EXCLUSION OF THE LINE OF SCOTLAND.

[The following contemporary copy of a letter from Sir W. Maitland to Sir W. Cecill, is entitled and noted in the hand-writing of Sir Walter Mildmay. The larger portion of it is to be found in Burnet (Coll. of Records, i. 267, fol. 1681), but so incorrectly printed as much to injure its authority. The whole of the introduction is also there wanting, the imperfect and otherwise defective MS. Burnet used, belonging to Petyt, probably being without it. It is a very important historical document with reference to the claim of the Line of Scotland to the throne of England, and well merits to be printed with accuracy and entireness, as it is found among the MSS. at Bridgewater House. Burnet gives the date 14th January, 1566, whereas the true date appears to be the 4th of January in that year. Several of the most material passages are either obscured or perverted by the blunders in the copy employed by the historian of the Reformation.]

"The copie of a lettre written from Sir Wm Maitland, Kt. lerd of Ledington, Secretary of Scotland, to Sir Wm Cecill, Kt. Secretary of England."

SIR, I have receaved your lettre sent me by my frende Robert Malvyle, and am glad by the same to see my opinion of yowe confirmed, which (as God is my witnes) hath always bene one since our first acquaintaunce, whatsoever others have thought or spoken to the contrarye; to witte, that I have ever reputed yowe as honest, and with my self to have delte as plainlye, uprightlye and sincerelye in all causes as any man of your nation or other that I am acquainted with: and saving yowe haue not farthered my man Graham his reasonable and long sute so farre as I have hoped you wolde, I cannot charge yowe with anye thing, which fault yowe may amend when it shall please yowe. And although for some respects yowe may doe lesse therin then perhaps otherwise yowe coulde finde in your hart to doe, yet fynde I it to light a cause whye a breach of amitye betwixt us two shuld followe. In the Queene my mastres causses, whatsoever hath bene other mennes opinion, this hath constantlie bene my judgment, and uttered in all my speaches to her Majesties self, that yowe have bene a dutyfull subject and a true servant to your owne CAMD. SOCc. 12.

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sovereign, no enemye to myne, nor hinderaunce to her preferment, a good minister to norrish the mutuall intelligence betwixt bothe, no earnest medler in the question of titles ether for one faction or other, but rather willing to forbeare altogither to deale therin, onles yowe were expresselie commanded thereunto by the Quenes majestie. This is your fault in that case, that yowe pretend more ignoraunce then is convenient for a counsaillour, and one that hath bene traded up from his youth in the knowleage of the lawes of the realme and manedging of the publyke affaires : which lack, although yowe are content shalbe found in yowe, I will still purge yowe of it, interpreting your meaning otherwais, as a man unwilling to determyne rashlye matters of so great consequent. Yet understanding by Mr. Malvyle that yowe be desierous to lern of me soch prouffes and reasons as may declare and fortifie the Q. my sovereigns title to the crowne next to the Q. your sovereign, and the lawfull issue of her bodie, I will interprete your motion to the best, as I have bene always disposed to doe of yowe and your doing. I will not enter into conjectures, but simply say that yowe have as greate cause and as greate moyen to be of the truth of yowre matter well and trewlie informed as anye man of your nation, and by many meanes and circumstances yowe are more enabled then I to rendre probable assertions for the course of my sovereigns title, considering the matter is trobled in part and chieflie by the Inglishe lawes. Not the lesse to satisfie your desier in this matter, I will venture adding this protestation, that whatsoever summarylie I speake to yowe familiarlie may not in anye way prejudge the validytye of her right, or be reputed to be spoken of a sufficient prouffe in soch a cause, where there is so mutch to be sayde by all lawes. And because I think all rightes and titles of the crowne united, invested and incorporate in the lawfull issue of King Henrie the vijth and Quene Elizabeth his wyffe, I doe absteyne from dealling with anye former titles or retrogradacions, and doe send yowe, as a subject to worke on, the genealogie of the issue of the sayde Henrye the vijth and his wyffe Elizabeth; wherbie it doth wherbie it doth appere that the Quene my sovereign

