THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 ISAAC FOOT 
 
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THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 BY 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 1907 
 
v.l 
 
 HENRY FKOWDE, M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OP OXFORD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH 
 NEW YORK AND TORONTO 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 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 remained hitherto unpublished), and a study, longer and more 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 English- 
 man 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 corre- 
 sponded 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 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 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 n i s 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 expres- 
 sion. 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 diplo- 
 matist ; 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 
 
PREFACE v 
 
 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 incor- 
 porated 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 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 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 litera- 
 ture, 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.' * 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 
 
 1 Book iii. chap. xiv. note. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 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 classifica- 
 tion 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 accord- 
 ing 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 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 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 ; l 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. 
 
 1 Any one interested in Sir Henry Wotton's spelling will find his letters and 
 dispatches textually reproduced in the volume of Eton Letters and Despatches, 
 published by the Roxburghe Club, and in Archaeologia, vol. xl. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 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 diploma- 
 tist 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, Barne veldt 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 am- 
 bassador, and the main part of his diplomatic activity is con- 
 nected 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 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 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 kid- 
 napping 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 travel- 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 ling to Venice he went into the province, and came under the ob- 
 servation 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 docu- 
 ments 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 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 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 consider- 
 able 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 dis- 
 cussion 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 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 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 informa- 
 tion contained in these documents. Mr. Sidney Lee's article in 
 the Dictionary of National Biography is in the main a restate- 
 ment 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 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 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, 
 
PREFACE xv 
 
 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 consider- 
 able 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 
 Salisbur} T , 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 manu- 
 scripts 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 con- 
 tained 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 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 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 per- 
 mission 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. 
 
THE CHRONOLOGY AND DATING OF 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON'S LETTERS 
 
 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 promul- 
 gated 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 con- 
 fusing 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 T 2 2, 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. 
 
 WOTTOS. I )j 
 
xviii CHRONOLOGY OF THE LETTERS 
 
 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. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 PREFACE iii 
 
 NOTE ON THE CHRONOLOGY AND DATING OP 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 PROPA- 
 GANDA, 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 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 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 EGBERT CECIL, FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY, 
 from the mosaic at Hatfield House, after a painting 
 by John de Critz ...... To face p. 452 
 
PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS USED 
 IN THE FOOTNOTES 
 
 I. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 
 
 S. P. Dom. = State Papers, Domestic, in the Public Kecord Office. 
 S. P. Go: Emp. = State Papers, Foreign, Germany, Empire, in the 
 
 Public Kecord Office. 
 S. P. Ger. States = State Papers, Foreign, Germany, States, in the 
 
 Public Kecord Office. 
 S. P. Holland = State Papers, Foreign, Holland, in the Public Record 
 
 Office. 
 S. P. Ital. States State Papers, Foreign, Italian States, in the Public 
 
 Record Office. 
 S. P. Savoy State Papers, Foreign, Savoy, in the Public Record 
 
 Office. 
 S. P. Scot. = State Papers, Foreign, Scotland, in the Public Record 
 
 Office. 
 S. P. Tuscany = State Papers, Foreign, Tuscany, in the Public Record 
 
 Office. 
 S. P. Yen. = State Papers, Foreign, Venice, in the Public Record 
 
 Office. 
 
 Docquct Books = Docquet Books in the Public Record Office* 
 Add. MSS. = Additional MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Burney MSS. = Burney MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Cotton MSS. = Cotton MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Ey. MSS. = Egerton MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Harl MSS. = Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Lansd. MSS. = Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Sloane MSS. = Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Stowe MSS. = Stowe MSS. in the British Museum. 
 Ashm. MSS. = Ashmolean MSS. in the Bodleian. 
 Raid. MSS. = Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian. 
 Tanner MSS. = Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian. 
 Arch. Med. = Archivio Mediceo, Florence. 
 Arch. Turin = Archivio di Stato, Turin (Lettere Ministri Inghilterra 
 
 referred to). 
 
 Arch. Ven. = Archivio di Stato, Venice. 
 Atti = Atti degli Antelniinelli, Archivio di Stato, Lucca. 
 Burle-y MS. = Commonplace Book, Burley-on-the-Hill, Oakham. 
 C. C. C. MSS. = MSS. in the Library of Corpus Christ! College, Oxford. 
 Cecil MSS. = MSS. at Hatfield House. 
 Clifton MSS. = MSS. at Clifton Hall, Nottingham. 
 Esp. Prin. = Esposizioni Principi, Archivio di Stato, Venice. 
 
xxii PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 Esp. Prin.filze = Esposizioni Principi, Archivio di Stato, original files. 
 
 Eton MSS. = MSS. in the Library of Eton College. 
 
 Hofbibl MSS. = MSS. in the K. K. Hofbibliothek, Vienna. 
 
 King's Coll. MSS. MSS. in the Library of King's College, Cambridge. 
 
 Lambeth MSS. = MSS. in the Library of Lambeth Palace. 
 
 Mus. Cor. MSS. = MSS. in the Museo Correr, Venice. 
 
 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. 
 Archaeol. = Archaeologia, Society of Antiquaries. 
 Berry = County Genealogies. William Berry. 1847, &c. 
 Berti Vita di Giordano Bruno da Nola. D. Berti. 1868. 
 Biog. Univ. = Biographie Universelle. 
 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. 
 Birch, Pr. Henry = Life of Henry, Prince of Wales. Thomas 
 
 Birch. 1760. 
 
 Brown, Ven. St. = Venetian Studies. Horatio F. Brown. 1887. 
 C. <$, T. Ch. = Court and Times of Charles I. 2 vols. 1848. 
 
 C. $ T. Jas. = Court and Times of James I. 2 vols. 1848. 
 
 Cal. S. P. Col. = Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East 
 
 Indies, China, and Japan, 1513-1616. 1862. 
 Cal. S. P. Dom. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series. 
 Cal. S. P. Ire. = Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland. 
 Cal. S. P. Scot. = Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland. 
 Cal. S. P. Ven. = Calendar of State Papers, Venetian. 
 Camd. Epist. = Cl. G. Camdeni et Illustrium Virorum ad G. Cam- 
 
 denum Epistolae. 1691. 
 Canaye Philippe Canaye, Seigneur de Fresnes, Lettres et Ambassade. 
 
 3 vols. 1635-6. 
 Gas. Epist. = Isaac! Casauboni Epistolae. Curante T. J. ab Alme- 
 
 loveen. 1709. 
 Cecil Pp. = Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury. 
 
 1883, &c. 
 
 Cent. Diet. = Century Dictionary. 
 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. 
 Corbett England in the Mediterranean. Julian S. Corbett. 2 vols. 
 
 1904. 
 Coxe = History of the House of Austria. William Coxe. 4th ed. 
 
 1864. 
 
 D. N. B. = Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
USED IN THE FOOTNOTES xxiii 
 
 Davison = The Poetical Khapsody. 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. 
 Dumont = Corps Universel Diplomatique. J. Dumont. 8 vols. 
 
 1726-31. 
 Foley = Kecords 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. 
 
 Foster, Ox. = Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714. Joseph Foster. 1891. 
 Gardiner = History of England, 1603-42. S. K. Gardiner. 1899- 
 
 1900. 
 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. 
 Gardiner, 30 yrs. = The Thirty Years' War. S. R. Gardiner. 
 
 1900. 
 Gosse = The Life and Letters of John Donne. Edmund Gosse. 
 
 1899. 
 Hasted = History of the County of Kent. Edward Hasted. 4 vols. 
 
 1778-99. 
 
 Hist. MSS. Com. = Historical Manuscripts Commission, Reports, &c. 
 Is. Ex. = Issues of the Exchequer. James I. 
 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. 
 Letters to B. = Letters of Sir Henry Wotton to Sir Edmund Bacon. 
 
 1661. 
 
 Lismore Pp. The Lismore Papers. Edited by A. B. Grosart. 1886. 
 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. 
 
 Metcalfe = A Book of Knights. Walter C. Metcalfe. 1885. 
 Mornay = Memoires et Correspondance de Duplessis-Mornay. 
 
 Vols. x, xi. 1824-5. 
 Mori/son, Itin. = An Itinerary. Written by Fynes Moryson, Gent. 
 
 1617. 
 Moryson, Sh. = Shakespeare's Europe, unpublished chapters of Fynes 
 
 Moryson's Itinerary. Edited by Charles Hughes. 1903. 
 Motley, Barn. = Life and Death of John of Barneveld. J. L. Motley. 
 
 1875. 
 Motley, U. N. = History of the United Netherlands. J. L. Motley. 
 
 1876. 
 
 N. B. Gen. = Nouvelle Biographie Generale. 
 N. E. D. = New English Dictionary. 
 N. 4' Q- = Notes and Queries. 
 Xichols, Eltz. = The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen 
 
 Elizabeth. John Nichols. 3 vols. 1823. 
 
xxiv PRINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 Nichols, Jas. I = The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent 
 Festivities of King James I. John Nichols. 4 vols. 1828. 
 
 Pattison = Isaac Casaubon. Mark Pattison. 2nd ed. 1892. 
 
 Rarike, Popes = The Popes of Rome. Translated by Sarah Austin. 
 2 vols. 1847. 
 
 RanJce, Yltli C. = A History of England, principally in the Seven- 
 teenth Century. Leopold von Ranke. English translation. 
 
 6 vols. 1875. 
 
 Iteliq. = Reliquiae Wottonianae. 1st ed. 1651 ; 2nd ed. 1654 ; 
 
 3rd ed. 1672 ; 4th ed. 1685. 
 Hitter = Briefe und Acten zur Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen 
 
 Krieges. Moriz Bitter. 2. Bd. 1870. 
 Hoe = The Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy to the 
 
 Ottoman Porte, 1621-8. 1740. 
 
 Homanin = Storia Documentata di Venezia di S. Romanin. 1853-61. 
 jRox. 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 '1 
 
 Sommo Pontefice Paulo V et la Serenissima Republica di Venetia. 
 
 1624. 
 Sarpi, Lettere = Lettere di Fra Paolo Sarpi. F. L. Polidori. 2 vols. 
 
 1863. 
 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. 
 
 State of C. = The State of Christendom. By Sir Henry Wotton. 
 1657. 
 
 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 Col- 
 lected by Sir Henry Sydney, &c. Edited by Arthur Collins. 
 
 2 vols. 1746. 
 
 Two Biog. = Two Biographies of William Bedell. E. S. Shuckburgh. 
 1902. 
 
 Walton, C. A. = The Compleat Angler. Izaak Walton. 
 
 Walton, Life = The Life of Sir Henry Wotton. Reliquiae Wottoni- 
 anae, 1685. 
 
 Ward Sir Henry Wotton : A Biographical Sketch. A. W. Ward. 
 1898. 
 
 Wicquefort = The Ambassador Abraham van Wicquefort. English 
 translation. 1740. 
 
 Winwood Mem. = Memorials of Affairs of State, . . . Collected . . . 
 from the original papers of Sir Ralph Winwood. Edmund Sawyer. 
 
 3 vols. 1725. 
 
LIFE OF SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAEENTAGE AND EARLY TEAKS. 1568-1588 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON was born on March 30, 1568 \ 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 gentle- 
 men, 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, 
 
 1 The exact date is given by Anthony a Wood (Athenae, ed. Bliss, ii, p. 643), 
 and in the copy of a pedigree dated 1603, in the British Museum (Add. MS. 
 14,311 f. 20). It is approximately confirmed by the age of sixteen years, given 
 in the entry of Wotton's matriculation in 1584 ; by the inscription on the 
 Bodleian portrait ' Aetatis suae 52 A 1620', and by Izaak Walton's statement 
 that he died in 1639 in his seventy-second year. I think it may therefore be 
 accepted, although in a letter of Dec. 12, 1622, Wotton speaks of his fifty-third 
 (not his fifty-fifth) year drawing to an end. See ii, p. 254. 
 
 WOTTON. I JJ 
 
2 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 the office of Lord Chancellor offered him by that King. 1 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 2 ; 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 
 ill 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 
 
 1 Holinshed, Chronicles, 1587, p. 1402. The continuator of Holinshed says of 
 Sir Robert Wotton (b. 1465), grandson of Nicholas Wotton mentioned above, 
 and great-grandfather of Sir Henry Wotton, that he ' was father to two such 
 worthy sons, as I do not remember that ever England nourished at one time, 
 for like honour, disposition of mind, favour and service to their country' (Ibid.}. 
 These two sons were Sir Edward and Nicholas. ' It is a singular blessing of God,' 
 he says, in concluding his account of the Wottons, ' not commonly given to every 
 race, to be beautified with such great and succeeding honour in the descents of 
 the family' (Ibid., p. 1403). Lives of Sir Henry Wotton's grandfather, Sir 
 Edward (1489-1551), his great-uncle Nicholas (1497-1567), his father Thomas 
 (1521-87), his brother Sir Edward, Lord Wotton of Marley (1548-1626), are 
 included in the D. N. B. A detailed history of the family is therefore not 
 necessary here. a D. N. B., Ixiii, p. 60. 
 
BOCTON MALHERBE 3 
 
 widow of Robert Morton. 1 Henry Wotton was the only surviv- 
 ing 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 2 , 
 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 achieve- 
 ments 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 com- 
 bination 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 
 
 1 The marriage was in 1565. A son, William, was born April 14, 15G6, but 
 died in the following July. Eleanor Morton was second cousin, once removed, 
 of Thomas Wotton. Her grandfather, Henry Finch, married Alice Belknap, 
 niece of Anne Belknap, who married Sir Robert Wotton, grandfather of Thomas 
 Wotton (Berry, Kent, p. 207). a Hasted, Kent, ii, p. 428. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 satisfac- 
 tion 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 retire- 
 ment and country recreations to the Court, offering him a 
 knighthood as an earnest of some more honourable and profitable 
 employment. 1 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. 2 Of his life at 
 Winchester we know nothing, save that (as he somewhat sadly 
 recalled, visiting the school more than half a century later) 
 
 1 Walton, Life : ' Mr. Wotton by his labour and suit was not then made 
 a knight.' MS. account-book of Richard Dering, quoted Nichols, Eliz., 
 i t p. 334. 
 
 a Henry Wotton must have been a Commoner at Winchester College, as his 
 name is not recorded in the list of Scholars. 
 
OXFORD 5 
 
 ' 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. 1 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 2 ), 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. 3 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 Geru- 
 salemme 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 commenda- 
 tion of the benefits of sight, from which Izaak Walton gives 
 a quotation, though probably in his own and not in Wotton's 
 words. 4 These discourses, Walton writes, 'were so exactly 
 debated, and so rhetorically heightened, as among other 
 admirers, caused that learned Italian, Albericus Gentilis (then 
 
 1 His name is entered in the University Register under the date of June 5, 
 1584, ' Henry Wotton (Wolton), Kent, Arm. fil. 16 ' (Register of the University of 
 Oxford, 2, ii, p. 135). 
 
 2 See Appendix III. 3 Gosse, i, p. 15 ; see also Appendix III. 
 
 * Walton states that these discourses were read when Wotton proceeded to 
 his degree of M.A., but this must be a mistake, as Wotton apparently never 
 took even his Bachelor's degree. They were probably read at disputations held 
 in the College, like those ordained by the Statutes of Corpus Christ! College. 
 ^T. Fowler, History of C. C. C., p. 41.) 
 
6 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Professor of the Civil Law in Oxford), to call him Henrice 
 mi ocdle ; 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 1 , 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 Reforma- 
 tion 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. 2 The need, however, for 
 a revival of a study of Civil Law had been felt ; and the Protector 
 
 1 Alberici Gentilis De Legationibus Libri Tres, Londini, 1585. 
 
 2 Inaugural Lecture on Albericus Gentilis, T. E. Holland, 1874, p. 25. 
 
OXFORD 7 
 
 Somerset had planned a College of Law in Cambridge to provide 
 civilians for the diplomatic service, and for the consultations 
 of the Privy Council. 1 At Oxford Gentili had done much 
 to revive this study of Roman Law 2 , 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 3 ; there is, however, no mention of any such 
 bequest in Thomas Wotton 's will 4 ; 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 5 , but there is no record that the degree was ever granted. 
 
 1 J. B. MuUinger, ii, p. 132, quoted by F. W. Maitland, English Law and the 
 Benaissance, 1901, p. 51. 
 3 Holland, p. 25. 
 
 3 Forty marks a year was considered a liberal allowance for a gentleman of 
 no extravagant tastes. See A. Jessopp, One Generation of a Norfolk House, 1878, 
 pp. 273, 283 n. 
 
 4 Will of Thomas Wotton, dated Jan. 8, 1586(7), proved Jan. 29, 1586<7>, 
 4 Spencer, P. C. C. He leaves bequests to his wife, to his eldest son Edward, and 
 Edward Wotton's wife, to various nephews, cousins, friends, and servants, but 
 there is no mention of his younger children. 
 
 5 Register of the University of Oxford, 2, iii, p. 151. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FIKST VISIT TO THE CONTINENT. 1589-1594 
 
 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 
 
 Some to the wars, to try their fortune there ; 
 Some to discover islands far away; 
 Some to the studious universities. 1 
 
 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 uni- 
 versities, 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 per- 
 petually 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, 
 
 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 3. 
 
 2 Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England, 1902, chap. iii. 
 
 3 Bacon's Advice to Villiers (Spedding N , vi. 43. 
 
FOREIGN TRAVEL 9 
 
 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 per- 
 sonal 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 Con- 
 stantinople ; 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 
 Francois 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 
 
10 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 eagerness, begging his brother to procure him letters of intro- 
 duction 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 atten- 
 tion 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. 1 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 161 7, and his description of Europe, recently printed 
 from the manuscript in Corpus Christi College 2 , 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 com- 
 bine 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 
 
 1 Holland, op. cit., p. 23. 
 
 2 Shakespeare's Europe, edited by Charles Hughes, 1903. 
 
HEIDELBERG 11 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 
 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 
 
 1 i. p. 233 n. 
 
 2 Cas.. Epist., p. 4. That Wotton and Casaubon met at this time is proved by 
 Wotton's letter printed i, p. 302. 
 
12 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 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. 2 That 
 Bruno would be among the loudest and most eager of the dis- 
 putants 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 3 , who 
 was then resting at Frankfort after his many travels. 
 
 News had no doubt reached Wotton of the death, in the 
 previous February, of Franyois 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 
 
 1 Berti, pp. 230-1. 
 
 a Giordano Bruno was at Frankfort in the summer of 1590, and his Italian 
 biographer Berti states that he had arrived there about April (Ibid., p. 227 n.). 
 He almost certainly visited Padua during Wotton's stay there in 1591-2. 
 
 3 i, pp. 246, 297. 
 
ALTDORF 13 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 
 
 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 '. 3 
 
 Wotton left Altdorf towards the end of October, and after 
 
 1 i, p. 240. a ii, p. 161. For Lord Zouche, see Appendix III. 
 
 3 i, p. 240. 
 
14 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 Two florins a week, if Rhenish florins are meant, would be equal to about 
 20 per annum in the money of that time (Pattison, p. 42). 
 
 * ' De uxore tua addam amplius, me numquam quidquam aut (aur)ibus aut 
 verbis spectavisse vel audivisse, quod non castissimae foeminae modestam vere- 
 cundiam deceret.' Wotton to Blotius at Neustadt, Jan. 25, 1591 (Hofbibl. MS. 
 9737, Z. 17, f. 130). 
 
VIENNA 15 
 
 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 states- 
 men, 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 am- 
 bassadors 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. 1 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. 2 
 As German was not much read in England, W'otton 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.' 3 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 '. 4 
 
 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 
 
 1 Many of these ' Relations ' are still to be found in manuscript collec- 
 tions, and the quantity of them in existence must have been very great. For 
 a list of sixty-four, which Francis Davison took abroad with him, see Havison, 
 i, p. xxxix. 
 
 * i, p. 261. i, p. 262. * i, p. 267. 
 
16 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 lost half the wonder and uncertainty it possessed for our an- 
 cestors, 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 1 '; 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 2 , 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 ambassa- 
 dors, 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, 
 
 1 ii, p. 213. Bacon attributes the phrase to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of 
 Winchester (Works, Ellis and Spedding, vii, p. 127). Webster made use of it in 
 Vittoria Corombona, iii. i : 
 
 Your mercenary post-boys : 
 Your letters carry truth, but 'tis your guise 
 To fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies. 
 3 ii, p. 10 n. 
 
JOURNEY TO ITALY 17 
 
 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. 1 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 country men', the English merchants abroad, from whose 
 gossip the Spanish and Papal authorities might receive information 
 about his plans. 2 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 Eliza- 
 beth, 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 3 ; 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 Inquisi- 
 tion, and took to his heels towards Padua, in such haste 'as he 
 seemed to fly over the Apennine without wings '. 4 
 
 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 
 
 1 Wotton to Blotius, Frankfort-on-Main, June 16, 1591, O.S. (Hofbibl. MS. 
 9737, Z. 17, f. 151). 
 4 i, p. 256. 
 
 8 Lord Darcy to the Lord Treasurer, Venice, June 12, 1592 (S. P. Fen.). 
 * In., p. 159. 
 
18 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' l 
 
 On Nov. 4, 1591, New Style, Wotton landed in Venice at 
 eight o'clock in the morning. 2 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. 3 
 
 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. 4 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 
 
 1 i, p. 258. 
 
 2 Wotton to Blotius, Nov. 31, 1591, N.S. (Eofbibl. MS. 9737, Z. 17). 
 
 3 i, p. 147. 
 
 * ' Istic hesi quatriduum, coactus maturare fugam turn quod urbs ad valetu- 
 dinem minus commodo sita sit, turn etiam quod inter foeminas Venetianas non 
 admodum confidam meis viribus, nam non consto ex lapide.' To Blotius, 
 Nov. 30, 1591, N.S. (Hofbibl. MS. 9737, Z. 17). 
 
PADUA-ROME 19 
 
 Padua, the well-known patron of letters, who had not, how- 
 ever, 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. 1 
 
 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.' 2 
 
 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, never- 
 theless, 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.' 3 
 
 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 corrup- 
 tion, religion being converted there 'from a rule of conscience 
 
 1 ' Qui vult esse in Italia semper incolumis, non debet semper esse bonus.' 
 (Hofbibl. MS. 9737, Z. 17.) 
 
 a Heinrich Domason von Reichssniirt, Colonese, ad Blotium (Ibid.). 
 i, p. 274. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 to an instrument of State, and from the mistress of all sciences, 
 into a very handmaid of ambition.' l 
 
 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 cele- 
 brated 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. 2 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 3 , 
 a travelling Englishman there, shows that some such attempt to 
 
 1 ii, p. 801. i, p. 276. 
 
 3 See Appendix III, where the portion of this letter referring to Lord Zouchs 
 and Wotton is printed. 
 
FLORENCE 21 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 1 592, 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. 2 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, how- 
 ever, 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 ', 3 and the phrase shows that he 
 had already acquired that taste for the noble and severe archi- 
 tecture 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 after- 
 wards referred in his letters. Alberti, as steward at Rome, 
 forty years before, to Giovanni Caraffa, Duke of Palliano and 
 
 1 Pears, Correspondence of Sidney and Languet, 1845, p. 92. 2 i, p. 287. 
 
 8 ii, p. 298. Wotton refers to the new court built at about this time by 
 Ammanati ; the present front of the Pitti Palace had not yet been built. 
 
22 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 nephew of Paul IV, had lived through the tragedy of the Caraffa 
 family 1 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 
 
 o 
 
 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.' 2 
 
 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 The Duke of Palliano murdered his wife, and was tried and executed after 
 the death of Paul IV. Modern readers are familiar with the story from Stend- 
 hal's relation of it in his volume ISAbbesse de Castro. Stendhal states that his 
 account is taken from a manuscript he discovered, written by one of the Duchess's 
 household. This was possibly Scipione Alberti himself, who gave Wotton a 
 narrative of 'The death of the Duchess of Palliano in the bloody times of 
 Paul IV ' (i, p. 298). J. A. Symonds also tells the story in his Catholic Reaction, 
 chap. v. 
 
 2 ii, p. 382. 
 
 3 J Fonti Toscani cC Orazio Lombardelli, Senese, Accademico Umoroso, Firenze, 1598. 
 This book, being a treatise on the best Italian authors, is written in the form of 
 an epistle, ' All' Illustre Signore, il Signore Arrigo Vuottoni Inglese, 1 and dated 
 Siena, the Feast of the Purification, 1592 (Feb. 2, 1592-3). Lombavdelli states 
 that Wotton had been introduced to him by Roberto Titi (a Florentine advocate 
 and poet, who was afterwards professor at Bologna and then at Pisa, where he 
 died in 1609), and speaks of the strong friendship between the three, and espe- 
 cially praises Wotton's' innata bonta, cortese piacevolezza ', his ' bellissimo ingenio, 
 finissimo giudizio, essendo in cosi verde eta, e nelle piu pregiate lingue, e nelle 
 piii utili scienze, tanto nobilmente ammaestrato' (pp. 3, 4, 132). Wotton men- 
 tions this book in a list he made out of Italian authors (see Appendix IV). In 
 the Rawl. MSS. at the Bodleian there is a notice of a copy of I Fonti, to which is 
 prefixed a letter from Wotton to Sir Maurice Berkeley, dated April 19, 1595 
 (B. 265, f. 13 b). I have not been able to find this volume. 
 
23 
 
 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 l . Here he remained with Casau- 
 bon for fourteen months, a delightful period of studious com- 
 panionship, 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.' 2 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 pos- 
 thumous 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 author- 
 ship. 3 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 some- 
 what 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 
 
 1 Cas., Epist., p. 578. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 153. Translated, Pattison, p. 380. 
 
 3 Appendix II. 
 
24 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 l , and was likely to 
 grow into a dangerous rival of the English nation. 2 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 Ill's murder of the Guises. He also defends, 
 in a curious passage, the statesmen and ambassadors who took 
 bribes from foreign princes 3 ; and, save for a noble defence of 
 religious toleration 4 , 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 
 
 1 p. 103. p . 259. 
 
 8 Supplement, pp. 7, 8. * pp. 129-31. 
 
RETURN TO ENGLAND 25 
 
 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 1 ? Against His chosen 
 Vessel? Against His dear Virgin?' 1 
 
 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. 2 
 
 Wotton left Geneva on Aug. 24 3 , 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.' 4 
 
 1 pp. 84-91. 
 
 4 Casaubon to Wotton, Epist., pp.578, 579. To Scaliger, p. 11. Pattison, p. 42. 
 
 3 Casaubon to Marquard Freher. ' Hodie iter instituit Anglus quidani 
 nobilis, cui literas ad te dedi, Frehere amicissime. a.d. IX Kal. Septemb. 
 cioioxciv.' Epist., p. 576. 
 
 4 ' Qui tibi has litteras reddit, vir clarissime, nobilis Anglus est, iuvenis 
 omnibus virtutibus ornatissimus. Is multos iam annos peregre versatur, ut 
 
26 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 We next hear of Wotton at Leyden, whence Scaliger wrote 
 in November to Casaubon to say that the copy of Apuleius 
 had been delivered. 1 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. 2 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. 3 Scaliger took up the case warmly and wrote himself 
 to Thomson. 4 At the next Frankfort Mart in the spring the 
 money arrived and Casaubon was paid in full. 5 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 6 ; and the delay in pay- 
 ment 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. 
 
 tandem domum revertens vere possit elogium Ulyssis referre, iro\\wv d 
 ISfiv dffTta, KO.I voov yvwvat. Quacunque igitur venit, prima illi semper cura 
 conveniendi viros, a quorum avvovaia et melior et doctior possit discedere. . . . 
 Genevae, a. d. X Kalend. Septemb. cioioxciv.' Epist., p. 575. 
 
 1 ' Apologiam tuam, vel potius meam, Wultonus nuper mihi reddidit. Lugduni 
 Batavorum, XII Kalend. Decemb. CIOIDXCHII.' Seal., Epist., p. 151. 
 
 2 Cas., Epist., pp. 578-9. Ibid., pp. 11, 578. 
 * Scalig., Epist., p. 152. 
 
 5 Casaubon to Scaliger a. d. XIII Kalend. lunias cio 10 xcv. ' Qui adversis meis 
 doluisti, gaude nunc laetis, Vir nobilissime. Recrearunt me proximae nundinae 
 Francofurtenses, tarn felices mihi quam fuerunt superiores infaustae. W. satis- 
 fecit.' . . . Cas., Epist., p, 19. 
 
 6 ' In molestias maximas, non sua culpa, me coniecerit ; sed perfidia quorundam 
 mercatorum, quibus cum illo res saepe fuerat.' To Scaliger, Epist., p. 11. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE SERVICE OF ESSEX; SECOND VISIT TO THE CONTINENT. 
 
 1594-1603 
 
 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 devo- 
 tion to the religion of his country. 
 
 Whom, free from Germany's schisms, and lightness 
 Of France, and fair Italy's faithlessness, 
 Having from these sucked all they had of worth 
 And brought home that faith which you carried forth, 
 I thoroughly love, 1 
 
 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, 
 
 1 Chambers, ii, p. 9. 8 Gosse, i, p. 76. 
 
28 
 
 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 phenome- 
 non 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 doubt- 
 fully 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 contem- 
 poraries, often in pecuniary difficulties, and, like them, not un- 
 willing 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, 
 
THE EARL OF ESSEX 29 
 
 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 Wofcton, he was taken, almost immediately, into the 
 service of the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex. 1 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 excommuni- 
 cated, 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 2 , 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. 3 A paper, preserved among the Cecil MSS., signed 
 ' Harry Wotton ', giving the names of his political acquaintances 
 
 1 On Dec. 12, 1596, Wotton wrote to Casaubon that he had been two years in 
 England (i, p. 302). Among a number of copies of Anthony Bacon's letters 
 at Lambeth, is an unsigned letter to Sir Edward Wotton, endorsed Dec. 20, 1594 : 
 ' Sir, having found by my Lord that you had not as yet motioned unto his lord- 
 ship that which it pleased you to mention unto me yesternight of my cousin 
 your brother, I was so bold in kindness to take the opportunity to let my Lord 
 understand your desire and purpose, which my Lord took very kindly, and with 
 most honourable acknowledgement of the merit of your devoted love towards 
 him, asserted without any solicitation ; and assured me with great affection 
 that he would receive him, place him, and employ him in the best sort, and do 
 him what good he could hereafter ' (Lambeth MS. 650, no. 214). This letter 
 is almost certainly by Anthony Bacon, who was Essex's secretary, and a cousin 
 to the Wottons (see Appendix III, under Francis Bacon). 
 
 a Foster, Ox. 
 
 3 ' Vivo in aula apud Comitem Essexium, qui me secretarium loco dignatur, et 
 (nisi Domini mei amor fallit) dignus est cui et ultima Thule serviat.' Wotton 
 to Blotius, ex aula Nonis lulianis cio 10 x cv (Hofbibl. MS. 9737, Z. 17, f. 363). 
 Two letters from Essex to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, written in Wotton's hand 
 and signed by Essex, are preserved at Florence (Arch. Med. 4183, March 5, 1597, 
 Jan. 18, 1598J. 
 
30 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 We soon find him employed by 
 Essex in confidential business. In October, 1595, he visited, on the 
 behalf of Essex, the Markgraf of Baden 2 , 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 (0. 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. 3 
 
 In 1596 Wotton sailed with Essex on the famous Cadiz 
 expedition 4 , which has been too often written about to need 
 
 1 i, p. 299. 2 Cal. Cecil MSS., v, p. 400. 
 
 3 Birch, Elizabeth, i. 344-7. The letters of Perez to Essex about this affair 
 are in the Kecord Office. The first, of Dec. 25, N.S., tells of the arrival of 
 ' Ottonus '. The second, of Dec. 29, is endorsed in Wotton's hand, ' Received in 
 Paris by a post.' The third, of Dec. 31, is endorsed by Wotton, ' Reed, at Dieppe 
 on Friday, 2 of January, 1595 VO.S.). The fourth, of Jan. 7, 1596, is endorsed 
 by Essex, ' Reed, by H. Wotton (S. P. France). 
 
 * Dr. Ward has questioned Izaak Walton's statement that Wotton went on 
 these expeditions, or was with Essex in Ireland (Ward, p. 33). That he was 
 in Ireland is proved by the letter of April 19, 1599 (i, p. 307). The letter of 
 May 29, 1596, with the phrase ' if I return ', makes it seem probable that he 
 went to Cadiz ; and the fact is proved by the report of the trial of Sir Anthony 
 Ashley for peculation on this expedition. Henry Wotton was called as a 
 witness in this trial to prove that Ashley had boasted that Essex was going to 
 make over some of the prisoners to him (ArchaeoL, xxii, p. 181). As for the 
 Azores expedition, we have only Walton's word ; but as he was right about the 
 others, there is no difficulty in accepting his statement in regard to this. 
 
IN THE SERVICE OF ESSEX 31 
 
 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'. 1 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' 2 ; 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 mer- 
 
 1 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 178. 
 
 a Wotton and Reynolds had disagreed about procuring a passport for a young 
 German, the Baron of Zeirotine, who wished to go to Scotland. Reynolds wrote : 
 ' Mr. Wotton and I had some cross words about this passport which he purposed 
 to receive of Mr. Warde, and to pick a thank of the Baron ' (Lambeth MS. 656, 
 no. 40). Anthony Bacon, in entrusting the affair to Reynolds, wrote March 9, 
 1595-6 : 'Thus you see how, with my cousin Wotton's leave, I presume to burden 
 you and to spare him, till I find by the like good proof, the like strength in the 
 faculties of his mind, to wit, judgement and memory, as also in the best 
 affections that can possess a man's heart ; I mean natural kindness and due 
 thankfulness ' (Hid., no. 54 ; Birch, Eliz., i. 441-3). 
 
32 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 chant'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 1 , 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.' 2 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. 3 
 
 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. 4 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. 5 To Casaubon he 
 
 1 Lambeth MS. 659, no. 16 ; Birch, Eliz., ii, p. 149. 
 a Lambeth MS. 659, no. 164. 
 
 3 Birch, Elis., i, p. 243. Wotton, in his Parallel (Rdiq., 4th ed., p. 169), 
 accuses Anthony Bacon of procuring a gift of Essex House from Essex by a 
 threat to betray to Queen Elizabeth the correspondence between Essex and 
 James VL The improbability of this story has been demonstrated by Birch and 
 Spedding, and other writers. How the story may have arisen is explained by 
 Spedding, N. & Q., 2nd ser., iii, p. 252. 
 
 4 i, p. 302. The Oxford colleges were occasionally forced, by influence of the 
 Crown and Court, to grant leases of college property to needy courtiers on 
 advantageous terms. For a similar case in connexion with All Souls College (in 
 which Sir Walter Raleigh was concerned) see Collectanea, Oxford Hist. Soc. i. 183. 
 
 6 Donne's verse-epistle (ante, p. 27) belongs to the year 1598, and in this year 
 T. Bastard printed in his Chrestoleros two epigrams addressed to Henry Wotton 
 (Bk. iv, pp. 39, 102). The first is as follows : 
 
 Wotton, the country and the country swain 
 
 How can they yield a poet any sense ? 
 
 How can they stir him up, or heat his vein? 
 
WITH ESSEX IN IRELAND 33 
 
 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, 1 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. 
 
 How can they feed him with intelligence ? 
 You have the fire that can a wit inflame, 
 In happy London, England's fairest eye : 
 Well may you poets have of worthy name, 
 Which have the food and life of poetry. 
 
 And yet the country or the town may sway 
 Or bear a part, as clowns do in a play. 
 
 Thomas Zouch says that Bastard addressed Wotton as a poet (Walton's Lives, 
 ed. 1796, p. 191), but, as Hannah points out, the epigram proves no more than that 
 Wotton was a friend and patron of poets (J. Hannah, p. xii), Wotton in his 
 poem on the death of Sir Albertus Morton, 1625, writes : 
 Oh my unhappy Lines ! you that before 
 
 Have served my youth to vent some wanton cries. (Ibid., p. 41.) 
 But of his early poems only one has been preserved under his name, the one 
 beginning, 
 
 O faithless World, and thy most faithless part, 
 A Woman's Heart. 
 
 This was printed in Davison's Poetical Rapsody, 1602, with the signature 
 H. W., and reprinted in the Reliq., 1st ed., p. 516, with the title ' A Poem written 
 by Sir Henry Wotton, in his youth '. It has also been ascribed to Benjamin 
 Rudyard. (J. Hannah, p. 4.) 
 1 i, pp. 306-10. 
 
 WOTTON. I 
 
34 Sill HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Tyrone, he added, was as cunning and suspicious a character as 
 could be found l ; 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. 2 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 c 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 
 
 1 Cal, S. P. Fen., xi, p. 70. 
 
 2 H. Wotton hath both the articles of cessation, signed by Tyrone, and the in- 
 structions I gave to treat, and is best able to deliver all circumstances, the whole 
 business being chiefly left to Sir Warham Sentleger, and to him.' Relation of 
 Essex, Sept. 30, 1599 (Cal. S. P. Irish, 1599-1600, p. 160). 
 
AMERIGO SALVETTI 35 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 lord- 
 ship 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 Govern- 
 ment succeeded in capturing and putting to death Bernardino 
 and three of his sons l ; 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 assassina- 
 tion. 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Lucresia Buonvisi, S. Bongi, 1864, pp. 165-171. Bernardino and his eldest son 
 were beheaded in 1596. The young English poet. Francis Davison, who was in 
 Lucca at the time, gives in a letter to his father, William Davison, an account of 
 the execution. (Davison, i, p. xxiv.) 
 
 3 His dispatches, the Salvetti news-letters, of which there are transcripts in 
 the British Museum, are a source of information, well known to historians about 
 the times of Charles I and the Commonwealth. 
 
 D a 
 
36 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 innocence, and begging for pardon) make most curious reading * ; 
 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. 2 
 A certain captain Jacobo Lucchezini, was given 100 crowns, and 
 a letter of credit for 200 more, and sent to Paris for this purpose 3 ; 
 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 4 ; but in 
 spite of this they seem to have left Pisa together on March 2 for 
 Florence, where they arrived on the 4th. 5 
 
 A letter to Casaubon, written at this time, shows how deeply 
 Wotton felt the change in his fortunes caused by the fall of 
 Essex. 6 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 
 
 1 The most mysterious of documents are a series of Latin letters from a person 
 calling himself Federigo Landsciott. In these letters, which begin in 1604, the 
 so-called Landsciott (who states that he was in Genoa in 1596, when the 
 treachery of Bernardino Antelminelli was discovered) offers to sell information 
 concerning the whereabouts of Salvetti. Payments were made to his agents, but 
 the information was not forthcoming, and the authorities of Lucca finally came 
 to the conclusion that they were being tricked by this mysterious personage. 
 
 * AM, 12. 
 
 3 Ibid., 15, Jan. 4, 1601. See i, p. 401 n. 
 
 5 AM, 15, March 8, 1601. 
 
 * i, p. 311. On Dec. 8, 1600, Casaubon had written to Wotton from Paris in 
 answer to a letter that has not been preserved, in which Wotton told of the 
 change in his fortunes (due to the disgrace of Essex), and indulged in moralizings 
 on the instability of human fate. Casaubon answers in the same key, 'Man is 
 indeed as you write "an image of instability, a plaything of fortune".' But 
 amid all the changes of life, his friendship for Wotton would remain ever 
 constant ; above all things it behoved lovers of philosophy to preserve eternally 
 friendships formed with men of their own sect. In the frequent writing of 
 letters to which Wotton challenged him, 'he would be no slothful adversary.' 
 (Cas., Epist,, p. 594.) 
 
SIR ANTHONY SHERLEY 37 
 
 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. 1 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, 2 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, 3 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. 4 
 
 Sherley and his train were given a magnificent reception on 
 their arrival at Rome. The nobles and gentlemen of the city 
 
 1 i, p. 302. 
 
 2 Wotton's uncle, Sir Thomas Finch, married Catherine Moyle, whose sister 
 Anne was mother of Sir Anthony Sherley. 
 
 3 i, p. 39. 
 
 * Atti, 15, April 9, 1601. Pickering Wotton told the Lucchese spy, Daniele da 
 Massa, that Salvetti had gone to Rome on a commission from Henry Wotton. 
 (Ibid., 12, June 1, 1601.) 
 
38 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 Sherle'y had usurped the position 
 that belonged to him, and had stolen the presents the Shah had 
 sent to the princes of Europe. 1 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. 2 
 He arrived in Florence on May 31 3 ; 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. 4 While at Florence the Lucchese spy became the 
 companion of his pleasures, and wormed himself into his confi- 
 dence, in order to discover the whereabouts of Salvetti. Pickering 
 
 1 Dispatch of Giovanni Mocenigo (Cal. S. P. Few., ix, p. 451). 
 
 2 ' From Rome I sent my cousin Hen. Wotton, but he not being heard of 
 since, I fear the account of my proceedings hath perished with him.' Sir 
 Anthony Sherley to Robert Cecil, March 3, 1602 (S. P. Dom. Eliz., cclxxxiii, No. 49). 
 
 3 Letter of Daniele da Massa, June 1, 1601 (Atti, 12). 
 * See Appendix III. 
 
JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND 39 
 
 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. 1 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. Oil 
 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 ; 
 
 ' telling him that he stayed for him at Venice, and for no other 
 cause ; ernestly desiring him as soon as he returned to come thither, 
 and that he had matter to tell him which very greatly imported 
 him. I think it is not unknown to your Honour/ Wilson adds, 'that 
 the said Mr. Henry Wotton is gone from the Duke of Florence 
 to the Princes of Germany in Ambassage, to what purpose I 
 cannot yet learn, but as his nephew told me, he hath letters also 
 to some of them from the Pope. He is in very great favour and 
 reputation with theDukeofFlorence, the first occasion whereof 
 was induced by the commendation of the party first named 
 { Sherley), being here together ; and after, during the time he 
 stayed at Rome about his ambassage, he sent the other (who 
 lived with him at that time) with letters and messages to the 
 Grand Duke, who, spying him a man fit for his purpose, hath 
 given him employment and promised him advancement.' 
 
 1 Am, 12. 
 
40 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' l 
 
 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. 2 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, 3 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 Den- 
 
 1 8. P. Tuscany, Sept. 16, Oct. 5, 1601. Spaced words are in cipher in the original. 
 
 a In 1602 a half-mad young Englishman residing at Florence, named 
 Humphrey Dethick, actually travelled to Scotland for the purpose, as he 
 there confessed, of killing James VI. Dethick was an old acquaintance of 
 Wotton's, and it may have been against his attempt that Wotton was sent to 
 warn James VI. See Appendix III. 
 
 3 Ferdinand, says Wotton, ' did excel all the Princes of the world ' in his know- 
 ledge of antidotes to poison (ii, p. 800). The olio contraveleno del Granduca was highly 
 prized by the Florentines, and the Tuscan ambassadors carried it with them 
 when they went to foreign Courts. Count Montauto, the Resident at Venice, 
 writes of a vasetto d'antidoto contraveleno which Ferdinand had given him with his 
 own hands. (Arch. Med. 3004, Oct. 7, 1617.) 
 
JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND 41 
 
 mark (the journey, as he afterwards wrote, was a painful one l ) 
 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. 2 
 
 Our documents now fail us, but Izaak Walton has told the 
 story of Wotton's reception by James VI. Save that the inter- 
 view 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 
 Wbtton'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. 
 
 ' When Octavio Baldi/ Walton continues, ' came to the 
 Presence - Chamber door, he was requested to lay aside his 
 long rapier (which Italian-like he then wore) and being 
 entred the Chamber, he found there with the King three or 
 four Scotch Lords standing distant in several corners of the 
 Chamber: at the sight of whom he made a stand; which the 
 King observing, bade him be bold, and deliver his message : for 
 he would undertake for the secresy of all that were present. 
 Then did Octavio Baldi deliver his letters and his message to 
 the King in Italian; which when the King had graciously 
 received, after a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps to the table, 
 
 1 ii, p. 300. 
 
 1 ' Here is one come out of Italy I hear, from the D. of Florence, borne 
 near Geneua, of high stature, brown-haired, , sober and thought- wise ; came 
 about through Denmark in a ship of Culross hither, made his repair to 
 Mr. David Lyndsay, and wrote to the K. at Stirlinge, whereon the K. went 
 to secret conference with my L. of Mar, Sir Geo: and my Lord Bruce, and 
 thereafter he was sent for to meet the K. at Dunfermlinge, whither this day he 
 is gone in company of the Mr. of Orkney, Mr. Jeremy Lyndsay, and Barnard 
 Lyndsay, unknown to any of them what he is, and having said he would 
 change no clothes till he saw the K. having no servant with him.' George 
 Nicolson to Cecil, Edinburgh, Sept. 9, 1601 O. S. (S. P. Scotland, Ixvii, No. 108}. 
 There can be no doubt that this interesting letter is about Wotton, and describes 
 his arrival in Scotland. By ' Geneua ' Nicolson probably meant Genoa 
 (Geneva), as Wotton was travelling as an Italian. For David Lindsay see 
 D. N. B., xxxiii, p. 297. The Earl of Mar was a Privy Councillor and Lord High 
 Treasurer of the Household. (Ibid., xvii, p. 422.) Bernard Lindsay was Groom of 
 the Chamber to James VI. (jLord Lindsay, Lives of the Lindsays, 1849, vol. i, p. 320 n.) 
 
42 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 and whispers to the King in his own language, that he was 
 an English man, beseeching him for a more private conference 
 with His Majesty, and that he might be concealed during his 
 stay in that nation ; which was promised, and really performed 
 by the King during all his abode there (which was about three 
 months), all which time was spent with much pleasantness to 
 the King, and with as much to Octavio Baldi himself, as that 
 country could afford, from which he departed as true an Italian 
 as he came thither.' 
 
 Wotton seems to have spent the winter in Scotland, for in 
 March, 1 602, or before that date, he passed through Hamburg, 1 
 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. 2 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. 3 His 
 description of the gossiping, undignified James VI agrees with the 
 accounts which other contemporaries have left us ; but the expres- 
 sion, which he noted in the King's eyes, of modesty and kindness, 
 ' una certa bontd 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 con- 
 genial 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. 
 
 1 Col. S. P. Dom., 1601-3, p. 166. 
 
 a ' Sir Henry Wotton, befor his Majesties going to England, being disguised 
 at Leith on Sunday, when all the rest were at church, being interrupted of his 
 occupation by ane other wenche who came in at the door, cryed out " Pox on 
 thee, for thou hast hindered the procreation of a chyld", and betrayed himself.' 
 (Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond, Shakespeare Soc., 1842, p. 32.) 
 
 3 i, p. 314. 
 
RETURN TO ITALY 43 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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, 2 and three notes in Italian, 3 
 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 dis- 
 favour 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 govern- 
 ment of England for the next nine years, had expressed to Sir 
 Edward Wotton a favourable opinion of his brother Henry Sir 
 
 1 ' Nam sane non tarn cupio pretiosis vestibus, et magnifico famulatu, et 
 salutantium turba ornari, quam bonorum hominum et sapientium commenda- 
 tione. Haec sola mihi post naufragia fortunae superest ambitio.' Fragment of 
 letter to David Hoeschel, dated Florentiae d. 27. August! A. 1602. (Heumanni 
 Poecile, 1722, i, p. 581.) a See i, pp. 314, 315 n. 
 
 3 Arch. Med. 1219. These three notes are without dates ; the second is 
 signed vArrigo Wottoni', the others are in Wotton's hand, but without signature. 
 In the first he asks Vinta to get permission for him from the Grand Duke to 
 read in the Laurentian Library, (a note at the bottom of the letter says that this 
 permission was accorded him), and he also asks for a ' licentia di cavalcare ' for 
 his nephew, Pickering Wotton. In the second he speaks of Alan Percy 
 (Aleno Perci), brother of the Earl of Northumberland, who had been in France 
 and the Low Countries, and had now come to Florence, and had rented a house 
 there, in order to take riding lessons from the famous Rustico Piccardini. 
 Wotton asks permission to bring him to Court, and recommends one of his 
 own brothers (probably Sir Edward Wotton) as a person who might be able 
 to help the Grand Duke in England. He was one of the most intimate friends 
 of ' quel gran personaggio ' (Sir Robert Cecil ?) and not badly thought of by the 
 Queen. But this must wait for the present, as all those who had been friends 
 of Essex were in disgrace, and kept in their houses 'come mascherati\ Wotton 
 adds in this letter that he wished, when the winter was over, to go to France or 
 the Low Countries, where, being nearer his own friends, he could serve the 
 Grand Duke better ; and he asks Vinta to consult the Grand Duke about this. In 
 the third letter Wotton writes about Humphrey Dethick and his journey to 
 Scotland to assassinate James VI (see Appendix III). 
 
44 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 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 with- 
 drew 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 Picker- 
 ing Wotton, who was with him, and expected to be at the Frank- 
 fort 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. 
 
 ' Send for him, said the King, and when he shall come into 
 England, bid him repair privately to me. The Lord Wotton, after 
 a little wonder, asked the King if he knew him ? to which the 
 King answered, "You must rest unsatisfied of that, till you bring 
 the gentleman to me." Not many months after this discourse, 
 the Lord Wotton brought his brother to attend the King, who 
 took him in his arms, and bade him welcome by the name of 
 Octavio Baldi, saying he was the most honest, and therefore the 
 best dissembler that ever he met with : and said, " Seeing I know 
 you neither want learning, travel, nor experience, and that I 
 have had so real a testimony of your faithfulness and abilities to 
 manage an ambassage, I have sent for you to declare my purpose ; 
 which is to make use of you in that kind hereafter." ' 
 
 1 i, p. 317. 
 
AGAIN IN ENGLAND 45 
 
 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 
 Nicol6 Molin, the Venetian envoy, that Wotton had been appointed 
 ambassador to Venice l ; 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.' 2 
 
 Wotton remained in England till the summer of 1604. He 
 visited the Venetian ambassador, Molin, in June, to discuss 
 a smuggling case, 3 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.' 4 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. 5 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. 
 
 1 Col. S. P. Yen., x, p. 124. 2 Ibid., p. 190. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 160. * Ibid., p. 168. 
 
 5 For Donne's verse-epistle ' To Sir Henry Wotton at his going ambassador to 
 Venice ', see Walton's Life, and Chambers, ii, p. 41. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WOTTON'S FIRST EMBASSY IN VENICE. 1604-1610. 
 
 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. Sd. 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 
 
 1 For an account of the growth of European diplomacy see Ernest Nys, Les 
 Commencements de la Diplomatic, etc., Revue de Droit International, Bruxelles, 1883-84, 
 vol. xv, p. 577 ; vol. xvi, pp. 55, 167. 
 
 2 The history of English diplomacy has not yet been written. For the 
 English ambassadors in the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary see Arnold 
 Oskar Meyer, Die englische Diplomatic in Deutschland zur Zeit Eduards VI. und Mariens, 
 Breslau, 1900. 
 
 3 The ambassador was paid from the date of his appointment until his 
 reception by the King on his return. On May 19, 1604, the sum of 730 was 
 paid to Henry Wotton, being his diets from Dec. 26, 1603 (when he was officially 
 appointed ambassador to Venice), till the end of July, at the rate of five marks 
 a day. (Is. Ex., p. 12.) 
 
47 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 impor- 
 tance. 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. 2 
 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 attaches (as they would now be called) were 
 
 1 George Chapman in his play Monsieur cCOlive (Act iii, Scene iv) gives an 
 amusing picture of an ambassador choosing his suite. 
 
 2 For the duties of an ambassador's secretary see Works of Roger Ascham 
 (Giles), London, 1865, vol. i, pt. ii, pp. 243-71, and Roger Ascham, sein Leben und 
 seine Werke, by Alfred Katterfeld, Strassburg, 1869, p. 96. Ascham was 
 secretary to Sir Richard Moryson, ambassador to Charles V, 1550-3. For 
 the household of an English ambassador in the reign of James I see Lord Her- 
 bert, pp. 197-8. 
 
48 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 
 and in addition to the gentlemen 6f his suite, he was accom- 
 panied by a number of footmen and pages. 2 
 
 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. 3 
 
 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, 4 sons of gentlemen 
 
 1 On June 19, 1604, a warrant was issued for seven hundred ounces of plate 
 to be delivered ' to Henry Wotton, Esquire, being sent Ambassador to Venice.' 
 (S. P. Fen.) 
 
 2 See C. & T, Jos. I, i. p. 428 : ' The Lord Roos is gone for Spain, very gallant, 
 having six footmen, whose apparelling stood him in 50 a man ; eight pages at 
 80 a piece ; twelve gentlemen, each of whom he gave 100 to provide them- 
 selves ; some twenty ordinary servants, who were likewise very well appointed ; 
 and twelve sumpter cloths, that stood him in better than 1,500.' When 
 Sir Isaac Wake succeeded Wotton as ambassador to Venice in 1624, he made 
 a fine show, 'as well in liveries, flaunting feathers, and the like, as in number 
 of followers, among whom are six footmen, three or four pages, and gentlemen 
 not a few.' (Ibid., ii, p. 454.) 3 Monsieur d'OUve, iii. 4. 
 
 * George Rooke, of Kent, Rowland Woodward, Henry Cogan, and William 
 Parkhurst accompanied Wotton to Venice, or were in his service during his 
 first embassy there. Gregorio de' Monti was his Italian secretary, and another 
 Italian, Giovanni Francesco Biondi, was in his employment. For all these 
 names see Appendix III. 
 
ARRIVAL IN VENICE 49 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 Spliigen 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 '. 3 
 
 It was on September 23, 1604, that the young English am- 
 bassador 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 gon- 
 dolas, 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. 4 Nor had life in Venice ever appeared in a more splendid 
 
 1 Cecil to Wotton, S. P. Fen., Oct. 9, 1604. 
 
 2 Scioppius quotes in full the inscription : 
 
 Legatus est Vir bonus, peregre missus ad mentiendum Reipub. causa. 
 
 D. lohanni Christophoro Fleckamero in amicitiae perpetuae pignus haec posuit Henricus 
 Wotonius, Serenissimi Angliae, Scotiae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Regis Orator primus ad 
 Venetos. Augustae Vindelicorum XVI. Augusti Mensis Anno Christiana cio 10 cim 
 (Gasp. Scioppii Ecdesiasticus, 1611, p. 13). The full quotation bears the mark 
 of Wotton's Latin style, and convinces me that Wotton translated his joke 
 into Latin for the purpose of writing it in his friend's book. 
 
 3 ii, p. 95. . 
 
 4 James Howell, Survey of the Seignorie of Venice, 1651, p. 49. 
 
 WOTTOK. I E 
 
50 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 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 con- 
 stitution, 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 
 
 1 Horatio Brown, Venetian Studies, p. 350. 
 
51 
 
 was readily agreed that he should be given tho same honours as 
 the ambassadors of France and Spain. 1 
 
 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 wel- 
 come, 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 comfort- 
 ably 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 gon- 
 doliers 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 confec- 
 tions, 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, 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 186. 
 E2 
 
52 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 adorned with lace, and lined with rich fur, 1 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 stair- 
 case to the Collegia, 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 am- 
 bassador 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 com- 
 pliments the ambassador retired, being conducted home again 
 by the Venetian senators who had brought him thither. 2 
 
 The Collegia 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. 3 
 Wotton had good cause to remember this room, for it was 
 the scene during many years of his negotiations. The Anti- 
 collegio, adorned with famous paintings by Tintoretto and 
 Paolo Veronese, Wotton describes as the place ' where the am- 
 bassadors use for a while to take their breath, after the 
 mounting of the palace stairs '.* The Cabinet, or Collegia, by 
 which ambassadors were received, Wotton described as 'the 
 
 1 A picture and description of the dress of an English ambassador is preserved 
 in the Museo Correr (Codice Gradenigo, 49, vol. ii, p. 105). 
 
 3 Cal. S. P. Ven. x, p. 183. For the reception of ambassadors in Venice see 
 Wicquefort, p. 159 ; Memoires de Philippe de Commines, 1903, vol. ii, p. 207 ; and 
 a detailed account of the reception in 1618 of Albizzi, the Tuscan special envoy 
 (Arch. Med. 3006, Aug. 25, 1618). The anonymous relator states that in spite of 
 the heat, which caused great discomfort, Albizzi performed his part ' con tanto 
 esquisita puntualita che ne restera illustrate il suo nome eternamente'. But fame has 
 concerned itself with other things, and forgotten the exquisite punctiliousness 
 of Albizzi on that hot August day in Venice. I am glad to make some slight 
 reparation in this note. 
 
 3 A reproduction of this picture (which is now at Hampton Court) will be 
 found facing p. 49. 
 
 * S. P. Fen., Nov. 18, 1622. 
 
WOTTON'S AUDIENCES 53 
 
 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 Collegia, com- 
 posed 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 Collegia, 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 com- 
 plimentary 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 vary- 
 ing 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 deci- 
 sion 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 ambas- 
 sador 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 Donate, 
 on his election, may be quoted as a specimen of his eloquence. 
 
54 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' * 
 
 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 croco- 
 dile. 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.' 2 
 
 Equally eloquent, if less witty, are the speeches of the 
 Doges, and especially those of the great Leonardo Donate, 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. 
 1 Cdl. S. P. Fen., x, pp. 312, 313. a Ibid., p. 346. 
 
THE VENETIAN GOVERNMENT 55 
 
 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 dis- 
 advantage in time of action.' l 
 
 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 '. 2 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 Collegia, 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 per- 
 mission to an ambassador, was an offence punishable with life- 
 long imprisonment or death. 3 Sometimes he would be per- 
 mitted a secret meeting with a Venetian secretary, or when he 
 
 1 ii, p. 228. * Undated letter to Sir William Fleetwood, S. P. Yen., vol. vi. 
 
 3 This complete isolation of the foreign ambassadors formed a curious feature 
 of Venetian life, and lasted down to the end of the Republic. ' Le metier d'ambas- 
 sadeur est assez triste ici ; ils n'ont de ressource que celle de vivre ensemble, 
 et ne peuvent absolument voir aucun noble, auxquels il est defendu, sous peine 
 demort, d'entrerchez eux.' (DeBrosses, Lettres ecrites <T Italic, Paris, 1836, i, p. 191.) 
 
56 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 Govern- 
 ments 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.' l 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 sub- 
 sequent 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 
 
 1 S. P. Yen., Sept. 13, 1612. 
 
WOTTON'S PALACE AND VILLA 57 
 
 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 imme- 
 diate 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. 1 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, 2 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. 3 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 Sep- 
 tember ' pressing his grapes ', as he wrote one of his correspon- 
 dents ; and almost every autumn he \vould go on a trip through 
 some part of the territories of Venice, to the Friuli, or the Lago 
 di Garda, or to witness fetes 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 
 
 1 S. P. Fen., vol. xxiii. 2 Hid. 
 
 8 Carleton to Chamberlain, ibid., April 24, 1612. 
 
58 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 and dined together, toasting by name their 
 friends in England. They occupied themselves sometimes with 
 music 2 , (the ambassador himself playing on the viol di gamba), 
 sometimes with chemical experiments, or again with philoso- 
 phical 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. 3 
 
 Wotton has celebrated in verse the happiness of him 
 
 Who entertains the harmless day 
 With a religious book' or friend ; 
 
 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 harm- 
 less days, and where his position was one of considerable leisure, 
 compared with that of an ambassador in Spain or France or 
 the Low Countries. 4 
 
 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, fie tells anecdotes of Elizabeth, 
 of his former patron Essex, sayings of Burghley and Salisbury ; 
 gives his companions sound and witty moral maxims, wise, if some- 
 what 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.' 5 
 
 So in this almost collegiate society, not unlike the society 
 
 1 ii, p. 204. * i, p. 375. 3 ii, p. 231. 
 
 4 'Deus nobis haec otia fecit,' Sir Dudley Carleton wrote, on hearing that he had 
 been appointed to succeed Wotton at Venice. (Stowe MS. 171, f. 307.) 
 4 Will. Leete to Isaac Bargrave (Box. Club), p. 48. 
 
LIFE IN VENICE 59 
 
 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 1 , and his congenial companions. 
 We find him taking the air in his gondola, going over 
 the lagoons to shoot ducks in winter, 55 or watching a comet 
 at night, and rejoicing to think how this sinister appari- 
 tion would trouble the superstitious old Pope at Rome. 3 
 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. 4 
 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. 5 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 6 ; be haunted the book- 
 shops 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. 7 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. 8 
 
 The earliest English connoisseur of Italian art, he started the 
 
 1 A. Clogie, son-in-law of William Bedell, "Wotton's chaplain, writes : ' I never 
 heard that he (Bedell) displeased the lord ambassador in anything save this one. 
 The ambassador had an ape that upon a time slipt his chain and got out and bit 
 a child very sore. The Venetian mother brought the child into the ambassador's 
 lodging with great fury and rage, which alarmed his whole family. D. B., his 
 chaplain, said : His lordship was bound in conscience to make satisfaction ; and that it 
 was a slander to our religion to keep such harmful beasts, and not repair the damage ; who 
 answered angrily that he wished he were as sure of the kingdom of heaven, and that he 
 had as good a conscience as another, &c.' (Speculum Episcoporum, reprinted Two Biog., 
 p. 86.) 
 
 2 In his audience of Dec. 7, 1607, ' the Doge said he was glad to hear the 
 ambassador found pleasure in duck-shooting^ and that if the ambassador went 
 out again in colder weather he would find it still more amusing on account 
 of the vast quantity of birds, but that he must clothe himself warmly. The 
 ambassador replied that he had been greatly delighted with the double pleasure 
 of killing and eating. This time he had only been out to learn how to stand 
 it ; if the cold came back, he would with pleasure stand still more. He added 
 that it seemed to him a pretty sport to kill on the wing, a custom that was 
 quite new to him, as it had not yet been introduced into England.' (Cal. S. P. Yen., 
 x, p. 441.) 
 
 3 ii, p. 161. * Cal. S. P. Fen., x, p. 334. 
 
 5 Canaye, III. ii. 447. ' Sarpi, Lettere, i, p. 61. 
 
 7 ii, p. 119. 8 Paradisus, 1656, p. 494. 
 
60 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 fashion among his countrymen of buying Italian pictures, help- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 tinction to the Doge, taking them to the Collegia 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 clarissi- 
 moes,' 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 '.* 
 
 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 inter- 
 course 2 ), there were the Emperor's Resident, the regal ambas- 
 sadors 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. Ambas- 
 sadors whose relations were friendly saw each other very 
 
 1 Coryate's visit to Venice was in the summer of 1608. He brought a mock 
 solemn letter of introduction to Wotton from Richard Martin, the famous wit 
 (Crudities, p. 287). For his references to Wotton see pp. 190, 230, 286, 240, 241. 
 
 2 On his arrival in Venice he attempted to enter into relations with the 
 papal Nuncio, but found, owing to the Pope's pretensions to rank above that 
 of kings, that it could not be arranged. (Canaye, III. ii. 362.) 
 
DIPLOMATIC SOCIETY 61 
 
 frequently, and interchanged advice and secret information. 
 These friendships were determined by the relations of the 
 countries the envoys represented ; and as James showed good- 
 will 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. 1 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, 2 
 and exaggerated reports of their strained relations reached 
 Henry IV, who mentioned the matter to the Duke of Lennox, 
 then extraordinary ambassador in France, 3 and wrote to De Har- 
 lay 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 4 ; but Canaye, on hearing 
 these reports, wrote to deny them ; Wotton kept up an appear- 
 ance of politeness, and he had no real cause for complaint. 5 
 
 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 movido '. 6 
 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 
 
 1 Canaye, III. ii. 362. 2 Ibid., p. 447. 
 
 s Viscount Cranborne to Wotton, Jan. 7, 1604-5 (O.S.) (S. P. Fen.). 
 
 * P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, Mission de Christophe de Harlay, Paris, 1895, 
 pp. 292, 293, 302. 
 
 5 Canaye, III. ii. 527. In the Burley Commonplace Book (p. 59 v) are undated 
 transcripts of an Italian letter from Wotton to Canaye about these reports, and 
 of Canaye' s answer. 6 S. P. Fen., April 25, 1608. 
 
62 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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; 1 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, 2 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. 3 
 
 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 ' 4 ; 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, 5 and in 1607 Montauto gave him secretly six hundred 
 
 1 Arch. Med. 2999, Jan. 13, 1607. 2 Ibid., 3001, Oct. 15, 1610. 
 
 8 Ibid., Aug. 28, 1610. 
 
 * State of Christendom, Sup. pp. 7, 8. Wicquefort tells how James I, being 
 informed that several members of his council received pensions from Spain, 
 'answered that he knew it very well, and made a jest of it. He moreover 
 said he wished the King of Spain would give them ten times as much ; because 
 this unprofitable expense would render him less able to make war against him.' 
 (p. 354.) * Ferdinand I to Lotto, July 6, 1607, Arch. Med. 4186. 
 
DIPLOMATIC ETIQUETTE 63 
 
 ducats for his services in inducing an English captain to remain 
 with his ship in the Tuscan fleet. 1 Wotton afterwards accepted 
 a pension from the Duke of Savoy, when commissioned to nego- 
 tiate for a marriage between Prince Henry and a Savoy princess 2 ; 
 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. 3 There is no confirmation, however, of this 
 report in the Spanish Archives, 4 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. 5 
 
 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 punc- 
 tilios Ambassadors, Ceremonials, Titles, and Visits. The sub- 
 ject 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 inter- 
 minable 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 cere- 
 mony, 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 
 
 1 i, p. 388 n. . 2 i, p. 132 n. 
 
 3 Canaye to Henry IV, Ambassades, III. ii. 363. This report reached the Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany, who instructed Montauto to mention to Wotton, as if by 
 chance, that the Spanish pensions in Italy were never paid. (Arch. Med. 3005, 
 Feb. 6, 1604-5.) 
 
 * Major Martin S. Hume very kindly requested his friend Don Julian Paz, 
 chief archivist at Simancas, to examine the dispatches of the Spanish ambassador 
 at Venice from the time of Wotton's arrival to a date somewhat later than this 
 report. Don Julian Paz writes that there is no mention in them of any pension 
 being asked for or granted to Sir Henry Wotton. * i, p. 372. 
 
64 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 2 , and some were English exiles, for the most 
 
 1 Carleton's dispatch, Dec. 26, 1611 (S. P. Few.). 
 
 * On Aug. 26, 1617, the papal Nuncio wrote that he had had a visit from 
 
DETAIL FROM THE PAINTING OF AN AUDIENCE WITH THE DOGE, 
 AT HAMPTON COURT (PORTRAIT OF \VOTTON) 
 
ROBBING THE POSTS 65 
 
 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, 1 with an unnamed 
 Italian, living ' in sinu Apostolorum ', and with others who 
 were willing to send him secret news. 2 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 
 
 ' Giacomo Torre ', a native of Navarre, who was living in the house of the 
 English ambassador, and- who had offered to go to England and set fire to 
 the house of the Archbishop of Spalatro, and burn his books, and kill that 
 famous convert to Protestantism. The Nuncio made the moral reply that it 
 was not the way of Holy Church to murder heretics ; and anyhow, as he 
 wrote, he suspected that the proposal might be a stratagem planned by Wotton 
 to get him to commit himself to the proposition. (Mus. Cor. MS. 2355, quoted 
 in Cigogna, v, p. 616 n.). 
 
