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1558.
21 Nov.
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1. Count De Feria to the King.
I wrote on the 14th, but have learnt that the courier could not
leave Dover until the 17th. On the latter day our lady the Queen
died. She had been unconscious most of the time since I arrived,
but always in the fear of God and love of Christianity, indeed the
nation soon sees what a good Christian she was, for since it was
known that she was dying they have begun to treat the images and
religious persons disrespectfully. The morning before Her Majesty
died the Chancellor and the rest of the Council went into her
chamber, and before the women, doctors and others on duty there,
they read the Queen's will. Her Majesty was not conscious at the
time. The will was read by the Missioner (Master) of the Rolls,
and on arriving at a part where there were some legacies left to
servants they ordered the reader to pass on without reading any of
them. They tell me that this is the way the wills of the Kings of
England are always fulfilled ; that is to say just as the Council
likes. I think your Majesty must have a copy of the will, from
what I heard when I was here last, and I have therefore said
nothing to the Council about it and have made no inquiries except
what people have told me. Your Majesty will send me orders if I
am to move in this, and if you have a copy of the will it would be
advisable to see it again, as also the marriage treaty, and although
as I have written to your Majesty it is very early yet to talk about
marriage the confusion and ineptitude of these people in all their
affairs make it necessary for us to be the more circumspect, so as
not to miss the opportunities which are presented to us, and
particularly in the matter of marriage. For this and other reasons
(if there be no objection) it will be well to send me a copy of the
(marriage) treaty, which, though it may not be very necessary, will
at least serve to post me up as to what would be touched upon,
although a new treaty would be different from the last.
The new Queen and her people hold themselves free from your
Majesty and will listen to any ambassadors who may come to treat
of marriage. Your Majesty understands better than I how
important it is that this affair should go through your hands,
which as I have said will be difficult except with great negotiation
and money. I therefore wish your Majesty to keep in view all the
steps to be taken on your behalf, one of them being that the Emperor
should not send any ambassador here to treat of this, for it would
be inconvenient enough for Ferdinand to marry here even if he took
the titbit from your Majesty's hand, but very much worse if it were
arranged in any other way. For the present I know for certain
they will not hear the name of the duke of Savoy mentioned as they
fear he will want to recover his estates with English forces and will
keep them constantly at war. I am very pleased to see that the
nobles are all beginning to open their eyes to the fact that it will
not do to marry this woman in the country itself.
The day on which the Queen died, after the customary proclamation
was made at Westminster and London, the Council decided
that the Chancellor, the Admiral, the earl of Shrewsbury, the earl of
Pembroke, the earl of Derby and William Howard, should go to the new
Queen and perform the ordinary ceremonies, and that the remainder
should stay behind, but everyone wanted to be first to get out. I
sent Dasonleville to excuse me from going as I waited here according
to her orders. She sent word that she was sorry she could not see
him in consequence of her grief but that he was to speak to the
Council, which he did, although he said more than he was instructed
to say, which is his great fault. But it was all about his grief at
the Queen's death, and congratulations on the new Queen's accession.
They replied to him very civilly and affectionately. He says William
Howard made him great offers of service to your Majesty. William
Howard has been made Lord Chamberlain ; Lord Robert, the son
of the late duke of Northumberland, Master of the Horse, and his
brother Lord Ambrose, Master of Artillery, the place that Southwell
held. She has given the controllership to her late cofferer, (fn. 1) a
fat man whom your Majesty will have seen at Hampton Court, and
the secretaryship to Cecil. I am told that those who have up to the
present been sworn as members of her Council are the Chancellor,
the earl of Pembroke, the earl of Derby, the earl of Shrewsbury
(Xeromberi), Admiral Clinton, the earl of Bedford, William Howard,
Paget, her former Controller, the cofferer she has now made her
Controller and Secretary Cecil. I do not know of any more
officials. The day our lady the Queen died Parliament was dissolved,
and if they convoke it again forty days must pass by law. The
commission held by the earl of Arundel (fn. 2) and his colleagues in
Flanders also expired, and it will be necessary to send them fresh
credentials. It is said the Queen will come here during this week,
and nothing can be attended to before then, not even a passport for
Don Alonso de Cordova, the Regent of Aragon and others who have
come from Spain. They closed the ports as soon as the Queen died,
and with the change at Queen and officers things are in such a
hurly-burly and confusion that futhers do not know their own
children.
