Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

STRAFFORD — NICHOLS-CARTE-NALSON.

province of York is to that of Canterbury. Needs, forsooth, we must be a Church of ourselves, which is utterly lost unless the Canons here differ, albeit not in substance, yet in some form from yours in England; and this crotchet put the good man into such an agony, as you cannot believe so learned a man should be troubled withal. But I quieted him by approving his writing to your lordship, and assuring him I should repose myself in whatever was assented by your grace; to whose wisdom indeed I wholly submit myself, being very ready to do therein as I shall receive directions from you. The truth is, I conceive, there are some Puritan correspondents of his, that infuse these necessities into his head, besides a popular disposition which inclines him to a desire of pleasing all, the sure way I think never to please a man's self. You will amongst the rest find a rare canon against the sword salve, which I take to be a speculation far-fetched and dear bought."-STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p. 381. See p. 145.

wwwww

Strafford.

GROTIUS Says of Strafford "that his letter1 to the King, and his expressions when about to suffer death, are strong presumptions of great virtue."-NICHOLS, Calv. p. 289.

EVELYN says, the fatal stroke which severed the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Strafford, whose crime coming under the cognizance of no human law, a new one was made, not to be a precedent, but his destruction. To such exorbitancy were things arrived."

"I beheld on Tower Hill

THE mayor of Kilkenny, in an address delivered to Wentworth, 1636, eulogized him for 66 so many wholesome laws and statutes voted in the last parliament; so

1 That letter was a forgery.-CARTE's Ormonde, vol. 1, p. 138.

163

many provisions of state, regulating the disorders of human society, daily issuing from your Solomon-like prescience; in which and by which we, in this your garden of Ireland, smell the gracious flowers of your government, enjoy the felicity of your plantations, and feed our hearts with the satiety of present and hope of future improvement, so that no place, no degree, no sex over all this pleasant paradise, but is partaker of your comfortable influence. Even those choked up in the midst of the darkest prisons acknowledge the sunshine of your provident care, and receiving new life and relief from your hands, cry out, Long live our life, our relief, noble Wentworth."-Collect. Hib. vol. 2, p. 413.

"WHATEVER affection he had for power, he had very little of self-interest in him.”CARTE's Ormonde, vol. 1, p. 56.

"If he could be said to lean on any side it was in favour of the poor."-Ibid. p. 86.

"THEY," says NALSON (Vol. 2, p. 1), "who will pull down the throne of Solomon, always first endeavour to remove and destroy the lions that support it."1

"WHEN he was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, he, by Laud's assistance, procured from his Majesty the restoring of all the impropriations which in that nation were then in the crown to the bishops and clergy; thereby rescuing the churchmen from those disadvantages which contempt and poverty in these declining ages of religion had reduced them to; and by proposing rewards to merit, virtue, learning and piety, encouraged men of parts to dedicate them

"Let judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides; let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne; being circumspect, that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty."-BACON's Essays. Of Judicature. J. W. W.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

selves to those nobler studies, that, contenting themselves with those competent provisions, they might be enabled to resist the temptations of applying themselves to the more gainful arts of secular professions." —Nalson, vol. 2, p. 4.

DIGBY's speech upon the attainder.— Ibid. pp. 157, 864-5.

CHARLES said to Dr. Sheldon (afterwards archbishop)," that if ever he was in a condition to perform his vows, it was his intention to do public penance for the injustice he had suffered to be done to Strafford."Ibid. p. 194.

[blocks in formation]

they would not let the wisest head among them stand upon its own shoulders."-Ibid. p. 162.

BRUTALITY at his execution.—Ibid. p.

163.

JUxON's advice to Charles.-SOUTH, Vol. 4, p. 26.

In a letter to Sir John Jackson, 1624, he says, "being, I must confess, in my own nature a great lover and converser of hereditary good wills, such as have been amongst our nearest friends; and therefore I desire that as they live still in us otherwise, so Poems they may too in their affections."-STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p. 25.

STATE of the army under him in Ireland. -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 537.

"His memory was great, and he made it greater by confiding in it."-SIR P. WAR

WICK.

www

"He gave an early specimen of the roughness of his nature when in the eager pursuit of the House of Commons after the Duke of Buckingham, he advised or gave a counsel against another, which was afterwards taken up and pursued against himself. Thus pressing upon another man's case, he awakened his own fate. For when that house was in consultation how to frame the particular charge against that great duke, he advised to make a general one, and to accuse him of treason, and to let him afterwards get off as he could, which befell himself at last."-Ibid. p. 111.

