OUR most bounden dueties right humbly remembred to your most excellent Maieste. Please your most noble Grace to be advertised that We your most humble subjects and obedient servaunts have this present daye employed all our most diligence, industrie, and activite to trye oute the veray botom and pith of suche things as the Lorde Lawarre hath ben detected to have offended your Majeste. But as yet we can fynde no sufficient grounde to committe hym to prison into your Graces Towr. And for thies two or thre dayis th'affaires (as your Maieste knoweth) be suche that we have differred tyll the same be passed the further enserching, with all meanes possible to trye the very effect of his detection. In the meane tyme we have in your Maiesties name commaunded hym to write all suche things as he hath allredy confessed, and that can come to his mynd. And further, that upon payne of his allegeaunce he shal kepe his house, and commone with no maner suspecte persone tyll we shall further declare unto hym your graciouse pleasur. Beseching your most noble and benigne Grace that, seen upon consyderacion that we fynde as yet no sufficient mater agenst hym, and that having respect aswell to your mercyfull clemencye, as also to your Graces honor, that wold not have hym upon a weak grounde (wherof he myght clere hym self afterwarde) to be extremely handeled, we have respyted his Emprisonement. It may please a seing. a your Highnes not to be offended therewith, but to pardone us as we trust your Highnes of your most gracious disposition woll. Assuredly if we shuld have committed hym to the Towr, howesoever the matier shuld waye, it shuld so moch touch his honeste, and he by the same shuld be put to such a rebuke, that he shuld never be hable to recover it. Therefore agayn, most humbly prostrate at your Maiesties fete, we beseche the same to pardone us: not doubting but in the same and all other your Highnes maters we shal not faile to endevoyre our selfs according to our most bounden dueties as shalbe, we hoope, to your Graces satisfaction and contentement. Prayeng Allmyghty God to maynteyne your Maties prosperouse regne, honor, and lif, to our fruition long to endure. Writen at your Graces Cite of London, the first daye of Decembr the xxxth yere of yo' most prosperouse and noble regne. Your Maiesties most bounden feithfull and humble subjects servaunts LETTER CXLVI. Ten Ladies of the Court, to King Henry the Eighth, upon visiting His Majesty's new Great Ship at Portsmouth. [MS. COTTON. VESP. F. XIII. fol. 143. ] Mabyll Lady Southampton, the first person whose name is affixed to this Letter, was the wife of Thomas Fitzwilliam admiral of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy, Gascoine, and Aquitaine; who, in the 29th of Henry the Eighth, was advanced to the title and dignity of Earl of Southampton. From this circumstance, and the mention of Prince Edward, it is evident that the Letter could not have been written much before 1540. What was the name of the new Great Ship alluded to, the editor has not discovered. The "Regent" had been burnt in an action in 1513; immediately upon the destruction of which the "Henry Grace de Dieu" was built of a thousand ton. Queen Elizabeth built a similar Ship called "the Trade's Increase," of twelve hundred ton. MOST gratiouse and benigne sovraigne Lorde, please it your Highnes to understonde that wee have seene and beene in your newe Greate Shippe, and the rest of your shippes at Portismowth, wiche arr things so goodlie to beeholde, that, in our liefs wee have not seene (excepting your royall person and my lord the Prince your sonne) a more pleasaunt sight; for wiche, and the most bountiful gifts, the chere and most gratiouse enterteignment, wich your Grace hath vouchsavid to bestowe upon us your most unworthie and humble servaunts, wee rendre and send unto the same our most humble and entier thanks wich wee beseche your Matie to accept in good parte, advertising the same that there rest nowe but only ij. sorowes; the tone for lacke of your royall presence that ye might have seene your said Shippes, nowe at this tyme whan wee might have waited on you here; the toodre that wee thinke long til it may eftsones lieke you to have us with you, wiche wee all most hertely beseche our Lord God may bee shortely; who preserve your most noble person, and my Lord Prince, and graunte you bothe to reigne over us; Your Majesty many yeris, His Grace with long continuance but by late succession, as never Princes did before You. From Your Majesties havon and towne of Portismowth the iiijth of August. Yo' Highnes most bounden LETTER CXLVII. Ottwell Johnson, to his brother John Johnson a merchant of the Staple at Calais, describing the Execution of Queen Catherine Howard. [FROM THE ORIGINAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S RECORD OFFICE IN THE TOWER.] *Our principal information of the crimes and death of Queen Catherine Howard is derived from two sources only: from a Letter which the Lords of the Council addressed to Mr. William Pagett our ambassador in France, and from the Act of Attainder. The latter is not upon the Statute Roll; but the original Act is preserved in the Parliament Office, in the bundle of · the 37th. Hen. VIII. The following Extract from a Merchant's Letter, presents an Account of the Execution by an eye-witness, who unquestionably informs us that both the Queen and Lady Rochford made a full confession of their guilt. At London the 15th day in February 1541. FROM Calleis I have harde nothing as yet of your sute to my Lord Gray: and for news from hens, know ye, that even according to my writing on Sonday last, I se the Quene and the Lady Retcheford suffer within the Tower, the day following, whos sowles (I doubt not) be with God, for thay made the moost godly and christyan's end, that ever was hard tell of (I thinke) sins the worlds creation; uttering thayer lively faeth in the blode of Christe onely, and with goodly words and stedfast countenances thay desyred all christen people a MS. Cotton. Otho, c. x. fol. 251. The Letter is much burnt. b The ecclesiastical computation A. D. 1541-2. c Feb. 13th, 1542. |