n, 468, 472, 474;
  — 143-5, 157 n, 177, 210, 218, 227 n, 235, 242, 259, 263, 271-2.
Priuli, Francesco, Venetian ambassador in Spain, his relations with Sir C. Cornwallis, i 425.
Priuli, Matteo, Card., i 468 n, ii 135, 140, 259, 272.
Priuli, Piero, Venetian ambassador in France, i 447, ii, 463;
  in Spain, i 447 n.
Privy Council, the, HW’s letters to, ii 114-9, 425, 429, 439.
Protestants, Protestantism. See Religion.
Pruritanus, libellous book, found in house of Venetian ambassador in England, i 472;
  Salisbury sends to HW, 472 n.
Prussia, i 231 n, ii 176.
Puckering, Sir Thomas, ii 129 n.
Pusey, Sarah, marriage of, ii 328 n.
Pusey, Timothy, ii 328 n.
Puteanus, suspected author of Corona Regia, ii 92-3, 280;
  corresponds with Scioppius, ii 109-10.
Putney, ii 380.
Pym, John, ii 323 n.
Pyrenees, ii 365.
 
Quarnero, ii 128.
Quattr’occhi, Dr., i 325 n.
Querini, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Querini, Aluigi, arrest of, ii 221.
Quesnoy, i 245 n.
Quester, Mr., HW to, ii 441.
Quintilian quoted, i 198, 242, ii 110.
 
R., Mr. See Rouse.
R., A., letter sent by, i 308.
R., S., HW’s spy in Rome, letter from, i 65 n.
Rabelais, quoted, ii 26.
Radcliffe, Sir Alexander, writes to Cecil, i 308 n;
  death of, 308 n.
Radziwill, Card., i 278.
Ragusa, i 323 n, 373, 452 n, ii 108, 111, 113, 152.
Raleigh, Carew, ii 400.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, his fleet captures the Madre de Dios, i 295;
  plans to attack Genoa, 151;
  Guiana expedition, ii 87, 362 n, 489;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 493;
  — i 9, 31, 32 n, 39, 118, ii 22 n, 23 n, 79, 87, 400 n, 481.
Raleigh, Walter, jun., goes to Low Countries to fight duel, ii 79.
Ralph, ——, carries dispatch to England, ii 225.
Randolph, Robert, ii 381 n.
Randolph, Thomas, his Poems sent to HW, 381 n, 382 n.
Ratisbon, i 410, ii 348 n;
 proposed Diet at, i 172, ii 191 n, 195.
Raughley. See Raleigh.
Ravaillac, assassin of Henry IV, i 490 n, 491 n.
Ravensberg, ii 56-7.
Ravenspurg. See Bavaria, Prince Philip of.
Ravenstein, ii 56-7.
Ravis, Thomas, Bp. of London, i 420, ii 481.
Rawleigh. See Raleigh.
Reade, Lieut. John, promised commission in Venetian service, ii 238.
Rebbe, Nicholas de, ii 66.
Redgrave, Suffolk, seat of Sir Edmund Bacon, i 118, 131, 212, 505 n, ii 13, 32, 38, 288, 322, 337, 345, 375, 394, 398, 403, 405, 460.
Rees, Count Maurice takes, i 138, ii 70;
  HW at, 51, 53, 61;
  — 46, 54.
Reffuge, M. de, special French ambassador at the Hague 1614, i 138;
  arrives at the Hague, 45 n, 48, 60;
  HW visits, 49;
  goes with HW to Xanten, 50-3, 55, 66;
  writes to Generals, 59;
  desires peace, 60;
  leaves Xanten, 61;
  leaves the Hague, 67;
  — ii 45, 47, 53.
Regensburg. See Ratisbon.
Regnault, ——, and plot of 1618, i 157;
  visits HW, 159-60;
  execution of, ii 131 n.
Reichsdollar, value of, i 233 n.
Reichssnürt, Heinrich Domason von, writes about HW to Blotius, i 19.
Religion:
  Calvinists, their controversy with Lutherans, i 166, ii 179 n.
  English Church, HW’s devotion to, i v, 19, 215, 224;
    services of, in HW’s house, 77-8, 349, 363;
    and German Protestants, ii 177.
  Lutherans, the, i 166, ii 179 n.
  Protestantism, dissensions of, plans for composing, i 94, 109, 166, ii 179;
    attempt to introduce into Italy, i 76, 78, 93, 107, 115, ii 8, 109 n;
    movement for, in Venice, i x, 76, 78, 86-99, 108, 116, 149, 349-51, 376, 378, 393, 400, 417, 423-5;
    Henry IV exposes, 97-100, 480-2, 485;
    congregation started, 99;
    HW’s hopes for, (1619) ii 172 n.
  Protestant seminaries, Sarpi advises founding of, i 94, 161, ii 148-9;
    Francis Bacon’s approval, i 161 n;
    HW negotiates about, i 161-3, ii 143, 148-51, 161, 172, 179, 480;
    failure of, i 162.
  Reformation, the, i 6, 92, 191, 417;
    HW proposes to write history of, 205.
  Roman Catholicism, HW’s attitude towards, i 19-20, 69, 76, ii 301;
    propaganda of, in England, ii 214;
    attempts to convert travellers abroad, i 70-1, 330, 332, 434, 456-7;
    Roman Catholics in England, i 330.
Reliquiae Wottonianae, edited by Izaak Walton, i v-vii, xii, ii 305 n, 461;
  bibliography of, 412;
  essays, &c., in, i 205-7, ii 413-6, 457;
  letters in, i 13, 118, 245 n.
Remus, pun on, ii 151.
Repplingham, Adolphus, ii 253;
  carries letters to England, 253, 258, 267.
Reynolds, Edward, secretary to Essex, disagreement with HW, i 31;
  letter of, 31 n;
  letter from A. Bacon to, 31 n;
  HW’s letters to, 33, 307, 310, ii 419.
Rhaetian Alps, i 218.
Rhaetians, the. See Grisons.
Rhé, island of, expedition to, ii 303 n.
Rheims, Jesuit College at, i 94, 161, 442, ii 114, 147, 151.
Rhems. See Rheims.
Rhene. See Rhine.
Rhenen, Q. of Bohemia at, ii 323.
Rhine, the, i 25, 123, 137, 192, 229, ii 12, 46 n, 47 n, 51, 71, 117, 183, 185 n, 280-2, 344 n, 345.
Rheinberg, i 229, ii 71, 341, 345.
Rhosny. See Sully.
Ribetta. See Rubetti.
Riccio, Andrea, architect, i 197.
Rich, Sir Henry. See Holland.
Rich, Sir Robt. See Warwick.
Richard III, ii 296.
Richard III, by Shakespeare, phrase in, paraphrased by HW, i 206.
Richelieu, Cardinal, i 180, ii 244 n, 318 n, 339 n, 340 n, 390 n, 391 n, 399.
Richmond, i 124.
Richmond, Ludovick Stuart, 1st D. of (Duke of Lennox), ambassador in France, i 61;
  — ii 17-8, 40, 290, 292.
Rigotier, ——, of Geneva, i 300.
Rijswijk, bridge of, ii 84.
Rimini, i 391 n.
Riswicke. See Rijswijk.
Rivers, Thomas Darcy, 1st E. of (Lord Darcy), expected in Florence, i 284, 286, arrives, 288;
  HW travels with, 289;
  tries to suppress books of controversy, 291-2;
  introduced to Grand Duke by letters from Burghley, 284, 289-91;
  sends for books against Burghley, 294;
  note on, ii 467;
  letters of, i 17 n, 20-1, 284 n, 287, 292, ii 467.
Rivoli, HW at, i 121.
Roan. See Rouen.
Roberts, John (?), English priest, i 334.
Robinson, Humphrey, printer of Comus, ii 381.
Robinson, Richard, King’s player, ii 333.
Rochester, ii 22, 405.
Rochester, Sir Edward. See Rossiter.
Rochester, Visct. See Somerset.
Roe, Eleanor, Lady, ii 221, 249.
Roe, Sir Thomas, ambassador at Constantinople, ii 221;
  letters of, 464-5;
  Q. of Bohemia to, i 177 n;
  HW to, ii 247-9, 447;
  suggested epitaph for, i 224;
  — i 454 n, ii 181 n, 229 n, 386.
Roehampton, ii 314.
Roerland, Syndic of Brunswick, ii 58.
Rogers, Richard, ii 466.
Rolls, Master of. See Caesar.
Rolls, Mastership of, promised to HW, i 167, ii 131 n, 243 n, 287 n, 317, 319, 470;
  HW surrenders reversion of to Buckingham, i 200, ii 316.
Romagna, ii 251 n.
Roman Catholicism. See Religion.
Rome, style of in dating, i xvi;
  HW visits, 202, 294, 403 n, ii 174, 300-1, (1592) i 19-20, 271-6, 284, (1593) 22, ii 364, 382, (1601) i 37-8;
  Sir A. Sherley at, 37-9, 242 n;
  news from, 111, 243, 245 n, 250, 276-8, 286, 390-2, 415, 440-2, 451, ii 97, 101, 106-7, 168-70, 224-6, 228-9, 267;
  superstition in, 160 n;
  part of HW’s charge, his spies in, i 65, 149, 321, 417 n, ii 98, 116, 141, 147, 168;
  English travellers in, i 17, 332, 457, ii 114, 181 n, 222, 244, 257;
  forbidden to visit, i 70, 435;
  English Catholics in, i 65, 70, 292 n, 330 n, 333-5, 434, 457, ii 93, 214, 224, 247;
  Tyrone in, i 417 n, 418, 423, 429-30, 476, ii 107 n;
  Lord Roos visits, see Roos;
  Mole imprisoned at, see Mole;
  proposed visit of Lord Hamilton, 487-9;
  letters from, intercepted by HW, i 353, 359, ii 147;
  mention of, in Table Talk, ii 493-5, 497;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors;
  — Amphitheatre of Titus 286;
  Belvedere, ii 93;
  Campo di Fiori, i 496 n;
  Inquisition in, i 70, 149, 332, 354, 389, ii 97, 114, 126, 256;
  Jesuit College, i 94, 330-1, 333-5, 399 n, 430, 457 n, ii 107, 111 n, 114, 252, 269;
  Palazzo Farnese, i 330 n;
  Palazzo della Rovere, 38, 430;
  Piazza Padella, 275;
  Scotch College, 334, ii 269;
  St. Peter’s, i 496, ii 274;
  S. Angelo, i 38;
  S. Giovanni in Laterano, 273, 274 n, 281, 283;
  — i 270, 288, 293, 295-9, 325, 344, 346, 372, 376, 384, 386, 389-91, 398, 405, 407-8, 412, 434 n, 443, 456, 461, 477, 481, 495-6, ii 11, 15, 110, 116-7, 124, 126, 208 n, 212, 216, 223, 230, 240, 245 n, 251, 253, 268, 286 n, 298, 348, 372-3, 463, 467-8, 471, 473, 492.
Ronciglione, i 37.
Rooke, George, with HW in Venice, i 48 n;
  sent to Naples (1605), 325, 328-9;
  his instructions i, 328 n, ii 420;
  goes to Padua, (1607) 381, (1608) 450;
  delivers privy seals to Sir R. Dudley, 401, 428 n;
  magistrates of Lucca negotiate with, for arrest of Salvetti, 401;
  charged with case of Julius Caesar, 436 n, 450;
  suspected poisoning of, 436 n;
  at Brescia, 436 n, 450;
  in England, 451;
  biographical note, ii 478.
Rooke, Sir George, ii 478.
Rooke, John, ii 478.
Rooke, Lawrence, ii 478.
Roos, Lady, ii 121 n, 127 n.
Roos, William Cecil, Lord, proposed visit to Rome, i 428-9;
  in Venice, 428, 441-2, 445;
  in Rome (1608), 429 n, 440, 457, ii 257, 473;
  his tutor imprisoned, see Mole;
  proposed arrest of, i 488 n;
  ambassador to Spain (1616), i 48 n, 151, ii 122 n, 127 n;
  in Rome (1618), 127, 141;
  death of, 127 n;
  HW’s letter to, i 428, ii 427.
Roper, Jane. See Lovell.
Roper, Sir Robert. See Teynham.
Roquelaure, Col., ii 207, 209.
Rosa d’Oro, consecration of, witnessed by HW, i 274.
Rosny. See Sully.
Rosse, Lord. See Roos.
Rossetti, ——, Secretary to Jacques Pierre, ii 131 n.
Rossingham, Edward, letter of, ii 407 n.
Rossiter, Sir Edward, death of, at Padua, i 397.
Rotterdam, ii 323 n;
  HW at, i 136, ii 41, 84.
Rouen, siege of, i 2, 238 n, 283.
Rouse, John, Bodley’s librarian, and HW’s copy of Comus, ii, 381 n, 382 n.
Rovere, della, house of, ii 272.
Rovere, HW at, i 176, ii 209.
Rowe, or Roe, Thomas, in service of HW, 1620, i 170 n, ii 181, 189.
Roxburgh, Countess of, ii 408 n.
Roxburgh, Robert Ker, 1st E. of, ii 408 n.
Roxburgh Club, the, publishes HW’s MS. at Eton, i vi.
Roydon Hall, ii 479.
Royston, i 117, ii 34, 85.
Rubetti, Pier Antonio, goes to Rome, i 443, 445, 449.
Rudolf I, Emperor, i 268 n.
Rudolf II, Emperor, his money difficulties, i 16, 249, 263, 267, 329;
  sends ambassador to Constantinople, 249;
  attack on, 251;
  restores predominance of Catholics in Austria, 304-5;
  sends envoys to Venice at time of Interdict, 381;
  quarrel with Matthias, 417, 477, 507;
  Premonition dedicated to, 101;
  and Juliers-Cleves controversy, 135; death, 123;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors;
  — i 14, 37, 244-5, 247, 252 n, 259, 261, 278, 301, 305-6, 319, 342, 356 n, 360, 410, 477, ii 42 n, 45 n.
Rudyard, Benjamin, i 33 n.
Rufus, Corollius, i 505.
Ruggle, George, his Ignoramus, ii 10 n.
Rupert, Prince, in England, ii 363;
  capture of, 399 n, 400-1, 403, 407.
Russia, i 37.
  See Muscovy.
Ruthven. See Gowrie.
Rutland, Francis Manners, 6th E. of, ii 17;
  his impresa designed by Shakespeare, 17 n.
 
