LETTER 1601 ? Aug. 13. To Sir R. SIR, I HUMBLIE thanck yow for your letter which I receved this 13th att night, att Sherburne, dated from the Court the 11th; so it was to dayes and too nights cumminge. I my sealf went it in half a day less, and Sherborne. if ther weare any danger it would be no otherwize handled. Cecil. From Cobham's Journey into Corn wall. My Lord COBHAME stayd here butt one night, but went on for Cornwale. I could not by any mean disswade hyme. I canot beleve that thos 80 sayle ar Spaniards, if they weare seene so high up as St. Mallo's; for no winde could serve them in so farr yt hath blowne. Butt if the[y] hover about the mouth of the Channell, I am here nirer my charg then att London. I have sent away your letter post to my Lord COBHAME. I humblie thanck yow for VIVIEN. Wee do wishe you more cordially then yow cann wishe your sealf. To morrow I go to Rushmore agayne to take thorrow order. The trees, I thinck, may be released agayne to the first buyers, for they are not so nire as I thought, and farr derer then worthe; and will stand yow, all wayes considered, 900l. If yow send me your pleasure, I will leve them. Rushmore will not be fitt for yow to cum to this yeare. It is so ruined as I canott lodge yow or my sealf therin. I pray beleve that when all harts ar open and all desires tried, that I am your poorest and your faythfullest frind, to do yow service, W. RALEGH. Sherburn, the 13th of August at night, when I receved your's. [POSTSCRIPT.]—BESS1 returns yow her best wishes, notwithstanding all quarrells. Addressed: For her Majesties speciall affaires. To the right honorable Sir ROBERT Post, Endorsed: "13th of August. Sir Walter Ralegh to my Master;" and also with the dates of receipt at Salisbury, Andover, and Basing. LETTER 1601? Aug. 13. XCVIII TO HENRY BROOKE, LORD COBHAM. From the Original. Domestic Correspondence: Elizabeth. Unarranged LETTER [1601. August.] To Lord From Sherborne. Hopes of a visit from I HAVE sent your Lordship such news as came to me, from above, and your Lordship's letter to my Lord Treasurer agayne; it was brought me by the post, att midnight, and I opened it in a badd light and half asleap, thincking it had byn to my sealf. I hope your Cobham. Lordship will be here tomorrow or a' Saterday, or elce my wife sayes her oysters wilbe all spilt2 and her partrig stale; if your Lordship cannot cum Friday, I will wait on yow wher yow ar. I praye send mee word if yow-Lawsuit go to lyve in Melplashe, that I may attend yow; or a' Friday, I shall dispatch my busyness with the Justices here about those roggs the MEERS, whereof the elder hath byn att Court to complayne, and brought the Lord THOMAS [HOWARD] to Mr. Secritory to deale for hym. 4 3 Perhaps Malpas, near Truro. See Vol. I., chap. xxi. Cobham. with the Meeres. News of a Dutch ship. LETTER [1601. August.] The younger, Master Secritory hath now sent for by pursevant, and if it had not byn to have sent informations against hym I had byn with your Lordship this morninge. I feare that my Cornishe men did not repaire to your Lordship to do yow service, because your passage was so suddayne; butt I am sure yow have had an ill jurny. I pray your Lordship to send us word whether yow have taken up the howse att Bath or no; that wee may send thither. Your Lordship's ever, and wholly, to command, W. RALEGH. [POSTSCRIPT.]—BESS1 remembers herscalf to your Lordship, and sayes your breach of promise shall make yow fare accordingly. The shipp of the South Sea . . . of Hollande is past by-and none of owers stayd her,—with a lantern of clean gold in her sterne, and arrived att Amsterdame infinit riche. Master MANSFIELD hath been abrod to great purpose. The Queen is removed to WARD'S howse on Friday, and from thence to KNOWLSES in Reddinge. Wher farther, it is not resolved. Addressed: 3 To the right honorable my very good Lord, the Lorde Cobham, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Her Majesty's Lieutenant-General of Kent. 1 Lady Ralegh. 2 Or WARDER'S? See the Prefatory Note to Letters XCIX. an-1 C. 3 "Knowlses in Reddinge" is, I suppose, either Caversham Park, in Oxfordshire, or else the fine old baronial seat of one branch of the great family of Grey,-Rotherfield Greys, also in Oxfordshire. Both of them were, at this time, seats belonging to "Knowls," and both are near Reading. Until very recently, the pious reverence of the late Miss Catherine Stapleton for her ancestors-among whom were many who did their faz stroke of work for England in their day and generation-withstood the much miscalled "modern improvements," and kept up the old house and PREFATORY NOTE TO LETTERS XCIX. AND C.