convenient, to confer with that Queen upon her number of servants, wherein she findeth lack; and how she would have the same supplied, for the French Ambassador says she lacks servitors for her necessary service, in that some one serves in two or three rooms. And as your Lordship shall find the lack indeed necessary, so is her Majesty content that your Lordship shall of your own discretion supply the same, or otherwise advertise her Majesty thereof. Secondly, it is required that the said Queen might have some one of her servants come out of France, to inform her of her accounts there; and that she might send some letters into France for that purpose. Whereunto her Majesty is thus pleased; that she shall write open letters of her instructions, to be seen by your Lordship, and sent hither with your letters to the Ambassador; and otherwise her Majesty will not that she shall send any persons hence. And thus I end, with my most hearty commendations. From Compton in the Hole (so well called for a deep valley; but surely the entertainment is very great, and here have I wished your Lordship), 23rd of August, 1572. Your Lordship's assured, W. BURGHLey. My good Lord, I stayed this letter until this day that by my Lord Talbot I understood that he would send in the morning to you. Our news out Or offices. of France is strange. The Admiral,* having waited on the King to Tennis, at his return to Paris, was shot at out of a house belonging to a follower of the Duke of Guise, with a calibre, having three bullets, and his forefinger of his right hand struck off with one pellet, his wrist of his left arm shot through in two places; and hereupon he is fallen sick of a fever somewhat dangerously. The King of Navarre was married the last week at Paris; the Prince of Condé also married the week before that. In Scotland the abstinence continues hardly. The Prince of Orange has overthrown all the Almaines that were coming out of Germany to aid the Duke of Alva. Monsieur le Nowe has lately slain 1200 Spaniards at In Ireland the troubles of Connaught are pacified. Of the Earl of Northumberland's death I think your Lordship cannot be ignorant. The Earl of Huntingdon is appointed Lord President of the North. And thus I end, with my humble and hearty commendations both to your Lordship and to my Lady. * The famous Gaspard de Coligny, the Patriarch of the Huguenots. This attack on his person was made on the 22nd of August, by Nicholas de Louviers, Lord of Morevel, or, more properly, Maurevert, in Brie. It was the signal for the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, which began on the 24th, and which had been planned by Catherine de Medicis, and the King her son, amidst the festivities of the court on the nuptials of the King of Navarre, and the Prince of Condé, which are mentioned here. The former of those princes married Margaret of Valois, third sister to Charles IX., the latter, Mary of Cleves, daughter to Francis, Duke of Nevers. From Woodstock, the 27th of August, 1572. Your Lordship's at commandment, To the right honourable my very good Lord the Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the Lords of her Majesty's Privy Council. No. LXVII. W. BURGHLEY. (Talbot Papers, Vol. F. fol. 33. 1572.*) LORD BURGHLEY TO THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY. --AFTER I had enclosed up these letters, her Majesty willed me to let your Lordship understand that she would have you use some speech to the Queen of Scots in this sort discovered to her Majesty that it is now fully what practices that Queen has had in hand, both with the Duke of Norfolk and others, upon the sending away of Ridolphi into Spain; and, though it is known to her Majesty, by writings extant, how she was in deliberation what was best for her to do for her escape out of this realm, and thereof caused the Duke of Norfolk to be conferred withal, and that she made choice rather to go into Spain than into Scotland or France, yet her Majesty thinks it no just cause to be offended with those devices tending to her liberty. Neither is she offended This letter is indorsed by the Earl's hand, "the Quene's Majesty's lettar of the v of Septembar, for the redusing of the Scotes Quene's nombar to xvi parsons of all sortes," and appears to have been the cover of the Queen's letter. with her purposes to offer her son in marriage to the King of Spain's daughter, in which matter the late Queen of Spain had solicited her; neither that she sought to make the King of Spain believe that she would give ear to the offer of Don John de Austria. But the very matter of offence is that her Majesty understands certainly her labours and devices to stir up a new rebellion in this realm, and to have the King of Spain to assist it; and, finding the said Queen now so bent, she must not think but that her Majesty hath cause to alter her courteous dealings with her. And so, in this sort, her Majesty would have you tempt her patience, to provoke her to answer somewhat ;+ for of all these premises her Majesty is certainly assured, and of much more. Her Majesty told me a while ago that a gentleman of my Lord of (I dare not name the party) coming to your Lordship's house, was by your * Natural son to the Emperor Charles V. and Governor of the Netherlands. Historians place Don John's offer of marriage to Mary four years after this date. We have here the prime minister of a powerful and wise Monarch, directing, by her order, one of the first noblemen of the realm to visit the cell of a prisoner, and to exercise the office of a spy of the inquisition, by artfully drawing the proofs of the prisoner's guilt from her own mouth. The terms in which this treacherous mandate is couched aggravate the idea of its turpitude. The Earl, deep in the secrets of her story, already master of all the known evidence against her, is ordered not only to sift her by artful questions, but to assail her passions, and to work upon the weakness of a feminine temper which had been rendered infinitely irritable by a long series of misfortunes-in a word, "to tempt her patience to provoke her to utter somewhat!" What a frightful addition is this to the horrors of Mary's prison, as they are described in a following letter ! Lordship asked whether he had seen the Queen of Scots or no, and he said no: then, quoth your Lordship, you shall see her anon; which offer her Majesty misliking, I said that I durst say it was not true in that matter. I perceive her Majesty would have that Queen kept very straitly from all conference, insomuch it is more likely that she shall be rather committed to ward than to have more liberty. Your Lordship shall do well to send the names of those that shall remain, and of such as shall depart. Your Lordship's at commandment, The Queen's Majesty's Letters to the Earl of No. LXVIII. (Howard Papers.) LORD BURGHLEY TO THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY. My very good Lord, THE Queen's Majesty has commanded me to take some regard to the prosecuting of her interest which is to grow to her by the departure and remaining over the seas of one Mr. Sacheverell, wherein Mr. Rolston has been at charge to follow the inquisition thereof, by virtue of a commission directed to your Lordship and others. And hereupon I have conferred with Mr. Rolston, by whom I perceive how honourably and earnestly you have |