Sabellico, M. A. C., historian of Venice, ii 484.
Sabioncello, ii 113.
Sachetti, Nicolò, Tuscan, resident in Venice, his letters, i xi, 181, 185 n, ii 227 n, 258, 270 n, 274 n.
Sacchi, Bartholomaeus de Platina, his Vite degli Pontifici, ii 485.
Sackville, Thomas, son of Lord Buckhurst, a popish recusant, 292 n, 295.
Sacra, the, English ship treated as pirate, i 322 n.
St. Albans, ii 461.
St. Albans, Henry Jermyn, 1st E. of, ii 338.
St. Andrews, i 233 n.
St. Augustine, ii 169, 370.
St. Bartholomew’s massacre of, i 156.
St. Benedict. See Benedictines.
St. Bernard Majore, ii 95.
St. Dunstan’s, near Canterbury, i 239 n.
St. Edmunds Burie. See Bury St. Edmunds.
St. James’s day, Wotton’s alleged conceit about, i 103 n.
St. John, Nicholas, i 396 n.
St. John, William Paulet, Lord, visits Italy, i 428, 440-1, 457, ii 473;
  in Venice, i 442, 445.
St. Mark, ii 155 n.
St. Monica, ii 169.
St. Omers, ii 147.
St. Paul, i 393, 506, ii 155 n, 184, 283.
St. Peter, i 275, 356 n, ii 155 n.
Salerno, Bishopric of, promised De Dominis, ii 228.
Salice, Hercole de, Grison ambassador in Venice, ii 149;
  letter to HW, 150;
  mentioned in Table Talk, ii 495.
Salisbury Plain, ii 193.
Salisbury, Sir Robert Cecil, 1st E. of (Lord Cecil, Viscount Cranborne), rivalry with Essex, i 29, 32, 317;
  HW’s requests to, about New College, 32, 301-2;
  about German mission, 32, 305;
  about entering his service, 44, 317-9;
  friendship for HW, 43-4, 108, 117, 317;
  for Edward Wotton, 34, 44, 317;
  announces HW’s appointment to Venice, 45;
  writes to merchants about HW, 69, 328 n, ii 490 n;
  HW collects pictures for, i 60, 419;
  accepts Spanish pension, 63, 372 n;
  attitude during Interdict, 83, 362 n;
  reproves HW for offer of English forces, 82-3, 361 n;
  HW asks help for payment of debts, 367;
  becomes Lord Treasurer, 431;
  A. Morton introduced to, 460;
  illness, ii 3; death, i 123, 126, ii 3 n, 13 n, 14 n, 483;
  HW’s character of, i ix, 130, ii 40 n, 413, 487-9;
  mention of, in Table Talk, 490, 493, 497-8;
  portrait of, i xvi, 419, 452-3, 460;
  letters to HW, 49 n, 81, 82-3, 326, 339, 346 n, 348, 357, 359 n, 361 n, 367, 402 n, 408 n, 412, 413, 455, 466, 478, 486, 489, 493;
  to New College, 301 n;
  to English merchants, 69, 328 n, ii 490 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 32, 44, 49, 73, 112, 301, 305, 317, 320-37, 342-69, 371-8, 380, 384-7, 391-4, 396-417, 419-21, 429-32, 434-8, 443-4, 451-7, 460-5, 468-74, 476-9, 483-7, 489-96, 499, 503, 508, ii 3-6, 419-33, 474;
  letters to, from T. Cornwallis, 482;
  H. Detthick, 469;
  James I, i 105-6;
  New College, 301 n;
  G. Nicolson, 41;
  G. Rooke, ii 478;
  T. Sackville, i 292 n;
  T. Wilson, 39-40, 316;
  — 9, 43 n, 58, 106, 118 n, ii 7, 8-9, 14, 479.
Salisbury, William, 2nd E. of (Viscount Cranborne), i 106;
  travels to Italy, i 444;
  HW presents mosaic portrait to, 452, 460;
  in Venice, 461 n, 498, 499 n;
  proposal to arrest, 488 n;
  ill at Padua, 114, 501-2;
  HW’s letter to, 460, ii 430.
Sallust, ii 150 n.
Salò, ii 142;
  HW visits, i 436 n.
Salomon, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Saltanstone. See Saltonstall.
Saltonstall, Sir Peter, conducts horses to Turin, i 120, ii i, 4-5;
  returns before HW, i 124.
Saltzburg, ii 348.
Salusti, ii 499.
Salvetti, Amerigo (Alessandro Antelminelli), travels to Italy with HW, i 35, ii 481;
  attempts to assassinate, i 35-9;
  follows HW to Rome, 37;
  HW negotiates for kidnapping of, 39, 67, 401-2, ii 471, 478;
  Salisbury’s letter about, i 402 n;
  with HW (1612), 123 n;
  his newsletters, i 35 n;
  quoted, ii 399 n, 407 n.
Salviati, Leonardo, his edition of Boccaccio, ii 485.
Sammon, ——, English captain, i 419.
Samson, ——, English pirate, ii 215.
San Germano, fall of, ii 107.
San Rocco, Venetian saint, i 441, ii 103 n, 245.
San Thomè, ii 79 n, 362 n.
Sancy, Nicholas Harlay de, French ambassador in Germany (1589), i 234, 237.
Sandwich, HW at, i 192, ii 282;
  HW M.P. for, i 208 n.
Sandys, Sir Edwin, his Europae Speculum, translated by Bedell, i 91.
Sanminiati, Ascanio and Nicolao, magistrates of Lucca, HW’s letters to, i 401 n, 402 n, ii 424.
Sanoka, ii 98.
Sans, Card., i 296.
Sanserre, letter dated at, i 502.
Santa Cruz, Marquis of, sacks Durazzo, i 357 n, 358 n.
Santa Maria, fort of, ii 245.
Santa Severina, Cardinal of, i 242.
Santen. See Xanten.
Santo Fiore, Count of, marries Leonora Orsini, i 285.
Santori, Paolo, ii 269.
Sanudo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Saraceni, Canon, imprisoned, i 78, 341;
  released, 84, 389-90.
Saranzo, ——, ambassador at Rome, ii 276.
Sarezana. See Sarzana.
Sarpi, Paolo (more correctly Pietro), character and religious attitude, i x, 86-9, 93, 399-400, 447 n, ii 260, 371-3;
  leader of anti-papal party, i 56, 77, 97;
  becomes Theological Counsellor, 79;
  HW describes as Protestant, 88, 399-400, 449;
  Diodati describes, ii 498;
  helps to spread Protestant doctrine, i 393, 423-4, 447 n;
  believes war necessary, 93, 394 n;
  relations with HW, 87, 89, 91, 94, 406 n, 423-4, 455;
  meets HW secretly, 87 n, 455 n;
  Bedell visits, 56, 86-7, 399, 406 n, ii 302, 462;
  his friendship with Bedell denied, i 103 n;
  helps Bedell translate Europae Speculum, 91;
  proceedings against, at Rome, 345 n;
  his opinion of Donato, 354 n;
  attempted assassination, 88, 404-7, 440-2, ii 371, 479;
  second conspiracy against, i 442, 453;
  message from James I, 408;
  conversations with Diodati, 100, 400 n;
  with Von Dohna, 89, 92, 98 n, 354 n, 424 n, 447 n;
  with Lenk, 480 n;
  with Papillon, 92;
  Donato shows Apologia to, 416;
  his proposals to James I, 93-5, 97, 113, 115, 161, 447, 455-6, 476 n, ii 148, 463;
  helps translate Premonition, i 102, 466;
  his opinion of, 466 n, 469 n;
  refuses Pope’s rebenidiction, 481-2;
  HW complains of his caution, 116;
  opinion of Savoy marriage, 115;
  HW renews relations with (1616), 149, ii 99;
  James I warned about speaking of, 100-1;
  thinks of leaving Venice, i 88, 151, ii 100 n;
  Prince of Condé visits, 250-1, 372;
  death, i 191, ii 259-60;
  mention of, in Table Talk, 490, 498;
  portrait of, sent by HW to James I, i 88, 398-400;
  intercepted at Milan, 399 n;
  another sent, 407-8, 411;
  sent to Dr. Collins, ii 370-1;
  note on, 478-9;
  letters quoted, i 99 n, 115, 448 n, 466 n, 469 n, ii 160 n, 329 n;
  his History of Interdict lent to Bedell, i 128-9;
  History of Council of Trent, 87, 149, ii 97, 100, 230, 486;
  HW mentions, to Protestant Princes, 178;
  De Dominis takes to England, i 150, ii 230;
  asked about authorship, 251, 371-2;
  — i 103 n, 452, 486 n, 496 n, ii 171 n, 252 n.
Sarzana, contest between Genoa and Florence about, i 279.
Saumur, i 436 n.
Savile, Sir Henry, ii 397 n;
  his edition of Chrysostom, i 428 n;
  death, 199, 200;
  letter to Carleton, i 199 n.
Savoy, i 297, 300;
  HW travels through, (1612) i 121, ii 4-6, (1616) 95;
  pirates from, i 322.
Savoy, Dukes of, ii 498.
  See Charles Emmanuel, Victor.
Savoy, Prince of, ii 492.
Savoy, Isabella, Infanta of, i 426.
Savoy, Margharita, Infanta of, i 426.
Savoy, Maria, Infanta of, proposed marriage to Prince Henry, i 114-6, 119-25, ii 477;
  to Prince Charles, i 116, ii 26;
  HW sees, i 114, 121;
  praises, 124;
  portrait of, 124 n.
Savoy, Prince Maurice of, Card., i 426, ii 399.
Saxham Parva, Suffolk, i 456 n.
Saxony, Christian II, Elector of, i 306;
  John George, ii 169, 195 n, 203.
Say, Matthew, Eton waterman, ii 393, 402.
Scaliger, Joseph Justus, HW visits, i 25-6;
  Casaubon writes to, about HW, 26;
  his letters quoted, 26 n;
  attacked by Scioppius, 127.
Scapius, P., acquaintance of HW’s at the Hague, i 301;
  at Heidelberg with HW, 301 n.
Scaramelli, Giovanni Carlo, Venetian envoy to England, i 315 n, 319;
  Venetian secretary, visits HW, 50;
  HW meets secretly, 79, 345 n.
Scarnafissi, Count of, ambassador from Savoy to England, i 151, ii 464, 477;
  at the Hague, ii 79 n.
Scena, ii 499.
Schenk, Martin, ii 46 n.
Schenk’s Sconce, ii 46, 71.
Schönberg, Hans Meinhard von, Marshal of the Palatinate, ii 55, 57, 72, 90.
Schönbrunn, Lustschloss at, i 245-7, 258, 261, 269-70.
Schomburgh. See Schönberg.
Schopp. See Scioppius.
Schwarzenberg, Count of, Imperial ambassador in England, ii 222.
Sciarra, Marco, i 272 n, 432, ii 494.
Scioppius, Gaspar, quotes HW’s definition of an ambassador, i 49 n, 126;
  tells anecdote of HW, 69 n;
  attacks Apologia of James I in his Ecclesiasticus, 126-7, 129;
  HW’s reply to, 127, 194, ii 9-11;
  the parents of, i 127 n, ii 10;
  goes to Milan, 109;
  to Rome, 124 n, 211;
  writes Corona Regia, 92 n;
  Centuria Censurarum, 124;
  note on, 479-80.
Scipioni, Alberto. See Alberti.
Sconvelt, lutes of, ii 119.
Scordili, Piero, Greek captain, insults HW, i 479.
Scotia. See Scotland.
Scotland, HW’s mission to, (1601) i 18, 40, 45, 108 n, 314-5, 316 n, 388, ii 96 n, 300, 316;
  HW arrives in, i 41;
  spends winter of 1601-2 in, 42;
  dispute about fishing on coasts, ii 76;
  James I visits, 118 n, 122 n;
  Charles I visits, 343, 457;
  return of Charles I from, i 210, 260, ii 349;
  boys from, and Eton scholarships, 368;
  troubles in, 383 n, 385, 387, 394, 399, 402, 406, 410;
  — i 6, 43 n, 44, 70 n, 153, 208 n, 217, 309, 338 n, 378, 506 n, ii 399 n, 468.
Scott, Reginald, writer against witchcraft, i 230.
Scottish gentleman in Rome, suspected by HW, i 273.
Scudamore, James, Branthwaite his tutor in Paris, ii 364 n, 382 n, 465.
Scudamore, John, 1st Visct., ambassador in France, ii 364 n, 382 n, 465.
Sebastian, Don, pretendant to Portugal, ii 494.
Sedan, ii 248.
Seget, Thomas, HW intercedes for, i 68.
Segna, pirates at, i 148.
Selden, John, ii 37 n.
Selston, Notts., ii 328 n.
Seminaries, Protestant. See Religion.
Semiticala, Celestina, i 440.
Seneca, ii 341 n;
  quoted, i 236, 253, 254 n, 324, 331, 471.
Senes. See Cenis.
Sessa, Duchess of, i 286.
Sessa, Ferdinand, D. of, Spanish ambassador in Rome, i 286.
Seymer, John, ii 480.
Seymer, Richard, with HW at the Hague, i 136 n;
  describes Dutch and Spanish armies, 54 n;
  in Venice, i 145 n;
  sent to England, ii 80;
  to Milan, 115;
  to England with Cerronio, 117, 120, 122 n, 123 n;
  returns, 156;
  sent to Grisons, 150 n;
  letters of, i 136 n, ii 54 n;
  note on, 480.
Seymer, Robert, i 136 n, ii 54 n.
Sfondrati, Nicolò. See Gregory XIV.
Sforza, Francesco, Card., i 285, 434 n.
Shaftesbury, ii 294 n.
Shakespeare, i iii, x, 31, 45, 66, 130-1, 206 n, 225, 408 n, ii 17 n, 33 n, 218 n, 335 n.
Shandowes. See Chandos.
Shannon, Francis Boyle, 1st Visct., at Eton under HW, i 203-4, ii 355, 357-61.
Shansie. See Sancy.
Sharpe, Leonel, arrest of, ii 38-9, 41;
  Vicar of Bocton Malherbe, 38 n, 324.
Sheffield, Lord, i 373 n.
Sheffield, Lady, mother of Sir Robert Dudley, i 373 n.
Shelland, Suffolk, ii 471.
Shenck’s Sconse. See Schenk’s Sconce.
Sherborne, Dorset, ii 361 n.
Sherley, Sir Anthony, at Ingolstadt (?), i 242;
  his mission to Persia, 37, 242;
  arrives in Florence, introduces HW to Ferdinand I, 37, 39;
  in Rome, 37-8, 242 n, 430;
  imprisoned in Venice, 38;
  writes to Pickering Wotton about HW, 39;
  his death, 38.
Sherley, Sir Robert, in Italy as Persian ambassador, i 477.
Sherley, Sir Thomas, i 242 n, ii 473.
Sherwood, ——, English priest at Leghorn, i 388, 402.
Ship Money Fleet, the, ii 352.
Shooter’s Hill, ii 323.
Shrewsbury, battle of, ii 304 n.
Shrewsbury, Elizabeth, Countess of, ii 23.
Shuckburgh, E. S., ii 462.
Sicily, i 148, 296, ii 112 n, 181 n, 395 n, 495.
Sidney, Sir Philip, i 3;
  at Frankfort, 12;
  at Vienna with Edward Wotton, 14;
  suspicions about, 21;
  his arms, 193 n;
  letter of, ii 489.
Siena, HW at, 21-2, 28, 220, 287, 289-99, ii 364, 382;
  Accademia degli Intronati, 486;
  — i 17, 333, 370, 399, ii 244, 379.
Sigismund III, K. of Sweden and Poland, i 231 n, 249, 278.
Sigonie, M. de, sent to Prague, ii 191 n, 193-6.
Sigonius. See Sigonie.
Silesia, i 166, ii 180 n, 197, 201-2.
Silva, Ruy Gomez de, ii 41.
Simancas, Archives at, i 63.
Simmern, D. of, Administrator of the Palatinate, ii 345.
Singleton, ——, priest, i 399.
Sirach, Jesus, son of, ii 370.
Six Clerks in Chancery, i 117 n;
  HW’s reversion to, 117, 507 n, ii 73, 86 n, 131 n;
  yields to Sir William Beecher, i 200, ii 316;
  Dynely desires reversion to, 310, 470.
Sixtus IV, Pope, mentioned in Table Talk, ii 492.
Sixtus V, Pope, character of, i 332;
  death, 16, 242 n, 491;
  mention of, in Table Talk, ii 491, 493, 496;
  — i 274 n, 276, 333.
Slade, Samuel, i 438 n.
Slawata, Count William, ‘defenestration’ of, i 160, ii 158;
  at Passau, ii 197, 199.
Sleidan. See Philippson.
Smith, ——, woodmonger of Westminster, ii 292.
Smythe, Edward, tutor of Francis Davison, i 227 n.
Snath, Moravia, ii 198.
Soderina, the, captured by English pirates, i 74.
Sodom, i 127, 286.
Soliman I, Sultan of Turkey, ii 197.
Solms, Count Albert, envoy to Xanten, ii 58, 63.
Solomon, i 219, ii 10, 205, 296.
Somerset, Charles, 6th D. of, ii 304 n.
Somerset, Edward Seymour, 1st D. of (the Protector), i 7, ii 146 n.
Somerset, Robert Carr, 1st E. of (Viscount Rochester), willing HW should be appointed Secretary, i 123;
  HW asks for increase of pension, 129, ii 8-9;
  and Overbury’s arrest, 20-4, 28;
  created Earl of Somerset, 33;
  his fall, 102 n;
  HW’s poem on, i 144, ii 415;
  HW’s letters to, 8, 43, 433-4;
  — 18-9, 21, 24, 28, 40-1, 80, 472, 475.
Somerset, Thomas, Visct., ii 17.
Somersyde, ——, English priest, i 334.
Somnius or Sonnius, Joannes, bookseller at Paris, 312, 314.
Sonderberg, John, D. of, ii 157 n.
Sondrio, Protestant seminary at, i 161-2, ii 149.
Sonnius. See Somnius.
Sophia, ii 108.
Soranzo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Soranzo, Lazzaro, his Ottomanno, ii 485.
South Molton, Devonshire, ii 473.
Southake, Mr., chaplain with Sir Henry Peyton, i 156, ii 153 n, 155.
Southwell, Elizabeth, follows Sir Robert Dudley to Italy, i 69, 375;
  married at Lyons, 373 n;
  HW sends greetings to, 379.
Southwell, Thomas, Jesuit, ii 396;
  his Regula Viva, ii 393 n.
Spa, ii 460.
Spain, condition of, i 24, 148, 340, 359 n;
  threatens Venice, 50;
  dominion in Italy, 18;
  war with England, 17, 29, 73;
  preparations in (1602), 316;
  peace declared, 76, 320, 328, 353;
  pensions from, 63, 159, 327, 372 n;
  remark of James I about, 62 n;
  news from, 380-1, 440;
  and James I, 61, 122, 329;
  and papacy, 329, ii 107, 208 n, 226;
  attempted combinations against, 75, 94, 97-9, 107, 113, 115, 135, 468 n, 482, 484 n, 487;
  attitude during Interdict, see Philip III;
  HW’s remark about, 374 n;
  opposes readmission of Jesuits to Venice, 385 n;
  and Grison republics, 395;
  war with United Provinces, 329 n;
  treaty with, i 94, 381 n, 393-5, 400 n, 409 n, 416 n, 440-1, 445, ii 56;
  predominance after death of Henry IV, i 97, 107, 147-8;
  negotiations for English marriages, 114, 119, see Charles I;
  French marriage treaty, ii 4 n, 52;
  HW’s proposed embassy to, i 134, 459 n;
  forces invade Juliers-Cleves territory, see Spinola;
  and treaty of Xanten, see Philip III;
  war with Savoy, see Charles Emmanuel;
  naval preparations in, (1618) 155, 163, ii 163, 169, 170 n;
  assists Ferdinand II, i 160;
  war with United Provinces renewed, 182;
  troops of, invade Palatinate, 168, 182;
  invade Valtelline, 179, 182, ii 211 n;
  Charles and Buckingham visit, i 181, ii 267 n, 269, 290;
  war with England, 313, 323;
  war of Mantuan succession, 331;
  — Kings of, see Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors;
  Viceroys and Governors in Italy, i 148, 180, see Castile, Feria, Fuentes, Inojosa, Ossuna, Toledo;
  — 58, 61, 146, 160, 178-80, 270, 321, 334, 356, 366, 418, 423, 432-3, 440-1, 467, 477, 479, 490, ii 104, 344 n, 365, 399, 414, 455, 471-2, 480-1, 492.
Spalato or Spalatro, ii 138 n, 229.
Spalato, Archbp. of. See Dominis.
Spedding, James, his Life of Bacon, i viii, x, ii 352 n;
  his defence of A. Bacon, i 32 n.
Spenser, Edmund, i 3.
Spenser, Sir Richard, ii 81 n.
Speroni, Sperone, his Canace, ii 486.
Speyer, i 238, 256 n, 300.
Spezia, i 279 n.
Spice Islands, trade with, ii 73 n.
Spiere. See Speyer.
Spinola, Ambrosio de, M. of, goes to Spain (1604), i 326;
  to Genoa, 342;
  conducts campaign of 1614, 136-9, ii 43 n, 47 n, 51, 70-2;
  captures Wesel, i 137, ii 46, 70-2;
  treats for truce, 48, 50 n;
  question of title, 49, 50;
  visits HW at Wesel, 53-4;
  HW visits his army, 53;
  and execution of treaty, i 139, ii 59-61, 62 n, 65;
  HW writes to, 61;
  refuses to give up captured territory, 69 n;
  invades Palatinate (1620), i 168, 174, ii 185, 203;
  besieges Bergen-op-Zoom, 248;
  HW’s letter to, 61, 435;
  — i 336, ii 56, 58, 74 n, 320, 464.
Splügen Pass, HW crosses, (1623) i 49, ii 280 n.
Stade (Stode, Stoad), in North Germany, Wotton lands at, (1589) 10, 228-232;
  letter dated at, 229.
Stafford, Sir Thomas, ii 356 n.
Stalbridge, estate of, purchased by Lord Cork, ii 361 n.
Standen, Sir Anthony, meets Tyrone in Rome, i 430.
Standly. See Stanley.
Stanford, Northants, i 396 n, 398 n, ii 249 n.
Stanhope, Henry Lord, marries Catherine Wotton, ii 312 n.
Stanhope, John, 1st Baron, ii 20.
Stanislaus, assumed name of Cerronio, ii 115.
Stanley, Edward, Spanish pensioner in Milan, i 327, 476-7.
Stanley, Sir Rowland, 327 n.
Stanley, Sir William, i 327.
Stanton St. John, manor of, leased to HW, i 32, 301, 310 n.
States, the. See United Provinces.
States-General. See United Provinces.
Steganographia. See Tritheim.
Stendhal (Henri Beyle), i 22 n.
Sterling, William Alexander, 1st E. of, ii 309 n.
Steward, James, ii 292.
Steward, Richard, Provost of Eton, i 224.
Sticke, Dr., German envoy to England, ii 67-8, 72.
Stirling, i 41.
Stoake, Stephen. See Stocke.
Stocke, Stephen, English merchant at Lucca, sells ammunition to Pope, i 380, 408.
Stode. See Stade.
Stourton, i 327 n.
Strachan, David, ii 293.
Strafford, Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st E. of, HW’s friendship with, i 212;
  presents cane to, ii 314;
  execution of, i 224, ii 480;
  letters to HW, 122 n;
  HW’s letters to, i 208, ii 306-7, 314, 450;
  Garrard’s letters to, ii 304 n, 348 n, 351 n, 403 n.
Strasburg, HW at, (1604) i 320, (1620) ii 182, 187;
  representatives of, visit HW at Heilbronn, ii 176-7;
  syndic of, 177;
  letter from, 187 n;
  — i 25, 234, ii 189.
Strivali, i 74.
Stroude, ‘Capt.,’ officer under Peyton, ii 153 n.
Stuart, the Lady Arabella, her reported engagement to Stephen Bogdan, i 414, 437-8;
  has play suppressed in London, 414 n;
  imprisonment of, ii 23.
Stuart, Elizabeth, i 189 n.
Sturio, Johannes, at Speyer, correspondent of HW, i 300.
Sturmius, Johannes, i 253.
Stuteville, Sir Martin, ii 300 n.
Stuttgart, ii 195.
Styremarke, i 252.
Styria, i 174, 368;
  Duke of, see Charles, Ferdinand II.
Sudbury, ii 392.
Suetonius, quoted, ii 341.
Suffolk, i 378 n, 456 n, ii 29, 285, 302, 312, 394, 405, 409.
Suffolk, Theophilus Howard, 2nd E. of, ii 16.
Suffolk, Lord Thomas Howard, 1st E. of, commands Cadiz expedition, i 31;
  Lord Treasurer, ii 41, 76, 81;
  family and party of, 19, 24, 28;
  friendship with Salisbury, 489 n;
  HW’s letter to, 441;
  Bargrave to, 115 n;
  — i 498 n, ii 39-40.
Suidas, quoted, i 313.
Sully, Maximilian de Béthune, Duc de, i 145, 383, 481 n, ii 497 n.
Sunda. See Sondrio.
Surrey, ii 380.
Susa, treaty of, ii 313 n.
Sussex, ii 360-1.
Sutton, Linc., ii 105 n.
Sutton, Thomas, his will, i 161 n.
Swabia, ii 344 n.
Sweden, i 270, ii 89, 344 n, 345, 386 n, 395, 399 n, 400, 404;
  Kings of, 463, 496, see Gustavus, John, Sigismund.
Sweete, John, English priest in Rome, i 430, 465;
  HW intercepts letter of, 430 n.
Swinnerton, Sir John, Lord Mayor, ii 14.
Swiss, the, and Henry IV, i 33, 304;
  proposed league with, 80.
Switzerland, i 98, 180, 298, 349 n, 418, ii 96, 495.
Syracides. See Sirach.
Syrus, Publius, quoted, ii 355.
 