-RALEGH TORY AND C. 1601. THE date of the preceding letter, No. XCVIII., is fixed PREFAby a comparison of the allusions in its postscript to the Queen's progress, with the following passages in two letters of John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton written in September 1601: "On the 13th of August, the Queen came to Windsor, and is expected shortly at Mr. Comptroller's at Causham.' "1 And again: "The Queen's first remove from Windsor was to Mr. Warder's. Then to Reading. During her abode there she went to Mr. Comptroller's at Causham.” Afterwards she went to Basing, the seat of the Marquess of Winchester, in Hampshire. Of the visit to Basing, during this royal progress, of the Duke of Biron and his numerous companions, to which Ralegh refers so amusingly in the second of the letters which follow, Stow, in his Annals, gives this account:"The fourth day after the Queen's coming to Basing, the Sheriff was commanded to attend the Duke of Biron at his coming into that country. Whereupon, the next day (10th of the older park as historical places should be kept up. All that is now quickly suffering change. The "Knowls" of this letter was Sir William Knollys, son of Elizabeth's faithful and plain-speaking old counsellor and cousin-german, Sir Francis. William Knollys was, at the time when Ralegh attended the Queen in this Progress, Comptroller of the Queen's Household. By James, he was successively created Baron Knollys of Greys (1603), and Viscount Wallingford (1616); and by Charles the First, Earl of Banbury (1626). He followed Robert Cecil, after an interval, in the Mastership of the Court of Wards. He lies, under a sumptuous tomb, in the Stapleton chapel of the village church of Greys, a church which has lately been very needlessly "improved" (after the too-prevailing fashion of the day), into unmeaning smartness. The tomb and chapel, however, have escaped the fate of the church itself. 1 See preceding footnote. September) he went towards Blackwater, and there nat the said Duke, accompanied with above twenty of the nobility of France and attended with about four hundred Frenchmen, who were met by George, Earl of Cumberland, and y him conducted from London into Hampshire. The sa: 1 Duke was that night brought to the Vine, a fair and large house of the Lord Sondes, which house was furnished with hangings and plate from the Tower and Hampton Court. and with seven score beds and furniture which the willing an ol edient people of the county of Southampton, upon tw› days' warning, had brought thither to lend the Queen. The Duke abode there four or five days, all at the Queen's charges, and spent her more at the Vine than her own Court spent, for that time, at Basing. During his abode there, Her Majesty went to him at the Vine, and he to her at Basing. And one day he attended her at Basing Park in hunting; where the Duke stayed her coming, and did there see her in such royalty and so attended by the nobility, so costly furnished an! mounted, as the like had seldom been seen. But, when she came to the place where the Duke stayed, the said Sheriff (as the manner is), bare-headed and riding next before her, stayed his horse, thinking the Queen would then have saluted the Duke; whereat the Queen being much offended, commanded the Sheriff to go on. The Duke followed her very humbly, bowing low . . . with his cap off, about twenty yards. Her Majesty on the sudden took off her mask, looked back upon him, and most graciously and courteously saluted him." Se tarried at Basing, continues the chronicler, thirteen days; being very well contented with all things there done; affirming she had done that in Hampshire that none of her ancestors ever did, neither that any Prince in Christendom could do that was, she lived in her Progress in her subjects' houses; entertained a royal ambassador, and had royally entertained him." Such entertainment gratified the Queen's vanity and displayed the lavish magnificence of the English nobility. But it had its inconveniences. Even the wealthy |