His good management of Ireland.—Ibid. p. 115.

“ RICHELIEU, hearing of his death, said, the English nation were so foolish that

"BELIEVE me, I keep a narrower watch over myself than any of them can do, and I trust God shall so assist me with his grace, that where they think to surprize me, shame shall fall upon themselves. I much value not what men say, govern myself, am persuaded as little by opinion as most men: yet I could be content that dogs should rather fawn than snarl upon me; and sometimes to hear from a faithful wise friend, what judgement others have of me; for so I may come to hear of my errors, which I should be sure to amend with all possible speed and care." To Lord Cottington.STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p. 163.

"I AM happy to live in the noble memory of my lady; it is her ladyship's great goodness to have it so, else this bent and illfavoured brow of mine was never prosperous in the favour of ladies. Yet did they know how perfectly I do honour, and how much I value that excellent and gracious sex, I am persuaded I should become a favourite amongst them. Tush, my lord, tush, there are few of them know how gentle a Garçon I am." To the Earl of Exeter.—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 179.

STRAFFORD.

1633. He writes from Ireland to the King, that "the yearly payments in that country alone (without the debt) are impossible by any other ordinary way to be in time supplied, but by the subject in Parliament and to pass to the extraordinary, before there be at least an attempt first to effect it with ease, were to love difficulties too well,—rather voluntary to seek them, than unwillingly to meet them, and might seem as well vanity in the first respect so to affect them, as faintless to bow under them when they are not to be avoided."Ibid. vol. 1, p. 183.

[ocr errors]

My

THE Earl of Exeter says to him, lord, I could be angry with you, were you not so far off, for wronging of your bent brow, as you term it in your letter: for you

had been curst with a meek brow and an

arch of white hair upon it, never to have governed Ireland nor Yorkshire so well as you do, where your lawful commands have gotten you an exact obedience. Content yourself with that brave commanding part of your face which sheweth gravity without dulness, severity without cruelty, clemency without easiness, and love without extravagancy; and if it should be any impeachment unto your favour with that sex which you so much honour, you should be no loser; for they that have known them so long as I have done, have found them nothing less than diabolos blancos.”—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 241.

[ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

165

STRAFFORD recommends to the King a constant rule that nothing imposed by way of fine upon delinquents should come into any other purse than his own exchequer.Ibid. vol. 1, P. 249.

SPEAKING of the Bishop of Durham's vexing the Catholicks for clandestine marriages, &c. after they had compounded for their recusancy, STRAFFORD says (A. D. 1634)," But yet did I never know Puritans capable of this Christian wisdom, as I take it to be, to choose fit times and opportunities their zeal ever eating up all human judgement and providence with a Deus providebit, or some such misapplied text of holy writ. I beseech your lordship he may his ministers, and how to carry himself in be learnt a little to believe his majesty and these civil matters; for it is too much he should exercise sovereignty over us both in and forth of the pulpit. Neither hath his Majesty these under instruments in right them to dance his measure, rather than one tune, till he hath made them and taught invented after their own fancy."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 268.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

other two nations in Christendom."-Ibid. | scandal of the church, as I conceive; and

[blocks in formation]

"FAR be it from me, my lord," he says to Laud, " ever to take a difference in opinion offensively from the meanest of my friends, much less sure from your grace, whom I protest upon my faith, I reverence more than I do any other subject in the whole world, and to whose judgement I shall sooner lean and trust myself than my own; so as if you be not free with me in that kind, upon all occasions, you proceed not with me as with your son, and take from me the glory of that obedience I have set apart for you as my ghostly father."Ibid. vol. 1, p. 299.

"You mention my garden at Woodhouse," he says to Sir Ed. Stanhope," and I thank you for the visit. And as prosperous as you conceive his Majesty's affairs go here (and indeed unprosperous, I praise God, they have not been hitherto) yet could I possess myself with more satisfaction and repose under that roof, than with all the preferment and power a crown can communicate with her grace and favour. My mind works fast towards a quiet, and to be discharged of the care and importunity of affairs, which, God knows, force me against my will from many of those more excellent duties I owe his goodness and blessings. Nor can I judge any men so entirely and innocently happy as those that have no necessity of business upon them, but such as they may take or leave as they please, without being accountable for any neglect or success to others."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 303.