Your Majesty's servants and pensioners here are already beginning
to look upon themselves as dismissed without anything being said to
them. I do not know what had better be done, whether to let them go
thus without saying anything and pay only those we need, or to
dismiss them. I think it would be better to say nothing, but to pay
those we want and some fresh ones. I await commands. If the
Queen does not ask for a list of those in your pay or speak of the
matter. I think it will be better not to stir it up, because if she
should say that we are not to pay anybody, and afterwards found
out that we did so, she would naturally be offended. I again remind
your Majesty that it will be well to despatch Doctor Wotton in a
very good humour and offer him a pension, or refer him to me to
pay him one here, as he will be one of the most powerful of them,
and, I am told, he may be made archbishop of Canterbury. (fn. 3) I am
not sure of this however.
The more I think over this business, the more certain I am that
everything depends upon the husband this woman may take. If he
be a suitable one religious matters will go on well, and the kingdom
will remain friendly to your Majesty, but if not it will all be spoilt.
If she decides to marry out of the country she will at once fix her
eyes on your Majesty, although some of them here are sure to pitch
upon the Archduke Ferdinand. I am not sure of all this, but only
conjecture. I hope your Majesty will pardon the disorder and
confusion of my letters, for things here are going on in such a way
that it is quite impossible to get enlightened on anything, and if I
wrote everything, she and they say I should never end. Really this
country is more fit to be dealt with sword in hand than by cajolery,
for there are neither funds, nor soldiers, nor heads, nor forces, and
yet it is overflowing with every other necessary of life.
The body of our lady the Queen is kept until its interment in the
chamber outside the one she slept in, and the house is served exactly
as it was before.
On the night of the day of the Queen's decease the Cardinal (fn. 4) also
died. He was very weak and with continual fever, and his servants
did not take care to conceal the death of the Queen from him. He
was so afflicted by it that it hastened his end. Two days after he
died the Queen sent the earl of Rutland, Throgmorton, and an uncle
of Peter Carew (Pedro Caro) to embargo all his goods and take an
inventory of them, as it was thought he was a very wealthy man,
and if he received what they say he did, he must have been so. I
have not been able to learn for certain yet. It was a mercy for God
to take him and I do not think your Majesty loses much with him,
according to what these people tell me, although I thought otherwise
formerly.
The people are wagging their tongues a good deal about the late
Queen having sent great sums of money to your Majesty, and that I
have sent 200,000 ducats since I have been here. They say that it
is through your Majesty that the country is in such want and that
Calais was lost, and also that through your not coming to see the
Queen our lady, she died of sorrow. The sorrow I feel, is that your
Majesty should have allowed so much favour to be shown to this
scurvy Lord Chamberlain Hastings, for it is he who is publishing
these things and is the greatest enemy our country has. The
Controller and Boxall make much of me, but they are all as
ungrateful to your Majesty as if they had never received anything
from your hands. It is true that as they are naturally much put
out and nobody knows what is to become of him, they are so giddy
and confused that we must not judge them too hastily. The people
are more free than ever, the heretics thinking that they will be able
to persecute the Catholics, but things in this respect are somewhat
quieter, as on the Sunday before the Queen died the priest who
preached the sermon at St. Pauls told them to pray for the Pope.
They see also that the new Queen goes to mass. These people try
to spread about everywhere that your Majesty will in future have
no more influence here than if you had never married the late Queen
and with this object they wish the Queen not to be too ready to
treat with me. She is very much wedded to the people and thinks
as they do, and therefore treats foreigners slightingly. For this
reason, and seeing that neither she nor they have done anything yet,
I have decided to go on very quietly until things settle down and I
see who is to take the lead. Up to the present nothing is certain
and everyone talks as his wishes lead him ; I wonder they have
not sent me crazy. The whole point of it is (as I have said) the
husband she chooses, and we must try by money arrangements that
he shall be one agreeable to your Majesty.
They tell me the Queen left orders that she was to be buried
either at Windsor or Westminster, and that the body of Queen
Katharine, her mother, should also be brought thither. They have
not yet decided which place it shall be, but the new Queen, wishes it
to be done with all solemnity.—London, 21st November 1558. |
| 25 Nov. |
2. The Same to the Same.
After writing the enclosed the post despatched by your Majesty
on the 15th arrived with three letters, but that for the Queen, now
in heaven, did not come.