T., Lord, ii 330.
Tabor, Bohemia, ii 194.
Tacitus, quoted, ii 110, 199, 211, 395.
Tagliaferro, Bartolomeo, fencing-master at Padua, i 411-2.
Tailor, Henry, ii 93.
Tailor, Robert, ii 13 n.
Talamone, ii 299.
Tampier. See Dampierre.
Tancredo, play by HW, i 5.
Tartars, i 231.
Tassell. See Texel.
Tasso, Torquato, at Naples, i 20, 272 n;
  his Aminta, ii 484-5;
  Gerusalemme Liberata, i 5;
  Torrismondo, ii 158.
Tassoni, Alessandro, ii 223.
Taxis, John de, cipher name for Lord Darcy. See Darcy.
Tebriz, lake of, defeat of Cicala at, i 342 n.
Tegrimi, Francesco, of Lucca, sent to Venice, i 401 n, 402;
  HW’s letter to, ii 424.
Telemene. See Talamone.
Temple, Sir William, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, ii 301 n.
Terence, quoted, i 238.
Terra del Fuego, ii 346.
Terringham, Arthur, with HW (1616), 145 n;
  sent with Cerronio to England, ii 118, 120, 122 n;
  note on, ii 480.
Terzo, Lorenzo, Jesuit, HW intercepts letter of, i 352.
Texel, the, loss of Dutch ships in, ii 395.
Teynham, Robert Lord, i 445 n.
Thames, the, i 84, ii 12, 393 n.
Theatini, the, return of, to Venice, i 385;
  bequest to, ii 114.
Thebe, Q. of Lombardy, ii 498-9.
Thelwall, Anthony, ii 403.
Themistocles, ii 372.
Theobalds, i 105, 192, 419 n, ii 180, 186, 343.
Theriaca. See Triaca.
Thetford, ii 20.
Thirleby, Robert, ii 466.
Thirty Years’ War, the, causes of, 134;
  beginning of, 160, ii 158 n;
  policy of Venice in, i 160;
  course of, (1618-9) 165-8, (1620) 167-8, (1621) 176, (1629-38) ii 318, 320, 323, 327 n, 331, 341, 344-5, 348, 395, 400;
  — i ix, 143, 168-9, 215, ii 310 n.
Thomas, ship of London, i 452, 460.
Thomson, Richard, helps HW to become an inmate of Casaubon’s house, 23, 298 n;
  Casaubon writes to, about HW, 26.
Thornel, Thornell, or Thornhill, Dr. John, protected by Venetian ambassador in England, i 331.
Thornton, Robert, captain of the Merchant Royal, i 63, 338 n, 388 n.
Thoroton, Dr. Robert, ii 465.
Thou, J. A. de, desires Bedell’s translation of Sarpi’s History of Interdict, i 128-9;
  letter of Casaubon to, 128.
Throckmorton, Sir Arthur, HW invites to London, ii 11-2;
  gives HW horse, ii 12;
  marriages of his daughters, i 484 n, ii 29;
  mention of, in HW’s will, i 217;
  note on, ii 480-1;
  HW’s letters to, i 483, 506, ii 11, 431, 433;
  — i 31, 118, ii 288 n, 330 n, 343 n, 409.
Throckmorton, Sir John, Lieut.-Governor of Flushing, ii 46;
  letters of, about HW, 46 n, 58 n;
  HW’s letter to, ii 74 n, 435.
Throckmorton, Lady, ii 12, 323, 330.
Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas, ii 480-1;
  HW bequeaths diplomatic papers of, to Charles I, i 217.
Throckmorton, Thomas, ii 455.
Throgmorton. See Throckmorton.
Thucydides, quoted, i 303, ii 372.
Thurn, Count, Bohemian general, i 166, ii 180 n.
Tiber, the, i 412, 464.
Tieni, family of, ii 157.
Tiepolo, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Tiepolo, Bernardo, assumed name of Foscarini, ii 232.
Tilly, Count of, invades Bohemia, i 173;
  Upper Palatinate, 181.
Tintoretto, i 18, 52, 55.
Tipperary, i 310.
Tirrhene Sea, i 272.
Titi, Roberto, i 22 n.
Titian, i 55, 216, 419, ii 257, 350.
Todd, Henry, editor of Milton, ii 381 n.
Toledo. See Toleto.
Toledo, Don Pedro de, governor of Milan, i 148, 151-2, ii 103 n, 156 n.
Tolentini, the, i 385.
Toleto, Card., i 295, 332.
Tolommei, Claudio, his Lettere, ii 484.
Torre, Giacomo, knave in HW’s house, offers to kill De Dominis, i 65 n.
Torre, Giulio della, i 395.
Torrismondo of Tasso, acted at Vicenza, ii 158.
Torsoni. See Tassoni.
Tortus, Matthia, Bellarmine writes under the name of, i 100, 482 n.
Totnes, ii 106 n.
Totnes, George Carew, 1st E. of, ii 168, 469.
Tradescant, John, HW sends Finocchio to, i 59.
Transylvania, Prince of. See Bathori, Gabor.
Treiste. See Trieste.
Trent, i 437, ii 209;
  Council of, ii 11, 98;
  Sarpi’s History of, See Sarpi.
Treves, Lothary, Elector of, ii 31.
Trevisan, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Treviso, i 410 n.
Triaca, sent by HW from Venice, i 427, ii 106.
Trier. See Treves.
Trieste, i 434, ii 163, 170 n.
Trinity House, i 163 n.
Tritheim, Johann (Trithemius), his Steganographia, i 15, 253-4, 258, 261-2, 265-7, 269.
Trojans, the, i 264.
Tron, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Troy, i 310, ii 33.
Troyes, HW at, ii 4.
Trumbull, William, English agent at Brussels, ii 44-5, 56, 71-2, 93, 481;
  meets HW at Antwerp, 91.
Tudor, Margaret, sister of Henry VIII, i 458 n.
Tufton, Sir John, ii 343 n.
Tufton, Lady (Margaret Wotton), ii 343, 412.
Tunis, i 73, 415 n, ii 215;
  Bey of, i 73.
Tunstall, Kent, ii 344 n.
Turetini, ——, nephew of Giovanni Diodati, writes of HW in Paris, i 116.
Turin, HW at, (1611) i 114-5, 119, 500 n, (1612) 121-3, 129, ii 2 n, 4, 6, 96 n, 464, (1616) i 144-7, ii 94-6, 98;
  HW’s spies in, i 65, 359;
  Piazza Castello, 122;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors;
  — 119, 124, ii 103, 173 n, 464, 498-9.
Turkey, and Venice, i 50, 358 n;
  and Empire, 16, 249, 261, 267-8, 356 n, 477;
  army invades Poland, 230-1;
  English ammunition sent to, 408;
  pirates from, 272, ii 215;
  reported war with Matthias, 15-6, 18;
  army invades Hungary, 197, 202;
  war of Candia, 212 n;
  ambassadors to, see Ambassadors;
  — i 37, 110, 292 n, 414, 467, ii 111 n.
Turkey, Sultan of, ii 495.
  See Achmet, Osman, Mustafa, Soliman.
Turks, employed by Julius II, ii 251;
  burn English ship, i 338 n;
  — 74, ii 215, 495, 498.
  See Turkey.
Turnèbe, Adrien, teacher of Hotman, i 234, 237.
Turner, Samuel, M.P., attacks Buckingham, ii 294.
Turner, Capt. William, offers to betray HW, and imprisoned at HW’s request, i 368-9;
  letter of, 488.
Turvil, Mr., ii 323.
Tuscany, HW ordered to remain in, i 21, 287, 290, 294;
  fleet of, English slaves in, 68 n, see Florence;
  Grand Dukes of, ii 498, see Ferdinand, Cosmo;
  envoys to and from, see Ambassadors;
  — i 62, 70 n, 217, 373 n, 456, ii 106, 114, 498.
Tusser, Francis, ii 467.
Twittie or Tweddye, Henry, spy employed by HW, i 428 n.
Typenbach, Baron von, ii 281 n.
Tyrconnell, E. of, accompanies Tyrone to Italy, i 417 n, 430.
Tyringham, Anthony, ii 480.
Tyrol, the, i 179, 395, 490, ii 156 n, 245 n, 281 n.
Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill, 2nd E. of, and Essex, i 307;
  price put on head of, 491 n;
  his treaty with Essex, 33-4;
  his flight to Italy, 33, 70, 417-8;
  HW mentions in speech to Doge, 33-43, 417 n;
  proposal to assassinate, 66, 420 n, 421-3;
  in Rome, 429-30, 476;
  death of, ii 107;
  his wife, i 430, ii 107.
 
