revenue (S. P. Dom. vol. xciii. no. 99) is rightly referred by the Calendarer to that date. A MEMORIAL FOR YOUR MAJESTY.1 Although I doubt not but your Majesty's own memory aud care of your affairs will put you in mind of all things convenient against you shall meet with your Council, yet some particulars I thought it not unfit to represent unto your Majesty; because they passed the labour of your Council. I. Some time before your departure, here was delivered unto you by the officers of your Exchequer a computation of your revenue and expence, wherein was expressed that your revenue ordinary was not only equal to your expence, but did somewhat exceed it, though not much. In this point, because the half year will now be expired at Michaelmas, it shall be fit that your Majesty call to account whether that equality hath held for this half year; and if not, what the causes have been, and whether the course prescribed hath been kept, that the ordinary expence hath been borne out of the ordinary revenue and the extraordinary only out of such money as hath come in by extraordinary means, or else your state cannot clearly appear. II. To maintain this equality, and to cause your Majesty's state to subsist in some reasonable manner till further supply might be had, it was found to be necessary that 200,000l. of your Majesty's most pregnant and pressing debts should be discharged; and after consideration of the means how to do that, two ways were resolved on. One that 100,000l. should be discharged to the farmers of your customs by 25,000l. yearly, they having for their security power to defalke so much of their rent in their own hands: but because if that should be defalked, then your ordinary should want of so much, it was agreed that the farmers should be paid the 25,000l. yearly in the sale of woods. In this point it is fit for your Majesty to be informed what hath been done, and whether order hath been taken with the farmers for it, and what debts were assigned to them so 1 Stephens's second collection, p. 58. From the original. : to discharge for of the particulars of that course I never heard yet. And because it is apparent that the woodfalls this year do not amount to half that sum of 25,000l. your Majesty is to give charge that consideration be had how the same shall be supplied by some other extraordinary for the present year, or else here will follow a fracture of the whole assignments. Item, Your Majesty may please to call for information how that money raised upon the woods is employed, so much as is already received, and to be wary that no part hereof be suffered to go for extraordinaries, but to be employed only for the use for which it is assigned, or else a greater rupture will follow in your assignments. Item, A special consideration is to be had what course shall be taken for the rest of the years with the wood sales, for supply of this 25,000l. yearly. III. The other hundred thousand pound was agreed to be borrowed, and an allotment made by my Lords of the Council at the table, how the same should be imployed, and for what special services, whereof I deliver to your Majesty herewith a copy. In which point it may please your Majesty to cause yourself to be informed how that allotment hath been observed, and because it is likely that a good part of it hath gone towards the charges of this your journey to Scotland (at least so it is paid), your Majesty is to call for the particulars of that charge, that you may see how much of that hundred thousand it taketh up. And then consideration is to be had how it may be supplied with some extraordinary comings in, as namely the moneys to come from the Merchant Adventurers, that the same be allotted to none other use, but to perform this allotment, that so the foundation laid may be maintained, or else all will be to seek; and if there be any other extraordinary means to come to your Majesty, that they may be reserved to that use. And because care must be had to keep your credit in London, for this money borrowed, your Majesty may please to call for information what is done in the matter of the forests, and what sum, and in what reasonable time, is like to be made thereof. The extraordinaries which it is like will be alledged for this year: Your Majesty's journey into Scotland. The Lord Hay's employment into France. The Lord Roos into Spain. The Baron de Tour extraordinary from France. The enlarging of your park at Theobalds. Sir John Digby's sending into Spain. Of all which when your Majesty hath seen an estimate what they amount unto, and what money hath been already delivered towards them, which I fear will fall to be out of the moneys borrowed at London; then is it to be considered what extraordinaries are any ways to come in, which may supply these extraordinaries laid out, and be employed for the uses for which the moneys borrowed were intended. The issue of all this turmoil may be thus summed up. Coke got what he wanted, though he had been obliged to pay higher for it than he liked: On the 28th of September he was restored to the Council table. The Villierses also got what they wanted: On the 29th Sir John married a young lady with a large portion. But the game had gone altogether against Lady Hatton. She had not only failed to bring her husband into the Star Chamber, and to save her daughter from a marriage which she (Lady H.) disliked but she was threatened with prosecution herself. For the precontract with the