 1 i, p. 442. 
 
 2 In a letter in the Record Office signed ' S. R.', one of Wotton's Italian spies 
 in Rome describes how he went to the eating-houses frequented by the English 
 Catholics, where he could overhear them talking loudly in English, as they did 
 not believe that any one would understand them. (8. P. Ven., Oct. 14, 1606). 
 
 WOTTON. i p 
 
66 
 
 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 1 ' ; and he was all the more eager in the hunt for them, be- 
 cause 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 ; ' 2 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. 3 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 4 . 
 
 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, sug- 
 gested the difficulties that would have to be overcome, and 
 1 i, p. 345. * i, p. 351. s i, p. 328. * i, p. 345 n. 
 
VENETIAN CRIMINALS 67 
 
 hinted that the reward should be asked for after the deed had 
 been accomplished, and not before. 1 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. 2 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 '. 3 
 
 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, 4 and jeering at the police from 
 the embassy windows. Although Wotton never extended his 
 hospitality to condemned criminals, 5 he sometimes allowed them to 
 take refuge with him before their trial ; and it must be admitted 
 that some of them were great ruffians. 6 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 protect- 
 ing relatives of theirs who had fallen into the hands of the law. 
 
 1 i, p. 422. * i, p. 401 n. 3 Ibid. 
 
 * In 1611 the Government was forced to remonstrate with the Spanish 
 ambassador Bedmar, who had as many as twenty-four men, condemned for 
 capital crimes, living in his house and paying so much a day for the privilege. 
 Carleton writes that to this complaint the Spanish ambassador ' made a 
 pleasant but piquant answer, that the Spanish courtesy was such they could 
 shut their doors upon none ; that here were such store of banditi in the city of 
 Venice living under the protection of great men that he took it to be uso toterato'. 
 (S. P. Yen., Sept, 23, 1611, N.S.). 
 
 5 Cal. S. P. Ven., x, pp. 483, 484. 6 Ibid., note. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 ! l 
 
 Once engaged in a criminal's favour, Wotton showed a per- 
 tinacity worthy of a better cause. He felt indeed that his pres- 
 tige 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.' 2 
 
 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.' 3 
 
 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.* 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 pro- 
 curing his acquittal. 5 In cases where Englishmen were robbed 
 or murdered, he was unwearied in demanding justice and the 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Fen.,x, p. 500. * Ibid., xi, p. 169. 
 
 3 ' Havendomi sempre allontanato dal tenere in cio le mani in pasta.' (Esp. 
 Prin., May 18, 1623.) 
 
 In his dispatch of Dec. 31, 1609, Wotton gives a dramatic account of how he 
 discovered an English slave in a Venetian galley, and the means by which 
 he procured his release (i, p. 479). Wotton remonstrated with Montauto 
 about the English slaves in the galleys of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and 
 seemed very much shocked ; Montauto wrote that Englishmen should be kept 
 in irons (Arch. Med. 3000, Aug. 18, 1607). For the life of these Tuscan galley- 
 slaves, written by one of them, see A True Relation of the Travailes and most miserable 
 Captivities of William Daries, Barber Surgeon of London, 1614. 
 
 4 Cal. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 184, 275. 
 
WOTTON AND ITALY 69 
 
 punishment of the criminals. Information about the two prin- 
 cipal 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 Donate told 
 him, ' grandemente amata et honorata dalla Republica' l 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 question- 
 able to a good Catholic like Montauto. 2 Stories of his daring 
 and indiscretion circulated about Venice, and caused much 
 shaking of diplomatic heads, 3 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. 4 He 
 negotiated with the Grand Duke of Tuscany about English 
 vessels captured by the Tuscan fleet, and sent one of his secre- 
 taries 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 ; 5 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, 6 who had come to 
 Italy followed by his cousin Elizabeth Southwell in the costume 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 352. 
 
 'A me par bene ch'egli habbia ingegnio et valore da poter comprare et 
 vendere quant' altri Ministri son qui. Non so poi se sia per valersene in bene.' 
 (Arch. Med. 3000, Dec. 29, 1607.) 
 
 3 Wotton was reported to have called the Pope ; the Bishop of Rome' in 
 public audience (ibid. , Oct. 1, 1606), and Scioppius tells a characteristic story, 
 how when Wotton met another ambassador and asked his errand, and received 
 the reply ' lo vado a complire ' he answered Et io vado a mentire '. (Oporini 
 Grubinii Legatus Latro, Ingolstadt, 1615, pp. 2, 3.) Scioppius probably heard this 
 story during his visit to Venice in 1607. 
 
 * S. P. Yen., Jan. 23, 1604-5, 0. S. 
 
 s Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 197. i, p. 401 n. 
 
70 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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, Protes- 
 tants 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 i, p. 417 n. 2 i, p. 335. 
 
 3 ' To Our Right trusty and well beloved Sir Henry Wotton, Knight, Our Ambassador 
 Resident with the State of Venice. 
 
 ' James R. 
 
 'Eight trusty and well beloved, We greet you well. Whereas many of 
 the Gentry, and others of Our Kingdoms, under pretence of travel for their 
 experience, do pass the Alps, and not contenting themselves to remain in 
 Lombardy or Tuscany, to gain the language there, do daily flock to Rome, out 
 of vanity and curiosity to see the Antiquities of that City ; where falling into 
 the company of Priests and Jesuits, or other ill-disposed persons, they are not 
 only corrupted with their Doctrine, but poisoned with their Positions, and 
 so return again into their Countries, both averse to Religion, and ill-affected 
 to Our State and Government. Forasmuch as we cannot think upon any better 
 means to prevent that inconvenience hereafter, than by imposing the care of 
 that business in part upon you : These are therefore to require you, to take 
 notice with diligence of all such, as by the way of Venice shall bend their courses 
 thither, and to admonish them, as from Us, that they should not presume to go 
 beyond the bounds of the Dukedom of Florence, upon any occasion whatsoever. 
 After which advice of yours given unto them, if any Subject of Ours, of what 
 degree or condition soever, shall be either so much forgetful of the duty he doth 
 owe to Us, or so little respective of his own good, as to press further, to the 
 breach of Our Commandment delivered them by you ; Our Will and Pleasure 
 is, that you should forthwith acquaint Us with the Names of the persons, who 
 shall so miscarry themselves, that upon notice thereof from you, We may take 
 such further order with them, for the redress of this mischief, as to Our Wisdom 
 shall seem good. 
 
 ' Given under Our Signet at Newmarket, the seventh day of December, in the 
 Fourteenth year of Our Reign of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland 
 the Fiftieth,*1616.' (Reliq., 3rd ed., p. 483.) 
 
IMPRISONED TUTORS 71 
 
 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-Momay, 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. 1 
 
 1 Appendix III. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 NVOTTON'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 Constan- 
 tinople ; 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 cur- 
 rants 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 
 
 1 S. P. Yen., Sept. 7, 1607. For a clear account of the trade between England 
 and Venice see Mr. Horatio Brown's introduction to Cal. S. P. Yen., x, pp. liii-lvii. 
 
TRADE AND PIRACY 73 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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.' 2 
 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. 3 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. 4 
 
 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 embar- 
 
 1 i, p. 403. 2 CaL S. P. Yen., x, p. 212. 3 i, p. 415 n. 
 
 4 ' Surely our masters and mariners, upon confidence in the timorousness 
 of the Venetian generals, are many times not very innocent.' (S. P. Yen., 
 Feb. 6, 1605). 
 
74 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 rassed 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 arrange- 
 ment 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 dis- 
 obedience to these orders would expose the ship to be taken as 
 a pirate. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 Gostley, 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 pre- 
 served in the Venetian archives ; but the dust of three centuries 
 lies heavy on the records of these old lawsuits, and we will not 
 
 1 Col. S. P. Fen., x, pp. Ixix, 242. * Ibid., ri, p. 4. 
 
GENERAL POLICY 75 
 
 disturb it. Neither case was settled when Wotton left Venice in 
 1610. 1 
 
 But Sir Henry Wotton 's main interests and objects in his 
 Venetian embassy were of a larger seope 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 his- 
 tory. 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 Pro- 
 testant 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. 
 
 Xor 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 admira- 
 tion for Spain, was not without noble ambitions and enlarged 
 conceptions, and had adopted, partially at least, the plan of form- 
 ing 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 war- 
 fare. 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 
 1 See Cal. S. P. Yen., xi. pp. xxxi-xxxiii. 
 
76 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 inde- 
 fatigably 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 deter- 
 mined 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 nego- 
 tiations ; l he regarded his life abroad as no unfitting prepara- 
 tion 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. Accom- 
 plished in all the arts and subtle deceptions of his profession, and 
 avowing his methods with a frankness surprising to his contem- 
 poraries, his main motive was religious zeal ; the one great pur- 
 pose, 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 supersti- 
 tion. 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 305. 
 
VENICE AND THE PAPACY 77 
 
 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 l 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 
 Donate ; 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.' 2 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 privi- 
 lege, 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. 3 
 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. 
 
 1 Ranke, Popes, i, p. 495. 2 i, p. 318. s Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 18t>. 
 
78 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 con- 
 founded 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 '. l 
 
 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 dis- 
 agreement 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 whicli 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 
 Donate, 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 '. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 i, p. 363. 3 i, p. 340. 
 
THE INTERDICT 79 
 
 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 him- 
 self the expense of an ambassador in Venice. 1 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 
 ^ach 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.- 
 
 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 '. 3 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 
 
 ' Co/. S. P. Yen., x, p. 334. 2 i, p. 374 n. ' i, p. 349. 
 
80 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 ; l he taunted the Venetians with their awe of the 
 Pope, 2 and remarked on the enormous property of the Church in 
 the Venetian territory. 3 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 Collegia, but to burst them open in order to get in. 4 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. 5 On his own reponsibility, 
 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. 6 
 
 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 advan- 
 
 1 CaJ. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 345, 381. 2 Ibid., p. 346. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 348. 4 Ibid., p. 454. 
 
 6 An attempt was made at the time (no doubt by the Spanish party) to bribe 
 Wotton, a stranger coming to him and offering five or six thousand crowns for 
 a certain service. Instead of drawing him on, as he admitted to the Doge after- 
 wards he should have done, Wotton flew into a rage, and ordered the man out 
 of his house. ' I must tell you that I am a poor gentleman, but bred among the 
 noble arts, not venal, no traitor, and I would advise you to leave my house and 
 never to return nor to venture to speak to any of my people.' (Ibid., p. 459.) 
 
 Ibid., p. 348, May 16, 1606. 
 
ATTITUDE OF JAMES I 81 
 
 tage 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 quota- 
 tion, such a marvellous flow of eloquence, that the courtiers 
 declared they had never seen the English Solomon more 
 delighted and pleased with himself. 1 Being informed of the 
 King's favourable disposition, and encouraged by Wotton's 
 exhortations, the Venetian Government instructed their ambas- 
 sador 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Cul. ft. P. Ven... x, p. 3CO. The King's enthusiasm was shared by his family; 
 Prince Henry wrote to Wotton that if he were of age he would come and serve 
 the Republic (p. 495), and one day the little Prince Charles, then six years old, 
 came up to the Venetian ambassador, with a little harquebus on his shoulder, 
 and said that he was thus armed for the service of the Republic. Giustinian 
 gravely replied that the Republic would be very proud of so big and brave 
 a captain, and was sure to win, under his leadership, a great and signal victory. 
 (Ibid., p. 474.) 
 
 2 'Assure the Republic that I shall assist her with all my heart in all that 
 depends on me. I only regret that I am so distant, though, as you said to me 
 the other day, when there is neighbourhood of ideas, sovereigns can easily do 
 all the rest. I have written to my ambassador to make a similar promise 
 in my name to the Republic.' (Ibid., p. 387.) 
 
 WOTTON. I 
 
82 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Venetians, in reliance on the help of England. 1 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 Collegia. 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 indis- 
 cretion 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'. 2 He added indeed the 
 restrictive clause as Salisbury had instructed him ; but notwith- 
 standing 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 i, p. 361 n. 3 Ibid. 
 
 8 Montauto, Sept. 27, 1606 (Arch. Med. 2999). 
 
SALISBURY REPROVES WOTTON 83 
 
 his ' heroic resolution '- 1 The Venetian ambassador saw the 
 King again, and found him still enthusiastic in the cause ; 
 he emphatically asserted his determination to help the Re- 
 public, 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 them- 
 selves. 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 In the meantime Wotton, who had again brought up the 
 proposal for a league, 4 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, 5 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 
 
 1 CoZ. S. P. Yen., x, p. 399. 2 i, p. 361 n. 
 
 3 Ccd. S. P. Yen., x, p. 411. Ibid., p. 408. 
 
 5 Montuuto, Sept. 27, 1606 (Arch. Med. 2999). 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 negotiating with the other Protestant princes. 1 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; 2 
 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.' 3 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 pro- 
 posals 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 resolu- 
 tion 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. 4 
 
 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 c'ould inter- 
 vene 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 
 
 1 'Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 424. 2 Ibid., p. 446. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 448-9. * Ibid., pp. 455, 458, 460, 461. 
 
THE DISPUTE ENDED 85 
 
 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 excommunica- 
 tion. 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,' l nor did the 
 Papacy again attempt to coerce an independent State by excom- 
 munication. 
 
 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 '. 2 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. 3 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 remem- 
 bered 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. 
 
 1 Cambridge History, Hi. 744. i, p. 384. 
 
 1 Sarpi, Letttre, i, p. 344 ; Ranke Seventeenth Century, i, p. 418. 
 
86 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, encou- 
 raging him in his frequent appearances and inflammatory 
 speeches in the Collegia; 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 Eng- 
 land, ' not only in civil friendship but even in religion.' J Already 
 in 1606 he began to hope for the formation of a Protestant 
 Church, and wrote to the Protestant minister at Geneva, Gio- 
 vanni Diodati, (who was then engaged in translating the Bible 
 into Italian), suggesting that a preacher should be sent to 
 Venice. 2 
 
 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, 3 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 begin- 
 ning, 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 
 
 1 i, p. 350. 2 i, p. 361. 
 
 3 Lansd. MS. 90, f. 106. Printed in Some Original Letters of Bishop Bedell, &c., ed. 
 E. Hudson, Dublin, 1742, and Two Biographies of William Bedell, E. S. Shuck- 
 burgh, Cambridge, 1902, pp. 226-38. 
 
WOTTON AND SARPI 87 
 
 as 'the most deep and general scholar of the world'. 1 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'. 2 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. 3 There is proof, 
 however, that, if not before this denial, at any rate afterwards 
 they did meet together in secret conferences. 4 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. 5 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.' G 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. 7 
 
 1 i, p. 400. 2 ii, p. 371. * Cat. S. P. Fen., xi, p. 45. 
 
 4 In the extracts from the dispatches of the papal Nuncio Gessi, preserved in 
 the Museo Correr, occur the following passages : Feb. 28, 1609, ' II Nuncio non ha 
 prova sicura che Fra Paolo abbia degli abboccamenti col Ministro d'Inghilterra, 
 ma soltanto che trovinsi insieme molte volte nel Fondaco de' Zechinelli, mercanti 
 Fiamminghi in Merceria.' March 4, 1609, 'II Secretario del Nuncio aveva 
 rilevato che la pratica del P're Paolo et 1'Ambasciator d'Inghilterra era vera, 
 e che s'erano abboccati certe volte nella bottega o fondaco de' Zechinelli.' 
 (Cigogna, v, pp. 612, 613.) See also below, p. 455 n. 5 Berti, p. 248. 
 
 6 ii, p. 302. T See Bedell's letter, Jan. 1, 1609, Two Bioq., p. 244. 
 
88 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' l 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 '. 2 Sarpi, how- 
 ever, 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 diver- 
 gences 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.' 3 
 
 Although Sarpi was without question a determined enemy of 
 the Papacy as it was in his time, loyalty to Venice was the prin- 
 cipal 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, 4 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 con- 
 troversy with the Pope a bitterness much increased by the attempt 
 inspired by the Pope's friends, if not by the Pope himself, to assassi- 
 nate 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, 
 
 1 See Bedell's letter, Jan. 1, 1609, Two Biog., p. 231. 2 i, p. 399. 
 
 3 Ritter, ii, p. 131, translated by Horatio Brown, Studies in European Literature, 
 pp. 223-4. 
 * ii, p. lOOn. 
 
MOVEMENT FOR RELIGIOUS REFOR-M 89 
 
 he told von Dohna, were hostile to the Pope, and from four to 
 ten thousand of the citizens, including the resident foreigners. 1 
 Among these he counted the Doge, Leonardo Donate, who was 
 neither Protestant nor atheist, but hated the priests and the Pope 
 on account of the liberties of Venice. 2 It was to Sarpi therefore 
 that Wotton looked for advice and help in his Protestant propa- 
 ganda, 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 oppo- 
 sition. 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, univer- 
 sally 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 Govern- 
 ment to be able to deny any knowledge of them. The history of 
 
 1 Von Dohna's notes of Sarpi's conversation, Ritter, ii, p. 82. Wotton thought 
 the number was even larger. Donne, in a letter dated about November, 1608, 
 says : 'Sir H. Wotton, who writ hither, adds also that upon his knowledge there 
 are 14,000 as good Protestants as he in that State.' (Gosse, i, p. 199.) 
 
 * Bitter, ii, p. 81. 
 
90 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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. 2 
 
 Bedell begins by stating that Wotton had now confided in him 
 some part of his 'religious counsels' for introducing Protes- 
 tantism 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 wide- 
 spread 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 3 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 suit- 
 able 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. 4 
 
 For the Venetian nobles, who were unaccustomed to religious 
 controversy, and likely to be shocked by the truth in ' its own 
 
 1 Two Biographies, pp. 239-51. 2 See Appendix III. 
 
 3 'Nombre infini de livres y sont entre's et y entrent a flots tous les jours, et 
 sont tant avidement recueillis, qu'ils se les arrachent des mains les ungs aulx 
 autres.' Diodati to Duplessis-Mornay, Jan. 8, 1608-9 (Mornay, x, p. 272). 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 
MOVEMENT FOR RELIGIOUS REFORM 91 
 
 naked simplicity ', he thought it better to provide religious prin- 
 ciples 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 him- 
 self, and were attended by many Venetians and even some of the 
 nobles. 1 
 
 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 r 
 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 brew speramus.' 2 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 th& 
 name of ' Giovanni da Coreglia ' ; for the papal authorities had 
 got news of his proposed journey, and there was some fear that 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 122, 152. 
 
 2 Diodati to Duplessis-Mornay, April 22, 1608 (Mornay, x, p. 81, wrongly 
 dated 1605). 
 
92 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 l ; 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. 2 
 
 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, 3 
 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.' 4 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 Inquisi- 
 tion 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. 5 Many of the 
 Venetians drew back at this; and it was found also that the 
 
 1 Mornav, x, pp. 269-70. 2 i, p. 436 n. 
 
 3 Report of von Dohna (Bitter, ii, pp. 75-89). Report of Diodati to Prince 
 Christian of Anhalt (ibid., pp. 130-2). To Duplessis-Mornay (Mornay, x, 
 pp. 268-76). Report of De Liques (ibid., pp. Ul-8, wrongly dated 1605). 
 
 4 Mornay, x, p. 269. 5 Two Biog., p. 249. 
 
SARPI'S PLAN 93 
 
 foreign Protestants in Venice were not for the most part people 
 of reputable lives, or fit for the formation of an evangelical com- 
 munity. 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 intro- 
 duced 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. 1 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 aggres- 
 sive 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, 2 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 
 ddla fede.' He would then be able to carry the war into the 
 enemy's country, and by introducing ' la rdigione ' into Italy, 
 he would keep the Pope busy at home, and secure himself and 
 other Protestant princes from the intrigues of Catholic emis- 
 saries in their domains. For a beginning no place was so 
 suitable as Venice, where there was a resident English ambas- 
 sador, 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 
 
 1 Ritter, ii, pp. 79, 84. 
 
 2 Wotton sent a letter by Biondi stating that ' Maestro Paolo (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'(i, p. 447). 
 Biondi, after his arrival in England, embodied these propositions in the form 
 of a letter to James I, and this letter (unsigned, but in Biondi's hand) is now in 
 the S. P. Yen. It is endorsed by Salisbury, ' The Project of Venice, 1608,' i. e. 1609. 
 Biondi does not mention Sarpi by name, but states that he wishes to lay before 
 the King a plan committed to him before he left Italy ' da persona da gran 
 dottrina, fidek, zdante '. 
 
94 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 inten- 
 tions 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 begin- 
 ning 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 '.* 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 out- 
 lines 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 im- 
 portance than ambassadors, would not be so much exposed to 
 public observation. 2 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. 3 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 
 
 1 ' Lega difensiva contra gli Usurpatori della Giuridittione dei Principi.' 
 a i, p. 424, and see Ritter, ii, pp. 79, 80. * i, p. 455. 
 
THE POPE ALARMED 95 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testant 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 ambas- 
 sador 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 ambas- 
 sador 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. 1 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. 2 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. 3 But in the following year the Pope renewed his 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 7, 11. The pamphlet of which the Pope complained 
 was no doubt the broadsheet Xeics from Venice, 'Imprinted at London for 
 Francis Barton, 1607,' which Giustinian sent from London with his dispatch 
 of May 9, 1607, N. S., and which is printed in Cal. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 496, 497. 
 Giustinian succeeded in having the broadsheet suppressed. (Ibid., p. 495.) 
 
 * Ibid., xi, pp. 16, 18. 3 j^ p . 21- 
 
96 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 And when the Nuncio heard of two cases of books 
 which had arrived for Wotton and Bedell, he came to the Collegia 
 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 circu- 
 lation ! ' 2 
 
 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 asser- 
 tions 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. 3 
 
 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 dis- 
 covered 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 
 
 1 Cal S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 122, 257, 391. * Ibid., p. 121. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 12, 112. 
 
HENRY IV AND THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT 97 
 
 my King that some draw to the papal rather than to his side ? ' l 
 These scenes in the Collegia 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 intro- 
 duced into Venice save by means of a firm and strong union of 
 the anti-papal powers, such as Sarpi had suggested. But prob- 
 ably 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 poli- 
 tical and not a religious one. It was tentatively encouraged 
 by an enlightened group of nobles, who at this time composed 
 the majority of the Collegia 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 CaZ. S. P. Fen., xi, p. 345. 'Questa opinione e falsissima, et senza alcun funda- 
 mento ; ne credo che in cinque anni che io mi ritrovo a questo servitio. si habbia 
 ritrovata in me alcnna attione che potesse dar di cio a questo governo alcuna 
 minima ombra. Et in qnesto particulare appello al supremo giudicio dellaSerenita 
 vostra, et di questi Illustrissimiet Eccelentissimi Signori. Et seben la inclina- 
 tione et il desiderio d'un Christiano e naturale di veder che tutti siano della siui 
 fede ; pero che Diavolo (mi sia perdonato^ importa al mio Re, che uno si voglia 
 piii tostoaccostar alia parte del P. S. che alia sua?' (Esp. Prin. Eoma, Sept. 15, 1609.) 
 
 3 Sarpi, Lettere, ii, pp. 109, 120, 147. 
 
 WOTTON. I JJ 
 
98 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 propa- 
 ganda 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 Vene- 
 tian 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, preach- 
 ing Justification by Faith, and advising his hearers both to read 
 the Scriptures and to pray in their own language. 1 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. 2 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 
 
 1 Sarpi had in the previous year suggested to von Dohna that Protestant 
 doctrines should be preached in this manner, without anything being said as to 
 their being contrary to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. A confession of 
 faith should then be drawn up, such as the English, Swiss, Palatine, and Genevan 
 Churches could approve of, and Wotton should print a series of pamphlets dealing 
 with points of religion. (Bitter, ii, pp. 79, 87.) 
 
 3 i, p. 452. 
 
INTERFERENCE OF HENRY IV 9D 
 
 ' instruments of novelty and unquietness ' they were nourishing, 
 and against Fulgenzio's heretical sermons. 1 
 
 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. 2 But as the designs of Henry IV against the 
 Austro- Spanish power began to develop, they took heart again. 3 
 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. 4 The principal object 
 of both these envoys was to help on the Protestant propaganda 
 in Venice 5 ; and towards the end of this year the formation of a 
 small congregation is mentioned. 6 But with the assassination 
 of Henry IV in the following year all hopes of reform perished. 7 
 It is true that Wotton, passing homeward through Paris early 
 in 1611, spoke hopefully of the propaganda and its secret 
 progress 8 ; 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 unimagin- 
 able malice, and his mastery of all kinds of cunning, 9 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 
 
 1 i, p. 481. 
 
 2 Sarpi (or Fulgenzio) wrote lo De 1'Isle Groslot, April 27, 1610, 'Non e come 
 quando V. S. fu qui, ma i papist! sono al di sopra.' This change was largely due, he 
 said, to Henry IV, who had encouraged the papal party, and hindered the ' buoni '. 
 He adds : ' E incredibile quanto grande sia stato il male fatto con quella lettera.' 
 (Letters, ii, pp. 52, 53.) 
 
 3 See letter of Asselineau, a French Protestant physician in Venice, and a 
 friend of Sarpi's, to Duplessis-Mornay, March 15, 1610 (Mornay, xi, pp. 4, 5). 
 
 4 i, p. 476. 
 
 5 For Lenk's mission see Bitter, ii, pp. 462-5, and Mornay, x, pp. 358, 359, 
 395 ; for the mission of Vandermyle, ibid., pp. 391, 393, 396. 
 
 6 ' Je viens de recevoir lettres de Venise fort particulieres : on a donne com- 
 mencement a une petite eglise reTormee ; le ministre de 1'ambassadeur 
 d'Angleterre a faict le bon devoir.' Diodati to Duplessis-Mornay, Dec. 12, 1609 
 (ibid., p. 459). 
 
 7 ' Tempus partus nostri instare credebamus ; spes cum vita regis periit.' Sarpi 
 to Duplessis-Mornay, July 6, 1610 (ibid., xi, p. 111). 
 
 Ibid., p. 162. Bitter, ii, p. 464. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 luramento 
 Fldelitatis, 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'. 1 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 vener- 
 able. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 Bishop Montague's Preface to Works of James I, 1616. 
 8 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 263, 264. 
 
JAMES I's 'PREMONITION' 101 
 
 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 imagina- 
 tions. 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. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 Jos. I, Works, p. 328 ; Col. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 263. 
 
102 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' l 
 
 The whole affair involved the King in ridiculous annoyances 
 and squabbles, and caused a good deal of trouble to his diplo- 
 matists ; none of whom, except Sir Henry Wotton, welcomed the 
 book with any enthusiasm. Wotton's zeal indeed went con- 
 siderably 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. 2 
 
 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 dis- 
 covered 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 pro- 
 test to the Doge and Cabinet ; the book, he said, was full of 
 
 1 l Vade retro Satana, di tal farina non mangio io pane.' Montauio, Sept. 19, 1609 
 (Arch. Med. 3001). 
 
 2 i, p. 466. 
 
WOTTON PRESENTS THE KING'S BOOK 103 
 
 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.' 1 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. 2 
 
 On July 25 (which happened to be St. James's Day 3 ), 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 com- 
 position 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), 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 301. Ibid., p. 302. 
 
 3 Bedell's son-in-law, Alexander Clogy, tells a story to the effect that the 
 King's book arrived during the quarrel between Venice and the Pope, and that, 
 in spite of the entreaties of Sarpi and Bedell, Wotton deferred presenting it 
 until St. James's Day (July 25), because he had prepared a speech upon the 
 conceit of King James and St. James. But while he waited for St. James's Day 
 to arrive, the quarrel was settled, and all chance was gone for the book to be 
 received, and an open breach with Rome to be caused by its reception. {Two Biog , 
 p. 85.) This story was repeated by Burnet (Life of Bedell, 1692, pp. 12-15). The falsity 
 of it, however, is obvious ; Bedell did not arrive in Venice till after the end of 
 the quarrel with Rome ; Wotton had no audience on St. James's Day, 1607 ; 
 he did not receive the anonymous edition of the Apologia till 1608, nor did he 
 present it to the Doge. His delay in presenting the authorized copy in 1609 
 was due to the illness of the Doge (i, p. 462). Already in the seventeenth 
 century Dean Hickes proved the falsity of 'this fine old story', as he calls it, 
 4 which so dishonours the memory of Sir H. Wotton ' (Some Discourses on Dr. 
 Burnet, 1695, pp. 30, 31), and his remarks are repeated in the Biographia Britannica. 
 This ' fine old story ' still, however, does its duty in English biography, and 
 is related by Dr. Ward and Mr. Fox. On the continent it serves another 
 purpose, its falsity being used by Catholic biographers of Paolo Sarpi to throw 
 discredit on Burnet's statements about Sarpi's Protestant sympathies, and his 
 friendship with Bedell. (F. Griselini, Memorie Aneddote, 1740, pp. 117-22.) 
 
104 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Wotton, unaware of the fate of the volume, was highly 
 pleased by the day's performance, and wrote off to his corre- 
 spondents 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 The answer was read to Wotton in the Collegia 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 
 
 1 i, p. 465 n. 2 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 332-4. s Ibid., pp. 334, 335. 
 
WOTTON'S QUARREL WITH THE REPUBLIC 105 
 
 incompatible with friendship ; he would therefore retire to his 
 villa and remain there ' a poor private gentleman ', until he 
 received further instructions from England. 1 
 
 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. 2 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 follow- 
 ing characteristic letter to Lord Salisbury : 
 
 ' My littil beagle, I have bene this nighte surprysed by the 
 Venetian ambassadoure, quho, for all my hunting, hathe not 
 spaired to hunte me out heir; to be shorte his cheife earande 
 was to tell me of a greate fraye in venice betwixte my ambas- 
 sadoure thaire, and that Staite anent a prohibicion that the 
 inquisition of venice hathe sett foorthe against the publishing of 
 my booke thaire, he hathe complained that my ambassadoure 
 takis this so hoatlie as passeth ; in a worde he hathe bestowid an 
 houris vehement oration upon me, for this purpose ; my ansoure 
 was, that I coulde never dreame, that ather the State of venice 
 wolde ever giue me any juste cause of offence, or yett that ever 
 my ambassadoure thaire wold doe thaime any evill office, but as 
 to giue him any particulaire ansoure I tolde him I muste firste 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 337-40. 
 
 2 It took twenty-two days for a letter from Venice to reach London by the 
 ordinary post. 
 
106 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 heare from my owin ambassadoure, for he knew well aneugh 
 that everie prince or State must have a greate trust in thaire 
 owin ministers. I only wryte this unto you nou, that incace 
 this pantalone come unto you, you maye give him the lyke 
 deferring ansoure, albeit if I shoulde tell you my conscience, if 
 all this mannis tale be trewe, my ambassadoure hath usid this 
 matter with a littel more fervent zeale, then temperate wisdome. 
 I nou hoape to heare from you the assurance that youre Sonne is 
 well, and so fairwell. 
 
 'JAMES R.' 1 
 
 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. 2 Wotton's action was plainly resented in 
 England, 3 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 con- 
 duct of the English ambassador, ' whom he knew to be extremely 
 fiery and bold.' 4 
 
 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 Donate, who owing to illness had been 
 absent at the previous audiences, received him, Wotton wrote, ' in 
 a middle temper between kindness and harshness/ and adminis- 
 tered a dignified rebuke for his hasty and ill-considered resigna- 
 tion. 5 Francesco Contarini was sent, as special ambassador, to 
 explain to James I their action in regard to the book. The 
 
 1 Original now in S. P. Yen., endorsed in Salisbury's hand '12 '7ber, 1609'. 
 Printed Sydney Pp., ii, p. 325 ; Nichols, Jos. I, ii, p. 264 ; and Col. S. P. Fen., 
 xi, p. xxvii n. 2 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 351. 
 
 3 See letter of Edmondes to Winwood, Winwood Mem., iii, pp. 77, 78. 
 
 4 Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 347. 
 
 8 S. P. Yen., Sept. 18, 1609. ' Had he been present,' Donato said, ' he would not 
 have accepted the ambassador's renunciation of his office, especially as that renun- 
 ciation was his own individual act, and not the King's orders. . . . '' In sooth, my 
 Lord Ambassador, there was another course open ; when you had received the 
 
GALILEO'S DISCOVERIES 107 
 
 King, highly flattered by this embassy, received him with 
 great magnificence, and entertained him at a splendid banquet. 1 
 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.' 2 In the meantime Wotton 
 presented to the Doge James I's letter, 3 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. 4 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 
 
 Senate's answer, you could have communicated it in the usual way to the King 
 and awaited his reply'" (Col. S. P. Fen., xi, pp. 344, 345). 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 423, 430-1. s Ibid., p. 436. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 380. * i, p. 487. 
 
108 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 propa- 
 ganda was raised in the Collegia. 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 J ') went out of his way to congratulate the 
 ambassador on his prudent conduct, and that of all his house- 
 hold, 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.' 2 
 
 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 activi- 
 ties. 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 con- 
 tinent; 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. 3 
 
 Many of the qualifications necessary for an ambassador, 
 (which were elaborately and somewhat pedantically enumerated 
 
 1 i, p. 500. 
 
 2 ' Havendo et lei et cadauno della sua casa proceduto con ogni piii prudente 
 termine ; et e cosa di sua grande lode et di non poca meraviglia che, tutto che 
 nella sua casa fusse la diversita della Religione, et ella et ogn' uno della sua 
 casa ha proceduto con cosi prudente et avveduto termine che non si e ricevuto 
 pur minimo scandalo '. (Cal. S. P. Fen., xii, p. 90). 
 
 s In an audience on Sept. 16, 1610 (N.S.), James I talked at length to the 
 Venetian ambassador Correr, about the qualities of Sir Henry Wotton, saying 
 'with great emotion that he had known him in Scotland for a man of spirit, 
 and had loved him ever since.' (Ibid., p. 41.) 
 
WOTTON AS AMBASSADOR 109 
 
 in contemporary treatises on diplomacy 1 ), 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. 2 What was more important, he had 
 surveyed the state of Europe with thoughtful eyes, and pos- 
 sessed 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 con- 
 sistently 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 ambas- 
 sador, 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, 
 
 1 The most important of these has already been mentioned, the De Legationibus 
 of Albericus Gentilis. Wotton was probably also familiar with L' Ambassadeur 
 of Jean Hotman (son of Francis Hotman), of which an English translation 
 had been published in 1603 (printed at London by U. S. for James Shawe). 
 Wicquefort's great book and James Howell's Discourse of Ambassadors (1664) were 
 of course later. For a bibliography of fifteenth and sixteenth century books on 
 diplomacy see Ernest Nys, Revue de Droit International, xvi, p. 170 (Bruxelles, 
 1884). 2 Wicquefort, p. 294. 
 
110 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' l 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 Wicque- 
 fort 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. 2 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 ! ' 3 This unworldliness, however, like the 
 habit of telling the truth, was not without its diplomatic advan- 
 tages ; 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.' 4 
 
 That the timid James I should regard with favour an ambas- 
 sador of Wotton's character, seems at first surprising. But for one 
 part of his duties Sir Henry Wotton was endowed with qualifica- 
 tions such as few diplomatists have ever possessed. An ambas- 
 sador was, in the definition he borrowed from Philippe 
 de Commines, 5 ' an honourable spy ' ; he took the place of a 
 special correspondent, and was expected to send in his weekly 
 
 1 Walton's Life. This 'State Paradox', afterwards repeated by Bismarck, was 
 attributed by David Lloyd to Sir Thomas Wentworth. (State Worthies, 1670, 
 pp. 201, 202.) 
 
 a Wicquefort, p. 51. s S. P. Yen., Aug. 12, 1622. 
 
 * Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 287. * State of Christendom, p. 104. 
 
HIS DISPATCHES 111 
 
 dispatches a running account of the news of the country in 
 which he resided. Wotton's qualities of mind, and his know- 
 ledge 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 ambassa- 
 dors abroad couriers were continually arriving with the latest 
 intelligence. Venice was ever ' full of great rumours ', l its 
 inhabitants standing with ' elevated ears ' 2 to hearken for the 
 freshest news. Each report gave rise to infinite dissertations ; 
 discussion was indeed, as Wotton wrote, the disease of the place. 3 
 
 Ambassadors, as Wotton told the Doge, were creatures whose 
 food was news as much of the truth as possible, though some- 
 times they had to ' swallow flies ', 4 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 them- 
 
 1 Stowe MS. 170, f. 61. 3 S. P. Fen., Jan. 1, 1617. 
 
 3 Stowe MS. 170, f. 191. * Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 157. 
 
112 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 selves 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 OttavioBaldi. 
 
 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.' * 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 manu- 
 script 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. 2 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 frag- 
 ments 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 '. 3 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 fore- 
 casting either the rain or the dust.' 4 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. 
 
 1 Stowe MS. 168, f. 267. 
 
 8 'From Sir Henry Wotton, his Majesty's Ambassador at Venice, who was 
 a learned and witty gentleman, I received all the news of Italy.' (Lord Her- 
 bert, p. 23.) 3 Elements of Architecture, preface. * S. P. Yen., Dec. 26, 1610. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DUKE OF SAVOY: WOTTON'S TEMPORARY 
 DISGRACE. 1611-1614. 
 
 ' Xo 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 Pro- 
 testant 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 Baby- 
 lonian 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 
 
 1 i, p. 455. * S. P. Fen., Sept. 8, 1617. 
 
 WOTTOH. I I 
 
114 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 between his family and that of James I, which had been sug- 
 gested as early as 1603, and taken up from time to time by 
 Spain, as an alternative to English marriages for Philip Ill'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 ambas- 
 sador, 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 
 
THE SAVOY MARRIAGE 115 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 mes- 
 sages 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. 2 It was therefore not indiffer- 
 ence 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. 3 
 
 1 Ven. Arch., Barbarigo, Jan. 9, 16, 1610-11 ; see also Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, 
 pp. 107-9. 
 
 2 Leitere, ii, p. 811. On Dec. 4, 1612, after hearing of the death of Prince 
 Henry, Sarpi wrote : ' Saranno levate le pratiche di matrimonio, le quali a me 
 piacevano sommamente. . . . Ma noi siamo pur all' istesso, di veder morti solo 
 a favore di Spagna.' (Ibid., pp. 359-60.) Already in 1609 Sarpi had suggested that 
 Savoy might be induced to join the Protestant league, and religious reform 
 introduced by this means into Italy. (Ritter, ii, p. 83.) 
 
 3 Gardiner, ii, p. 154. It is, of course, with considerable diffidence that I put 
 myself in opposition to the views of so distinguished an authority as 
 Prof. Gardiner. When, however, he says of Wotton, ' If he had learned in 
 Italy to be tolerant of differences of opinion, he had also learned to think with 
 indifference of that great cause of Protestantism in which England was sure 
 for a long time to feel the deepest interest' (ibid., pp. 146-7), I can only con- 
 clude that he has completely misunderstood Wotton's motives. Pro f . Gardiner 
 adds in a note, 'The manifest dislike which he felt for his embassy in Holland 
 in 1614-15 is enough to show how he felt in this matter. Winwood would never 
 have begged to be removed to Italy or Spain. I have taken my view of Wotton 
 from his voluminous unpublished correspondence in the Record Office.' Wotton, 
 as far as I know, never begged to be removed to Spain ; it is true that he wished 
 to return to Venice, but Venice was the place where he believed he could do 
 most for the cause of Protestantism. 
 
 i2 
 
116 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Nor would the only advantage of such a marriage have been 
 the alliance of England and Savoy, and the consequent weaken- 
 ing 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 per- 
 haps 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. 1 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. 2 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.' 3 
 
 1 Winwood Mem., iii, p. 256 ; Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, p. 117. In the Bodleian copy 
 of the Reliquiae, 1st ed. (Douce W. 55) Douce has made this note : ' I have seen 
 the following words written by Sir Henry Wotton in a German album : "Virtus 
 in terris peregrina est, In caelo civis. Bono hospiti haec scripsi Henricus 
 Wottonus, Anglo-Britannus, ex legatione Veneta domum rediens, Lutitiae 
 Parisiorum Februarii xxvi, cioiocx." ' 
 
 a 'Des propos de M. Wotton . . . j'apprends qu'il y a quelque avancement ; 
 inais c'est comme vous m'avez souvent dit, latens incrementum. Les froideurs du 
 padre Paul et ses excuses continuent.' Turetini to Duplessis-Mornay (Mornay, 
 xi, pp. 155, 162-4). 
 
 8 Hist. MSS. Com., pt. ix, p. 161 b. 
 
WOTTON AT COURT 117 
 
 He was in London early in March, and, after a few days there, 
 went to Royston, where he was well received by the King. 1 
 
 This was now the highest point in Sir Henry Wotton's for- 
 tunes. 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 2 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 un- 
 important pieces of patronage, a pension of 200 a year, in 
 consideration of his service as ambassador at Venice, 3 and the 
 moiety of a reversion to the place of a Six Clerk in Chancery. 4 
 
 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.' 5 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 
 
 1 George Calvert to Edmondes, March 10, 1610-11 O.S. (C. & T. Jos. I, i, 
 p. Ill, where this letter is wrongly placed among the letters of 1610.) 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 108. 
 
 3 Docquet Books, vi, April. 
 
 4 S. P. Dom. Jas. I, Grant Bk., p. 81. In 1625 the place of a Six Clerk was sold 
 
 for 6,000. (Index to Chancery Proceedings, Reynardson's Division, 1903, i, p. ix.) /2 < 
 The Six Clerks were abolished in 1654 by Cromwell, ft^^, * 4*t< * "* "?' y" ' / 
 
 5 ' Egli trascura le cose, non le cura, e non si aiuta. Ogni santo vuole la sua ^**^****^ 
 candela, ed egli non 1'impiccia che a Domenedio solo. La ragione e buona, ma ^7 /^>~' 
 in chiesa, non in corte, dove 1'idolatria e necessaria.' Biondi to Carleton * - / 
 (S. P. Dom. James I, Ixxii, No. 7). Biondi adds that his own affairs made ^^*^ * 
 no progress for the same reason, as he had offered candles to none save the 4. // f 
 Signer Wotton. A letter written to Wotton by Donne about February, 1612, * -i. *_, 
 gives us another glimpse of him : ' How shall I then, who know nothing, /- / 
 write letters? Sir, I learn knowledge enough out of yours to me. I learn /' ***** 
 that there is truth and firmness and an earnestness of doing good alive in ^^.f^. 
 the world ; and therefore, since there is so good company in it, I have not *. 
 so much desire to go out of it as I had if my fortune would afford me any room ** r ~ ( 
 in it.' (Qosse, i, p. 291). 
 
118 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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.' 2 He often visited the Bacons at Red- 
 grave, 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, 3 and all trace of it is 
 
 1 For Sir Edmund Bacon, see Appendix III. a ii, p. 156. 
 
 3 As a consequence, I think, of the advice of Wotton's successor and rival, 
 Sir Dudley Carleton, who wrote that such a publication would have a bad 
 effect in Venice, though ' it may be intended to a good end, . . . and though 
 such as had their sickle in that harvest may reap thereby a deferred 
 commendation ', yet the Venetians ' would rather be many steps from Rome 
 in effect than one in show, and I cannot but make this general observation of 
 my treating with the prince, that whensoever this string is touched, though 
 never so tenderly, he stops presently upon it as a sound they do not will- 
 ingly hear'. (S. P. Fen., Dec. 23, 1611, N.S.) On Feb. 10, 1606-7, O.S., 
 William Camden had written to Wotton advising him not to publish any- 
 thing on this subject, as it would involve him in controversies. (Camd. Epist., 
 p. 69.) On Nov. 13, 1611, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton of Wotton : ' I hear 
 for certain he is entrusted with the history of all that passed 'twixt the 
 Pope and State of Venice during the time of the interdict, and that it is to 
 come forth very shortly.' In the same letter he describes meeting Wotton 
 at one of Lord Salisbury's levees, and adds, 'there is some speech that he 
 shall go shortly to Brussels. In the meantime he hath lessened his train, 
 having no more about him but his Dutch butler, Price, and his page. Mr. Morton 
 is retired to his college at Cambridge, Mr. Parkhurst into Kent, and Bilford he 
 hath preferred to the prince {Henry) with asseveration and wagers of three 
 of his choice pictures against three of the prince's horses, that he shall draw 
 or portray the prince better than Isaac, the French painter, in the Black 
 Friars ; but the opinion is that he must have many grains of allowance to hold 
 weight with Isaac. The prince, in favour, grows very like the queen, his 
 mother, and Signer Fabritio insinuates what lie can with him and the Scottish- 
 men about him.' (C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 145.) On Dec. 4 Chamberlain writes, 
 ' Sir Henry Wotton's friends give out that he hath refused the employment to 
 Brussels.' (Ibid., p. 153.) 'Fabritio' was the name by which Carleton and 
 
PROPOSALS OF SAVOY 119 
 
 lost. He visited in the King's name the new Venetian ambas- 
 sador, 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. 1 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. 2 Cartignana's commission was to nego- 
 tiate 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 Pied- 
 mont, 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. 3 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. 4 James had discovered by now that the plan 
 of a Spanish Infanta for Prince Henry was not meant seriously, 
 
 Chamberlain referred to Sir Henry Wotton. ' Isaac, the French painter' was 
 Isaac Oliver (see D. N. .). Of Bilford I know nothing, save that Coryate in 
 1608 mentions Mr. Bilford as Wotton's secretary and 'one of his principal 
 gentlemen '. (Crudities, p. 236. ) 
 
 1 Col. S. P. Fen., xii, pp. 145, 150, 153. 
 
 a Dispatch of Claudio di Ruffia, Conte di Cartignana, March 23, 1611 (Arch. 
 Turin). 
 
 3 ' Non vi fu alcuno del mio seguito che non restasse vinto et legato da quel 
 real et benigno aspetto, et tutti unitamente dicono essere questa sola digna d'essere 
 Principessa di Piedmont.' (Ibid., Dec. 9, 1611.) 
 
 * Gardiner, ii, p. 140. 
 
120 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 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., 2 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'. 3 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 
 
 1 Cal S. P. Yen., xii, pp. 274, 277. 2 C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 163. 
 
 3 ii, p. 5. 
 
JOURNEY TO TURIN 121 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 Chambe'ry, the capital of Savoy. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Here he remained a month, 
 overwhelmed, as he wrote to Lord Pembroke, 'with infinite 
 honours and entertainments.' 5 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. 6 When, however, 
 he came to the serious part of his business with the Duke, the 
 
 1 ' Sir Henry Wotton is arrived at Turin. . . . His coming over the mountains 
 hath already filled Italy with discourses of the marriages of our Princes.' 
 Sir Dudley Carleton to Sir John Digby, Venice, May 11, 1612 (Hist. MSS. Com., 
 10th Report, App. I, p. 582.) 
 
 8 ii, p. 4. , 
 
 3 Yen. Arch. ; Disp. of Gussoni, May 13, May 20, 1612 (Col. S. P. Yen., xii, 
 pp. 345, 348. 354-5). 
 
 * Gussoni, May 20, 1612. s ii, p. 7. 
 
 6 Ibid., May 27. 
 
122 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 fundamental vice of policy, which pervaded almost all the 
 negotiations of James I, and paralysed the action of his ambas- 
 sadors, soon appeared. Wotton, Gussoni wrote, was com- 
 missioned 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. 1 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. 2 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. 3 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 w r as 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. 4 All Italy was by now talking 
 of his splendid reception at Turin, and his magnificent gifts at 
 parting, 5 and the news soon reached England. We next hear 
 
 1 Gussoni, June 3. 2 Ibid., May 20. 
 
 3 Cal. S. P. Fen., xii, p. 388, Foscarini to the Doge and Senate. 
 
 * Gussoni, June 10, 17, 24. 
 
 6 Sarpi, Lettere, ii, pp. 310, 314 ; Carleton to Chamberlain, June 19, 1612 (S. P. 
 
 Fen.). 
 
DEATH OF SALISBURY 123 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 On July 14, 1612, he was at Cologne, 3 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. 4 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. 5 The Queen had sent him a jewel by Albertus 
 
 1 Carleton (S. P. Yen., June 19). 
 
 2 Biondi to Carleton, Turin, May 28, 1612 (S. P. Ital. States). 
 
 3 Fabrizio Mei, a Lucchese spy, wrote from Cologne, July 14, 1612, to the 
 Government of Lucca (still engaged in the life-long hunt for Salvetti) that 
 Wotton had arrived there two days before, and that Salvetti himself was 
 travelling with him in disguise. (Atti, 12.) 
 
 * Chamberlain, March 11, 1612 (C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 137), wrongly dated 1611. The 
 correspondence of Carleton and Chamberlain is full of innuendoes and vague 
 accusations against Wotton, or ' Fabritio ' as they call him. Carleton evidently 
 regarded him as a rival, but whether he had other grounds for his prejudice 
 does not appear. How unfairly he judged Wotton, and the unreasonableness of his 
 suspicions, is shown by two letters of the year. In the first of Nov. 20, 1612, 
 he writes that a report had been started that he wished to be transferred from 
 Venice to the Hague. He was greatly disturbed by this report, which he feared 
 would do him damage, and added, ' I know not out of whose shop should come 
 this furbarie, unless my good friend Fabritio will never leave his old trade of 
 being faber, or, as the Devil is, father of lies.' (S. P. Fen.) But a week later, 
 he wrote that he had decided, on better consideration, that the report had 
 probably been started by his friend, Sir Thomas Lake, with the intention of 
 doing him a service. (C. if: T. Jas. I, i, p. 211.) Wotton's letters to Carleton, on the 
 other hand, are of the most friendly and genial description. 
 
 5 June 11, 1612: 'The likeliest now, in the world's eye, for secretary of state, 
 is Sir Henry Wotton ; and it is a general opinion, that the place is reserved for 
 his coming home. He hath very great friends ; and the late lord treasurer 
 recommended him to the king at his going away, and in his last letter, wherein 
 were many other remembrances ; and it was ready written, but sealed after his 
 death : and his living friends labour much for him. . . . The queen and prince 
 are earnest in Sir Henry Wotton's behalf ; and the Lord Rochester is not willing, 
 
124 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 '. 2 
 
 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 '. 3 The King was then on a progress in the Mid- 
 lands ; 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. 4 To Belvoir Castle 
 had ridden the prospective bridegroom, the young Prince Henry, 
 accomplishing the journey of nearly one hundred miles from Rich- 
 mond in two days, in spite of the extreme heat of the weather. 
 Wotton had an audience with the Prince, who then saw Gaba- 
 leoni, a banker sent by the Duke of Savoy to help in the 
 negotiations. 5 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. 6 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. 7 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 
 
 after his late reconciliation, to oppose himself or stand in the breach against 
 such assailants.' (C. & T. Jas. J, i, pp. 176, 177, see also p. 181.) 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Fen., xii, p. 376. 
 
 2 C. AT. Jas. I, i, p. 197. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 193. Wotton's pictures were probably two portraits of the Duke 
 of Savoy and portraits of his two eldest daughters, which hung in the King's 
 Privy Gallery at Whitehall in the reign of Charles I, and which are described 
 in a catalogue of Charles I's pictures as ' brought by Sir Henry Wotton from 
 Savoy and given to King James'. (Ashm. MS. 1514, p. 46.) 
 
 4 Cal. S. P. Fen., xii, p. 408. 
 
 5 Dispatch of Gabaleoni, Aug. 23, 1612 (Arch. Turin). 
 
 6 Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, p. 427. 7 Gardiner, ii, p. 153. 
 
DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY" 125 
 
 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 '. l 
 
 James I however, not satisfied with the dowry of seven hun- 
 dred 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 ; 2 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.' 3 A rival of Wotton's for the secretaryship, 
 Sir Henry Neville, wrote that Wotton had rather lost than 
 gained by his Savoy embassy. 4 A little later, however, the 
 prospects grew more favourable, and it seemed as if the King 
 really intended the marriage to take place. 5 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. 6 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. 7 
 
 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, 8 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. 
 
 1 Wake to Carleton (S. P. Fen., March 9, 1612-131. 
 
 2 Gardiner, ii, p. 154. s S. P. Dom. Jos. I, Ixxi, No. 24. 
 
 4 Hist. MSS. Com. (Montague House MSS.), i, p. 112. It was also reported that 
 Wotton had grown less zealous for the match, and was only roused by a promise 
 from Gabaleoni of 25.000 crowns. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, p. 415.) 
 
 5 Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, p. 458. 6 Ibid., pp. 447, 450. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 454. ' Nichols, Jas. I, ii, p. 490. 
 
126 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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,' Chamber- 
 lain 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/ l but on November 4 Cham- 
 berlain 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.' 2 The cause of this 
 disgrace was curious and unexpected. The reader has prob- 
 ably 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 pro- 
 cured a copy of Wotton's inscription, and when he wrote his 
 Ecclesiasticus 3 , (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 ' ? 4 And if he sent out ambassadors to lie to 
 the kings and princes of Europe, what truth could one expect to 
 
 1 S. P. Dom. Jos. I, Ixxi, No. 24. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 201. ' Touching Fabritio,' Carleton replied, ' the Devil ought him 
 a shame, and now he hath paid him. but he hath had the fortune to overcome 
 greater matters, and so I believe he will do this.' (S. P. Few., Dec. 14, 1612.") This 
 letter is printed in the Court and Times, i, p. 213. but the transcriber, not understand- 
 ing the phrase ' ought him a shame (cf . Fletcher and Shirley's Night Walkers, ii. 3, 
 ' The Devil owed us a shame, and now he has paid us '), wrote ' The Devil bought 
 
 him a .' For a letter of Chamberlain's of Nov. 3, sending the news of Wotton's 
 
 disgrace to Winwood, see Winwood Mem., iii, p. 407. 
 
 3 Gasp. Scioppii Ecclesiasticus Auctoritati Serenissimi D. Jacobi Magnae Britanniae 
 Begis oppositus, Hartbergae. 1611. 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 13, 14. Scioppius quotes Isaiah xxviii. 15. 
 
WOTTON'S DISGRACE 127 
 
 find in the book which he had dedicated to those same poten- 
 tates ? Wotton's folly in making this barefaced admission was 
 illustrated with appropriate texts. ' It is as sport to a fool to do 
 mischief ' ; l he was one of the heretics of whom the Scriptures 
 speak, ' Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of 
 the wicked ' ; 2 ' They declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it 
 not.' 3 
 
 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 indiscre- 
 tion. One in Latin, addressed to his friend Welser of Augsburg, 
 was published as a pamphlet and distributed about Europe. 4 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. 5 
 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 com- 
 muted sufficiently for a greater offence '. Wotton seems, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
 1 Prov. x. 23. 2 Prov. ii. 14. * Isaiah in. 9. 
 
 4 Isaac Wake, in a letter of Dec. 27, 1612, speaks of the printing of this letter. 
 (S. P. Fen.) Anthony a Wood mentions, in addition to the above pamphlet, an 
 Epistola de Casparo Scioppio, Amburg, 1613. Oct. (Athenae, ed. Bliss, ii, p. 644.) This 
 I have not seen, but take it to be a reprint of the letter to Welser, for which 
 see ii. pp. 9-11. For the answer of Scioppius, see Appendix III under Scioppius. 
 
 5 Among other details (by no means to be given here) about the parents of 
 Scioppius, they said his father was a grave-digger, and that once when he 
 found that the grave he had made was too small, he cut off the feet of the 
 corpse instead of enlarging the excavation. For this and an account of the 
 mother of Scioppius see Bayle's Dictionary (art. Scioppius, note A). 
 
128 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 authority, have described in a manner that has done some injustice 
 to the memory of Sir Henry Wotton Paolo Sarpi, as Mark Patti- 
 son 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 '. l 
 
 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. 2 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. 3 Wotton 
 
 1 Pattison. pp. 377-80. 2 Cas. Epist., p. 507. 
 
 3 Sarpi. Lettere, ii, pp. 343, 428. See also Bedell's Letter to Saml. Ward, Two 
 Biog., p. 253. 
 
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 l ; but Isaac 
 Wake, who visited him five days later and was received with 
 ' much ceremony alVItaliana ', 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 '. 2 
 
 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 philo- 
 sophic wisdom and religious thought. ' Quid superest ? ' he wrote 
 to Carleton. ' In truth, my Lord, only this, that we learn here- 
 after to plant ourselves better than upon the grace or breath of 
 men.' 3 And it is to the misfortunes of this year that we owe 
 one of Wotton's immortal poems : 
 
 How happy is he born and taught, 
 
 That serveth not another's will ; 
 W T hose armour is his honest thought, 
 And simple truth his utmost skill; 
 
 Whose passions not his masters are ; 
 Whose soul is still prepared for death, 
 Untied unto the world by care 
 Of public fame, or private breath; 
 
 Who envies none that chance doth raise, 
 Nor vice ; who never understood 
 How deepest wounds are given by praise; 
 Nor rules of state, but rules of good ; 
 
 Who hath his life from rumours freed ; 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat; 
 
 1 ii, p. 8. * Wake to Carleton, Nov. 25, 1612 (S. P. Fen.)- 
 
 3 ii, p. 15. 
 
130 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
 Nor ruin make oppressors great ; 
 
 Who God doth late and early pray 
 More of his grace than gifts to lend ; 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 With a religious book, or friend ! 
 
 This man is freed from servile bands 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands, 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. 1 
 
 These verses he entitled ' The Character of a Happy Life ' ; 
 and the author in truth was happy who, like Shakespeare's 
 exiled Duke, could 
 
 Translate the stubbornness of fortune 
 Into so quiet and so sweet a style. 
 
 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.' 2 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/ 3 
 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. 4 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 
 
 1 This poem was first published in 1614 with the fifth edition of Overbury's 
 Wife (D. N. B. Errata, p. 285) and was almost certainly written at this time. 
 Cf. the use of ' breath ' in 1. 8 and in letter to Carleton quoted above. Drum- 
 mond of Hawthornden states that Ben Jonson knew this poem by heart. (Ben 
 Jonson's C<.fnversations, 1842, p. 8). For variant readings see J, Hannah, p. 30. 
 
 2 ii, p. 16. s Survey of Education (Reliq., 4th ed., p. 84). 
 
 * Chamberlain to Winwood, Feb. 10, 1613 (Winwood Mem., iii, p. 482). After his 
 death, in 1641, was printed Wotton's Parallel between Essex and Buckingham, 
 though manuscript copies were in circulation in 1634 (Strafford Pp. , i, pp. 167, 
 265). The account of Salisbury has not been printed : there is. however, in the 
 Burley Commonplace Book a ' character ' of him which is probably Wotton's. See 
 Appendix IV. 
 
RENEWED PROPOSALS FROM SAVOY 131 
 
 stroke of thunder ', which he himself witnessed, 1 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,' 2 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. 3 
 
 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 
 \Votton, Chamberlain writes, 'was never from his elbow ' during 
 his stay in England. 4 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 19. 2 ii, p. 32. 
 
 3 Chamberlain to Carleton, Aug. 1, 1613 (C. & T. Jos. I, i, p. 260). Wotton men- 
 tions the gardens at Ware Park, and his friendship for Sir Henry Fanshawe, 
 in his Elements of Architecture (Reliq., 4th ed:, p. 64). 
 
 4 ' Sir Henry Wotton was never from his elbow during his being here ; and 
 indeed these employments of Savoy are his only business that keeps him in 
 breath. He hath reason to entertain them, and blow the coals, as being his 
 own and only work, which hath cost the King many a fair penny. But the 
 world marvels what use we can make of this strict intercourse with Savoy, 
 a Prince every way so decried and weak.' Chamberlain then mentions the 
 journey of William Parkhurst to Geneva (see Appendix III), and adds, ' But it is 
 suitable that Discipulus should not be supra Magistrum, but follow him in those 
 gross errors and extravagant causes, which he shuffles and shifts withal well 
 enough, and procures fortunes and favours for his followers: as I hear his 
 nephew Morton is like to be Clerk of the Council, and that it is looked every 
 day when he shall be sworn.' Chamberlain to Winwood, July 8, 1613 (Winicood 
 Mem., iii, p. 469). This outburst of spleen on the part of so prejudiced a person 
 as Chamberlain is referred to by Mr. Sidney Lee, in his Life of Wotton in the 
 Dictionary of National Biography, as a justification for the remark, 'Through 1613 
 Wotton persistently sought official employment in vain, and his obsequious 
 bearing diminished his reputation.' (D. N. B., Ixiii, p. 53.) Mr. Lee gives an 
 additional reference to Nichols, Jas. I, ii, p. 66. but as Wotton is not mentioned 
 on p. 66, I take this for a misprint for p. 667, where the above letter to 
 Winwood (with portions of a similar letter to Sir Dudley Carleton) is printed. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 of Savoy, in payment for their assistance in his projects. 1 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. 2 
 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. 3 
 
 In the 'Undertakers' or 'Addled' Parliament of 1614, which 
 met on April 5, Wotton was member for Appleby. 4 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. 5 
 
 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 main- 
 tenance of the dignity and power of the English King in Europe. 
 He was thus out of sympathy with the movement for parlia- 
 mentary freedom in England, and the efforts to limit the 
 
 1 This is proved by a document in the Turin Archives (Lettere Ministri 
 Inghilterra, Feb. 12, 1613), where, among a list of presents to be given to the 
 King and Queen, and various English courtiers, these items appear, ' Al Cav. 
 Wotton un' annata di sua pensione 2,000 D. ; Albert Morton 1,000 D.' 
 
 a Biondi to Carleton (S. P. Dow. Jos. I, Ixxiv, No. 87). 
 
 3 C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 311. 
 
 4 Return of Members of Parliament, pt. i, Appendix, p. xl. 
 
 5 Gardiner, ii, p. 239 ; C. <fc T. Jas. I, i, p. 312. Chamberlain writes that on the 
 day Parliament was dissolved (June 7), Wotton, ' for some indiscreet and indecent 
 language used to Sir John Savile, was cried down, and in great danger to be 
 called to the bar, but escaped narrowly.' (Ibid., p. 322.) 
 
WOTTON IN PARLIAMENT 133 
 
 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. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 AMBASSAEOR AT THE HAGUE ; THE TREATY OF XANTEN. 
 1614-1615 
 
 As late as June 18 Wotton believed that he was to 20 to 
 
 o 
 
 France; 1 but the King finally decided to send him as extra- 
 ordinary ambassador to the Hague, to try to settle, in con- 
 junction 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 after- 
 wards 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 peace- 
 
 1 C. & T. Jas. /, i, p. 825. 
 
 3 S. P. Holland, Aug. 18, 1614. Wotton's appointment was dated from June 1, 
 and on July 15 he was paid 244 ; being 4 a day (the pay of a special 
 ambassador) with some other sums for transport. (Docquet Book VI.} 'Sir 
 Henry Wotton goes away out of hand,' Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 
 July 21, Ho see if he can compound this business of Cleve without blows, in 
 persuading the States to resign the fort of Gulick (Juliers) into a third hand. 
 His allowance is 4 a day, with forty days' advancement ; but he complains 
 of hard measure in both, yet he is very earnest that the place of residence there 
 should not be disposed of till he had signified his liking, so that you may see 
 his stomach is come down. But I hope you are beforehand with him,' 
 Chamberlain adds, Carleton himself wishing to be transferred from Venice 
 to the Hague. (C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 333.) 
 
THE JULIERS-CLEVES CONTROVERSY 135 
 
 makers 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 oft' 
 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 b3 
 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 Bran- 
 denburg, 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 pro- 
 tection 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 Bran- 
 denburgers out of Diisseldorf. 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 them- 
 selves in the places which would be of the most vital importance 
 in the impending war against the Protestant powers. 
 
136 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 This was the condition of affairs when Wotton was sent to 
 intervene. His first business was to induce the Dutch to with- 
 draw 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, pp. 41-2, and letter of Richard Seymer (one of Wotton's suite) to his 
 brother, Robert Seymer, from the Hague, Aug. 17, 1614 : 'Loving brother, after 
 a pleasant passage by sea we arrived at Rhotherdam the first of this present 
 August, whither Sir Horace Year, Corronel Broge, and many English captains 
 came to kiss his Lordship's hands, and to accompany him to the Haghe. Upon 
 the way, some two miles from the town, his Lordship was met by the Grave 
 Maurice, Count Henry, and divers Lords of the States, who accompanied him to 
 his lodging, where he hath been entertained with great plenty at the States' 
 cost for the space of thirteen days. 1 (Add. MS. 29974, f. 29.) 
 
 4 For the ceremonial observed in the reception of ambassadors at the Hague 
 see Wicquefort, pp. 142, 159. 
 
THE FALL OF WESEL 137 
 
 the disputed territories. This news caused the greatest con- 
 sternation 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 cap- 
 tured 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 l ; 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. 2 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 
 1 ii, p. 43. a Motley, Barn., i, p. 345. 
 
138 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 mis- 
 take, 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 groan- 
 ing under the burden of the armies quartered on them, so 
 that, as Wotton wrote, all corners were full of 'poverty and 
 clamour '.* 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 52. 
 
THE TREATY OF XANTEN 139 
 
 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. 1 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 territo- 
 ries 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. 2 
 
 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 Arch- 
 dukes 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. 3 This rendered the treaty utterly futile, and, as 
 Motley says, ' The whole great negotiation began to dissolve into 
 a shadowy, unsatisfactory pageant.' 4 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. 
 
 1 ii, p. 55. * ii, p. 59. s ii, p. 62 n. 
 
 4 Motley, Barn., i, p. 351. 
 
140 SIR HENKY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 
 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 pro- 
 mises 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/ 2 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 vacil- 
 lation 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 
 1 ii, p. 63. ii, p. 68 n. 
 
NEGOTIATIONS AT THE HAGUE 141 
 
 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 formu- 
 laries ' ; in the vain search for a form of promise for the with- 
 drawal 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. 1 
 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. 2 
 
 It was soon plain that Count Maurice was right ; the Arch- 
 dukes 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 effrontte, 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 Barne- 
 veldt, 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. 
 
 1 The wording proposed by the States was 'en cas qu'fceulx pays vinssent 
 a tomber en nouvelle guerre ouverte ou invasion manifesto soit faite sur aucun 
 de nos amis [ou] dedans [oudehors] les diets pays'. At the request of James I 
 the States reluctantly agreed to omit the words in brackets. 
 
 * ii, p. 78. 
 
142 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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,' 1 and nothing remained but to recall the ambas- 
 sador, 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 states- 
 men 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. 2 
 
 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, 3 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 ? ' 4 The English officers in the Dutch 
 
 1 S. P. Holland, July 1, 1615. 2 ii, P- 77 n. 
 
 3 C. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 355. * ii, pp. 81-2. 
 
RETURN TO ENGLAND 143 
 
 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, 1 and 
 altogether he was uncomfortable and out of place amid his 
 uncongenial surroundings. 
 