Udal, ——, ii 497.
Ulm, ii 189;
  HW at, i 193, ii 182, 187;
  treaty of, i 172;
  representatives of, visit HW, ii 176-7;
  letter from, 187 n.
Ulster, i 407 n.
Ulysses, i 25.
Unfortunate Piety, The, ii 333 n.
Union, the German Protestant, HW urges closer relations with Venice, i 76, 84;
  proposed league, 360, 361 n, 354-5;
  HW wishes to visit, 113, 454-5, 484;
  form league with James I, ii 15, 63 n;
  with United Provinces, i 140, ii 62-4, 68 n, 77;
  Spain determined to conquer, i 140, ii 68 n;
  and Juliers-Cleves, 47, 54, 58, 61, 492;
  HW proposes league with Savoy and Venice, i 144-6, 151, ii 88 n, 107;
  offers to negotiate, i 151, ii 107 n;
  HW again urges closer relations with Venice, 163-6, 170 n, 171 n;
  commissioned by Venice to negotiate for, i 159, 165, ii 172 n, 177;
  HW meets at Heilbronn, i 165-6, 193, ii 150, 173, 176-9, 180 n;
  suggests plan of Protestant seminaries to, i 162, ii 150, 177-9;
  James I writes to, 199 n;
  neutrality of, secured in Bohemian war, i 168, 172;
  James I head of, ii 107 n, 164;
  ambassadors to and from, see Ambassadors.
United Provinces, the Dutch, power of, i 24;
  HW urges closer relations with Venice, 76, 424;
  proposed league, 360;
  proposed alliance of England and France to help, 382 n, 383;
  war with Spain, 329 n, 356 n;
  negotiations for truce, 134, 381 n, 393-5, 400 n, 409, 416, 440-1, 445, ii 56;
  armistice, i 391;
  truce proclaimed, 94, 454 n;
  Spain’s pretensions renounced, 416, 424;
  send ambassador to Venice, 94, 99, 424, 455-6, 476;
  HW praises, 476 n;
  HW ambassador to, i ix, 115 n, 134-43, 193, ii 41-86;
  desire for peace, 52, 60;
  negotiations about treaty of Xanten, see Xanten;
  and fall of Wesel, 70-2;
  form league with German Union, i 140, ii 62-4, 68 n, 77;
  negotiations about trade with England, i 142, ii 73-4, 76-8;
  send aid to Charles Emmanuel, i 140, ii 79 n, 477;
  proposed league with Venice and Savoy, i 144-6;
  English soldiers in service of, 136, 142-3;
  come to Venice with Dutch troops, 153-4, 161, see Vere, Sir John;
  troops of, in Venetian service, 161, ii 154, 213;
  fleet of, comes to Venice, i 155, 161, ii 154 n;
  war with Spain renewed, i 182;
  league with Venice, ii 227, 238 n;
  send ambassador, 258-9;
  war with Spain, 318, 344-5;
  treat for peace, 341;
  ambassadors from and to, see Ambassadors;
  States-General of, 47 n, 75;
  HW’s audiences, i 136, ii 45 n, 63, 74;
  write to James I, 85;
  — i 148, 169, 326, ii 280, 319 n, 395, 410, 476.
Urban VII, Pope, i 16, 243 n, 250, ii 276.
Urban VIII, Pope, ii 275-6, 277, 353, 400.
Urbino, i 18, 60;
  Federico Prince of, ii 272;
  Francesco Maria II, D. of, i 342, ii 143, 272.
Ursonius, Zach, his Catechism, ii 252 n.
Uscock War, the, i 148, 152, 178, 316 n, ii 96, 97 n, 103-5, 111 n, 121, 174, 228;
  settlement of, 121 n, 135, 139, 142, 158, 171.
Ussher, James, Archbishop of Armagh, ii 301.
Utrecht, i 301, ii 42, 66, 79;
  HW at, ii 50-1.
 
