BL MSS Cotton Vespasian F xii 151

From Waalt

BL MSS Cotton Vespasian F. xii, 151

Wright Vol 1, 20 Page 43

Transcribed and notes by Thomas Wright, ‘Queen Elizabeth and her times,’ London, 1838

William Honning to the Earl of Sussex Hampton Court, Oct. 6 1560

After humble and due remembraunce to your good Lord- shipp, the same maye please t'understand that my long silence hath preceded through absence in the countrey, where- of I signified your Lordship by my last letters. Th'hole of my truandise I enjoyed not in countreye, for that I was awhile occupied about patching of a howse in London, which I late procured for a good terme of . . . Mr. Smith and his wief, persons of sixty yeres of age the pece: these their grete yeres emboldened me to promesse unto them by their incessant provocations yerelie a buck and doe for their lives only, not daring to t'adventure th'hole terme of the lease.

My happ this yere hath been ill in ipso limine impigere, moche to my descredit and breche of covenant, for where I had made request to your Lordshippe' s keper at Lexdon (1) present myselfe to satisfye that turn, and had formerlye twise wryt- ten to Woodham Water, (2) where I founde aunswer at a second sending insufficiencye for the bareness of the game. I was also utterlie denied at Lexdon aforesaid uppon pretence of bareness of that ground, (the contrarye whereof myn own eyes gave testimonye,) insomuch as perplexed for the latenes of the yere, I was driven to returne the flat waye to my wief to Lon- don, who ther uppon wished your Lordshippe in England, with hope that rather then bothe our creditts shuld have been stayned, th'age of the persons considered, we shuld not have despayred to have atteyned certentie of warrant for them.

I went so near the winde with the keper, that I told hym your Lordshippe knewe I wold in reason respecte the game as fully as he, and prayed to have a barren doe to be then killed by good woodmanshipp, (which he semeth to lacke,) t'excuse my promesse. And that also was flatly made impossible. Thus to please my wieffs fantasies, I trouble your Lordshippe with myself and her causes.

Nowe to matier of more accompte. It maye like your Lordshipp, that I founde this bearer in corte uppon my soden arrivall . By hym 1 ment to scrible a few lines. 1 have remembered hym to bring the proclamation and de- vyses touching the decree of our base moneys, which is nowe our greatest occupation, to satisffie the people with know- ledge of the difference of the coynes. (3) Th'erle of Salopp (4) is lately ded. Happy for the new Earle that the father toke not that Lady to wiefwho (yf your Lordshipp remember) you did in the closett of Westminster decerne to like well to here herself speake. His office of chamberlayn of the ex- chequier I think will be bestowed on Mr. Secretory. Hi- therto not knowen who shal be President and Justice of the foure shiers beyond Trent. This sayd berer seeth the corte stuffed with morners, yea, many of the better sorte in degree, for the Lord Robert's wieff, (5) who was, upon the mischancing death, buried in the hed churche of th'university of Oxford. The cost of the funerall esteemed at better then two thousand poundes. The fort and territory about Jerby, I understand, is evicted from the possession of King Phillipp by the Turke. William Drury (6) is absolutely delivered, and shortly to mary with the Lady Williams (7) of Tame. Th'other brother for one degree hathe libertie of fleete and accesse of his frends. A grete man in Spayn, (8) incerto nomine hitherto to my knowledge, is said to be in prison by the vehemencye of th'inquisition, and Don Anthonio de Toledo sent to Fraunce to dissuade a nationall counsayll there ment for matier of re- ligion. Thus for the present I shall ende, beseeching your Lordship to receyve in good parte my poore scribling. From Hamp- ton Courte, 6th Octobris, 1560. Your Lordship's humbly to command, W. HONNYNG. We have no certentie of th'arryval of the King of Swe- den, yet doth his ambassador persuade his former arereynes.

(1) Lexden, in Essex.