 After Wotton's departure, the absurd proposal for the omis- 
 sion of the Kings' names from the promise was submitted to 
 the Sovereign Provincial Assemblies, (for the States- General, 
 like the Collegia 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 men- 
 tioned 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 with- 
 drawn, 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. 2 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. 
 
 1 ii, p. 62 n. a Motley, Barn., ii, pp. 48-53. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SECOND EMBASSY AT VENICE. 1616-1619 
 
 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 grand- 
 daughter. 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 pro- 
 pose, 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 
 
 1 Privy Seal printed Archaeol., xl. a Gardiner, ii, p. 321. 
 
VISIT TO HEIDELBERG 145 
 
 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 l 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. 2 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. 3 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 diffi- 
 cult 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 Be'thune, 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 
 
 1 Among those who accompanied Sir Henry Wotton, or who were in his 
 service during his second embassy at Venice, were Isaac Bargrave (chaplain), 
 Will. Leete (steward), John Dynely (principal secretary), Richard Seymer, 
 John Georges, Arthur Terringham and John Dourishe. 
 
 - ii, p. 91. 3 ii, p. 88. 
 
 WOTTON. 1 L 
 
146 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 Donate, 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 pre- 
 serve 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 Donate 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. 1 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 '. 2 
 
 1 Venice Archives, Disp. of Antonio Donate, May 30, 1616, N.S. Wotton's 
 account of his negotiations at Turin is contained in a long dispatch in the Record 
 Office (S. P. Ken., May 22, 1616, O.S.). A duplicate of this dispatch at Oxford 
 (C. C. C. MS. 318) is printed in Archaeologia, vol. xl. Isaac Wake's account is in 
 the Record Office (S. P. Savoy, May 21, 1616, O.S.\ 
 
 * S. P. Yen., May 22, 1616. 
 
ARRIVAL AT VENICE 147 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 Collegia 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 2 ; 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. 3 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 95 n. 
 
 2 'Una inclinatione quasi naturale alia natione Italiana, a mat a, et esistimata 
 da me, senza pregiudicio delle altre, con affetto particulare, ch' io le presi fin 
 dalla prirna volta, che passai le Alpe.' (Esp. Prin., June 27, 1616.) 
 
 3 ' Essendo io venuto questa seconda volta, non tanto per elettione di Sua 
 Majesta, quanto per dispositione mia particulare, ... ho pensato di goder in 
 essa, et di vivere piii da filosofo, che da cortigiano ; ne io, ne la mia famiglia, 
 non facendo mai dispiacere, ne apportando ingiuria ad alcuno, ma solo mirando 
 a starci senza scandolo, senza offesa, con quiete di noi medesimi, et con pace 
 d' ognuno.' (Ibid.) 
 
 L2 
 
148 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 con- 
 quest 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 Styrla 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 UscoccJd. 
 
ANTONIO DE DOMINIS 149 
 
 Such being the state of affairs, it is no wonder that Wotton 
 found, as he wrote, both Venice and Italy ' very sick '. l 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 Donate 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 com- 
 pletely 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 theo- 
 logical adventurers he had formerly employed, or those dis- 
 covered 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. 2 De Dominis was by far the most impor- 
 tant 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 102. * ii, pp. 97-100. 8 Gardiner, iv, p. 284, 
 
150 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 some of the Italian converts of the time, a discovery or protege 
 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 pamphlejb in 
 which he gave his reasons for leaving the Roman Church, in- 
 creased 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. 1 The Archbishop took with him the 
 manuscript of a work, de Republica Ecclesiastica, in which his prin- 
 ciples 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, 2 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.' 3 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. 4 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. 5 Already in 1612 he had received 
 
 1 S. P. Yen., Dec. 9, 1616. 
 
 2 When Wotton was in Paris in 1611, he told Turetini that information was 
 being collected about the Council of Trent, for a work to be composed by Sarpi 
 (Mornay, xi, p. 155). 
 
 3 ii, p. 100. The book was published in London in 1619 ; Histnria del Concilia 
 Tridentino, di Pietro Soave Polano; this name being an anagram on 'Paolo 
 Sarpi o Veneto'. 
 
 * ii, p. 100 n. s Vita del Padre Pado, 1659, p. 178.- 
 
WAR IN ITALY 151 
 
 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. 1 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'; 2 and finally on September 14 the 
 Spanish army invaded Piedmont 3 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 ambas- 
 sador 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. 4 
 Indeed, the heroic valour of the Duke of Savoy, never more 
 splendidly displayed than in his perilous campaigns of this winter, 
 
 1 This correspondence was discovered in the Record Office by Signorina 
 Eugenia Levi, and printed in the Athenaeum of July 9, 1898. 
 
 2 ii, p. 103 n. s Romanin, vii, p. 107. 
 * Gardiner, iii, pp. 49-52. 
 
152 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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 '. 2 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 
 
 1 Arranged at Paris, Sept. 6, 1617, signed at Madrid, Sept. 26. (Dumont, vi, 
 p. 302.) Ratified for Savoy and Spain at Pavia, Oct. 9 ; for Venice and Styria, 
 Feb. 1, 1618. 
 
 * Romanin, vii, p. 120. Most of the gunners in the fleet were English, Wotton 
 wrote, and a good part of the ammunition. (S. P. Ven., Dec. 16, 1617.) 
 
ENGLISH MERCENARIES 153 
 
 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 noble- 
 men like Lord Dingwallor the Earl of Oxford, who were anxious to 
 raise troops in England and bring them to Italy, or military cap- 
 tains 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.' l 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. 2 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, 3 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 
 
 1 ' Mi dispiacciono alcune voci, che corrono per le piazze, che Inglesi sono 
 lontani. Noi tenimo hora 500 soldati nell' isola .... ultimamente acquistata 
 verso le Indie orientali. Habbiamo tre colonie nella Virginia, et nelle Moluche 
 si mantengono 400 in 500 fanti ; questi luoghi si potrebbono dire lontani, et pur 
 vi si giunge. Ma Venetia non si pud dire lontana, anzi noi confiniamo con la 
 Republica cosi per mare, come il Re di Spagna per terra.' (Esp. Prin., July 9, 1616.) 
 The 'isola' perhaps refers to the Bermudas, acquired about 1611, 'orientali' 
 being a mistake of the Venetian secretary for ' occidental* '. 
 
 * Ibid., April 27, 1617. s Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 523. 
 
154 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' 1 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. 2 
 
 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, 3 this request was granted, On condition that the ships 
 should be used for defensive purposes, 4 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. 5 
 
 1 ' Essendo stato gran passeggio quello, 'che ban fatto dalla picciol birra 
 bevuto sin' al sbarco, al vino, che doppo hanno bavuto.' (Esp. Pdn., April 27, 1617.) 
 
 2 Ibid., March 22. 3 C. & T. Jas. I, ii, p. 63. 
 
 4 Lake to Wotton (S. P. Fen., Jan. 14, 1618). First and second draft of the 
 answer' of the Council to the Venetian ambassador (Eton MS., Jan. 4, 1618, 
 printed Box. Club, pp. 10-12). Corbett, i, pp. 62-8. 
 
155 
 
 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 pre- 
 parations ; 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. 1 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. 2 Thus the 
 great principle of modern maritime warfare, on which Wotton 
 was the first English statesman to insist, was practically demon- 
 strated to the world ; and the Spaniards saw that Venice, though 
 the closing of the Orison 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 paki 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. 3 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 170 n. a Gardiner, iii, pp. 287-9. 3 ii, p. 153. 
 
156 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Wotton hoped that the matter would be taken up by the 
 English Government; but the fact of the mutiny was uncon- 
 tested, 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. 2 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.' 3 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.' 4 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, 6 made at the time a great sensation in Europe, 
 and has been ever since the cause of much speculation and con- 
 troversy. To English readers it is perhaps best known as the 
 occurrence on which Otway founded the plot of his famous play 
 
 1 Esp. Prin. Aug. 20, 1618. Wotton's speech is printed by Romanin, vii, 
 p. 155. 
 
 J ii, p. 159. s Eton MSS. Rox. Club, pp. 79, 80. 
 
 * ii, p. 181. * Brown, Ken. St., p. 834. 
 
THE PLOT OF 1618 157 
 
 V> nice 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 hgtve 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 '.* His own curiosity, and his knowledge of the inquisi- 
 
 1 ii, p. 132. 
 
158 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 tiveness of his master, made him investigate all the circumstances 
 as carefully as he could. ' No public minister resident upon this 
 lake cloth know more of it than myself,' he wrote, 1 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 151 n. 
 
 9 Rontanin, vii, p. 120 ; Duffus Hardy, p. 13 : letter of Lionello, Few. Arch. Com- 
 municate, Dec. 29, 1617. 
 
SUSPICIONS ABOUT WOTTON 159 
 
 reported that he had been won by the Spaniards during his 
 negotiations at Xanten, in 1614. 1 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 sus- 
 picion from others, gave in the Collegia 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 ambassa- 
 dor'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 deter- 
 mined 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 
 
 1 Lionello wrote that the Secretary Winwood (' Ft'ntd') had asked him about 
 certain reports concerning Wotton, to the effect that he held a strict intelligence 
 with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and had received money from him ; that he 
 had become inimical to the Duke of Savoy, as that prince had not honoured him 
 in 1616 as much as he had done formerly ; that Wotton had remained a month 
 in Venice without a formal reception, &c. Lionello wrote that he had not been 
 able to give a frank answer, as he had no instructions to complain of Wotton. 
 He adds, ' Mi trovo obligato di dire all' Eccellenze Vostre a questo proposito 
 esser il Cavalliero Vuton in quests corte et appresso il Re in pochissima con- 
 sideratione. senza amici, povero ; senza altro al mondo che 800 scudi di pro- 
 visione che '1 Re li da in vita ; ritornato a Venetia con solo fine di guadagnar 
 per vivere ; poiche qui per i debiti non poteva piii dimorare ; di animo avaris- 
 simo ; che per denari farebbe ogni cosa, et e fama che fosse guadagnato da 
 Spagnoli al Trattato di Vessel.' ^Lionello to Council of Ten, London, Aug. 11, 
 1617. Communicate.') 
 
160 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 map showing the exact post. He seemed confused, and spoke in 
 a trembling voice ; and shortly afterwards he was imprisoned 
 and put to death. 1 
 
 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 Bohe- 
 mians 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 ' ; 2 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. 3 
 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 ambassa- 
 dor to these princes, he was commissioned by the Republic to 
 express their goodwill, and their desire for nearer terms of 
 friendship. 4 
 
 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, 5 the arrest by mistake of his steward Will 
 
 1 Esp. Prtn., July U, 1618 (Romanin. vii, pp. 150). 
 
 3 S. P. Fen., Dec. 1, 1617. 
 
 3 Komanin, vii, pp. 243-5. * ii, p. 172. ii, p. 125. 
 
PLAN FOR PROTESTANT SEMINARIES 161 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 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 accus- 
 tomed 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 '. 3 These semi- 
 naries 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 '. 4 Wotton advocated, there- 
 fore, 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 
 
 1 ii, pp. 114-18, 126, 132-9, 144-5. 
 
 2 This plan had won the approval of Francis Bacon, who had suggested that 
 in case the judges decided against the validity of Thomas Sutton's will, some 
 of his estate might be used for the purpose of these Protestant seminaries. 
 (Spedding, iv, p. 254.) 
 
 3 Box. Club, p. 106. * ii, pp. 149, 178 ; S. P. Fen., July 18, 1621. 
 
 WOTTON. I 
 
162 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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/ l 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 '. 2 
 
 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 Arch- 
 bishop 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 dis- 
 appeared 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. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 151. ii, p. 149. s S. P. Yen., July 8, 1621. 
 
WOTTON'S LEAVE-TAKING 163 
 
 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.' l 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. 2 That, contrary to the reports of Lionello, 
 he was held in estimation at home, is shown by the fact that 
 
 1 ' A Lei preghiamo buon viaggio, prosperita, et ogni maggior sodisfattione. 
 Quanto a noi, la vita degli huomini e in mano di Dio ; lo preghiamo sia fatto la 
 sua volunta, il suo servitio, et quello che sia il meglio della nostra Republica, 
 ch' e il nostro principal obietto. Se V. S. ritornera, poiche lei monstra che cosi 
 possa essere, con alcuna occasione, trovera in questo luogo, 6 Noi, 6 altri che la 
 vedera sempre voluntieri ; et hora 1' accompagnamo nella partenza con 1'affeto 
 del nostro animo multo amorevole.' (Esp. Prin., May 5, 1619.) 
 
 2 A consul was appointed by the English merchants of Venice in 1608, and he 
 was succeeded in 1620 by Thomas Gunter, on the appointment of Wotton and 
 Trinity House. (Col. S. P. Yen., i, p. cli.) 
 
 M 2 
 
164 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 during the frequent changes of secretaries in England, he had 
 once or twice been thought of for this post. 1 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 imme- 
 diately cancelled in favour of Doncaster; Wotton himself 
 welcoming the change, being fitted, as he modestly wrote to 
 Naunton, ' for business of more simplicity.' 2 
 
 His letters and dispatches show evidence, however, of dis- 
 couragement, 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. 3 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 : 
 
 ' Is then at least my fortune mended "? Alas, my dear Lord, let 
 me not think of that. For when I consider how all those of my 
 rank have been dignified and benefited at home, while I have 
 been gathering of cockles upon this lake, I am in good faith 
 impatient, more of the shame, than of the sense of want. Yet 
 this is my comfort, that my gracious Master (as it hath pleased 
 him to let me know) doth love me. And for the rest, philosophy 
 shall be my reward, which though it cannot keep me from need, 
 yet it will teach me not to envy those that abound.' 4 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, in October, 1617, Wotton corresponded with him alone, but 
 subsequently wrote to both Naunton and Lake, and after the 
 
 1 ii, pp. 122 n., 166. Although Wotton had as yet published nothing, he had 
 won a certain literary reputation, and in the first draft of Edmund Bolton's 
 Hypercritica (1617) he is mentioned with Ben Jonson as an admirable writer and 
 as a possible candidate for James I's proposed literary academy. (Haslewood, 
 Ancient Critical Essays, 1815, ii, p. 247.) 
 
 * ii, p. 166. s ii, p . 130. ii, pp. 161-2. 
 
WITH THE GERMAN PRINCES AT HEILBRONN 165 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Wotton left Venice on May 16, 1619, 2 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 enter- 
 tained 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. 3 
 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. 4 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 
 
 1 ii, pp. 130, 132. Among the Dropmore MSS. there is a letter from Wotton 
 to Buckingham dated about Nov. 1617, in which Wotton asks for Buckingham's 
 favour, now that his friend Winwood is dead. (Hist. MSS. Com., 1st Kept., pt. ii, 
 p. 53.) As I have not had access to the Dropmore MSS. I have not been able to 
 print this letter. 
 
 2 There is one memorial of Wotton's second embassy in Venice which deserves 
 mentioning. In the library of Eton College is a manuscript volume of Latin 
 poems, written in Wotton's honour by a young German, Johann Peter Lotich, 
 who had partaken of his hospitality. The young man, who was a great- 
 nephew of the more famous Peter Lotich or Lotichius of Hanau, seems to 
 have come to Venice in the year 1618. In his Poemata (Frankfort, 1620) one 
 of these poems, 'Ad Henricum Wottonium,' is printed (p. 134). He writes in 
 the usual laudatory style of these compositions, but his description of Wotton's 
 
 ' Mellifluis verba referta favis, 
 
 Et decus eloquii, placidumque ante omnia vultum ' 
 is perhaps worth quoting. 
 
 3 Gardiner, iii, pp. 318-19. * ii, p. 175. 
 
166 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 seminaries in Italy, for the purpose of counteracting ' the creeping 
 mischief ' of the Jesuit propaganda. He had also been instructed, 
 at his own suggestion, 1 to urge that the differences of the Protes- 
 tant 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. 2 
 
 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, 3 
 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. 4 
 
 1 Two dispatches of Wotton's prove that ambassadors at this time sometimes 
 suggested the terms of their own instructions. See dispatches of Jan. 8 and 
 Feb. 8, 1619 (Box. Club, pp. 98, 108), and Wotton's instructions printed Gardiner, 
 Letters, pp. 46-8. 
 
 J ii, p. 179. 
 
 8 Wotton's friend, John Donne, was travelling with Lord Doncaster as his 
 chaplain. That Donne and Wotton met in Germany, as Mr. Gosse suggests 
 (Gosse, ii, p. 132), is not probable. 
 
 1 C. & T. Jos. J, ii, pp. 184, 186. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 EMBASSY TO FERDINAND II. 1620 
 
 OP 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 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 
 
 1 The promise is dated Jan. 16, 16$. (Col. S. P. Dom. 1619-23, p. 113.) In 
 1624 5,000 was offered for this reversion (S. P. Dom. Jos. I, clxii, no. 13), 
 and in 1639 Sir Charles Caesar paid 15,000 for the place itself. (D. N. B., viii, 
 p. 203.) 
 
 ; See frontispiece, vol. i. 
 
168 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 him- 
 self. The accession of Maximilian to the Emperor's cause 
 soon made itself felt ; he secured the neutrality of the Protes- 
 tant 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 over- 
 throw 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 dis- 
 playing 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 
 
WOTTON'S INSTRUCTIONS 169 
 
 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.' l 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 Con way 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 Con way 
 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 pro- 
 visional ; 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. 2 
 
 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 hopeless- 
 ness 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 '. 3 With these unfounded hopes, and 
 
 1 Epistolae Ho-Elianae, ed. J. Jacobs, 1892, p. 130. 
 8 Wotton' s Instructions, Reliq., 4th ed., p. 495. 
 1 C. & T. Jos. I, ii, p. 204 ; Gardiner, iii, p. 362. 
 
170 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 with a splendid train of more than twenty young gentlemen, 1 
 Wotton travelled to Dover, where we find him on July 2, O.S., 
 about to cross the Channel. 2 
 
 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 Main waring, 
 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.' 3 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 : 
 
 You meaner beauties of the Night, 
 
 That poorly satisfy our eyes, 
 More by your number than your light, 
 
 You common people of the skies; 
 
 What are you when the Moon shall rise ? 
 
 You curious chanters of the Wood, 
 That warble forth dame Nature's lays, 
 
 Thinking your passions understood 
 
 By your weak accents ; what 's your praise 
 When Philomel her voice shall raise? 
 
 1 ' Sir Henry Wotton is now upon his departure, accompanied (as I hear) 
 by more than twenty young gentlemen, who I presume go most upon their 
 own charge, or else he will not be long able to continue his late confident 
 speech, that he doth not now owe one penny in England ; which one of his 
 friends (standing by) said would be an excellent epitaph, if he could leave 
 it on his monument.' Chamberlain to Carleton, June 28, 1620, O.S. (S. P. Dom., 
 cxv, no. 112). Among Wotton's suite on this embassy were Thomas Rowe, 
 John Meawtys, Walter Waller, Henry Balam, James Vary, John Dynely, and 
 a son of Lord Wharton, with his tutor, Michael Branthwaite. 
 
 2 A letter from Wotton to Buckingham written from Dover on this date, in 
 which Wotton says he is about to sail, and will remember Buckingham's 
 message to the Queen of Bohemia, is preserved at Dropmore. (Hist. MSS. Com., I, 
 pt. ii, p. 57.) 
 
 3 S. P. Dom., Jas. I, cxv, no. 69. 
 
WOTTON AND KEPLER 171 
 
 You violets that first appear, 
 
 By your pure purple mantle known, 
 
 Like the proud virgins of the year, 
 As if the Spring were all your own ; 
 What are you when the Rose is blown ? 
 
 So when my Mistress shall be seen 
 In form and beauty of her mind, 
 
 By Virtue first, then choice a Queen, 
 Tell me if she were not design'd 
 Th' eclipse and glory of her kind ? l 
 
 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. 2 
 
 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, 
 
 1 Wotton' s poem On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia was set to music, 
 and first printed in 1624 in East's Sixt Set of Bookes. For variations and biblio- 
 graphy, see J. Hannah, pp. 12-15. Suggestions for lines in this poem can be 
 traced to Petrarch : 
 
 Col suo bel viso suol dell' altre fare 
 Quel che fa T l di delle minori stelle. 
 
 In Vita di Laura, Sonetto CLZXX1I; (cf. 
 
 Horace, i. 12. 46-8). 
 I" la riveggio starsi umilemente 
 Tra belle donne, a guisa d'una rosa 
 Tra minor fior. Ibid. CCXL 
 
 3 ii, p. 185. 
 
172 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 cere- 
 monies worthy of a king. 2 He was lodged at the Emperor's 
 expense in the house of the Baron dj Gabriana, near the Court. 
 He was visited by the three French ambassadors, the Due 
 d'Angouleme, and MM. de Bdthune 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 Sep- 
 tember 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. 3 
 
 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 Chan- 
 cellor 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 am- 
 bassadors 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 205 n. a Hist. MSS. Com., Montague of Beaulieu MSS., p. 98. 
 
 3 ii, p. 190 n. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE HILL 173 
 
 should be free to elect Frederick his successor. 1 For more 
 than a month the ambassadors waited for an answer, and, 
 having nothing else to do, spent their time together in agreeable 
 conversation. 2 
 
 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 indigna- 
 tion. 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 3 ; the King and Queen took offence with Wotton 
 for not giving them their royal title in addressing his letters 
 to them 4 ; 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 West/on, 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.' 5 About the conduct of the un- 
 fortunate Elector Palatine, and probably about that of James I, 
 Wotton had plainly an opinion which he would not express 
 
 1 ii, p. 191 n. 
 
 3 Gindely, Thirty Tears' War, English translation, 1884, i, p. 230. 
 ' Letter from Prague (S. P. Ger. States, xviii, f. 275). 
 
 4 ii, p. 194 n. 5 ii, p. 200. 
 
174 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 because, as he wrote, these personages were ' too great, and by 
 veneration redeemed from censure '- 1 
 
 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, some- 
 thing 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. 2 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. 3 
 
 1 ii, p. 200. 2 j^ p- 202. 
 
 s Wicqutfort, p. 289. Buvinckhausen, envoy to James I from the King of 
 
WOTTON AT MUNICH 175 
 
 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 under- 
 taken the conquest of Bohemia merely in obedience to the 
 Emperor, and ' to the grief of his soul '. Although the arrange- 
 ment 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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; 3 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. 
 
 Bohemia in 1620. refused three times the King's present at his departure, and 
 although he finally accepted it, he left it behind him in England. (Gardiner, 
 iii, p. 341.) Wotton's hostess was the Baroness di Qabriana, not 'Countess of 
 Sabrina ' as Walton gives the name. 
 
 1 S. P. Fen., July 8, 1621. 
 
 3 The Anhaltische Canski, as it was called, the documents found at Prague, 
 exposing Frederick's intrigues with Mansfeld and Savoy for the partition of 
 the territories of the house of Austria, had already been published when Digby 
 reached Vienna. (Gardiner, iv, p. 204.) 
 
 ' ' II mio negotiate e stato un' impiego d'ufficii e di denari, senza frutto, ne altro 
 frutto n' habbiam' in effeto riportato che imparare per altri occasione di cambiar 
 il suono delle parole in quello di cannonate.' (Esp. Prin., April 15, 1621.) 
 A document at Knole Park, 'Abstract of such monies as have been issued 
 for the affairs of the Palatinate,' &c., gives the cost of Wotton's embassy to 
 the Emperor as 5,965. (Hist. MSS. Com., 4th Report, Appendix, p. 281.) 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THIRD EMBASSY IN VENICE. 1621-1623 
 
 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 Ger- 
 man 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 charac- 
 teristic 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 con- 
 siderable 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 Re- 
 public 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 
 Collegia 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 
 
RETURN TO VENICE 177 
 
 father will never leave treating,' his unfortunate daughter wrote 
 of him, * though with it he hath lost us all.' l 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 Collegia, 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 Collegia. 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 ' pro- 
 viding some mitigation for his spirit'. 3 On April 7 the 
 
 1 The Queen of Bohemia to Roe, May }f, 1623 (Roe, p. 146). 
 3 Esp. Prin., March 30, April 1, 1621, Sachetti, April 3. (Arch. Med. 3007.) 
 3 'Ho procurato di porger qualche mitigatione al suo animo.' (Report of 
 Antelmi, Esp. Prin., April 4.) 
 
 WOTTON. I N 
 
178 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 ambassador came again to the Collegia, 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/ l 
 
 On April 15 Wotton had another audience, in which he peti- 
 tioned for the release of twelve English soldiers in the Venetian 
 galleys. 2 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 busi- 
 ness beyond that of sending the news of Italy to his correspon- 
 dents, 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 ? ' 3 
 
 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' 
 
 ' Feci da miei primi anni voto a Dio di non dir buggie se perisse il mondo, 
 et se le simulazioni e gli artificii sono parte con quale avvantaggiano gli Ambas- 
 ciatori il loro ministero, posso tornarmine a casa a piacer mio, ma il mio Re, ch' 
 e sincero e verace, non ha bisogna di ministri che procedono con maniere diverse.' 
 (Esp. Prin., April 7.) 
 3 Ibid., April 15. ii, p . 221. 
 
THE VALTELLINE 179 
 
 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. 1 His letters from Venice are among the most inter- 
 esting 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 
 Orison 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 Valtel- 
 line should be garrisoned with Spanish troops, and Spanish 
 armies allowed the right of passage through it (Feb. 6, 1621). 2 
 The two other leagues (Cadde 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 
 
 1 Epistolae Ho-EUanae (Jacobs), p. 65, May 30, 1621. a Romanin, vii, p. 260. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 2 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.' 3 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 Collegia 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. 4 James I was now engaged in impor- 
 tant 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.' 5 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. 
 
 1 Romanin, vii, p. 260. 2 s. P. Fen., June 18, 1621. 
 
 . ' ii, p. 221. jj, p. 208. s ii, p. 237 n. 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE SPANISH MARRIAGE 181 
 
 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 nego- 
 tiations, 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 Collegia, ' but not princedoms ; the laws of policy 
 were based on their own firm foundations.' l 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-estab- 
 lished friendship between James I and the Republic. This was 
 done, and Wotton read the letter to the Doge. 2 But, as the 
 Tuscan Resident wrote, this letter produced little effect on the 
 Venetians, owing to their poor opinion of James I. 3 
 
 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 
 
 1 ' Li Principi si sposano, non li Principati . . . le massime da stato han la sede 
 loro nei firmi suoi fondamenti.' (Esp. Prin., May 18, 1623.) 
 
 2 Ibid., July 19. 
 
 3 ' Quest' offitio ha ottentenuto quella credenza che si poteva credere per la poca 
 oppinione che si ha qui di quel Re.' (Arch. Ued. 3009, Aug. 5, 1623.) 
 
182 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 be on his side, and he made his way across France in disguise 
 and joined Mansf eld'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. 1 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 
 1 Esp. Prin., March 1, 1622. 
 
THE FOSCARINI CASE 183 
 
 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. 1 Venice 
 was distracted by new troubles in the Grisons ; and in July, 1622, 
 after the defeats of Wimpfen and Hochst, 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.' 2 For news, 
 the troubles in the Grisons, the re-entrance of France as a power- 
 ful factor in European politics, the discovery, by means of inter- 
 cepted 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 ambassa- 
 dor himself nearly had a fall, being indirectly but most uncom- 
 fortably 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. 3 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, 
 
 1 ii, p. 239. 2 ii, p. 239 n. Ante, p. 119. 
 
184 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 
 1 Esp. Prin., Nov. 7, Dec. 28, 1618 ; Romanin, vii, p. 181. 
 
WOTTON AND THE COUNTESS OF ARUNDEL 185 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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 
 
 1 The Residents of Savoy and Tuscany both sent the above reports to their 
 Courts on April 23. These dispatches are printed in Romanin, vii, pp. 584-91. 
 
 2 Lady Arundel 'was not a woman accustomed to being thwarted '. (Gardiner, 
 vi, p. 72.) 
 
186 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 send to the Collegia, 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 Collegia 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 inter- 
 national 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 
 
AUDIENCE WITH THE DOGE 187 
 
 hundred ducats to be spent in confections and wax for presenta- 
 tion to LadyArundel ; and both she and Wotton were invited to 
 the Collegia on the following day in order that the decree of the 
 Senate might be read to them. When Lionello, the Venetian secre- 
 tary, 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. 1 
 
 Wotton 'might very well wish to avoid the meeting, for Lady 
 Arundel was to prove herseK 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 '. 2 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 Collegia 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 inter- 
 preted 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 
 
 1 Romamn, vii, p. 598. a ii, p. 234. 
 
188 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 Arundel, and information was brought him from a very sure 
 source, that Foscarini in his trial, when questioned about his noc- 
 turnal ambulations, had stated in his defence that he had occa- 
 sionally 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. There- 
 upon the ambassador, ' endeavouring to assume a cheerful coun- 
 tenance,' 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 ruin- 
 ing 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. 1 
 1 Dispatch of Lando, May 27, 1622 (Romanin, vii, pp. 604-7). 
 
LADY ARUNDEL'S SUSPICIONS 189 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 
 
 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, 3 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. 4 
 
 1 Eomanin writes (vii, p. 183), ' Era dunque 1'Arondel visitata dal Foscarini,' 
 but gives no authority for this statement. 
 
 2 Duffus Hardy, p. 78. 
 
 3 In 1626, when Lady Arundel, unknown to her husband, helped on a clan- 
 destine marriage between their son, Lord Maltravers, and Elizabeth Stuart, 
 whom Charles I wished to marry to Lord Lome. (Gardiner, vi, pp. 71, 72.) 
 
 * Lord Arundel to Lord Doncaster, May 12, 1622 (C. & T. Jas. I, ii, p. 309); 
 Dispatch of Lando, May 27, 1622 (Eomanin, vii, p. 605). The documents concerning 
 Lady Arundel (on which the above narrative is based) are printed in ibid., 
 pp. 189-95, 584-607. The greater part has been translated into English. 
 (Duffus Hardy, pp. 76-84.) 
 
190 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 pos- 
 sible 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. 1 
 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 ', 2 than to make an exposure of a 
 mistake so fatal to their reputation. 
 
 The day before the Council of Ten announced this momentous 
 
 1 Wotton wrote to Calvert, Nov. 10, 1622, 'I have spent some three weeks 
 out of Venice, partly upon that respect which was due to my most noble Lady 
 of Arundel at her departure, which was retarded by the infirmities of her 
 family ; and partly by privilege of the vintage, during which our city is desolate.' 
 (S. P. Fen.) Lady Arundel returned to England in the summer of 1623, bringing 
 with her Italian attendants, a blackamoor, and a gondola. (C. & T. Jas. I, ii. p. 410.) 
 
 a ii, p. 262. 
 
DEATH OF SARPI 191 
 
 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. 
 VVotton 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. 1 
 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 260. 
 
 2 The origin of the use of this phrase, Esto perpetua, as the motto of Eton College, 
 has never yet been traced. Its first appearance in this connexion would appear 
 to be in 1635, on the seal of a letter from the head master, John Harrison, to the 
 Earl of Cork. (Lismore Pp., 2nd Ser., iii, p. 216.) It would be interesting if it 
 could be proved that Sir Henry Wotton, coming to Eton the year after Sarpi's 
 death, made use of his last words for the College motto. 
 
192 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 prohibi- 
 tion of the King's book and Wotton's quarrel with the Republic. 
 On Sept. 13 the English ambassador appeared in the Collegia 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.' l Recom- 
 mending 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. 2 
 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. 3 But to the Venetians the 
 attitude of James I was now of minor importance, and his protes- 
 tations 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 Liege 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. 4 
 
 1 ii, p. 279. ' Esp. Prin., Sept 13, 1623. 
 
 8 ' Bastami servire di segno sincere solamente della continuata dispositione 
 del mio Re.' (Ibid., May 18, 1623.) 
 * C. & T. Jos. I, ii, p. 400. 
 
WOTTON'S RETURN HOME 193 
 
 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 l , with an 
 inscription which has been preserved for us : 
 
 ' HENRICUS WOTTONIUS, Anglo-Cantmnus, THOM.E optimi viri 
 filius natu minimus, a serenissimo IACOBO I. Mag. Sritt. Rege 
 in equestrem titulum adscitus, eiusdemque ter ad Rernpublicam 
 VENETAM Legatus Ordinarius, semel ad confoederatarum 
 Provinciarum Ordines in luliacensi negotio. Bis ad 
 CAROLUM EMANUEL, Subaudiae Ducem ; semel ad unitos 
 superioris GERMANIAE Principes in Conventu HEILBEUNENSI, 
 postremo ad Archiducem LEOPOLDUM, DUCEM WITTEMBERGENSEM, 
 Civitates imperiales, Argentinam, Ulmamque, fy ipsum 
 Romanorum Imperatorem FERDINANDUM SECUNDUM, Legatus 
 Extraordinarius, tandem hoc didicit 
 
 ANIMAS FIERI SAPIENTIORES QUIESCENDO.' 
 
 1 This inscription was first printed in the Latin translation of Wotton's Elements 
 of Architecture, included in J. de Laets' edition of Vitruvius (Amsterdam, 1649). 
 For a similar inscription left by Sir Philip Sidney when he went as ambassador 
 to Rudolf II in 1577 see Fox Bourne's Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney, 1862, p. 137. 
 
 WOTTOS. 1 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WOTTON PROVOST OF ETON COLLEGE; LAST YEARS 
 AND DEATH. 1624-1639. 
 
 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.' l 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 Element* 
 of Architecture? 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 ; 
 
 1 S. P. Dom. Jas. I, clviii, no. 72. 
 
 a ' The Elements of Architecture, collected by Sir Henry Wotton, Kt, from the 
 best Authors and Examples. London, printed by John Bill, MDCXXIV.' Reprinted 
 in the first and subsequent editions of the Reliquiae Wottonianae. A beautiful 
 edition of this book, with ornamental designs by Mr. Herbert Home, was 
 printed in 1903 at the Chiswick Press for Miss S. T. Prideaux, and published 
 by Longmans, Green & Co. 
 
'THE ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE' 195 
 
 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 know- 
 ledge, 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 archi- 
 tectural 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 English- 
 men 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 
 
 O 2 
 
196 SIR HENKY WOTTON 
 
 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.' 1 
 
 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 uni- 
 formity 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 
 
 1 Eeliq., 4th ed., p. 32. The word 'Gothic', as applied to architecture, was 
 first used by Evelyn in 1640, and may have been suggested by the above 
 passage. 
 
ART AND NATURE 197 
 
 the new soil of England, a period of noble and beautiful archi- 
 tecture 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 V or speaks of ' the graceful and 
 harmonious contentment to the eye ' produced by rightly pro- 
 portioned doors and windows. 2 Remarkable, too, is his descrip- 
 tion of Palladio's ante-porch of brick columns in the cloister of 
 S. Carita 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.' 3 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 ' 4 
 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 pre- 
 cisely.' 5 And in the second part of his book, where he treats 
 
 1 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 69. 2 Ibid., p. 34. 3 Ibid., p. 12. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 34. 5 ii, p. 206. 
 
198 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 Diirer, 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 absolutest forms, must needs produce in both 
 a kind of rigidity, and consequently more naturalness than 
 gracefulness.' l 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 specula- 
 tions 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 archi- 
 tecture, 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 
 
 1 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 56. 
 
THE VACANT PROVOSTSHIP 199 
 
 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 
 1 thought he had busied himself to little purpose, to build castles 
 in the air.' ] 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. 2 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.' 3 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 appoint- 
 ment 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. 4 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 prefer- 
 
 1 .S. P. Dom. Ja.t. I, clxii, no. 45. ' The Elements of Architecture, by Sir Henry 
 Wotton, Knight,' was entered in the Register of the Stationers' Company on 
 Jan. 24, 1623-4. (Arber, iv, p. 73.) 
 
 - ii. p. 284. 3 Maxwell Lyte, p. 218. 
 
 * According to Sir Henry Savile, Wotton had asked for the reversion of the 
 Provostship of Eton twenty years before. Savile to Carleton, Aug. 31, 1617, 
 One of your yoke-fellows, Sir Henry Wotton, making the same suit before his 
 first journey to Venice, was, as he told me himself, denied it by the King.' 
 (.S. P. Dom. Jas. I xciii, no. 74. ^ 
 
200 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 merit; 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 collec- 
 tion, 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 beg- 
 ging 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 some- 
 times, 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 unfor- 
 tunate 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. 1 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, 2 and on July 19, 1624, the place at Eton 
 
 1 Dudley Carleton to his uncle, Sir Dudley Carleton, April 4, 1624. (S. P. Dom. 
 Jos. I, clxii, no. 13.) 
 
 2 See Wotton's letter to Charles I, ii, p. 397. The earlier letters of Sir Dudley 
 Carleton's correspondents contain the reports of the day about the chances of 
 Wotton's appointment. On March 28, 1624, young Dudley Carleton wrote, 
 'Though the speech goes that Sir Henry Wotton hath lately presented my 
 Lord of Buckingham with a great many curious pictures, which some will 
 have a sign that he is assured to have it, yet Sir Robert Aton's friends give 
 out that he is certainly the man.' (Ibid., clxi, no. 49.) On April 4 he wrote, 
 ' The case is altered touching Eton College from Sir Robert Aton to Sir Henry 
 Wotton, whose wants have moved compassion ; and he hath resigned his rever- 
 sion of the Master of the Rolls into my Lord of Buckinghjim's hands to assure 
 
WOTTON APPOINTED 201 
 
 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.' l 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. 2 He wrote to Nicolas 
 Pey that he needed 500 for his settlement. If that were pro- 
 cured ' my thoughts are at rest, and over my study door you 
 shall find written Invidiae Remiedium '. 3 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 gatne 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. 4 
 
 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 
 
 himself of the other.' (S. P. Dom. Jos. I., clxii, no. 13.) On April 10 Chamberlain 
 wrote, ' All the last week Sir Henry Wotton was said to be Provost of Eton, 
 . . . but now the cry goes that he is like to be Master of the Wards if the Lord 
 Treasurer sink.' (ftid., clxxii, no. 45.) As late as June 26 young Carleton wrote 
 ' Sir Henry Wotton hath lost his embassy and gets nothing but fair promises '. 
 
 1 Sloane MS. 856, f. lib. Printed in Endowed Grammar Schools, Nicholas Carlisle, 
 1818, p. 71. 
 
 2 Chamberlain wrote, Aug. 7, 1624, ' Sir Henry Wotton went down to the 
 election at Eton, but so ill provided that the Fellows were fain to furnish 
 his bare walls and whatsoever else was wanting.' (S. P. Dom. Jos. I, clxxi, 
 no. 25.) A payment of 40 to the Provost, for the furniture of his lodging, 
 is recorded in the Eton Audit Book. (Maxicdl Lyte, p. 223.) 
 
 1 ii. p. 286. ' C. & T. Jos. 7, ii, p. 472. 
 
202 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 happiness then seemed to have its beginning ; the College being 
 to his mind, as a quiet harbour to a seafaring man after a tempes- 
 tuous 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 Church- 
 men . . . will by my example (without vanity be it spoken) not be 
 ashamed, after the sight of courtly weeds, to put on a surplice.' 1 
 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 oL* 
 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 prefer- 
 ment, 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, how- 
 ever, ' 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 '. 2 
 
 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, 
 
 ' I thank God and the King, by whose goodness I now am in 
 this condition; a condition which that Emperor Charles the 
 Fifth, seemed to approve : who, after so many remarkable vic- 
 tories, when his glory was great in the eyes of all men, freely 
 
 1 ii. p. 305. 2 H>id. 
 
WOTTON AS PROVOST 203 
 
 gave up his crown, and the many cares that attended it, to Philip 
 his son, making a holy retreat to a cloisteral life, where he might 
 by devout meditations consult with God (which the rich or busy 
 men seldom do), and have leisure both to examine the errors of 
 his life past, and prepare for that great day, wherein all flesh 
 must make an account of their actions. And after a kind of 
 tempestuous life, I now have the like advantage from Him, that 
 makes the outgoings of the morning to praise Him, even from 
 my God, whom I daily magnify for this particular mercy of an 
 exemption from business, a quiet mind, and a liberal maintenance, 
 even in this part of my life, when my age and infirmities seem 
 to sound me a retreat from the pleasures of this world, and 
 invite me to contemplation, in which I have ever taken the 
 greatest felicity.' 
 
 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. 1 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.' 2 '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 ; ' 3 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. 
 
 1 Mr. R. A. Austin Leigh kindly informs me that the order of nomination 
 for Eton College in the eighteenth century was (as given by Hugget) that the 
 Provost chose the first, third, fifth, and seventh. The order was probably 
 the same in Wotton's time. 
 
 - Walton's Life, 2nd ed., not in first edition. 
 
 3 Ibid., 1st ed. 
 
204 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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.' 1 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 ', 2 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, 
 
 ' not to neglect rhetoric, because Almighty God has left man- 
 kind affections to be wrought upon : and he would often say that 
 none despised eloquence but such dull souls as were not capable 
 of it. He would also often make choice of some observations 
 out of those historians and poets ; and would never leave the 
 school without dropping some choice Greek or Latin apophthegm 
 or sentence, that might be worthy of a room in the memory of 
 a growing scholar.' 3 
 
 Wotton's stipend and allowances as Provost came to about 
 140 a year, with his residence, the expenses of his stables, and 
 
 1 Lismore Pp., 2nd series, iii, p. 217. For the Boyles at Eton see Dorothea 
 Townshend, The Great Earl of Cork, pp. 310-27. 
 
 '-' Philaretus, Boyle's Works, 1744, vol. i, p. 7. 3 Walton's Life, 2nd ed. 
 
LITERARY PLANS 205 
 
 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. 1 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 con- 
 tracted 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, 2 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. 3 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 Canter- 
 bury ; and nine years later he requested that he might be given 
 the Mastership of the Savoy. 4 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,' 5 and none of all these proposed works were written. Of 
 
 1 Allowance of Provost of Eton, 1616 (Eawl. MS. E. 268, f. 131). 
 
 2 ii, p. 336. 3 ii, p. 351. * ii, p. 397. 
 * ii, p. 358. 
 
206 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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 some- 
 what 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, 2 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. 3 
 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 trans- 
 ported into England. 4 
 
 1 Reliq., 1st ed., p. 163 ; 3rd ed., p. 100. A short preface to the latter is printed 
 in Gutch, Collectanea, i, p. 215, but omitted in the Reliquiae. Wotton states that 
 lie had resolved to 'express (as it were) the juice and substance, like a kind 
 of chemical extract, out of the lives and reigns of our royal monarchs of 
 either sex '. 
 
 2 Ad Regem e Scotia reducem Henrici Wuttonii Plausus et Vota MDCXXXIII. 
 
 3 Ward, p. 141. 
 
 * In this panegyric Wotton made use of the phrase which he afterwards 
 chose for his epitaph, Disputandi Pruritus est Ecdesiarum Scabies (Reliq., p. 124). An 
 echo of Shakespeare may be noted. Wotton, after referring to Richard III, 
 paraphrases the lines 
 
 Now is the winter of our discontent 
 
 Made glorious summer by this sun of York (Rich. Ill, i, 1). 
 ' lusti bonique Principis Reditus nihil aliud omnino est quam ipsa Solis anti- 
 strophe, cum vernalibus radiis deformem Hyemem expellit, ac blando tempore 
 cuncta circumquaque refovet et exhilarat.' (Reliq., 4th ed., pp. 132-3.) 
 
THE 'SURVEY OF EDUCATION' 207 
 
 But of the literary remains of this period, published in the 
 Reliquiae, the most interesting are the Survey of Educainm, 
 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 frag- 
 ment 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 '. x 
 
 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 fresh- 
 ness and intimate charm of his letters; and it is in the somewhat 
 
 1 Reliq.. 4th eel., pp. 73-85. 
 
208 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 1 , 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.' 2 
 
 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. 3 In the autumn of this year he 
 suffered a great grief in the death of his accomplished nephew, 
 
 1 Chamberlain mentions on May 6, 1625, that Wotton had been defeated at 
 Canterbury. (Cat. S. P. Dom., 1625-6, p. 19.) He was, however, elected one of the 
 members for Sandwich. (Hasted, ii, p. 429.) 
 
 " C. & T. Jos. I, ii, p. 508. 
 
 3 Nichols, iii, p. 1046. Wotton bore the arms of Scotland impaling those of 
 Lorraine. 
 
DEATH OF SIR ALBERTUS MORTON 209 
 
 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 : 
 
 Dwell thou in endless light, discharged Soul; 
 
 Freed now from Nature's and from fortune's trust; 
 While on this fluent globe my glass shall roll, 
 
 And run the rest of my remaining dust. 1 
 
 More perfect is the inimitable epigram on Lady Morton, who 
 did not long survive her husband : 
 
 He first deceased ; she for a little tried 
 
 To live without him ; liked it not, and died. 2 
 
 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. 3 
 
 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 '.* 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. 5 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 
 
 1 For this poem, Tears at the Grave ofSir\Albertus Morton, Wept by Sir Henry Wotton, 
 see J. Hannah, pp. 40-3. 
 
 - ii, p. 311. 3 ii; p 291. 
 
 4 s. P. Dom. Chas. I, Ixxxviii, no. 45 (Maxwell Lyte, p. 233}. 5 ii, p. 320. 
 
 WOTTON. I. p 
 
210 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 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 
 
 Rouse up thyself, my gentle Muse 
 Though now our green conceits be gray, 
 
 was circulated among his friends, and printed after his death 
 with his other poems by Izaak Walton. 3 
 
 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. 4 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 5 , 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: 
 ' HenricusWottonius,post tres apud Venetos legat tones ordinarias, 
 in Etonensis Collegii beato sinu senescens, eiusque, cum suavis- 
 &ima inter se sociosque concordia, annos iam 12 praefectus, hanc 
 miram urbis quasi natantis effigiem in aliquam sui rnemoriam 
 iuxta socialem mensam afjixit. 1636.' 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Culpepper to Sir Francis Nethersole at the Hague, Feb. 13, 1631, 
 * On Sunday last my Lord ambassador's four pictures were brought to Whitehall 
 for the King and Queen to see. The King sent for Sir Henry Wotton to give 
 his judgment of them.' ' They be exceedingly commended and will continue 
 Courtyars (courtiers?) at Whitehall.' (S. P. Dom. Chas, I, clxxxv, no. 5.) 
 
 a ii, p. 347. j. Hannah, p. 24. 
 
 * Laud's Troubles and Tryals, 1695, p. 531. 6 ii, p. 350. 
 
WOTTON'S OCCUPATIONS 211 
 
 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 ges- 
 tures, 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 inscrip- 
 tion ' 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 sin- 
 cerity of character ; and it was still his favourite boast that he 
 was a 'plain Kentish man'. Unlike many of his contempo- 
 raries, he had now at last realized that dream of happy retire- 
 ment 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 : 
 
 ' After his customary public devotions, his use was to retire 
 into his study, and there to spend some hours in reading the 
 Bible, and authors in Divinity, closing up his meditations with 
 private prayer ; this was, for the most part, his employment in 
 the forenoon: But, when he was once sate to dinner, then 
 nothing but cheerful thoughts possessed his mind ; and, those 
 still increased by constant company at his table, of such persons 
 as brought thither additions both of learning and pleasure; 
 but some part of most days was usually spent in philosophical 
 conclusions. Nor did he forget his innate pleasure of angling, 
 which he would usually call, his idle time, not idly spent; 
 saying often, he would rather live five May months, than forty 
 Decembers. He was a great lover of his neighbours, and a bounti- 
 ful entertainer of them very often at his table, where his meat 
 was choice, and his discourse better.' 
 
 ' This is some account,' Walton adds, after mentioning Wotton's 
 literary projects, 'both of his inclination, and the employment 
 
 P 2 
 
212 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 both of his time in the college, where he seemed to have his 
 youth renewed by a continual conversation with that learned 
 society, and a daily recourse of other friends of choicest 
 breeding and parts ; by which, that great blessing of a 
 cheerful heart was still maintained ; he being always free, even 
 to the last of his days, from that peevishness which usually 
 attends age.' 
 
 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 appear- 
 ance among the courtiers, like an owl, as he said, among gay 
 birds.' Although he once entertained the Queen Henrietta 
 Maria at Eton 2 , 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 of tener, 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 com- 
 pany, 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 con- 
 sulting 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'. 3 
 
 Our happiest meetings with him are in the fresh and fragrant 
 pages of The Oompleat 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 327, 2 i, p. 217 n. 
 
 3 Hist. JlfStf. Com., 12th Rep.,App. I, p. 230. 
 
'THE COMPLEAT ANGLER' 213 
 
 memorable men who have loved it, and, after praising ' the good 
 old man ' Dean Nowel, continues : 
 
 ' My next and last example shall be that undervaluer of money, 
 the late Provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wotton, (a man with 
 whom I have often fished and conversed) a man whose foreign 
 employments in the service of this nation, and whose experience, 
 learning, wit and cheerfulness, made his company to be esteemed 
 one of the delights of mankind ; this man, whose very appro- 
 bation of angling were sufficient to convince any modest censurer 
 of it, this man was also a most dear lover, and a frequent prac- 
 tiser of the art of angling ; of which he would say, " 'twas an 
 employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, for 
 angling was, after tedious study, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of 
 his spirits, a diversion of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, 
 a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness," and " that 
 it begot habits of peace and patience in those that professed and 
 practised it. Indeed, my friend, you will find angling to be like 
 the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and 
 world of other blessings attending upon it." 
 
 ' Sir, this was the saying of that learned man, and I do easily 
 believe that peace, and patience, and a calm content did 
 cohabit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry Wotton, because 
 I know that, when he was beyond seventy years of age, he 
 made this description of a part of the present pleasure that 
 possessed him, as he sat quietly in a summer's evening on 
 a bank a fishing; it is a description of the Spring, which, 
 because it glides as soft and sweetly from his pen, as that river 
 does at this time, by which it was then made, I shall repeat it 
 unto you. 
 
 This day dame Nature seem'd in love : 
 
 The lusty sap began to move; 
 
 Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines, 
 
 And birds had drawn their valentines, 
 
 The jealous trout, that low did lie, 
 
 Rose at a well dissembled fly ; 
 
 There stood my friend with patient skill, 
 
 Attending of his trembling quill. 
 
 Already were the eaves possest 
 
 With the swift pilgrims' daubed nest; 
 
 The groves already did rejoice 
 
 In Philomel's triumphing voice : 
 
 The showers were short, the weather mild, 
 
 The morning fresh, the evening smiled. 
 
 Joan takes her neat-rubb'd pail, and now 
 She trips to milk the sand-red cow; 
 Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain, 
 Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. 
 
214 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 The fields and gardens were beset 
 With tulip, crocus, violet: 
 And now, though late, the modest rose 
 Did more than half a blush disclose. 
 Thus all looked gay, all full of cheer, 
 To welcome the new livery'd year. 
 
 These were the thoughts that then possessed the undisturbed 
 mind of Sir Henry Wotton.' l 
 
 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. 2 Both are 
 descriptions of a retired life amid surroundings similar to those 
 of Wotton's last years : 
 
 Here are no false entrapping baits 
 To hasten too too hasty fates ; 
 
 Unless it be 
 
 The fond credulity 
 
 Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look 
 Upon the bait, but never on the hook : 
 
 Nor envy, unless among 
 
 The birds, for prize of their sweet song 
 
 These lines from the first-mentioned poem have something of 
 Wotton's touch, and the last lines of the Farewell are even more 
 characteristic : 
 
 Welcome, pure thoughts ! welcome, ye silent groves ! 
 These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves; 
 Now the wing'd people of the sky 3 shall sing 
 My cheerful anthems to the gladsome Spring, 
 
 And if contentment be a stranger then, 
 I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again. 
 
 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 
 
 1 The above text is from the 3rd ed. of The Compleat Angler, 1661, in which a 
 few phrases were added to that of earlier editions. For these and for MS. 
 variants of the verses see J. Hannah, pp. 33-5. 
 
 2 The question of the authorship of these poems is elaborately discussed by 
 Hannah (Poems, (fee., pp. 55, 109, 110). 
 
 s Cf. ' You common people of the skies ' in Wotton's poem (On his Mistress, tlie 
 Queen of Bohemia, ante, p. 170). 
 
WILL OF SIR HENRY WOTTON 215 
 
 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 thank- 
 fulness 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. 
 
 ' In the name of God Almighty and All-merciful,' the will 
 begins, ' I Henry Wotton, Provost of his Majesty's College by 
 Eaton, being mindful of mine own mortality, which the sin of 
 our first parents did bring upon all flesh, Do by this last Will 
 and Testament thus dispose of the poor things which I shall 
 leave in this world. My Soul I bequeath to the Immortal God 
 my Maker, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, my blessed Redeemer 
 and Mediator, through His all and sole sufficient satisfaction for 
 the sins of the whole world, and efficient for His Elect ; in the 
 number of whom I am one by His mere grace, and thereof most 
 unremoveably assured by His Holy Spirit, the true Eternal Com- 
 forter. My body I bequeath to the Earth, if I shall end my 
 transitory days at or near Eaton, to be buried in the Chapel of 
 the said College, as the Fellows shall dispose thereof, with whom 
 I have lived (my God knows) in all loving affection ; or if I shall 
 die nearer Bocton Malherb, in the County of Kent, then I wish to 
 be laid in that Parish Church, as near as may be to the sepulchre 
 of my good Father, expecting a joyful Resurrection with him in 
 the day of Christ. And wheresoever my said body shall be laid. 
 
216 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 I will charge my executors no farther than with a plain marble 
 stone, thus inscribed, 
 
 Hie iacet huius Sententiae primus Author. 
 
 DISPUTANDI PRURITUS FIT ECCLESIARUM SCABIES. 
 
 Nomen alias quaere. 
 
 Further, I the said Henry Wotton, do constitute and ordain to be 
 joint executors of this my last Will and Testament, my two 
 Grand-Nephews, Albert Moreton, 1 second son to Sir Robert 
 Morton, Knight, late deceased, and Thomas Bargrave, eldest son 
 to Dr. Bargrave, 2 Dean of Canterbury, husband to my right 
 virtuous and only Niece. And I do pray the foresaid Dr. Bar- 
 grave, and Mr. Nicholas Pay, my most faithful and chosen friends, 
 together with Mr. John Harrison, 3 one of the Fellows of Eaton 
 College, best acquainted with my books and pictures, and other 
 utensils, to be Supervisors of this my Ia3t Will and Testament. 
 And I do pray the foresaid Dr. Bargrave and Mr. Nicholas Pay 
 to be Sollicitors for such arrearages as shall appear due unto me 
 from his Majesty's Exchequer at the time of my death ; and to 
 assist my fore-named executors in some reasonable and conscien- 
 tious satisfaction of my Creditors, and discharge of my legacies 
 either now specified, or that shall be hereafter added unto this 
 my Testament, by any Codicil or Schedule, or left in any memo- 
 rial with the aforesaid Mr. John Harrison. And first, To my 
 most dear Sovereign and Master of incomparable Goodness (in 
 whose gracious opinion I have ever had some portion, as far as 
 the interest of a plain honest man) I leave four Pictures at large 
 of those Dukes of Venice, in whose time I was there employed, 
 with their names written on the back side, which hang in my 
 ordinary Dining-room, done after the life by Edeuardo Fialetto. 4 
 Likewise a table of the Venetian College, where Ambassadors 
 had their audience, hanging over the mantle of the chimney in 
 the said room, 5 done by the same hand, which containeth a 
 draught in little, well resembling the famous Duke Leonardo 
 Donate, in a time which needed a wise and constant man. Item, 
 The Picture of a Duke of Venice, hanging over against the door, 
 done either by Titiano, or some other principal hand long before 
 my time. Most humbly beseeching his Majesty that the said 
 pieces may remain in some corner of any of his Houses, for 
 a poor memorial of his most humble vassal. 
 
 1 Albert Morton was elected from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, in 1639. 
 He soon left the College and became a lieutenant in the army in Ireland. 
 (Harwoo?, p. 238.) 
 
 2 Isaac Bargrave : see Appendix III. Thomas Bargrave : see D. N. B., Hi, 
 p. 184. 
 
 3 John Harrison, Head Master of Eton, 1630-6. (Maxwell Lyte, p. 613.) 
 
 4 Odoardo Fialetti, born at Bologna, 1573, pupil of Tintoretto, died at Venice, 
 1638. These four portraits are now at Hampton Court. 
 
 5 See facing p. 48. 
 
WILL OF SIR HENRY WOTTON 217 
 
 ' Item, I leave his said Majesty all the Papers and Negotia- 
 tions of Sir Nicholas Throcmorton, 1 Knight, during his famous 
 employment under Queen Elizabeth in Scotland and in France, 
 which contain divers secrets of State, that perchance his Majesty 
 will think fit to be preserved in his Paper Office, after they have 
 been perused and sorted by Mr. Secretary Windebank, 2 with 
 whom I have hithertofore, as I remember, conferred about them. 
 They were committed to my disposal by Sir Arthur Throcmorton, 3 
 his son, to whose worthy memory I cannot better discharge my 
 faith, than by assigning them to the highest place of trust. 
 Item, I leave to our most gracious and virtuous Queen Mary, 
 Dioscorides, with the plants naturally coloured, and the text 
 translated by Mathiolo, 4 in the best language of Tuscany, whence 
 her said Majesty is lineally descended, for a poor token of my 
 thankful devotion, for the honour she was once pleased to do my 
 private study with her presence. 5 I leave to the Prince Charles 
 of sweet and blessed hopes, the Picture of the elected and Crowned 
 Queen of Bohemia, his Aunt, of clear resplendent virtues through 
 the Clouds of her Fortune. To my Lord's Grace of Canterbury 
 now being, 7 I leave my Picture of Divine Love, rarely copied 
 from one in the King's Galleries, of my presentation to his 
 Majesty, beseeching him to receive it as a pledge of my humble 
 reverence to his great Wisdom. And to the most worthy Lord 
 Bishop of London, Lord High Treasurer, 8 in true admiration of 
 his Christian simplicity, and contempt of earthly Pomp, I leave 
 a picture of Heraclytus bewailing, and Democritus laughing at 
 the world : Most humbly beseeching the said Lord Archbishop 
 his Grace, and the said Lord Bishop of London, of both whose 
 favours I have tasted in my life time, to intercede with our most 
 Gracious Sovereign after my death, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, 
 
 1 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton ^1515-71) Ambassador to France, 1559, and 
 twice to Scotland, 1565, 1567. This bequest of Wotton's did not take effect. 
 'After many vicissitudes the papers passed into the possession of Francis 
 Seymour Coiiway, first Marquis of Hertford (1719-94), whose grandson, the 
 third Marquis of Hertford, made them over to the Public Record Office, on 
 the recommendation of John Wilson Croker, before 1842.' (D.N. B., Ivi, p. 334.) 
 
 2 Sir Francis Windebank (1582-1646), joint Secretary of State with Sir 
 John Coke, 1632. (D. N. .) 
 
 3 Sir Arthur Throckmorton : see Appendix III. 
 
 * II Dioscoride delV ecceUente Dottor P. A. Matthioli to i suoi discorsi etc., Venetia, 1604. 
 This book came into the possession of Thomas Bargrave (ante, p. 216) and 
 afterwards belonged to his cousin John Bargrave, who bequeathed it to 
 St. Peter's College, Cambridge, describing it in his will as ' two volumes of 
 Matthiolus on Dioscorides in Italian a rare price, presented formerly by the 
 States of Venice to the King of England's eminent Ambassador Sir Henry 
 Wotton.' It is now in the library of St. Peter's College. (Pope Alexander VII and 
 the College of Cardinals, by John Bargrave, ed. J. C. Robertson, Camden Soc. 1867, 
 p. xviii.) 
 
 5 Queen Henrietta Maria visited Eton College in 1628 or 1629. (Maxwell Lyte, 
 p. 233.) 
 
 6 This picture is now at Hampton Court. (No. 132, painted by Honthorst.) 
 
 7 Archbishop Laud. 
 
 * William Juxon (1582-1663), Bishop of London, 1633 ; Lord High Treasurer, 
 1636 ; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1660. (/>. .Y. 7?. 
 
218 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 that out of compassionate memory of my long Services (wherein 
 I more studied the public Honour, than my own utility) some 
 order may be taken out of my arrears due in the Exchequer, for 
 such satisfaction of my Creditors, as those whom I have ordained 
 Supervisors of this my last Will and Testament shall present 
 unto their Lordships, without their own further trouble : Hoping 
 likewise in his Majesty's most indubitable Goodness, that he will 
 keep me from all prejudice, which I may otherwise suffer by any 
 defect of formality in the demand of my said Arrears. To the 
 Earl of Holland, 1 for a poor addition to his Cabinet, I leave, as 
 emblems of his attractive Virtues, and obliging nobleness, my 
 great Loadstone ; and a piece of Amber of both kinds naturally 
 united, and only differing in degree of concoction, which is 
 thought somewhat rare. Item, A piece of Crystal Sexangular 
 (as they all grow) grasping divers several things within it, which 
 I bought among the Rhaetian Alpes, 2 in the very place where it 
 grew, recommending most humbly unto his Lordship, the reputa- 
 tion of my poor Name in the point of my debts, as I have done to 
 the forenamed Spiritual Lords ; and heartily sorry, that I have 
 no better token of my humble thankfulness to his honoured 
 Person. Item, I leave to Sir Francis Windebank, one of his 
 Majesty's principal Secretaries of Estate (whom I found my great 
 friend in point of necessity) the Four Seasons of Old Bassano, 
 to hang near the eye in his Parlour, (being in little form) which 
 I bought at Venice, where I first entered into his most worthy 
 acquaintance. 
 
 'To the above named Dr. Bargrave, Dean of Canterbury, I 
 leave all my Italian Books not disposed in this will. I leave to 
 him likewise my Viol di Gamba, which hath been twice in Italy, 
 in which country I first contracted with him an unremoveable 
 affection. To my other Supervisor Mr. Nicholas Pay, I leave 
 my chest, or Cabinet of Instruments and Engines of all kinds of 
 uses : in the lower box whereof, are some fit to be bequeathed to 
 none but (so) entire an honest man, as he is. 3 I leave him likewise 
 forty Pounds for his pains in the solicitation of my arrears, and 
 am sorry that my ragged Estate can reach no further to one that 
 hath taken such care for me in the same kind, during all my 
 foreign Imployments. To the Library at Eaton College I leave 
 all my Manuscripts not before disposed, and to each of the Fellows 
 a plain ring of gold, enamelled black, all save the verge, with this 
 Motto within, Amor vincit omnia. 4 
 
 1 Henry Rich (1590-1649), Baron Kensington, 1623; Earl of Holland, 1624. 
 (D. N. B.) Lord Holland visited Eton in 1631. (Maxwell Lyte, p. 234.) 
 
 2 For a similar crystal from the same district, found by John Bargrave 
 (ante, p. 217 n.), see John Bargrave, op. tit., p. 123. 
 
 3 ' In it were Italian Locks, Picklocks, Screws to force open doors, and many 
 other things of worth and rarity, that he had gathered in his foreign Travel.' 
 (Walton's note in margin.) 
 
 4 'Omnia vincit amor' (Virgil, EC. x, 69). 'Amor unit omnia' in Reliq. 
 
WOTTON'S EPITAPH 219 
 
 ' This is my last Will and Testament, written on the First of 
 October, in the present year of our Redemption 1637. 
 
 'HENRY WOTTON. 1 
 
 'GEORGE LASHE. 2 ' 
 
 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 ; 
 
 ' and if any shall object,' he adds, ' as I think some have, that 
 Sir Henry Wotton was not the first author of this sentence, 
 but that this, or a sentence like it, was long before his time ; to 
 him I answer that Solomon says, " Nothing can be spoken that 
 hath not been spoken ; for there is no new thing under the Sun." 
 But grant, that in his various reading, he had met with this, or 
 a like sentence ; yet reason, mixed with charity, should persuade 
 all readers to believe, that Sir Henry Wotton's mind was then 
 so fixed on that part of the Communion of Saints which is above, 
 that an holy lethargy did surprise his memory. For doubtless, 
 if he had not believed himself to be the first author of what he 
 said, he was too prudent first to own, and then expose it to the 
 public view and censure of every critic.' 
 
 The sentence in question appeared in Wotton's Plausus et 
 Vota ; 3 as no subsequent investigators have succeeded in tracing 
 
 1 I give the text of this will from the original now in the P. P. C. Izaak 
 Walton prints it, with many additions and more omissions, in the first edition 
 of the Reliquiae. Some of these were corrected in subsequent editions, but others 
 were added. Administration of the will was granted Jan. 18, 1639-40. 
 
 3 Walton adds the name of Nicholas Oudert as a witness to the will. 
 
 3 Eeliq., 4th ed., p. 124, where, however, it is printed ' Disputandi Pruritus 
 est Ecclesiarum Scabies '. Both est and fit were omitted when the will was reprinted 
 in the third and fourth editions of the Reliquiae. In a letter to Duplessis- 
 Mornay of April 14, 1609 (wrongly dated March 14), Wotton, writing of 
 Fulgenzio's sermons (ante, p. 98), uses pruritus with the gerund in a similar 
 sense : ' Speramus quoque quadragesimalibus hisce concionibus excitatum iri 
 pruritum quendam longius inquirendi.' (Mornay, x, p. 290, where ' inquirenti ' 
 is plainly a misprint.) 
 
220 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 '- 1 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 ; where- 
 unto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in 
 our language, ipsa mollities.' 2 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 remark- 
 able 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, '/ 
 petisieri stretti e il viso sciolto.' Milton's visit, he confessed, had 
 J ii, p. 377. 2 jj y p. 3 8 ] . 
 
MILTON'S VISIT 221 
 
 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.' l 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 sur- 
 vived 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 unfortu- 
 nately 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 
 
 1 ii, p. 398. 
 
222 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 : 
 
 ' How useful was that advice of a holy Monk, who persuaded his 
 friend to perform his customary devotions in a constant place, 
 because in that place we usually meet with those very thoughts 
 which possessed us at our last being there. And I find it thus 
 far experimentally true, that, at my now being in that School, and 
 seeing that very place where I sat when I was a boy, occasioned 
 me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then 
 possessed me; sweet thoughts indeed, that promised my growing 
 years numerous pleasures, without mixtures of cares ; and those 
 to be enjoyed when time (which I therefore thought slow-paced) 
 had changed my youth into manhood. But age and experience 
 have taught me, that those were but empty hopes. For I have 
 always found it true, as my Saviour did foretell, " Sufficient for 
 the day is the evil thereof." Nevertheless I saw there a succession 
 of boys using the same recreations, and questionless possessed 
 with the same thoughts that then possessed me. Thus one 
 generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, 
 hopes, fears, and deaths.' 1 
 
 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 : 
 
 ' After his return from Winchester to Eaton (which was about 
 five months before his death) he became much more retired, and 
 contemplative ; in which time he was often visited by Mr. John 
 Hales (learned Mr. John Hales), then a Fellow of that College, 
 to whom upon an occasion he spake to this purpose: "I have 
 in my passage to my grave met with most of those joys of which 
 a discoursive soul is capable ; and, being entertained with more 
 inferior pleasures than the sons of men are usually made par- 
 takers of, nevertheless, in this voyage I have not always floated 
 on the calm sea of content ; but have often met with cross winds 
 and storms, and with many troubles of mind and temptations to 
 evil. And yet, though I have been and am a man compassed 
 
 1 Reliquiae, 4th ed., in which a few words have been added to the text of the first 
 edition. It has been suggested that Gray's Ode on A Distant Prospect of Eton 
 College was inspired by these remarks of Wotton's. (J. R. Lowell, Last Literary 
 Essaijs, 1891, p. 76.) 
 