Earl of Oxford proved to be a fiction, and the circumstances of the abduction brought her within danger of the Court. "I have full cause said Coke, writing to Buckingham on the 15th of July "to bring all the confederates into the Star Chamber, for conveying away my child out of my house." And before he had been a fortnight at the Council Board again, steps were taken for this object. Lady Hatton, says Chamberlain writing on the 11th of October, "lies still at Sir W. Craven's, crazy in body and sick in mind. There is a commission to the Lord Keeper, the Lord Archbishop, Secretary Winwood, and I know not who else, to examine her of conspiracy, disobedience, and many other misdemeanors, and to proceed against her according as they shall find cause, but her sickness stands her in some stead for the time: and if she come again to herself it may be that in space there will grow grace. But sure she is in a wrong way now, and so animated towards her husband that it is verily thought she would not care to ruin herself to overthrow him." It seems however that she had not formally refused her consent to the marriage, and she had one great card. still in her hand. She might be sentenced and fined in the Star Chamber, but she could not be compelled to settle her fortune on the bride. This was to be obtained by another course of treatment: and by the end of October we find that she was again in favour. "For the King coming to town yesterday "-so Chamberlain writes on the 31st of October-" it was told me that the Earl of Bucking ham meant to go himself and fetch her as it were in pomp from Sir William Craven's (where she hath been so long committed) and bring her to the King, who upon a letter of her submission is graciously affected towards her. But another cause is that seeing her yielding and as it were won to give allowance to the late marriage, he will give her all the contentment and countenance he can in hope of the great portion she may bestow upon her. For there is little or nothing more to be looked for from Sir Edward Coke, who hath redeemed the land he had allotted his daughter for 20,000l. so that they have already had 30,000l. of him paid down." The marriage proved in the end unfortunate; and that in a tragical degree. But I cannot think that the issue can be justly laid to the charge of those who brought it about. I find no reason for supposing that the young lady showed any aversion to her husband or that her fancy was set upon any body else. To please her mother, she was ready to acknowledge a precontract with the Earl of Oxford which was not a fact: to please her father, she was ready to beg her mother's consent to her marriage with Sir John Villiers: while to please herself, it was rumoured at the time, she would have preferred Sir Rob. Howard;3 with whom it is true that she did afterwards elope. But I do not imagine that any one, looking forward, had a right to apprehend any worse consequences than such as commonly follow from what is commonly thought a "good" marriage,-a marriage of wealth to greatness. 1 "It is said that the mother's consent was obtained; the lady protesting that howsoever she liked Sir John better than any other whatsoever, yet she desired to keep a solemn promise made to her mother, not to marry any man without her consent." Adam Newton to Sir Thomas Puckering: 30 (misdated 28) September, 1617. Court and Times of James I. vol. ii. p. 34. 2 S. P. vol. xciii. no. 158. 3 "If it be as is said, both mother and daughter are far enough from it, and have another aim at a younger son of the Lord Treasurer's." Chamberlain to Carleton, 19 July, 1617. VOL. VI. S 258 CHAPTER VI. A.D. 1617-18. OCTOBER-MARCH. ÆTAT. 57. 1. THE reconciliation was followed by a long course of calm weather, in which Bacon's services were graciously accepted both by Buckingham and the King, and no misunderstandings arose. That this was purchased by a promise or a practice of unconditional compliance with all Buckingham's humours, is a thing obvious to conjecture and easy to assert; but I find nothing in the tone of the correspondence on either side which indicates any such alteration, nor would it have been like Buckingham, if I understand his character rightly, to make up a quarrel upon such a condition. If he had continued to believe that Bacon had done him wrong he would have continued openly to resent it. It was willing co-operation, not servile compliance, that he expected from his friends, and I think he was too proud to accept service which he had reason to believe reluctant or insincere. But Bacon, as soon as he had an opportunity of speaking to him, convinced him—a thing the more easily done because it was certainly true-that he had meant all along to serve and not to cross him and it is quite in accordance with all we know otherwise of Buckingham's character that, being once convinced of that, he should treat as cancelled an offence which had not been committed. The only thing, so far as I know, which may seem to countenance the suspicion that some unworthy compact of compliance was the condition of Bacon's restoration to favour, is the fact that among the very many letters which Buckingham had to write to him on matters of public business-for it was through the Favourite that the King commonly corresponded with the Lord Keeper-there are some written on his own account in favour of parties having suits in Chancery; and that such letters came more frequently after the re |