Vacia (Vacz). See Waetzen.
Valdez, Don Pedro de, ii 497 n.
Valenciennes, i 245 n.
Valentina, la, ii 5.
Valeresso, Alvise, Venetian ambassador in England, i 506 n, ii 222, 228.
Valetia, ii 94, 96, 496.
Valetolina. See Valtelline.
Valier, Christofero, ii 16 n.
Valiero, Agostino, Cardinal of Verona, i 299.
Valladolid, ii 481-2.
Valtelline, the, i 326 n;
  proposal for founding seminaries in, 94, 161-2, ii 149;
  slaughter of Protestants in, i 162, 179;
  international dispute about, 179-80, 182, 192, ii 211, 212 n, 214-5, 221, 237 n, 267, 276, 279;
  and France, 216, 244, 251;
  Grisons invade, 235 n;
  handed over to Gregory XV, 244 n, 266 n, 268, 271, 273.
Valtolina. See Valtelline.
Valvasone, Erasmo di, his Caccia, ii 486.
Vandals, the, i 78, 349.
Vandenberg, Count Frederick, i 381.
Vandenberg, Count Henry, ii 320, 323.
Vandermyle, Cornelius, Dutch ambassador in Venice, i 99, 455, 476;
  HW’s kindness to, 476 n.
Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, i 195, ii 312 n.
Vane, Sir Henry, ii 319, 466.
Vangadizza, Cardinal Borghese, made Abbot of, i 98, 446, 461;
  dispute about, 462, 468;
  settlement of, 468 n.
Vani, Domenico and Girolamo, accusers of Foscarini, ii 261;
  execution of, 262.
Varotari, Alessandro, Il Padovanino;
  HW sends picture by, ii 350.
Vary, James, in service of HW, i 170 n, ii 207, 265-7, 286, 324, 348, 350.
Vaucelas, Count of, French ambassador in Spain, i 425 n.
Vaudemont, Count Francis of, ii 183.
Vaux, Guy. See Fawkes.
Velasco, Don Alonzo de, Spanish ambassador in London, i 503, ii 21.
Velow, the. See Veluwe.
Veluwe, the, ii 323.
Velserius. See Welser.
Vendramin, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Venetia. See Venice.
Venice, position and climate, ii 255;
  origin, 256;
  life in, i 49-50;
  expense of, 420;
  nobles, 54-5;
  courtezans, 18;
  ambassadors, their reception, 51-2;
  negotiations, 413;
  isolation, 55-7;
  trade, 72-3;
  coinage, value of ducat, 470;
  marriage portions, 439;
  love of news in, 111-2, 411;
  — Festivals:
    Ascension, ii 113, 235, 265, 269;
    Carnival, i 343, ii 265;
    Corpus Christi, i 350;
    St. Giustina, ii 218;
    St. Rocco, ii 103 n, 245.
  Republic of, i 50;
    HW’s opinion of, 55, 113, ii 121, 228;
    Carleton describes, i 55;
    HW praises, 54, 147, ii 145 n;
    rule of old men in, i 54-5.
  The Doge, his election, i 339, 343, ii 134, 136-7;
    his power, i 53, 413.
    See Grimani, Donato, Memmo, Bembo, Priuli, Contarini.
  Grand Council, i 190, 339, 410, ii 134, 217, 270, 278;
    character of, (1610) i 485.
  Senate, election of, ii 217, 278;
    chief executive body of Republic, i 53, ii 37;
    relation to Collegio, i 53, 97, 413-4;
    accounts rendered to, of ambassadors’ speeches and conversations, 53, 56, 413-4;
    — 321-496, ii 109-77, 213-68, passim.
  Collegio, the Venetian cabinet, i 52-4, 97, 143, 413;
    HW’s audiences, 58-108, 159-87, 320-501, ii 107-72, 208-79 passim;
    character of, (1610) 485, 500;
    Lady Arundel received by, i 186-7, ii 232-5.
  Council of Ten, election of, ii 278;
    relation to Senate, i 53;
    to Collegio, 413;
    favourable to religious reform, 92, 97;
    — 66, 158, 159 n, 184, 190, 346, 350, 364, 404, 407, 410, 453, 480, 485, ii 131, 137, 140, 142, 144, 217, 232, 261-3, 265, 272.
  Inquisitori di Stato, character of, ii 261;
    — i 184, 416 n, ii 128, 131, 140, 221-2, 231, 245, 261.
  Procuratori di S. Marco, position of, i 344 n;
    — 344, ii 127, 134, 138, 140, 142.
  Savio della Settimana, i 472;
    Savii
  Grandi, 189, 413, ii 234;
    Savii di Terra Firma, i 319, ii 240, 250;
    Savii del Mare, 270.
  Secretaries, i 55-6, 390, 411 n, 413, ii 227, 238 n.
    See Antelmi, Scaramelli.
  Quattro Esecutori alla Bestemmia, ii 143.
  Capitano del Mare, ii 127, 133.
  Parties in: ‘old’ families, i 433, ii 135, 137;
    names of, i 434 n;
    ‘new’ families, ii 135, 137;
    names of, 135 n;
    Papalini, i 474, 481, ii 140;
    Patrioti, ii 140;
    anti-papal party, i 77, 85-6, 92, 97, 99, ii 229.
  Patriarch of, i 391, 405, 443, 445, 448-9.
  Inquisition in, composition of, i 448, ii 245 n;
  — i 92-3, 104, 405, 416 n, 448, 468, 469 n, 473 n.
  Protestants in, i 93, 99.
  HW in: (1591) i 18, 271, 277, (1603) 43-4, 317-8.
  Sir A. Shirley imprisoned at, 38-9.
  (1604) HW appointed ambassador to, 45;
    journey to, 48-9;
    reception, 51-2;
    state of, 49-51;
    religious attitude, 77, 318;
    HW’s life in, 57-69;
    allowed services in private chapel, 77-8, 349, 363.
  (1604-5) negotiates about trade, 73, 79, 320-3, 462 n;
    piracy, 73-4, 322-3;
    murder cases, see Pert, Caesar;
    death of Doge Grimani, election of Donato, 78, 327, 339-40, 342-4.
  (1605-7) Quarrel with Paul V, i 77-85;
    origin of, 78, 340-1;
    Brandolin and Saraceni arrested, 78, 341;
    Bull of excommunication, 79, 341, 346 n, 348, 355;
    answer of Venice, 79, 346;
    Jesuits expelled, 79, 347, 354-5, ii 496;
    ambassadors depart, i 349;
    war expected, 352, 354;
    HW proposes English help, 80, 352-3;
    proposes league, 80, 83-4, 349 n, 361 n;
    attitude of Henry IV, 80, 83, 353 n, 355, 365 n;
    of Philip III, 80, 84, 352 n, 356;
    of James I, 80-2, 357, 371;
    HW offers English forces, 82, 361;
    offer made public, 362 n;
    gratitude to James I, 82-3, 356, 361 n, 464;
    James I draws back, 84;
    HW urges closer relations with Union, 76, 361 n, 454-5;
    with United Provinces, i 76;
    Di Castro sent by Philip III, 368-71;
    De Joyeuse by Henry IV, 375, 377;
    his negotiations, 379;
    settles dispute, 84-5, 384-6;
    HW’s congratulations, 384;
    criminals surrendered, 85, 389-90;
    absolution pronounced, 85, 386-7, 390-1;
    congratulations of ambassadors, 391-2;
    effect of, 424;
    HW’s history of, 118, 130, ii 487;
    Bedell translates Sarpi’s History of, i 128-9;
    — i x, 61, 94, 103 n, 147, 182, 366, 370-1, 374-82, 418-9, 439, 443, 447, 496 n, ii 79, 98, 128, 133, 136, 178, 238, 250, 278, 302, 371, 462, 474.
  (1607-10) money sent to Grisons, i 393 n;
    answer to Pope’s complaints about HW, 95-6;
    sentence on Sarpi’s assassins, 404-6;
    movement for religious reform, see Religion;
    anchorage tax removed, 403;
    severe winter, 411-2;
    forbids Tyrone to enter territory, 417 n;
    new quarrels with Pope, 431;
    Pope sends Jubilee, 436;
    scandal in convent, 438-41;
    Protestant sermons, 447-8, 451-2;
    decree about Theologi, 449;
    quarrel with Pope about Vangadizza, 98, 461, 468;
    HW presents Premonition, 100, 102-4, 463-5;
    circulation prohibited, 100, 104, 468-9, 473;
    HW’s quarrel with Republic, 100, 104-7, 471-4, 478;
    special ambassador sent to England, 106-7, 474;
    arrival of Dutch ambassador, 476;
    Greek captain punished, 470;
    news of Henry IV’s assassination, 490;
    Dudley Carleton arrives, 107, 498 n;
    present to HW, 500;
    his departure, 113, 499;
    the Republic and HW, 69, 108, 452 n.
  (1611-19) Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at, see Dorchester;
    HW’s 2nd embassy at, i 144, 146-66, ii 94-173;
    arrival and reception, i 147, ii 95;
    palace, i 147, ii 101-2;
    state of, i 147-8, ii 96, 102-3, 121;
    HW urges closer relations with Savoy and Union, i 144-6, ii 107 n;
    Uscock war, see Uscock;
    Ossuna’s preparations against, see Ossuna;
    gives help to Savoy, see Charles Emmanuel;
    proposed alliance with Protestant Union, see Union;
    arrival of Dutch and English troops and ships, i 153-4, ii 111-2;
    death of Doge Bembo, i 161, ii 132-3, 135, 141;
    election and death of Nicolò Donato, 138-41;
    plot of, 1618, i 61, 152, 156-60, ii 131-2, 140, 142, 144, 146, 151, 471;
    HW’s account lost, 152 n;
    election of Antonio Priuli, 139-40, 142;
    James I asked for loan of ships, i 155, ii 170;
    thanked for sending ships to coast of Spain, 163;
    league with Savoy, see Charles Emmanuel;
    confidence in HW, i 159;
    HW commissioned to treat with Union, 159, 165, ii 172 n, 177;
    HW leaves, i 162-3, 165, ii 172;
    policy during Thirty Years’ War, i 160.
  (1621-3) HW’s 3rd embassy at, i 167, 174-93, ii 200 n, 201, 203, 206-80;
    arrival, i 176-8, ii 207;
    state of, i 179, ii 209;
    readmission of Jesuits refused, 212, 216, 218;
    offer of certain pirates, 215;
    James I asked to help Grisons, i 180, ii 223 n;
    answer to James I’s request for help for Frederick V, i 182, ii 227-8, 238-9, 265;
    league with United Provinces, i 182, ii 227, 238 n;
    engagement with Savoy and France about Valtelline, i 180, 182, ii 227-8, 238 n, 244, 251;
    league, i 180, ii 244 n, 265, 279;
    earthquake, i 183, ii 235-6;
    Foscarini case, see Foscarini;
    Lady Arundel, see Arundel;
    visit of Prince of Condé, see Condé;
    arrival of Dutch ambassador, 258-9;
    death of Sarpi, 259-60;
    death of Doge Priuli, i 192, ii 276-8;
    election of Francesco Contarini, i 192, ii 278;
    HW leaves, i 192, ii 279;
    Branthwaite, English agent, see Branthwaite;
    Sir J. Wake, ambassador at, see Wake;
    Jesuits readmitted, ii 212 n;
    HW’s proposed history of, 253-5;
    picture of, at Eton, i 210;
    mention of, in Table Talk, ii 490, 492-4, 495-8;
    — i iii, ix, 17, 198, 199 n, 210, 218, 225, 232, 242, 245, 247, 252, 260, 273, 276, 281, 283, 287, 288 n, 290, 292, 299, 319-501 passim, ii 1, 7, 15, 18, 25-6, 94-173 passim, 206-80 passim; 285, 300, 305 n, 409, 461-4, 467-72, 486.
  Accademia, i 197;
    Archivio di Stato, i xi, xiv;
    Arsenal, ii 144, 270;
    Canal Grande, 102, 232, 270;
    Canale degli Orfani, i 157, ii 131, 142;
    Canareggio, i 57, ii 101;
    Citelle, Convent of, i 449;
    Frari, i 410 n, ii 263 n;
    German Exchange House, i 93;
    Giudecca, ii 244;
    Golden Ship, i 77, 87, 95;
    Lazaretto, 416 n;
    Lido, 188;
    Merceria, 87;
    Museo Correr, 52 n, 87 n;
    Padri Cruciferi, 499 n;
    Palace of the Doge, Ante-Collegio, 52;
    Collegio, 52, 216;
    Hall of Grand Council, 364;
    Palazzo Franchetti, ii 102 n;
    Palazzo Grimani della Vida, occupied by HW, i 147, ii 102 n;
    Palazzo Gussoni, 102 n;
    Palazzo Mocenigo, i 184, ii 232-3;
    Palazzo Silvia, i 57;
    Piazetta, 52;
    Ponte degli Ormesani, 57;
    Rialto, 355, ii 102 n;
    S. Anna, i 438-41;
    S. Carità, 197;
    S. Fosca, 404 n, 406 n, ii 260;
    S. Girolamo, i 57, 59, 68, 345 n, 369 n, ii 101, 493;
    S. Giorgio in Alga (island of), i 147, 177, ii 208;
    SS. Giovanni e Paolo, i 345 n, ii 263;
    S. Lorenzo, i 448;
    S. Marco, 59, 160, 344 n, 391, 428 n, 486 n, ii 131, 144;
    S. Pietro di Castello, i 390; S. Polo, 441 n;
    S. Spirito (island of), i 51, ii 216, 270 n;
    S. Staë, 263 n;
    S. Stefano, 262;
    S. Vitale, 162 n.
Venice Preserved, by T. Otway, founded on plot of 1618, i 157.
Venier, ‘new’ family of Venice, ii 135 n.
Venier, Lorenzo, ii 138, 140-2.
Vercelli, ii 477;
  siege of, 121 n;
  surrender of, 140, 145 n.
Vercellini, Francesco, majordomo to Lady Arundel, ii 233.
Vere, family of, HW praises, i 153, ii 112 n, 113 n.
Vere, Sir Francis, his expedition for relief of Rheinberg, i 229.
Vere, Sir Horace, Baron Vere of Tilbury, meets HW at Rotterdam, i 136;
  commander of troops in Low Countries and Palatinate, 169, ii 111 n, 146 n, 186 n.
Vere, John, ii 111 n.
Vere, Sir John, commands English troops in Venetian service, i 154, ii 111, 112 n, 124, 146;
  HW recommends to Doge, 111 n, 112 n;
  letter of, 112 n.
Verona, HW visits, i 436 n;
  HW detained at, 176, ii 208-9;
  S. Zen, 245 n;
  — i 68, 235 n, 325 n, ii 131.
Veronese, Paolo, i 18, 52, 196.
Verreycken, Louis, ii 43 n.
Vianen, ii 323 n.
Viareggio, i 401 n, 402.
Vicenza, HW at, i 57, 68, ii 157-8;
  theatre at, 157;
  — i 331, 341, 364, 389.
Victor-Amédée I, D. of Savoy (Prince of Piedmont), in Venice, i 426;
  negotiations for his marriage to Princess Elizabeth, 114, 119, ii 1 n;
  marries Christiana of France, i 426 n;
  — ii 26, 399 n.
Vienna, HW at, (1590-1) i 13-6, 172, 240, 243-71, 301;
  cost of life at, 14, 244, 248-9;
  letters dated at, xvii, 243-7;
  Lord Zouche at, 262 n, ii 482;
  market of, i 267;
  plague at, 287;
  siege of, (1619) 166-7, ii 180 n;
  HW at, (1620) i ix, 16, 172-4, ii 186, 188, 190-207, 412;
  letters dated at, 190-204;
  news from, 208, 215;
  congress of, i 143;
  Hofbibliothek, HW lives in room adjoining, 14-6, 247;
  books in, 252 n, 254-6, 266;
  HW’s letters preserved in, xiv, 13;
  librarian, see Blotius;
  Minorite monastery, 14, 247 n;
  — 175, 239 n, 278, 428 n, ii 94, 225 n, 275.
Vignola, Jacobo Barozzi da, i 196, ii 286 n.
Villa, Marchese di, ambassador from Savoy to England, i 131, ii 18, 20-1, 23-6, 27 n, 28-9, 32.
Villa Lunga, Count of, his fall, i 381.
Villars, Courtin de, French ambassador at Venice, ii 216, 218, 235, 251, 258 n, 259.
Villeroi, Nicolas de, ii 497.
Villiers. See Villars.
Vincenzo, Fra, i 410 n, 453.
Vineyard, the, HW sails on, to Stade, i 228.
Vinta, Belisario, secretary of Ferdinand I, i 316 n, 388 n, 389 n;
  friend of HW, 40, 289 n, ii 298;
  HW’s letters to, i 43, 314, 315 n, 316 n, 338 n, ii 419-21, 468;
  letter to HW, i 338 n.
Virgil, i 264;
  quoted, 54, 228, ii 302.
Virginia, talk in Venice about, i 431-2;
  HW mentions in speech to Doge, 153;
  — 320 n, 466, ii 87, 483.
Visconti, ——, sent by Fuentes to Chur, i 395.
Vitelleschi, Mutio, General of Jesuits, i 331, 334, 355;
  letter of, ii 242.
Viterbo, i 296 n, 442, ii 286 n.
Viti, Michael, attempts to assassinate Sarpi, i 404 n, 406.
Vitruvius, i 195, 197, ii 333, 364;
  HW quotes, i 403.
Vitry, Nicolas Duc de, ii 113 n.
Vlussing. See Flushing.
Volterra, i 289.
Vorstius, Conrad, ii 70 n.
 