LAST ILLNESS 1223 
 
 about with human f'railities, Almighty God hath by His grace pre- 
 vented me from making shipwrack of faith and a good conscience : 
 the thought of which is now the joy of my heart, and I most 
 humbly praise Him for it. And I humbly acknowledge that it 
 was not myself but He that hath kept me to this great age, and 
 let Him take the glory of His great mercy. And my dear friend, 
 I now see that I draw near my harbour of death ; that harbour 
 that will secure me from all the future storms and waves of this 
 restless world ; and I praise God I am willing to leave it, and 
 expect a better ; that world, ' wherein dwelleth Righteousness.' " 
 These, and the like expressions were then uttered by him 
 at the beginning of a feverish distemper, at which time he was 
 also troubled with an asthma, or short spitting ; but after less 
 than twenty fits, by the help of familiar physic and a spare diet, 
 this fever abated, yet so as to leave him much weaker than it 
 found him ; and his asthma seemed also to be overcome in a good 
 degree by his forbearing tobacco, which, as many thoughtful men 
 do, he also had taken somewhat immoderately. This was his 
 then present condition, and thus he continued till about the end 
 of October, 1639, which was about a month before his death, at 
 which time he again fell into a fever, which, though he seemed 
 to recover, yet these still left him so weak, that they and those 
 other common infirmities that accompany age, and were wont to 
 visit him like civil friends, and after some short time to leave 
 him ; came now, both oftener and with more violence, and at 
 last took up their constant habitation with him, still weakening 
 his body, and abating his cheerfulness : of both which he grew 
 more sensible, and did the oftener retire into his study, and there 
 made many papers that had passed his pen, both in the days of 
 his youth, and the busy part of his life, useless, by a fire made 
 there to that purpose. These, and several unusual expressions to 
 his servants and friends, seemed to foretell that the day of his 
 death drew near ; for which, he seemed to those many friends 
 that observed him, to be well prepared, and to be both patient 
 and free from all fear, as several of his letters writ on this his 
 last sick bed may testify : and thus he continued till about the 
 beginning of December following, at which time he was seized 
 more violently with a Quotidian fever, in the tenth fit of which 
 fever, his better part, that part of Sir Henry Wotton which 
 could not die, put off mortality with as much content and cheer- 
 fulness as human frailty is capable of ; being then in great 
 tranquillity of mind, and in perfect peace with God and man.' l 
 
 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 
 
 1 Reliquiae, 3rd ed. The remarks to John Hales and several other phrases were 
 added in the 2nd ed. of the Rdiquiae. Wotton died on December 5. (Maxwell 
 Lyte, p. 240.) 
 
224 SIR HENRY WOTTON 
 
 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 specta- 
 ret,' 1 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 
 
 1 D. N. B., xlix. p. 92. 
 
DEATH 225 
 
 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 : 
 
 ' And thus the circle of Sir Henry Wotton's life (that circle 
 which began at Bocton, and in the circumference thereof, did 
 first touch at Winchester School, then at Oxford, and after 
 upon so many remarkable parts and passages in Christendom), 
 that circle of his life, was by death thus closed up and completed 
 in the seventy and second year of his age, at Eton College, 
 where, according to his Will, he now lies buried, with his motto 
 on a plain gravestone over him ; dying worthy of his name 
 and family, worthy of the love and favour of so many Princes 
 and persons of eminent wisdom and learning, worthy of the 
 trust committed unto him, for the service of his Prince and 
 Country. 
 
 ' And all readers are requested to believe, that he was worthy 
 of a more worthy pen, to have preserved his memory, and com- 
 mended his merits to the imitation of posterity.' 
 
 WOTTON. i 
 
LETTERS 
 
 1. To EDWARD WOTTON. 
 
 Stotre ^fS. 697, f. 149, transcript. Henry Wotton's preparations for his 
 journey abroad. 
 
 From Read Cross Street in London, 1589 (Oct. 20, O.S.). 
 
 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 con- 
 sulted 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 prinmm 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 
 
 1 'Verum tamen, dum Latinae loquentur litterae, quercus huic loco non 
 deerit, quae Mariana dicatur, eaque, ut ait Scaevola de fratris mei Mario, 
 " canescet saeclis innumerabilibus."' (Cic., Leg. i. 1.) 
 
 2 Henry Wotton was the half-brother of Edward Wotton. He had no doubt 
 procured himself a licence to travel, as it was against the law for an Englishman 
 to go abroad without a licence. Many of these licences are preserved in the 
 Record Office, but Henry Wotton's does not seem to be among them. That of 
 Francis Davison and his tutor, Edward Smythe, is printed in Davison, i, pp. v-vii. 
 They were given permission to leave England with 'one servant, two horses, and 
 fifty pounds in money or under, with their bags, baggages, and other necessaries '. 
 They were forbidden to haunt the territory of any prince not in league or amity 
 with Elizabeth, or to keep company wittingly with any persons ill-affected to 
 England, or with any Englishman who had left England without a licence ; and 
 they could be recalled at any time, and must then return at once. 
 
 3 ' Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam.' (Cic., Fifth Phil. 2.) ' Vectigalia nervos 
 esse reipublicae semper duximus.' (Manil. 7.) 
 
 Q2 
 
228 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 'pro- 
 vision l ', 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 2 , 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. 3 
 All these great matters did Mr. Parvis 4 compose, sic parvis componere 
 magna solelam," 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. 
 
 Your most faithful loving brother, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 (Post)script. I pray, sir, at your coming up, remember the Bowe 6 
 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 7 ; all that which I dare 
 
 1 Provision : from the use of prowisione in Italian, meaning discount or 
 commission. 
 
 2 A gold ecu much current in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; 
 the type of the first English crown. (N. E. Z>.) Its value was 6s. in English 
 money. 
 
 3 Vineyards were not uncommon in Kent at this time. (Hasted, ii, p. 403 n.) 
 Wotton probably refers to the vintage at Bocton Malherbe. 
 
 * Probably Henry Parvis or Parvish, a merchant trading to Venice and the 
 Levant. (Cal S. P. Dom. 1591-4, pp. 4, 68 ; Col. S. P. Fen., ix, p. 531 n.) 
 
 5 ' Si parva licet componere magnis.' (Virg., Georg. iv. 176.) 
 
 6 Bowe St. 
 
 7 Diffidere : cf. Bacon, Nov. Org., i. 92 ' Prudentia civilis . . . quae ex prae- 
 scripto diffidit.' Mr. Edward Bensly traces the ultimate source of this maxim 
 to the well-known line of Epicharmus : No^e KCU nepvacr' amartlv dpdpa ravra rav 
 <pp(v5>v (255 in Mullach's edition, Fragmenta Philosopliorum Graecorum, vol. i, 
 p. 144). Quoted by Cicero, Ad Alt. i. 19. Compare also Demosthenes, Second 
 Philippic, 24 *Ev 5f TI KOIVOV . . . ri odv tan TOVTO ; a-niarla. (N. & Q., 10th Ser., ii, 
 p. 477.) 
 
TO EDWARD WOTTON 229 
 
 trust, I have sent you, which is the book in English which you have 
 already in Spanish, Vale ct Salve. 
 
 Sir Francis Vere 1 , being sent to the relief of Bercke 2 the third time, 
 which standeth upon the Ehene, 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 3 led toward them more than forty ensigns of foot, 
 with a great strength of horse, which Sir Francis and the rest per- 
 ceiving, 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. 
 
 Stowe MS. 697, f. 150, transcript. Henry Wotton's arrival in Germany. 
 
 (Stade 4 , Nov. 1, 1589,0.8.) 
 FELICITATES D. G. 
 MY EVER MOST DEAR BROTHER, 
 
 Here are niy 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 under- 
 stand 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 
 
 1 Sir Francis Vere (1560-1609), acting commander of the English troops in the 
 service of the United Provinces. (D. N. B. ) Sir Francis Vere's account of his 
 expeditions for the relief of Rheinberg, and this engagement, will be found 
 in the Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere, Cambridge, 1657. 
 
 2 Rheinberg. 
 
 3 Count Charles Mansfeld, son of Count Peter Ernest Mansfeld, and officer in 
 command of Spanish troops under the Prince of Parma. 
 
 1 Stade, an ancient city of the Hanseatic League, near the mouth of the Elbe, 
 about six miles below Bremen. After a period of decay Stade had become 
 prosperous again, owing to the fact that the English merchants had removed 
 the seat of their traffic to Stade from Hamburg. (Moryson, Itin., i, p.. 2.) 
 
230 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 alia lorsa alia 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 1 , the principal divine in all 
 Germanye, but the Malcontents 2 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 \ 
 
 Here met I with one Mr. Mallorie, who went with Mr. Candishe 4 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 5 ) good use. The news of the Turks coming into Polonia 
 holds certain here. 6 He is entered into those parts with an army of 
 
 1 Christoph Pezel or Pezelius (1539-1604), cryptocalvinist divine and theo- 
 logical writer, then Professor of Theology at Bremen. Fynes Moryson went 
 to Bremen, disguised as a poor Bohemian, in order to get Pezelius to write 
 in his album ; but met at first with a cold reception from that eminent divine. 
 ' He seeing my poor habit, and a book under my arm, took me for some begging 
 scholar, and spake sharply unto me.' When, however, he found that it was 
 a sentiment, and not money, that Moryson wanted, he grew more gracious. 
 (Kin., i, p. 38.) 
 
 2 The Malcontents were wandering soldiers from the Spanish garrisons in the 
 Low Countries. ' They inquired curiously after Englishmen, promising rewards 
 in the villages, to any man who should give them notice when any such passed.' 
 (Ibid., p. 37.) 
 
 3 Reynold or Reginald Scott (1538 ? 1599), author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft 
 (1584), in which he attacks the popular belief in witches. (D. N. J3.) 
 
 4 Henry Cavendish (d. 1616), brother of the first Earl of Devonshire. (D. N. B. , 
 ix. p. 363.) A manuscript journal of his journey to Constantinople is preserved 
 at Hardwicke, and by the kindness of Mrs. S. Arthur Strong, Librarian to the 
 Duke of Devonshire, I am supplied with the following information : Henry 
 Cavendish started from Leigh on March 28, 1589, sailed to Stade, went by land 
 to Constantinople, where he arrived on June 16, and returned to 'Hambro' on 
 Sept. 13. He was accompanied by ' Mr. Richard Mallary of London '. ' The 
 braveraria ' I am unable to explain. 
 
 ' 'His 'in MS. 
 
 ' In 1590 the Sultan sent the Bey of Greece to punish the Cossacks of Poland, 
 who had been ravaging Turkish territory. It was the intention of the Turks to 
 conquer Poland if they could ; but peace was made by the intervention of Queen 
 Elizabeth (Cal. S. P. Yen., viii, p. 495). 
 
TO EDWARD WOTTON 231 
 
 an hundred and twenty thousand, 80,000 Turks, and 40,000 Tartarians ; 
 the Polonians are sospesi in aria come Varclio di Machometo, and know 
 not what to do. The towns of Danzich and Elben J 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 2 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. 3 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, 4 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. 
 
 1 Danzig and Elbing, towns in West Prussia, then subject to the King of 
 Poland. 
 
 2 John Casirnir, Count Palatine of Lautern, Administrator of the Palatinate 
 during the minority of his nephew, the Elector Frederick IV. The prisoner's 
 name was N. Bellamy ; in the Record Office there is a letter from George Zolcher 
 to Walsingham dated ' Stoad, Oct. 13, 1589,' stating that he had safely delivered 
 Bellamy to the Deputy Governor of the Merchant Adventurers at Stade ' accord- 
 ing to the direction of the Prince his Master, in compliance with her Majesty's 
 letters '. (S. P. Ger. States, v, f. 448.) 
 
 :! In another letter Wotton speaks of the ' College of Travellers, wherein 
 ... I might run for a deacon at least'. (Reliq., 4th ed., p. 356.) 
 After the capture of Antwerp by the Prince of Parma in 1585. 
 
232 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Uni- 
 versity 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 com- 
 mending myself no less to the everlasting continuance of your love, 
 than I commit you to the God of all love and mercy, and remember- 
 ing regardfully my sweetest sister with my best wishes, I take my 
 leave of you both this 1st of November. 
 
 Your most unfeignedly loving brother, 
 
 HENKYE WOTTON. 
 
 3. To EDWARD WOTTON. 
 
 Stowe MS. 697, f. 151, transcript. Henry Wotton's journey from 
 Stade to Heidelberg. 
 
 (Heidelberg) The 14 of December Anno cioioxxcix. 
 Ne inducas me Domine, in tentationem, aut dirige si inducas. 
 
 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 1 4th 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 l ; 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, 
 
 1 Erfurt. 
 
^TO EDWARD WOTTON 233 
 
 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 5U. 1 5s. 3d. The sum was full of persuasion to 
 make me stay, which I did eight full days ; and then found I two com- 
 panions 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. 1 When we came to Frankforde, my com- 
 panions 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 " 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 Heydle- 
 berge 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 3 , 
 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 4 , 
 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 
 
 1 The value of the Reichsdollar varied between 4s. 4d. and 4s. 6rf. of English 
 money. At this time, according to Wotton's calculation, it was worth about 
 4s. 5rf. As he spent two and a half dollars (lls. 0|d.) in eight days at Brunswick, 
 his board and lodging cost him Is. 4irf. a day. According to Fynes Moryson 
 (who is even more exact about prices) the usual price of a meal in Germany 
 was from 8d. to Is. ; a bed cost about 2d. Board and lodging by the week cost 
 about 6s. 6rf. (Itin., i, pp. 3, 12, 32, &c.) 
 
 2 About Is. 6rf. 
 
 3 John Johnston, D.D., of Aberdeen (d. 1611), the Scottish poet, afterwards 
 Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews (see D. N. .), where his sojourn at 
 Heidelberg is not mentioned, and where the conjectural date of his birth, 
 1570 (?), must be considerably out. Five letters from Dr. Johnston to William 
 Camden have been printed (Camd. Epist., pp. 40, 75, 95, 123, 127). In the first, 
 dated Heidelberg, April 10, 1590, he compliments Camden on his Britannia 
 (published 1586), adding, ' Sed haec ipsa mihi obscura et ignota fuissent, nisi 
 Henricus Wottonus iuvenis nobilissimus omnique virtute et liberali literatura 
 instructissimus, e Britannia discedens, Britanniarn tuam secum hue asportasset.' 
 He speaks of his affection for Wotton, who was then about to depart from 
 Heidelberg (p. 42). 
 
 4 Fran9ois du Jon or Junius (1545-1602), Professor of Theology at Heidelberg 
 and afterwards at Leyden. (X. B. Gen.) 
 
234 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 his acquaintance dear ; but he is by birth Trench, and his authority 
 but private. This Doctor Jonston hath provided me a chamber and 
 a table, 1 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 tibifueris. 2 
 
 I have apparelled and booked 3 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 4 ) 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 5 , the second lawyer in the 
 world, to be preceptor unto me, as Hadrianus Turnebus 6 was to 
 him. He lives at Basill, and I have directed my letter unto him, 
 and another unto one Mercer 7 , 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 
 
 1 The students at Heidelberg dined in the citizens' or professors' houses, 
 paying one dollar weekly (Moryson, Itin., i, p. 32). For Moryson's account of the 
 University of Heidelberg see also Shakespeare's Europe, pp. 319-20. 
 
 * 'Tu modo enitere ut tibi ipse sis tanti quanti videberis aliis si tibi fueris.' 
 (Epist. i. 3.) 
 
 3 ' Booked,' i. e. entered his name in the books of the University. Wotton's 
 name, however, does not appear in the matriculation list of the University of 
 Heidelberg for this period, printed by Gustav Toepke in 1886. 
 
 4 'And' in MS. ' 
 
 5 Fran9ois Hotman (1524-90) the famous French Protestant jurist, Professor 
 of Law at Basle, where he died Feb. 12, 1590. (N. B. Gen.} 
 
 6 Adrien Turnebe or Turnebus, 1512-65. (Ibid.') 
 
 7 For Mercer see p. 237. 
 
TO EDWARD WOTTON 235 
 
 in England, you make me licentiate before I pass into Italic. 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. 1 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. 2 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 3 , and Doctor 
 Junius, concerning the printing of certain Theses TJicoIogicae, the one 
 an Italian, the other French. Doctor Junius is a man of a mar- 
 vellous high stomach, and caring 4 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 5 . 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 
 
 1 Easter Sunday fell on April 19 (O.S.) in 1590. 
 
 Wotton must mean gold guldens, which were worth about 4s. 6rf. A batz 
 was the eighteenth part of a Reichsdollar, and was worth about 3d. He lost, 
 therefore, about Is. 4d. on each rose noble. 
 
 3 Pacio de Beriga or Pacius, Italian jurist (1550-1C35). Born at Verona, he 
 became a Protestant ; was Professor of Law at Heidelberg, and author of many 
 legal works. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 * ' Caring,' in obs. sense of ' taking care of. (X. E. D. 
 
 5 There were at this time three colleges in the University of Heidelberg, one 
 called 'Bursa', one 'Sapientia', and one named after Casimir, the Administrator 
 of the Palatine. (Moryson, Sh., p. 320.) 
 
236 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l>ene. 1 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 ; 2 only I may blamelessly say that 
 security is a good kind of life. 3 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. 
 
 Your most faithful brother, 
 
 HENRYK WOTTON. 
 
 4. To HESTER WOTTON.* 
 
 Stotce MS. 697, f. 153, transcript. Henry Wotton greets his sister-in-law. 
 From Heydleberge this 14th of December Anno cioioxxcix. 
 
 MY DEAREST DEAR SlSTER, 
 
 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 un- 
 feignedly 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 
 
 ' Beneficia in volgus cum largiri institueris, 
 Perdenda sunt multa ut semel ponas bene.' 
 Quoted by Seneca, De Benef., i. 2. 
 
 a Fynes Moryson recommends travellers to put their money in bills of 
 exchange to be sent them abroad, and to carry as well letters of credit, by 
 which they could draw on English merchants by means of their factors in 
 foreign towns. As ten per cent, was charged on sums advanced in this way, 
 it was cheaper to procure money by bills of exchange, but letters of credit were 
 useful in case the bills of exchange were lost or delayed in the post. (Itin.,i t p. 278.) 
 3 ' Democriti autem securitas . . . est ipsa beata vita.' (Cic., de Fin. v. 8.) 
 * Hester, daughter and sole heiress of Sir William Pickering of York, first 
 wife of Edward Wotton ; she died May 8, 1592. 
 
TO HESTER WOTTON 237 
 
 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. 
 
 Your most loving faithful brother, 
 
 HENRYE WOTTON. 
 
 5. To EDWARD WOTTON. 
 
 Stou-e MS. 697, f. I53b, transcript. Henry Wotton begs for letters of 
 introduction to Francois Hotman at Basle, and tells of his life and 
 studies at Heidelberg. 
 
 (Heidelberg, Jan. 2, 1590, O.S. > 
 
 Quac posteriores literae corrigent in prioribus (ne repetitio saepe fiat) 
 ipso facto irrita sunto. 
 
 Lwiga vita et bel morirc. 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 l 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. 
 
 1 Nicholas Harlay de Sancy (1546-1629), sent to the German princes, after the 
 death of Henry III, to raise troops for Henry IV. (Thuani Hist., 1620, v, p. 43.) 
 His secretary, ' Mercerius,' was perhaps Josias Mercier des Bordes, son of Jean 
 Mercier, the Hebrew scholar. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 3 ' I found him cold, and after the world's humour, scarce remembering whether 
 he had been at Oxforde.' (Duplicate letter of Jan. 8, 1590. Stowe MS. 697, f. 154 b.) 
 
238 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 1 , 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 ; 2 for the purpose is unalter- 
 able. In our conference together I learnt by him that Hotoman 
 hath a son in England 3 , who was sometime secretary to the Earl 
 of Lester, and he is about the Court. I remember sometime my 
 brother Jhon 4 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 5 , 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 some- 
 what 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 
 
 1 Jacques Cujas, or Cuiacius (1522-90), the famous jurist. 
 
 2 ' Hac non successit, alia adgrediemur via.' (Terence, Andria, iv. 1. 46.) 
 
 3 Jean Hotman (1552-1636), son of Fran9ois Hotman ; for five years in the 
 service of the Earl of Leicester. (N. B. Gen.) On Jan. 5, 1588, ' John Hottoman, 
 or Hottman, a Frenchman,' and Edward Wotton were both admitted students 
 to Gray's Inn. (Foster, Gray's Inn, p. 72.) 
 
 * {Sir) John Wotton, third son of Thomas Wotton, and half-brother of Henry 
 Wotton. He was born at Bocton Malherbe in 1550, and knighted by Essex at 
 the siege of Rouen in 1691. He married Lucy Percy, daughter of Henry, eighth 
 Earl of Northumberland, and died s. p. in 1597. 
 
 5 In the duplicate of this letter, sent on Jan. 10, he writes : ' I live at 
 Heydleberge . . ., how long I know not ; assure yourself this, my mind is from 
 all changeableness free, and I am so far the master of it, as to make it rest 
 where it finds itself well.' (Stowe MS. 697, f. 154 b.) 
 
TO EDWARD WOTTON 239 
 
 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 1 ) example, I will 
 spend the wandering part of my life as well as ever any but himself 
 did before me. 2 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 Christiana cioioxxcix. 
 
 Your most unfeignedly faithful brother, 
 
 HENRYE WOTTON. 
 
 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. 3 
 
 6. To ELEANOR WOTTON. 
 
 Hofbibl. MS. 9737, z. 17, f. 106. Wotton's good resolutions, his 
 journey to Vienna, &c. 
 
 Written the xxv of September, 1590, style 
 of England, at Altorph in Germany. 
 
 MY MOST DEARLY ESTEEMED MOTHER, 
 
 After the letter of credit received here, which my brother sent 
 me, I remembered this duty to you both the next day, because he 
 
 1 'This' in MS. 
 
 2 Edward Wotton had spent, in his youth, three or four years in Naples. The 
 winter of 1574-5 he was at Vienna. (D. N. B., Ixiii, p. 49.) 
 
 3 ' Securitas,' &c. : see ante, p. 236. In his anxiety to get an introduction to 
 Hotman Wotton sent two letters, duplicates of the above, one dated Jan. 8, 
 one Jan. 10, by different conveyance, to his brother. In the first he adds, 
 ' I thank you most earnestly for receiving Wickham into your commandment 
 at my request. I pray exercise it upon him to be my intelligentiary out of 
 England. Every letter of news I will so handle here, as it shall work on my 
 credit with the learned men. And so I end, lest I hear Plinie's saying to his 
 nephew, poteras non perdere ittas horas.' (Stoice MS. 697, f. 155.) The reference is 
 to the younger Pliny's Letters (iii. 5), ' Poteras, inquit, has horas non perdere.' 
 Wickham was perhaps William Wickham, second son of Edward Wickham, 
 of St. Dunstan's, near Canterbury. M.A. Oxford, 1579 ; Student of Middle Temple, 
 1582 ; Notary Public, 1587; d. 1624. (Foster, Ox.) 
 
240 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l 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 faith- 
 fullest 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 con- 
 verse 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 
 
 1 'Ascertain,' to make oneself certain or confident. Obs. (N. E. D.) 
 * Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Wotton, married John Dering, of Egerton. 
 Kent. (Berry, Kent, p. 401.) 
 
TO ELEANOR WOTTON 241 
 
 in England and Flanders. The rather from my brother Morton '-, 
 because methinks it is much against the nature of so near a fellow- 
 ship as is between us, to live in one countiy 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 2 (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. 
 
 In regardful duty and most entire love toward my dear mother, 
 
 Your most faithful obedient son, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 S . 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 585. Wotton writes to Lord Zouche at Altdorf of his 
 arrival at Ingolstaclt, of a disgraced Englishman he found there, and of 
 the reported election of a new Pope. 
 
 Written in thankfullest duty and regard toward your 
 Honour at Engolstade this 27 of October, 1590. 
 Style of Rome. 
 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 
 
 1 George Morton, of Esture, in Chilham, Kent, Henry Wotton's half-brother, 
 and father of Sir Albertus Morton. 
 
 2 George Morton's wife was Mary, daughter of Robert Honeywood, of Charing. 
 (D. N. B., xxxix, p. 148. 
 
 3 Edward la Zouche, eleventh Baron Zouche of Haryngworth (155(J ?-l625^. 
 See Appendix III. 
 
242 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 * 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 ac- 
 quainted with before at Brownswick, when I came up the country, 2 
 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. 3 I assure your Honour, he brought 
 letters of dangerous advice to the son, from the father then 4 ; 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. 5 He invited me to supper, and is 
 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 G is Pope, and surnamed Julius the Fourth. The Jesuit 
 
 1 Hubert van Giffen or Giphanius (1534-1604), jurist and philologist, then 
 Professor of Law at Ingolstadt. (N. B. Gen.) 
 3 Ante, p. 232. 
 
 3 'Verum est illud quod vulgo dicitur 'Mendacem memorem esse oportet".' 
 (Quint, iv. 2. 91.) 
 
 4 There? 
 
 5 I have not been able to identify with any certainty the Englishman 
 mentioned here, but I am inclined to believe that it was Anthony Sherley 
 (afterwards Sir Anthony Sherley, the famous traveller and adventurer) (antt , 
 p. 37), with whom Wotton became intimate some years later. Sir Anthon}' 
 Sherley had a servant named George Mainwaring (the name was spelt either 
 Mannering or Mainwaring, almost indifferently at that time) who accompanied 
 him to Persia in 1599, and wrote an account of the journey. (D. N. B., lii, p. 124.) 
 Sir Thomas Sherley, Anthony's father, who was Treasurer at War to the English 
 army in the Low Countries, had involved himself inextricably in debt, and 
 in 1588 his goods at Wiston were seized by the sheriff. (Ibid., p. 138.) The Jesuit 
 Parsons, in a letter written from Rome, quotes Sir Anthony Sherley as using 
 expressions about the Queen very much like those above, how his father was 
 held in durance by the Queen, and how, without any just cause, she has ' seized 
 all his livings into her own hands '. (Sherky Brothers, E. P. Shirley, Roxburghe 
 Club, 1848, p. 33.) 
 
 * This was a false report. Sixtus V died August 27, 1590, and Giambattista 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 243 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's in all service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 8. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 ReUq., 4th ed., p. 587. Wotton's arrival at Vienna, his life there ; the 
 Austrian Archdukes ; news from abroad. 
 
 Written in my regardful duty and service toward 
 your Honour at Vienna Austriae, this 20th of 
 November, 1590. Style of Rome. 
 
 MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 llth 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 Fetching concerning fit room to lodge 
 your Honour in his house, and received answer, he had lately enter- 
 tained 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 l 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, 
 
 Castagna succeeded him, taking the name of Urban VII. He only survived his 
 election twelve days. (Ranke, Popts, i, p. 511.) 
 
 1 Sounded? 
 
 - Honest? 
 
 R 2 
 
244 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 1 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 commenda- 
 tion, which {1} 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 - 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 : , one of the Arch- 
 dukes 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 4 , who yet remains a mourner at Gratz for the death 
 of Charles 5 his uncle. We look not for his return. I was yester- 
 day presented before him c 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 every- 
 thing 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 
 
 1 The Dutch, i. e. the Germans. 
 
 1 The Baron von Friedesheim, one of the Presidents of the Lower Court of 
 the Province of Austria. (See p. 301.) 
 
 x Matthias, third son of Maximilian II, born 1557, and Emperor 1612-19. 
 
 4 Ernestus, second son of Maximilian II, born 1553, Governor-General of the 
 Netherlands in 1594, died 1595. 
 
 5 Charles, Duke of Styria (1540-90), third son of Ferdinand I, and father of 
 the Emperor Ferdinand II. 
 
 6 Matthias. Fynes Moryson was in Vienna in 1593, and writes, ' Ernestus 
 and Mathias, Archdukes of Austria, and brothers to the Emperor Rodulphus, 
 did at this time lie here, both in one house, and did eat at one table, and in th* 
 time of their meals it was free for strangers and others to come into the room.* 
 (Itin., i, pp. 66, 67.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 245 
 
 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. . . . l 
 
 The Assembly at Franckfordt is dissolved without anything done/ 
 and much disagreement between the Palatine agent and the Bishop 
 of Wirtsburg 3 . 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 4 . 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 B camp, 
 
 1 Several pages of political news are omitted from this and the subsequent 
 letters to Lord Zouche, as the exigencies of space, and the importance of printing 
 unpublished manuscripts, make it impossible to include all of Wotton's ' news 
 letters ', which can be found in the Reliquiae, and which contain no information 
 about his life. His sources of information were partly from the ' Intelligentiary 
 Letters ' received at Vienna from Antwerp, Lyons, Venice, and Rome ; but the 
 news in these he did not always trust. ' Tales are brought us as their humours 
 inclined that first told them, for as they love or hate, so they speak; my 
 assuredest means to certify your Honour from time to time some truth in these 
 matters, is out of those letters which the German travellers in Italy send to 
 their fathers and friends here, of which we have reasonable store, and myself 
 indifferently acquainted (with them).' (Reliq., 4th ed., p. 597.) 
 
 - The Dcputatiotistag held at Frankfort, September, 1590. (Cambridge History, 
 iii, p. 712.) 
 
 3 Julius Echter von Mespelbronn. (Ibid. , p. 709.) 
 
 4 Probably the Maas in the Netherlands. The Prince of Parma brought an army 
 from Brussels in the summer of 1590 to relieve Paris, then besieged by 
 Henry IV, who had defeated the army of the League at Ivry on March 13. 
 Parma took Lagny and relieved Paris, and laid siege to Corbeil, which he 
 captured after a few weeks. He then returned to Brussels. (Poirson, Hist, du 
 Rtgne de Henri IV, i. pp. 78-81.) 
 
 3 The Duke of Mayenne, who accompanied Parma on his march to the frontier. 
 Kennow is probably a misprint for Quesnoy, near Valenciennes. 
 
246 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 that yet lies in Kennow ; but I have held your Honour long. Con- 
 cerning the model of the Emperor's lust-house J , 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 kttere. If it 
 please your Honour to have them, upon conference with Pretorius 2 , 
 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 Grod, 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. 
 Carolus Clusius 3 remembers 
 
 his duty to your Honour. 
 
 in Iris letter unto me from 
 
 Franckfordt. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 9. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 593. Wotton lodged with the Emperor's Librarian. 
 
 Written in most regardful duty and acknowledge- 
 ment of my service unto your Honour, this 
 9th of December, at Vienna Danubii, 
 cioioxc. Style of Rome. 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 The last duty unto your Honour is I hope received ; wherein 
 I was bold, after my plain manner, to advertise the course and state 
 
 1 Probably the Lustschloss of Sch5nbrunn, where Maximilian II built a 
 hunting-lodge in 1570. (Karl Weiss, Alt und Neu Wien, 1885, p. 85.) 
 
 2 Johannes Praetorius, 1537-1616, astronomer, and Professor of Mathematics 
 at Altdorf. (N. B. Qen.) 
 
 3 Charles de Lecluse or Lescluse (Clusius), born 1524 or 1525, a celebrated 
 French botanist. After travelling over the greater part of Europe, he was now 
 living in retirement at Frankfort. In 1593 he was appointed Professor of 
 Botany at Leyden, where he died in 1609. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
To LORD ZOUCHE 247 
 
 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 
 sex-vices 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 
 l>erform 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 
 ;is 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 .nil your journeys, and help us together in a joyful 
 time and state. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 10. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Rrliq., 4th ed., p. 597. Cost of living in Vienna. The Austrian Archdukes. 
 
 Written at Vienna in Austria, the 19th of 
 
 December, 1590. Style of Rome. 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 Fetching, I had then, notwithstanding the carrier's hasty 
 departure, sent this with it : but upon that occasion I was forced to 
 
 1 Hugo Blotz or Blotius. a Dutch Protestant, born in Delft, appointed Biblio- 
 tliekar by Maximilian II on June 15, 1575, which position he held until his 
 leath on June 29, 1608. The library was lodged at this time in the Minorite 
 monastery (destroyed in 1789). In 1576 Blotius proposed that a dwelling 
 should be made tor him in the monastery buildings, adjoining the library ; and 
 Wotton's letter proves that this was done, a point doubted by von Mosel, the 
 historian of the Imperial Library, il. F. E. von Mosel, GeschicMe far HofbiUiothek 
 au Wien, 1835, p. 36. For Blotius. see pp. 34-54.) 
 
246 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 satisfy the coWimands of your Honour's letters by the next 
 p6st. ; " t ' . ; 
 
 TPetching's first answer unto me, that he had entertained a Franck- 
 fordt 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, 
 arid 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 
 otherwisej 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 ' 
 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 
 
 niV.VV ! n-;. 
 
 1 'It is dangerous to walk the streets (of Vienna) in the night, for the great 
 number of disordered people, which are easily found upon any confines, 
 especially where such an army lieth near, as that of Hungary, governed by no 
 strict discipline.' (Moryson, Ifin., i, p. 66.) 
 
 *.; Seven 'pfennings were equal to about l-|rt. in English money. Six kreuzers 
 came to about 4|d. 
 
 3 See ante, p. 14. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 249 
 
 the summer, for we can hardly come by them here without two 
 dollars the clostet ', 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 agood 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 ~ ; 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 3 , 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 4 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 5 , 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 s 
 
 1 ' Closter,' i.e. Kluster, provincial form of Kluppe. 
 
 2 The ambassador from the Emperor to the Porte. On November 20 
 Wotton wrote : ' The Basha of Buda (a town in Hungaria, on the Danube) 
 was slain by the Turks soldiers for letting of him pass.' (Reliq., 4th ed., 
 p. 589.) 
 
 3 Maximilian, 1558-1619, fourth son of the Emperor Maximilian II. In 1588 
 he was elected King of Poland by one faction, but was defeated by the other 
 faction, who elected Sigismund, son of John, King of Sweden. Maximilian 
 being taken prisoner by the Primate of Poland, gained his liberty by renouncing 
 his claim to the throne. He was guardian to Ferdinand, Prince of Styria, and 
 in 1595 was elected Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. He died unmarried 
 1619. (Coze, ii, pp. 59, 60.) 
 
 4 Sigismund III, who succeeded his father, John III, as King of Sweden, but 
 did not give up the crown of Poland. 
 
 5 Henry, Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles IX of France, resigned the crown 
 of Poland when he succeeded his brother as King of France. 
 
250 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 wishing your Honour all happiness and health, I most humbly take 
 my leave. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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, an d 
 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 Eome at the Pope's election, 
 whom we hear to be a Milanese born, and of a great family. 1 
 I assure your Honour this is written in great haste. 
 
 11. TO LOKD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Seliq., 4th ed., p. 601. A house in Vienna for Lord Zouche. News of 
 Vienna. Wotton's writings and studies. 
 
 Written in most dutiful regard of your Honour, 
 this 9th of January, 1591, at Vienna in 
 Austria. Style of Rome. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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. Runnings, 2 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 3 are very well worth . Judgement is mean. 
 
 To get the plots of both the lust-houses the foundation is laid ; 
 
 1 Nicolo Sfondrati (Gregory XIV), elected Decembers, 1590, died October 15, 1591. 
 
 2 A note from Wotton to Francis Hunnings at Nuremberg, dated Dec. 25, 1590. 
 is among the HofbiU. MSS. (9737317 f. 107). 
 
 3 The schoonen opera ; die schimen opera ? 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHK 251 
 
 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, 1 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 2 
 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 
 
 1 Blotius, with whom Wotton was living. 2 About .24. 
 
:>52 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 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. 2 . . . 
 
 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 1 
 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. 
 
 1 On January 15 Wotton wrote to Lord Zouche : ' Maximilian is at his Court 
 at Neustadt, nothing terrified with his late vision, which in all circumstances 
 was as I wrote ; some say it was an experiment of the study he gives himself 
 unto, being a known dealer in magic, and those dangerous arts which malcon- 
 tentedness hath brought him to follow. The Emperor himself is not unspoken 
 of that way, and between them both there is no book of that argument left in 
 the Library ; we shall see the end of it.' (Reliq., p. 607.) 
 
 2 On March 6 Wotton wrote : ' We have a tale come to our town that the 
 elected King (the Archduke Maximilian) despairs to be ever in the actual 
 possession of the crown of Poland, and hath lately, in a slight matter, overseen 
 himself greatly, in giving the very same robe, which he appointed to wear at 
 the coronation, to a Spanish jester of the Court here, who wears it on great 
 feast days ; and some are of opinion it will be laid hereafter in his dish. The 
 Polonians are apt enough to tell him of it.' (EeUq., p. G36.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE JJ53 
 
 (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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 606. Books sent to Lord Zouche. News from France. 
 
 Written in most dutiful regard of your Honour 
 at Vienna in Austria, this 15th of January, 
 1591. Style of Rome. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 *, 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 
 
 1 Johann Sturm or Sturmius (1507-89), German humanist. (N. B. Gen.} 
 
 2 Johann Tritheim or Trithemius (14(52-151(5). His Steyaiwgraphia was the 
 first studied work on cipher-writing, and owing to the terms of conjuration, 
 and names of spirits employed in it, it was universally though unjustly re- 
 garded as a book on magic. Manuscript copies were eagerly sought for, and 
 John Dee, writing to Sir William Cecil from Antwerp (February 16, 15U2-3 ;, 
 says that as much as a thousand crowns had been refused for it. It was 
 printed at Lyons in 1531 ; but this edition was extremely rare. That of 160( 
 (Frankfort) is the first generally known edition. (Niceron, xxxviii, p. 228, John -Dec 
 nnd the Steganograpftia of Trithemius, J. E. Bailey, 1879.) 
 
254 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENBY WOTTON. 
 
 13. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 609. Books sent to Lord Zouche. The Emperor's 
 library. Wotton's studies and plans. 
 
 February 6, 1591, Vienna. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 2 , few being willing to trust them further, than with such 
 
 1 A false report, though after the departure of Parma, Lagny and Corbeil 
 were recaptured, and Paris was again in danger. But in 1591 Henry IV 
 abandoned the siege. 
 
 * 'Suralauf:' see 'Turleut', p.264. Both are probably misprints for 'Fuhrleute. ' 
 (N. & <?., 10th Ser., ii, p. 476.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 255 
 
 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 l 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 '- 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 a 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. 4 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 
 
 1 ' Imploring ' in Reliq. 
 
 2 Georg Glacianus, Professor of Oratory at Altdorf. in 1589. (G. A. Will, 
 Xi'mbergischts Gelthrtmi-Lexicon, Altdorf, 1802, i, p. 410.) 
 
 3 The Greek text of the first five books, with the Latin translation of Perotti, 
 published at Hageuau in 1530. 
 
 4 On March <> Wotton wrote to Lord Zouche : ' For the Polibius, I have taken 
 order with Carolus Clusius in Franckfordt, and yet would gladly have as many 
 copies of that author as I can possibly come unto, so they be diverse editions ; 
 but I make no haste, being certified from Jacobus Casaubonus, a friend of mine in 
 Geneva, that he determines to set forth that book himself, which I wait for, and 
 hope he hath performed it at this Mart.' (Reliq., p. 635.) This passage reads as if 
 Wotton were in correspondence with Casaubon, whom he had met in the 
 previous year. He appears, however, to be ignorant of his Christian name. 
 Plainly Casaubon was already engaged on his edition of Polybius, which he first 
 announced in 1595, and which was not published until 1609. (Patttson, pp. 185, 
 479.) 
 
256 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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. 2 . . . 
 
 14. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 615. Request for the loan of a book of arms. 
 
 Written in most regardful duty the 10th of 
 February, 1591, at Vienna in Austria. 
 Style of Rome. 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 On January 15 Wotton wrote that he had permission to accompanythe Imperial 
 ambassador, who was about to go to Constantinople, ' sed considerandum sentio ; 
 since my coming into Austria I have found some such matters as make me think 
 my next journey shall be to Spyre. The reasons I will write your Honour here- 
 after, from whom I am bold not to conceal mine own state, and I crave most 
 earnestly of your Honour the keeping of it from the English merchants, for 
 though they are my honest friends and countrymen, yet have I cause to hold 
 my removings close from them, in some respects of Italy.' (Reliq., p. 608.) 
 
 2 On June 16, 1610, Wotton told the Doge of Venice of a rumour, which had 
 reached him, of the assassination of James I. He said that as the rumour was 
 not confirmed, he had concluded that it had been ' put about by a u interested 
 party for his own ends. I recalled the maxim of the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 the elder, that a lie of three days works for three months.' (Col. S. P. Yen., 
 xi, p. 511.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 257 
 
 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 l 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 15. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Beliq., 4th ed., p. 619. Books and manuscripts for Lord Zouche. 
 Wotton's plans. News from England. 
 
 Written in regard of my duty toward your 
 Honour, the 19th of February, 1591, 
 at Vienna. Style of Rome. 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 Your letters from Neureinburg the 25th of January, were re- 
 ceived in Vienna the 18th of the next month ; the confirmation of your 
 
 1 Friedesheim, ante, p. 244. 
 WOTTON. i g 
 
258 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 love (which I humbly desire ever) is in all duty right dear unto 
 me ; my unableness to deserve it any way, though it please th 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 remem- 
 ber 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 manu- 
 script 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 Constanti- 
 nople, 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 : 
 1 * Let,' i. e. hinder. 
 
TO LOR]) ZOUCHE 259 
 
 peradventure the Trayner l 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 2 
 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. 3 The story is well known 
 unto you. Mr. Killigrew's 4 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 8 
 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 r> , 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 7 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 else- 
 where, 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 
 
 1 The name is spelt Dayner on p. 250. 
 
 2 Sir John Perrot (1527?-92), Lord-Deputy of Ireland in 1584. He was 
 recalled in 1588, and tried on a charge of high treason, and convicted in 1592, 
 but died in the Tower before the date for his execution. (D. JV. .B.) 
 
 3 Wotton refers to the quarrel between the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of 
 Leicester in 1565, when they exchanged blows in the Queen's presence. 
 (D. N. B., xvi, p. 115.) 
 
 <Sir) Henry Killigrew (died 1603) married (November 7, 1590) Jael de 
 Peigne, a Frenchwoman. (Ibid., xxxi, p. 107.) 
 
 3 Sir Charles Blount (1563-1606), afterwards Earl of Devonshire, with whom 
 Essex quarrelled on account of a favour given to Blouut by the Queen. (Ibid., v, 
 p. 240.) 
 
 8 Sir Christopher Blount, younger brother of Sir Charles Blount. (Ibid., p. 245.) 
 
 7 Johann Philippson, called Sleidan or Sleidanus, 1506-56. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 9 
 
 O 1 
 
260 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 l 
 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. 
 
 Written in most regardful duty toward your 
 Honour, the first day in Lent with us, 
 which is the 27th of February, 1591, 
 Style of Rome. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 Gregory XIV, Cardinal Sfondrati, ante, p. 250. He was a pious, simple 
 old man, entirely devoted to the interests of Spain and the League. On 
 February 6 Wotton wrote of him to Lord Zouche : ' It is much wondered how 
 he came to the Popedom, being half a fool, as they say that know him and 
 have long conversed with him ; and he hath a quality different from all others, 
 that he continually laughs, whereby his humour is soon guessed at. There are 
 certain pasquils in Dutch written against him, in the time of his cardinalship. 
 that touched that quality.' (Reliq., p. 613.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 261 
 
 way imagine, unless perhaps being both delivered to the Trayner of 
 Nuremberg 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 
 
 1 The journey to Constantinople. 
 
 3 Edward Barton (1562 ?-97), second English ambassador to Constantinople, 
 appointed 1590. (D. N. B.) 
 3 Ambassador, or ' Orator ', to the Porte. 
 * 'Sessed,' i. e. assessed, see N. E. D. 'cesM>d.' 
 
262 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 common- 
 wealths ; 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 1 , 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 Fetching take such 
 order, as I hope you shall find at your coming some reasonable good 
 provision. 2 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 Avith us are few. I advertised 
 your Honour before of the great marriage between the Earl of 
 Halm's wife's daughter 3 and Septimius Freiherr van Leicsten- 
 
 1 April 14, O.S. 
 
 2 On March 6 Wotton wrote : ' When it shall please your Honour to take your 
 journey to Vienna, your lodging is ready in Petching's house, very convenient, 
 in my judgement ; and you shall not need to turn into any inn, but in straight 
 course from the gate that lies open to the Danube, along to the corner house by 
 the Bishop's lodging which description I have thought not amiss to add, lest 
 your Honour having forgot where Fetching dwells, might be troubled in 
 inquiring him out. The Franckfort merchant which before had taken in the 
 rooms is departed.' (Reliq., p. 635.) On August 20, 1591, Lord Zouche was in 
 Vienna, when he wrote to Lord Burghley : see Appendix III. 
 
 3 In his letter of February 19, Wotton wrote that the lady was an heiress, 
 and the step-father had for a long time objected to the match, Lichtenstein not 
 being her equal in rank. Wotton adds, 'The Germans (as your Honour knows) 
 carry in their hottest loves a discretion with them to equal their titles at the 
 least, if not increase them. . . . England is more light-headed in these cases; 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 263 
 
 tein ', 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 2 we hear nothing yet, but the necessity is 
 such as it must be shortly, or the Emperor will feel it. The question 
 at Gratz 3 stands as it did without alteration since my last. It is told 
 me the Hungarians begin to stomach his 4 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. 5 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 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. 
 
 and even the greatest women have the destiny to match with their own servants.' 
 (Reliq., p. 623.) 
 
 1 'Freyserr' in Reliq. John Septimius Lichtenstein (1558-95) married Anne 
 Mary of Salm. 
 
 2 ' Landtaye : ' anglicized form of Landtag. (N. E. D.) 
 
 3 A contest about who should be tutor of the young Duke of Styria (after- 
 wards the Emperor Ferdinand II) during his minority. The Archduke Charles 
 of Styria, who died in 1590, ordered in his will that his brother Ferdinand, his 
 nephew the Emperor Rudolph, and the Duke of Bavaria should administer 
 Styria, and educate the young Duke at Ingolstadt. His widow, however, 
 refused to give up her son, and the Archduke Ernestus went to Gratz to settle 
 the matter. (Reliq., p. 605.) 
 
 * Ernestus, Governor of Hungary. 
 
 5 Henry IV had not yet abandoned the siege of Paris. On February 6 
 Wotton wrote : ' The King hath licensed certain victuals into the town, and 
 wood, upon entreaty of the Cardinal Goudii, at twenty-five crowns the cart- 
 ful, and a cow eight ; Vereor ne h-aec misericordia in miseriam cadat, foolish pity 
 hurts men much nowadays.' (Reliq., p. 614 ; cf. Tacitus, Hist. iii. 66 ' Ita periculum 
 <>x misericordia.') 
 
 '' 'Siegelbuch.' 
 
264 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 17. To LOUD ZOUCHE. 
 Beliq., 4th ed., p. 629. Letter sent with books and manuscripts. 
 
 Written in great haste at Vienna in Austria, 
 this March 1, 1591. Style of Rome. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 The books which you have long looked for your Honour doth 
 now, I hope, safely receive. This convenient occasion offered me 
 by one of Nuremberg, whose honesty I have inquired good testi- 
 mony 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 * 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 like- 
 wise 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. 
 
 1 ' Turleut,' misprint for ' Fuhrleute ' ; see ante, p. 254. 
 
 2 Disputationes adversus Astrologiam Divinatricem, Libri xii, Bologna, 1495. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 265 
 
 The God of all mercies bring my good Lord to his travels' end 
 happily and well, in a joyful time and state. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Written in regard of my duty and service 
 toward your Honour this 17th of April, 
 cioioxci. Style of Rome. At Vienna 
 in Austria. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED DEAR LORD, 
 
 I received your last from Altorph the 24th of March, the 
 15th of April in our style, with the book * 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 
 
 1 The preface to the Steganographia of Trithemius, which Wotton had sent 
 on January 15 (ante, p. 253). 
 
266 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 vise 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. 1 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 Trench 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 con- 
 clusion 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 concern- 
 ing 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 incan- 
 tations, or malignis spiritibus, which was unperformed in the book. 
 He answered one himself in these words, ' Die warheit zu reclmen 2 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 Em- 
 peror'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, not- 
 withstanding 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 
 1 In a letter that has not been preserved. 2 * Reclen ' in Heliq. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 267 
 
 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 gi'eat 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, com- 
 plained 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, Eoman, 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 ; lead- 
 ing 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 1 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 
 1 Elizabeth (1554-92), widow of Charles IX of France. 
 
268 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 bor- 
 rowing, 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 pre- 
 tences, 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 Kodolph the Second will end the Empire after three 
 hundred years' continuance in the house of Austria. 1 . . . 
 
 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 Christen- 
 
 1 On March 6 Wotton wrote : ' The Emperor can get no money of the 
 Hungarians. All the provinces of Austria are pledges, and he maintains him- 
 self only ont of the Crown of Bohemia. The consideration of these, and like 
 points, makes the people speak and discourse of the prophesy, that as Rodolphus 
 the First began the Empire in that house, so Rodolphus the Second shall end 
 it ; and likely enough.' (Reliq., p. 636.) In the above letter, Wotton gives a long 
 account of the Emperor's brothers, Ernestus, Matthias, and Maximilian (ibid.. 
 pp. 644-6), omitted here. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 269 
 
 dom, 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 19. To LOUD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 647. Books and plans for Lord Zouche ; the 
 Steganographia ; an English adventurer. 
 
 Written the 21st of April, in Vienna in 
 Austria, CLOLOXCI. Style of Rome. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 meincr gavislich ingedanck sein ; l 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 main- 
 tained his promise, who gave me answer, that he had dealt with the 
 
 1 Probably a misprint for ' meiner ganzlich eingedenk. sein '. (2V. & Q.. 
 lOthSer., ii, p. 371.) 
 
270 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 1 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," 
 where a massacre of the Lutherans should have been committed, and 
 the complot written in ten sheets of paper, with 3 a Bandito (as 
 some, and the most say, receiving from Kome ; 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 
 
 1 A small coin formerly current iu Germany, worth about half a pfenning. 
 (N. E. D.) 
 
 2 The capital of Styria. ;; ' Which ' in Reliq. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 271 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. . 
 
 20. To LOED ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 651. Wotton's journey to Rome and Naples ; 
 his return to Florence. 
 
 Florence, and on the 8th of May, (15)92. 
 Style of Rome. 
 
 Any point in this that concerns myself, I beseech that no man 
 may see but your Honour. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 I can defer this duty no longer, though my leisure be this 
 present little, to perform so much as is occurrent unto me, con- 
 cerning 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 
 Konie, eight in Naples, the rest in continual motion, till the 25th of 
 April, on which day I returned to Florence. From Venice to Kome 
 I had the company of the Baron of Berloc, withwhom, not with- 
 standing 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, 
 
 1 Ante, p. 19. 
 
272 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, oc- 
 casioned 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 l 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 2 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 
 
 1 ' Mediterranean ' is always used by Wotton in its etymological sense. The 
 fact that the famous bandit Marco Sciarra held the passes between Naples and 
 Rome at this time was probably an additional reason for going north by sea. 
 Torquato Tasso left Naples a month later, but stopped on the way from fear of 
 Sciarra ; who however, with all the courtesy of an Italian bandit, offered him 
 a free passage and hospitality on the way ; and when Tasso refused this, with- 
 drew, and allowed him to proceed to Rome. (Lettere di Torquato Tasso, Guasto, 
 1853, v, p. 97.) 
 
 1 Nettuno, near Porto d' Anzio. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 273 
 
 Easter Day ' I meant not to accompany the Pope to St. Lateran. 
 When the Easter was for the chief est part past, occasion wanting by 
 sea, I returned to Eome on the Tuesday by land, and there con- 
 tinued three weeks ; and my purpose was to have made longer abode 
 there (notwithstanding the rumour of the solemn day to be cele- 
 brated here by the Great Duke 2 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 Eome ; 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 3 ; 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 deter- 
 mination 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 4 , which I had received from his own mouth, 
 travelling to Eome 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 Eome 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 5 , wherein 
 the first vye being seen, the cards are given up before the second. 
 And now (most Honourable) having advertised the generality 
 
 1 March 29. 
 
 3 Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1587-1609). 
 
 3 Lord Zouche's licence to travel abroad. For his letter about this licence 
 see Appendix III. 
 
 4 Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland (1532 ?-85). 
 
 5 Mawe, a card game which became fashionable at about this time, supplanting 
 Primero. It resembled the Irish game of Five Cards (Chambers, Book of Days, ii, 
 p. 779). The first vye was the first drawing of cards ; each player had the right 
 to take a certain number of cards ; these were drawn alternately. 
 
 WOTTOK. I T 
 
274 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 con- 
 cerning the points of Eome than I have done ; which I speak 
 absolutely without exception : I have been present at three 
 solemnities of the Eoman Church, the consecration of the Rose 1 , 
 marriage, and distribution of dowries unto the virgins, and the 
 taking of possession 2 ; 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 3 alone, 
 in both her mitres, in her triple crown, in her lettica*, on her 
 moyl 6 , 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 Kome, 
 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 con- 
 sequences of estate. Clement, the eighth of that name 6 , 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 7 , and Cajetan 8 ; 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 
 
 1 The Rosa cVOro, which was blessed every year on the fourth Sunday in 
 Lent in the Camera de' Paramenti. Clement VIII, in 1592, sent the Rose to 
 Anne of Austria. (Moroni, Disionario di Erudisione Storico-Ecclesiastica, lix, 119, 134.) 
 
 2 Possessio de' Papi, the ceremony by which each new Pope took possession 
 of the Church of S. Giovanni in Laterano, as the Cathedral of his Bishopric of 
 Rome. The ceremony was performed by Clement VIII on April 4, 1592. (Ibid., 
 liv, 294.) 
 
 3 Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, nephew of Sixtus V, Cardinal 1585, died 1623. 
 
 4 Lettica, litter. 
 
 5 ' Moyle,' mule. 
 
 * Clement VIII (Aldobrandino), elected Pope January 20, 1592, died March 5, 
 1605. 
 
 7 Gregorio Petrocini a Montelparo, Cardinal 1589, died 1612. 
 
 * Henrico Cajutan, Cardinal 1585, died 1599. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 275 
 
 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 *, 
 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 Eome, because in this letter I will 
 advertise your Honour of nothing which I have not in part, or 
 wholly seen myself. Public edicts, or bancli, 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 2 dishonest donne are banished out of the corps 
 of the city to the Piazza Padella or liortaccio ; 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 3 
 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 bandit i 400 horse in Campania, or to 
 maintain the bread at one baiocho * the pound, or inibagayliare. 
 A proposition scarce to be expected even in tempi santascuorim 5 , as 
 the Hebrews say ; but we heard of no execution, for (as some hold) 
 his Holiness, besides extreme unction, hath been anointed with 
 
 1 Don Diego del Campo of Cambrai, a servant of the Pope before his elevation, 
 now Cameriere Canonico. (Reliq., p. 661.) 
 
 2 < al ' in Reliq. 
 
 3 Adam. Baron von Dietrichstein, died 1609. 
 
 * One baiocho, about a halfpenny in English money. 
 
 5 Santascuorim : plainly a misprint ; possibly Sancta Sanctorum, the sacred picture 
 of Christ carried out in procession once a year. It was believed to have been 
 injured by a -Jew in 1550. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 Crowns of the Son l . 4. In the fourth bando, the Julios of 
 Bolognia 2 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 3 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 Eome, 
 with the like ; and in this matter hath Clement the Eighth gone in 
 short time further than Sixtus the Fifth thought possible 4 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 bod}*-, but further, by the craftiness of his 
 proceeding, he will live long. Of the making of cardinals, peregri- 
 nation 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 
 
 1 Son, i.e. Sun, ante, p. 228. Wotton seems to have intended a somewhat 
 irreverent pun. 
 
 2 A Julio was a silver coin worth about sixpence, struck by Pope Julius II 
 (1503-13) (N. E. .). 
 
 1 Cardinal Pallotti, created Cardinal 1587, died 1620. 
 * Thought possible : ' though impossible ' in ReKq. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 277 
 
 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. 
 
 At your Honour's commandment, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Since I ended this, I have had a very troublesome fit of an ague. 
 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. 
 
 I am, 
 
 HENRICO WOTTONO, 
 Inglese nella casa di sig. Baccio Boni * 
 in Via Larga 2 in Florence. 
 
 21. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 664. Wotton's illness ; the visit of the 
 Archduke Maximilian to Rome, &c. 
 
 (Florence, May 29, 1592.) 
 MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 3 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 
 
 1 Baccio Boni : see p. 299. 2 Now the Via Cavour. 
 
 3 Ante, p. 249. 
 
278 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 himself to two Jesuits, that were lately come from Vienna, in mean- 
 ing to be brought by them unto the Cardinal Madrutz l . 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. 2 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 3 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 4 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 Eoman 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 follow- 
 ing. 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 Signer Bacchio 
 Boni, in Via Larga, where I am reasonably well accommodated, but 
 for my ten crowns a month. 5 The times are dear in extremity. 
 
 1 Cardinal Madruzzi (Cardinal 1561, died 1601), one of the principal repre- 
 sentatives of the Austrian and Spanish interests at the Papal Court. 
 
 2 Two men fighting in the streets of Rome had been pursued by the Pope's 
 police to the house of Cardinal Farnese, where the Cardinal's majordoino and 
 four of his servants opposed their arrest. The next day the Pope had the four 
 servants hanged, and the majordomo beheaded. The Pope made no public 
 appearance for a while for fear of tumults, as some thought, or (as others 
 believed) from remorse. (Reliq., pp. 658, 659.) 
 
 3 Sigismund III, King of Poland (in this year King of Sweden also), married 
 a daughter of the Archduke Charles of Austria. As Maximilian claimed the 
 throne of Poland, he would naturally be supposed to be in opposition to this 
 marriage. 
 
 * George Radziwill. Cardinal 1583. died 1600. 
 
 5 Ten crowns a month (if gold crowns are meant) would be equal to three 
 pounds sterling. Robert Dallington in his Method for Travel (1598) gives the 
 following estimate of the expenses of an Englishman living abroad : ten gold 
 crowns a month for diet, two for fencing, two for dancing, two for reading, and 
 fifteen for riding. A servant's living expenses would come to eight gold crowns 
 a month. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 279 
 
 I think to remain in these parts this summer ; and, as I imagine, 
 between your Honours 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 22. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 667. News of Florence ; Wotton settled in Florence. 
 
 Written in Florence, this 13th of June, 
 
 1592. Style of Italy. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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 Maiy ; the Duke keeping (as the manner of princes is) just his 
 hour, was deceived by the Genuesers, who caused it to be sounded 
 
 1 John Wroth, son of Sir Peter Wroth, of Bexley, Kent, and his wife 
 Margaret Dering (Harl. Soc., xlii, p. 214). He was in Venice from May 19, 
 1591, to May 19, 1592, and thirty-two of his letters to Burghley from Venice 
 are in the S. P. Yen., vol. i. Fynes Moryson in 1595 mentions him as the only 
 Englishman who had travelled to Constantinople by land (Itin., i, p. 198, but see 
 ante, p. 230). 
 
 '- Wickham, ante, p. 239. 
 
 3 Sarzana, near Spezia, en the border between Tuscany and the territory of 
 Genoa. 
 
280 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 circum- 
 stances. . . . 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Unto the deliverer of this, I beseech your Honour to dar del l)uon 
 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. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 672. Life in Florence. 
 
 Written at Florence this 25th of June, 
 
 1592. Style of Italy. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 . . . 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 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 281 
 
 satisfy in some little part mine own desire to do your Honour service. 
 Machiavirs 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 '. 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 24. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 Reliq,, 4th ed., p. 673. News from the Papal Court, &c. 
 
 Written this 10th of July, 1592. 
 
 Style of Italy. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 Eome 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 2 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 3 (with whom I spake yesterday) 
 is returned from Kome 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 
 
 1 This same phrase, ' A Paradise inhabited by Devils,' was used of England 
 by an Italian traveller in the sixteenth century. (Einstein, Ttie Italian Renais- 
 sance in England, p. 226.) 
 
 2 In contanti, in cash. 
 
 5 Pietro Aldobrandini, brother of the Pope, and an eminent lawyer. 
 
282 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant ever, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 J is in town. 
 
 25. To LOED ZOUCHE. 
 Beliq., 4th ed., p. 677. News from Rome and France. 
 
 Written this 27th of July, 1592, at Florence. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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 2 
 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 
 
 1 Sir Charles Davers or Danvers, 1568?-1601. (D. N. B.) 
 a Antonio del Pozzo, Archbishop of Pisa from 1582 to 1607. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 283 
 
 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. Koan 1 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 2 , 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 I have a great fancy to pass with your Honour out of Italy, and 
 leave you on the Rhyne stream. 
 
 26. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliqi., 4th ed., p. 684. News from England ; death of Hester Wotton ; 
 Henry Wotton's brother ; Lord Darcy expected in Florence. 
 
 Written this Fourteenth of August, 1592. 
 
 Style of Home, at Florence. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 3 
 hath persuaded me that your Honour wisheth him well ; he wanteth 
 no more to make me travail for his good ; I receive him as recom- 
 mended 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 
 
 1 Rouen, in the possession of the League. Henry IV besieged it in 1591, and 
 early in 1592 Parma again marched from Brussels into France, and relieved the 
 city, the siege of which was raised on April 20. 
 
 2 The Duke of Mayenne, General of the forces of the League. 
 
 3 In 1612 a Henry Parvis (related no doubt to the English merchants of that 
 name) was living in Venice, and married there. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xii, p. 346.) 
 
284 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 your bounty makes me bold to say thus much, that I am not 
 the richest man that way this present. My Eoman 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 ', who died on the 8th of May, a gentle- 
 woman 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 2 is gone to serve in the Low 
 Countries ; my brother John 3 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 4 here this 
 week, as Mr. Guicciardin 5 told me, and I am informed by Corsini G , 
 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, 
 
 1 Hester Wotton, ante, p. 236. 
 
 2 Sir James Wotton, fourth son of Thomas Wotton. He was knighted by 
 Essex at Cadiz. He died and was buried at Bocton Malherbe in September, 
 1629. (N. and Q., 7th series, x, 310.) 
 
 3 Sir John Wotton, ante, p. 238. 
 
 4 Thomas Darcy, third Lord Darcy of Chiche ; see Appendix III. 
 
 5 Lorenzo Guicciardini, who acted in Florence as informal English agent, 
 sending news to England, and attending to the needs of English visitors 
 to Florence. In the letter of Lord Darcy to Burghley of October 26, 1591, he 
 says of Guicciardini, ' I assure your Lordship's honour, the Queen cannot have 
 a more fit instrument with the Prince than this gentleman ; he being of very 
 great and special account in this State, and a man of great experiences.' On 
 June 6, 1592, Guicciardini wrote to Burghley, offering to continue with him the 
 correspondence he had held with Walsingham. (S. P. Tuscany.) 
 
 6 Filippo Corsini, a Florentine merchant resident in London. In the Record 
 Office there is a letter from the Grand Duke to Elizabeth, dated April 15, 1593, 
 requesting that Filippo Corsini, who had lived in England thirty years, might 
 be allowed to return to Florence, on account of the death of his brother Lorenzo 
 Corsini. The affairs of the London house would be left in charge of Filippo 
 Corsini's nephew, Bernardo Gerini. (Ibid.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 285 
 
 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. 1 . . . 
 
 Antonio Perez 2 (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. 
 
 At your Honour's pleasure, 
 
 HAR. WOTTON. 
 
 27. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 688. News of Florence and Rome. 
 
 Written from Florence this 29th of 
 
 August, 92. Style of Rome. 
 MY EVER MOST HONOURED, 
 
 . . . Since my last unto your Honour (contrary to the expectation of 
 all) is the marriage of Leonora tlrsina 3 accomplished at Pratolin 4 , where 
 the Cardinal Sforza 5 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 
 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 
 
 1 The ground for this report was the slaying of the Earl of Moray by the Earl 
 of Huntley on February 8, 1592. It was reported in popular rumour that Moray 
 was a lover of the Queen, and that James VI had ordered him to be killed. 
 (D. X. B., xxii, p. 187.) 
 
 2 Don Antonio Perez (1539-1611), the exiled and fugitive secretaiy of Philip 
 II. See Antonio Peres in Exile, Martin S. Hume, Transactions of Royal Hist. Soc. t 
 New Series, vol. viii, for the latest views on Perez's murder of Escovado. 
 
 3 Leonora Orsini, niece of the Grand Duke, being daughter of his sister 
 Isabella, who married Paolo Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. The Duke of 
 Bracciano's second wife was Vittoria Accoramboni. 
 
 4 Pratolino, the villa of the Grand Duke in the mountains above Florence. 
 In his Elements of Architecture Wotton describes the gardens of Pratolino. 
 (Reliq., p. 65.) On September 12, 1592, Wotton wrote, 'The Court still at 
 Pratolin attending unto the fresh air.' (Ibid., p. 692.) 
 
 5 Franceso Sforza di Santo Fiore, Cardinal 1583, died 1624. On June 25, 
 Wotton wrote, ' The forenamed Earl is the nephew of the lively Cardinal Sforza, 
 a gentleman of some eighteen years, his living as yet not above 2.000 pound 
 sterling, but after decease of the Cardinal likely to be very great ; in person not 
 tall nor low, and one of the worst faces that a man shall ordinarily see, so that 
 some think Lenora Ursina would be contented to revoke the match, and take 
 her first offer.' (Ibid., p. 672.) 
 
 6 Sigismund II., Bathori, 1581-1605. 
 
286 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 Kome 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 *. 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, 
 whei'e 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 con- 
 tains 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 2 , 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. 
 
 My good Lord, the most Merciful protect you in all security. 
 
 Your most affectionate 
 
 Servant ever, 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 
 28. To LOKD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Beliq., 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. 
 
 Written in most dutiful regard to your 
 Honour, this sixth of August (Sep- 
 tember), 1592, at Florence. 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 The princes were Philip (1576-98), second son of William V of Bavaria, 
 Cardinal 1597 ; Ferdinand (1577-1650), Elector of Cologne 1612. 
 
 2 Ferdinando Gonzalvo, Duke of Sessa, Spanish ambassador at Rome. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 287 
 
 (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 
 sis 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. 
 
 By your Honour's 
 
 most faithful servant 
 
 during his life, 
 , HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 29. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 695. Wotton about to travel to Siena. 
 Lord Darcy's arrival. 
 