is jure gentium et sanguinis, by the civill and common lawes, and by the common lawes of Inglonde, undoubtedlie heire to the crowne next after the issue of Henrye theight lawfullie begotten; for there is no objection nor barre to be object against the decourse of her lyne and progenye ether by ecclesiasticall or temporall lawe. I cannot be ignoraunt that some doe object, as a traverse, her Majesties forreyn birth, and therbie to make her incapable of the inheritaunce of Englonde. To that yowe knowe for aunswere what may be sayde by anye Englishe patrone of my maistres cause, although I being a Scotte will not affirme the same, that there ariseth a question amongest yowe, whether the realme of Scotland be forth of the homage and legeaunce of Englonde? and heretofore you have in sondrie proclamations, preceading your warres making, and in sondrie bookes at severall tymes, labored moch to prove the homage and fealtie of Scotlande to Englond. Your stories also be not voyde of this intent. What the judgment of the fathers of your lawe is, and what comonlye is thought in this matter, yowe knowe bettre then I, and may have mutch better intelligence then I, the argument being fitter for your assertion then myne. An other question there is also opon this objection of forrein birth, that is to say, whether princes inheritable to the crowne be, in the case of the crowne, exempted or concluded as private persons being straungers borne forth of the legeaunce of Englonde. Yowe knowe in this case, as in divers others, the state of the crowne. The persons inheritable to the crowne at the tyme of their capacitie have diverse differences and prerogatives from other possessions. Manye lawes made for subjectes take no houlde in the case of the prince, and they haue soch privileages as other persons enjoye not, as in cases of atteyndures and other penall lawes: examples, Henrye the vijth, whoe being a subject was atteynted, and Edward the iiijth, whose father Richard Plantagenet and himself were both atteynted, all which claymed, notwithstanding their atteyndures, the crowne, and two of them atteyned the same. Amongest manye reasons to be shewed bothe for these

differentes, and that forrein birth doth not take place in the case of the crowne as in common persons, the manye experiences, before the conquest and since, of your kinges doe plainlye testifie. Twoe of purpose I will name unto yowe; Henrye the second, Maulde themperatrix sonne, and Richard of Burdeaulx, the black princes sonne, the rather for that nether of the twoe was the King of Englondes sonne, and so not enfantz du Roy, if the worde be taken in his stricte signification. And for the better prouffe that it was alwayes the common lawe of your realme that in the case of the crowne forreyn birth was no barre, yowe doe remembre the wordes of the statute of the xxyth Edwardi tertij, where it is sayde the lawe was ever so; whereupon (if yowe can remembre it,) yowe and I fell once at a reasoning in my Lord of Leicesters chambre, by occasion of the abridgment of Rastall, wherein I did shewe yowe somewhat to this purpose. Also these wordes, enfantz and auncesters be in predicamento ad aliquid, and so correlatives in soch sorte as the meaning of the lawe was not to restraine the understanding of those wordes enfantz so stricte as onlye to the children of the Kinges bodie, but to the others inheritable in remayndre, and namelye in the next remayndre. And if some sophisters will nedes cavill about the precise understanding of enfantz, let them be aunswered with the stopp of this worde auncestres. In all provisions for filij nepotes et liberi, yowe maye see there was no difference betwixt the first degre and those that come after. Off the civill lawe, liberorum appellatione comprehenduntur non solum filij, verum etiam nepotes, pronepotes, abnepotes, which, if yowe examine the reason whie forreyn birth is excluded, yowe may see that it was not so nedefull in princes causes as in common persons. Moreover, I knowe that Englonde hathe oftentymes made greate allyaunces with daughters, and matched them with the greatest forreyn princes of Europe; and so doe I also undrestand that they all did repute the children of them and of the daughters of Englonde inheritable in succession to that crowne, notwithstanding the forreyn birth of their issue. And in this case I doe

appeale to all chronicles, to their contracts of marriages, and to the opinion of all the princes of Christendome; for, thoughe Englonde be a noble and puissant countrye, the respecte of the alliaunce onlie and the dote hath not moved the greate princes to match so often in mariage, but the possibilitie of the Crown in succession. I cannot be ignoraunt altogither of this matter, considering that I serve my Sovereign in the rome that yowe serve yours. The contract is extaunt of mariage betwixt the King, my mastres graundfather, and Quene Margaret, daughter of King Henrye the vijth, by whose person the title is devolvite in my Sovereign. What her fathers meaning was in the bestowing of her, the worlde knoweth by that is conteynid in your Chronicles, written by Polidorus Virgilius, before (as I think) ether yowe or I were borne, at least when it was little thought of this matter shulde come in question. There is one other exception also layd against my Sovereign, which semeth at the first to be of some weight, grounded upon certeyn statutes made in King Henrye the eights tyme, viz. of xxviij and xxxv of his reign, wherbie full power and authoritie was given unto the sayd King Henrie to give, dispose, appoint, assign, declare, and limite by his lettres patentes under his greate seall, or els by his last will made in writing and signed with his hand, at his owne pleasure, from tyme to tyme thereafter, the imperiall crowne of that realme, which imperiall crowne is by some alleaged and constantlie affirmed to have bene limited. and disposed by the last will and testament of the sayd King Henrye theight, signed with his hand before his death, unto the children of the ladies Fraunces and Eleanor, daughters to Marye, the French Quene, yonger daughter to Henrie the viith, and of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolke; so as it is thought the Quene, my sovereign, and all others clayming by course of inheritaunce, be, by these circumstances, excluded and forclosed. Sir, as it doth well become all subjects soch as I am, so my liking is to speake of princes, of their reignes and proceedinges, modestlie and with respect; yet I cannot absteyne to say that