Waad, Sir William, governor of the Tower, ii 23-4.
Waal, the, ii 46 n.
Wade. See Waad.
Wadsworth, James, his controversy with Bedell, i 444 n.
Waetsen (Waitsen), Bohemia, ii 197.
Wake, Sir Isaac, secretary to Carleton, at Venice, i 124, 501, ii 14, 95, 474;
  visits HW in London, i 129;
  English agent at Turin, 146-7, 501 n, ii 95, 99, 475;
  his poverty, 95 n;
  ambassador at Venice, i 48 n, 200, 501 n, ii 14 n, 210 n, 279 n, 283-4, 464;
  letters quoted, i 124-5, 127 n, 129, ii 95 n, 103 n, 107 n, 117 n.
Walden, Lord Howard de. See Suffolk.
Wale, ——, informal English Consul in Naples, i 328 n.
Wales, boys from, and Eton scholarships, ii 368;
  — i 330, ii 465, 483.
Wallenstein, Albrecht, ii 331 n.
Waller, Walter, in service of HW (1620), i 170 n;
  goes to Prague, ii 191-5.
Wallop, Sir H., death of, i 307.
Walpole, Father Richard, converts Pickering Wotton, i 38, ii 481.
Walsingham, Sir Francis, i 21, 231 n, 284 n, 430 n.
Walton, Izaak, HW buys linen from (?), ii 369 n;
  sends hymn to, 376;
  visits HW at Eton, i iii, 221, ii 405;
  his debt to HW, i v;
  HW’s letters to, 221, ii 376, 404, 452-3;
  edits Reliquiae, See Reliquiae.
  Life of Donne, i v, ii 404;
  Life of Wotton, i iii, xii, xiii, 2, 5-6, 21, 27-8, 41-2, 44-5, 58, 127, 174, 193, 201-4, 211-2, 219, 222-5, ii 285, 456, 469;
  Compleat Angler, i iii, v, 211-4, ii 306 n, 416, 490, 491 n.
Wanstead, i 105, ii 85.
Ward, Dr. A. W., his Life of HW, i xiii, 30 n, 103, 206, ii 456, 459.
Ward, John (?), English pirate, i 413 n, 415 n;
  keeps the Venetians in awe, 73, 415 n;
  his boasts, 415;
  plan for pardon or assassination of, i 415 n.
Ward, Mary, her religious order, i 445 n, ii 224 n, 283 n.
Ward, Dr. Samuel, and Dr. Dorislaus, ii 315;
  his Gratia discriminans, 315;
  HW’s letter to, 314, 450;
  Bedell to, i 407 n, ii 462.
Warde, Mr., i 31 n.
Ware Park, seat of Sir Thomas Fanshawe, HW visits, i 118, 131-2;
  the gardens at, 131 n.
Warton, Thomas, jun., his comments on HW’s letter to Milton, ii 381 n.
Warwick, Earl of, title claimed by Sir Robert Dudley, i 401 n.
Warwick, Robert Rich, 2nd E. of, ii 17;
  goes to Turin with HW, i 120, ii 2;
  HW’s reported jealousy of, 2 n.
Wassenhoven, Colonel in Venetian service, ii 129.
Watchorne, Corporal, under Peyton, ii 153 n.
Watson, William, plot and execution of, i 332 n, 333 n, ii 23 n.
Waynsteade. See Wanstead.
Weaver, Thomas, Vice-Provost of Eton, ii 366.
Webster, John, i 16 n, 22.
Wechel, Andrew, printer at Frankfort, i 12.
Weekes, Mr., ii 53.
Weesell. See Wesel.
Weimar, Duke Bernard of, ii 348, 395 n.
Welser, Mark, of Augsburg, i 126;
  HW’s letter to, 127, 194, 210, ii 9-11, 412, 433, 479.
Wentworth, Sir Thomas. See Strafford.
Wentworth, Thomas, ii 37.
Wentworth, Lord. See Cleveland.
Werckhovius, J., of Utrecht, i 301.
Wesel, ii 58;
  capture of, 46-7, 60;
  HW blamed for, i 137-9, 142;
  HW’s apology, 137, ii 59, 64, 68-73, 75;
  HW at, ii 51, 53-4.
Westmorland, earldom of, claimed by Edmund Neville, ii 87 n.
Westmorland, Charles, 6th E. of, ii 87 n.
Weston, Jerome Lord. See Portland.
Weston, Sir Richard. See Portland.
Wharton, Mr., in suite of HW (1620), i 170 n, ii 464;
  death of, ii 189-90, 192, 200.
Wharton, Anne, ii 3 n.
Wharton, Margaret. See Wotton.
Wharton, Philip, 3rd Baron, i 170 n, ii 189 n, 200, 344 n.
Wharton, Thomas, 2nd Baron, ii 3 n.
Whitaker, Wm., his Thesis de Antichristo, i 444 n.
Whitchurch, i 338 n.
White Hill or Mountain, battle of, i 173, ii 206;
  news of, reaches Vienna, ii 196-201.
Whitehaven, ii 403 n.
Whitelocke, James, arrest and trial of, ii 28, 30-1.
Whitgift, John, ii 482.
Wickham, Edward, i 239 n.
Wickham, William, i 239 n, 279.
Wicklow, i 310.
Wicquefort, Abraham van, his Ambassador, i 109 n, 110.
Wight, Isle of, ii 470.
William I, K. of England, HW’s account of, i 206, ii 414.
William V of Bavaria, i 263 n, 286 n.
Williams, Sir Abraham, agent for Q. of Bohemia in England, ii 369, 470.
Williams, John, Bishop of Lincoln, becomes Lord Keeper, ii 236;
  disgrace of, i 210, ii 303, 343, 367 n, 368, 379 n;
  HW’s letter to, ii 236, 447.
Willoughby, Sir Francis, ii 403 n.
Willoughby, Richard, at Padua, ii 114.
Willoughby de Eresby, Robert, 12th Baron, ii 53 n, 108.
Wilson, John, English priest, i 334.
Wilson, Sir Thomas, writes from Florence about HW, i 39-40;
  HW’s letter to, 43, 316-7, ii 419.
Wimbledon, Sir Edward Cecil, 1st Visct., i 135, ii 18.
Wimpfen, battle of, i 183.
Winchester College, HW at, i 4-5, 225, ii 456;
  HW revisits, i 222.
Windebank, Sir Francis, Secretary of State, in Venice with HW, i 218, ii 350 n;
  HW’s letter to, about his arrest, i 210, ii 350-2, 451;
  grants ‘protection’ to HW, i 210, ii 352 n;
  mentioned in HW’s will, i 217;
  bequest to, 218;
  letters to, ii 478, 481.
Windsor, HW at, i 119, 209;
  De Dominis Dean of, 149;
  Eton fellowship annexed to living of, ii 366 n;
  — i 506, ii 12, 29, 290 n, 291-2, 295, 353-4, 368, 378 n, 387, 397 n, 408.
Winterton, Ralph, dedicates book to HW ii, 397.
Winwood, Elizabeth, Lady, ii 106.
Winwood, Sir Ralph, envoy to United Provinces, i 115 n, 319, 459 n, ii 18, 42 n;
  Secretary of State, i 164, ii 24 n, 43 n;
  sends instructions to HW, 83 n, 84 n;
  makes inquiries about HW, i 159 n;
  death, 164, ii 122 n;
  letters of, i 150, 476 n, ii 70, 73, 83 n, 100 n, 104 n, 122 n, 123 n, 475;
  HW’s letters to, i 164, 319, ii 46, 49-50, 52-6, 59-69, 73-87, 93-7, 100, 104-14, 119-21, 123 n, 419, 434-9, 464, 469;
  other letters to, i 126 n, 130 n, 131 n, ii 32 n, 91 n, 475, 477, 487;
  — i 46, 143, ii 172.
Wirtenberg. See Würtemberg.
Wiston, Sussex, i 242 n.
Wolsey, Card., ii 33.
Wolverton, ii 470.
Wood, Anthony, i 1 n, 127 n, ii 479.
Wood, Sir John, i 336 n.
Woodstock, i 166.
Woodward, Rowland, in Venice with Wotton, i 48 n;
  sent to Milan (1605), 325-8, 394;
  his instructions, 326 n, ii 420;
  sent to England (1606), 365;
  robbed in Lorraine, 365 n, 366 n, 371-2, 394;
  in England (1607), 394, 412;
  enters service of Bishop of London, 420;
  biographical note, ii 481.
Woodward, Thomas, ii 481.
Woolrich, Anne, ii 3 n.
Woolrich, Philip, ii 3 n.
Woolrich, William, ii 3 n.
Worcester, Edward Somerset, 4th E. of, ii 17 n, 39 n, 492 n.
Worledge, Philip. See Woolrich.
Worms, ii 52, 195.
Worplesdon, ii 304 n.
Wotton, the family of, i 1-3, 27.
Wotton, Sir Edward, HW’s grandfather, i 1-2.
Wotton, Sir Edward, 1st Lord Wotton of Marley, HW’s eldest brother, i 2, 3;
  at Vienna, 14;
  ambassador to Scotland, 6, 42;
  to France, 6;
  death of his wife, 284;
  knighted, 295;
  father of Pickering Wotton, 35;
  procures HW’s admission to service of Essex, 29;
  A. Bacon’s letter to, 29 n;
  alliance with Cecils, 34, 317;
  writes of Sir R. Cecil’s favourable opinion of HW, 43-4, 317-8;
  commanded by James I to send for HW, 44;
  his house at Canterbury, 116;
  his assistance promised by HW in Savoy match, 119;
  becomes Roman Catholic, 20, ii 482;
  his death, 314 n;
  epitaph, 344;
  HW’s letters to, i 8, 227-39, 302, 486, ii 417;
  letters to HW, i 44, 259, 284, 318, 367;
  — 7 n, 32, 43 n, 118, 124, 236 n, 301, 459 n, 484 n, 506-7, ii 18, 20, 25, 29, 34-5, 41, 95, 289 n, 300 n, 342 n, 344 n, 460, 481.
Wotton, Eleanor, HW’s mother, i 2, 3 n, 7 n, ii 461, 474;
  HW’s letter to, i 13, 239-41, ii 417.
Wotton, Sir Henry.
  1568:
    birth, parentage, i 1, 3.
  1568-84:
    early years, 4; ii 456.
  1584-8:
    at Oxford, i 5, 237, ii 461, 469;
    studies civil law, i 6;
    his father’s death, 7;
    supplicates for degree, 7.
  1589-90:
    his earliest letters, 9;
    travels to Heidelberg, 9-10, 227-33;
    early notices of, 11, 233;
    spends winter at Heidelberg, 10-11, 232-39;
    meets Casaubon, 11, 302;
    visits Frankfort Mart, 12;
    goes to Altdorf, 12, 239;
    meets Lord Zouche, 13, ii 482;
    letters to Lord Zouche, i 13, 241-99.
  1590-1:
    spends winter of, at Vienna, 14-16, 172, 240, 243-71;
    — goes to Prague and Frankfort, 16, 301, 305.
  1591-2:
    to Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence, 17-21, 271-7;
    plot against, 21, ii 456, 467;
    spends summer of 1592 in Florence, i 21, 277-87;
    travels to Siena, 287, 289-99.
  1593:
    to Rome, 22.
  1593-4:
    at Geneva with Casaubon, 12, 22-5, 297-300, 302-3, 311, 313, ii 480;
    writes State of Christendom, i 23-5;
    borrows money of Casaubon, 25, 26;
    returns to England, 25, 302;
    his acquaintances abroad, 299-301.
  1595:
    in service of Essex, 29-34;
    becomes secretary, 29;
    sent to Paris, 30.
  1596:
    goes on Cadiz expedition, 30-1, 301;
    writes to Cecil about New College property, 32, 301-2.
  1597:
    On Azores expedition, 31, 304;
    wishes to be sent to Germany, 32, 305-6.
  1599:
    goes to Ireland, 33-4, 306-10.
  1600:
    goes to Italy, 34-6, ii 455-6, 481.
  1601:
    at Florence, i 36, 311-2;
    goes to Rome with Sir A. Sherley, 37-8;
    returns to Florence, 38;
    sent by Ferdinand I to Scotland, 38-42;
    T. Wilson writes of his journey, 39, 40;
    arrives in Scotland, 41;
    received by James VI, 41, 42;
    describes his Court, 42, 314-5.
  1602:
    returns to Florence, 43, 312-4, 316.
  1603:
    at Venice, 43, ii 481;
    writes to Cecil, i 44, 317-9;
    at Paris, 44, 318, ii 481;
    James I sends for, i 44.
  1604:
    returns to England, 44;
    appointed ambassador to Venice, 45;
    journey, 45, 48-9, 319-20;
    definition of ambassador, i iii, 49, 110-1, 126, 130, ii 9, 123 n, 211, 237.
  1604-10:
    first embassy in Venice, i 49-112, 320-501, ii 462-4, 466, 473-4, 476, 478, 481, 490;
    formal reception, i 50-52;
    his audiences in the Collegio 52-5;
    isolation of, as ambassador in Venice, 55-6;
    secret communications with Venetians, 56, 86, 376, 455, 465, 471;
    his life in Venice, 56-64;
    debts, pay, special expenses, 46-7, 351, 359, 367, 373, 420, 430, ii 130;
    his palace and villa, i 57;
    journeys in the Veneto, 57, 67, 435, 436 n, ii 157-8;
    his household, i 57-9;
    occupations, duck-shooting, shopping, &c., 59;
    entertains travellers, 60, 369 n, 496 n, 498 n, ii 129;
    relations with fellow diplomatists, i 61;
    Nuncio, 60, 377-8;
    French ambassador, 61, 326;
    Spanish ambassador, 61, 158;
    Tuscan resident, 62-3;
    diplomatic etiquette, 63-64, 437 n, 503-5, ii 158, 127-8, 259, 271, 275;
    employs knaves, i 64-7, 359, 367, 369, 374, 450-1;
    robs posts, 65, 345, 351-3, 359, 430 n, ii 147-8, 172, 242;
    his hatred of Jesuits, i 65-6;
    negotiates for kidnapping Salvetti, 67, 401-2;
    protects Venetian criminals, 67, 427;
    unfortunate Englishmen, 68;
    liked by Venetians, distrusted by other envoys, 69;
    general charge over English interests in Italy, trade, 69, 328, 380, 408;
    travellers, 70, 330-1, 335, 395, 428-9, 442, 457, 487-9, ii 108, 110-1, 214;
    tutors, i 70-1, 161, 440, 442, 508, ii 126-7, 256-7;
    refugees, i 33-4, 67, 401-2, 417-8, 420-3, 429-30, 476;
    negotiations with Tuscany, 69, 338 n, 373, 387-8;
    negotiations with the Republic of Venice, trade, 72-4, 108, 321-4, 371, 403;
    piracy, 73, 74, 108, 322, 338 n, 415 n;
    general foreign policy, league of anti-papal powers, 75, 76, 94, 109, ii 107-8, 164;
    attempt to introduce religious reform into Italy, i x, 76, 78, 86-99, 108, 116, 349-51, 376, 378, 393, 400, 417, 423-5, 480-2, 485;
    services in his chapel, 77-8, 349, 363.
  1605-8:
    incites Venice against the Pope during Interdict, 79-84, 348, 349 n, 352-3, 357, 370 n, 374, 376, 381 n;
    proposes defensive league, 80, 83, 84, 349 n, 361 n, 362, 382 n;
    instructed to offer English help, 81, 361-2;
    goes beyond his instructions, 82, 361 n;
    reproved by Salisbury, 83, 361 n;
    claims for James I credit of settlement, 85, 384-6;
