Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 58

[Footnote 327: Winwood's Memorials, iii. 281.]

[Footnote 328: This ma.n.u.script letter from William, Earl of Pembroke, to Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, is dated from Hampton Court, October 3, 1604.--_Sloane MSS._ 4161.]

[Footnote 329: Lodge's "Ill.u.s.trations of British History," iii. 286. It is curious to observe, that this letter, by W. Fowler, is dated on the same day as the ma.n.u.script letter I have just quoted, and it is directed to the same Earl of Shrewsbury; so that the Earl must have received, in one day, accounts of two different projects of marriage for his niece!

This shows how much Arabella engaged the designs of foreigners and natives. Will. Fowler was a rhyming and fantastical secretary to the queen of James the First.]

[Footnote 330: Two letters of Arabella, on distress of money, are preserved by Ballard. The discovery of a _pension_ I made in Sir Julius Caesar's ma.n.u.scripts; where one is mentioned of 1600_l._ to the Lady Arabella.--_Sloane MSS_. 4160. Mr. Lodge has shown that the king once granted her the duty on oats.]

[Footnote 331: Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 117-119.]

[Footnote 332: Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 119.]

[Footnote 333: This evidently alludes to the gentleman whose name appears not, which occasioned Arabella to incur the king's displeasure before Christmas; the Lady Arabella, it is quite clear, was resolvedly bent on marrying herself!]

[Footnote 334: Harl. MSS. 7003.]

[Footnote 335: It is on record that at Long-leat, the seat of the Marquis of Bath, certain papers of Arabella are preserved. I leave to the n.o.ble owner the pleasure of the research.]

[Footnote 336: Harl. MSS. 7003.]

[Footnote 337: These particulars I derive from the ma.n.u.script letters among the papers of Arabella Stuart. Harl. MSS. 7003.]

[Footnote 338: "This emphatic injunction," observed a friend, "would be effective when the messenger could read;" but in a letter written by the Earl of Ess.e.x about the year 1597, to the Lord High Admiral at Plymouth, I have seen added to the words "Hast, hast, hast, for lyfe!" the expressive symbol of _a gallows prepared with a halter_, which could not be well misunderstood by the most illiterate of Mercuries, thus

[Footnote 339: Lodge says she "was remanded to the Tower, where she soon afterwards sank into helpless idiocy, surviving in that wretched state till September, 1615," when, with miserable mockery of state, she was buried in Westminster Abbey, beside the body of Henry Prince of Wales.

Bishop Corbet wrote some lines on her death, very indicative of the poor lady's thoughts:--

How do I thank ye, death, and bless thy power, That I have pa.s.sed the guard, and 'scaped the Tower!

And now my pardon is my epitaph, And a small coffin my poor carca.s.s hath; For at thy charge both soul and body were Enlarged at last, secur'd from hope and fear.

That amongst saints, this amongst kings is laid; And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.]

[Footnote 340: This conjecture may not be vain; since this has been written, I have heard that the papers of Sir Edward c.o.ke are still preserved at Holkham, the seat of Mr. c.o.ke; and I have also heard of others in the possession of a n.o.ble family. The late Mr. Roscoe told me that he was preparing a beautifully embellished catalogue of the Holkham library, in which the taste of the owner would rival his munificence.

A list of those ma.n.u.scripts to which I allude may be discovered in the Lambeth MSS. No. 943, Art. 369, described in the catalogue as "A note of such things as were found in a trunk of Sir Edward c.o.ke's by the king's command, 1634," but more particularly in Art. 371, "A Catalogue of Sir Edward c.o.ke's Papers then seized and brought to Whitehall."]

[Footnote 341: Lloyd's State Worthies, art. _Sir Nicholas Bacon_.]

[Footnote 342: Miss Aikin's Court of James the First appeared two years after this article was written; it has occasioned no alteration. I refer the reader to her clear narrative, ii. p. 30, and p. 63; but secret history is rarely discovered in printed books.]

[Footnote 343: These particulars I find in the ma.n.u.script letters of J.

Chamberlain. Sloane MSS. 4172, (1616). In the quaint style of the times, the common speech ran, that Lord c.o.ke had been overthrown by four P's--PRIDE, Prohibitions, _Praemunire_, and Prerogative. It is only with his moral quality, and not with his legal controversies, that his personal character is here concerned.]

[Footnote 344: In the Lambeth ma.n.u.scripts, 936, is a letter of Lord Bacon to the king, to prevent the match between Sir John Villiers and Mrs. c.o.ke. Art. 63. Another, Art. 69. The spirited and copious letter of James, "to the Lord Keeper," is printed in "Letters, Speeches, Charges, &c., of Francis Bacon," by Dr. Birch, p. 133.]

[Footnote 345: Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghams.h.i.+re; the delightful seat of J. Penn, Esq. It was the scene of Gray's "Long Story," and the chimneys of the ancient house still remain, to mark the locality; a column on which is fixed a statue of c.o.ke, erected by Mr. Penn, consecrates the former abode of its ill.u.s.trious inhabitant.]

[Footnote 346: A term then in use for base or mixed metal.]

[Footnote 347: Lambeth MSS. 936, art. 69 and 73.]

[Footnote 348: State Trials.]

[Footnote 349: Prynne was condemned for his "Histriomastix," a book against actors and acting, in which he had indulged in severe remarks on female performers; and Henrietta Maria having frequently personated parts in Court Masques, the offensive words were declared to have been levelled at her. He was condemned to fine and imprisonment, was pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside, and had an ear cut off at each place.]

[Footnote 350: Prynne, who ultimately quarrelled with the Puritans, was made Keeper of the Records of the Tower by Charles the Second, who was advised thereto by men who did not know how else to keep "busy Mr.

Prynne" out of political pamphleteering. He went to the work of investigation with avidity, and it was while so employed that he followed the mode of life narrated in the preceding page.]

[Footnote 351: I cannot subscribe to the opinion that Anthony Wood was a dull man, although he had no particular liking for works of imagination; and used ordinary poets scurvily! An author's personal character is often confounded with the nature of his work. Anthony has sallies at times to which a dull man could not be subject; without the ardour of this hermit of literature where would be our literary history?]

[Footnote 352: These two catalogues have always been of extreme rarity and price. Dr. Lister, when at Paris, 1668, notices this circ.u.mstance. I have since met with them in the very curious collections of my friend, Mr. Douce, who has uniques, as well as rarities. The monograms of our old masters in one of these catalogues are more correct than in some later publications; and the whole plan and arrangement of these catalogues of prints are peculiar and interesting.]