 Written this 19th of Septemb., 1592 <N. S.>. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 ... 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 
 
 1 In a letter of September 12 Wotton wrote, 'Since my last of the 6th of 
 September the occurrents are thus. The great preparation of our princess for 
 the Madonna di Loreto is come to nothing, and herself growing to be great in 
 another way, which hindered the journey.' (Reliq., p. 692.) 
 
 2 'The Forty-Eight,' i.e. the Senate of Florence. 
 
 3 This shows that Wotton was not merely travelling for his pleasure or 
 instruction, but was under orders of some kind. Probably, like many English 
 travellers of that time, he was employed by the English Government, or some 
 politician in England, to gather information and spy on the doings of foreign 
 princes and English refugees. 
 
288 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's most faithful servant 
 during his life, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 Kome ; 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. 
 
 Iterum Vale. 
 
 30. To LOBD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Reliq., 4th ed., p. 696. Books for Lord Zouche ; Wotton's removal 
 to Siena ; Lord Darcy. 
 
 Written this third of October being 
 
 Saturday, 1592 <N. S. 2 >. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 Your last of the second of September I received the twenty -third 
 of the same. It seems to have lain in Mr. Finder's s 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 
 
 1 N. S. This letter is therefore dated in that style. 
 
 2 In 1592 N. S. Saturday fell on October 3. 
 
 3 (Sir) Paul Pindar (1563?-1650), then agent at Venice to Henry and Jacob 
 Parvis, currant merchants. (Z>. N. B.; Gal. S. P. Yen., ix, p. 531 n.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 289 
 
 hands ; for which I have tarried eight days in Florence longer than 
 my determination. I use a gentleman ' 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. 2 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. 
 
 With his leave, his servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Written from Sienna this twenty-fifth of 
 October, 1592, style of Rome, in 
 great haste. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 011 
 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, 3 I imagine myself to have almost sounded the bottom 
 
 1 Perhaps Vinta, see p. 40. 
 
 2 Ante, p. 284. Wotton wrote of his expenses, but now says he was not hinting 
 for a loan. 
 
 3 Whether or not the Lord Treasurer had given Lord Darcy a letter to the 
 Grand Duke. 
 
 WOTTON. i U 
 
290 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. Hunger- 
 ford 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. 1 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 
 curas. My next stirring will certainly be towards Venice, and 
 I think to cross the Genouesato and Dukedom of Milan. Tew 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 2 , 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, CanceUiere 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. 
 
 At your Honour's commandment ever, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 Ante, p. 287. 2 Scipione Alberti: see ante, p. 21. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 291 
 
 32. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 Rdiq., 4th ed., p. 700. Lord Darcy ; Wotton's debts and plans, &c. 
 
 Written this twenty-fifth day of November, 
 
 1592, at Sienna. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 I have, for fourteen days, expected certification from Mr. Hunger- 
 ford, 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) * ; 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 espe- 
 cial favours, which I understand to have been by defending him from 
 the Inquisitor of Eome. The point stood in these terms. There was 
 a book written against La Nowe by Possevinus 3 the Jesuit, compre- 
 hending 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 
 
 1 In his previous letter Wotton had enclosed a new cipher in regard to Lord 
 Darcy. This has not been preserved, but it is easy to discover that ' the 
 Frenchman ' stood for Lord Darcy, * Monsieur du Plese ' for the Lord Treasurer, 
 'The Master of the Vatican Library' for the Grand Duke. 
 
 2 ' Recapitated,' from the Italian ricapitare, to forward, to address. (N.E. D., 
 where the above is the only instance of the word given.) 
 
 3 Antonio Possevino (1534-1611), Jesuit controversialist. His ludicium de 
 qiiatuor Scriptoribus published in 1592 was directed against La Noue, Bodin, du 
 Plessis-Mornay, and Machiavelli. (N.B. G-f'.n., xl, p. 876.) 
 
 * Cardinal Mendoza, created Cardinal 1587, died 1592. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 dis- 
 honourable 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. 1 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 2 , with very sound probabilities ; accused, during his abode 
 in Borne, 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 
 
 1 Lord Darcy had succeeded in getting another book suppressed in Oct. 1591, 
 when he was in Florence. It was printed by Girolamo Polini, and contained 
 libellous statements about Queen Elizabeth. In a letter of Oct. 25, 1591, to Lord 
 Burghley, Lord Darcy describes it as ' the most mischievous and spiteful libel 
 that ever Devil in Hell did write'. By means of Lorenzo Guicciardini (see 
 p. 284), he persuaded the Grand Duke to have all the copies destroyed. (S. P. 
 Tuscany, Oct. 25, 1591.) A letter of thanks from Elizabeth to the Grand Duke 
 is in the Archivio Mediceo (4183). 
 
 2 This was Thomas Sackville (1571-1646), son of Lord Buckhurst. He was at 
 Padua in 1591-2, and is entered in the University Register as ' d. Thomas 
 lackavillus nobilis Anglus cum neo sub dextera aure ' (Andrich, p. 133). On 
 Dec. 24, 1595 N. S., he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil from Venice (S. P. Fen.), and 
 on Nov. 14, 1597, to his father from Padua (S.P. Italian States). In 1595 he 
 distinguished himself in fighting against the Turks. (D. N. B., 1, p. 100.) In 1610 
 he is mentioned as a recusant. (Cal. S. P. Dom., 1603-10, p. 593.) In 1615 
 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : ' Thomas Sackville, son to the old Lord 
 Treasurer, is restrained to Padua for some years; his practices deserved a sharper 
 censure, but he was spared for his father's sake.' (Ibid., 1611-18, p. 270. i 
 In 1616 Wotton wrote from Venice that Sackville had gone to Rome, and had 
 been honourably received. He intended to become a priest, and had hopes of 
 being made a cardinal. (S. P. Yen., Aug. -fo, 1616.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 293 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant during his life, 
 
 HENBY WOTTON. 
 
 In Casa d' Alberti, rincontro allafontana del Casato. 
 
 I crave pardon to desire to hear of the receipt of this. 
 
 Mr. Hungerford will more diligently convey your letters than 
 Finder. 
 
 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. 
 
 Written at Sienna this third of 
 
 December, 1592. 
 MOST HONOURABLE LORD, 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 passagyio, 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. The} 7 were printed in Home, and 
 
294 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Kome, 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 
 fpr 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 par- 
 
 1 Roger Baynes (1546-1623), Secretary to Cardinal Allen. 
 
 2 Roberto Bellarmino (1542-1621), Cardinal 1598. 
 
 3 Fynes Moryson when in Rome in 1594 visited Bellarmine, pretending to be 
 a Frenchman. Whether the gifted Jesuit was deceived by the disguises of these 
 young Englishmen history does not inform us. 
 
 * Marie de' Medici, wife of Henri IV in 1600. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 295 
 
 ticipate with your Honour. Sir Walter Raughly out of the town, 
 which the great prize ', 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 2 is yet in antidii termini, and 
 concerning that place in Constantinople, her Majesty's conceit toward 
 the agent there 3 doth daily increase by the singular good demeanour 
 of himself. My brother Edward (which I only writ to this end, be- 
 cause 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant most faithfully, 
 
 H. W. 
 
 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. 
 
 <Siena>. Written this 28th of 
 
 December, 1592. 
 MOST HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 tempera, concerning the number of cardinals, is fallen out 
 quite contrary ; the Pope having on Wednesday morning in the Con- 
 sistory used to the Illustrissimi these words; t Ora sono Papa, fin 
 ora non son stato Papa, non adJieriro a nessun Principe, non faro 
 de' Cardinali, Iddio vi benediea' ; words directly proceeding against 
 the opinion of all, but crossing none more immediately than the 
 Father Toledo 4 , toward whom the Pope is known to have particular 
 inclination. Thus much is certain, that Toledo having given order 
 
 1 The Madre de Dios, captured in the Azores by Ralegh's fleet under the 
 command of Sir John Burgh. (D. N. B., xlvii, p. 191.) 
 
 2 John Wroth : see ante, p. 279. In October, 1598, John Chamberlain mentions 
 him as likely to be sent as ambassador to Constantinople. (Col. S. P. Dom., 
 1598-1601, p. 110.) 
 
 3 Edward Barton. (D. N. J5.) 
 
 * Franceso Toleto, Cardinal 1593. died 15%. 
 
296 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 tcmpom, some- 
 thing seeming to have fallen between the calicem supremaquc labra *. 
 The College hath lately lost the Cardinals Canano 2 , Mondovio 3 , 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 4 , and a great 
 soggetto in the list of the foresters 5 , and sometime schoolmaster to 
 the King of France. The two princes of the house of Bavaria (who 
 passed by these parts toward Eome, as it were making haste), were 
 entertained a while at Caprarola 6 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 7 . Don Pietro di 
 Medici 8 we hear to be married in Spain to the daughter of the 
 Duke of Alba Kegale, having obtained of the King the chancellor- 
 ship of the great Order of St. Jago. The marriage of the Prince 
 Doria 9 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 Eome, whom I hear to be a gentleman of very 
 
 1 ' Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra,' Latin translation of the 
 Greek proverb Tlo\\a fttrafv WA.<I KV\IKOS ical x f ^ fos aicpov. (Zenob., v. 71 ; Aul. 
 Gell., N. Att. xiii. 17). 
 
 2 Julio Canano, Cardinal 1583, died Nov. 28, 1592. 
 
 3 Philippe de Lenoncourt, Cardinal 1586, died Dec. 13, 1592. As Wotton says 
 that ' Mondovio ' had been schoolmaster to Henri IV, he must be referring to 
 de Lenoncourt, who was sent by Henri III in 1585 to Henry of Navarre to 
 instruct him in the Roman Catholic faith. The third Cardinal who died 
 at about this date was Vincenzio Lauria, Cardinal 1583, died Dec. 21, 1592. 
 I am not able to explain why these cardinals are called Mondovio and Sans. 
 
 4 ' Papable,' i. e. Papabile, eligible to the Papacy. 
 
 5 ' Foresters,' i. e. forestieri. 
 
 6 Caprarola, the Farnese villa between Viterbo and Rome. 
 
 7 Alfonso Piccolomini, the famous Sienese bandit, who was captured by the 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany and executed at Florence in 1591. (Platina, Delle Vite 
 del Pontifici (1608), p. 335 6.) 
 
 * ' Pietto ' in Reliq. Don Pietro de' Medici, son of Cosmo I ; his second wife was 
 a daughter of the Duke of Villareale. 
 
 9 Andrea Doria, Prince of Main, married Giovanna, daughter of Fabrizio 
 Colonna and granddaughter of Marcantonio Colonna. (Pompeo Litta, Celebri 
 Famiglie Italiane, Colonna, Tav. ix.) 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 297 
 
 mature judgement. The death of the Duke of Parma 1 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 coun- 
 selled him against his gout. His Kequiem they sang in Kome on 
 the seventeenth of the present, the Cardinal Duartes 2 , 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. 
 
 Your Honour's most faithful servant, 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
 35. To LORD ZOUCHE. 
 
 q., 4th ed., p. 709. Wotton's arrival at Geneva. 
 
 From Geneva this 22th of August (1593). 
 
 MY MOST HONOURED LORD, 
 
 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 Lombard y, as 
 Genoua, Milan, and the rest, I took my course through the Orisons 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. 
 
 1 Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, died Dec. 3, 1592. 
 
 2 Eduardo Farnese. born 1565, Cardinal 1591, died 1626. 
 
298 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Eome, 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 
 
 1 Casaubon and Wotton were old acquaintances, but Casaubon in a letter 
 written in 1594 to Richard Thomson, the Cambridge scholar and manuscript 
 collector, says that it was at the request of Thomson that he took Wotton into 
 his house. (Cas. Epist., i, p. 578.) 
 
 a Ordinances or proclamations of the Council were by ancient custom so made 
 known in the Swiss towns. (Pattison, p. 41 n.) 
 
 8 Henry IV, who formally acknowledged his conversion to Catholicism on 
 July 23, 1593. 
 
 4 ' Appertinent,' i. e. appurtenant. (N. E. Z>.) 
 
 5 Scipioni Alberti : ante, p. 21. 
 
TO LORD ZOUCHE 299 
 
 Fourth. Farther, I expect daily certain other discourses in matter 
 of State from the nephew J 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. 
 
 Your Honour's servant ever, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 (December, 1594?). 
 
 For advertisers of occurrences out of the parts where I have been, 
 the ablest of my acquaintance are these. In Italy Scipione Alberti 2 , 
 a gentleman of Siena, well experienced in the matters of Kome, as 
 having been there a resident courtier twenty-five years, and major- 
 domo 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 3 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 4 , who, through his wisdom 
 
 1 Girolamo Emo, a Venetian noble, inclined to Protestantism, whose acquaint- 
 ance Wotton had made at Siena (see next letter). Emo was a nephew of Agostino 
 Valiero, Cardinal of Verona (1531-1606), a well-known writer and author of an 
 account of the antiquities of Verona. 
 
 2 Ante, p. 21. 
 
 3 Zuane Bassadonna, a Venetian merchant, and informal agent for Venetian 
 affairs, resident in England 1593-99. (Cal. S. P. Fen., ix, p. 389.) 
 
 * Ante, p. 277. 
 
300 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 and badness together, was great with the Duke Francisco 1 , 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 2 , 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, Geneva, 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 3 , 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 hat'h been brought up most 
 part of his life in England. 
 
 In Geneva I had familiar resort to one Eigotier (one of the Twenty- 
 five 4 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 5 , 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 6 , of Italian blood, and one 
 Lingelsheim 7 , 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 8 . 
 
 At Basil the ablest referendary is one Castelione 9 , an Italian 
 
 1 Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1574-87), succeeded by his 
 brother Ferdinand I (1587-1609). 
 
 2 For the story of Humphrey Dethick see Appendix III. 
 
 8 Scipione Lentulo, a Neapolitan by birth, who became a Protestant, and was 
 a. minister at Chiavenna. He was the author of an Italian grammar (1568) and 
 several theological works. Paolo Lentulo (p. 304) was his son. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 4 The Committee of Twenty- five, the general governing body of Geneva. 
 
 6 Probably son of Johann Sturio (1525-62), ' Diaconus, et Adiunctus 
 Facultatis Philosophicae zu Wittenberg.' (Jocher, Gelehrten- Lexicon (1751), iv, 
 p. 908.) 
 
 6 Hippolitus Colli, or a Collibus (1561-1612), diplomatist and Professor of 
 Law at Heidelberg. 
 
 7 George Michael Lingelsheim, Tutor and Councillor of the Elector Palatine. 
 (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 8 Medouse was a correspondent of Casaubon's (see p. 303). 
 
 9 Probably Jean Fra^ois Castillione, son of Guanerio Castillione, a Milanese 
 
TO THE EARL OF ESSEX (?) 301 
 
 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 l , 
 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 Pi-age there is one Hammon, a kinsman to your Lordship's 
 servant of that name 2 , 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 3 at Utrecht, and Pet. Scapius 4 in the Hage, both 
 Doctors in the Civil Laws, of good judgement, diligent, and free. 
 Your Lordship's most humble servant, 
 
 HARRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Plhnouth this 29 of May, 1596. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 5 , in my behalf upon the satisfying of Heeton. 
 
 noble, who became a Protestant and settled in Basle in 1567. (Ferd. Buisson, 
 Seb. Castellion, 1892, ii, p. 284 n.) 
 
 1 Ante, p. 244. 
 
 2 I have not been able to identify this Hammon, or his kinsman ' your Lord- 
 ship's servant', though John Hammond, M.D., 1551-1617, the physician, may 
 be referred to. (D. X. ., xxiv, p. 247.) 
 
 3 Werkovius, a friend of Casaubon's, who was at Geneva while Wotton was 
 there. Casaubon describes him as ' adolescens . . . optimus et pereruditus ' 
 ^Cas. Epist., p. 14.) 
 
 4 ' Petrus Scapius, Hollandus,' was a fellow student with Wotton at Heidelberg 
 in 1590. (G. Toepke, Matrikel der Universittit Heidelberg, Pt. ii, 1886, p. 147.) 
 
 5 By the kindness of Mr. R. S. Rait, I was allowed to examine the Indenture 
 books in the New College Archives, and found that 011 January 13, 1599, a lease 
 of the Manor of Stanton St. John was granted to Henry Wotton. (Registrum Dim. 
 ad Firm., vi, p. 458.) There are two other letters in the Hatfield MS. about 
 this business, one from the Warden and Fellows of New College to Sir Robert 
 Ctcil, dated March 18, 1595-6, in which they state that the Earl of Essex had 
 written in Wotton's behalf, and acknowledge the receipt of Cecil's letter in his 
 favour. 'The commendations,' they say, 'that he brought unto us from so 
 honourable a personage, and the love which we have still borne him (being 
 a man brought up amongst us in our College;, hath made us all unitedly very 
 willing to grant his request.' They add, however, that they are unable to 
 accomplish Cecil's desire apparently the lease had already been promised to 
 Heyton, though the letter is not very clear on this point. (Cecil MS., xxxi, 
 p. 26, calendered Cecil Pp, pt. vi, p. 103.) The second letter is endorsed ' from 
 Mr. Newton, June, 1596,' but is in Italian, and signed ' Foggo Newtoni '. He 
 speaks of Wotton as ' huomo veramente di dottrina singolare, e fra not gratiosissimo ' 
 
 '.il'L, xli, p. 106, CaL. pt. vi, p. 236). The difficulties, whatever they were, were 
 
302 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Most humbly at your commandment, 
 
 HENBY WOTTON. 
 
 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 follow- 
 ing letter, in which he protests he is constant in his affection, blames 
 Casaubon for doubting him, and makes an ingenious if not very con- 
 vincing apology for his silence. 
 
 Ex Aula die xii Decemb. CIOIOXGVI. 
 
 ' Immutari meum erga te animum ! amicitiae nostrae vinculum 
 frangi ita dTroro/xtos ! te amaturum me vel invitum, et a te alienum ! ' 
 
 Hae voces, mi Casaubone, altius descendunt in me quam putas, 
 et Deum testor, qui /capSioyvwcm/s a et KapStoTrAao-r^s 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 Heidel- 
 bergam 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 Khenana 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 (quern 
 
 overcome, and the Manor of Stanton St. John was leased to Wotton in 1599 for 
 twenty years, with its houses, lands, demesnes, and meadows ; the woods and 
 underwoods, the watermill, and the advowson excepted. The rent was six 
 pounds yearly, four pounds to be paid in cash, the rest in wood and malt. 
 Wotton undertook to provide ' a good and sufficient meal and drink ' for the 
 Warden and Fellows and their servants, and provender for their horses, when 
 they visited the estate twice a year on their usual progresses. On January 14, 
 1599, he obtained permission to sublet the property. He must, however, have 
 forfeited or resigned the lease, for on July 20, 1601, the Manor of Stanton St. 
 John was leased to John Hone, of London, for the same rent. (Registnim Dim. ad 
 Firm., vi, p. 544.) 
 
 1 Acts xv. 8 6 KapSioyvuffrrjs &tus. 
 
 2 In April, 1590, see ante, p. 11. 
 
TO ISAAC CASAUBON 303 
 
 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 
 ilia 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, tarn 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 l invicem crimina, vel 
 (quod magnus Thucydides, quern sine te neque amaveram neque 
 intellexeram, observat inter mores Graeciae, sed Graeciae depra- 
 vatae 2 ) 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 : ^7rtoTei9 (inquit) Kcn-e^oto-a 1 s 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 quern esse velis, nee amicitia tua esse cariorem ipsum 
 in patriam reditum aut quicquid hie 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 Be/am *. 
 
 39. ISAACO CASAUBONO. 
 
 Gas. 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. 
 
 Pridie Id. Mart, cio.ioxcvi (March 14, 1596-7 0. S.>. 
 
 Inclusas ad te dederam ante tres menses ; et iterum redierunt 
 ad meas manus ; metu longi itineris an neglegentia mercatorum 
 nescio. Aliquid audivi de tuo discessti (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 
 
 1 ' Depectus dicitur, qui turpiter pactus est.' (Ulp. Dig. iii. 6. 3.) 
 
 2 See Thuc. iii. 82. 
 
 3 The words ffniarti Karf\oiaa occur in Heliodori Aethiopicorum i, chap. 2. 
 
 4 Theodore de Beze, 1519-1605. 
 
304 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 meum. Hasce ad te curat deferri pro sua humanitate Domini Perotti J 
 adolescentior filius, quern nostratem feceramus nisi haereditas abri- 
 puisset. Maximum natu (quern intelligo apud te esse) rogo a me 
 salutes quam poteris humanissime. Vale, 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 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 new^ it contains to 
 Essex, who was then at Court. 
 
 At Plimouth the 30th of October, 1597. 
 
 MY MOST HONOURABLE LORD, 
 
 This morning I have received a letter from one Paolo Lentulo 2 , 
 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' e molto disgusto 
 contra il Re di Francia per cagion delle gran somme (cresciute gia 
 col interesse di tempo) che deve, tan to al universale come alii 
 particular! ; e perche gli anni della Confederatione con Francia 
 sono ultimamente spirati 3 , II Ee di Spagna cerca 4 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, 11011 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 
 
 1 Charles Perrot (1541-1608), Protestant minister at Geneva. (N. B. Gen.} 
 
 2 Son of Scipione Lentulo (ante, p. 300). 
 
 3 Henry IV's troops in his war against Spain were largely drawn from the 
 Swiss Protestant cantons. His alliance with the Swiss expired in 1597, and 
 Philip II attempted to win them over to himself by large promises of money. 
 Henry IV owed as much as thirty-six million francs to the Swiss soldiers, who 
 had not received one-twentieth of their promised pay. (Ed. Rott, Henri IV, Les 
 Suisses et la Haute Italie, 1882, pp. 160, 162, 173.) But the war between France 
 and Spain was ended by the peace of Vervins in 1598. 
 
 * ' Circa ' in Reliq. 
 
TO THE EARL OF ESSEX 305 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 Lord- 
 ship 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's most bounden and 
 
 faithful servant for ever, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 (Dec. 29, 1597, O.S.) 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 2 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 
 
 1 Rudolf II was Archduke of Austria by inheritance, King of Hungary and 
 Bohemia by election. In 1597 he successfully restored the predominance of the 
 Catholic Church in Austria. (Cambridge History, iii, p. 702.) 
 
 8 John Wroth (ante, p. 279) went to Germany in 1598, and visited a number 
 of the Protestant princes, to see what could be done in the way of combining 
 them against Spain. His dispatches are among the German State Papers in the 
 Record Office. The plan of sending Wotton seems to have been abandoned 
 there is no evidence to show that he went to Germany at this time. 
 
 WOTTON. 1 V 
 
305 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 my honest services and endeavours, wheresoever there may be made 
 any use of them. 
 And so I rest, 
 
 Most humbly at your Honour's commandment, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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. 
 
 Mr. Wrath. Wotton. 
 
 The Emperor, The Palsgrave, 
 
 Duke of Saxonie, The Landgrave, 
 
 Duke of Pomern, The Catholic Electors, 
 
 Duke of Brownswick, The Duke of Wirtemberg, 
 
 and the rest in those and the rest of the Western 
 
 Eastern parts. princes. 
 
 42. To JOHN DONNE? 
 
 Butiey 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. 
 
 (Beaumaris, April 11 ?, 1599.) 
 
 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 l by the scanting of the 
 wind upon us, which to me is a preparative for Ir. st ra . 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. 
 
 1 On April 5 the Earl of Essex arrived at Helbre, but the winds proving 
 contrary, he sent on April 8 his pinnaces to Beaumaris, where they arrived on 
 April 11. On this date Essex wrote to the Council, ' All this day the wind con- 
 tinues at north and to the westward, with which wind we cannot seize Dublin.' 
 (Col. S. P. Ireland, 1599-1600, p. 10.) The date of the sailing from Beaumaris is 
 not known, but on April 15 they arrived before Dublin, and the next day they 
 landed. (Ibid., p. 12.) 
 
 2 So in MS. ; possibly, 'Irish storms'? 
 
TO JOHN DONNE? 307 
 
 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 scptics in hebdomada to visit 
 my best and dearest at Thr. 1 
 
 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. 
 
 Dublin, the 19 of April, 1599. 
 
 S. P. MY HONESTEST FRIEND AND FELLOW, 
 
 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. 2 
 
 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 3 died within an hour after my Lord's arrival 
 here, and we yet miss my Lord of Kildare 4 , 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 
 
 Your true friend in all countries and fortunes, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 1 So in MS. ; possibly ' at {the) Treasurer's ' or, as Wotton would have spelt it, 
 Thresorer's. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was now Lord Treasurer. 
 
 * Thomas Jones, Bishop of Meath 1585-1605, Archbishop of Dublin 1605-19. 
 (D. N. B.) 
 
 3 Predecessor of Sir George Carey as Treasurer at Wars in Ireland. (Col. S. P. 
 Irish, 1599-1600, p. x.) 
 
 4 William, thirteenth Earl of Kildare. He attended Essex to Ireland, ' and 
 the weather proving very tempestuous, accompanied his ship with some gallant 
 gentlemen, in a small barque, chosen on purpose for its speed ; which being 
 unfortunately cast away in April, his Lordship and company perished.' (Lodge's 
 Peerage of Ireland, 1789, vol. i, p. 99.) 
 
 x 2 
 
308 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 44. To JOHN DONNE ? 
 
 Burley MS., f. 253 &, 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. 
 
 <1599.) 
 
 SIR, 
 
 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. E., 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. 
 
 1 The Burley MS. contains an unpublished verse epistle from Donne to Wotton 
 in Ireland, complaining that Wotton does not write. I hope shortly to print 
 this, with the other poems and letters of Donne's in the Burley MS. 
 
 8 A. R. : possibly Sir Alexander Radcliffe, who, in June, sent a letter from 
 Ireland to Sir Robert Cecil. (Col. S. P. Irish, 1599-1600, p. 68.) Radcliffe was 
 killed when Sir Conyers Clifford waa defeated at the Curlews on Aug. 5, 1599. 
 (Ibid., p. 113.) 
 
 3 The Earl of Tyrone was the leader of the O'Neiles, Sir Hugh Maguire of the 
 Maguires, Hugh Roe O'Donnell of the O'Donnells, and Con McColl McMahon of 
 the McMahons. For their forces see ibid., p. 136. 
 
TO JOHN DONNE? 309 
 
 45. To JOHN DONNE? 
 
 Sur/ey MS., f. 253 6. 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. 
 
 <1599.> 
 
 SIR, 
 
 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 
 
310 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 uM 
 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. 
 
 (London, Nov., 1600?) 
 SIB, 
 
 I do receive at this time (wherein I suffer some little indis- 
 position 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 2 , which I expect on Monday, for till that 
 
 1 This name is almost undecipherable in the MS. It may stand for a personal 
 name, e. g. ' O'Neale's ', or for Arklow (Arcloe, Arcloughe), co. Wicklow, occupied 
 by Essex on June 21, after defeating the Irish forces. From Arklow, Essex 
 marched direct to Dublin. (S. P. Carew Papers, 1589-1600, p. 312.) Or it may 
 mean Arlo, or Arlow, cos. Tipperary and Limerick, through which the English 
 army probably marched on their way from Tipperary, where they were on June 1, 
 to Limerick, where they arrived on June 4. (Ibid., p. 304.) 
 
 * The lease probably of Stanton St. John (ante, p. 301). 
 
TO EDWARD REYNOLDS 311 
 
 be done, I am peradventure unquieter than other men. I will 
 conclude with your own words and mind, that I am, 
 
 Your very affectionate and assured poor friend, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Florentia Kal. Quadragesimalibus 
 cioioci. Emendation Calculo. 
 (April 1, 1601, N.S.) 1 
 XapieoTcrre, 
 
 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 Cir- 
 culatores oblectant otia sua, parum abest quin ipse etiam in 
 frequentissima urbe de solitudine querar. Imposuit mihi fortuna 
 hanc peregrinationem ; nee incongruens esse videtur ut cuius ante- 
 actam vitam falsa spes elusit, eius ilia 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 ilia tempora, ad ilia 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 sanctis- 
 simae 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 quern tribus obolis emit : ouSev Kar^O^-rjv /cat 
 ouSev t7r/3ia/x(7/v). 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) o-vyKorpi^ovrat : nempe in litterarum honestissima 
 
 1 This method of dating is unusual, but means the first day of the month in 
 Lent. In 1601, Lent began on March 7 in the new style, and the only Kalends 
 in Lent were on April 1 (Mid-Lent), which explains the reference to ' Agyrtas 
 et Circulatores '. 
 
 a Aesopi Vita, chap. v. 
 
312 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 voluptate, qu(ae) in se satis praesidii habet, non solum ad iniuriarum 
 omnium contemptum, sed etiam ad privatam quandam et suo testi- 
 monio contentam immortalitatis laudem. 
 
 Serius multo incipio te salutare quam pro amore nostro debueram : 
 sed in caus . . . fides in curandis litteris : quo me metu . . . 
 luntae 1 humanitas : qui hie Typographicam ex(ercet. artem) 
 . . . Philippo bono sene his proximis diebus ex Angin . . . 
 Is Parisiis institoris loco utitur opera cuiusdam Bibliopolae ve- 
 stratis (cui Somnio 2 nomen) ad signum della biscia : quod quia 
 serpentis genus est nolo familiarius exprimere. Per istum homi- 
 nem 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, tarn procul certe ab 
 omni ostentatione quam ab omni elegaritia. Sed ita remotiores 
 erunt nostri sensus a vulgo, et me fortasse aliquid putabunt quibus 
 hie continget videre tuas ad me X^KvOovs. Per proximam occasionem 
 habebis statum Keipublicae Literariae citra montes. 
 
 Tu interim in omnes partes Vale. 
 
 Homo tuus, 
 HENKICUS WOTTONIUS. 
 
 Saluto optimam 
 foeminam uxorem tuam, 
 liberos, omnemque familiam 
 charissimis verbis. 
 
 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 occupa- 
 tions, and his return from Germany. 
 
 (Florence, June 20, 1602, N.S.) 
 
 Mi CASAUBOKE OPTIME AMICORUM ET SUAVISSIME, 
 
 Causa diuturni silentii mei haec fuit. lam diu sum in adornanda 
 commentatione quadam nostra de Fato 3 , quam composui Graece ; 
 
 1 Probably Modestus Junta or Giunta, one of the famous family of Florentine 
 printers. Modestus was a son of Filippo Junta, ' il giovane,' who died about 
 1604, when his heirs published a catalogue of his books. (N. B. Univ., xxviii, 
 p. 159.) The MS. here is so imperfect that emendation is impossible. 
 
 2 See p. 314, where the name is spelt ' Sonnium.' 
 
 8 In a fragment from a Latin letter to David Hoeschel without date, but 
 
ISAACO CASAUBONO 313 
 
 i. e. ilia lingua quam ipsi etiam Apostoli videntur ceteris omnibus 
 praetulisse, ut non loquar de Philosophis : sed et alia sunt, si non 
 maiora, propinquiora saltern argumenta quae me praecipitarunt in 
 hanc audaciam. Ilia 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 <f>i\o<ro<t>TjTfov ; quae vox (ut nosti) solebat magnum ora- 
 torem consolari in luctu publico. 1 Sed de his rebus fusius tecum 
 postea loquar per epistolam. Decreveram quidem omnino silere, nee 
 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 conde- 
 bamus. 2 Haec sunt quae gestio consignare litteris et praemittere 
 fatali illi 0opia, 3 quam prae manibus habemus. Nee quisquam est 
 quern 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. 4 
 Editionem sola moratur spes, quae mihi a quodam Veneto facta 
 est, de integro fere Hierocle 5 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 /AtyoAoyvw/xova <f>p6vya-iv 6 ; quod me facit avidiorem 
 
 apparently written at about this time, Wotton says, 'Maturamusfocu/uaj' nostram 
 Trepl el^apftevrjs, in qua omnis a nobis castiganda vetustas est. Et sane hac in re 
 magnum accepimus ab iis auxilium, quos vereor ne postea offendamus.' 
 (Heumanni Poecile, Halle, 1722, i, p. 581.) This essay was probably never 
 finished. 
 
 1 Cicero, Ad Att. i. 16, &c. 
 
 a In his letter of Dec. 6, 1600, Casaubon wrote to Wotton, * Meministin* 
 illorum ternporum, cum ante annos sex septem tranquillissime et con- 
 iunctissime soles una condebamus?' (Cas., Epist., p. 594.) 
 
 3 H(pl (lfj.appivr]s, see note 3 above. 
 
 4 ' Mihi fama vilius constet et probetur in me novissimum ingenium.' (Mart., 
 Ep. i, Praefatio.) 
 
 6 Hierocles of Alexandria, who wrote a book Tilfpl Tlpovoias Kal dfjap/jifvrjs KOI 
 TOV (<}>' fifuv irpos T^V Ofiav fjytfjioviav awraftoK. This work is now lost, and all that 
 has come down to us consists of some extracts preserved in Photius (Bibl. Cod. 
 214, 251). (Smith's Dictionary, art. ' Hierocles' (5).) These extracts were pub- 
 lished by F. Morelli at Paris in 1593. with a Latin translation. 
 
 6 *EtcT 8e (naGtlv rr)v 'IepoK\(ovs /jKya^oyvufjLova <pp6vi)aiv duo ruv ovyypannaTcov 
 wv fffpcupfv tls TO, Xpvaa tnr) ruv TlvGayopduv, at tripcuv fttf}\ioa> irtpt Upovoias 
 . (Suidas, Lexicon, art. ' Hierocles ', ed. G. Bernhardy, 1853, i, p. 959.) 
 
314 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 xx lunii, emendatis Fastis. Hue redii e 
 Germaniis ante tres septimanas, ubi contigit mihi refricare memoriam 
 tui in colloquio familiari cum ornatissimis viris DD. Bongartio 1 , 
 Freherio 2 , et Hoeschelio 3 . Scribam ad te hinc per cursorem 
 Komanum, quoties praeteribit hanc urbem nostram Galliam versus : 
 nam non habemus (ut loquuntur) ordinarium. Potes rescribere 
 (et id ut facias per Genios nostros obsecro) per loannem Sonnium, 
 Bibliothecarium et Impressorem Parisiensem, qui curabit litteras 
 ad Modestum luntam 4 , Ph. filium, mihi amicissimum iuvenem. 
 Iterum vale, et uxorem tuam totamque familiam a me quam omcio- 
 cissimis verbis salutes. 
 
 \ 
 49. To BELISARIO VINTA. 
 
 Arch. Ned. 4185, f. 319, holograph. Inscribed, ' Qualita di Ke di Scotia, che 
 fu poi d'Inghilterra.' To an undated Latin letter, signed ' Henricus 
 Wottonius ', in which Wotton recommends an unnamed Englishman 
 to Vinta, he adds in Italian, ' Pigliero ardire fra tre 6 quatro giorni di 
 ricordar v. Sig a d' alcune cose intorno al servitio di S. Altezza Serenis- 
 sima et di Re di Scotia, le quali scrivero in lingua Toscana. 1 (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. 
 
 (Florence, June, 1602 ?> 
 
 QUESTO E QUANTO HO POTUTO OSSEKVARE INTORNO ALLA PERSONA 
 
 DEL KE DI SCOTIA, ET LA QUALITA DI QUELLA CORTE. 
 II detto Ke nacque nell' anno 1566, pur al giudicio della vista 
 non mostra piu di 28 anni, 6 in circa, & 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. 
 
 1 Jacques Bongars or Bongartius (1546-1612). A famous French Protestant 
 scholar and diplomatist, and an intimate friend of Casaubon's. He was at this 
 time acting as agent for Henry IV with the German princes, and was stationed 
 chiefly at Strasburg. (N. B. Gen. ; PaWson, pp. 59, 60.) The MSS. of Bongars are 
 preserved at Berne, and among them is a letter to Wotton (Catalogus Codicum 
 Bernensium, H. Hagen, 1875, p. 226). 
 
 3 Marquard Freher (1565-1612), German historian, and Councillor of Casimir, 
 Regent of the Palatinate. (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 9 David Hoeschel or Hoeschelius (1556-1617), Rector of the College of St. Anne 
 at Augsburg, and one of the most eminent Greek scholars of the time. 
 (N. B. Gen.) 
 
 * See ante, p. 312. Casaubon's answer to this letter dated Paris, July 21, 1602, 
 is printed Cas., Epist., p. 153. 
 
TO BELISARIO VINTA 315 
 
 Discorre volentieri in materia di lettere, et principalmente di Theo- 
 logia. Gran amator di concetti arguti, et il suo discorso proprio 
 ha assai del dotto, et anchora piu dell' eloquente. Porta li capelli 
 corti, all' imitatione del suo avolo Giacobo Quinto, chi fu il primo 
 delli Re di Scotia che disprezzava la zazzera. Patientissimo delli 
 travagli, et poco curioso 6 nelle vivande, 6 nelli habiti. Nel maneggio 
 d' affari grandi e 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' animosita, 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' e bandito. Per le spesse creation! di 
 Marchesi, Conti et Baron i, si possa congietturare che non sia troppo 
 soggietto ad ingielosirsi de' grandi ; benche alcuni pensino che questo 
 si fa piu spesso la che nel Eegno 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 
 e addesso. Fra le sue buone parti non risplende piu in nessuna che 
 nella castita di vita, in che s'e conservato fin adesso, senza alcuna 
 machia, contra 1'essempio di quasi tutti li suoi magiori, i quali, col 
 gran numero di bastardi che lasciavano, inturbidavan lor regni. 
 
 La Corte sua e governata piu alia francese ch' all' inglese. Ogni 
 uno puo intrare quando il Re mangia. FJ servito con berette in 
 testa ; parla con quelli che gli stanno intorno mentre ch' e alia 
 tavola, secondo 1'occasione, et essi a luL Finite pranso, suole restar 
 un pezzo inanzi che si retiri, sentendo burle et motti ; di che ne 
 piglia gran gusto. Fra gli suoi domestic! 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, 6 
 schifandone le spese, 6 fondandosi sopra 1'amor delli suoi, che suoi 
 chiamare la vera guardia di Principi. 1 
 
 La Corte sua e fornita di gran numero di gentilhuomini per la 
 quantita del paese ; fra gli quali e cosa molto difficile per un fores- 
 tiere di viver sconosciuto, perche subito che vi arriva un viso nuovo, 
 domandano, 6 per curiosita naturale, 6 per sicurita della persona del 
 Re, chi sia, et che pretende. In summa mostrano tutti gran zelo 
 verso lor Padrone. 2 
 
 1 Compare the account given by Scaramelli, the Venetian envoy, of James 
 VI's way of life in Scotland. (Col. S. P. Yen., x, p. 46.) 
 
 3 Besides the account of James I, and the letter mentioned above, there are two 
 other undated letters of Wotton's in the Arch. Med., which were probably written 
 at about the same time. The first is in Latin, addressed to Vinta, and signed 
 Henricus Wottmius. Wotton asks for permission to see the Grand Duke, to give 
 
316 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 50. To THOMAS WiLSON. 1 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton sends to Wilson at Venice the 
 news of Florence. 
 
 From Florence, this 5 of July, 1602. 
 SIR, 
 
 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 *, 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. 
 
 him some information about Scotland, and mentions that Sir Robert Drury is 
 coming to Florence. (Arch. Med. 1219, f. 203.) The second (also in Latin) is un- 
 signed. Wotton gives his correspondent an account of the conversation between 
 the Earl of Essex and his chaplain, Thomas Ashton (see Lives and Letters of the 
 Earls of Essex, W. B. Devereux, 1853. ii, pp. 166-7). His object in writing this, 
 was, he said, to contradict the report that Essex had openly confessed his guilt. 
 No task, he added, could be more grateful to him, than to clear from all guilt 
 and obloquy the memory of Essex, ' cuius vita mihi tarn clara, cuius in omni 
 genere excellens virtus mihi sic perspecta et explorata fuit.' (Arch. Med. 4185.) 
 
 1 Thomas Wilson (1560-1629), Keeper of the Records 1606-29, knighted 1618. 
 (D. N. B. and ante, p. 39.) Wilson left Florence for Venice before Wotton's 
 return from Scotland. On March 26, 1602, he wrote to Viiita from Venice, 
 offering his services for procuring news. His letters to Cecil from Venice are in 
 the S. P. Ven. 
 
 2 On Dec. 24, 1601, Lord Mountjoy defeated at Kinsale Tyrone and the 
 Spanish forces which had invaded Ireland. The Spaniards capitulated, and 
 were allowed to return to Spain. (D. N. B., v, p. 241.) 
 
 3 Don Giovanni de' Medici, natural son of Cosmo I of Tuscany. He served 
 in the Spanish armies in the Low Countries, and afterwards commanded the 
 Venetian forces in the Uscock war, dying at Murano in 1621. 
 
 The plot of the Due de Biron. 
 
 8 The preparations were defensive, and no attempt was made on Ireland in 
 this year. 
 
TO THOMAS WILSON 317 
 
 I am not deep enough to judge of great actions ; and therefore let 
 princes do what they will, and we will love one other. 
 
 Your very true friend, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 To my honoured friend 
 Mr. Thomas Wilson, 
 Venetia. 
 
 51. To SIR ROBERT CECIL. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton offers his services to Cecil. 
 
 This 23 of May from Venice, 1603. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 participa- 
 tion 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 
 
 1 i. e. the household of Essex. Wotton afterwards uses the word ' family ' for 
 his own household in Venice, his chaplain, his steward, secretaries, &c. For 
 this use of ' family ' see N. E. D. 
 
318 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 it) reflected some little distrust on me, wherewith the corrupt 
 instruments of families did work upon one that was not worth the 
 considering. 1 
 
 Your Honour seeth how I tumble myself up and down, strengthen- 
 ing 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. 
 
 Eight 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 He means that his rivals in the favour of Essex had made use of Cecil's 
 relations with Edward Wotton to throw suspicion on his (Henry Wotton's) 
 loyalty to Essex. The ties of kindred referred to were probably the marriage of 
 Sir Edward Wotton's daughter, Philippa, to Edmund Bacon, Cecil's cousin (ante, 
 p. 118). 
 
 2 Sir Edward Wotton's letter had evidently been written before the death of 
 Elizabeth. Henry Wotton, having now heard of Cecil's high favour with the 
 King, asks for admission into the public service, as well as for Cecil's private 
 patronage. 
 
TO SIR ROBERT CECIL 319 
 
 Honour should with your excellent instructions first inable * my 
 understanding to your service, and then apply it. 
 
 The God of Heaven preserve your Honour in His blessed favour. 
 Your Honour's, from the day above 
 written to the end of my life, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 This State hath newly chosen two principal gentlemen to be 
 sent ambassadors to his Majesty, Pietro Dodi 2 and Nicolo Molini 3 ; 
 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. 4 
 
 52. To RALPH WINAVOOD. 
 
 Winirood 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. 
 
 From Dover this 19th of July (O.S.), after 
 which day I hope within thirty-five 
 days to be in Venice. 
 SIR, 
 
 The enclosed unto you from my Lord Cecyll 5 is rather of course 
 than necessity, for there is sufficient argument to breed a correspon- 
 dence 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 inter- 
 change 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. 
 
 1 Inable, obsolete form of enable. (N. E. D.) 
 
 2 Pietro Duodo, ambassador extraordinary, who was received by the King at 
 Wilton on Nov. 30, 1603. (Cal S. P. Fen., x, p. xxxiii.) 
 
 * Nicolo Molin, lieger ambassador in England 1603-06. His pay was 200 
 gold ducats a month (50), and he was ordered to keep eleven horses and four 
 coachmen. (Ibid., p. xxi.) 
 
 * Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, Venetian secretary, sent to England in 1603 on 
 a mission to Queen Elizabeth, to endeavour to secure the restitution of Venetian 
 goods captured by English pirates. He reached London on Feb. 7, 1603, and 
 had an audience with Elizabeth on Feb. 10. He left England on Dec. 26. 
 (Cal. S. P. Fen., ix, p. Ixvi ; x, p. 126.) 
 
 5 Sir Robert Cecil, created Lord Cecil of Essendon, May 13, 1604. 
 
320 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 I send you herein a cipher l , as you advised me ; and I commend 
 unto you the bearer hereof, Sir Thomas Gates 2 , 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 3 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 4 in Venice at my arrival ; and 
 I expect you, upon the receipt of this, to begin our weekly inter- 
 course 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, 
 Your faithful friend, to love and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 53. To THE VISCOUNT CRANBOENE. 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice, Dec. 31, 1604, N.S.) 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 This State resolved to send for me into the College on Monday 
 next, and there to give me their resolution about the propositions of 
 
 1 The ciphers Wotton used were of simple numerical kind ; the vowels had five 
 variants, the consonants two. In his first cipher, UW were represented by the 
 numerals from 5 to 9, from 10 to 14, 1 15 to 19, E and A took the numbers to 30, 
 31 and 32 represented B, 33 and 34 G-, and the rest of the consonants had two 
 numerals each in regular succession. Higher numerals stood for individuals, 
 130 Philip III, 134 the Pope, 148 the Duke of Savoy, 160 the Papal Nuncio, etc. 
 Numerals below 6 had no meaning. Almost all the dispatches in the Record 
 Office have already been deciphered. 
 
 2 Sir Thomas Gates (fl. 1591-1621), knighted by Essex at Cadiz, Governor of 
 Virginia 1611-14. (D. N. B.) 
 
 3 Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile, the 
 Spanish ambassador extraordinary, who came to London to ratify the peace 
 between Spain and England. (Gardiner, i, p. 214.) 
 
 4 James Higgens, factor in Venice for the English merchant, Thomas 
 Garroway, see p. 470 n. 
 
TO THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 321 
 
 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 Eome, whence an Italian (who I can assure your 
 Lordship liveth there in sinu Apostolorum) doth advertise me that 
 Sir James Lyndsay s 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 *, and sayeth he, li suoi negotii hanno un buon 
 principio, percJie 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 Kome. And I dare presume by your greater favours, 
 that if his Majesty had, since my departure, resolved to apply him 
 
 1 On November 15, 1604, Wotton presented a memorandum of the grievances 
 of the English merchants. (Col. S. P. Yen., x, p. 191.) On December 23, he 
 requested that two English captains should be paid the money that was owing 
 them from certain Venetians. (Ibid., p. 199.) On December 30, the Senate passed 
 a resolution inviting him to the Collegia, to hear their answer to his requests. 
 (Ibid., p. 203.) On January 3, 1605, the answer of the Senate was read to him. 
 The suits of the two English captains should be settled ; as to the general 
 question of trade between England and Venice, the reply was in effect, that if 
 the restrictions on the Venetians trading in England were removed, they would 
 try to modify their laws affecting English merchants in Venice, with a view 
 to establishing mutual free trade. This was reasonable enough ; Wotton, how- 
 ever, felt, or affected, great surprise at their reply. It was a strange answer, 
 he said, to a just demand to say 'I'll grant your request, if you grant mine'. 
 (Ibid., p. 205.) Wotton's requests were made to the Collegia, which laid them 
 before the Senate. 
 
 a Roland Coitmar (Coymort or Caitmort, as the name is spelt in the Venetian 
 archives). He was captain of the Lucky Elizabeth (Elisabeth Felice}, which he 
 had sold to a Venetian for five thousand ducats, but the money not being paid, 
 Wotton had complained to the Doge about it. (Ibid., p. 200.) 
 
 3 Sir James Lindsay, who was sent to Rome by James I with general messages 
 of civility. He seems to have tried to make out that he was on an official 
 mission to the Pope, who took his visit as a sign that James was contemplating 
 conversion to Catholicism, and appointed a committee of twelve cardinals to take 
 into consideration the state of England. (Gardiner, i, pp. 224-5.) Lindsay was 
 in Venice on November 28, 1604, whence he wrote to Cranborne about Wotton, 
 ' who is a very sufficient gentleman, both well thought of by this estate, and the 
 whole ambassadors that are resident here ; he hath behaved himself very dis- 
 creetly, and is exceeding jealous of those things that concern his Majesty's 
 service.' (S. P. Fen.) 
 
 * Pietro Aldobrandino, nephew of Clement VIII, Cardinal 1593, died 1621. 
 
322 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Eoman 
 style, I always rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's most bound to serve and honour you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 54. To THE VISCOUNT CBANBORNE. 
 
 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 snip by some 
 
 English pirates. 
 
 (Venice, Feb. 6, 1605, N. S.) 
 
 ... 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 \ 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 Geneva, 
 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 
 
 1 The Venetian governor of Zante, Maffio Michiel, the ' hanging governor ' as 
 he was called, had recently caught and executed some English pirates. Being 
 about to return to Venice, he embarked his goods on the ship Moresini to send 
 them in advance to Venice. The pirates, out of revenge, attacked the Moresini 
 near Zante, and plundered his goods, falling on them ' like mad dogs ', smashing 
 with glee his china and majolica, and killing (which Michiel thought the 
 greatest proof of their cruelty) some doves the ladies of his family were sending 
 to Venice. The pirates are described as being all young and beardless, and most 
 of them English. There were four or five captains, one of whom was called 
 1 Bully.' (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, pp. 196, 197.) On Feb. 7 Wotton apologized for their 
 misdeeds. (Ibid., p. 216.) 2 ' Ramass,' i. e. collection. Obs. (N. E. D.) 
 
 s The English complaints were about two English trading vessels, the Sacra 
 and the Angel, which had been treated as pirates by the Venetian galleys, because 
 they refused the right of search claimed by the Venetians. (Ibid., pp. 209, 210.) 
 
 4 'Commercement,' i. e. commerce. Obs. (N.E.D.) 
 
TO THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 323 
 
 advertised in my last) till they understand what hath been proposed 
 by Mr. Secretary Harbert l 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 some- 
 what plain, and therefore (with his Majesty's good liking) I will con- 
 tinue 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's bound always to honour 
 and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Postscript. Their ambassador resident 2 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", 
 and (as I hear) there will be much competition to succeed him. 
 
 55. To THE VISCOUNT CKANBOKNE. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Discrimination between merchant vessels 
 and pirates. The murder of an English merchant. 
 
 3th of May, 1605. 
 
 . . . Here is nothing yet determined in the late deliberations about 
 the means of securing their seas from piracy 4 , 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 " standeth now thus : two days since, the 
 Advocate Finetti (of whom I wrote) was with me ; and again very 
 
 1 Sir John Herbert, second secretary of state, had been appointed to deal 
 with the Venetian ambassador Molin in England, about these questions of 
 trade. (Col. S. P. Ven., x, p. 206.) 
 
 2 Nicolo Molin, who left England Feb. 23, 1606, and was succeeded by Zorzi 
 Giustinian. (Ibid., p. 322.) 
 
 3 Pregati, i. e. Pregadi, Senators. 
 
 4 See ante, p. 74. Wot ton announced the agreement there described on 
 May 28. (Ibid., p. 242.) 
 
 5 Nicolo Balbi, a patrician of Venice, had murdered a rich English merchant 
 trading in the Adriatic, named Nicholas Pert. Pert embarked at Kagusa with 
 Balbi on a vessel belonging to the latter, and Balbi gave him a bag containing 
 a large sum of money which he owed him. One morning Pert was found dead 
 in his cabin with a chest on his head ; the money had disappeared. Balbi 
 tried to bribe Pert's servant to silence, and denied that he had taken Pert's 
 money. Wotton brought the case before the Cabinet, and demanded that Balbi 
 should be tried for mxu-der. (Cat. S. P. Ven., x, pp. 51, 242, 249.) 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, 1 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 com- 
 mission 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. 
 
 Eight 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 
 1 Balbi maintained that Pert had died of a gathering in the head. 
 
TO THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 325 
 
 commended unto me), that I dare conclude he cannot possibly escape, 
 without some most inimaginable accident. Therefore I am pre- 
 paring of myself for it on Wednesday or Thursday next, unless he 
 prevent me. 1 
 
 There is yet no Pope " ; nor, since the inclusion of the cardinals, 
 any certain judgement to be made. Parsons 3 is returned to Kome, 
 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 CRANBOKNE. 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice, May , 1605.) 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 Your Lordship receiveth herein (apart from other businesses) the 
 draft of two instructions given unto two of mine own family 4 ; 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 
 
 1 Wotton had certainly the strongest evidence of Balbi's guilt, as Balbi, grow- 
 ing frightened at the charge, had sent a certain Venetian merchant, named 
 Lorenzo Zanoli, to Wotton to beg him to drop the matter. Zanoli admitted to 
 Wotton that Balbi had in his possession Pert's papers and money, and proposed 
 on Balbi's behalf that these should be secretly restored. Wotton told this to 
 the Collegia ; but in spite of all his evidence and efforts, he could not succeed in 
 bringing the almost sacred person of a Venetian noble to justice, and was indeed, 
 he complained, severely censured for ' villifying the Venetian nobility '. Zanoli 
 was got rid of by a charge, which was trumped up against him, of molesting 
 a Venetian lady whom he wished to marry ; he had climbed the garden wall 
 of her villa on the Brenta, and a strong smell of musk had revealed his presence 
 in the shrubs ; he had beaten her servants, and a certain Dr. Quattr'occhi 
 declared that he had several times seen him swimming across the Brenta to 
 the lady's villa. Zanoli was thereupon declared mad, and deported to Verona. 
 (Cal. S.P. Ven., x, p. 42:! n. 
 
 When Balbi's acquittal was announced to Wotton on Sept. 15, he replied 
 ironically to the Cabinet, that he was glad to be able to report to the King that, 
 in the opinion of so grave a tribunal as the Council of Ten, Nicholas Pert died 
 a natural death. ' I am glad too,' he added, ' for my own sake, for my nature 
 delights much more in the dance, the festival, the comedy, than in tragic and 
 terrible spectacles. . . . Signer Balbi is acquitted, and acquitted be it, and there 's 
 an end on't. (Ibid., p. 272.) Wotton, however, succeeded in getting Pert's 
 property restored to his heirs. 
 
 2 Clement VIII (Hippolito Aldobrandino) died on March 5, 1605. His suc- 
 cessor, Leo XI, survived his election only twenty-six days. Paul V (Camillo 
 Borghese) was elected on May 1C, three days after this dispatch was written. 
 
 3 ' 175 ' in Wotton's cipher. Wotton's letter about Parsons has been lost. 
 
 4 These instructions have not been preserved in the Record Office ; there are, 
 however, unsigned transcripts in the Cotton MS. in the British Museum (Jul. E, ii, 
 87, 105). 
 
326 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 complaints as may peradventure be laid upon me from the Spanish 
 side, as I have been already battered by the French. 1 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; Ifound 
 that there was much hope laid upon the preparations of this year, 2 
 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. 3 Lastly, I believed (and so I do still) that the matter 
 between Fuentes 4 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 judge- 
 ment 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 Eouland Woodward 5 , 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, 6 with a letter to the Count Fuentes 
 
 1 See ante, p. 61. 
 
 2 After the fall of Ostend in 1604 the Spaniards made energetic preparations for 
 the campaign of 1605, and troops were recruited in Naples and Milan, and sent 
 to Brussels. (Motley, U. N., iv, p. 241.) 
 
 3 Spinola went to Spain in Dec. 1604, after the capture of Ostend. Early in 
 the spring he returned to Brussels through France. (Ibid., pp. 210, 211.) 
 
 * Count Fuentes, appointed Governor of Milan in 1 600. He was a fiery and 
 turbulent old soldier, and with his intrigues and schemes of aggrandizement 
 kept the north of Italy in a state of turmoil and alarm. In 1603 a league was 
 established between Venice and the Swiss Protestant Republics of the Grisons ; 
 Fuentes thereupon built a fort on the Montecchio to threaten the Valtelline, 
 which was subject to the Grisons, and to close the Spliigeii pass to the Venetians. 
 
 5 Rowland Woodward, see Appendix III. 
 
 6 Rowland Woodward's instructions were to observe the state of things in 
 Lombardy, to learn what forces were being levied for the Low Countries or 
 Hungary, what outlay, what furniture, what pay and the like ; to get some 
 
TO THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 327 
 
 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 1 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 2 
 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 3 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 
 
 knowledge of Spinola's designs, and a sight of his person if he came to Milan, 
 and to discover the strength of Fuentes' fort on the Montecchio. Finally he 
 was to remember a rule given to Wotton by a Roman courtier, a caminarse per il 
 mondo con li pensieri stretti et il visa sciolto, ' And so God be with you.' (Cotton MS. , 
 Jul. E, ii. f. 87.) 
 
 1 April 8 N. S. 2 ' Bewrayed,' betrayed, revealed. Obs. (N. E. D.) 
 
 3 Edward Stanley, son of Sir Rowland Stanley of Hooton and Stourton, and 
 brother of the Sir William Stanley who betrayed Deventer to the Spaniards in 
 1587. (D.N. B., liv, p. 83.) 
 
328 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 instru- 
 ment 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 K ing of Spay ne 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. 1 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, 
 
 1 'Instructions given to George Rooke going into Sicily, 1604 '(5). Cotton 
 .VS., Jul. E, ii. 105). George Rooke was to demand the release of certain 
 English ships detained by the Spanish Viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Feria. At 
 Naples he was to contradict 'certain devilish reports' against James I, dis- 
 seminated in Naples by the Jesuit Parsons, who retired thither shortly before 
 the death of Clement VIII, having fallen into disgrace at the Court of Rome. 
 By means of his secretary these reports had reached the ears of the Viceroy, 
 the Count of Benevento, and Wotton wished them contradicted, 'although the 
 speech of so unclean a mouth and conscience can no way blemish his Majesty's 
 honour.' The other point touched Wotton more nearly. Parsons, by means 
 of the Viceroy's secretary, had managed to get a certain Irishman named Wale 
 placed in a kind of Consulship over the English merchants at Naples ; and as 
 Wotton had charge of all matters of trade in Italian ports, this appointment 
 was a 'base and unsupportable intrusion'. Rooke was to 'deal in it very 
 roundly ', calling together the English merchants, and reading them Cranborne's 
 letter of Jan. 23, 1605, to the merchants of Pisa and Leghorn, which ordered 
 them to refer all matters of trade to Wotton. Rooke was to recommend Capt. 
 Alexander Hebrun (Hepburn ?) for Wale's place. He was to observe the nature 
 of the places through which he passed, and all the remarkable occurrences. 
 ' And so God bless you,' the instructions end. 
 
TO THE VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 329 
 
 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 l of Kent, a very indus- 
 trious 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENBY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice this 8 of July, 1605. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 2 ; 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. 3 
 The Emperor hath sent unto him for money ; whereof he is con- 
 tented, 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 veiy well ; and therefore we conclude 
 he must love Spayne, for Fraunce yieldeth him nothing. . . . Your 
 
 1 George Rooke, see Appendix III. 
 
 2 Referring of course to the war still being waged between Spain and the 
 United Provinces. 
 
 3 On Nov. 25 Wotton wrote to Edmondes, ' The Pope is in all things a great 
 imitator of Clement VIII hitherto, to whom he was not only a creature, but 
 a deerling.' (Stowe MS. 168, f. 253.) 
 
330 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 Lordship hath heard of the killing of Mr. Arthur Poole 1 , a fruit 
 of the Eoman 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 2 , 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's most 
 affectionate friend to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. s 
 
 58. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven^ transcript, extract. Methods of converting Englishmen to 
 Roman Catholicism. Rome under Paul V. 
 
 The 18 of August, 1605. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 4 , 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 con- 
 tagion ; which I think to concern me more particularly than any 
 
 1 Arthur Pole, eldest son of Geoffrey Pole. Geoffrey Pole was a nephew of 
 Cardinal Pole, and a Catholic exile at Home. Arthur, born 1575, was educated 
 in the Farnese Palace with the son of the Duke of Parma. (T. F. Knox, Records 
 of English Catholics, i, p. 190 ; ii, p. 173 n.) 
 
 a ' Doubles,' i. e. doubloons. The doubloon was ' a Spanish gold coin, origin- 
 ally double the value of a pistole, i. e. =33 to 36 shillings English '. (N. E. D.~) 
 
 9 On July 13, Wotton wrote to Edmondes asking for a safe address to which 
 he could send his letters, ' for if your country be like ours, the name of an 
 ambassador on the outside may peradventure as much endanger as secure 
 a letter.' 'We are all well in this poor family,' he adds, 'measuring our 
 happiness rather by health than plenty.' (Stowe MS. 168, f. 71.) On Aug. 11 he 
 wrote that he had newly returned from his villa, ' fuller of fresh air than any 
 other matter.' (Ibid., f. 93.) On Sept. 16 he wrote that he was expecting a cipher 
 which, when once received, 'you will see how I will babble.' (Ibid., f. 139.) 
 .. * This refers to a conflict in Herefordshire between the sheriff and a body 
 of Catholics, who were especially numerous in that county. (Gardiner, i, p. 242.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 331 
 
 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 sj>eak 
 plainly of it ; and I am not afraid of offending even the narrowest 
 confiner and circumscribe! 1 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 cor- 
 rupted, 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 ambas- 
 sador's house upon their arrival in London ; as Doctor Thornel l , 
 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 2 in Paris to Mr. Nicholas Fitzharbert 3 ; 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 ambas- 
 sador'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 
 
 1 Dr. John Thornell or Thornhill, Doctor of Canon Law and of Divinity. 
 (Archpriest Controversy, T. G. Law, 1890, i, p. 1C n.) 
 
 2 Christopher Bagshaw Belied 1(525?}, Catholic controversialist. (D. N. B.} 
 
 5 Nicholas Fitzherbert (15oO-1612\ formerly secretary to Cardinal Allen, now 
 a spy in Wottoii's employment. (See p. 442.) 
 
332 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 J , or (which seemeth more probable) out of fear of the great 
 and sudden mortality of Popes before him. Howsoever, whether 
 this indifferent humour were innated 2 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 Eome, 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 3 ) out of England hither to ask him pardon ; whereupon said 
 
 1 Cardinal Toleto, ante, p. 295. 2 ' Innated,' i. e. innate. (N.E. D.) 
 
 3 Anthony Copley, William Watson, and William Clark (who all wrote 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 333 
 
 one of them : Opera manuuvn Dei veritas et indicium '. 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 posted 
 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 2 ), 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 here- 
 after carry the name of his uncle) ; well then, for the manner of pro- 
 ceeding 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. 
 
 against Parsons in the Archpriest Controversy), were condemned to death for 
 participation in the plot of 1603 against James I. Copley turned king's evidence 
 and was pardoned ; Watson and Clark were both executed. 
 
 1 Ps. ex. 7. 
 
 2 Scipione Caffarella, changed his name to Borghese, created Cardinal 1605, 
 died 1633. 
 
334 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 1 into near credit 
 about him, a man suspected by the Jesuits ; by the continuing like- 
 wise 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 indis- 
 position 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 2 , 
 Henry Orland, Roberts 3 , 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 main- 
 tenance, 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 
 
 1 Peter Lombard, died 1625. (D. N. B.) 
 
 2 John Wilson was one of Parsons' secretaries. (Foley, vi, p. 228.) 
 
 3 Probably Father John Roberts, died 1610. (Hid., p. 161.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 335 
 
 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 cfficio, 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 l (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 con- 
 verter^}, yet less malicious and virulent. If his Majesty shall in his 
 
 1 John, Lord Erskine, eldest son of John, seventh Earl of Mar. Wotton 
 presented him to the Doge on April 2, 1605. (Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 233.) 
 
336 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 SIE THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 168, f. 179, dictated, extract. Wotton's return to Venice 
 after the September villeggiatura. 
 
 (Venice) Friday the 14th of 
 
 October, 1605 (N.S.) 
 MY VEEY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 \ 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's in very true 
 
 affection to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 In 1604 the plottings of the Counts of Auvergne and Entragues for the 
 assassination of Henri IV were discovered. They were tried, and condemned 
 on February 1, 1605. Some troubles followed in the south, in districts under 
 the influence of Bouillon and the family of Biron, 
 
 2 Henri de la Tour d' Auvergne, due de Bouillon (1555-1623). 
 
 3 The unsuccessful attempt of the Spaniards to take Bergen-op-Zoom on 
 September 20. (Motley, U. N., iv, p. 233.) 
 
 * The Marquis Spinola, who tried, but unsuccessfully, to have himself made 
 a grandee of Spain, as a reward for the capture of Ostend (Ibid., p. 210.) 
 
 6 A report current in Venice, though I find no reference to it in English 
 letters of the time. Giorgio Bartoli, secretary of the Tuscan resident at Venice, 
 mentions it in a letter of October 5. (Arch. Ned. 1299.) 
 
 Magdalen, daughter of Sir John Wood, Clerk of the Signet. She died at 
 Paris, December 31, 1614. (D. N. B., xvi, p. 392.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 337 
 
 60. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. The illness of the Doge Grimani. 
 
 (Venice) the 25 of 9ber, 1605. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's to serve 
 
 and honour you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 61. To SIB THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 168, f. 283, dictated. Death of the Doge Grimani. 
 
 (Venice) the 23 of December, 1605. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I have had no letters from your Lordship these three weeks. 
 The last night the Prince departed this life. The Cavalier 
 Lunardo Donate, 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 suf- 
 ficiency ; 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. 
 
 I rest your Lordship's 
 most affectionate to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 I remember always 
 my hearty services 
 to my honourable 
 Lady your wife, and 
 am sorry for your late common grief. 
 
338 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 62. To EDWARD BARRETT l . 
 
 HarL MS. 1579, f. 125, transcript. The deaths of Pickering 
 Wotton and the Doge Grimani. 
 
 From Venice, the last of December, 
 
 1605. Style of the place. 
 SIB, 
 
 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 fiatDomine. I received 
 yesterday the enclosed from the Cavalier Vinta 8 , which signifying 
 
 1 Edward Barrett, son of Charles Barrett, of Belhus, Essex. He was at Queen's 
 College, Oxford, matric. 1598, aet. 16, student of Lincoln's Inn 1600, knighted 
 1608, M.P. Whitchurch 1614, Newport 1621-2, Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 1628, created Lord Barrett of Newburgh, in Scotland, 1627, died 1644. (Foster, 
 Ox.) Barrett was then in Florence. In the Harl. MS. there are transcripts of 
 four letters from Wotton to Barrett endorsed, ' These four letters were written 
 by that great wit, Sir Henry Wotton.' 
 