    Bedell’s testimony to his zeal, 86;
    relations with Sarpi, 87, 89, 91, 94, 406 n, 423-4, 455;
    confides his plans to Bedell, 90-1;
    distributes books, 90, 416-7, 462, 466;
    sends for Diodati, 91, 480;
    interviews with Diodati and von Dohna, 92, 400 n, 426 n;
    Pope complains of, 95, 96, 462;
    answers of Doge, 96-7;
    HW’s denials, 96-7.
  1609:
    presents Premonition, 103, 463-5, 468;
    protests against its prohibition, 104, 192, 471-4;
    resigns his office, 104-5, 474;
    letter of James I, 105-6;
    Donato rebukes, 106;
    James I’s apology for, 107.
  1610:
    leaves Venice, 108, 499-501;
    results of 1st embassy, 108;
    qualifications as ambassador, 109;
    foreign policy, 109;
    his dispatches, 111-2;
    goes to Padua, 114, 501;
    to Milan, 114, 503-5.
  1611:
    goes to Turin, 114;
    negotiates for Savoy marriage, 114-6;
    at Paris, 99, 116, 502, ii 474;
    at Canterbury, i 116;
    received by James I, 117;
    given pension, 117;
    at Court, 117, 507;
    his friends, 117-8;
    literary occupations, 118-9;
    Savoy negotiations, 119-20.
  1612:
    special embassy to Turin, 120-3, ii 1-8, 464, 474, 476;
    crosses Alps, i 120-1, ii 5;
    reception at Chambéry, i 121, ii 5-6;
    at Turin, i 121-2, ii 6-7;
    negotiations with Charles Emmanuel, i 122;
    returns to England, 123-4, ii 7;
    expected appointment as Secretary, i 123;
    Chamberlain and Carleton’s dislike of, 123 n;
    received by James I and Prince Henry, 124;
    urges Savoy marriage, 124-5;
    loses patrons in Salisbury and Prince Henry, 126, 129, ii 14;
    Scioppius prints his definition of ambassador, i 126, ii 9;
    taxed by James, i 127;
    HW’s apologies, 127, ii 9-11;
    his disgrace, i 127-30;
    Casaubon complains of, 128-9;
    begs for increase of pension, 129, ii 8-9;
    writes Character of Happy Life, i 129-30.
  1613:
    in London, 130, ii 11-41;
    describes burning of Globe Theatre, i 131, ii 32-3;
    Savoy negotiations, i 131-2, ii 24-5, 32;
    accepts pension from Charles Emmanuel, i 131, 132 n;
    in favour with James I, 132, ii 35-6.
  1614:
    in Parliament, i 132, ii 36-8;
    speech on impositions, i 132;
    attitude in domestic politics, 132-3;
    special ambassador to the Hague, 134-43, ii 41-50, 62-83, 464, 469, 475-6, 480;
    reception, i 136, ii 42;
    negotiates about Juliers, i 136, ii 44, 45 n, 77;
    blamed for fall of Wesel, 137-9, 142, ii 46-7;
    his apology, i 137, ii 59, 64, 68-73, 75;
    at Xanten, i 138-9, ii 51-66, 72, 74 n, 81, 480;
    negotiates treaty, i 138-9, ii 51-63;
    returns to the Hague, i 139, ii 62.
  1615:
    helps in arranging league between State and Protestant Union, i 140, ii 63-4;
    negotiates about treaty of Xanten, i 140-3, ii 65, 75, 78-9, 82-3, 84 n, 85;
    about trade with England, i 142, ii 73-4, 76-8;
    returns home, i 142, ii 85;
    unfitness for this embassy, i 137-8, 143;
    reappointed to Venice, i 144.
  1616:
    at Cologne, tries to discover author of Corona Regia, i 145, ii 88, 92-3, 280;
    at Heidelberg, i 145, ii 88-91, 93-4, 96;
    at Turin, i 145-6, ii 94-6, 98;
    2nd embassy in Venice, i 146-165, ii 95-173, 461, 468-71, 473, 480;
    his palace, i 147, ii 101-2;
    recommends English soldiers, i 153, ii 97, 112 n, 113 n, 129, 154, 159, 463, 472.
  1617:
    fire in house, 160, ii 125-6, 316;
    sends Cerronio to England, i 161, ii 114-23.
  1618:
    reported to be unfriendly to Venice, i 158;
    Lionello’s secret communication about, 158-9;
    interview with Regnault, 159-60;
    advocates founding of Protestant seminaries, i 161-3, ii 143, 148-51, 161, 172, 179, 480;
    protests against execution of English mutineers, i 155, ii 153-4, 159.
  1619:
    appointed ambassador to Emperor, 164, ii 165;
    appointment revoked, i 164, ii 166;
    leaves Venice, i 163, 165, ii 172;
    his second embassy, i 163-4;
    at Munich, 165, ii 174-6;
    meets Protestant Princes at Heilbronn, i 165, ii 176-9, 180 n;
    his commission from Venice, i 159, 165, ii 177, 179 n;
    proposes Protestant seminaries, i 166, ii 178;
    returns to England, i 166.
  1620:
    promised reversion to Rolls, 167;
    re-appointed ambassador to Venice, 167;
    to German Princes and Ferdinand II, 167-75;
    ii 463-4, 470, 481;
    his instructions, i 169;
    his expenses, 175 n, ii 316;
    writes poem to Q. of Bohemia, i 170-1;
    at Augsburg, 171, ii 182, 189, 192, 205 n;
    sees Kepler at Lintz, invites him to England, i 171-2, ii 205-6;
    at Vienna, i 172, ii 109-207;
    negotiates with Ferdinand II, i 172, ii 190 n, 191-2, 196, 199, 202;
    sends to Prague, i 172, 191-2, 194, 196;
    offends K. and Q. of Bohemia, 173, ii 194 n;
    sends news of battle of White Hill, i 173, ii 196-201;
    leaves Vienna, i 174, ii 206-8;
    gives away Emperor’s gift, i 174;
    goes to Munich, 174-5, ii 207 n, 208;
    failure of his embassy, 175.
  1621:
    third embassy at Venice, i 176-193, ii 207-80, 463-4, 470, 473;
    arrival, i 176, ii 207-8;
    his poor reception, i 177;
    demands apology, 177;
    goes to Padua, 178;
    sends news of marriage negotiations, 181, ii 225-6, 230.
  1622:
    requests help for Palatinate, i 182, ii 227-8, 238-9, 241 n, 265;
    quarrel with Lady Arundel, i 185-9, ii 232-5, 240-2.
  1623:
    sends news of Sarpi’s death, i 191, ii 259-60;
    result of 3rd embassy, i 192;
    returns to England, 192, 194, ii 280-3;
    his arms and inscription, i 193, ii 490;
    his poor health and prospects, i 194.
  1624:
    writes Elements of Architecture, 194-9;
    candidate for Provostship of Eton, 194, 199;
    bargain with Buckingham, 200, ii 294, 316;
    secures appointment, i 201, ii 285.
  1625:
    M.P., i 132, 208;
    as Provost, 203-5;
    care of the school, 203, 211;
    erects row of columns, 204;
    his stipend, 204;
    money owing him, 205, 208;
    literary plans, 205-7;
    letters, i 207-8;
    candidate for Secretaryship, 208;
    at funeral of James I, 208;
    deaths of A. Morton and Lady Bacon, 208-9, ii 288-9.
  1626:
    visits Anne Lyon, i 209, 290-3, 295-6.
  1627:
    enters orders, i 202, 209, ii 300-1, 303-5.
  1629:
    pension increased, i 205, 209, ii 315.
  1633:
    presents book to Bodleian, i 210, ii 347;
    writes Plausus et Vota, i 206, 210, ii 348-9.
  1635:
    arrested for debt, i 205, 210, ii 350-2;
    receives Earl of Cork’s sons, i 203-4, ii 355-61.
  1636:
    presents picture of Venice to Eton, i 210.
  1637:
    illness, i 220;
    his will, 215-9;
    epitaph, 166, 206 n, 216, 219.
  1638:
    visited by Milton, 220-1, ii 381-3, 465;
    praises Comus, i 220, ii 381;
    visits Canterbury, i 221, ii 390;
    asks for Mastership of Savoy, i 221, ii 397-8.
  1639:
    invites Walton to Eton, i 221, ii 405;
    visits Oxford and Winchester, i 222;
    illness and death, 223-5;
    Table Talk, i ix, 58, ii 489-500.
  Characteristics:
    learning and tastes, i i-vi, 14-5, 21, 23, 27, 57-60, 109, 195-200;
    love of fishing, 211, 213-4, ii 405;
    chemical experiments, 338;
    religious attitude, i v, 19, 69, 76, 78, 115, 215, 224, ii 301;
    collects pictures, i iii, 60, 200, 419, ii 15, 210 n, 243, 282, 365;
    as letter-writer, i v, 111;
    his writings, iv, ix, 206;
    portraits of, i xviii, 167, 211.
  Correspondents:
    see Arundel, Aston, Bacon (Edmund), Bacon (Francis), Baker, Baltimore, Barrett, Blotius, Buckingham, C. C., Caesar, Casaubon, Castle, Cerronio, Charles I, Clifton, Coke, Collins, Conway, Cork, Cornwallis, Cotton, Coventry, Donato, Donne, Dorchester, Duplessis-Mornay, Dynely, Edmondes, Elizabeth, Essex, Ferdinand, Fresnes-Canaye, Friedesheim, Gerbier, Hamilton, Henry (Prince), Hoeschel, Holderness, Hunnings, James I, Johnson, Juxon, Lake, Laud, Massaciucioli, Middlesex, Milton, Modena (Duke of), Morton, Murray (Sir David), Murray (Thomas), Naunton, Neuburg, Newton, Pembroke, Pey, Priuli, Privy Council, Portland, Possevino, Quester, Reynolds, Roe, Rooke, Roos, Salisbury, Sanminiati, Somerset, Spinola, Strafford, Suffolk, Tegrimi, Throckmorton (Sir A.), Throckmorton, (Sir J.), Vinta, Walton, Ward, Welser, Williams, Wilson, Windebank, Winwood, Woodward, Wotton (Edward Lord), Wotton (Eleanor), Wotton (Hester), Wotton (Mary), Zouche.
  Notes on friends, correspondents, and associates, ii 460-83.
  Writings:
    State of Christendom, composition of, i ix, 14, 23-5, ii 455-9;
      bibliography, ii 413;
      defence of bribery in, i 62.
    Essay on Fate, i 43, 312, 313 n.
    Elements of Architecture, writing and publication of, i 194;
      bibliography, ii 413;
      presented to Prince of Wales, i 199, ii 284;
      to Lord Middlesex, i 199, ii 285;
      to Archbishop Abbot, 285 n;
      to William Juxon, 363;
      standards of, 21, 195-9;
      — i 131 n, 207, 210, 285, ii 205 n, 258 n, 332, 349, 457.
    Survey of Education, i 199, 207, ii 413;
      sent to Charles I, 210, ii 331-3.
    Aphorisms of Education, i 207, ii 412-3.
    Plausus et Vota, i 206, 210;
      publication, ii 348-9;
      bibliography, ii 413;
      phrases in, i 206 n, 219, ii 297, 457.
    Parallel between Essex and Buckingham, i 31, 206, ii 413, 487.
    Life and Death of Buckingham, i 206, ii 303 n, 414.
    Character of William the Conqueror, i 206, ii 414.
    Henry VI, i 206, ii 254 n, 414.
    Pompey and Caesar, i 206, ii 375 n, 414.
    Meditations, i 206, ii 414, 457.
    Poems, i iii, 33 n, 210, ii 415-6.
    Character of a Happy Life, i 129-30, ii 415, 490.
    On the Queen of Bohemia, i 145, 170, ii 415.
    Tears at the Grave of Sir A. Morton, i 33 n, 209, ii 415.
    On a Bank as I sat a Fishing, i 213-4, 222, ii 416.
Wotton, Hester, 1st wife of Edward Lord Wotton, i 7 n, ii 342 n;
  death of, i 284;
  HW’s letter to, i 236, 239, ii 417.
Wotton, Hester, Lady Campden. See Campden.
Wotton, Sir James, HW’s brother, i 2, 31, 284, ii 130.
Wotton, Sir John, HW’s brother, i 2-3;
  quarrels with his wife, 284;
  HW mentions, 238.
Wotton, Margaret, Lady, daughter of Lord Wharton, 2nd wife of Edward Lord Wotton, poem of HW’s sent to, i 170;
  inscription on her husband’s tomb, ii 344;
  — 18, 20, 29, 35, 200.
Wotton, Margaret, Lady Tufton. See Tufton.
Wotton, Mary, Lady, daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton, and wife of Thomas, 2nd Lord Wotton, marriage, i 484 n;
  HW visits, i 212;
  HW’s letter to, ii 409-10, 454;
  — ii 288 n, 330 n, 343-4, 412, 481.
Wotton, Nicholas, Lord Mayor of London, i 1, 2 n, 3.
Wotton, Nicholas, Dean of Canterbury and York, i 2, 6, 9, 205.
Wotton, Philippa. See Bacon.
Wotton, Pickering, nephew of HW, goes with him to Italy, i 35-6, 43 n;
  gives information about Salvetti, 37 n, 39;
  Sir Anthony Sherley writes to, 39;
  in Venice with HW, 44, 318;
  conversion and death of, 38, 338;
  biographical note, ii 481.
Wotton, Sir. Robert, HW’s great-grandfather, i 2 n, 3 n, ii 461.
Wotton, Thomas, HW’s father, i 1;
  his character and marriage, 2;
  refuses offers of Q. Elizabeth, 4;
  death and will, 7;
  — i 3 n. 4, 193, 215, 240 n, ii 72, 406, 474.
Wotton, Thomas, 2nd Lord Wotton, his death, ii 330 n, 405;
  — i 212, 484 n, ii 300 n, 312 n, 326 n, 343 n, 409, 481.
Wotton, William, i 3 n.
Wrath. See Wroth.
Wren, Sir Christopher, i 195.
Wroth, John, i 295;
  sent on mission to Germany, i 305-6;
  writes to HW, 279.
Wroth, Margaret, Lady, i 279 n.
Wroth, Sir Peter, i 279 n.
Würtemberg, ii 89, 189;
  Friedrich, D. of, HW wishes to be sent to, i 306;
  Johann Friedrich, D. of, HW’s proposal to visit, 454;
  HW meets at Heilbronn, i 193, ii 176, 179 n;
  HW visits, ii 182, 188.
Würzburg, Bishop of. See Mespelbronn.
 
