Another noble courtier who this year fell under the Queen's Earl of Southampton. grievous displeasure, one in whom the Earl of Essex took an affectionate interest, was Henry Wriothesley, the second Earl of Southampton, known to fame as the patron of Shakespeare. He had been a volunteer in Essex's expedition to Cadiz in 1596, and vice-admiral in Essex's abortive voyage of the following year. In 1598 he had reached the age of 25, and as was not then uncommon among young noblemen, his circumstances had become embarrassed and his creditors were troublesome. There were also other debts owing which he distinguishes (p. 357) as having been contracted "by following the Queen's Court." To escape from his pecuniary difficulties, he had adopted the plan of letting to farm "that poor estate" which remained to him after four years' full control of it, with a view of paying his debts, and reserving only such portion as would "maintain "himself and a very small train " during his travels, had betaken himself abroad. And, for the first stage of his journey, which was intended ultimately to extend to Italy, to Paris, where he is discovered by these papers in August, 1598 (p. 313). Residing in Paris he had found two "pleasing companions," old friends, Sir Charles and Sir Henry Davers, who were passing there their time of exile on account of the part they had taken in the death of Henry Long, and who doubtless recalled the cheerless wintry days of January, 1595, when he had done something to assist their escape (see part V. of this Calendar, pp. 84-90). He had intended to make the younger of the two brothers the companion of his journey to Italy, a country of which he himself was entirely ignorant, but just at this juncture the efforts of the Davers's friends to secure their pardon and permission for them to return to England reached a successful issue. So while they availed themselves of this welcome opportunity, Southampton was kept waiting in Paris in the hope that the friend whose companionship he so much desired, the loss of which would be, as he expresses it, an "exceeding maim" to him, would be able in due time to rejoin him, and that they might then proceed together. Another person of some historic note was also at this moment in Paris, namely Henry Cuff, and him Southampton had detained there until his own departure for that quarter of Europe from which Cuff was now on his way home to England (see part VII. of this Calendar, p. 524). During the period of his enforced stay in Paris, notwithstanding that he had chosen voluntary exile mainly in order to retrench, Lord Southampton allowed himself some costly amusement. An observer (p. 358) remarks that if he did not depart from France "in a few days" he would ruin himself. He was gaming for high stakes, at "paulone." The Duc de Biron won 3,000 crowns from him in a short time. He was the object of general ridicule, and therefore this friendly onlooker anxiously begs that Essex might be prompted to do Southampton the good turn of getting him away at an early moment, to save him from the loss of all his money and reputation "in France as well as in England;" for which result, adds the informant (p. 356), "I should be very sorry, "knowing that the Earl of Essex loves him." 6 The call home came, however, not because it was necessary to withdraw him from the seductions of ruinous high play in Paris, but because, before he had left England, he had yielded to seductions of another kind, the personal attractions of one of the Queen's maids of honour, Lord Essex's cousin, Mistress Elizabeth Vernon, and had married her without the Queen's previous knowledge and permission. The newly-made husband himself at first inclined to think lightly of any offence which he might have given by his secret marriage. "I trust," he writes (p. 353), that as my offence is but small, so her anger will not be much, "and so consequently that it will not be very difficult to get my "pardon." He communicated the fact of his marriage to the Queen by means of a letter from Paris to Sir Robert Cecil, but she already knew of it before she could have received this letter (see S.P. Dom. Eliz., CCLVIII. 47). The secret out, Southampton's friend, Lord Cobham, at once urged him to return, giving as his reasons (p. 355) that "the exception that is now "taken is only your contempt to marry one of her maids and to "acquaint her withal; but for any dishonour committed by your "lordship, that conceit is clean taken away, so that your lordship "hath no manner of cause to doubt any disgrace but, for some "time, absence from Court, which, I hope, will not be long "before it be restored to you. If you should forbear to come, I "assure you it would aggravate the Queen, and put conceits into "her which at this present she is free of." Like all Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, Lord Southampton professed that her displeasure was that which he deprecated above every thing else (p. 353), and "the fear of it more grievous than "any torment he could think of." Some time during the month of September he appears to have paid a secret visit to London (p. 373), chiefly to see Lord Essex. This may be the "coming 66 over very lately and the returning again very contemptuously" referred to by Cecil in the letter in which he communicates to the offender the Queen's pleasure that he should at once make his way back (see S. P. Dom. Eliz. Vol. CCLVIII. 