 2 Pickering Wotton, see Appendix III. 
 
 s Belisario Vinta, secretary to the Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany (see 
 ante, p. 40). Wotton corresponded on friendly terms with Vinta, until the 
 quarrel between England and Tuscany in 1607. Four notes from Wotton in 
 Venice to Vinta are in the Arch. Med., dated November 12, 1604, November 12, 
 1605, December 10, 1605, February 14, 1605-6 (vol. 1220), but contain 
 nothing of interest or importance. A copy of Wotton's letter to the Grand 
 Duke (mentioned above) is preserved in the S. P. Tuscany (no date, at end 
 of vol. ii). Wotton protests against the use made by the Grand Duke of an 
 English ship, the Merchant Royal. Early in 1605, the Merchant Royal, owned 
 by one Cockaine, with Kobert Thornton for captain, put in for a cargo at 
 Leghorn. The Grand Duke forced the ship to join his fleet, and sent it towards 
 Constantinople, where it attacked and captured a Turkish galleon. The Turks 
 in revenge burnt an English ship at Constantinople, and the English merchants 
 were in great alarm lest they should lose their trade in the East. Thornton 
 returned with his booty early in 1606 to Leghorn, but refused to come within 
 gunshot. The Grand Duke (who was anxious for his share of the booty, and 
 wished to keep Thornton in his service) wrote to Montauto, asking him to 
 induce Wotton to write to Thornton, telling him he had better remain in the 
 Tuscan fleet, as he would not be safe anywhere else. Wotton wrote to Thornton 
 to this effect, and succeeded in keeping Thornton from returning to England. 
 His reason for this, as he wrote to Salisbury, was that the Grand Duke promised, 
 in return for this service, to do all he could to protect the English merchants. 
 (S. P. Fen., February 26, 1606.) He thought, no doubt, that if Thornton 
 returned to England, the English would be held responsible for his past acts ; 
 but as an additional inducement the Grand Duke promised him a 'recognition' 
 for his service, in other words, a sum of money. (Dispatch of Montauto, June 30, 
 1607, Arch. Med. 3000.) This money was not paid, however, till the following 
 year. (See p. 388 n.) 
 
TO EDWARD BARRETT 339 
 
 the Duke's sudden departure upon your access alia 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. 1 
 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 Donate, 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, 2 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 
 
 1 The Doge Marino Grimani died on Saturday, December 23, but the fact of 
 his death was not made known until Monday, the 25th, which is always given 
 as the date of his death in Venetian history. 
 
 On December 30, 1605, Wotton expressed to the College his condolence on 
 the death of the Doge. ' Neither prominence of rank nor natural goodness, not 
 charity to the poor nor love of justice, not civil wisdom nor holiness of living, 
 have availed to privilege him against the great decree of nature, Orta ut morian- 
 tur.' (Cal. S. P. Fen., x, p. 307.) For a book from the library of the Doge 
 Grimani, presented by Wotton in 1633 to the Bodleian Library, see ante, p. 210. 
 
 a The Gunpowder Plot. On January 30, 1606, Wotton gave, in a ' long and 
 ordered discourse ', a full account to the Doge and Cabinet of the discovery of 
 this plot. The whole plot was so horrible, he said, that, save for express orders 
 from the King, he would have wished to have cloaked their shame in silence, 
 ; rather than let it be known that English breasts had harboured so foul and 
 diabolical a plan. 1 (Cal. S. P. Yen., x. pp. 315-17.) 
 
 z 2 
 
340 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 absolution, by which a priest had assured the conscience of that 
 Johnson or Vaux l (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. 
 
 Your dear friend to serve and love you, 
 
 HENEY WOTTON. 
 
 63. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 168, f. 299, dictated. The quarrel between the 
 Republic and the Pope. 
 
 Venice the 20th of January, 1605(6). 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 Donate is chosen in his room, a wise and beaten 2 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. 3 Whereupon hath ensued a monitorial 
 brief, summoning the Signory to obedience, and in defect thereof 
 menacing the excommunicatory sentence, which indeed they have 
 
 1 Guy Fawkes, when first arrested, gave his name as Johnson. 
 
 2 ' Beaten ', see N. E. D., quoting Cotgrave : ' Pauls rompu, a subtill fellow, one 
 that hath bin much beaten to the world.' 
 
 * On January 13, Wotton sent to England an account of the beginning of this 
 quarrel which has not been preserved, but which is described as follows in 
 a note among the Venetian State Papers in the Record Office : ' A letter con- 
 taining at large a relation of the Schism likely to grow between the State and 
 the Church of Rome, with the Consultations thereupon.' 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 341 
 
 incurred ipso facto, or lata sententia l (as the canonists term it). 
 And therefore the manner of proceeding with them hath been some- 
 what 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 a 
 accused of many foul crimes, and a Canonico 3 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 * (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 
 
 Your Lordship's very assured and 
 
 affectionate friend to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 64. To SIB THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 168, f. 334, holograph, extract. The quarrel with the 
 Pope, and the news of Venice. 
 
 Venice, the 17 of February, 1605(6). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 ... 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 5 , 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 excommuni- 
 cation, 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 
 
 1 The canonists distinguish between two kinds of excommunication : (1) 
 Sententiae latae, where the offence was of such a nature that excommunication 
 was ipso facto incurred ; (2) Sententiae ferendae, where fulmination by a competent 
 authority was necessary. (Moroni, Disionario di Erudizione Storico-Ecdesiastica, Ixii, 
 p. 201.) 
 
 2 Brandolin, who was accused of various crimes, including parricide. 
 s Saraceni. * See ante, p. 319. 
 
 5 ' Politiques ', old form for ' politicians '. 
 
342 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 of Urbin 1 , 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 govern- 
 ment. 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 2 , 
 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 3 in Geneva, 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you most affectionate service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 65. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Death of the Doge Grimani, and character 
 of his successor, Leonardo Donato. 
 
 (Venice, Feb. 18, 1606, N.S.) 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 Franceso Maria II della Rovere (1574-1631). Wotton wrote (April 20, 1609) 
 that without the goodwill of the Pope and the King of Spain, ' the Duke of 
 Urbin will scant eat his breakfast, being the most superstitiousand Spagnio- 
 lized Prince of Italy.' (S. P. Ven.) 
 
 2 The army of Cicala, the Turkish general, was defeated by the Persians at 
 the Lake of Tebriz on August 6, 1605. 
 
 8 Spinola, the general of the Spanish armies in the Low Countries, went to 
 Genoa (his native town) on his return from Spain in 1606, and fell ill there. 
 (Motley, U. N., iv, p. 237.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 343 
 
 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 J ; 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. 3 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 ; where- 
 upon, 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' 
 
 1 Jacobo Foscarini, a Venetian general, 1523-1603, unsuccessful candidate for 
 Dogeship 1595. (Cigogna, iv, p. 417 ; v, p. 666.) 
 
 2 December 25, 1605. 
 
 3 Alvise Priuli, Reformatore dello Studio di Padora 1604. (Cigogna, v, p. 216 n.) 
 
344 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 Anthonio Memo *, all three Procuratori di S. Marco 2 , all three of 
 great age ; and in several respects much to be said, much to be 
 hoped, of each of them. 
 
 Donate 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 1 the exclusion of Donate. 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 s , and the ecclesias- 
 tical preferments of Delphino 4 ; 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. 5 
 
 1 Marc' Antonio Memmo, Doge XCI, 1612-15. 
 
 2 The position of the Procuratori di S. Marco (of whom there were nine) was one 
 of great dignity, and was held for life. Originally appointed for the super- 
 vision of S. Marco and other buildings, they had gradually been invested with 
 other functions, especially the wardship of widows and orphans. (Romanin, viii, 
 p. 394.) 
 
 8 In 1603, ante, p. 343. 
 
 4 Giovanni Delfino, Cardinal 1604, died 1622. 
 
 5 For Wotton's speech, congratulating Donato on his election, see ante, p. 54. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 345 
 
 66. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton sends two intercepted letters to 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 The 22 of April, 1606. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice) the 28th of April 1606 <N. S.). 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 Antonio Possevino (an'e, p. 291), the Jesuit controversialist. Wotton, in one 
 of his previous sojourns in Italy, had often visited Possevino, who regarded 
 him, Wotton told the Doge, as ' one of his lambs '. Shortly after Wotton's 
 arrival as ambassador, Possevino, who was then in Venice, wrote to him to say 
 that he had orders from the Pope to enter into negotiations with him, and 
 asked for an interview at his house. Wotton replied that, however much he 
 loved and esteemed Possevino personally, he could not receive a Jesuit at his 
 house, and appointed a meeting at the Church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, 
 which he was in the habit of visiting to study certain pictures. At this 
 meeting Possevino expressed in the Pope's name ' how much his Holiness 
 admired and esteemed his Majesty, and he would prove it on every occasion, 
 saha la religione Cattolica '. Wotton gave a full account of his interview to the Doge 
 on Dec. 13, 1606. (Cal. S. P, Ven., x, pp. 443, 444.) His dispatch about it to 
 Salisbury has been lost, but from an abstract of it, it appears that he believed 
 that Possevino, who claimed to have converted the French ambassador, de 
 Fresne-Canaye, hoped to convert him also. (S. P. Ven., Dec. 27, 1605.) Two of 
 Possevino's letters to Wotton, with transcripts of Wotton's replies, were sent to 
 England and are now in the Record Office. (S. P. Ven., Feb. 25, 1605.) The 
 intercepted letter mentioned above contained information about proceedings 
 which were being secretly taken at Rome against Paolo Sarpi. On Sunday, 
 April 9, Wotton showed this letter, under the seal of profound secrecy, to the 
 Venetian secretary, Scaramelli, arranging for this purpose, with permission of 
 the Council of Ten, a meeting in the Church of St. Gerolamo near his house. 
 He told Scaramelli that he had secret spies in the very penetralia of the Roman 
 Court, and often received from them information which might be useful to the 
 Venetians. With his usual frankness he added, ' It must never be said I have 
 used such expressions, and that is the reason why I have desired to communicate 
 with a single person only, so that if faith be broken, which I do not believe will 
 happen, I can deny that I ever said anything of the kind ' (per poter, quando 
 mi fosse mancato di fede (che questo no lo aspetto mai), dire di non lo haver 
 detto). (Ibid., pp. 334, 335, and Esp. Prin.) 
 
346 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Kome 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 Eobert Basset 3 and Mr. Geoffrey Poole 4 from Eome 
 towards the Low Countries. And so I rest humbly and always, 
 Your Lordship's bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Signer Molino 5 arrived here yesterday, and hath this morning been 
 in College. 
 
 1 The quarrel with the Pope had now reached a crisis. On Feb. 26 the letter 
 about the arrested priests had been received, and the Republic had refused to 
 give them up. The Pope answered with sentence of excommunication on the 
 Doge, the Senate, and all the authorities of Venice, allowing only a period of 
 twenty-four days for recantation, after which the Venetian territories were to 
 lie under interdict, divine worship being prohibited in all chapels and churches. 
 Venice then issued the edict described above. 
 
 a Edward Partridge, see Appendix III. On June 16 Salisbury wrote to 
 Wotton of Partridge's arrival. (0. & T. Jas. I, i, p. 63.) 
 
 3 Sir Robert Basset, son of Sir Arthur Basset. Being descended from the 
 Plantagenets through his grandmother, daughter and co-heir of Arthur 
 Plantagenet, he made some pretensions to the crown of England after the 
 death of Elizabeth, and was obliged to fly abroad to save his head. (N. & Q., 
 5th Ser., iv, p. 98.) In 1609 he returned from Italy declaring (with great good 
 sense) ' that he had rather be a gentleman in England, well at his ease, than 
 a wandering Prince in imagination'. (Camd. Epist., p. 125.) 
 
 4 Geoffrey Pole, brother of Arthur Pole (ante, p. 330). 
 
 5 Nicolb Molin, late Venetian ambassador in England. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 347 
 
 68. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Yen., holograph, extract. The departure of the Jesuits from Venice. 
 
 From Venice the 12 of May, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 compre- 
 hended 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 accord- 
 ingly been executed here. 1 Now before their going, one of the 
 principalest and boldest of them (called II 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 
 
 1 James I was delighted with the news, sent him in the above dispatch, 
 of the expulsion of the Jesuits. ' blessed and wise Eepublic,' he exclaimed 
 to Zorzi Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, ' how well she knows how to 
 preserve her liberty ; for the Jesuits are the worst and most seditious fellows 
 in the world. They are slaves and spies, as you know.' The erudite King had 
 already indulged in a long and learned discourse about papal usurpations, and 
 now treated the ambassador (who was hoping to make his escape) to another 
 lengthy dissertation about the Jesuits. ' By an able induction from all the king- 
 doms and provinces of the world, he demonstrated that they have always been the 
 authors and instruments of all the great disturbances which have taken place.' 
 At last Lord Salisbury drew near to treat of other affairs, and the ambassador 
 was allowed to depart. (Dispatch of Giustinian, June 14, 1606, Cal. S. P. 
 Yen., x, p. 361.) 
 
 2 Giovanni Barone, a native of Venice. (Sarpi, Hist. Part, p. 88.) 
 
348 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Lord- 
 ship's last dispatch (which came very seasonably) the guiltiness of the 
 foresaid Provincial \ 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, 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour 
 
 and serve you, 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 69. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven,, holograph, extract. The quarrel with the Pope. 
 
 From Venice the 19th of May, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 Eome 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 
 
 1 Garnet. For this speech of Wotton's (May 6) see ante, p. 54. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 349 
 
 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 Kome 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 * 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 8 wisdom 
 and magnanimity. And I hope God hath appointed the re-entrance 
 of His truth by such a beginning into this goodly countiy, 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 
 1 It was not until April 21 that the English ambassador was officially 
 informed of the quarrel with the Pope. He complained that this information 
 had been given to the other ambassadors earlier than to him, and felt that this 
 was a slight, not because he was moved by curiosity to pry into other people's 
 affairs, but because it seemed as if they distrusted him. As a matter of fact 
 they ought to have confided in him before any other envoy ; his King was 
 a warm friend of the Republic, he himself a true and loyal servant of the Doge ; 
 and he represented moreover a country ' where they knew to a farthing how 
 much excommunication was worth '. But that morning's audience had consoled 
 him ; he expressed his approval of the Venetian cause, and promised to ' work out 
 his conceptions ' for a later audience. (Cal. S. P. Fen., x, p. 339.) On May 6 he 
 had another audience, and gave the result of the working out of his conceptions, 
 in an amusing and characteristic speech. (Ante, pp. 54, 348.) On the 16th he 
 came again, arid was officially informed of the recall of the Papal Nuncio, and the 
 departure of the Venetian ambassador from Rome. He told the Doge that he 
 had been continually 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 suggested a scheme for a defensive league between 
 Venice, Great Britain, France, the Swiss Cantons, and possibly a German 
 Prince. The Doge, however, showed as yet no enthusiasm for the plan of 
 a league. Venice, he said, was resolved to maintain its faith, and could not at 
 present embark on such a negotiation. (Cal. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 348, 349). 
 
 3 ' Censure," obs. use, to form or give a ' censure ' or opinion of. (N. E. D.) 
 
 3 ' Exemplar,' obs. form of ' exemplary '. (N. E. D.) 
 
350 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Christ! at Venice. How the Benedictines 
 contrived to elude the Pope's sentence of excommunication. "Wotton 
 asks for more secret-service money. 
 
 (Venice, May 26, 1606, N.S.) 
 
 . . . 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 guae Dei, 2 Omnis anima subdita sit potestatibus sublimioribus* 
 Segnum 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, 
 
 1 ' Data est mihi omnis potestas.' (Matt, xxviii. 18.) 
 
 2 ' Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari : et quae sunt Dei, Deo.' (Mark xii. 
 17 ; Luke xx. 25.) 
 
 3 ' Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit.' (Rom. xiii. 1.) 
 * John xviii. 36. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 351 
 
 upon the inclination of things that way, begun to take order for an 
 Italian preacher 1 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 unquietiiess (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 z ; 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 Wottoii wrote to Giovanni Diodati, the translator of the Italian Bible, to 
 send a Protestant preacher to Venice. Two years later Diodati came himself. 
 (Ritter, ii, p. 76 n.) 
 
 a On June 5, 1606, Wotton was paid 200 'for intelligences, sending of letters 
 and other disbursements'. (Issues Ex., p. 38.) 
 
352 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 71. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. War expected. An intercepted letter. 
 
 From Venice the 8th of June, 1606. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 Kome 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 72. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton's audience of June 13. 
 
 From Venice this 16 of June, 1606. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I was on Tuesday last 2 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 
 
 1 Both Venice and the Pope were now arming. A strong party among the 
 Spaniards, partly out of zeal for the Church, and partly too from hatred to 
 Venice, and the desire to subdue the only really independent state in Italy, 
 was anxious for war, and kept urging the Pope to aggressive measures. In 
 France, on the other hand, the war party consisted of the zealous Protestants, 
 great numbers of whom offered to enlist in a war against the Pope. At this 
 time most observers thought that war was inevitable. 
 
 2 June 13. (Col. S. P. Ven., x, p. 356.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 353 
 
 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 Kome (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 : l 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 2 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 73. To THE EAEL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Process against the Jesuits. Character 
 of the Doge Donate. 
 
 From Venice, the 23rd of June, 1606. 
 
 . . . 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 
 
 1 This dispatch of Wotton's to James I is dated June 16. He discusses the 
 attitude of the principal foreign powers towards Venice. The King of Spain was 
 entirely on the side of the Pope ; the Grand Duke of Tuscany had attempted to 
 mediate, while Henry IV had hitherto been ' cold, intricate, ambiguous, and, as 
 one of them said of him more liker an oracle than a friend', and, indeed, 
 in appearance, more Papal than Venetian in his sympathies. This attitude, being 
 contrary to his interest ('by which,' said Wotton, 'the Italians seemed to 
 measure all things') was variously explained. Some thought it was due to his 
 being under the influence of the Jesuits ; while others believed that he was 
 anxious for the friendship of the Pope, in order to assure the legitimacy of the 
 Dauphin, or, perhaps, to be made Emperor by the Pope's help. (S. P. Fen.) 
 
 3 ' Fledge,' fit to fly of young birds. (N. E. D.) 
 
 WOTTOX. I 
 
354 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 batte (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 suf- 
 ficiently 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 Eoman 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 Eome, 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. 
 Kemaining for ever 
 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to 
 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 On June 14 Canaye wrote to Henry IV that the Eepublic had engaged 3,000 
 foreign soldiers, and armed fifty boats on the Po, which made people believe that 
 after the harvests it intended to attack the Papal territories, unless the Bull were 
 withdrawn. (Canaye, v r p. 74.) 
 
 * Canaye wrote that Donato was one of the great men of the age, and his 
 merit had given him such authority that he reigned like an absolute Prince. 
 (Ibid., v, p. 162.) 
 
 3 ' Extemporal,' rare use for impromptu. (N. E, D.) 
 
 4 Sarpi told von Dohna that the Doge was neither a Protestant nor an atheist ; 
 he hated priests and the Pope on account of the liberty of Venice, but was so 
 immersed in affairs that he had no time for religious subtleties. (Bitter, ii, p. 81.) 
 
 5 ' Subodorated,' from the Italian subodorare, to smell slightly. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 355 
 
 74. To THE EAKL OK SALISBURY. 
 N. P. I'cn., holograph, extract. The .Jesuits. Prospects oi' war. 
 
 From Venice, the 14 of July, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 ... 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 Kialto, 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 
 
 1 'It is thought that this action will engage the Duke of Mantova. ' (Note of 
 Wott oil's in margin. ) Vincenzo I Gon/aga was Duke of Mantua 1587-1612. 
 
 2 De Fresne-Canaye. Henry IV would have been glad enough to see Spain 
 embroiled in, Italy, and his attitude at first towards the quarrel was ambiguous, 
 or as a Senator of a 'good free spirit ' said, 'like 1'Iiiferno del Dante, which no 
 man understamleth.' (S. P. Yen.. June 1, 160(1.) But finding that the Spanish 
 Government, or rather the all-powerful favourite Lerma, wished for peace, the 
 1'rench King began to try to settle the quarrel. 
 
 A a 2 
 
356 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 resolve into some action, if the probability of a peace in Hungary ' 
 and the departure of the Hollanders from the coast of Spain 2 
 do not water our wine. 
 
 I send your Lordship, by a young gentleman of retum 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, this 21st of July, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 deter- 
 mine by the post of this day to make unto their ambassador, whereof 
 the substance will be this. 3 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 4 , 
 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. 5 
 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 
 
 1 Between the Turks and the Emperor. 
 
 2 Admiral Haultain had been sent with a Dutch fleet to cruise off the coasts 
 of Portugal, for the purpose of intercepting the Spanish treasure ships, then 
 expected from America. Owing to storms, and a dearth of provisions, he was 
 forced to return home. He sailed south again in September of this year. 
 (Motley, U. N., iv, p. 251.) 
 
 3 This letter to the ambassador is printed in Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 374, and the 
 account of this audience is on p. 377. 
 
 4 See ante, p. 81. 
 
 8 ' After that high-spirited Pope had tried what the Spiritual Sword could do, 
 but without success, he resolved to try the Temporal Sword next, according to 
 the advice Cardinal Baronius gave him, who told him in the Consistory, that 
 there were two things said to St. Peter ; the first was, " Feed my sheep," the other 
 was, " Arise and kill." ' (Life of Wm. Bedell, Gilbert Burnet, 1685, pp. 5-6.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 357 
 
 (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 justifica- 
 tions 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 Lord- 
 ship very affectionate thanks for your noble demonstrations towards 
 them, and to express unto you their desire of demeriting l a friend 
 about his Majesty of so singular wisdom. And herein they did me 
 the honour to entreat me in consonantki 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 clay before (of the 18th of June in our style 2 ) 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. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. The sack of Durazzo. A letter from James I to 
 
 Wotton. 
 
 From Venice, the 18th of August, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AXD MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 3 , at the 
 
 1 ' Demerit,' obs. use, to merit, deserve, be worthy of. (X. E. D.) 
 
 2 Now in S. P. Ven., printed C. & T. Jos. I, i, p. 63. 
 
 3 Sacked by the Marquis of Santa Cruz on August 10. Durazzo lay within the 
 Adriatic Gulf, the dominion of which \vas claimed by Venice. In his audience 
 of September 9, Wotton, who, as the French ambassador wrote to him, was 
 always tiying to throw fuel on the fire, spoke of this to the Doge as an insult to 
 Venice on the part of Spain or the Pope. The Doge, however, minimized the 
 
358 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 entrance of the Gulf, which will be imputed to the connivancy 
 of the Signory of Venice by the Turk, 1 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, 2 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 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound 
 
 to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 matter, stating his belief that it was done by Santa Cruz without orders. (CaL 
 S. P. Fen., x, p. 399.) 
 
 1 It was the favourite policy of the enemies of Venice to attack the Turks, 
 who would then most likely retaliate on the Republic, being their nearest 
 Christian neighbour, and ' throw the cat at her shins ', as James Howell 
 picturesquely puts it. (State of Venice, p. 199.) On this occasion, however, the 
 Turks realized the trick that had been played, and offered to join their forces 
 with those of Venice, in order to oppose Spain and the Pope. (Sarpi, Hist. Part., 
 p. 207.) 
 
 2 There is a copy of this letter from James I in the Burley Commonplace Book. 
 ' Trusty and well beloved we greet you well. Such and so many are your dis- 
 patches with which our secretary doth acquaint us, being directed unto him, with 
 others in particular to our own person, as we think it not sufficient only to acquaint 
 you by his relation with our extraordinary approbation of your zeal, faith, and dis- 
 cretion, without the confirmation thereof under our own hand ; assuring you 
 that they are not only acceptable for the watchful eye you have towards our 
 safety, and the good of the State, but are so interlaced with variety of occur- 
 rances remarkable and proper for Princes, whose state is subject to the enmity 
 of equals, and whose constancy in religion is more than a mote in the eyes of 
 the common adversary, as we do acknowledge that we read not any foreign 
 dispatches, from any of our ministers, with better contentation. Proceed, 
 therefore, as you have begun, and know that you serve a Prince that can both 
 judge of merit, and make demonstration thereof when time shall serve. Given 
 under our signet at our Manor of Greenwiche, the 16 of July, 1606.' (O.S.) 
 Another copy of this letter is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
 (MS. 318. Printed in Archaeologia, vol. xl.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 359 
 
 77. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Two intercepted letters. Money for 
 secret service. 
 
 From Venice, the 25 of August, 1606. 
 
 ... 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 con- 
 form 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 pro- 
 portion), 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 con- 
 firm mine own conceit of the fruit that may arise thereby, and 
 authorize it by his Majesty's approbation 2 ), I will, from the encourage- 
 ment of the said dispatch, take the boldness to tell your Lordship 
 that I have placed instruments already to that purpose in Rome, 
 Milan, Turin o, 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 ofthe Jesuits and with their confidents and depen- 
 dants, 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 pre- 
 sumption your last hath given me. 
 
 1 Wotton had read these letters to the Doge and Cabinet in his audience of 
 this date. One was from Rome, the other from Spain. The Spanish letter 
 described the poverty of the Spanish Government and the shifts proposed for 
 raising money. (Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 395.) 
 
 2 Salisbury wrote that the King was particularly pleased with the intercepted 
 letters ; commended Wotton's devotion in procuring them, and would send 
 more money for the purpose if necessary. (S. P. Yen., July 16, 1606.) 
 
360 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 78. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Yen., transcript, unsigned. Wotton's reply to the King's letter. 
 
 From Venice, the first of September, 1606. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 SACRED LORD, 
 
 I have received those most dear and most inestimable lines where- 
 with 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. 
 
 Your Majesty's most loyal and 
 humble vassal. 
 
 79. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Rumours of leagues. 
 
 From Venice, the 1st of September, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 Maj esty and the King of Denmark l are making a league into 
 which shall be received the Signory of Venice, the States, the 
 German Princes of the Keligion, and the French King if he will, or 
 at least those of the Keligion in that kingdom, and in Poleland andHun- 
 garia, &c. Now as one rainbow (though they be but false colours) 
 begetteth another by reflection (your Lordship will pardon my wanton- 
 ness 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 
 
 1 Christian IV, King of Denmark, arrived in England on July 25, N.S. (Cal. 
 S. P. Ven , x, p. 379.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 361 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, the 22 of September, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 mari- 
 time, 3 sincerely and seriously. The restriction was, quanta la 
 conditione delli suoi Hegni ne comporti.* And for the better sounding 
 
 1 Salisbury in this letter instructed Wotton to convey James's promise of 
 assistance to the Doge, ' the better to encourage them, and get,' he adds 
 cautiously, ' by no such particular engagement in the manner and form, than is 
 limited by the words he used, " that it shall be at all times as far as the state of 
 his own affairs shall let him." ' In a postscript Salisbury adds, 'I am commanded 
 again by his Majesty that you should use all the speeches you can to animate 
 them, upon the confidence of his Majesty r s resolution, which indeed he doth 
 resolve in their behalf.' (S. P. Yen., July 31.) 
 
 - September 5, N.S. 
 
 3 Di unire con questa Republica tutti li suoi amici, li suoi consigli, et le sue 
 forze, cosi terrestre come maritime, per quello che puo dependere dalla qualita 
 et essere delli suoi Regni.' (Esp. Prin,, September 5, 1606 ; see also Cat. S. P. Ven., 
 x, pp. 396-7.) 
 
 4 On September 7, the Republic wrote to James thanking him for the offer of 
 his forces, and the plan (which Wotton seems to have mentioned in this 
 audience, though he does not say so) that James should form a league of 
 Protestant powers to help Venice. Salisbury thereupon wrote sharply to 
 Wotton ' for that point of his Majesty's more particular engaging himself, or 
 dealing with his confederates in Denmark and Germany, his Majesty held that 
 somewhat an untimely notion, and very improper (Salisbury's secretary had 
 written ' not so fit ', Salisbury crossed this out and put ' very improper ' in his 
 own hand) to be undertaken by him '. Salisbury adds, ' It seemeth by the style 
 of the Venetians' letter to his Majesty, that the motion of dealing with his 
 Majesty's confederates for a point of association against the Pope, and the 
 particularizing of his aid by sea and by land, proceedeth from your own speech 
 in the Senate, which, though it may have fallen from you by way of dilating, 
 yet I thought fit to note it to you, that you may be the more wary hereafter how 
 to carry yourself, since they are so apt to make application of anything to their 
 advantage.' Salisbury feared, he told Wotton in his letter, that the Venetians 
 
362 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 con- 
 siderations 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. 1 
 
 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 
 devotions 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. 2 . . . 
 
 were trying to make James I the head of the quarrel, or at least to terrify the 
 Pope with rumours of a league, and then to make better terms for themselves. 
 (S. P. Yen., Oct. 2, 1606, O.S.) 
 
 1 This refers to Giustiniani's audience with James I at Greenwich on August 
 10 (ante, p. 81). 
 
 2 In his next audience (September 9) Wotton was informed that for the 
 present the Senate wished to keep the offer secret. Wotton replied that this 
 would be difficult; he would, however, obey the wishes of the Senate. Some 
 days later, when fresh news had arrived that the Pope was arming, the Senate 
 decided to have the offer published, and requested the ambassador to make it 
 known. (Cal. S. P. Few., x, pp. 399, 402.) On October 2 Wotton informed the Doge 
 that he had told all the foreign envoys in Venice, and sent off the news in his 
 letters to his various correspondents. On this occasion he made what the 
 Venetian chronicler calls a ' very long and ornate speech ', protesting that such 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 3GS 
 
 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 1 , 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 deforma- 
 tion 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 acknowledge- 
 ment 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 where- 
 with God have indued him. even according to the charge of the 
 gospel, anmtntiare qiiae vidit 2 ; 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 - ". And so Christ Jesus bless your 
 Lordship and all your purposes. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour 
 and serve you. 
 
 HENRY WOTTOX. 
 
 was his devotion to Venice that In- should like to ho considered a Venetian 
 citizen, and discussing all the possible means of settling the dispute with the 
 Pope. He said he thought arbitration would be the best way, and suggested 
 the Kings of England and Spain as arbitrators. (Cal. .S. P. Vat., x, 406-8.) 
 
 1 Brother of the dramatist, John Fletcher. 
 
 2 ' Renuiitiate loaiini quae audistis, et vidistis.' (Matt. xi. 4 ; Luke vii. i') 
 ' MS. torn. 
 
364 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 81. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. An unfortunate astrologer. 
 
 From Venice, the 22 of September, 1606. 
 
 ... A certain poor old man, called Benedetto Altavilla, born at 
 Vicenza, and, for lack of a better trade, by profession an astrologer, 
 ometh 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 Concilia, 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 *), 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 miracu- 
 lous) 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 havl 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 
 
 1 l Capitulated,' from obs. use of capitulate, to make the subject of negotiation ; 
 cf. Webster, Thracian Wonder, ii. 1, ' How dare you, sir, capitulate the cause ? ' 
 (Quoted N. E. D.) 
 
 2 ' Sound,' obs. or dialect form of swoon. (Wright, Dialect Dictionary.') 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 365 
 
 more to entertain you withal at the present, I leave your Lordship 
 under God's dear protection. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 82. To THE EARL OP SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. False reports in Italy about Garnet's death. 
 
 From Venice, the 6th of October, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 nonpossunt 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 
 
 1 Rowland Woodward (ante, p. 326) was again unfortunate. On his journey 
 homeward, bearing the letter printed above, and other dispatches, he was 
 attacked in Lorraine by robbers and nearly killed. His dispatches were sent to 
 Henry IV, and forwarded to England, and are now in the Record Office (the 
 above letter with them) much stained and torn. 
 
 2 Captain Nicolas Pinner had come to Venice with another English soldier, 
 named Aubrey Yorke, to offer his services to the Republic. Wotton described 
 them as officers of great courage and experience in war, and said they were the 
 first fruits of the English offers of help. Their offers were not accepted, but the 
 Senate passed a resolution thanking them, and ordered that they should be 
 introduced to the Doge, and a gold collar, worth 150 ducats, presented to each 
 of them. (Cal. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 403, 414.) 
 
 8 A long dispntch, giving 'the discourses of this place' concerning the part 
 which Henry IV was likely to take in the quarrel between Venice and the Pope. 
 There were four opinions ; that he would assist the Pope, that he would assist 
 
366 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour 
 and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 83. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Yen., holograph. Wotton sends a discourse on the designs of Spain, 
 believed to have been written by the Doge. The Jesuits and the Interdict. 
 
 From Venice, the 3 of November, 1606. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUK KoYAL MAJESTY, 
 
 Having here by secret means gotten .the copy of a discourse 1 , 
 whereof the Prince of this State is esteemed (and I think very 
 lightly) to have been the author, I do most humbly present the 
 same unto your Majesty, both in the original, and as I have trans- 
 lated 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 conse- 
 quence to all Christendom, though handled perad venture 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 Koman Court, conceive) from 
 
 Venice, that he would assist both or neither of them. After giving the grounds 
 on which these four opinions were based, Wotton adds, ' Only I cannot forbear 
 (with your Majesty's pardon) to note herein, that among the several reasons and 
 inducements of this or that Prince into the cause, I have yet heard nothing so 
 little considered as the goodness of the cause itself ; religion having so surely in 
 this part of the world (as far as I can see) no more estimation as a point of con- 
 science, but yet keeping still some credit as a point of state.' (S. P. Few., October 
 6. Undated duplicate in C. C. C. MS., printed Archaeologia, vol. xl.) This 
 dispatch, with the others carried by Rowland Woodward, fell into the hands of 
 Henry IV himself, who handed it on to the English ambassador in Paris, 
 Sir George Carew. (Salisbury to Wotton, S. P. Yen., November 3, 1606.) 
 1 ' I Disegni di Spagna ' (Italian and English), now in S. P. Ven. 
 
TO JAMES I 367 
 
 decision of the controversy between them and the Dominicans *, 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 
 
 Your Majesty's most loyal and humble vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 84. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Secret service money ; payment of Wotton's 
 
 debts. 
 
 From Venice, this 3 of November, 1606. 
 
 . . . My Lord, I have besides this place of my charge, in divers 
 other, pendentcs Jiamos, and men to whom I give provision, andlprotest 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 1 De Auxiliis. 
 
368 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 85. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Few., holograph, extract. A certain English spy arrested at the 
 request of Wotton. 
 
 From Venice, this 17 of November, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . The case of Captain William Turner is this : l he came hither 
 upon these rumours out of the Archduke Ferdinando 2 his Court, 
 where he had been practising with English Jesuits and their dis- 
 ciples (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 8 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 
 
 1 This Captain Turner had been a spy in the employment of the English 
 Government, and in April this year he was at Calais, keeping a watch on English 
 Jesuits. (Gal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 418 n.) In a previous dispatch (Nov. 9) Wotton 
 wrote of him, ' this man (if anything he sayeth may be believed) is already 
 known to your Lordship, and hath been rewarded by his Majesty, through your 
 favour, for some notable services ; in contemplation whereof I will save him 
 from torturing or strangling, which peradventure otherwise might have been 
 his case and his merit.' (S. P. Ven.) He had come to Venice with the desire of 
 serving in case of war. 
 
 2 Ferdinand of Styria, afterwards the Emperor Ferdinand II. 
 
 3 John George Colonitz, who offered to bring 3,000 foot to the service of the 
 Republic. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 421.) 
 
 4 The Spanish ambassador extraordinary, sent to Venice (where he arrived 
 on Nov. 11) to try to arrange a settlement of the dispute with the Pope. 
 
 8 Wotton, as he told the Doge, was obliged by his position to keep open house 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 369 
 
 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. 1 I have troubled your Lordship too much 
 with this matter, for the rendering an accompt of mine own pro- 
 ceeding 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 
 necessaiy as honest men. 2 
 
 86. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The arrival of the Spanish ambassador 
 extraordinary ; the talk of Venice about his errand. 
 
 Venice, the 6th of December, 1606. 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 Don Francesco di Castro, son to the Conde di Lemos (who died 
 Viceroy of Naples) and nephew to the Duke of Lerma, having here 
 
 for all his compatriots, and received Turner, who dined there one evening, with 
 the other English officers who had come to offer their services to the Republic. 
 It was at this dinner that Turner heard Colonitz mentioned ; and as soon as 
 Wotton learned that he had communicated with the Archduke's agent, he sent 
 his secretary to the Cottegio to demand his arrest. The secretary handed in 
 a description of him, a man of medium height, dressed in the French fashion, 
 with a black hat, embroidered with silver, and a grey cloak, lined with grey 
 velvet. As the Cabinet delayed his arrest, Wotton arranged a secret meeting 
 with the Venetian secretary in the Church of S. Gerolamo near his house, and 
 told of Turner's treachery, and again begged that he might be arrested. This 
 was accomplished on Nov. 8, and the letter, which he tried to destroy, was sent 
 to Wotton. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, pp. 417, 418, 422, 426.) 
 
 1 Turner said, also in this letter, that he had worked his way into Wotton's 
 house and confidence, and had hopes of seeing his dispatches, and of having 
 some in his hands. (Ibid., p. 436.) 
 
 2 Whether Wotton found any use for this ' knave ' I do not know ; he kept 
 him in prison for some months, declaring that it would not hurt him, as he was 
 used to it. Turner declared he was ill, but the doctor Wotton sent to see him 
 denied this. However, on March 3, 1607, the English ambassador told the Doge 
 that he would, out of compassion, beg for his release at the end of the week, and 
 hoped he would be banished from Venice. (Ibid., p. 477.) 
 
 WOTTON. I B D 
 
370 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 
 1 Di Castro was sent by the King of Spain to try to arrange a peaceable solution 
 of the quarrel with the Pope. Wotton, wishing to prevent this, did his best to 
 sow seeds of distrust in the minds of the Venetians. He told the Doge that 
 he hoped Di Castro had not been sent to lull them to sleep, and that he had 
 heard on all sides that one must be very cautious in dealing with him, as his 
 intentions were very subtle. (Cal. S. P. Yen., x, p. 428.) 
 
 a The Pope (the Borghese family came from Siena). 
 
TO JAMES I 371 
 
 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, 1 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. 2 
 
 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 Eowland 
 Woodward. An English Councillor reported to be in the pay of Spain. 
 
 (December 6, 1606, N. S.) 
 
 ... I have in this interim pursued the matter of anchorage, 3 and 
 had good answer from the Prince, expecting within a few days to 
 hear the resolution of the Senate therein. 
 
 1 At the time of the League of Cambrai (1509). 
 
 2 The day after this dispatch was written (Dec. 7), Wotton went to visit 
 Di Castro, promising the Doge beforehand that he would behave like a good 
 Venetian. On Dec. 13 he described his visit to the Doge. The compliments, 
 he said, were very long ; but as he could not bear saying ' your Excellency's 
 servant ' over and over again, he soon broached the real subject, telling Di Castro 
 that James I had declared in favour of Venice, believing the Venetian cause to be 
 the cause of all princes. (Col. S. P. Yen., x, pp. 441, 444.) According to De Fresne- 
 Canaye, this abrupt declaration astonished the Spaniard, who had never in all 
 his life heard such a speech, and he grew so angry, that if the resident Spanish 
 ambassador had not thrown himself between them, and dextrously changed 
 this talk, full of bitterness, into a joke, a real scandal might have arisen. 
 (Canaye, v, p. 326.) 
 
 3 Wotton took advantage of the circumstances of Venice to bring up the griev- 
 
 Bb 2 
 
372 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 Now, touching the causes of my sending home the bearer a 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 2 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 
 Kouland 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 3 : 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. . . . 
 
 (Postscript.) MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. 4 
 
 ance of the anchorage tax again in his audience of Nov. 24. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, 
 p. 436.) It was finally removed on Sept. 25, 1607 (see p. 403). 
 
 1 John Fenton, ' the nephew,' Wotton wrote to the King, ' of two ancient 
 servants unto your Majesty, from whom I received him. And having here like- 
 wise made very assured experience of his own zeal and trust, I have sent him 
 home upon some occasions, as your Majesty may be pleased to understand from 
 my Lord of Salisbury.' (S. P. Few., Dec. 6, 1606.) 
 
 a Sir Thomas Crompton, of London, knighted July 23, 1603. (Metcalfe, 145.) 
 . 3 See ante, p. 365 n. 
 
 * Salisbury himself was in receipt of a pension from Spain, and gave secret 
 information to the Spanish ambassador. (Gardiner, i, pp. 215, 216.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 373 
 
 88. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Sir Robert Dudley ; secret service money, &c. 
 
 From Venice, the 15 of December, 1606. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . Touching Sir Robert Dudly l , I have so enormous news that 
 being mingled with the compassionable case of an honourable gentle- 
 woman, 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 intel- 
 ligence 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 
 
 And so, wishing your Lordship long gladness and health, 
 I humbly rest 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour 
 
 and serve you, 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 
 
 1 Sir Robert Dudley (1573-1649), son of the Earl of Leicester and Douglas 
 Sheffield, widow of Lord Sheffield, to whom Leicester was said to have been 
 secretly married. Dudley (who had been knighted at Cadiz in 1596) attempted 
 to establish his legitimacy, but failed, and left England in the company of his 
 cousin, Elizabeth Southwell, who travelled with him disguised as a page. They 
 were married at Lyons, a dispensation having been procured from the Pope by 
 means of Captain Robert Eliot (see p. 379), although Dudley had a wife and 
 family in England. Wotton's 'enormous news' were, no doubt, about this 
 marriage. Dudley, who was an eminent mathematician and shipbuilder, settled 
 in Tuscany, and was often employed by the Grand Dukes Ferdinand I and 
 Cosmo II, and was finally created Duke of Northumberland by the Emperor. 
 (D. N. .B.) An attempt was made through Wotton, as we shall see, to make 
 him return to England, and when this failed, his English estates, including 
 Kenilworth, were confiscated. 
 
 2 Lettera d' un Mercante Venetiano ad un suo Compare in Rauggia : 
 'Carissimo Compare, Venite pure presto a noi come mi scrivete et alegra- 
 
 mente ; perche so dirvi che dopo la partenza delli padri Giesuiti da Venetia c'e 
 buon mercato di vitello et di putti. A Dio. 
 
 ' II vostro, 
 Di Venetia alii 6 di Decembre 1606.' 
 
374 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, the 2nd of February, 1606(7). 
 
 ... In my audiences here (which are very frequent) I do carry myself 
 between the charitableness of wishing their tranquillity upon honour- 
 able 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 con- 
 troversy 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 remem- 
 brance of their own dignity. 2 And so for this week I very humbly 
 take my leave, resting 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 My Lord, within these two days is to depart hence, a son of 
 Mr. G-araways 3 , the merchant, by the way of France homewards 
 
 1 On August 9, 1606, Canaye wrote of Wotton, (il) 'jette dextreinent du 
 bois dans le feu de ce fascheux differend tant qu'il peut.' (Ambassades, v, p. 159.) 
 Montauto wrote, ' Non marica questo Ministro d' inventar di continue cose di 
 far uficii diabolici.' (Arch. Med. 2229, Jan. (?), 1607.) Negotiations were now 
 proceeding with Di Castro for the settlement of the dispute ; the Republic 
 offered the terms that were finally accepted. Di Castro asked that the protest 
 of Venice should be suspended before the Pope removed his censures. This was 
 refused, and both parties kept on preparing for war. For Wotton's audiences 
 at this time, see ante, pp. 79, 80. 
 
 2 On January 18, Wotton related to the Doge a conversation he had had with 
 an acquaintance who frequented his house, and belonged to the Spanish pai-ty. 
 ' Was England in earnest ? ' the man asked ; and Wotton, ' furious at the idiotic 
 question,' answered that James would send all his forces, and any one who 
 attempted to hinder him ' would get his head cracked '. The fellow rejoined, 
 ' Oh, then he would go to war with Spain ? ' Wotton replied, ' and pray who tells 
 you that? I have never said that my master has any desire to break with 
 Spain ; all I do say is that if Spain crosses our path we'll crack her skull, nor 
 will she have any reason to complain, for she will have brought it on herself.' 
 (Cal S. P. Ven., x, p. 456.) 
 
 3 Thomas Garway, or Garaway, a merchant of London trading at Venice. 
 (Ibid., p. 92.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 375 
 
 post, who bringeth from me unto your Lordship an intercepted 
 packet of Parsons of good importance. 
 
 90. To EDWARD BARRETT. 
 
 Hart. MS. 1579, f. 125 b, transcript. Thanks for music sent from Florence. 
 The arrival of Sir Robert Dudley in Italy. 
 
 Venice, 3rd of February, 1606 (1607 N.S.). 
 SIR, 
 
 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. 
 
 Your hearty friend, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 My commendations always 
 remembered to your brother and cousin. 
 
 91. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The arrival of the Cardinal of Joyeuse. 
 
 The 16th of February, 1606(7). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . The Cardinal Joieuse 3 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 
 
 1 ' Set in no measure ' ; the modern or mensurable system of writing music 
 with bars was introduced about 1590, but apparently had not yet been adopted 
 in Spain. Wotton puns on the word 'measure'. Barrett had sent him some 
 observations about Spain. (See ante, p. 340.) 
 
 3 Possibly Edward Boughton, who was a native of Barrett's county, Essez, and 
 had been with him at Oxford (matric. Nov., 1599, from St. Alban's Hall, 
 aet. 16). (Foster, Ox.) 
 
 3 Fran9ois de Joyeuse, 1562-1615, Cardinal 1583, sent by Henry IV as special 
 ambassador to settle the controversy. 
 
376 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 whole reason : for I had settled in myself (upon such arguments as 
 have formerly been signified unto his Majesty) that the said Car- 
 dinal 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 Eome, 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 Podesta 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 Maesta 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 employ- 
 ment, 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 inter- 
 cession of the French : nay, that with striving in the matter, he had 
 united the Senate, and with his importunities, enforced them to con- 
 firm their former decrees with a new, and that after the under- 
 standing 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. 1 
 
 1 On March 22 Wotton wrote to Jarnes I that what was in the beginning 
 'but opposition of politic judgement, is now (as I can assure your Majesty) 
 intermingled with eager passion in the most, and in many with great illumina- 
 tion of the truth '. (S. P. Few.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 377 
 
 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 con- 
 troversy, 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, where- 
 with I may accompany it. And so for this week taking my humble 
 leave I rest 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound 
 
 to honour and serve you, 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 92. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Fen., holograph, extract. Wotton's reasons for not visiting the 
 Cardinal de Joyeuse. 
 
 This 23 of February, 1606(7) 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 ambas- 
 sadors 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 super- 
 stitions of some, and policy of other kings and their instruments l ; 
 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 
 
 1 Cardinals claimed a rank equal to that of kings, and above princes. 
 (Wicquefort, p. 11.) 
 
 2 When Wotton first arrived in Venice, he wished to be on friendly terms 
 with the Papal Nuncio, Monsignore Offreddo, and asked the French ambassador, 
 De Fresne-Canaye, to arrange a meeting between them. Canaye wrote that he 
 
378 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 Eight Honourable, I must humbly thank your Lordship for your 
 favours towards Mr. John Fenton 1 , 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 2 , 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. 
 
 regarded this as a total denial on Wotton's part that the Pope was the Anti- 
 christ, for who would wish to seek the friendship of a son of perdition? 
 (Canaye, Hi, p. 362.) l Ante, p. 372. 
 
 2 William Bedell (1571-1642), afterwards Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh. 
 (D. N. .B.) ' His reputation,' says Burnet, ' was so great and so well established, 
 both in the University (Cambridge) and in Suffolk, that when King James 
 sent Sir Henry Wotton to be his Ambassador at Venice, at the time of 
 the Interdict, he was recommended as the fittest man to go chaplain at so 
 critical a conjuncture.' (Burnet, Life of Bedell, 1685, p. 4). It was Sir Edmund 
 Bacon who recommended Bedell to Wotton. (See p. 505.) 
 
TO EDWARD BARRETT 379 
 
 93. To EDWARD BARRETT. 
 
 Hati. MS. 1579, f. 127, transcript. Sir Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 
 Southwell. The state of affairs in Venice. 
 
 From Venice, this 24th of February, 1606. 
 SIR, 
 
 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 \ 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. 
 
 The Devil doth build his kingdom upon this wisdom of the world. 
 
 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 some- 
 times to call me), but now as her fellow traveller, since we have both 
 tasted of peregrination. 2 
 
 For the matters here, I cannot tell what I should say. 
 
 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 
 
 1 The marriage of Sir Robert Dudley (ante, p. 373 n.) ; for Captain Robert Eliot, 
 see Appendix III. 
 
 * Elizabeth Southwell had been one of the Maids of Honour of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and Essex was supposed to have been her lover. It was probably at 
 this time that she and Wotton had entered into the chivalrous relationship 
 of ' master ' and ' mistress '. 
 
 3 'Aversation,' arch, form of aversion. (N. E. D.) 
 
 4 'Irreconcileableness,' first instance 1628 in N. E. D. 
 
380 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your very loving friend, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 94. To THE EAEL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The export of gunpowder from England. 
 
 Friday, the 2 of March (1607). 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 : * 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. 
 
 Harl. MS. 1579, f. 126 b, transcript. News of Venice. 
 
 The 3rd of March, 1606(7). 
 
 Style of the place. 2 
 SIR, 
 
 I have received your judgement upon the Spanish accident 3 , for 
 which I must give you many great thanks. It is written hither this 
 
 1 The Doge complained of this powder merchant in Wotton's audience of 
 Jan. 9. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 453.) In an undated dispatch from Spain 
 (apparently written in 1608), Sir Charles Cornwallis says, ' One Stephen Stocke, 
 a factor for divers London merchants in Italy (as I am in private advertised), 
 hath as much privacy, and more ordinary and free access to the Pope than 
 Parsons, the Jesuit, or other his countrymen of like function and quality. . . . 
 He is brother to one of that name, preacher in a church in Friday Street, in 
 London, whom myself have oft heard preach with show of small affection to the 
 Pope.' (Winwood, Mem., ii, p. 465.) 
 
 2 Wotton here combines two styles of dating, giving the day of the month 
 according to the Venetian, and the year according to the English style. 
 
 3 The fall of Franquezza, the Spanish secretary, and the Count of Villa Lunga, 
 his favourite, accused of taking bribes. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 462. ) ' The fall,' as Sir 
 Charles Cornwallis, the English ambassador in Spain, called it, ' of these late 
 Great Trees in this Forest of Confusion.' (Winwood, Mem., ii, p. 283.) 
 
TO EDWARD BARRETT 381 
 
 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. 
 
 Out of England we have nothing by the last post of any reckoning. 
 
 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. 1 
 
 Here, within these few days (as the Prince was yesternight 
 advertised) will arrive the Duke of Savoye 2 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. 3 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 Eooke is free of his ague, and so bragg 4 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. 
 
 Your very affectionate friend, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 At the end of 1606 negotiations for a truce were begun in the Low Countries, 
 and in the middle of April an armistice of eight months was arranged. (Motley, 
 U. N., iv, pp. 274, 293.) I find no confirmation of the battle mentioned above ; 
 the report was no doubt a false one. 
 
 2 Charles Emmanuel II. 
 
 3 The Duke of Lorraine also sent an agent, who arrived, as he told Wotton, 
 with his bucket full of water to extinguish the fire of the great controversy. 
 Wotton praised his object to the Doge, declared that he himself had by no means 
 come to Italy to set the country in a blaze ; adding, however, that it ' was the duty 
 of all who loved the Republic to urge her to remember herself, her glorious past, 
 the justice of her cause, her duty to her friends '. (Cal. S. P. Fen., x, p. 459.) On 
 the day this letter was written Wotton made an oration to the Doge on the sub- 
 ject of all these ambassadors. ' Most Serene Prince,' he said, ' in certain districts 
 of my country when the possession of a piece of land is in dispute, custom 
 requires that the claimant should, at least once a year, stand upon the land and 
 cry aloud that it is his ; otherwise his rights are lost ; so it seems to me in 
 these troublesome times I must appear here now and again, to keep alive the 
 claims of my master in this controversy, both as a sovereign, as an ally, and as 
 an interested party. If that was ever necessary, it is so now, when so many 
 envoys of other sovereigns are here in Venice, each with his claim.' (Ibid., 476.) 
 Wotton, if asked why James did not, like his brother monarchs, send another 
 ambassador to assist him, was ready to reply that his Majesty had sent all 
 these. ' Which,' he adds, ' if it be well considered, it will prove peradventure 
 no sportful reply.' (S. P. Yen., March 9.) 
 
 4 ' Bragg,' i. e. lively or boastful. Obs. (N. E. D.) 
 
382 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 96. To JAMES I. 
 
 Add. MS. 19402, f. 13, holograph. A proposal of the French ambassador 
 De Fresne-Canaye. 
 
 At Venice, the 9th March, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 I received by the last post a form or rule under your Koyal 
 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 ; a 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 Trench 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 Eoyal 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 
 
 1 On Dec. 22, 1606, De Fresne-Canaye proposed to Wotton that England 
 and France should combine to ' foment and advance ' the quarrel between 
 Venice and the Pope ; James I agreeing to protect Venice without breaking 
 with Spain, and Henry IV protecting the Protestant Orisons (then threatened 
 by Fuentes) without breaking with the Pope. The object of the French King 
 was partly to make a diversion in favour of the Dutch, and partly also, as 
 Salisbury suspected, to involve England in a quarrel with Spain. Wotton, ' out 
 of his own weak judgement,' suggested that James, without committing himself, 
 might easily involve Henry IV in an Italian war, and thus ' kindle such a work 
 as will not end till the day of Christ, whose work indeed it is '. (S. P. Few., 
 Dec. 29, 1606.) Salisbury wisely declined entering into any compact of 
 this kind with such a master of unscrupulous diplomacy as Henry IV. 
 De Fresne-Canaye tried to make out that the proposition had been Wotton's, 
 not his own. (Canaye, v, p. 489.) His action was disavowed by his own Govern- 
 ment, and he was shortly afterwards recalled. 
 
TO JAMES I 383 
 
 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 considera- 
 tion 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 un- 
 necessary 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 1 for 
 introduction of the treaty, and also assure me that your Majesty 
 should find the King his Majesty very correspondent 2 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 
 Koyal 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 siiperficiei aquarum, 9 
 
 Your Majesty's most humble 
 
 and faithful vassal, 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 1 Maximilian de Bethune (1560-1641), Baron de Rosny, Due de Sully 1606. 
 
 2 ' Correspondent,' i. e. respondent. Obs. (A r . E. D.) 3 Gen. i. 2. 
 
384 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 97. To THE EAEL OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The settlement of the dispute probable ; 
 Wotton's speech to the Doge on the subject. 
 
 From Venice, the 6th of April, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 over- 
 run 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. z 
 
 1 On April 2 the Cardinal de Joyeuse went from Venice to Rome, and it was 
 almost immediately reported that the accommodation had been arranged. 
 
 2 Wotton's speech is reported as follows in the Cal. S. P. Ven. , ' Your Serenity, 
 it now remains for me, who have, through your grace, been a spectator, in this 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 385 
 
 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) (fun accovnmo- 
 damento, 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 ex- 
 pected by the Cardinal Joyeuse ; yet thus much they knew by the 
 relation of the French ambassador, and by their own means at 
 Home already, that the matter would be concluded col decoro ddla 
 Republica, without revocation or suspension of their decrees, and with 
 a perpetual exclusive 1 of the Jesuits ; 2 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 3 protection of them. 4 He lastly assured me, and 
 
 beautiful theatre, of the beginning, the progress, and conclusion of this 
 great affair, conducted with such gravity, prudence, vigilance, magnanimity it 
 remains, I say, for me to be a witness, though with untaught voice, to the 
 world, and may be to posterity, how glorious has been this action. And I am 
 sure that your Serenity, having passed the height of the storm, will not make 
 shipwreck of any portion of your liberty now that you are in port. Meantime, 
 I am glad to note that notwithstanding these hopes of honourable peace, pre- 
 parations for war are going forward ; and this reminds me of an Irish proverb, 
 which is commonly in the mouth of all that savage people, " While treating with 
 your foe double-bar the door." ' (Col. S. P. Ven., x, p. 486.) 
 
 1 ' Exclusive,' i.e. exclusion, cf. Italian esdusiva. 
 
 3 Both Henry IV and the Pope were extremely anxious to have the Jesuits 
 readmitted to Venice, but the Venetians having got rid of these ' holy fathers ', 
 as Wotton called them, were determined not to have them back again. The 
 discussion of this point delayed the negotiations for some time. The Spaniards, 
 curiously enough, took the side against the Jesuits. Lerma disliked them ; the 
 Dominican interest was paramount in Spain, and the Pope, astounded at the 
 Spanish opposition, felt that it must proceed from some mysterious source he 
 could not understand, and ceased to urge their restoration. (Ranke, Popes, 
 i, p. 602.) 
 
 3 ' Disinteressata sustentatione di lor causa.' (Wotton's note in margin.) 
 
 * The gratitude of the Venetians was expressed by a resolution of the Senate, 
 which was read to Wotton on April 24. After stating the terms of the accom- 
 modation it ended, ' We communicate this to you as a sign of our regard to the 
 King, your master, who, we are persuaded, was a principal cause of this result, 
 by his generous, heroic, and spontaneous declaration in our favour. We profess 
 eternal gratitude. We beg you communicate this to his Majesty, and we have 
 instructed our ambassador Giustinian to do the same. We beg to express our 
 satisfaction with yourself.' (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 490.) On May 27 the Senate 
 
 WOTTON. I C C 
 
386 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 98. To SIK THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 169, f. 22, dictated. The quarrel with the Pope ended. 
 
 (April 20, 1607, N.S.) 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I have, through my being in the country, discontinued the 
 course of writing one week, in which time the Cardinal Joyeuse is 
 returned from Kome 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 conscguenti, 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, 
 
 passed another decree to the effect that a letter should be written to James I, 
 thanking him for his good offices. A proposal to send an ambassador extra- 
 ordinary to him for this purpose was, however, defeated. (Ibid., p. 493.) 
 
387 
 
 being at the knitting up of these matters diversely troubled, I will 
 crave pardon to leave you, resting 
 
 Your Lordship's to serve you always, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 99. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The Papal censures removed. 
 
 Venice, the 27th of April, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 acknowledge- 
 ment. 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 Ferdi- 
 nand) S. P. Ven., May 16. Wotton's complaint of an English priest 
 at Leghorn. 
 
 Venice, May 23, 1607 <N. S.). 
 SERENISSIMO GRAN DUCA, 
 
 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. 
 
 1 The subject of Wotton's complaints was as follows : the Grand Duke, being 
 anxious to form a fleet, had continued to entice English mariners and ships 
 into his service, had bought ordnance from English ships, and taken English 
 pirates, and especially the famous pirate G-ifford, under his protection. The 
 Tuscan fleet, in fact, consisted principally of English pirates. In addition to 
 the case of the Merchant Royal, Gifford had recently attacked an English 
 vessel in the Straits of Messina ; and there were two English slaves, serving in 
 the Tuscan galleys, Avhom Ferdinand refused to release. He lent his protection 
 moreover to Sir Robert Dudley, Capt. Eliot, and other English exiles or traitors. 
 Considerable correspondence in regard to these matters between the English 
 and Tuscan governments can be found in the Arch. Med., 3005, 4183-6. James, 
 having no agent at Florence, entrusted the business to Wotton, who negotiated 
 with Montauto, the Tuscan resident in Venice, until Sir Stephen Le Sieur 
 was sent on a special mission to Florence in 1608. 
 
 C C 2 
 
388 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 SERENISSIMO SIGNORE, 
 
 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, 1 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 them- 
 selves 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 dispo- 
 sitions 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. 2 
 
 1 The Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 2 The Grand Duke was not at all pleased by Wotton's letter and proceedings. 
 On July 7, 1607, he wrote to Lotto, his agent in England, ' L'Ambasciatore di 
 cotesto He residente in Vene/ia, che nelle sue basse et male fortune riceve da noi 
 cortesie et sollevamenti, precede verso da noi, come vedrete in parte dalla copia 
 di quello che ci ha fatto scrivere da Venezia, assai ruvidamente, per non dir 
 peggio ; cosi dubitiamo che commini con le dottrine del Conte di Salzberi.' 
 {Arch. Med. 4186.) He added that Wotton had formerly asked him for some 
 money, and was now angry that it had not been paid him. Montauto wrote to 
 the Grand Duke complaining that the caparra di recognitione promised Wotton for 
 persuading Thornton to remain in the Tuscan fleet (ante, p. 338) had not been 
 paid, and that he was afraid that in Wotton's case broken promises might have 
 the effect they were wont to produce on men of spirit. (Ibid, 3000, June 16, June 
 30). The Grand Duke thereupon ordered his secretary, Vinta, to write to 
 Wotton, and told Montauto to give him six hundred ducats. On August 4, 
 Montauto writes to Vinta, ' I sent your letter to the English ambassador, and 
 having talked with him afterwards, I found him more friendly than usual, and 
 he told me that he had only asked for as much money as was necessary (mi ha 
 detto haver gia richiesto tanto denaro quanto che ha bisogna), supposing perhaps that 
 I knew the contents of your letter.' (Ibid.) On August 11 he writes that the 
 600 ducats would be paid to Wotton to-morrow, in new Venetian coins, so that 
 the service could be performed in a dextrous and secret manner. He adds 
 quaintly, 'si e raddolcito questo Ambasciatore assai a tal suono.' On August 18 he 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 389 
 
 101. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 169, f. 40, dictated ; signature and postscript holograph. 
 The settlement of the dispute with the Pope. 
 
 Venezia, the 18th of May, 1607. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. 
 
 3. That an ambassador be sent to Eome after the said revocation. 
 
 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 under- 
 stood 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 
 
 writes that the money had been paid in such a way that only he and Wotton 
 knew of it. Wotton, he believed, had written to Vinta about it. ' Mostr6 gran 
 gusto ' (Montauto adds), ' dicendomi che rendessi humilemente gratie al Gran 
 Duca a suo nome, et a V.S., soggiugnendo sempre, " Questo e un ricondurmi nova- 
 mente a servitio di S.A. , con obbligo di continuarlo fin' che duri la vita mia, et 
 certo sark cosi." ' (Ibid.) Wotton nevertheless went on negotiating and remonstra- 
 ting with the Grand Duke in a vigorous manner, and did not regard himself 
 (nor was he regarded by Montauto) as having been bribed to any compliance 
 with the Grand Duke's wishes. 
 
390 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Eome 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, accom- 
 panied 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 fraudu- 
 lent 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 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 391 
 
 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 
 bencdicat nolis 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. 
 God keep your Lordship in His blessed favour. 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you hearty service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 I have annexed hereunto a copy of the articles of this conclusion 
 as it was sent me from Home, 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 EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Congratulations on the termination 
 of the quarrel. 
 
 From Venice, this first of June, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . From the ambassador of this State sent to Kome there is yet 
 no news since his departure, nor of the Nuncio 4 destinated hither. 
 
 1 ' Concur,' i. e. to meet, obs. (2V". E. D.) 
 
 2 The Jesuits had begun to spread false reports about the accommodation, 
 making the terms much more advantageous to the Pope than they really were. 
 In his audience of June 28 Wotton spoke of these reports. He knew, he said, 
 the ways of the Jesuits, how they spread false reports from Japan, the Indies, 
 and the New World. ' This is all right for the salvation of men's souls ; and if 
 any one has doubts, he may go and see for himself, and verify them. But to 
 attempt to obscure the affairs of Italy, patent and open to all, this rouses 
 wonder and stupefaction.' (Cal. S. P. Ven., xi, p. 9.) 
 
 8 The eight months' armistice in the Low Countries, publicly announced about 
 the middle of April. (Motley, U. N., iv, p. 293.) 
 
 * The Nuncio, Berlinghiero Gessi, Bishop of Rimini (Cardinal 1626, died 1639), 
 
392 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 Only we hear that the Pope disposeth himself to take good air at his 
 wile, 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 1 , 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 wisdo'ms, 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. 
 
 And this is all wherewith I will trouble your Lordship at the 
 present, resting 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound 
 to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 103. To SIE THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 169, f. 52, dictated, extract. The Pope ; the peace 
 negotiations in the Low Countries. 
 
 From Venice, the first of June, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . From Eome 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 
 
 arrived early in June. By birth he was Bolognese, and it was hoped, Wotton 
 wrote, that he would have qualche temperamento del dolce sangue di Bologna. His 
 greatest disadvantage was his Bolognese accent, sounding harshly in their ears 
 after Florentine and Roman Nuncii. (S. P. Ven., May 18.) At his formal 
 reception, to which he went accompanied by five bishops and three abbots 
 ('cheap things,' wrote Wotton, 'in this country'), he read a letter from the 
 Pope, in which Paul V styled Venice ' his filiam apprime dilectam ', and said that 
 if his affairs might allow it, his love was sufficient to make him come and reside 
 among them himself. This remark some of the Venetians, Wotton wrote, ' take 
 tenderly, some gloriously, and some as a mere and poor jest.' (Ibid., June 6.) 
 1 Count Asdrubale di Montauto. 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 393 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's to honour 
 
 and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 104. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The progress of religious reform in Venice. 
 
 The 22th of June, 1607. 
 
 . . . 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound 
 
 to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, this 21 of July, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 
 
 1 During this quarrel with the Pope the Venetians had sent money to the 
 Orisons to secure their aid in case of war. This led to a rebellion, for the 
 plebeians, instigated by Spanish influence, rose in March, 1607, against the 
 aristocratic government, declaring that the nobles had kept for themselves more 
 than a fair share of the Venetian money. The nobles, however, soon regained 
 their ascendency. 
 
394 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 The deliverer hereof unto your Lordship is that poor unfortunate 
 follower 2 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 3 . 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, 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 106. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 169, f. 96. Dictated, postscript holograph. The uprising in 
 the Grisons. Conversion of Tobie Matthew. 
 
 From Venice, this 3rd of August, 1607. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 Your Lordship's of the llth of July (for which I give you many 
 thanks) hath this week almost settled my opinion touching the issue 
 
 1 On Jan. 27 Wotton wrote, ' God grant us long and blessed tranquillity at 
 home, and the same good God increase these distractions here ; which I may 
 wish with charity, because Christ in this case came into the world to bring 
 a sword and not peace.' (S. P. Few.) Sarpi also wished for war as a means of 
 fighting superstition, and introducing ' the truth ' into Italy. When, however, 
 war broke out in 1615 he was disappointed, as the power of the Papacy was not 
 weakened. (Lettere, ii, pp. 54, 429.) ' Sollevation,' i. e. sublevation, insurrection. 
 
 2 Eowland Woodward. 
 
 3 Sir George Carew, died 1612, ambassador in Paris, 1605-9. (D. N. .) 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 395 
 
 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. EcceUenza lasci la 
 euro, a noi di castigare guesti 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 
 
 1 (Sir) Tobie Matthew, 1577-1655, son of Tobie Matthew, Archbishop of York. 
 (D, N. .) See also Conversion of Sir Tobie Matthew, London, 1904. 
 
 2 Bagshaw (ante, p. 331). 
 
 3 'Apostamated,' from aposteinate, obs., to be afflicted with an apostem, abscess. 
 .V. E. Z>. 
 
396 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you hearty service, 
 
 HENEY WOTTON. 
 MY LORD, 
 
 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. 
 
 S. P. Yen., holograph. The illness of Salisbury's cousin, Richard Cave. 
 
 (Venice, Aug. 22, 1607, N.S.) 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. Eichard Cave * (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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 Richard Cave, eldest son of Sir Thomas Cave, of Stanford, Northampton- 
 shire. Sir Thomas Cave was the son of Roger Cave and Margaret Cecil, sister of 
 Lord Burghley. On April 24 of this year Wotton had presented him to the 
 Doge. In the Hatfleld MS. there is a letter from Cave, dated Venice, May 4, 
 1607, in which he speaks of this introduction and Wotton's kindness. Cave's 
 name is entered on the books of the University of Padua in 1607. (Andrich, p. 137.) 
 