(2) Woodham Walters, in Essex, formerly a possession of the Fitz- Walter family. It came into the family of the Earl of Sussex by mar- riage in the fifteenth century, and was the family seat at this time. " In his time the ancient family seat in this parish began to be neglected ; for, having obtained a grant of New Hall in Boreham, he made it the place of his residence." (Momnt.} The earl built the present church of Woodham Walters in 1563 and

(3) During the preceding reigns the coinage had been extremely de- based. One of Elizabeth's most popular acts, at this time, was the re- formation of the money. " To Queene Elizabeth," saith Camden, " it is to be ascribed, that there hath beene better and purer money in Eng- land, than was seene in two hundred yeeres before, as hath beene else- where in use thorought all Europe." See Camden ; and also a curious letter on the subject in Lodge, i. 345 Simon, in his Essay on Irish Coins, has preserved the following fragment of a popular ballad made in consequence :

Let bone-fires shine in every place, Sing and ring the bells a-pace, And pray that long may live her grace, To be the good queene of Ireland. The gold and silver which was so base, That no man could endure it scarce, Is now new coyn'd with her own face, And made go current in Ireland.

(4) Francis Talbot, fifth Earl of Shrewsbury, lie had two wives. Very soon after the death of the second, he made an overture of mar- riage to the Lady Pope, widow of the founder of Trinity College, Ox- ford, " but the etiquette of courtship in those days required more time than could be spared by two lovers whose united years made somewhat more than a century, and the good old earl was arrested by death when perhaps he had not made half his advances." Lodge.

(5) This was Amy Robsart, the daughter of Sir John Robsart of De- vonshire, according to Dugdale, and celebrated as the heroine of Ke- nilworth. Whether the story of her murder be true or not, it is now impossible to determine, though it cannot be denied that appearances are much against the innocence of her husband, Lord Dudley. In some letters written at the time of her death, which have already been printed, there are allusions to the suspicion which then prevailed, and some short time afterwards we find Cecil speaking of him as still " de- famed by his wife's death." We find the charge of murder first pub- licly urged against Leicester in the celebrated libel called " Leicester's Commonwealth," printed in 1584. " First," says the author of that tract, " his lordship hath a speciall fortune, that when he desirethanie woman's favour, then what person soever standeth in his way, hath the luck to die quicklie for the finishing of his desire. As for example : when his lordship was in full hope to marrie her majestie, and his own wyfe stoode in his light, as he supposed : he did but send her asid, to the house of his servaunt Forster of Cumner by Oxforde, where shortlie after she had the chaunce to fal from a paire of staires, and so to breke her neck, but yet w.ythout hurting of her hoode that stoode upon her heade. But Sir Richarde Varney, who by commaundement re- mayned wyth her that daye alone, wyth one man onlie, and had sent away perforce al her servauntes from her, to a market two myles of, he (I saye) wyth his man can tel how she died, which man being taken afterward for a fellonie in the marches of Wales, and offering to pub- lish the maner of the said murder, was made away privilie in prison. And Sir Rychard himself dying about the same tyme in London, cried piteouslie, and blasphemed God, and said to a gentleman of worship of myne acquaintance not long before his death, that al the divels in hell did teare him inpeeces. The wife also of Bald Buttler, kinsman to my L., gave out the whole facte a litle before her death." Ashmole, in the account of Cunmor given in his Berkshire, makes some additions to the foregoing account, which he gathered from the tradition of the neighbourhood. He says that " the inhabitants will tell you there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay, to another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her bed, bruised her head very much, broke her neck, and at length flung her down stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their villany." He then tells us that she was first buried privately, but at the desire of her father disinterred, and an inquest held over her, and then that her body was buried magnificently in St. Mary's church at Oxford. This story of her first interment seems discounte- nanced by the present letter.

(6) Sir William Drury was of a good family settled at Hawstead in Suffolk. In 1575 he was lord president of Munster, and he died in 1598, lord deputy of Ireland.

(7) Margery, daughter of Thomas, Lord Wentworth, second wife of John, Lord Williams of Thame. He died in 1559.

The Archbishop of Toledo ?