WRITING to Laud, 1634, upon the affairs of the Irish church, he says, "it is very true that for all the primate's silence, it was not possible but he knew how near they were to have brought in those articles of Ireland, to the infinite disturbance and

certainly could have been content I had been surprized. But he is so learned a prelate, and so good a man, as I do beseech your grace it may never be imputed unto him. Howbeit I will always write your lordship the truth, whomsoever it concerns." -Ibid. vol. 1, p. 343.

"I AM not ignorant that my stirring herein will be strangely reported and censured on that side; and how I shall be able to sustain myself against your Prynne's, Pim's and Ben's (? Rudyard?) with the rest of that generation of odd names and natures, the Lord knows."-Ibid.

"WITHOUT offence to Mr. Jones, or

pride in myself, be it spoken, I take myself to be a very pretty architect too."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 348.

1634. "I FIND well enough I am upon the disadvantage ground, where I am like still to be troublesome to my friends, and seldom in place and season to speak either for myself or for them, which, in good faith, I should the more freely do of the two. I spend more here than I have of entertainment from his Majesty; I suffer extremely in my own private at home; I spend my body and spirits with extreme toil; I sometimes undergo the misconstructions of those I conceived should not, would not have used me so, in such a measure (I know well what I write), as I vow to you, I would absolutely leave all, but that I have the comfort and assurance of my master to be with him accepted, however I be with others. God reward that goodness towards this absent servant of his, and make me able to serve him answerable to those sovereign duties I owe him."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 354,

STRAFFORD.

CONCERNING the admission of the English Articles in Ireland, he asks for a letter from the King, "that so if a company of Puritans in England may chance in Parliament to have a month's mind a man's ears should be horns, I might be able to shew his Majesty at least approved of the proceedings. There is not any thing that hath passed since my coming to the government I am liker to hear of than this; and therefore I would fence myself as strongly as I could against the mousetraps and other the smaller engines of Mr. Prynne and his associates." -Ibid. vol. 1, p. 381.

1635. To his brother, Sir George W."If my Lord Treasurer (Weston) be dead, and that you hear me by any nominated to succeed him, I pray you make answer, that upon some former rumours of the like here

tofore, you have heard me in private seriously profess it was the place in the whole world the most unfit for me; and that I desire it should be so understood by all that love me. For, you are sure, that I neither follow the service of the crown with so indiscreet affections, or so far neglect the moderate care of my own contentment and subsistence, as (being a person in my own opinion so uncapable) to accept an employment so much to the disservice of my master, or my own ruin. And therefore intreat all my friends that speak of it, to silence it as much as may be, as a thing not to be entertained by me.”—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 391.

1635. To the Earl of Newcastle." If I had any design upon it, I confess your lordship's counsel for my repair to court is very sound, and I humbly thank you for it ; it being indeed very much which a man's own presence moves in those cases. But judging the place unfit for me, and I for it, my purpose is to take a clean contrary way: for I will be so far from hastening thither, as I will delay all writing to court

167

as long as I possibly can, that so, till the place be again settled, I may be in a land where all things are forgotten. There shall I trust to enjoy my own quiet more to my contentment, and that (as your lordship observes most judiciously) so great a place and high employment will never stoop to him that neither looks after it, nor regards it."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 411.

"BELIEVE me, I have no ambition, nay no inclination to that place; for it is most certain I have an inward and obstinate aversion from it. I do not serve the king out of the ordinary ends that the servants of great princes attend them with. Great wealth I covet not: greater powers than are already entrusted with me by my master I do not desire: I wish, much rather, abilities to discharge these I have, as beAgain, I serve not for reward, having recomes me, than any of those I have not. ceived much more than I shall ever be able to deserve. Besides there should, and I trust in God there shall be, a time for me in stillness and repose to consider myself, and those other more excellent and needful

duties than these momentary trifles below, which the Treasurer's place admits not, at least to my satisfaction; for this is most certain, that a Treasurer must die so, or be dishonoured, if not altogether ruined. And to be tied to the importunity of affairs all and what else soever men most esteem in my life, in good faith all the preferments, this world, shall, I trust, never so far lay asleep or infatuate, the sense I ought to have of that much better which remains after this life."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 420.

To Lord Cottington, 1635.-"Tis true I am in a thing they call a progress, but yet in no great pleasure for all that. All the comfort I have is a little Bonneyclabber; upon my faith I am of opinion it would like you above measure; would you had your belly full of it; I will warrant you you

« AnteriorContinuar »