47). When he had received this intimation of the Queen's mind with regard to his conduct, "news unexpected and nothing welcome " (p. 357), he was humble enough. But he begged Lord Essex's advice whether he should obey at once, this "so sudden return being a "kind of punishment" which (in view of the condition of his purse, as he intimates, though this was the very moment when he was playing for high stakes and losing heavily) he imagined it was not her Majesty's will to lay upon him. The advice given was doubtless the same as that given by Lord Cobham, the more so as Lord Essex himself appears to have been blamed by the Queen in connexion with the affair, for on Oct. 16th, the now sorrowful young husband writes from Rouen that since the Queen was unwilling to defer whatever punishment was in store for him, he was resolved, as soon as wind and weather should permit, to present himself to endure whatsoever she should be pleased to inflict, "hoping that when "I have once abid penance sufficient for the offence committed, I "shall be restored to her former good opinion, and have liberty to "take what course shall be fittest for me, which is the only suit I "intend to make, and that granted, I shall account myself enough "favoured." The letter from Lord Essex on p. 557, dated 25 Sept. and attributed to this year, probably belongs to the year 1600, for on September 19, 1598, Cuff, who is mentioned in the letter, was certainly in Paris (p. 353), and Lord Southampton was not in England between the 22nd of September (p. 357) and the 16th of October (p. 392). The incident of marriage among members of the Southampton Dowager Lady Southampton. family was in this year not confined to the young Lord alone. His mother, the dowager Lady Southampton, with some amount of mystery took to herself a third husband in the person of Sir William Hervey. Lord Essex set Lord Harry Howard to enquire (p. 37) "whether she were married, as many thought, or Thomas Arundell. at the very point of marriage, as some gave out." In reply to this enquiry the lady gave assurance that then "the knot was yet to tie," though she declared she would be stinted at no certain time, but ever reserve her own liberty to dispose of herself when and where it pleased her; and she particularly objected to give her son who "had made her so great a stranger to his own" marriage, any account of like proceedings on her part. In the face of all remonstrances she took her stand upon the quality of her chosen partner, "her son's strange dealing with herself and her own liberty." The fortunes of Thomas Arundell, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, who fell into dire disgrace with the Queen for attempting to wear the foreign title, but who, in the reign of her successor, was made the first Baron Arundell of Wardour, have been the subject of remark in introductions to previous portions of this Calendar. This instalment carries the account of his personal history down to the death of his father, Sir Matthew Arundell. In a letter endorsed Jan., 1597, he lays before Sir Robert Cecil certain reasons to support the request which he desires Cecil to make on his behalf to the Queen, for licence to go to sea (pp. 31, 32), which once obtained, if his intentions were realised, would enable him to prove to all the world how highly he prized the "grace and sight "of his Sovereign." The scheme by which he proposed to achieve this end was, "at his own charges and with the "adventure of his life," to bring into England "either a carrack "or the worth of a carrack," a potent argument in Elizabethan times for establishing the reality of a man's patriotism. Arundell had been suspected of Roman Catholic sympathies, his house had been haunted, so it was said, by massing priests, but he, "being more than weary of long disgraces," was now craving Cecil's furtherance of his humble prayer to the Queen for restoration to favour. "But," he adds, "if neither "submissive prayer nor conformableness to all her commands be "means sufficient to restore me to the favour which my very soul desires, then do I intreat that I may act this last scene of my "life against her greatest enemies, that either dying, I may end "my griefs, or living, bathe me in Spanish blood, the best witness "of my innocency." His petition, however, if ever it reached the Queen, was not granted, and he passed the year, "tormented "(pp. 418, 419) with continual doubts of the Queen's displeasure, "exiled from the presence of those life-giving eyes, and under "the too near neighbourhood-it may be remembered that he was placed in a house not "two-flight shots" away-of a father "who is content, with me, his son, not to follow, but to exceed her "Majesty's directions" in regard to keeping a vigilant watch and ward over him. Lord Henry Howard had been interesting himself on his unfortunate kinsman's behalf, and there appears to have been a certain probability that the latter might receive some "honour" through Howard's mediation. In acknowledging this kindly effort, Arundell writes "Though "myself (like the astrologer who looking to the stars "fell into the ditch) have just cause to curse all honours, "yet. I cannot but rest thankful to you for so great a "friendship; and because there is a certain disavowing expected "of me as causa sine qua non to this proceeding, and Mr. Secretary "judgeth that this suit will be frustrate unless he may say that "if her Majesty will assure this new quest all distasted claims "shall be recanted,' I myself, as the echo of his voice, am ready "to say and do the same." What this honour was or whether it was granted, does not appear. However, it would seem that as the year drew to a close the Queen was made cognisant of Arundell's "innocency," and before it ended he was relieved from the burden of his aged father's oversight by the old man's death. 66 Notwithstanding old Sir Matthew's "strait proceedings," the son who had been the subject of them, and who had had "little 'cause to magnify his worth or to lament his loss" (p. 518), yet shewed exemplary conduct in the discharge of filial duty at the last. Making himself "the reporter of such a heart-breaking "charity, of such an impious piety," he writes, "my most "worthy, my most dear father is dead, whose deep and hearty repentance of the errors of his youth, whose continual prayers, "whose last breath ending in the name of Jesus, may sufficiently "proclaim the mercy that our Saviour shewed him, and the eternal state of bliss wherein He hath now placed him. His "love and care towards his friends and country, his many legacies "and his excessive largesse bequeathed to the poor, do manifestly "declare. As for his zeal and loyal duty to our Sovereign, besides "the many proofs which the faith of his long service produceth, "even his death-bed wanted not sufficient demonstration. For 66 Death of Sir Matthew Arundell. |