Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

with me in all matter of suspect doubleness, and so ever esteem me as you shall find my deserving, good or bad. In the mean time, I humbly beseech you, let no poetical scribe work your lordship by any device to doubt that I am a hollow or cold servant to the action, or a mean well-willer and follower of your own. And even so, I humbly take

my leave, wishing you all honour and prosperity. From the court, the 29th of March, 1586.

Your lordship, to do you service,

WALTER RALEGH.

The queen is on very good terms with you, and, thank be to God, well pacified, and you are again her sweet

Robin.

SIR,

To Sir Robert Cecil, July 1592.

I PRAY be a mean to her majesty for the signing of the bills for the guards' coats, which are to be made now for the progress, and which the clerk of the check hath importuned me to write for. My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the queen goes away so far off, whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire, in so many journeys, and am now left behind her in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet nigher at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less: but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph, sometime sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometime singing like an angel, sometime playing like Orpheus: behold the sorrow of this world! once amiss hath bereaved me of all. O glory, that only shineth in misfortune, what is become of thy assurance! all wounds have scars, but that of fantasy; all affections their relenting, but that of woman kind. Who is the judge of friendship but adversity, or

when is grace witnessed but in offences? There were no divinity but by reason of compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortal. All those times past, the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, can they not weigh down one frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden in so great heaps of sweetness? I may then conclude, spes et fortuna, valete. She is gone in whom I trusted, and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any respect of that that was. Do with me now therefore what you list. I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish, which if it had been for her, as it is by her, I had been too happily born.

Yours, not worthy any name or title,

To my honourable friend, Sir
Robert Cecil, knight of her

WALTER RALEGH.

majesty's most honourable privy-council.

SIR,

To Sir Robert Cecil, July 1592.

I WROTE unto your father how I am dealt withal by the deputy, to whom my disgraces have been highly commended. He supposed a debt of four hundred pounds to the queen for rent, and sent order to the sheriff to take away all the cattle my tenants had, and sell them the next day, unless the money were paid the same day. All Munster hath scarce so much money in it; and the debt was indeed but fifty marks, which was paid, and it was the first and only rent that hath yet been paid by any undertaker. But the sheriff did as he commanded, and took away five hundred milch kine from the poor people; some had but two, and some three, to relieve their poor wives and children, and in a strange country newly set down to build and plant. He hath forcibly thrust me out of possession of a castle, because it is in law between me and his cousin Winckfeld, and will not hear my attorneys speak. He hath admitted a ward, and given it his man, of a castle which is

the queen's, and hath been by me new built and planted with English this five years; and to profit his man with a wardship, loseth her majesty's inheritance, and would plant the cousin of a rebel in the place of English men, the castle standing in the most dangerous place of all Munster. Besides there is a band of soldiers, which a base fellow O'donell hath in Yoholl, which doth cost the queen twelve hundred pound a year, and hath not ten good men in it; but our poorest people muster and serve him for threepence a day, and the rest of his soldiers do nothing but spoil the country, and drive away our best tenants. If the queen be over rich, it may be maintained; but I will, at three days' warning, raise her a better band, and arm it better tenfold, and better men, whensoever she shall need it. And in the mean time it may either be employed in the north, or discharged; for there is in Munster besides a band of horse, and another of foot, which is more than needeth. In this, if you please to move it, you may save her majesty so much in her coffers. For the rest I will send my man to attend you, although I care not either for life or lands; but it will be no small weakening to the queen in those parts, and no small comfort to the ill-affected Irish, to have the English inhabitants driven out of the country, which are yet strong enough to master the rest without her charge.

Yours, to do you service,

To my honourable friend Sir R.

Cecil, knight of her majesty's

most honourable privy-council.

SIR,

WALTER RALEGH.

To Sir Robert Cecil, July 1592.

I PRAY send me the news of Ireland. I hear that there are three thousand of the Burghs in arms, and young O'donell and the sons of Shane Oneale. I wrote in a letter of Mr. Killegrew's ten days past a prophecy of this rebellion, which when the queen read, she made a scorn at my conbut you shall find it but a shower of a further tempest.

ceit;

[blocks in formation]

If you please to send me word of what you hear, I will be laughed at again in my opinion touching the same, and be bold to write you my further suspicion. Your cousin, the doting deputy, hath dispeopled me, of which I have written to your father already. It is a sign how my disgraces have past the seas, and have been highly commended to that wise governor, who hath used me accordingly. So I live to trouble you at this time, being become like a fish cast on dry land, gasping for breath with lame legs and lamer lungs.

Yours, for the little while I shall desire to do you service, WALTER RALEGH.

To my very loving friend, Sir Robert Cecil, knight of her majesty's most honourable privy-council.

To Sir Robert Cecil, March 10, 1592.
SIR,

I RECEIVED your letters this present day at Chatham, concerning the wages of the mariners and others. For mine own part, I am very willing to enter bond, as you persuaded me, so as the privy seal be first sent for my enjoying the third; but I pray consider that I have laid all that I am worth, and must do, ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well, I can but lose all; and if nothing be remaining, wherewith should I pay the wages ? Besides, her majesty told me herself that she was contented to pay her part, and my lord admiral his, and I should but discharge for mine own ships. And further, I have promised her majesty, that if I can persuade the companies to follow sir Martin Furbresher, I will without fail return and bring them out into the sea but some fifty or threescore leagues, for which purpose my lord admiral hath lent me the Disdain; which to do her majesty many times, with great grace, bade me remember, and sent me the same message by Will. Killegrewe, which, God willing, if I can persuade the companies, I mean to perform, though I dare not be acknown thereof to any creature. But, sir, for me then to be

bound for so great a sum, upon the hope of another man's fortune, I will be loath; and besides, if I were able, I see no privy seal for my thirds. I mean not to come away, as they say I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what. If any such thing were, I would have imparted it unto yourself before any man living; and therefore I pray believe it not, and I beseech you to suppress what you can any such malicious report. For I protest before God, there is none on the face of the earth that I would be fastened unto. And so in haste I take my leave of your honour, from Chatham the 10th of March.

Your's ever to be commanded,

WALTER RALEGH.

SIR,

To Sir Robert Cecil, May 10, 1593.

I AM very sorry for Mr. Wilkinson and the rest, that I hear are lost in the river of Burdens; but for my part I was resolved of the success beforehand, and so much I told Wilkinson before his departure. Of this Irish combination her majesty shall find it remembered to herself not long since; but the Trojan soothsayer cast his spear against the wooden horse, but not believed. I did also presume to speak somewhat how to prevent this purpose, and I think it not overhard to be yet done; and if I had by any chance been acquainted with the lord Burgh's instructions, I would have put you in mind to have won the earl of Argyle rather than all the rest of Scotland; for by him this fire must be only maintained in Ulstell. But for me to speak of the one or the other, I know my labours are prejudicate, and I cannot hereafter deserve either thanks or acceptance. Less than that number of men appointed, I take it, will serve the turn, if the garrisons be placed aright to impeach the assemblies, and some small pinnaces ordered to lie between Cautirr's and O'donell's country; but herein the order of the time hath most power. There be also others in Ireland that lie in wait, not suspected, which I most fear, and others most able and fit to make them neglected and dis

« AnteriorContinuar »