Xanten, HW at, i 138-9, 159, ii 51-66, 72, 74 n, 81, 480;
  HW describes, ii 56;
  letters dated at, 53-62;
  negotiations at, i 138-9, ii 51-63;
  treaty of, i 139, ii 69-70, 490;
  Philip III forbids execution, i 139, ii 62 n, 65;
  negotiations about, i 140-3, ii 65, 75, 78-9, 82-3, 84 n, 85.
 
York, i 236 n, 506 n;
  D. of, see Charles I.
Yorke, Aubrey, offers his services to Venice, i 365 n;
  HW sends to Pisa, 401 n;
  goes to Turin with HW, ii 2 n.
Ypres, ii 87.
Yssel, the, ii 323.
 
Zabud, ii 296.
Zahud. See Zabud.
Zane, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Zanoli, Lorenzo, Venetian merchant, begs HW to drop charges against Balbi, i 325 n.
Zante, i 322 n, 479 n;
  English trade with, 72.
Zanten. See Xanten.
Zara, ii 159 n.
Zechinelli, Flemish merchants in Venice, i 77.
Zeeland, ii 42, 71, 75, 84.
Zeirotine, Baron of, in England, i 31 n.
Zen, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Zeno, Rainieri, Venetian ambassador in Rome, ii 226, 276.
Zisca, ii 206.
Zolcher, George, letter to Walsingham, i 231 n.
Zorzi, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Zouch, Thomas, i 33 n.
Zouche, Edward la, 11th Baron, his licence to travel, i 273, 284, ii 482;
  HW meets at Altdorf, i 13;
  collects books for, 15, 246, 250, 253-4, 263-7;
  arranges for residence in Vienna, 243, 248, 251, 262;
  at Padua, 19, 271;
  plots against, 20-1, 276, ii 467;
  returns to England, i 297;
  poem of HW sent to, 170;
  biographical note, ii 482;
  letters to HW, i 247, 250, 253-4, 257, 260, 265, 279, 282-3;
  letter to Burghley, ii 482;
  HW’s letters to, i v, xiii, 13, 164, 241-99, ii 161, 282, 412, 417-9, 442, 449.
Zouche, George la, 10th Baron, ii 482.
Zouche, Sarah Lady, ii 283.
Zuñiga, Don Balthazar, minister of Philip IV, ii 225 n.
Zuñiga, Pedro de, Spanish ambassador in England, i 365, 372, ii 126.
Zurich, i 480 n, ii 179.
Zutphen, ii 71.
Zustinian, or Giustinian, ‘old’ family of Venice, i 434 n.
Zweibrücken, John II, D. of, ii 55.

The variations in spelling have been retained. The letter spacing in abbreviations has been made consistent.

The Errata published in Volume 2 have been copied to this volume and the corrections have been applied to the text.

The Glossary of archaic, obsolete, and rare words used by Sir Henry Wotton, and the Index, published in Volume 2 have been copied to this volume.

Two footnotes lacked any citation in the text, and so the position of those citations had to be inferred from the context. These footnotes are marked by Transcriber’s Notes.

A very few errors were discovered in the Index and corrected, but no attempt was made to verify the whole Index.

In the original book, when a publication was repeatedly referenced in the footnotes on a page then the second and subsequent references were denoted with Ibid.. Here the footnotes are gathered at the ends of chapters or letters. Repeated references to a publication in footnotes, now over subsequent pages, are indicated by Ibid..

The footnotes have been renumbered sequentially from 1 within each chapter or letter.

[The end of The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton Volume 1 by Logan Pearsall Smith]

VOLUME I

	PAGE
Preface	iii
Note on the Chronology and Dating of Sir Henry Wotton’s Letters	xvii
Principal Abbreviations used in the Footnotes	xxi

LIFE OF SIR HENRY WOTTON.
Chapter I. Parentage and Early Years, 1568-88	1
Chapter II. First Visit to the Continent, 1589-94	8
Chapter III. In the Service of Essex; Second Visit to the Continent, 1594-1603	27
Chapter IV. Wotton’s first Embassy in Venice, 1604-10	46
Chapter V. Wotton’s first Embassy in Venice—Continued; Negotiations with the Republic; Religious Propaganda, 1604-10	72
Chapter VI. Negotiations with the Duke of Savoy; Wotton’s Temporary Disgrace, 1611-14	113
Chapter VII. Ambassador at The Hague; the Treaty of Xanten, 1614-15	134
Chapter VIII. Second Embassy in Venice, 1616-19	144
Chapter IX. Embassy to Ferdinand II, 1620	167
Chapter X. Third Embassy in Venice, 1621-23	176
Chapter XI. Wotton Provost of Eton College; Last Years and Death, 1624-39	194
Sir Henry Wotton’s Letters, 1589-1611	227

Glossary
Index

Henry Wotton, from the original portrait by an unknown painter in the Bodleian Library	Frontispiece
An Audience with the Doge, from the original painting by Odoardo Fialetti at Hampton Court	To face p. 48
Detail from the Same (Portrait of Wotton)	To face p. 64
Portrait of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury, from the mosaic at Hatfield House, after a painting by John de Critz	To face p. 452

Mr. Wrath.	Wotton.
The Emperor,	The Palsgrave,
Duke of Saxonie,	The Landgrave,
Duke of Pomern,	The Catholic Electors,
Duke of Brownswick, and the rest in those Eastern parts.	The Duke of Wirtemberg, and the rest of the Western princes.

PREFACE

THE CHRONOLOGY AND DATING OF SIR HENRY WOTTON’S LETTERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE FOOTNOTES