 2 Eleanor, daughter of Nicholas St. John, of Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 397 
 
 108. To THE EAEL OP SALISBURY. 
 S. P. Few., holograph, extract. Death of Richard Cave. 
 
 From Venice, the last of August, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 J , 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, 
 
 1 On November 4, 1605, Wotton wrote to Edmondes that Sir Edward Rossiter, 
 a Yorkshire gentleman, had died that week in Padua. ' His carriage during 
 his sickness very intemperate, his end most Christian and comfortable. And 
 there fell out in the sudden loss of him one notorious circumstance, that he was 
 deliberating how to make an epitaph and tomb for one Beufre Bel, who died in 
 Padua certain years since, and had been in Cambridge his fellow pupil. So 
 feeble are the propositions of men ! ' (Stowe MS. 168, f. 205 b.) Sir Edward 
 Rossiter was knighted 1603. (Metcdlfe, 140.) 
 
 2 ' Inculpable,' rare. (N. E. D.) 
 
398 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 J , who is reduced with grief and watching 
 into ill estate himself), we resolved rather to commit his body 2 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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.) 
 
 From Venice, the 13th of September, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 Your Lordship receiveth by this gentleman 3 the books that 
 were written upon the points of the late variance on either side, 
 
 1 Charles Bussie, or Bushy, who accompanied Richard Cave to Italy, and 
 returned in Sept., 1607 (see below). He was a student at Padua, and on Aug. 1, 
 1607, was elected a councillor of the Scottish nation. (Andrich, p. 103.) 
 
 2 ' Having, on his death-bed, refused extreme unction, and auricular con- 
 fession, from the ecclesiastics there, they made a diligent search for the body, 
 in order to burn his heretical remains ; but it was preserved from their fury by 
 his friends, who threw it into the Adriatic Gulf, esteeming the deep more 
 merciful than a mistaken religious fury. In the chancel of Stanford Church is 
 an inscription to his memory, on a pyramidal monument, with his effigy, in 
 a kneeling posture.' (Betham, Baronetage of England, 1801, i, p. 381.) 
 
 3 Charles Bushy. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 399 
 
 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, 1 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, 2 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 observa- 
 tion in divers things of importance, and they spend upon agreement 
 together every week almost one half -day. 3 
 
 In their very last conference he acquainted him from me with the 
 taking of Blackwell 4 , 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. 5 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 
 
 1 This portrait never reached England ; the Nuncio hearing of it sent word 
 to the Pope, and when Bushy reached Milan he was arrested by the officers of 
 the Inquisition, thrown into prison, and the portrait, with the books, confiscated. 
 Bushy was soon released ; he returned to Venice, got another set of books, and 
 set out cheerfully again (see pp. 403, 404). The Pope complained to Contarini, 
 the Venetian ambassador at Rome, about the sending of Sarpi's portrait. (Col. 
 S. P. Yen., xi, p. 26.) Wotton sent another portrait, with the scars, this time, 
 left by the Papal assassins (see p. 407). 
 
 2 Disp. of Zorzi Giustinian, July 18, 1607. (Gal. S. P. Ten., xi, p. 14; 
 Athenaeum, Sept. 2, 1905.) 
 
 * It was under the pretence that he was reading English with Sarpi and 
 Fulgentio that Bedell was allowed to visit them so frequently. He read over 
 the Acts with Sarpi, the Gospels with Fulgentio, and helped the latter to pre- 
 pare the sermons which were a great cause of scandal to the Papal partisans. 
 
 4 George Blackwell, the archpriest (1545 ?-1613). He was arrested on June 
 24, 1607. 
 
 5 Mr. Singleton, priest, who arrived at the English College in Rome, October 
 9, 1606 (Foley, vi, p. 581). The book to which Wotton refers is entitled 
 Mr George Blackwel (made by Pope Clement VIII Archpriest of England) his Answeres 
 upon sundry his Examinations, Robert Baker, London, 1607. The breve of the Pope's 
 referred to is the first against the oath of allegiance, dated x Cal., Oct., 1606. 
 (Tierney's Dodd, iv, cxl.) 
 
400 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, liter to Philip Melanchton than to 
 Luther, and perad venture 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. 1 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. 2 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, 3 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Sarpi apologized to Diodate for his slowness. God had not given him, he 
 said, a nature that could act by spirit and zeal and fervour, but only by reason. 
 Diodate said that no impression could be made on the serenity and wisdom 
 (dolcesza e malurita) of his soul, which kept him aloof from all excitement. 
 (Bitter, ii. p. 130.) 
 
 2 The French ambassador wrote : ' Questo huorno possede tutto questo Senato 
 e e di grandissimo valore e prudenza.' (Canaye, v, p. 641.) 
 
 3 A discourse on the treaty of peace in the Low Countries, dated Sept. 15. 
 (S. P. Fen.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 401 
 
 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. 
 
 At Venice, the 2d of October, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 ... 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 l ) upon a trayeller'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, 
 
 1 In May Wotton had sent George Rooke, with Captain Aubrey Yorke, to Sir 
 Robert Dudley at Pisa with the Privy Seals, citing him to return and appear for 
 trial in England. He refused to receive the seals, as the address did not give 
 him the title of Earl of Warwick, which he claimed. ' I know indeed,' he 
 said to Rooke, ' that my cousin Wotton hath done no ill offices against me.' 
 (S. P. Ven., May 18, 1607.) As Dudley did not return, his estates were confiscated. 
 
 2 Castruccio Castracani. 1284-1328. 
 
 3 The magistrates of Lucca offered George Rooke 2,000 lire if he would 
 arrange for Salvetti to be arrested in England, and shipped within two years 
 to Viareggio. Rooke referred the matter to Wotton, who refused to undertake 
 the project for money : ' se la cosa desiderata e honesta,' he said to Rooke. ' la dobbiamo 
 fare per amore delT honesta ; se non e honesta, non dobbiamo farla per amore di denari.' 
 
 ^Letter of Wotton, Aug. 4, Atti degli AntettmineUi 12, denari in cipher). He 
 suggested, however, an exchange for Capt. Eliot, and on May 5 he wrote about 
 it to Nicolao and Ascanio Sanminiati, magistrates of Lucca, in a letter signed 
 ' Arrigo Vuotton ', saying cheerfully, ' il negosio mi place.'' (Ibid.} The authorities 
 of Lucca sent Francesco Tegrimi to Venice to discuss the matter, and Wotton 
 received him in company with George Rooke, who, he said, was a most trust- 
 worthy gentleman, and one in whom he confided his most important secrets. 
 Wotton told Tegrimi how he had known Salvetti, and how, on discovering at 
 Pisa the malvagita della sua conditions, he had forbidden him his house, although 
 he still remained in the service of his nephew. James hated traitors, Wotton 
 added, and although the arrest could not be made for money, it might be done 
 for the sake of getting possession of Capt. Eliot. (Letter of Tegrimi, June 2, 
 ibid.) The Lucchese authorities were, however, afraid of a disturbance if they 
 arrested Capt. Eliot, to which Wotton replied by reminding them of a Venetian 
 proverb, ' che chi bada ad ogni piuma non fa mai letto,' 1 adding, ' dopo la mia residema 
 q>~i ho visto piii d'una voUa ove la tenerezza ha guastato li buoni propositi.' (Ibid., Aug. 
 11.) Capt. Eliot being taken into the service of the Grand Duke, the business 
 came to nothing. There are nine autograph letters and notes of Wotton's about 
 WOTTON. i D d 
 
402 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 veiy 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 1 , 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 significa- 
 tion of his Majesty's will. 2 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 
 
 the business in the Archives of Lucca. Translations of two of these are printed 
 in the Hist. MSS. Com., Report xi, App. i, pp. 174, 181. (See also pp. 1, 2, and 
 Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi, Cav. Salvatore Bongi, Lucca, 1864, pp. 174-80.) 
 
 1 In the summer of this year, the Grand Duke of Tuscany sent a fleet (largely 
 composed of English pirates) to attempt the conquest of Cyprus. The Turks, 
 however, were warned, and the attempt failed. (S. P. Yen., Aug. 19, 1607.) 
 
 2 In answer to this dispatch, Salisbury wrote, ' For the overture of those of 
 Lucca, his Majesty knoweth not what to direct, here being no such person to 
 our knowledge in England ; and, therefore, he leaveth it to your discretion, to 
 proceed in it as you think fit, but not to engage himself further than shall be 
 honourable for him to perform, if any such person shall be found here.' (S. P. 
 Fen., Oct. 12, 1607.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 403 
 
 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 1 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. 2 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 Ib. sterling, according to their burdens ; 3 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 Albeit nothing that cometh from me can be worthy of reward 
 to the bearer ; yet because this honest gentleman 4 hath run great 
 
 1 Sept. 25. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 37.) 
 
 a In his audience of Oct. 15 Wotton wrote that the Doge expressed, ' with 
 much asseveration, their reverence, their love towards his Majesty, so just a king, 
 so great a friend ; how much he had bound them, how sure he might be of 
 them and of their posterity ; their ends were his, their people were his, and his 
 should be theirs.' (S. P. Yen., Nov. 1, 1607.) Wotton protested (Nov. 12) that 
 he had always laboured to maintain the good relations between England and the 
 Kepublic, and said that he wished that an epitaph upon husband and wife he 
 had once seen at Rome might apply to them, ' They lived together for years, 
 months, days, and hours without a quarrel.' ' As for myself,' he added, 
 ' I would in the words of Vitruvius that the breasts of all the envoys 
 resident here were pierced with windows, that you might see how loyal mine 
 is.' (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 58, 59.) 
 
 3 The tax was 44 per cent, on the value of the cargo. (Ibid., x, p. 277.) Wotton 
 said that it could not bring in more than 500 ducats a year (125). This con- 
 firms his statement that not more than four or five English vessels came to 
 Venice in a year (ante, p. 72). If the ships paid from 30 to 40, the value 
 of their cargoes would be from 700 to 800. 
 
 4 Charles Bushy. 
 
 D d 2 
 
404 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 EAEL OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. The attempted assassination of Paolo Sarpi. 
 
 From Venice, the 12th of October, 1607. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 Sentence on the assassins who had attempted to murder Paolo Sarpi. 
 A translation of this sentence was printed in London in 1608 : A true Copie of 
 the Sentence of the high Councell of tenne Judges in the State of Venice against Ridolfo 
 Poma, Michael Viti Priest, Alessandro Parrasio, John of Florence the sonne of Paul and 
 Pasquall of Bitonto ; who of late most trayterously attempted a bloudy and horrible Murder 
 upon the person of the reuerend Father Dr. Paolo Servite, &c. During July and 
 August, 1607, the Venetian Government had received repeated warnings from 
 Koine that Sarpi was threatened with some danger. They informed Sarpi of 
 these intimations, but he paid no heed to them. On Oct. 5, as he was returning 
 home to the Convent of St. Fosca, he was assailed by three assassins, and was 
 wounded in three places, twice in the neck, while the third assassin left his 
 dagger fixed in the right cheek-bone. Sarpi fell unconscious, and his assailants 
 made good their escape into the Papal States, in which they found at first not 
 only shelter but welcome. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 405 
 
 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 1 (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 ofthePope'sNuncio's disease 
 of discontentment. Some attribute it to the fashion oftheDukeof 
 Venice towards him the Sunday morning, following the Friday 
 of the attempt, at which time coming of course 2 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 3 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 
 
 1 Fabricio d' Aquapendente (1537-1619), the celebrated physician and professor 
 of medicine at Padua. William Harvey was one of his pupils in 1602. 
 
 2 ' Of course,' i.e. in due course, as is the custom. (N. E. D.) 
 
 3 'Of,' in obs. use, i.e. from. 
 
406 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 adpompam 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. 1 
 
 And so humbly beseeching your Lordship to excuse this hasty 
 dispatch in a confused and troubled time, I rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to 
 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 112. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The Pope and the attack on Sarpi. 
 
 From Venice, the 19th of October, 1607. 
 
 ... 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 com- 
 plices) 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. 
 
 1 On Oct. 15 Wotton came to the College to congratulate on Sarpi's escape from 
 assassination. ' A grave and noteworthy business,' he called it, ' wherein the 
 Divine hand is clear to see ; for it was as easy to slay Father Paul, as it was 
 difficult to find his equal.' He was sure it originated with the Jesuits. ' This 
 affair has made me consider the like events in our own kingdom, where 
 iniquitous conspiracies have been formed to slay, not only ministers and 
 councillors, but the King himself; and I am persuaded that all these are the 
 result of the teaching of one school ; a doctrine taught not in the pulpit or in 
 books that would be too impious but whispered in private ears ; a doctrine 
 which teaches how to deal with all alike, from shaven heads to crowned (dalle 
 teste rase fino alle coronate}.' He then contradicted a report that the assassin 
 Giovanni of Florence was really a Scot, and had visited his house before the 
 attempt on Sarpi. Next he spoke of the current reports about his conferences 
 with Sarpi. Although he lived near the Servite monastery, and delighted in 
 the conversation of the learned, both for the pleasure of it and the knowledge 
 he gained, yet he had never spoken to Sarpi save on one single occasion, when 
 he had happened to meet him in the hall of the Ducal Palace, and had merely 
 greeted him. And yet many, both in Venice and Rome, had affirmed that 
 during the crisis Wotton and Sarpi had had long conferences together. Saying 
 nothing, of course, of his continual communications with Sarpi by means of 
 Bedell, Wotton added, with apparent candour, ' all this proves how difficult it 
 is to know the truth in human affairs.' (Cal S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 44, 45.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 407 
 
 113. To THE EARL OF SALISBUUY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., extract, holograph. The flight of the assassins. 
 
 From Venice, the first of November, 1607. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 prodama. 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. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton sends another portrait of Sarpi. 
 
 The 21st of December, 1607. 
 
 . . . Your Lordship's of the 12th of November came yesterday 
 into my hands very opportunely, being then ready to dispatch Captain 
 Pinner 2 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), 3 which his Majesty shall now, 
 
 1 Bedell wrote to Ward in an undated letter, but written about this time, 
 of Sarpi, ' Now thanked be God he is perfectly recovered and abroad again, and 
 I do hope this accident will awake him a little more, and put some more spirit 
 in him, which is his only want ; although to say truth it is rather judgement 
 and discretion in him considering this State how it stands than weakness 
 that makes him cautelous. I have no doubt but by little and little the Papacy 
 will to wrack.' (Tico Biog., p. 225.) 
 
 a Captain Nicolas Pinner (ante, p. 365), who was now returning home in the 
 hopes of obtaining a command in Ulster, where he had formerly served. ' One 
 of your Majesty's honest and valiant subjects,' Wotton wrote of him to the 
 King, ' that thought to have spent his blood in the late variance here.' (S. P. 
 Ven., Jan. 11, 1607.) He also recommended him to Salisbury, 'in this narrow 
 time for his profession, when princes are so wise that soldiers must be poor.' 
 (Ibid.) 
 
 3 For this portrait see Appendix III, Sarpi. 
 
408 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l he taketh very dearly and tenderly. 
 
 115. To THE EAKL OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The powder merchant, Stephen Stock. 
 From Venice, the 4th of January, 1607(8). 
 
 ... 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 Kome 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 perad- 
 venture hear more of him from Mr. Ofeley, of London, 2 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 EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. A letter of introduction for the poet Hugh Holland. 
 
 Venice, this <6) of January, 1607<8>. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VEKY GOOD LORD, 
 
 This gentleman, Mr. Hugh Holland, 3 came out with his Majesty's 
 licence, wherewith he acquainted me at his first arrival here, as like- 
 
 1 In Salisbury's letter (wrongly endorsed Oct. 12) he writes that the King 
 was ' much pleased in the constant and magnanimous proceeding of that State 
 upon all occasions offered, and particularly in the carriage of the matter con- 
 cerning il Padre Paolo, of whose escape from the foul assassinate, his Majesty 
 is right glad, and he expressed himself to the Venetian ambassador here at his 
 last audience, to whom he did also make known his particular good inclination 
 towards il Padre Paolo, for his learning, modesty, and zeal in the defence of so 
 good a cause '. (S. P. Fen.) 
 
 2 Robert Offly, a merchant trading to Venice. (Col. S. P. Ven., x, p. 92.) In 
 a letter of Sept. 5, 1608, Wotton mentions the death of Stephen Stock. (Stowe 
 MS. 170, f. 155.) 
 
 3 Hugh Holland (d. 1633), author of Pancharis (1603), A Cypres Garland 
 (1625). He was a member of the Mermaid Club, a friend of Ben Jonson, and 
 probably of Shakespeare, and a sonnet of his was prefixed to the first Shake- 
 speare folio. (D. N. J3.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 409 
 
 wise 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 introduc- 
 tion. And the present being for no other purpose I humbly rest 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, this first of January, 1607, 
 in the old style (Jan. 11, 1608, N.S.). 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HlGHNESS, 
 
 Having had occasion for his Majesty's service (wherein your own 
 is always included) to dispatch home this honest captain, I have pre- 
 sumed 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, 
 
 Your Highness, his long devoted servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Venice, this 18th of January, 1607(8). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 
 1 Bois-le-Duc. On Jan. 11 Wotton wrote that all the couriers had been 
 delayed by the wintry weather, adding ' only here runneth a voice (spread by 
 the French ambassador out of his packet from the Court of Fraunce) that the 
 States have surprised Bolduc, and that thereupon the treaty is dissolved'. 
 (S. P. Fen.) 
 
410 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 The Diet of Germany 1 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 2 hath been now pub- 
 lished in the Grand Council in this form, that having passed deter- 
 minately 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 tune 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 3 his eldest son, who two 
 
 1 The Diet of Ratisbon, which was the most turbulent and stormy since the 
 accession of the Emperor Rudolf. The recent aggressions of the Catholics and 
 Imperial party, especially against Aix-la-Chapelle and DonauwOrth, had enraged 
 the Protestants, and the appointment of Ferdinand to preside over the Diet was 
 regarded as an additional insult. (Coxe, ii, p. 84.) 
 
 2 Arrested in Dec., 1607, for having met the Papal Nuncio in the cell of Fra 
 Vincenzo in the Monastery of the Frari. (S. P. Yen., Dec. 21, 1607, Jan. 11, 1608.) 
 
 3 Sir Julius Caesar, 1558-1636, son of Caesar Adelmare, physician to Queen 
 Elizabeth, a native of Treviso, in the Venetian territory. Sir Julius Caesar was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer 1606, Master of the Rolls 1614. His third wife was 
 a granddaughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon. (D. N. .B.) He sent his eldest surviving 
 son, Julius, on account of his ' excessive vivacity ', to absorb learning and 
 manners at the University of Padua. The young man was wounded by Brochetta 
 in fencing ; lay in wait for him with a pistol, fired at him and missed, and 
 falling in drawing his sword, Brochetta ran him through and killed him. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 411 
 
 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 particu- 
 larity thereof by Captain Pinner, whom my letter will overtake in 
 Augusta, being departed hence but two days since with a very impor- 
 tant 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 119. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stotce MS. 169, f. 269, dictated. The severe weather; death of Sir Julius 
 
 Caesar's son. 
 
 From Venice, this 25th of January, 1607(8). 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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, 
 
 There was great uproar among the English students ; and Wotton, as soon as 
 he heard it, sent his secretary to the Collegia, being ill himself at the time, to 
 demand punishment. Wotton's secretary was told the story by the Venetian 
 secretary ; and when he heard of the pistol, he shrugged his shoulders, and 
 admitted of his own accord that the fact of the young man carrying a pistol 
 through the streets of Padua made it difficult to establish his innocence. 
 Wotton kept on demanding a trial ; justice, he said, would greatly please the 
 English nation, ' which longs to shed its blood, not at the hands of your sub- 
 jects, but in the service of your Serenity.' Young Caesar, ' though a little too 
 full of youth,' had been a lad of high promise. (Col. S. P. Fen., xi, pp. 84-6, 99, 
 113.) Good old Sir Julius Caesar notes in his -diary for the years 1607-8, 
 ' January the eighth my second son and third child Juley, being upon the point 
 of twenty years of age, was slain in Padua upon a private quarrel between 
 another and himself.' (Life of Sir Julius Caesar, E. Lodge, 1810, p. 12.) Brochetta 
 was banished from Venetian territory, and forbidden, under severe penalties, to 
 return. For a plan to catch him, see Wotton's letter, p. 450. 
 
 1 Owing to illness, and the cold weather, Wotton had no audience in this 
 year till ^eb. 1. The Doge asked about his health, and congratulated him on 
 having a fine day. Wotton replied that it was the best day he had seen for 
 some time, and that ' he, who belonged to a people far nearer the Pole, could 
 never have believed it possible to experience such cold and such bad weather ' 
 as he found in Venice. (Cal. S. P. Fen., xi, p. 90.) 
 
412 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 a friar's hand coining from Padoa stupefied and gangrened with the 
 cold, the procaccio of Kome 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, Kome is grown wet (I think lest they should agree), for there the 
 Tiber hath overflown a good part of the city, and besieged the ambas- 
 sadors 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 where- 
 with I can trouble your Lordship at the present, whom our dear 
 Saviour keep in His safe protection. 
 
 Your Lordship's very affectionate poor friend to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 120. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. No date, but endorsed 'January, 1607 '. 
 Wotton sends a lampoon in dialect. 
 
 (Venice, Jan., 1608.) 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 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 Eowland Woodward, as I will now myself, to remind you of 
 your promise. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 413 
 
 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. 
 
 Venice, the 22 of February, 1607<8). 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 govern- 
 ment 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 deter- 
 mination of affairs, out of which not only the Senate itself, or Council 
 of Ten, or other such high and regardful members of the Common- 
 wealth, 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 satisfac- 
 tion 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 : Qul si scaldava 
 V Ambasciadore, Qul si fermava I'Amlasciadore, and the like ; and so it 
 
 1 Salisbury wrote that the Venetian ambassador in England had demanded an 
 immediate and favourable decision about some goods stolen from a Venetian 
 subject, by the pirate Ward, and sold in England. He asked this in return for 
 the immediate granting of one of Wotton's requests. Salisbury inquired about 
 this, and Wotton answered as above, describing the method of procedure in 
 Venice. (S. P. Fen., Jan. 7, 1608.) 
 
 2 The six Savii Grandi, elected by the Senate for the period of six months. 
 They superintended the action of the boards below them, and fulfilled the func- 
 tion of responsible ministers of state. 
 
414 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 1 and determinable in 
 Senate. 
 
 Here is lately arrived a certain pretendant to the Princedom of 
 Moravia 2 , 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 Lord- 
 ship, 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. 
 
 1 ' Conoscible,' i. e. cognoscible. (N. E. Z>.) 
 
 2 Moravia is no doubt a slip of the pen for Moldavia. The pretendant was 
 Stephen Bogdan, who had been in England in 1607, and had had an audience 
 with James I, who gave him letters of recommendation. He gave out in Venice 
 that he was engaged to the Lady Arabella, although he was already married to 
 a Venetian. This engagement was talked of in England, and in 1610 Lady 
 Arabella "succeeded in having a play suppressed in which there were allusions to 
 her and Bogdan. In Aug., 1609, Bogdan arrived at Constantinople, and was 
 given shelter by the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Glover, greatly to the 
 annoyance of the Grand Vizier, who threatened that the Sultan would send 
 Glover to England to have his head cut off. (CaL S. P. Few., xi, pp. xvii, xviii). 
 The visit of Bogdan to England is mentioned in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, 
 first acted in 1609 (Act V, Scene l),and this may be the play to which the Lady 
 Arabella objected. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 415 
 
 122. To THE EARL OP SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Few., holograph. The pirate Ward ; news in Rome of a miracle 
 
 in London. 
 
 The 7th of March, 1607(8). 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY .GOOD LORD, 
 
 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.* It was my purpose in the begin- 
 ning to make this short, yet I cannot end it before I tell your Lord- 
 ship that in Rome there is much ado amongst them about a miracu- 
 lous apern B that casteth flames in London, and the Pope hath been 
 
 1 'News in a letter out of Germany, &c.' (S. P. Fen., Feb. 28, 1608.) 
 See p. 426. 
 
 3 This was the famous pirate John Ward (fl. 1601-15). He had been 
 a petty officer in the English navy, and in 1613 he seized on a ship at 
 Portsmouth and became a pirate, making Tunis his head quarters. He built 
 a palace at Tunis, beautified with marble and alabaster, second only to the 
 palace of the Bey in magnificence, and it was said that no English nobleman 
 lived in greater state. (D. N. B. , lix, p. 320 ; Gardiner, iii, p. 66.) He ' was very short, 
 bald, with a swarthy face, always swearing, and drunk from morning to night ', 
 and Wotton described him as the 'greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from 
 England '. He kept the Venetians in great awe both within and without their 
 own seat, Wotton wrote on March 10, 1607, and hath ' done upon them almost 
 what he hath liked '. Such was his wealth and influence, that he hoped to buy 
 or threaten the English Government into pardoning him ; and this proposal 
 was seriously considered, Wotton tentatively suggesting that the Venetian 
 Government should agree to it on condition that Ward gave back the property 
 he had captured from Venetian ships. (Col. S. P. Fen., xi, pp. 54, 55.) An 
 alternative plan was for Ward's assassination, and on Oct. 2, 1608, Wotton sub- 
 mitted to the Doge the offer of an English sailor, formerly one of Ward's crew, 
 to find out the pirate, kill him, and burn his ships. (Ibid., p. 175.) 
 
 4 Sir Stephen Le Sieur (ante, p. 387 n.). 
 
 5 ' Apern,' obsolete form of apron. (N. E. D.} This is probably the apron 
 mentioned by Bacon in the Novum Organum (ii. 12), ' Atque paucis abhinc annis, 
 notissimum est et pro miraculo quasi habitum gremiale cuiusdam puellae paullo 
 motum aut fricatum coruscasse.' ' The girl's apron was probably made of silk 
 and the " coruscatio " electric.' (Note of Dr. Kitchin, quoted by T. Fowler, Novum 
 Organum, 1889, p. 372.) 
 
416 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 
 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 propa- 
 ganda. 
 
 Venice, the 28th of March, 1608. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 Kenunciation l (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 hand- 
 somely 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 
 
 1 The Renunciation on the part of the Archdukes and Spain to the sovereignty 
 of all the Netherlands. The Archduke Albert offered this if the Dutch would 
 abandon the trades to both the Indies. These terms were refused, and the 
 negotiations for peace dragged on slowly. (Motley, U. N., iv, pp. 405-6.) 
 
 2 The first and anonymous edition of the King's Apologia pro luramento 
 Fidelitatis, published in 1607. Two boxes of books from England arrived by 
 sea at this time, one box for Wotton, and one for Bedell. When the period 
 of quarantine had expired, Wotton sent to the Lazaretto for them, but the 
 authorities refused to give them up without an order from the Inquisition. 
 Wotton complained at once to the Doge (March 26). He said he was astonished 
 at what had happened ; he had discovered, in his study of the Venetian Con- 
 stitution, that there were three Inquisitors of State a most weighty office. 
 But as for the Papal Inquisitor 'why, I declare I don't even know the 
 etymology of the word ! ' The Doge apologized ; the sanitary authorities, he 
 said, were only carrying out the laws, but were not aware that these laws did 
 not apply to ambassadors. (Cal. S. P. Ven,, xi, p. 109.) 
 
 3 Sarpi. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 417 
 
 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 1 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 con science, 2 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 Col. S. P. Irish, 
 1606-8, p. 651. The Earl of Tyrone in Italy. 
 
 Venice, the 4th of April, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 While the Irish fugitives 3 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 
 
 1 Jewel's Apologia pro Ecclesia Anglicana, published in 1562. 
 
 * At the Diet of Presburgh, Feb., 1608. (Coze, ii, p. 100.) 
 
 3 Hugh O'Neill, second Earl of Tyrone (1540?-1616), the Irish rebel, pardoned 
 in 1603, was summoned to England, but fled abroad in August, 1607, with the 
 Earl of Tyrconnell and a small band of followers. Landing in France, they went 
 to the Flemish provinces and thence to Milan. (D. N. B., xlii, p. 188 ; Oardiner, 
 i, pp. 414-16.) Tyrone's cordial reception by the Spaniards at Milan aroused 
 considerable indignation in England. At Wotton's request he was warned 
 by the Venetian Government not to come into Venetian territory. The 
 ambassador told the Doge of the circumstances in which he had seen Tyrone 
 in Ireland nine years before (see ante, p. 33). He sent a spy to accompany 
 Tyrone in his travels in Italy, and on July 11 he wrote : ' From Rome the party 
 whom I employed particularly to observe the steps of Tyrone is within these 
 four days returned hither unto me in great fear. I can assure your Lordship 
 there is much vigilancy and much jealousy about him.' (S. P. Ken.) 
 WOTTON. i E 6 
 
418 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Camcriere 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 Kome 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 com- 
 pany, for he walketh with much jealousy. 1 . . . 
 
 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 2 to Kome 
 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 
 
 1 On April 25 Wotton wrote that he had remonstrated with Don Alfonzo 
 della Queva (Bedmar), the new Spanish ambassador (whom he must still call 
 la gentilezza del mondo), about Tyrone's reception at Milan. His remonstrance 
 was referred to Spain. (Cal. S. P. Irish, 1606-8, p. 652.) On May 2 he refers to 
 the matter again. (Ibid., p. 653.) 
 
 a This must refer to the King's book there was no other ' ambassador ' sent 
 by James at this time. 
 
TO JAMES I 419 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful poor vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 125. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Mosaics and pictures for Lord Salisbury. 
 
 Venice, on Good Friday 
 
 (April 4, 1608, N.S.). 
 MY LORD, 
 
 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 adven- 
 tured 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 MartlM of London, whose master is one Sammon. There 
 is a picture of this famous Duke 3 , done truly and naturally but 
 roughly, alia Venctiana, 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 
 
 1 Wotton had a copy in mosaic made of this portrait of Salisbury. The 
 mosaic is still at Hatfield, being built into the wall, over the fireplace in the 
 library. 
 
 2 Lord Salisbury was now building Hatfield House, having exchanged 
 Theobalds for Hatfield in 1607. (D. N. B.) 
 
 3 Leonardo Donate. These pictures cannot be traced. 
 
 E e 2 
 
420 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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), distin- 
 guished not by provinces, but according to the estates and govern- 
 ments. They shall be brought unto your Lordship by one Harry 
 Cogan t , an old and honest servant of mine, whom since the placing 
 of Eouland Woodward with my Lord of London, I have taken again 
 into my small uses at home. And your Lordship may in the con- 
 veying of your packets or other commandments unto me trust him 
 very confidently, being both careful, and (as far as I can judge) 
 discreet. 
 
 Your Lordship's humble and obliged servant many ways, 
 
 HENKY WOTTON. 
 
 126. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. v 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. 
 
 (Venice, April 24, 1608, N.S.). 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I have sent home purposely this gentleman William Parkhurst 2 , 
 with the present dispatch. He hath there little fortunes, and conse- 
 quently as little business as myself about his or mine own particular, 
 yet I have committed unto him upon this occasion some few remem- 
 brances, 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 pro- 
 p ortion. 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. 3 If his Majesty shall be pleased 
 
 1 Harry Cogan, see Appendix III. 
 
 2 William Parkhurst, see Appendix III. 
 
 3 One for the assassination of the Earl of Tyrone, one for the introduction of 
 Protestantism, 'God's truth,' into Venice. See next dispatch. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 421 
 
 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. Yen., 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. 
 
 From Venice, the 24 of April, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 There occur to be represented unto your high wisdom two pro- 
 positions, 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 par- 
 ticular 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/ar 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 
 
422 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 myknowledge)proceeded tothe 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 Maesta, 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 
 
 1 Pompey. Ah : this thou shouldst have done, 
 And not have spoke on't ! In me 'tis villany ; 
 In thee 't had been good service. . . . 
 
 Being done unknown, 
 
 I should have found it afterwards well done, 
 But must condemn it now. (Ant. & Cleop. ii. 7. 80-7. 
 
TO JAMES I 423 
 
 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 Maesta ; 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 Home, and thence into Spain, if they be not prevented ' ; 
 which I think he took out of the common voice ; for of particulari- 
 ties 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 l here and some others, having 
 
 1 Sarpi. 
 
424 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l , 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 whoso- 
 ever 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 advance- 
 ment 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 
 
 1 Sarpi told von Dohna that for the purpose of Protestant propaganda it was 
 much better to have agents and not ambassadors from Protestant princes in 
 Venice. The ambassadors were so strictly watched that it was difficult for 
 them to accomplish anything. (Bitter, ii, p. 79.) 
 
TO JAMES I 425 
 
 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 1 , he was in that Court called 
 Lutfierano. In these petty circumstances J hope there will appear 
 unto your Majesty semina niaynaruHi 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. 
 
 Your Majesty's most humble poor vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 128. To HENRY, PUINCK OF WALES. 
 
 JIarL MS. 7007, f. 185. holograph. Partly printed in Birch's I'r. Henry, 
 p. 107. Marriages of Italian princes. 
 
 From Venice, this 24 of April, 1G08. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HlGHNESS, 
 
 I was advertised by Captain Pinner how graciously it pleased 
 you to receive that poor unworthy present which I sent by him, 
 
 1 Sir Charles Cornwallis (d. 1629". Early in 1(505 he was sent to Spain as 
 resident ambassador, where he remained till Sept., 1609. (D. X. #., xii. p. 234.) 
 A large number of Cornwallis's interesting and well-written dispatches from 
 Spain are printed in the Wimcood Memorials. In one (undated, but written about 
 1605) he speaks of the slowness of the Spanish in their negotiations with him, 
 adding, 'To hasten their dull spirits I enter here into more strait friendship 
 and familiarity with the French and Venetian ambassadors, of both of whom 
 they are exceeding jealous. We now begin to convite th" one th' other. We 
 visit often; we show ourselves all three abroad in my coach.' (Wimcood Mem., 
 ii, pp. 152-3.) Wotton and Cornwallis maintained the usual correspondence of 
 English ambassadors abroad, and there are transcripts in the British Museum 
 of tAvo of Wotton's letters to Cornwallis, dated Jan. (?) 1(506, March 11, 1606. 
 ^Harl. MS. 1875, f. 363, 382; also Cornwallis to Wotton, f. 384.) 
 
426 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 solem- 
 nized 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. 
 
 Tear not, sir, there will be left for you a good wife, I warrant you, 
 and whatsoever she be, she shall be glad of it. 8 
 
 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 
 
 1 Wotton had not yet made this statement to the Doge, but did so on April 30. 
 ' I have just heard something from home,' he said, ' and although I have no 
 orders to communicate it I can't help telling tales out of school for this once. 
 Captain Nicholas Pinner, who was so well received here, went back from me 
 with letters to the Prince. The Prince took him apart and talked to him 
 privately for half an hour ; asking questions about Venice and praising the 
 Republic. I am sure this will please you.' (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 129.) 
 
 2 Margherita of Savoy married Franceso di G-onzaga, Prince of Mantua ; her 
 sister Isabella married Alfonzo d'Este, afterwards Duke of Modena. (Beauregard, 
 La Maison de Savoy, 1816, p. 11.) Prince Cosmo of Tuscany (Cosmo II after the 
 death of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I in 1609) married Maria Madelina, sister 
 of Ferdinand of Styria (afterwards the Emperor Ferdinand II). A match was 
 also suggested between the Prince of Piedmont and a Medici Princess. This, 
 however, did not take place, the Prince marrying Christina, daughter of 
 Henry IV, in 1619. Wotton called on the Savoy Princes when they were in 
 Venice, but they refused to receive all ambassadors except the Spanish. The 
 French ambassador, he consoled himself, would take this more passionately 
 than he did. He wrote of the Princes that ' their humours were spied to be 
 naturally cogitative and melancholic'. (S. P. Yen., April 25, May 2, 1608.) 
 
 3 Wotton suggested at this time a marriage between Prince Henry and one of 
 the daughters of Frederick IV, the Elector Palatine. Being visited one day by 
 von Dohna, an envoy of Frederick IV, then in Venice, he mentioned the subject, 
 asked about the eldest of the Palatine Princesses, and, looking at a portrait of 
 Prince Henry that hung on his wall, said, l Certo,io wrrei che eUa fosse Regina 
 ff Inghilterra.' (Report of Dohna, Bitter, ii, pp. 88, 89 n.) 
 
427 
 
 sweet blessings in you, and particularly of your delight in His truth, 
 which is the highest of His blessings. 
 
 Your Highness his long devoted servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, 24 of April, 1608. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 SIR, 
 
 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 
 
 1 William Parkhurst. 
 
 " No doubt Triaca, or ' Venice treacle ', a compound of drugs, supposed to be 
 an antidote against the bites of poisonous animals. 
 
 3 Probably Pietro Negri, tried and condemned for rape in the house of 
 Angela Centanni. Wotton presented a memorandum in his favour on July 19. 
 (Col. S. P. Yen., 1607-10, p. 151 n.) 
 
428 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 own friend. 1 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. 
 Your honest friend to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 130. To LORD Roos. 
 
 J3. 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.' 
 
 From Venice, the 17 of May, 1608. 
 MY LORD, 
 
 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 intelli- 
 gence, 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. 2 
 
 1 Six days after the date of this letter Wotton made another request of more 
 importance, asking the Doge to allow the works of Chrysostom, which he had 
 seen in the library of St. Mark, to be examined for the great edition of 
 Chrysostom which Sir Henry Savile was then preparing. (Cal. 8. P. Ven., x, p. 129.) 
 On Jan. 2, 1614, Savile's son-in-law, Sir Dudley Carleton (then ambassador in 
 Venice), presented the eight volumes of the complete edition, bound in crimson 
 satin, to the Doge, and they are still preserved in St. Mark's Library. He sent 
 this gift in gratitude for the permission given his representative to examine the 
 texts in the Venetian library. (Duffus Hardy, pp. 23-6.) This permission was 
 apparently not, however, obtained through Wotton, as Lingelsheim wrote to 
 Bongars, Sept. 15, 1605 : ' Darimplius heri hac transiit ; ait se Viennae multa 
 praeclara obtinuisse, sed Venetiis se xx septimanas delusum a Wottono Oratore 
 Britannico, quinihil illicobtinerevolueritautpotuerit.' (Hermann Hagen, Zur 
 Geschichte der Philologie, &c., Berlin, 1879, p. 194.) This reference I owe to the 
 kindness of Prof. Bywater. 
 
 8 Wotton's spy was named Henry Twittie or Tweddye, a servant of Lord 
 Ellesmere, and was sent to Wotton by Nicholas Fitzherbert. (S. P. Ven., May 16, 
 1608.) George Rooke had employed Twittie in delivering the Privy Seals to 
 Sir Robert Dudley. (Rooke to Salisbury, June 4, 1608, S. P. Ven.) 
 
TO LORD ROO8 42S 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you humble service. 
 
 131. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Yen., 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. 
 
 (Venice, May (?), 1608.) 
 
 SUCH PARTICULARS AS I HEAR FROM ROME TOUCHING TIRONE. 
 
 He hath visited (for the most part in the company of the Primate 
 of Ireland 2 ) the cardinals and ambassadors. From the Cardinals 
 Farnese and Mont' Alto 3 he received kindest words and countenance, 
 according to his own opinion of them. 
 
 1 Lord Roos was a great-grandson of Lord Burghley and cousin of Lord 
 Salisbury. In spite of the remonstrances both of Wotton and Mole, he went 
 to Rome, where Mole was almost immediately arrested and cast into the 
 Inquisition (see p. 334). 
 
 3 Peter Lombard, D.D. (ante, p. 334). 
 
 3 Edoardo Farnese, cardinal 1591, d. 1626. Andrea Peretti, Cardinal Montalto, 
 1596, d. 1629. 
 
430 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 *, John Sweete 2 , 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 3 he is said to have used these words 
 ' Sir Anthony, it is better being poor in Eome 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" 4 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 discontent- 
 ment. In his coach (as is written unto me) he commonly sitteth in 
 portella a basso (peradventure to be seen) and the Primate in capo, 
 and Tirconel 5 on his left hand. The speech runneth in Kome 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 Kome 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. 6 
 
 1 Thomas Fitzherbert (1552-1640), a Jesuit, who was accused of conspiring 
 to poison Queen Elizabeth. He went to Rome in 1602, where he acted for 
 twelve years as agent for the English clergy. (D. N. U.) 
 
 2 John Sweete, alias Douse (1572-1632), for some time penitentiary at St. 
 Peter's in Rome. (Foley, vi, p. 228.) On Dec. 6, 1606, Wotton sent Salisbury 
 an intercepted letter of Sweete's, 'for,' he wrote, 'I know both the style and 
 the hand. ... I hope it will give his Majesty very much sport.' (S. P. Few.) 
 
 3 Sir Anthony Standen, a person of strange character, who had formerly been 
 employed by Walsingham as a spy, and had afterwards attached himself to the 
 Earl of Essex. He was knighted by Elizabeth, and was sent on the accession of 
 James with letters from the King to Venice and the Duke of Florence. On his 
 way through France, however, he gained admittance to Henry IV, and told such 
 falsehoods, and acted in such a manner, that he was imprisoned in the Tower on 
 his return to England, where he remained some months. What became of him 
 afterwards is not known. (Lodge's Illustrations, 1791, iii, p. 164 n.) 
 
 4 Palazzo della Rovere, where Sir Anthony Shirley and the so-called Persian 
 ambassador (and Wotton with them) were lodged in 1601 (see ante, p. 38). 
 
 5 Rory O'Donnel, Earl of Tyrconnel, died July 28, 1608. (S. P. Yen., Aug. 15.) 
 ' For further mention of Tyrone in Wotton's dispatches, see Cal. S. P. Irish, 
 
 1606-8, pp. 656, 661, 662, 664, 666-70. 
 
431 
 
 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. 
 
 The 5th of July, 1608. 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 unfeigned ly 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's most bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 133. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Discourse in Venice about the colony in 
 Virginia and the rebellion in Ireland. 
 
 At Venice, the first of August, 1608. 
 
 . . . There is here much discoursing of his Majesty's footings and 
 foundations in Virginia/ which I pray the God of Heaven to prosper ; 
 
 1 Charles de Lorraine, Prince de Joinville and fourth Due de Guise, 1571-1640. 
 On the day this dispatch was dated Wotton, on orders from James I, recom- 
 mended de Joinville to the Doge, as the Prince wished to enter the Venetian 
 service. His offers were refused. M. de Monplaisir was the gentleman sent 
 by the Prince. (Cal S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 146-8.) 
 
 2 Tithes of the ecclesiastical benefices granted to Rome in the Middle Ages, 
 and afterwards remitted by the Papacy, though with a reservation of its right 
 to them. The Pope now claimed these tithes again. (S. P. Ven., July 11, 1608.) 
 
 3 Ascanio Colonna, cardinal 158<>, d. 1608. 
 
 4 The charter for the colony of Virginia was dated April 10, 1606, and on 
 
432 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 for never to my poor understanding did anything sound more bene- 
 ficial 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 any- 
 thing 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 * 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 king- 
 dom, to hold out a few weeks against all the kings of the world, 
 when a Marco Shara, 2 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. 
 
 From Venice, this 16th of August, 1608. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HlGHNESS, 
 
 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 High- 
 ness hath (as they are here well informed) been pleased sundry times 
 to inquire with much affection of the course of their affairs, and 
 
 Dec. 19 in the same year the first colonists set sail. Reinforcements were sent 
 out in this year. (Gardiner, ii, pp. 54, 56.) ' Isola Virginia,' the Virginian Island, 
 Wotton called the colony. (Esp. Prin., March 16, 1617.) 
 
 1 The rising of O'Doherty, who captured Culmore and Derry in April of 
 this year. On July 5 he was defeated and slain and the rebellion crushed. 
 (Gardiner, i, pp. 425, 429.) 2 Marco Sciarra, ante, p. 272 n. 
 
TO HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES 433 
 
 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. 
 
 II Signer 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 liabilities 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 bless- 
 ings upon your Highness, I humbly kiss your sweet and princely 
 hand, and rest, 
 
 Your zealous poor servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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 
 
 1 Nicolo Molin and Zorzi Giustinian had preceded Marc' Antonio Correr. 
 On Jan. 11, 1608, Wotton wrote: 'They have here newly chosen another 
 ambassador resident in the room of Signor Giustiniano, of the house of 
 Correro ; at which there is not only wondering but envy among the public 
 ministers, for he is of greater quality than any that hath before been sent to 
 reside with either Fraunce or Spayne, which is to be attributed to the voice 
 that runneth here of his Majesty's sweet usage towards ambassadors.' Young 
 Correr was ' a boy of very delicate sweet temper ', Wotton wrote to Salisbury on 
 Aug. 22. ' His name is Vincenzo, whereof if it please your Lordship at your 
 first sight of him to take notice, the father will be very proud of it.' (S. P. Fen.) 
 Young Vincenzo Correr remained with his father throughout that diplomatist's 
 sojourn at the British Court, and was Prince Henry's constant companion in the 
 tilt-yard, and often attended the Princess Elizabeth in hunting. (See ' Venetian 
 Ambassadors in England ', Add. MS. 20760, p. 14.) 
 
 WOTTON. I F f 
 
 1 
 
434 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 here is no disadvantage, for the younger families do commonly carry 
 the princedom. 1 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, this 5th of September, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . The Great Duke hasteneth the marriage 2 of his heir before the 
 cold weather, having to that end sent the eldest son of Don Virginio 
 Orsino (who passed yesternight cross 8 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 4 ), 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 6 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 Eome, 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. 
 
 1 Wotton's list has been lost. The twenty- four ancient houses of Venice 
 were Badoer, Barozzi, Basegio, Bembo, Bragadin, Contarini, Corner, Dandolo, 
 Dolfin, Falier, Gradenigo, Memmo, Michiel. Morosini, Polani, Querini, Salomon, 
 Sanudo, Soranzo, Tiepolo, Zane, Zen, Zorzi, Zustinian. (Romanin, iv, p. 420 n.) 
 Several of these families are still in existence ; they date from the period before 
 the election of the first Doge in the seventh century, and are by far the most 
 ancient families of Europe. 
 
 2 On Oct. 24 Wotton wrote about this marriage to Edmondes. The bride 
 had arrived at Florence ; ' her language is Dutch and Latin ; her face fair and 
 ill-favoured, her train in all some three hundred.' The Cardinal Sforza, coming 
 to the wedding later than the other cardinals, ' was through negligence or want 
 of powder not saluted with shot at the castle of the Great Duke which he should 
 pass by. Whereupon he turned back to Rome, and the Great Duke hath been 
 fain to send after him for the quieting of his spirit : to such a height are those 
 apostles grown ! ' (Stowe MS. 170, f. 218.) 
 
 3 ' Cross,' across. Obs. (N.E.D.) * Sir Stephen Le Sieur. 
 5 ' Resiants,' arch, residents. (Century Diet.} 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 435 
 
 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 inter- 
 cepting place among a great confluence of English. 
 
 136. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 170, f. 155, dictated, extract. Wottonasks Edmondes to write 
 
 once a week. 
 
 From Venice, the 5th of 7ber, <1608>. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 l 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 inter- 
 course 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 Flem- 
 mings 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 s , whither I am going within these two days, and shall 
 there remain some fourteen. 
 
 1 William Parkhurst. He was back in Venice by Sept. 9, having been detained 
 by 'indisposition and other mischances which befell him in France'. (Cal. S. P. 
 Yen., xi, p. 167.) 2 At Brussels. 
 
 3 Wotton took his leave of the Doge for his trip on the Lago di 
 Garda on Sept. 9. ' The Doge praised the ambassador's plan of visiting that 
 lovely and delicious district. He spoke at length of Garda and its shores, 
 recommending the ambassador to see certain places of note for the pleasure 
 
 F f 2 
 
436 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 137. To PHILIPPE DupLESsis-MoRNAY. 1 
 
 Mornay, x, p. 254. Wotton sends a cipher for their correspondence. 
 
 (Venice, Oct. 15, 1608, N.S.) 
 
 Quae nunc sit conditio rerum cisalpinarum, intelleges ab hoc ipso 
 egregio viro, per queni adeo humaniter aperuisti mihi viam ad 
 amicitiam tuam. Quae posthac dies vehet, quo tutius tecum com- 
 municem 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 turn etiam cum adhuc 
 informis CSSet mundi moles CTre^e'pero 7raj/w TOU vSa/ros. 
 
 Ipseque vir optime longum salve, idibus Octobribus Gregoriani anni. 
 
 138. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton wrote that the Pope had sent 
 a ' Jubilee ' (an extraordinaiy 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 : 
 
 From Venice, this 24th of October, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 
 
 and delight they would give him, wishing him buon viaggio, and offering all help 
 that might be required on the journey.' (Cal. S. P. Ven,, xi, p. 170.) By Oct. 2 they 
 had returned ; and in his audience of this date Wotton gave the Doge an account 
 of their journey. They had come back by the Adige, in order to see the forts, 
 and Legango in particular. He gave thanks for the honours and favours shown 
 them everywhere by the officials, especially at Verona and Salo. As to his 
 health, his own was good, but he was greatly troubled about the illness of one 
 of his followers, whom he feared had been poisoned, as an outcome of the trial 
 of the murderer of young Caesar at Padua. (Ibid., pp. 174, 175.) The follower 
 was George Rooke, who was then lying ill at Brescia (see p. 450). 
 
 1 The eminent and venerable French Protestant, Duplessis-Mornay ( 1549-1623), 
 'the Protestant Pope,' as he was called, having heard of Wotton's efforts for the 
 cause of Protestantism in Venice, wrote to him on Aug. 1, 1608, from Saumur, 
 to encourage him and ask for his friendship. ' Miraberis tu forte, illustris 
 domine, quod te per literas non ita notus interpellem. Facit id pietas tua, 
 etiam ignotis notissima. Mihi sane adeo ex quo zelum ilium tuum in opere 
 Domini intelligo ut amicitiae tuae desiderio conflagrem totus, earn non obsequiis 
 demerear et redimam. Euge, domine, macte, quandoquidem ad postrema 
 secula devenisse videmur, promoveamus, urgeamus, illud tirtafv, tirtatv, nisu, 
 anhelitu, gemitu, pro virili quisque ; pro virtute, pro auctoritate tua, quod iam 
 feliciter fecisti tu ; et brevi tandem nobis tanquam partu defunctis, Simeonis 
 verbis affari Deum, spiritum nostrum vere solari liceat.' (Mornay, x, p. 241.) 
 This letter was brought by de Liques, a young French Protestant whom Mornay 
 sent to Venice. De Liques carried on his return the above letter from Wotton 
 to Mornay. On Dec. 6 Mornay wrote to Wotton again, saying that he had heard 
 from de Liques good news of the progress of the movement. (Ibid., p. 257.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 437 
 
 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 : seem- 
 ing 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 excom- 
 munication, 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, 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 139. To SIB THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stoive MS. 170, f. 224, dictated, extract. Arrival of an imperial envoy. 
 
 From Venice, the last of 8ber, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . This morning, il Signer 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. 2 
 
 140. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Stephen Bogdan and the Lady Arabella. 
 
 From Venice, the 7th of November, 1608. 
 
 . . . 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 s 
 to the Archbishop of Philadelphia, to dissolve a marriage long since 
 consummated between him and a gentlewoman in this town, alleging 
 
 1 Aesop, cccxci. 
 
 3 Wotton had one of the usual diplomatic quarrels with this envoy of the 
 Emperor. On his arrival Wotton sent his secretary to ask when he could call. 
 He could not be received on Friday or Saturday was the answer, but might 
 come on Sunday. On Friday, however, the Papal Nuncio was received ; and 
 at this affront, which Wotton could not overlook, he resolved not to call at all. 
 Fuggero sent his secretary to the English ambassador and some ' sour terms ' 
 passed between them. Finally Fuggero apologized, and Wotton visited him. 
 (S. P. Fen., Nov. 7, 1608.) 
 
 3 In the Arch. Med. (3000) there is a letter to Montauto from ' Don Stephano 
 Bugdano, Despot Principe di Moldavia Transalpina ', dated Constantinople, 
 July 12, 1608. 
 
438 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 as a ground of this request to the said Archbishop (who is here the 
 chief of the Greek Church) that finding his Majesty's recommenda- 
 tion of him to his ambassador with the Grand Signer 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 1 (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 SIB THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 170, f. 236, dictated, extract. Scandal in a Venetian con- 
 vent ; dowries of the daughters of Venetian noblemen. 
 
 Venice, the 14 of November, 1608. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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, 
 
 1 Wotton seems to have been on good terms with several Greek ecclesiastics, 
 and the Greek bishop Gabriel praised him in talking to Coryate, who was in 
 Venice this year. ' He made worthy mention of two Englishmen,' the Odcom- 
 bian writes, 'which did even tickle my heart with joy. For it was a great 
 comfort unto me to hear ray countrymen well spoken of by a Greekish bishop. 
 He much praised Sir Henry Wotton, our ambassador in Venice, for his rare 
 learning, and that not without great desert, as all those know that have tried 
 his excellent parts ; and he commended one Mr. Samuel Slade . . . one of the 
 Fellows of Merton College, Oxford, but now a famous traveller abroad in the 
 world.' (Crudities, p. 230.) 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 439 
 
 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 dis- 
 course 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 l , 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 SIK THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 170, f. 250, dictated. The Convent scandal; Mole in the 
 Inquisition ; arrival of the treasure fleet in Spain, &c. 
 
 From Venice, the 21st of 9ber, 1608. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 Here are arrived Cardinals Doria of Genoa 2 , and Plata of Milan ", 
 to take a sight of this town, without train or noise. The first of 
 
 1 Monsignore Offreddo, ante, p. 377. 
 
 2 Giovanni Doria, cardinal 1604, d. 1642. 
 
 3 Flaminio Plato, or Piatti, cardinal 1590, d. 1613. 
 
440 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 exceed- 
 ing 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 * continueth in the prison of the Inquisition ; and upon the 
 return of the Barons Koss and St. Jhon 2 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. 3 This is all that the week 
 yieldeth. And so I rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you hearty service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 143. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 B. M. Stoive MS. 170, f. 258, dictated, unsigned. News of Venice ; the 
 Spanish-Dutch treaty, &c. 
 
 From Venice, this 28th of November, 1608. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 
 1 John Mole or Molle, see Appendix III. 
 
 2 Lord Roos (ante, p. 428) and William Paulet, Lord St. John, son of the 
 Marquis of Winchester, d. s. p. 1623. On Sept. 2, 1604, O.S., he was granted 
 a licence to travel for three years. (Cal. S. P. Dom., 1603-10, p. 147.) 
 
 3 As the negotiations for peace were nearly concluded, the Dutch fleet was 
 withdrawn from Spain, and the treasure ships were able to arrive safely. 
 
441 
 
 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 
 a bout 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 Eome, with 
 divers gentlemen of the Keformed religion in his train, notwithstand- 
 ing 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. 
 
 The two barons, Rosse and St. Jhons, are shortly expected here. 
 
 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 eveiy 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. 8 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. 
 
 1 Charles Gonzaga, Due de Nevers, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat 1627, d. 1637. 
 
 2 Sir John Harington (1592-1614). second Baron Harington of Exton, 1613. 
 He arrived in Venice early in 1609, and took a house at S. Polo, as Wotton's 
 house was not large enough to entertain him and his train of gentlemen. On 
 Jan. 13 Wotton introduced him to the Doge, describing him as 'a great personage', 
 who, it was said, would marry Lord Salisbury's only daughter. As he was the 
 intimate friend and 'right eye' of Prince Henry, he would probably one day 
 rule England. ; He is learned in philosophy, has Latin and Greek to perfection, 
 is handsome, well-made as any man could be, at least amongst us. 1 Harington 
 was introduced and showed the Doge a small oval portrait of Prince Henry. 
 v CoZ. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 215, 216.) 
 
 3 ' It cannot easily be so expressed,' Bedell wrote, on Jan. 1, 1609, ' in what 
 agony they have stood here, and yet do, in the expectation of this peace, or 
 truce with the Hollanders, and how exceedingly they distaste the violence of 
 the French King in it.' They feared that with peace in the Low Countries, 
 the whole weight of the war would ' turn upon Italy, and light upon the 
 Venetians, the greater, if not the only bar left in the King of Spain his way 
 to the attaining the top of his desires '. (Two Biog., pp. 242, 243.) 
 
442 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 144. To THE EAEL 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 Venice, the 5th of December, 1608. 
 
 . . . From Kome 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 ? J 
 
 There is detected two other conspiracies against the person of the 
 said friar, the one revealed unto him by his own converse, a Eoman, 
 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 Eosse, and St. Jhons, who hath 
 been ill welcomed with a violent fever, whereof yet we hope the 
 worst is past. 
 
 With the Lord Eosse I have dealt very seriously touching the 
 Eoman 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 Eosse for his delivery, which shall be to trans- 
 port 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 dis- 
 cretion of Fitzherbert, to whom I mean to write that by this deed 
 
 1 Poma was imprisoned at Civita Vecchia, where he died Jan. 6, 1615. 
 
 2 Fra Antonio da Viterbo and Fra Gian Francesco Graziani da Perugia. 
 Graziani afterwards confessed the particulars of the plot. (Eomanin, vii, p. 77.) 
 
 3 Nicholas Fitzherbert (1550-1612), grandson of the judge, Sir Anthony 
 Fitzherbert. He was attainted in 1580 for his activity in raising money for the 
 College at Kheims. He went to Rome, and became secretary to Cardinal Allen 
 in 1587. After the death of Allen he quarrelled with Parsons, who became the 
 leader of the English Jesuits at Rome. (D. N. J5.) Nicholas Fitzherbert was 
 anxious to return to England, and for this purpose entered into secret relations 
 with Wotton. In the Record Office is a letter from him addressed to Sig. 
 Marc 1 Antonio Hani at Venice, but plainly for the English ambassador. (S. P. Ven., 
 June 14, 1608.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 443 
 
 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 Patri- 
 arch's vicar to Rome ; John Finnett, &c. 
 
 (Venice, Dec., 1608.) 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 ', 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 like- 
 wise 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 con- 
 sidered 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 
 
 1 Pier Antonio Rubetti, with Sarpi, one of the official theologians of the 
 Republic, appointed during the Interdict, fled to Rome on Dec. 3, 1608, and 
 made a public penance and recantation of his opposition to the Pope. He 
 died at Rome, Nov., 1610, not without suspicion of poisoning. (Sarpi, Lettere, 
 i, pp. 154, 201 ; ii, p. 177.) Fulgenzio Manfredi, see p. 448. 
 
 3 ' Hectical,' i. e. affected with hectic fever, consumptive. (N. E. D.) 
 
444 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. Jhoii Finnet *, 
 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 2 
 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 com- 
 pounded. In the meantime and always I humbly rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's most bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 MY LOED, 
 
 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 ; 3 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. 
 
 1 (Sir) John Finet or Finett (1571-1641), afterwards Master of Ceremonies, 
 author of Finetti Philoxenus, 1656, a book on the etiquette of embassies. See 
 D. N. B. , where his travels with Lord Cranborne are not mentioned. 
 
 2 William Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, succeeded his father as second Earl of 
 Salisbury in 1612, and died 1668, aet. seventy-eight. For his character see 
 Clarendon, vi, p. 403. 
 
 3 The book was written by one Benedictus a Benedictis, a Venetian, to refute 
 William Whitaker's Thesis de Antichristo (1583). He copied the dedication to 
 the Pope, invented by a Jesuit named Caraffa, 'PAULO v VICE DEO.' Bedell, 
 on studying the dedication in Caraffa's book, found that the Koman numerals 
 contained therein (DCLWVI) formed the number of the Beast, 666, and im- 
 mediately communicated this important fact to Fulgenzio, Sarpi's friend. 
 Bishop Burnet, in his Life of Bedell, tells, from information supplied him by 
 Bedell's son-in-law, Alexander Clogy, a story to the effect that this information 
 was handed on to the Doge and Senate, who received it ' almost as if it had come 
 from heaven, and it was publicly preached all over their territories, that here 
 was a certain evidence that the Pope was Antichrist '. (See Life of William Bedett, 
 1685, pp. 11, 12 ; Two Biog., pp. 83, 84.) For this story, as for many of Clogy 'a 
 stories, there seems, however, to be little foundation. For Bedell's use of this 
 inscription in his controversy with Wadsworth, see ' The Copies of Certaine Letters 
 which have passed between Spaine and England in Matter of Religion . . . Betweene Master 
 James Wadsworth . . . and W. Bedell ', London, 1624, p. 79. 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 445 
 
 146. To SIB THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stowe MS. 170, f. 278, dictated. The Dutch-Spanish treaty ; flight of 
 Ribetta ; message to Lady Lovell, &c. 
 
 From Venice, this 26th of lOber, 1608. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 for- 
 midable to this State, of which the Pope cannot have his will over-easily. 
 
 They stand here likewise much aux escoutes 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 Kome we hear that the late fugitive Kibetta, 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 Eosse 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 
 
 1 Jane Roper, daughter of Sir Robert Roper (Baron Teynham of Teynham, 
 Kent, in 1616) and widow of Sir Robert Loveli. (Berry, Kent, p. 215.) The English 
 nuns were of the community founded in 1607 by Mary Ward, for the purpose 
 of teaching girls. The rules of the order were modelled on those of the Jesuits. 
 (D. N. B., Suppl. iii, p. 506 ; M. Salome, Mary Ward, 1901.) 
 
44-6 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you all service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 147. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 B. M. Stowe MS. 170, f. 294, holograph. The Abbey of Vangadizza. 
 
 Venice, this 9th of January, 1608(9). 
 MY LORD, 
 
 I have this week received your Lordship's last of the 17th of 
 December. 
 
 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 entertain- 
 ment. And therefore I commit your Lordship to the God of Heaven. 
 
 Your Lordship's to do you service, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 148. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Yen., dictated, unsigned. Wotton introducee Giovanni Franceso 
 Biondi to the King. 
 
 From Venice, the 16th of January, 1608(9). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 The presenter hereof (by name Francesco Biondi 2 ) 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, 
 
 1 The Abbey of Vangadizza. On Jan. 2, 1609, Wotton wrote that the Abbate 
 Loredano had died, 'a man of so loose a life as for that he might also have 
 been a cardinal.' (S. P. Fen.) A quarrel arose between Rome and Venice 
 about the appointment of his successor. The monks (who belonged to the order 
 of Camaldola) elected one of their number, Fulgenzio, the author, during the 
 variance, of a book, Le Mentite Filotheane, in defence of Venice. The Pope gave 
 the abbey to his nephew, Cardinal Borghese, but this appointment was opposed 
 by Venice, as, according to Venetian laws, such benefices could only be given to 
 subjects of the Republic. (S. P. Fen., April 17 ; Romanin, vii, p. 71 ; Sarpi, Lettere, 
 i, p. 177.) For the progress and result of this quarrel see pp. 461, 468. 
 
 a (Sir) Giovanni Franceso Biondi, see Appendix III. 
 
TO JAMES I 447 
 
 which made him long since resolve to seek some employment under 
 your Majesty's protection and grace, where he might profess his con- 
 science with more freedom. He hath been bred in learning and in 
 affairs, and was secretary to the Cavalicre Pietro Priuli l , 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 prin- 
 cipal meu 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. 2 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. 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful and poor vassal. 
 
 149. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. The preaching of Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio ; 
 money bequeathed to the Jesuits. 
 
 From Venice, this 20th of March, 1609. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUE MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 Being most assured that I shall yield your Majesty much satis- 
 faction with the matter that occurreth at the present, I have imme- 
 diately directed it, with all humble reverence, to your own royal 
 hand. Fulgentio the Servite 3 preacheth here daily this Lent 
 
 1 Piero Priuli, Venetian ambassador in France 1605-9, elected ambassador 
 to Spain 1609, died in Spain 1613. (Cigogna, ii, p. 380.) 
 
 9 ' The project of Venice,' see ante, p. 93. 
 
 3 An unsigned letter in the Kecord Office states that Fulgenzio preached 
 Justification by Faith, without works, and advised his hearers to read the 
 Scriptures and pray in their own language. (S. P. Ven., April 3, 1609.) These 
 sermons were written with the help of Bedell, who visited Fulgenzio almost 
 every day, and read the Gospels with him. (Two Biog., p. 250.) Wotton wrote 
 to Duplessis-Mornay that he was so delighted with Fulgenzio's preaching that 
 he could ' scarcely believe his own eyes and ears '. (Mornay, x, p. 294. See 
 also Sarpi, Letters, i, pp. 215, 222, 225, 230, 238.) Sarpi had himself suggested to 
 von Dohna that sermons should be preached, in which the truth of the Gospel 
 
448 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 (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. 1 For Fulgentio the Franciscan 2 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. 8 And we hope, that besides the present fruit and pene- 
 tration 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 super- 
 stitious 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 o f 
 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) 
 
 should be clearly expounded, without saying that the Roman Church taught 
 anything different. ' I never tell a lie,' he added, ' but I don't always tell the 
 truth to every one.' (Rltter, ii, p. 79.) 
 
 1 'Speramus Patrem Pauli,' Wotton wrote to Duplessis-Mornay, 'prae ipso 
 pudore aut invidia, ad exemplum discipuli (qui primus descendit in arenam) 
 rem post hoc aggressurus apertus : quippe hactenus tantum promovit agnitam 
 veritatem obliquis artibus.' (Mornay, x, p. 290.) 
 
 2 Fulgenzio Manfredi, who was enticed to Rome, and tried and burnt for 
 heresy. 
 
 3 Sarpi wrote that there was no record of any preacher whose sermons had been 
 listened to by such numerous and attentive congregations. (Letters, i, p. 222.) 
 
TO JAMES 1 449 
 
 into a straiter protection of the State than before upon this 
 occasion. 
 
 Francesco Ribetta (sometimes vicar to this Patriarch, and one of 
 the seven Thcoloyi 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 Thcoloffi 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 verb is 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 1 , the 
 rest boni civcs. 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. 2 
 
 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 :i (a 
 Venetian gentleman of the house of Moceiiigo) had a sister widow, 
 rich in money, who had been a penitent of the Jesuits. This gentle- 
 woman 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. 4 Now hereby 
 she hath, in the judgement of them that well understand this Govern- 
 ment, against her own meaning, out of the fatal blindness of supersti- 
 tion, 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 
 
 1 Giovanni Marsilio, of Naples. 
 
 3 Wotton repeats the above account in a letter to Duplessis-Mornay dated 
 March 17. (Mornay, x, p. 294.) 
 
 3 Leonardo Mocenigo, Bishop of Ceneda, 1598-1623. 
 
 4 See Sarpi, Letter?, \, p. 210. 
 
 WOTTOH. I 
 
450 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful poor vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 150. To SIR JULIUS CAESAR. 
 
 Add. MS. 12504, f. 259, holograph. A plan to entrap Brochetta, who 
 killed young Julius Caesar (ante, p. 410). 
 
 Venice, this 17th of April, 1609. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HoNOUK, 
 
 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 alii captori 
 di lire seicento ; and likewise I bad 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 
 
TO SIR JULIUS CAESAR 451 
 
 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 Podesta 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 dc 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. 
 
 Your Honour's to be commanded by you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. Vi n., holograph, extract. The Pope's comment on Fulgenzio's 
 preaching. 
 
 Venice, the 24th of April, 1609. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 ...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 won sapcte vol (replied the Pope in a 
 
 1 Iu his dispatch of March 27 Wotton mentions that the Papal Nuncio at 
 Venice complained to the Doge of Fulgenzio's preaching, and describes the 
 answer of the Senate to his remonstrance. It was discovered that the Nuncio 
 
 Gg2 
 
452 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 great passion) die il predicare la pura Scrittura et il puro 
 Evangelio e un voter ruinare et distruggere la fede Catholica '?' * 
 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. 
 
 Venice, the 24th of April, 1609. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I will present unto his Majesty no other occurrence by this post 
 than the enclosed paper 2 , 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 
 TJiomas 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. 3 His vessel doth not exceed 100 ton. but she is a 
 well conditioned ship, and himself hitherto fortunate in his voyages. 
 
 had attempted to suborn witnesses to prove that Fulgeiizio preached heresy, and 
 the Senate informed him that they were well aware of his insidious practises 
 against the Friar; that there never had preached in the city 'a learneder nor 
 honester nor modester man ; that God's word was free for all nations to hear 
 it ; ... and lastly that his doctrine was Catholic, and if the Nuncio could 
 convince them it was otherwise, he should be willingly heard, for it was the 
 intention of the State not to change their faith.' (S. P. Ven.) See also Wotton 
 to Duplessis-Mornay. (Mornaif, x, p. 290, wrongly dated March 14.) 
 
 1 Sarpi repeats the saying of Paul V in slightly different words : ' Il.Pontefice, 
 querelandosi dell' istesso (Fulgenzio), hadettoche quel predicare la Scrittura ha 
 del sospetto, e chi vorra star attacato alia Scrittura, ruinera la fede Cattolica.' 
 (Lettere, i, p. 225.) See also Table Talk, Appendix IV. 
 
 a The previous letter. 
 
 3 According to Venetian regulations, no ship could relade in Venice if it had 
 discharged cargo in any Adriatic port on its voyage thither. Gardiner had 
 unloaded a part of his cargo at Ragusa, and being forbidden to take in goods at 
 Venice, Wotton interceded for him, describing him to the Doge as an ' honest 
 simple man ', who had offended in ignorance of the law. Wotton's request was 
 allowed, as a proof, he was informed, of his extraordinary influence with the 
 
PORTRAIT OF ROBERT CECIL, FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY 
 (From the mosaic at Hatfleld House, after a portrait by John de Critz.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 453 
 
 The picture is made precisely according to the draught of that where- 
 with your Lordship upon my humble request did honour me ; I 
 mean, as nearly as the natural colours of stone can approach to arti- 
 ficial, 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 
 <rinyhiltcmi, 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always to serve and honour you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 153. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Monks punished; Wotton going 
 to the baths of Abano. 
 
 From Venice, this 1st of May, 1609. 
 
 . . . 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 J his cell during their secret 
 conference, and now presumed to return, not only within their terri- 
 tory, 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 drow r ned 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 
 
 Senate. They said it was a favour that they probably would not have granted 
 any one else, so important they felt it that their laws should be strictly enforced, 
 and they hoped the ambassador would not in future allow himself to be troubled 
 by such applicants. (Co?. S. P. Ven., xi, p. 261.) 
 1 See an/e, p. 410. 
 
454 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 accidents, intend some excellent and admirable work in this place. 
 I must now humbly crave your Lordship's pardon for this next fort- 
 night's silence, unless some important occasion of writing fall out ~ r 
 for I am advised by my physicians after my late sickness l to take 
 a little fresh air, and to drink of a mineral water near Padua at the 
 Baths of Abano 2 , against a calcular disposition whereof I am some- 
 what afraid. God keep your Lordship in His safe and dear protection. 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 154. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. No date, enclosed in dispatch of May 23. 
 Directions for sending letters to Venice. 
 
 (May 23, 1609.) 
 
 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 Signer Philippo Burlamachi 3 there, 
 an Italian of the Keligion, and that they be made up with a file of 
 burnt wire 4 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 Wiirtemberg, the Count Palatine 
 of Neuburg, the Landgrave Maurice of Hesse, and the Count Palatine of 
 
 1 In February of this year Wotton was prostrated with a severe illness, which 
 he mentions in a letter to Duplessis-Mornay of March 17. (Mornay, x, p. 294.) 
 
 2 Abano, six miles south-west of Padua, still frequented for its thermal baths. 
 Wotton sent the news contained in the above to Edmondes at Brussels in 
 a letter beginning, ' My very good Lord, I have received this week your letter 
 touching principally the solemn publication of that truce there, which will 
 increase our discourses hereafter in this air, and (I doubt) our fears ; for the 
 wisest men of this State hold it a maxim and most infallible proposition, that 
 the King of Spain must keep himself in action to vent his Neapolitans, an idle, 
 seditious and redundant people.' (Stowe MS. 171, f. 43, May 1, 1609, N.S.) 
 The truce was proclaimed April 9, 1609. 3 See Appendix III. 
 
 4 ' Wyar.' On June 6, 1623, Sir George Calvert wrote to Sir Thomas Roe at 
 Constantinople complaining of the way letters were treated in Venice, being 
 ' cut and mangled most disgracefully by such long incisions made in the sides 
 of the packets as that all the loose and unsealed papers within those packets 
 may be taken forth and read '. (Roe, p. 160.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 455 
 
 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 
 procuriny and maintaining a temporal security oj 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. 
 
 (Venice, June? 1609.) 
 
 Postscript. Before the departure of this bearer M. P. l 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 
 
 1 Maestro Paolo. This postscript reads like an account of a conversation 
 between Sarpi and Wotton, and is the only reference in Wotton's letters to 
 any personal intercourse between them. (See ante, p. 87.) 
 
 a See p. 467. 3 Motion,' i.e. move. 
 
 * ' Addorse ' like the Italian addossare, to lay upon. Not in N. E. D. 
 
456 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 die 
 attiva.' 
 
 If your Lordship have not before the arrival of this bearer 
 dispatched Biondi ' (much bound unto you as he professeth in all his 
 letters), then it may please his Majesty, according to his royal resolu- 
 tion 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. 
 
 (Venice, June 18, 1609, N.S.) 
 
 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 Weiitworthe 2 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 hither- 
 wards 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 
 
 1 Francesco Biondi was back in Venice in August, bearing a letter with the date 
 of May 20. 
 
 - Sir Thomas Wentworth, fourth Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead and first 
 Earl of Cleveland, 1591-1667. His first wife was Anne, daughter of Sir John 
 Crafts of Saxham Parva, Suffolk. (D. N. B., Ix, p. 284.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 457 
 
 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 intelli- 
 gence from Rome) the above-named Lichefeld was there reconciled (as 
 they term it) in the novitiate of the Jesuits ; a which, being incompatible 
 with his present imprisonment, and much more with his own con- 
 fusion 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. 
 
 >. /'. Yen., holograph. Wotton sends the King the Earl of Gowrie's 
 arms, taken from a dancing-school at Padua. 
 
 From Venice, this 22th of June, 1609 (N.S.). 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 I have taken the boldness of this my nephew - (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 
 
 1 The report of Lichfield's conversion seems to have been true. Wotton 
 writes a year later that he is in the English College, and reported to exceed 
 all the rest in outward show of devotion. (S. P. Ven., Oct. 29, 1610." He is 
 described in the Diary of the English College at Rome as Edward Hales, vere 
 Lichfield, aet. 2t>. He was sent to the College by Pope Paul V, 1609. Entered 
 the Society in 1616. 'He died a most holy death, May 21, 1626, while filling 
 the office of Confessor of this College.' (Foley, vi, p. 257.) 
 
 '-' Albertus Morton, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 
 
458 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 of this country, which I have here received from Sir Robert Douglas. ' 
 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 2 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 remem- 
 brances 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 ? s 
 
 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 
 
 1 Sir Robert Douglas, Viscount Belhaven (1574?-1639 ). Master of the Horse 
 to Prince Henry. Knighted Feb. 7, 1609, created Viscount Belhaven, 1633. 
 (D. N. J?.) He was now in Italy for the purpose of buying horses for Prince 
 Henry (see p. 470). Wotton presented him to the Doge on July 7, 1609. 
 (Col. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 295.) 
 
 2 John, third Earl of Gowrie, was a student in Padua in 1597. Sir Robert 
 Douglas probably heard of this ' emblem ' from some of the Scotch students 
 who were at Padua with Gowrie. (Andrew Lang, James VI and the Goivrie 
 Conspiracy, p. 127.) 
 
 3 In his recent book, James VI and the Gowrie Conspiracy, Mr. Andrew Lang 
 reproduces a design of the Earl of Gowrie's arms from the Workman MS. at 
 the Lyon's office in Edinburgh. ' On the left of the sinister supporter is an 
 armed man, in the Gowrie livery. His left hand grasps his sword-hilt, his 
 right is raised to an imperial crown, hanging above him in the air, from his lips 
 issue the words Tibi Soli, For thee alone.' This additional supporter does not 
 appear on any known Ruthven seal, and was probably added by Gowrie to his 
 arms when a student in Padua in 1597. This design sent by Wotton seems to 
 correspond to that in Edinburgh, except that the figure pointing at the crown 
 was a blackamoor, which was especially horrifying to Wotton, perhaps because 
 it implied a dark intention. Mr. Andrew Lang seems inclined to agree with 
 Wotton that this ' emblem or impresa ' of the murdered Earl of Gowrie is an 
 additional proof of his guilt in the mysterious Gowrie conspiracy. There is some 
 ground for believing that Gowrie claimed descent from Margaret Tudor, sister 
 of Henry VIII, and that he regarded himself as the heir to the English throne 
 after the family of James VI. The whole matter is treated at length by 
 Mr. Andrew Lang in the book cited, Appendix A. 
 
TO JAMES I 455) 
 
 whose happy sight again hoping by your gracious pleasure to be 
 shortly restored, 1 I most humbly rest, 
 
 Your Majesty's faithful poor vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 158. To HENRY PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 Hurl. MS. 7007, f. 27, holograph. Printed in Birch's Prince Henry, 
 p. 171. Wotton recommends Albertus Morton to the Prince. 
 
 From Venice, this 22 of June, 1609. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HlGHNESS, 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Highness his obliged poor servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON.* 
 
 1 A change of ambassadors was talked of in England, and it was thought that 
 Wotton would be recalled. Sir Dudley Carleton was anxious to have his place, 
 and Wotton heard from England that certain persons were trying to injure him. 
 (Cal. S. P. Few., xi, p. 199.) On Dec. 16, 1608, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, 
 ' if this next summer (as report goes) Sir Ralph Winwood leave the Low 
 Countries, Sir Thomas Edmondes go to France, and Sir Harry Wotton for 
 Spain, you must omnem movere lapidem to step in upon those removes.' (C. & T. Jos. I, 
 i, p. 82.) On March 26, 1609, the Venetian ambassador Correr wrote, 'a general 
 change of ambassadors is being arranged, but it is not known yet who is 
 destined for Venice. All I have heard is that more than one Chevalier has 
 offered for the post. They make great count of ambassador Wotton, and he 
 will not be left idle ; indeed they are thinking already of employing him 
 elsewhere, both on account of his natural worth, and because of his very noble 
 blood. He is a brother of Lord Wotton, one of the most highly esteemed of the 
 Royal Council.' (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 249.) But on June 8, 1609, Carleton wrote 
 to Edmondes, ' Sir Henry Wotton is like to be continued some time yet in 
 Venice, till they can here better resolve how to dispose of him at his return ; 
 for the Spanish air is thought somewhat too hot for his crazedness. 1 
 (C. & T. Jos. I, i, p. 98.) By ' crazedness ' Carleton meant ill-health. 
 
 - Albertus Morton was the bearer also of a letter from Sir John Hariugton to 
 the Prince, dated Venice, May 28, 1609. Harington speaks of Morton as ' un 
 gentilhomme docte ot degne de soy mesme. et ainsi nephew du tresdegne et 
 tresdocte Monseigneur 1'Ambassadeur Sir Henry Wotton'. (Harl. MS. 7007, 
 f. 267.) 
 
460 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 159. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Albertus Morton recommended to Salisbury. 
 At Venice, this 22th of June, 1609 (N.S.). 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. 
 Your Lordship's for ever bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 160. To VISCOUNT CRANBORNE. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Wotton presents the picture in mosaic 
 of Lord Salisbury to his eldest son, Lord Cranborne. 
 
 From Venice, this 22th of June, 1609. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE, 
 
 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 
 
 1 John de Critz (d. 1642), Sergeant-Painter from 1605. (D. N. JB.) 
 
TO VISCOUNT CRANBORNE 461 
 
 departure, and to present you (for my last service) into the arms of 
 this famous Duke, 1 I commit your Lordship to God's blessed 
 protection. 
 
 Your Lordship's to serve and honour you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 161. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Yen., holograph, extract. The Abbey of Vangadizza : 
 a Venetian gentleman hanged. 
 
 From Venice, the 26 of June, 1609. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 Our affairs here stand thus. 
 
 The Pope hath made a proposition to this State by their new 
 ambassador resident 2 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 confidentc della Republim. 
 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 Eota at Borne 3 ; 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 
 
 1 Lord Cranborne came to Venice in the following year, see p. 498. 
 
 2 Giovanni Mocenigo. 
 
 3 On April 17 Wotton wrote that the Pope 'in his own Court of Rolls ' (the 
 Rota) had formally granted the Abbey of Vangadizza to Cardinal Borghese, 
 ' whereupon will ensue an excommunication (unless that sword be rusty) 
 against the monks of Camaldola.' The Senate, he added, would be 'put to 
 the jump ' of openly defending the monks, ' whose cause they have hitherto 
 only fomented tatitamente.'' ^S. P. Ven.") 
 
462 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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) 1 will end, committing your Lordship to God's blessed 
 favour. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 162. To THE EABL OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 S. P. Ven.y holograph, extract. The Pope complains of Wotton. 
 
 From Venice, this 3rd of July, 1609. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 luntmento 
 Fidelitatis, and its reception by foreign princes. 
 
 This 23 of July, 1609. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I have been of late wantonly much abroad, flattering 2 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, 3 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 
 
 1 Diodati's translation (ante, p. 90). 
 
 2 'Flattering,' cf. Shakespeare, L.L.L., v. ii. 822, 'To flatter up these powers 
 of mine with rest.' (Quoted N. E. D.}. 
 
 3 The second edition of the Apologia pro luramento Fidelitatis, published in June, 
 1609. 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 463 
 
 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. 
 
 And so wishing your Lordship unfeignedly much happiness, 
 I rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's to love and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 164. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 .<?. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton presents the King's book 
 to the Doge. 
 
 Last of July, 1609. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 luon 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 politic i) 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 
 
 1 On July 25, 1609 (N.S.), Wotton eauie to the Collegio, and when he had 
 taken his seat he drew a letter from his pocket, and brought out the book from 
 under his ambassador's cloak. It was a quarto volume bound in crimson velvet, 
 with armorial decorations, and corner pieces in solid gold, stamped with the 
 Rose and Thistle, the Lion and the Lilies. (CaL S. P. Ven., xi, p. 303, where 
 the King's letter is printed.) 
 
464 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 (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 congrega- 
 tion 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 ; ' 
 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 with- 
 out 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, 2 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 
 
 1 This speech is more fully reported in the Venetian Archives. ' This simile is 
 just to my purpose ; ' Wotton added, ' for as long as the Pope confines himself to 
 matters spiritual, his proper sphere, he may be said to flow in his bed ; but 
 when he tries to lay hands on temporal authority and jurisdiction, and thereby 
 to overflow and flood the whole world, then he leaves his bed.' (Col. S. P. Fen., 
 xi, p. 305.) 
 
 2 ' Possevin and Bellarmin.' Note in margin. ' Cremisin,' i. e. crimson. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 465 
 
 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, qul dentro l . 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. 2 
 
 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. 
 
 At Venice, the 14th of August, 1609. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 I have now by secret means gotten a copy of that censure 3 (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 4 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 
 
 1 ' Qm detitro,' a Venetian phrase signifying ' in the present purpose ' or ' in 
 the matter in hand'. (Note of Wotton's in margin.) 
 
 3 The moment Wotton left the Collegia ' the Doge handed the book, which he 
 had held all the time, to the Magnificent Grand Chancellor, in obedience to the 
 order of the Senate, and he carried it away to the secret Chancery, where it was 
 deposited among the Public Archives which are under his keys '. (Cal. S. P. Ven., 
 xi, p. 306.) On August 5, the Senate sent a letter to James I thanking him for 
 the book and assuring him of their cordial affection and regard. (Ibid., 
 p. 310.) 
 
 3 Printed Cal. S. P. Ven., xi. p. 298. 
 
 * 'Forebar,' i. e. prevent. 
 
 WOTTOX. I H II 
 
466 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l 
 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 2 (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 slan- 
 dered, 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 ; 
 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 ; 
 
 1 Albertus Morton. 
 
 a Bedell. 
 
 3 Sarpi seems to have approved of the King's book on the whole. ' II libro del 
 re d'Inghilterra e stato vediito qua in lingua inglese,' he wrote on July 7, 1609. 
 ' Ho inteso che verra in latino. M'e stato correntemente interpretato e lo trovo 
 libro sensato. Ma che inforfcunio e questo, che ognuno vuol mostrare eccellenza 
 nelF arte non sua !' (Lettere, i, 272.) He regretted, however, 'the digression 
 anent the Antichrist. 1 ' Dove il papa e trattato tanto apocalissicamente, io vorrei 
 meno, e piu regiamente.' (Ibid., p. 284.) 
 
TO JAMES I 467 
 
 whom commending in the hearty prayers of this poor family to 
 God's heavenly and dear protection, I most humbly rest 
 
 Your Majesty's faithful and willing servant wheresoever 
 and how anysoever it shall please you, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 Postscript. This state hath newly intelligence by credible means 
 that the Grand Duke 1 , 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*, is this 
 week (no doubt purposely) made a piece of the gazctta from thence. 
 The more opposition (as the best and wisest say here) the more 
 curiosity. 
 
 166. To SIR THOMAS EDMONDES. 
 
 Stou-e MS. 191, f. 147, holograph. Death of the Duke of Clevea ; 
 the King's book ; illness of the Doge Leonardo Donate. 
 
 From Venice, this 14th of August, 1609. 
 
 Style of the place. 
 My LORD, 
 
 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. 3 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 
 
 1 The Grand Duke of Tuscany. 
 
 2 Confessio Christianas Fidei, &c., Theodore de Beze, Geneva, 1560, 1595, &c. 
 
 3 The death of the second Duke of Cleves in March of this year, by which 
 Europe was plunged into the great Juliers-Cleves controversy. The news of the 
 Duke's death was received with joy in Venice, Wotton wrote on April 20, for it 
 was thought the contest for the inheritance would be a new subject of war 
 in the north, and divert storms from Italy. (S. P. Fen.) Henry IV was, as 
 Wotton surmised, put to a very great 'jump' indeed; just how great, no one 
 quite knows, for he was assassinated in the following year, just before leading 
 an army into the disputed territories. In 1614 Wotton himself was sent on 
 a special embassy to try to settle this famous controversy. 
 
 H h 2 
 
468 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 dark in his purposes. 1 The difference also between this Republic 
 and the Pope hath strangely taken new flame when it was almost 
 extinguished ; 2 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 herd 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. s 
 
 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. 
 Your Lordship's to love and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 167. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. The circulation of the King's book 
 prohibited in Venice. 
 
 From Venice, this 28th of August, 1609. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 It may please his Majesty to be informed that, since the accepta- 
 tion 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 Jidelitatis.* 
 
 1 Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, having been previously an ally of Spain, was 
 now preparing to join Henry IV in an attack on the Austro-Spanish power. 
 
 2 About the Abbey of Vangadizza. The quarrel was soon ended ; the Pope 
 yielded, and Cardinal Borghese gave up the abbey, accepting a pension instead, 
 and Mateo Priuli, son of Antonio Priuli, was appointed in his place. (Romaniji, 
 vii, p 71.) 
 
 3 They did not taste it at all ; the Archduke Albert, on the ground that he had 
 once been a Cardinal, let it be understood that he could not receive the book 
 with a clear conscience, and it was not presented. (Cal. S. P. Ven., xi, 
 p. 307.) 
 
 4 The Pope had been vehemently insisting that the circulation of the 
 Apologia should be publicly prohibited ; but the Venetians were unwilling to 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 469 
 
 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 1 under- 
 hand 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 not- 
 withstanding ' (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 2 , 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 ; 3 for which purpose I have demanded audience to-morrow 
 
 do this, and Gessi. the Papal Nuncio, with his dolce temperamento del sangue di 
 Bologna, agreed that the affair should be settled quietly, and without a public 
 prohibition. The precedent of the prohibition of James I's Basilikon Doron 
 was followed. The Prior of the Guild of Booksellers was summoned to the 
 Inquisition, and the prohibition intimated privately to him, with orders that it 
 should not be registered, but all copies of the book brought at once to the office of 
 the Inquisition. The King's name was not mentioned as the author. (Cal. S. P. 
 Yen., xi, pp. 308, 328.) Sarpi wrote (Nov. 25, 1610) that if the book had contained 
 nothing beyond what was in the first edition of the Apologia, which had 
 circulated freely in Venice, the Papal Nuncio would not have been able to 
 obtain its prohibition. But James had added passages about Purgatory, sacred 
 images, the worship of saints, and especially the cult of the Virgin, to whom 
 the Venetians were tenderly devoted, which had given offence in Venice. 
 (Letters, ii, p. 163.) 
 
 1 'This is the Italian that spake with your Majestj' in the gallery at White- 
 hall." Note of Lord Salisbury's in the margin. 
 
 3 Giambattista Ciotti, whose shop was at the sign of Minerva. He was one of 
 the principal witnesses against Giordano Bruno in his trial before the Inquisi- 
 tion of Venice in 1592. (Berfi, pp. 232, 333.) 
 
 3 These words in italics were underlined by the Earl of Salisbury, who notes 
 in the margin 'Of this I am jealous, having heard by a private letter that he 
 (Wotton) used high words in the Senate '. 
 
470 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 morning. 1 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always most bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 168. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Sent with dispatch of Aug. 28. 
 Money for Sir Robert Douglas. 
 
 (Venice, Aug. 28, 1609, N. S.) 
 MY LORD, 
 
 I have addressed unto your Lordship three bills, 2 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 byFranciscoBiondi 
 (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. 
 
 1 Wotton's audience was on August 31, but is wrongly dated August 23. (Cal. S. 
 P. Ven., xi, p. 321). I owe this correction to the kindness of Mr. Horatio Brown. 
 
 2 One of these bills is among the Venetian State Papers in the Record Office. 
 It is from James Higgens to be paid to VYm. Garraway in London, signed by 
 Wotton and countersigned by ' R. Salisbury', ' Jul. Caesar.' On Sept. 4, Wotton 
 wrote 'Sir Robert Douglas is departed towards Naples by way of Ancona'. 
 (S. P. Ven.} 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 471 
 
 169. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 .S*. P. Fen., holograph. Undated, but sent with following dispatch of 
 Sept. 18. Wotton writes privately to Salisbury to ask him to repre- 
 sent to the King in a favourable light his action in regard to the 
 prohibition of the Apologia. 
 
 (Venice, Sept. 18, 1609, N. S.) 
 MY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 
 ubl rudentes stridunt, ct anchorae rumpuntur, et malus gemit. I do 
 therefore now most humbly beg your Lordship's favourable repre- 
 sentation 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. 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 Venice, the 18th of September, 1609. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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 instiga- 
 tion 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-con- 
 siderations, 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 
 
472 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 :i 
 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 delta scttimana (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 
 
 1 Pruritanus, one of the libellous attacks 011 England and the English 
 Protestants. This book was printed in France, and circulated in England by 
 the chaplain of the Venetian ambassador, and three hundred copies were found 
 in the Venetian embassy. The ambassador Correr was completely innocent in 
 the matter, and made every sort of reparation and apology. The English 
 government made no complaint of his conduct ; but Wotton, whose own house 
 was full of forbidden books, did not lose this opportunity for a fine display of 
 moral indignation. For him indeed the occurrence was most opportune ; 'your 
 last packet,' he wrote to Salisbury, 'accompanied with that damned and dis- 
 solute book, arrived here the most opportunely of anything I have ever yet 
 known.' (S. P. Yen., Sept. 14.) 
 
 3 August 31, 1609, N. S. (Col. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 321.) 
 
 3 Wotton gave a very decided 'taste' of the book to the Venetians. He 
 described it as ' sterquilinium opprobriorum et mendacii '. The title was 
 Pruritanus, alluding to the Puritans. Wotton read certain passages ; in one 
 Queen Elizabeth was said to have given birth to sons and daughters, to have 
 prostituted her body to many different nationalities, and to have slept with 
 blackamoors ; in another it was stated that Anne Boleyn was the daughter of 
 Henry VIII ; and finally James I was laughed at as a 'foreigner', hailing from 
 'a barbarous land', and the Scotch were called 'locusts'. Suppose his own 
 chaplain had circulated books of that nature against the governors of Venice ? 
 If the State had sent a battery from the arsenal to arrest the chaplain, Wotton 
 would have had no right to complain. The senior councillor replied that the affair 
 of the King's book would be laid before the Senate, which would decide what 
 was to be done. (Col. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 322.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 473 
 
 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. 1 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 reate. 
 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 resolu 
 tion, partly concerning my complaint here, and partly that accident 
 at home. 2 
 
 1 Sept. 10. Wotton's speech at this audience is printed Gal. S. P. Fen., xi, 
 pp. 332-4. 
 
 2 The reply of the Senators was polite but firm. They apologized, but said 
 they could not revoke their prohibition, as the book contained points contrary 
 to their religion. But the order to the Inquisition had been given in the most 
 discreet and courteous terms it was possible to employ. No note of the pro- 
 hibition had been entered at the Holy Office, though that was the invariable 
 course ; the Prior of the Guild of Booksellers had been informed of it by word of 
 mouth only, not by a written order. (Cal. S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 334, 3.T. 
 
4-74 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 ... 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. 1 
 
 171. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., extract, holograph. Wotton describes his audience of Sept. 15 
 when he returned to the Collegia after hearing of the appointment of 
 a special ambassador to England (see ante, p. 106). 
 
 From Venice, the 2d of October. 
 Style of the place, 1609. 
 
 ... I cannot forbear to signify unto his Majesty that at this 
 audience, as soon as I began to touch a little mine own late com- 
 plaint intermingled, with much commendation of that gentleman 
 whom they had chosen, 2 all the Pa/palini (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, 3 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. 
 
 1 For the full account of this speech see Col. S. P. Ven., xi, pp. 337-340. 
 
 2 Francesco Contarini (ante, p. 106). 
 
 3 Giorgio or Zorzi Giustinian was ambassador in England in 1606-8. According 
 to the Venetian law the near relatives of bishops or cardinals (The Papalini as 
 they were called) were compelled to leave the Senate or Collegia when questions 
 involving religion or the Papal interests were discussed. 
 
TO JAMES I 475 
 
 172. To JAMES I. 
 
 S. P. Yen., holograph. A remark of Paul V's about the King's 
 book ; Wotton's witty comments on the same. 
 
 From Venice, this 15th October, 1609. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 I arn advertised from Kome by assured means, that the Pope 
 lately, upon occasion of your Majesty's book, did in public use these 
 very words : 
 
 l lo credo' (said he) 'c/i' il He d' Inghilterra halbiaperso il cervcllo,perche 
 liora, ogni volta che mi piacera, posso escmnmunicarlo 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. 
 
 1. First whether Paulus Quintus were a more horned beast than 
 Pius Quintus ? ' 
 
 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 excommunica- 
 tion? These were the questions that I opposed to his demand, wherein 
 I most humbly crave your Majesty's pardon, not only for the plain- 
 ness 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 
 
 1 Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in 1570. 
 
 a This refers to the supposed miracle at the execution of the Jesuit C4arnet, 
 when an impression of Garnet's face crowned with a halo, was said to have been 
 seen on the straws used to dry up his blood on the scaffold. These straws were 
 preserved as relics by zealous Catholics. Wotton writes to Edmondes Dec. 21, 
 1607, ' For your picture of Garnet and his straw received in your last ... I do 
 very much thank you.' (Stowe MS. 169. f. 230.) 
 
476 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful poor servant, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 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. 
 
 Venice, the 14th of November, 1609. 
 
 ... 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 
 
 1 Owing perhaps to Sarpi's suggestion (ante, p. 455), but more probably to 
 a hint given by Antonio Foscarini to Francis Aerssens at Paris (Motley, Barn., 
 i, p. 39), an ambassador, Cornelius Vandermyle, son-in-law of Barneveldt, was 
 sent from the Dutch Republic to Venice, for the purpose of announcing the 
 conclusion of the Truce. The Venetians received him with the honours due to 
 ambassadors of kings (Teste Coronate], viz., the title of Eccettensa, black velvet 
 on his gondola of reception, the right hand of the Doge, and the Doge standing 
 at his entrance to, and departure, with all his train, from the Collegia, ' a circum- 
 stance much noted.' A favourable answer was given to his offer of friendship, 
 and Wotton was inclined to believe ' that in their demonstrations towards this 
 ambassador, there hath been a little silent mixture (as I may call it) of revenge 
 for the King of Spain declaring of himself so hastily at the time of 
 their troubles on the Pope's side; and so I hope the divine wisdom will 
 advance his own work, even by human affections'. (S. P. Ven., Dec. 4, 1609.) 
 On Jan. 21, 1610, Winwood wrote from the Hague that Vandermyle had 
 returned from Venice. ' Monsieur Vandermyle doth acknowledge the many and 
 kind offices he did receive there from Sir Henry Wotton, his Majesty's am- 
 bassador; who by his countenance and good direction did assist him, and in 
 a manner upheld him, against those practices which were designed for his 
 disgrace com plotted by the Pope's Nuncio and the ambassador of Spain.' 
 (Winwood Mem., iii, p. 107.) For Wotton's speech congratulating the Doge on 
 Vandermyle's arrival, praising the Dutch as a gallant race, sincere, loyal, honour- 
 able, and of considerable power, and pointing out that nations like the Dutch 
 and English and Venetians, which had command of the sea, were never far off, 
 but really near neighbours, see Gal. S. P. Ven., xi, p. 388. 
 
 2 Edward Stanley, ante, p. 327. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 477 
 
 informed (though yet somewhat doubtfully) that the said Stanly is 
 to be sent into Spain in the company of Sir Robert Sherley ' ; 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. 2 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 174. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. Postscript to dispatch of Dec. 18. 
 Young William Lytton in Italy. 
 
 Venice, the 18 of December, 1609. 
 Postscript : MY LORD, 
 
 I received some while since a letter from your Lordship by Mr. 
 William Litton. 3 He is a gentleman that hath brought an excellent 
 good mind into this country, and one that without doubt will carry 
 
 1 Sir Robert Sherley, who was now visiting the Courts of Europe as am- 
 bassador from the Shah of Persia. His object was to announce the victories of 
 Persia over Turkey, and to urge the Christian powers to join with Persia in 
 attacking the Turks. He was received in audience by Philip III in Feb. 1610. 
 Cal. S. P. Ven., p. 422.) 
 
 * Rudolf was forced to grant religious toleration to his Bohemian subjects, 
 July 5, 1609. (Coze, ii, p. 110.) 
 
 8 (Sir) William Lytton of Knebworth, son of Sir Rowland Lytton. 
 
478 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice, Dec. 31, 1609, N. S.) 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 This day being the New Year's Eve with us here, and remember- 
 ing 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 com- 
 plaining, 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 immodera- 
 tion 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, 
 Your Majesty's faithful poor vassal, 
 
 OTTAVIO BALDI. 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice, Dec. 31, 1609, N. S.) 
 
 ... 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 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 479 
 
 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, u certain Greek bred in Spain 
 (who was at that time the chief commander on board), 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 
 b none feste per molti et molti anni, I humbly rest. 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you. 
 
 HEXRY WOTTOX. 
 
 1 The Greek captain was named Piero Scordili. a native of Zaute. The 
 English galley-slave had been sent to the galleys on suspicion of his being a pirate. 
 Scordili challenged Wotton to fight. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 363, 364.) Giorgio 
 Bartoli, Secretary of the Tuscan resident, writes of this incident on Sept. 26. 
 ' " Ah," said the ambassador, with much compassion, when the captain struck tin- 
 Englishman, "In the presence at least of tin- ambassador of the King of Great 
 Britain you ought to respect a subject of my King." 1 But the captain, with 
 insolent and most obscene and menacing expressions, let it be seen that he made 
 little reckoning of the King or the ambassador or of his Excellency's other 
 remarks.' (Arch. Med. 3001.) 
 
 2 On Nov. 5 Wotton sent his secretary to intercede for Scordili, and on Nov. 23 
 he begged in person for his release. He had asked for his arrest, not out of 
 personal feeling, but from regard for the honour of ambassadors. Now that he 
 had received satisfaction on the point that concerned others, he desired to gratify 
 himself. He had been informed of the miserable poverty of the prisoner, and 
 still more of his family, who without his aid could not gain their living. He 
 feared that their tears might reach heaven and weigh upon his conscience, and 
 begged that he might not only be set free but restored to his post. He attributed 
 the fault, not to his nature, but to the effects of the wine he had been drinking. 
 On Dec. 9 the Senate, to please the English ambassador, voted the release of 
 Scordili, ordering him to go to Wotton's house and beg his pardon for the insult, 
 and render him thanks for his intercession. <'>!. 8. P. Yen., xi, pp. :78, 
 -388, 395.) 
 
480 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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. 
 
 From Venice, the 21th of January 1609(10). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
 
 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 neces- 
 sarily 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 T (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 : ffuomo maturo, gravissimo, avisato di questi 
 medesimi fatti da pm luoghi, isperimentato, per(dy affettionatissimo et 
 zdantissimo alia parte : il quale tiene ancora gran maneggio ndle cose 
 delle chiese riformatc 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 
 
 1 Giovanni Diodati, who translated the Bible into Italian. He was an uncle 
 of Milton's friend Charles Diodati, and probably Milton's host when Milton was 
 in Geneva in 1639. (Mark Pattison, Life of Milton, p. 40.) Wotton sent for 
 Diodati to come early in the year 1608, but soon after wrote again, telling him 
 to defer his visit, as the secret of his journey had been betrayed, and he feared 
 Diodati might be attacked on the way. Wotton also said that a new Council of 
 Ten had been elected ; on the last one several principal members had been 
 favourable, but he feared the new members would be more inimical. Diodati 
 received this letter at Zurich, but decided to continue his journey in spite of it. 
 He arrived in Venice in August 1608, and left at the end of the month 
 (ante, p. 91). 
 
 2 Pierre Cotton (1564-1626), Henri IV's Jesuit Confessor. Sarpi told Johann 
 Baptist Lenk (who was sent from Germany in the autumn of 1609, to see what 
 could be done to help the Protestant movement in Venice) that this letter was 
 
TO JAMES I 481 
 
 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 im- 
 pression. 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 solus 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 instru- 
 ments 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 con- 
 ference) of the like humility even in kings ; where the French 
 ambassador had this answer, 'th.it if the Pope will bless him, he 
 may do it at Rome as voluntarily as he did there curse him ; but for 
 
 addressed to Sully ; Diodati had written in it that a large number of evangelical 
 nobles had declared themselves, and many of the common people were favour- 
 able, and it was hoped they would soon be able to introduce and exercise their 
 religion. (Ritter, ii, p. 464. ) There is a copy of this letter, dated ' di Ginevra al 8 
 di Maggio '. in the Venice Archives (Esp. Prin. Roma, filza, Sept. 12, 1609). 
 
 WOTTON. I II 
 
482 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 his part, he found his conscience to stand in no need of it.' Where- 
 with 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 1 : and he hath urged the like 
 himself, as an instrument of the Pope, unto the Venetian ambassador 
 in his Court, 2 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 nowstudieth 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 ordi- 
 nary 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 3 he 
 luith 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. 
 
 1 Jean Bocharfc de Champigny, who succeeded De Fresnes-Cariaye. 
 
 2 Antonio Foscarini. 
 
 3 Matthaei Torti . . . responsio ad librum inscriptum, ' Triplici nodo, triplex cuneus,' sive 
 Apologia pro luramento fidelitatis, 1608. Written by Bellarmine under the name 
 of his chaplain, Matthaeus Tortus. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 483 
 
 178. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 X. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton thanks Salisbury for a kind letter. 
 
 Venice, the 29th of January, 1609(10). 
 Style of the place. 
 
 . . . 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 179. To SIB ARTHUR THROCKMORTON J . 
 
 Keliq., 1st ed., p. 405 ; 3rd ed , p. 275, undated. In Feb. 1610, N.S., 
 Nicholas Bacon, brother of Wotton's nephew by marriage, Sir Ed- 
 mund 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. 
 
 (Venice, Feb. 12, 1610, N.S. ?> 
 
 SIR, 
 
 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 improperly 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. 
 
 1 Sir Arthur Throckmorton, see Appendix III. 
 I i 2 
 
484 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 they will lack no fomentation from abroad. 1 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), 2 I commit 
 you and them to our merciful God, 
 
 Your willing servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 180. To THE EAEL OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 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. 
 
 Venice, this 20th of February, 1610. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 employ- 
 ment 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 
 Maj< sty's opinion of mine own zeal in this honest cause, that it 
 maketh me hope it may stand in his gracious sight for some supple- 
 ment otherwise of my unworthiness. Yet if your Lordship (on 
 whose favour I only depend) shall esteem this motion too pre- 
 sumptuous 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 
 
 1 i. e. from Henry IV, with whom Charles Emmanuel had now combined to 
 attack the Austro- Spanish power. 
 
 2 Thomas, son and successor of Edward Lord Wotton, married June 6, 1608, 
 Mary, daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 485 
 
 abroad, and surely participating much in their counsels of the fluc- 
 tuation of that element wherein they are planted : Adco ubique 
 (sayeth he) ingcnia Jiominum 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to honour and serve you. 
 
 HE.NKY WOTTON. 
 
 181. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 >>'. P. Ven., holograph, extract. The intercepted letter of Diodati ; the 
 Government of Venice temporarily unfavourable to the Protestant 
 cau<e ; Wotton's return home ; the telescope, and Galileo's discoveries. 
 
 13th of March. 1610. 
 
 . . . 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 dis- 
 advantageous, whereof I will set down a short view. The Gran 
 Concilia are the best patriots. I mean in general the youth and 
 middle age : the Senate indifferent this year, the Died never 
 better, the Collegia 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) crrorcs primae concoctionis raro corrlguntur in secuncki 
 aut tertia. 2 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 w r ell applied to this place, Ingredcre : nam ct liic Dens 
 cst, 3 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, i2)sae tenebrae quantae? 4 And thus much touching the 
 two points demanded by his Majesty in your Lordship's last. 
 
 1 'Ingenia homiiium. sicut ubique, apud illos locorum quoque situs format.' 
 (Curtius, Bk. viii, chap, ix, par. 20.) 'Sayeth he' is Wotton's usual way of 
 introducing a quotation. 
 
 2 Cf Bacon, Novum Organum, i. 30 ' Errores radicnles, et in prima digestione 
 mentis, ab excelleutia functionum et remt-diorum sequentium non curantur.' 
 
 s Heracleitus ; see Aristotle, de Partib. Animal, i. 5 (tce\fvf yap avrois flaiivai 
 Oappovvras- dvai -fdp KCLI kvravQa Otuvs. Wotton is quoting from the Introduction 
 to Aulus Gellius, where this saying of Heracleitus, Iniroite, nam tt hie Dii sunt, was 
 printed in the earlier editions, until the correct phrase, iro\Vf*a6i-r) vi>ov ov StSdoKii, 
 was restored by Lambecius. 
 
 4 'Si ergo lumen, quod in teest, tenebrae sunt ; ipsae tenebrae quantae eruiit ?' 
 Matt. vi. 23. 
 
486 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 The postscript in your Lordship's own hand which rejourneth my 
 return till Alholantyde, 1 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 unlo 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 2 (come abroad this veiy 
 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 dis- 
 covered 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. 3 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 
 
 1 Alholantyde, i. e. All Hallows, Nov. i. 
 
 2 Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, published at Venice in this year, in which he 
 describes the discoveries mentioned by Wotton. The telescope was invented in 
 Holland as early as 1608, and before the end of the year news of it had reached 
 Venice. (Sarpi, Letters, i, p. 181.) Galileo, acting on this information, is said to 
 have constructed a telescope for himself, with which, in January 1610, he 
 discovered the satellites of Jupiter. 1 find a somewhat different account in the 
 dispatches of Giorgio Bartoli, the secretary of the Tuscan resident in Venice. 
 On Aug. 22, 1609, he speaks of there being a telescope in Venice, which was 
 being tried from the Campanile of 8. Marco. A week later he writes that the 
 telescope had been brought to Venice by a stranger, who wished to sell the 
 secret, and that some one (it was said Paolo Sarpi) told him that he would get 
 nothing for it, and then informed Galileo of the new invention. Galileo, working 
 with another and inferior instrument brought from France, discovered the secret 
 and made one for himself. (Arch. Mud. 3001, Aug. 22, 29, 1609.) The Grand 
 Duke ordered through Bartoli a telescope from a Frenchman who was selling 
 them in various shapes. The price was twelve lire, but when it was delivered 
 it was found to be a fraud (burla), being made with ordinary glass. (Ibid.. 
 Oct. 17. 24 ; Nov. 7.) 3 i. e. during eclipse. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 487 
 
 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, touch- 
 ing the secret purpose, accorded between the French King and 
 theDukeofSavoye, to assail the Dukedom of Milan, 1 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 
 {us I take it) both defensively and offensively, enfolding some future 
 great purpose soito 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 (?). 
 
 Bitrley MS., f. 58 fc, 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. 
 
 20 Mar. < 16)10. 
 MY LORD, 
 
 That small service which your Lordship left in my hands is now 
 come to a kind of conclusion, Don Francesco di Castro 2 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 your- 
 self and your company will carry yourselves without open scandal, 
 which Don Alfonso della Queva 3 , 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. 
 
 1 Negotiations between Henry IV and the Duke of Savoy were now being 
 conducted, which ended in the Treaty of Brussolo (April 24, 1610). Savoy and 
 France were each to provide 16,000 troops for the conquest of the Milanese, 
 which was to be annexed to the Duke of Savoy's dominions. (Dumont, v, II, 
 p. 137.) 
 
 2 Don Francesco di Castro (ante, p. 369) was now Spanish ambassador at Rome. 
 
 3 Don Alfonzo della Queva (afterwards known as the Marquis of Bedmar) 
 succeeded Don Inigo de Cardenas as Spanish ambassador in Venice 1607. 
 
488 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Lord- 
 ship's person and quality in the Italian Courts through which you 
 have passed, and even at Eome 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 ? * 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 con- 
 dition) of Fulgentio the Franciscan 2 , who having been trained from 
 hence to Kome under a most ample and authentic safe-conduct 3 
 (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, 
 
 1 Wotton had apparently some grounds for his apprehensions. On Sept. 22,. 
 1610, O.S., Captain William Turner (ante, p. 368) wrote to Salisbury from Paris 
 of overtures made to him by the Papal Nuncio to decoy some Englishman of 
 note young Lord Boos or Lord Cranborne into the Pope's dominions, where 
 he might be seized and detained in hope of procuring the release of Baldwin, 
 the Jesuit, in exchange. (Cal. S.P. Dow., 1603-10, p. 634.) 
 
 4 Fulgenzio Manfredi, see p. 496. He was arrested at the end of February, 1610. 
 (Sarpi, Lettere, ii, p. 100.) 
 
 3 'One calleth it a salvo conducemelo' (note in margin). 
 
489 
 
 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 home- 
 ward, 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 OP 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. Wottons return home 
 adjourned. 
 
 (Venice, April 5 ? 1610, N.S.) 
 
 . . . 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 tolera- 
 tion 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 am- 
 bassador hath sent before his own arrival. 1 
 
 1 Francesco Coiitarini, sent ambassador extraordinary to England after the 
 prohibition of the King's book. Before leaving Venice he exchanged visits with 
 Wotton. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, p. 354.) He arrived at Calais Jan. 11, 1610, N.S., 
 and was received by the King on Feb. 12, and afterwards entertained at a state 
 banquet with gi-eat magnificence. (Ibid., pp. 423, 430-2.) 
 
490 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 184. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 5. P. Ven., holograph. News of the assassination of Henry IV reaches Venice. 
 
 Venice, the 28 of May, 1610. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 On Saturday last about noon, arrived here an extraordinary dis- 
 patch 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 * ; 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 
 ast 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 agree- 
 ing 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 here- 
 upon 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 mails 8 , 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 
 
 1 Walon, i. e. Walloon, Ravaillac, who assassinated Henry IV on May 14. 
 
 2 'Relent,' i. e. retard, arch. (Century Diet.} 
 
 3 'Improbe facit qui in alieno libro ingeniosus est.' (Mart, i, Epist. ad Led.} 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 491 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 185. To THE EAIIL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 >'. /'. Yen., holograph. A rumour in Venice that James I had been shot. 
 
 Venice, the llth of June, 1610 <N.S.) 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 2 ; 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 Signer Correro, bearing date the 19th 
 of May, according to this style, from London, nor in the letters 
 
 1 On May 25 Wotton made a long speech to the Doge and Collegia, expressing 
 his grief at the death of Henry IV, and his sense of the miserable condition in 
 which it had left the Christian world. It was, he said, the work of the Jesuits 
 only Jesuits would wish to kill a heroic and martial King. Every one wished to 
 know Ravaillac's confession he wished to know not his confession, but his 
 confessor. He added that Col. Norris in Ireland had wished to have Tyrone 
 killed, but could not find an assassin, although 10,000 had been offered. But 
 if Col. Norris, like the Jesuits, could have offered Paradise as a reward, Tyrone 
 would certainly have been dead. (Cal. S. P. Yen., xi, pp. 492, 493.) 
 
 2 On June 16 Wotton told the Doge how this news reached him. ' I returned 
 to-day from my villa, where I have been for some days, contemplating the 
 beauties of nature, and enjoying the hopes, inspired by the scene, that this 
 year would pass in happiness. And while I was lost in these contemplations, 
 a number of letters were brought to me, and one came from my house in Venice 
 with gloom in his face,' bringing the news of this reported assassination. 
 (Esp. Prin., June 16.) There seems to have been no ground at all for this report, 
 -nnd I have found no other mention of it. 
 
492 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 of Signer 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 mer- 
 chants 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 guidam 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 glad- 
 ness before him, as I remember was hither advertised. 1 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 186. To THE EAKL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Position of the Duke of Savoy after 
 the death of Henry IV. 
 
 Venice, the first of July, 1610. 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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. 
 
 1 In April, 1606, when a rumour reached London that James I had been 
 killed while hunting. When he entered London he was received, the Venetian 
 ambassador wrote, as ' one risen from the dead '. (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 333.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 493 
 
 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. 
 
 S. P. Ven., dictated. Wotton's recovery from illness. 
 
 From Venice, this 29 of July, 1610. 
 Style of the place. 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 com- 
 mending your Lordship to God's blessed favour I rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 188. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph, extract. Wotton's return home. 
 
 Venice, this 6th of August, 1610. 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 I can truly say that your Lordship's last of the 4th of July - 
 (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 
 
 1 Wotton sent Francesco Biondi from Venice to watch the- Duke of Savoy's 
 preparations. (S. P. Ven.. June 18, 1610.) 
 
 2 This letter has not been preserved. 
 
494 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 ; l 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. 
 
 IS'.). 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. 
 
 Venetia, 29th of October, 1610. 
 
 . . . Not long since a gentleman of some forty years (accom- 
 panied 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 minima aviso che apparfcnga alia 
 salute di lor Padroni.' To which myself answering, ' V. Signoria 
 
 1 On Aug. 28 Montauto wrote that Wotton had called on him after midnight 
 to say that he had been recalled to England, and had seemed very glad to be 
 returning. He asked the good-natured Montauto to get from Florence and givo 
 him ' 25 braccia di rascia* (16f yds. of serge) of the best quality, and begged with 
 such vehementia et dolcesza di parole that Montauto was forced to yield. On 
 Sept. 11 he wrote that the rascia had arrived, and had been given to Wotton. 
 (Arch. Med. 3001) There is an undated copy of James I's letter recalling 
 Wotton in the S. P. Ven. (vol. vi>. ' Trusty and well-beloved,' it begins, ' wi> 
 greet you well. Having now thought good to call you home from a place, where, 
 though you serve us to our great contentment, we would not have you think 
 yourself confined to it, we have signified as much to the Duke and Senate 
 there, and how grateful your service hath been to us, in regard of your care to 
 settle and establish the amity between them and us.' He then announces that 
 Sir Dudley Carleton has been appointed his successor ; Wotton was to present 
 him to the Doge, ' and this being done, you may return to us, instructing him 
 in all things which you shall think needful for him to know for the service 
 there.' 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 495 
 
 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 insinu- 
 ating 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 ambas- 
 sador, 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 con- 
 sider 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 con- 
 dition would depend the credit of his speech, I communicated the 
 matter (notwithstanding his former request) to the French ambas- 
 sador, 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 
 
496 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 example of the Divine permission, yet it was not so easy an occupa- 
 tion 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 l lately executed at Kome, 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 publi- 
 cation 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 
 un worthiest 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, I' e vero.' And so having 
 troubled your good Lordship with discharge of these duties I humbly 
 rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's always bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTOX. 
 
 1 Fra Fulgenzio Manfredi, to be distinguished from Fulgenzio Micanzio, the 
 Servite, Paolo Sarpi's friend. This Fulgenzio was one of the Theologi of the 
 Republic, and preached violently against the Papal Court during the Interdict. 
 In Aug. 1608 he was enticed to Rome and given a safe-conduct, and in Feb. 1610 
 arrested and imprisoned. On July 4 he was taken to St. Peter's and convicted 
 of heresy, and the next morning he was hanged, and his body burnt in the 
 Campo di Fiori. (Sarpi, Lettere, ii, pp. 100-2.) In his audience of Sept. 6, Wotton 
 said that a young Englishman, formerly a pupil of the Jesuits at Rome, and now 
 stopping in his house, who had been present at the trial of Fulgenzio in St. 
 Peter's, had told him that one of the main charges was that Fulgenzio had been 
 in communication with heretical princes and their ministers, and in particular 
 with James I by means of himself. ' I swear upon my soul, and by my faith, 
 and on my honour as a gentleman, that I never had dealings, nor any kind of 
 business, with Fra Fulgenzio, neither by letter, nor by any other channel, after 
 he left this city ; the charges in the trial and sentence are a lie, as express and 
 manifest a falsehood as any falsehood can be, and like the others of the Curia 
 Romana. ... In all the years I have served your Serenity it is known how 
 I have borne myself in the matter of ceremonies and religion, without giving 
 rise to the slightest scandal, living with the greatest modesty, as indeed is my 
 bounden duty.' (Cal. S. P. Few., xii, p. 38.) For Bedell's account of his visits to 
 Fulgenzio Manfredi see Two Biog., pp. 244-6. 
 
TO HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES 497 
 
 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. 
 
 (Venice, 1610?) 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HlQHNESS, 
 
 Beside that which I have now represented unto your Highness, 
 by my letter to your worthy secretary *, 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 dis- 
 coursive 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 HighnesSj 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 in- 
 deed 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. 
 
 1 Adam Newton, Prince Henry's secretary, was a correspondent of Wotton's, 
 and Wotton calls him 'the worthy Mr. Newton.' 
 
 2 ' Ingenuity,' i. e. ingenuousness. Obs. (N. E. D.) 
 
 WOTTOX. i K k 
 
493 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 191. To SIR DUDLEY CARLETON 1 . 
 
 S. P. Fen., holograph. Arrangements for Carleton's arrival in Venice. 
 
 From Venice, this Tuesday night, 
 
 (Nov. 22, 1610, N.S.). 
 My VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 nline 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 com- 
 mandment. Of these things I shall write unto your Lordship before 
 the time set down more particularly. Your portal clothes will be 
 
 1 Sir Dudley Carleton (1573-1632), Viscount Dorchester, 1628. (D. N. B.) 
 Wotton's letter of recall was dated Aug. 13, 1610 O. S. Carleton had already 
 been appointed his successor. On July 24 O. S. he wrote to Wotton from 
 England to say that he hoped to be in Venice about the beginning of October, 
 and would like to spend a few days in Wotton's house, to initiate himself 'into 
 that service, which consists of many formalities, whereof I have small experi- 
 ence '. He would keep on the house, if Wotton judged it convenient ' for one 
 that comes cum impediments, as wife, and some other womenkind', and would 
 take over the servants and furniture which Wotton did not wish to take back 
 to England. (S. P. Fen.) On Sept. 6 N. S. Wotton announced Carleton's 
 appointment to the Doge, describing him as ' a knight of high merit and 
 character, who was greatly loved and esteemed by his Majesty and the Council '. 
 Wotton said he was bringing his wife and all his family ; and then touched on 
 the annoyance he felt every time he heard any one say that England was so far 
 away, while Paris was regarded as being near at hand. For it was only 
 a journey of three days from Paris to London, and now this lady was coming to 
 prove that England was not far away. (Esp. Prin., Sept. 6.) In November 
 Carleton with his wife and sister, and with them John Chamberlain, the well- 
 known letter-writer, were in Padua ; they ai'rived in Venice on Dec. 1. 
 
 3 Gregorio de' Monti, Wotton's Italian secretary, see Appendix III. 
 
 3 Lord Cranborne and Henry Howard (son of the Earl of Suffolk) were in 
 Venice in October. They stayed in the house of the English Ambassador, 
 who begged of Montauto some Tuscan and Greek wine to regalare Lord 
 Cranborne. But there were limits to Montauto's good nature ; the previous gift 
 of rascia (ante, p. 494) he thought enough for the present, and he excused himself. 
 (Arch. Med. 3001, Oct. 15, 1610.) On Nov.- 3, Wotton introduced Lord Cranborne 
 and Henry Howard to the Doge. Donato said he was particularly glad to see 
 the ' Visconte di Crambur ', on account of the Conte di Salzberi, his father, 
 ' for whom he had great affection, for the merit of his most worthy qualities, 
 and for the affection and goodwill he showed on all occasions for this State.' 
 He embraced the young Englishmen, and made them sit on his left hand above 
 the councillors. ' They sat down, but said not a word, because they could not 
 speak Italian, although it was discovered afterwards they understood it. The 
 ambassador spoke for them.' (Esp, Prin., Nov. 3, 1610.) 
 
TO SIR DUDLEY CARLETOX 499 
 
 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. 
 
 Your Lordship's to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. l 
 
 192. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. "Wotton's farewell audience, and introduction of 
 Sir Dudley Carleton. 
 
 Venice, the 10th of Dec., 1610 (N.S.). 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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, 2 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 selpsa. 
 
 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 instru- 
 
 1 In the S. P. Ven. there are five more letters and notes from Wotton to 
 Carleton, written during the next five days, and all concerned with arrange- 
 ments for Carleton's arrival in Venice hanging the lower hall with arras cloth, 
 sending the gondola to Fusina, having Carleton's coat of arms copied, &c. In 
 order that Carleton and his wife might settle comfortably into the house by 
 themselves, Wotton went with Lord Cranborne on a little trip to Palma on 
 the 27th, scribbling off a note at the last moment about the final arrangements, 
 and ending, ' and so ready to leap into our gondolas I rest, &c.' Carleton did 
 not arrive, however, until Thursday, the 1st of Dec., after Wotton had returned. 
 
 2 Carleton describes his reception in his dispatch of Nov. 30 <;O. S.). The day 
 after his arrival he went out to the Convent of the Padri Cruciferi. The day was 
 cold and stormy, and he thought it somewhat preposterous ' to go from home 
 purposely to be brought thither again '. The next day he went with Wotton to 
 the Collegio and was received by the Doge, and was afterwards presented with 
 the soliti rinfrescamenti. He says of Wotton, 'I may not here omit my due 
 acknowledgement, of his care and endeavours to settle me in his steps, with all 
 advantages for his Majesty's service, and my particular assistance in the charge.' 
 (S. P. Ven.) For Wotton's farewell audience on Dec. 7 see ante, p. 108. 
 
 Kk 2 
 
500 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 ments, 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, notwith- 
 standing 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 differ- 
 ences 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. 1 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 con- 
 cerning 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 honcstissi- 
 mum diem, both for the number and fashion of his company, and for 
 
 1 The usual gift to an ambassador on his departure was a gold chain, worth 
 one thousand crowns ; his principal secretary was given a chain of the value 
 of two hundred crowns. Wotton complained to the Venetian ambassador 
 at Turin that he had not received at his departure honours and gifts equal 
 to those given to the French ambassador, De Fresties-Canaye, when he left 
 Venice in 1607. The honours he had received were superior to his merits, 
 but that they were not more, was a reflection on his King. The Venetian 
 replied that Canaye was honoured because his son had offered to raise a regiment 
 of cavalry for the Venetian service. To this Wotton replied that his nephew 
 was equally willing to raise troops for Venice. (Fen. Arch., dispatch of Gregorio 
 Barberigo, Jan. 16, 1611.) 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 501 
 
 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 patron- 
 age 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 encum- 
 brances of a remove, I rest in the meantime and ever 
 
 Your Lordship's many ways bound to 
 honour and serve you, 
 
 HENBY WOTTON. 
 
 My Lord, your Lordship hath an accompt of my lord your son from 
 Doctor Lister J 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. 
 
 S. P. Ven., holograph. A present for Lady Carleton, &c. 
 
 Padua, Christmas Eve (1610, N.S.). 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 Having understood by Mr. Wake 2 of a small difference fallen out 
 
 1 (Sir) Matthew Lister (1571 ?-1656t, afterwards physician to Anne of Den- 
 mark, and to Charles I, knighted in 1636. (D. N. B.) Dr. Lister had come to 
 Italy with Lord Cranborne, who was now lying seriously ill at Padua. His 
 illness was caused apparently by homesickness. Carleton wrote to Salisbury 
 Nov. 23, O. S. ' He finds relish in nothing on this side the mountains, nor 
 much in anything on this side the sea ; his affections being set so strongly on 
 his return homeward, that any opposition is a disease.' S. P. Few., where there 
 are two letters from Dr. Lister to Carleton, undated, but written from Padua in 
 December, 1610. In one he says, ' Sir, we must for England, there is no resist- 
 ing of it. If we stay the fruit will not be great, the discontent infinite ; and 
 I must needs doubt some danger by the effects I have seen. Going is likewise 
 full of hazard, where an obstination to return will precipitate us into a winter's 
 journey, which how a weak body will sustain God knows. But I hope the same 
 good God who hath hitherto protected us, will show us the way through this 
 difficulty. My Lord is going to dinner, this being the first meal he eateth, and 
 calls me. I pray you, pardon these hasty lines.' (S. P. Fen.) Wotton wrote 
 to the same effect from Padua on Dec. 26. (Ibid.} Lord Cranborne was well 
 enough to start homewards in Feb., 1611. 
 
 2 (Sir) Isaac Wake (1580?-1632^, Sir Dudley Carleton's secretary. He was 
 appointed English envoy at Turin in 1616, knighted in 1619, and sent to succeed 
 Wotton at Venice in 1624. (D. N. B.*) On August 22, 1610, Sir John Digby 
 wrote to Carleton recommending Wake for the position of secretary. (S. P. Fen.) 
 Wotton hired most of his furniture from a Jew named Luzzati, and Carleton at 
 his arrival took over the contract, which was for 640 ducats, with 40 ducats more 
 for the pictures, halberds, bucklers, and arms. The Jew, however, tried to 
 charge Carleton 690 ducats, and there were other difficulties, about which 
 Wake wrote to Wotton on Dec. 20, asking him to write to the Jew about it. 
 Wotton'a letter to the Jew, enclosed with the above, has not been preserved. 
 
502 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 l 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 
 
 Your Lordship's to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 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. 
 
 From a filthy inn at the foot of the 
 hill of Sanserre on the Loire, this 
 
 4th of February, 1610<1611,N.S.>. 
 MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 2 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 cere- 
 mony, 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 3 , 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 
 
 On April 24, 1612, Carleton wrote to Chamberlain that the Jews had taken 
 advantage of his necessities at his arrival, ' not sparing to boast that they have 
 now a fleece of me, as they had of my predecessors, whom they expect again as 
 their Messias.' (S. P. Few.) 
 
 1 Anne, daughter of Sir Henry Savile. 
 
 2 Sir Dudley Carleton. s Marie de' Medici and Louis XIII. 
 
TO SIR THOMAS EDMONDES 503 
 
 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 dis- 
 course to our meeting ; at which wishing to find your Lordship in 
 cheerful health I rest, 
 
 Your Lordship's faithful poor friend to serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 195. To THE EARL OP SALISBURY. 
 S. P. Fen., holograph. The rudeness of the Governor of Milan. 
 
 Paris this 22nd of February, 1610 (11, N.S.). 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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, alia larba 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 
 
 1 On April 30, 1611, the sum of 1,018 was granted to Wotton 378 for diets 
 and intelligences, and 640 for ' transport of self and family through Lombardy, 
 Savoy, France ; and for carriage of his stuff by sea from Venice, and charges of 
 self and seven of his company at Paris by reason of illness'. (Issues Ex., 
 p. 134.) 
 
 8 The Constable of Castile (see ante, p. 320). He succeeded Count Fuentes as 
 Governor of Milan, after the death of the turbulent Fuentes in 1610. He 
 appeared, Carleton wrote to Winwood, ' like a halcyon in the midst of these 
 motions.' (Winwood Mem., iii, p. 236.) 
 
 3 Don Alonzo de Velasco. 
 
504 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 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 Toe 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 l 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 repre- 
 sentation 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 
 1 Giovanni Franceso Marchesini. 
 
TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY 505 
 
 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's ever bound to honour and serve you, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 196. To SIB EDMUND BACON. 
 
 Harl. MS. 1086, No. 2. Letters to B., p. 1. William Bedell and Caspar 
 Despotini going to Suffolk. 
 
 From my lodging in King St. (Westminster) 
 
 this 2nd April, 1611. 
 SIR, 
 
 It is very just, since I cannot personally accompany this gentle- 
 man ', 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 ; rereor (saith he) ne postliac negligentius vivam.* 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 
 
 1 Bedell, after his return from Italy went back to Bury St. Edmunds, where 
 he held the living of the church of St. Mary's. Redgrave, the seat of 
 Sir Edmund Bacon, is not far from Bury St. Edmunds. 
 
 2 ' In summa dicam, quod recenti dolore contubernali meo Calvisio dixi 
 " Vereor ne negligentius vivam 'V (Ep. I. xii.) 
 
 3 Despotini, see Appendix III. 
 
506 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 not urbs ignobilis (as St. Paul said of his own mother-city) l , 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, 
 
 Your poor friend and servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 197. To SIR ARTHUR THROCKMORTON. 
 Hetty., 1st ed., p. 417 ; 3rd ed., p. 276. News from London and Germany. 
 
 8 of May, 1611. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 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. 2 
 
 On Sunday last the new Venetian ambassador 3 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 
 
 1 Acts xxi. 39, ' Et dixit ad eum Paulua : Ego homo sum quidem ludaous 
 a Tarso Ciliciae, non ignotae civitatis municeps.' 
 
 2 On May 13, Charles, Duke of York, and Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, 
 were installed as Knights of the Garter. (Nichols, ii, p. 421.) 
 
 * Antonio Foscarini, the victim in the famous Foscarini case in 1622. 
 His predecessor was Marc' Antonio Correr (ante, p. 433). A permission to 
 quarter the arms of the country where they had served was often given to 
 ambassadors. Nicole Molin was granted an addition to his arms at his 
 departure in 1606 (S. P. Yen., June 23, 1606), and in 1624, Alvise Valaresso 
 was given permission to quarter the royal arms of England, ' in a fess of silver 
 a pale Gules with one of our Lions of England between our Rose of York and 
 Lancaster and the holy Thistle of Scotland. 1 (Ibid., , 1624.) It became the 
 especial privilege of Venetian ambassadors to receive the honours pf knight- 
 hood at their departure from England. 
 
TO SIR ARTHUR THROCKMORTON 507 
 
 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. 1 
 Howsoever, this violent cure is likely to settle the motions of Ger- 
 many ; 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 
 
 Your most affectionate poor friend to serve you, 
 
 H. WOTTON. 
 
 198. To SIR EDMUND BACON. 
 Letter to S., p. 4. Wotton at Court. 
 
 From Greenwich the 27 May, 1611. 
 SIR, 
 
 It is late at night, and I am but newly come to the knowledge 
 that my Lord 2 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 3 ; 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. 
 
 Your uncle by your own election, and your servant by mine, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 Matthias forced Rudolf to resign to him Hungary, Austria, and Moravia 
 in 1608. In May 1611 Rudolf resigned the Crown of Bohemia, and Matthias 
 was elected his successor. (Coxe, ii, pp. 105, 125.) 
 
 5 Lord Wotton, Sir Henry Wotton's brother, and Lady Bacon's father. 
 
 8 A MS. letter from Sir John Bennet to Sir Dudley Carleton (dated July 15, 
 1611) gives us a glimpse of Sir Henry Wotton as a courtier at this time. 
 Bennet speaks of the favours granted Wotton, his grant to fill a vacancy among 
 the Six Clerks, and his pension, and adds ' He is a fine gentleman, and full of 
 variety of discourse, as I perceived the other day, dining with him in 
 Court. Amongst other conceits he told us that the Genoese (most exact in com- 
 putating his interest) hath declared that between putting off a man's hat so 
 often as another drink to him, and sparing that ceremony, but saying only 
 Servidor di V. S. there is 2 in the 100 odds in the year.' (S. P. Dom., Jas. I, liv, 
 No. 32.) 
 
508 LETTERS OF WOTTON 
 
 199. To THE EARL OF SALISBURY. 
 
 S. P. Dom., Jas. I, Ixv, No. 280, holograph. Wotton's illness ; Mole in 
 the Inquisition at Rome. 
 
 From London this first of August, 1611 (O.S.). 
 
 EIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD, 
 
 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 contempla- 
 tion of some moneys due unto him that depend upon the return of 
 Fitzharbert, would take the journey to Eome, 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, 
 
 Your Lordship's servant, 
 
 HENRY WOTTON. 
 
 1 John Mole (ante, p. 71, and Appendix III). Wotton apparently wished 
 James I to write to Nicholas Fitzherbert in Rome (ante, p. 442) about Mole. The 
 King, however, refused to sign the letter to Fitzherbert, saying he would do 
 more harm than Mole good. (Cal. S. P. Dom., 1611-18, p. 60.) 
 
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