The Queen decided three days ago to send Lord Cobham to your
Majesty. He is the son of the Lord Cobham whom you knew and
who recently died. They told me nothing about it until yesterday
when Secretary Cecil sent to say that Cobham was going and had
been ordered to visit me before he left. This he did last evening
but the object of his going is only to inform your Majesty formally of
what has occurred. He has no place in the Queen's household and
he and his brother have not enjoyed a good reputation, but have
always been adherents of the new Queen and she is attached to him.
Your Majesty should have him well housed and treated, and a
handsome chain or something should be given to him. I have
written to my brother-in-law asking him to entertain him and to
win his good graces. They tell me they are going to send someone
else to the Emperor, but do not know yet who it will be. The day
before yesterday the Queen came to a house of my Lord North,
formerly a Carthusian monastery, close to the horse market, and the
whole of London turned out and received her with great acclamations.
They tell me her attitude was more gracious to the common people
than to others. She will not go to the Tower till next week. I
sent the Admiral's wife to visit her and she returned me a very
gracious reply. I think of seeing her tomorrow or the day after
and shall be glad to receive your Majesty's letter with the credit,
for without that it is hopeless to try to cajole these people. I beg
your Majesty to send me Don Juan de Ayala or the bishop of
Aquila, as I am a bad hand at negotiating without a tender. There
is great rejoicing amongst the common people and young folks
and those who were persecuted for heresy or treason, but others are
not so pleased, as I hear. Dasonleville writes to your Majesty, and
I have told him to continue to do so as your Majesty will be glad
sometimes to hear what he has to say, and he will be gratified by it.
Don Alonso de Cordova will go as soon as possible. I will not detain
him now that some of my own people have arrived. They tell
strange stories of the bad treatment they were subjected to on the road
from Dover hither. I note what your Majesty says about the ship
"Minona" which went to the Mina and also about recovering the
artillery and goods taken by the English out of the Portuguese
ship "Raposa". I will attend to it as a thing that so interests
your Majesty, but I understand this "Minona" business is a very
dangerous one to touch. The ship sailed when Howard was admiral,
and he must have been paid to let her go, and although they said she
was going to Barbary her real destination was known all along
and some of the Council were in the secret, as I heard from Figueroa
when your Majesty wrote to him about it in April last. The Queen,
now in heaven, ordered steps to be taken in the matter, but it all
ended in smoke, for in fact the English deeply resented being
interfered with in this navigation, and what was done was only out
of respect for your Majesty. The Queen herself consented with an
ill grace and the Council with a worse grace still as some of them
were mixed up in the affair. Nevertheless I will do what I can,
though I am unwilling to open up claims which will offend these
people or rather which they will refuse.
I think it will be well for your Majesty to have all the treaties
between the late Emperor and King Henry and of your own marriage
well looked into to see whether any of them are binding on heirs and
successors in England, especially that of 1542. M. D'Arras (fn. 5) and the
Flemings think that heirs and successors are included in that treaty.
Paget told your Majesty two years ago that they were not, but I
in conversation with the Councillors separately, and once when they
were together, told them they were obliged by the old treaties to
declare war when they did, without going into particulars, and I
pointed it out again receently, but I have always avoided stirring
the matter up before Paget. It would be very convenient if these
people were bound by treaty. I have copies of all the treaties here,
but as they are in French I do not understand them well. If your
Majesty wishes Dasonleville could go over them with me so that I
might understand them better, but I do not show them to him until
I know your Majesty's pleasure, recognising the undesirability of
opening the eyes of the Flemings in view of possible contingencies.
I have just learned that the Queen decided yesterday to send
Sir Thomas Chaloner to the Emperor. He is a gentleman who in
time of King Edward was one of the three secretaries of the Council,
and when troops were being raised a year since to succour Calais
he went as commissary to Dover, where I saw him. He is a man
of a little over forty, and speaks Latin, Italian and French well.
Neither the Queen or Council has sent word to me about it.
The bishop of Ely was dean of the Chapel, which is an office of
high honour here, but the Queen has taken it away from him, and
given it to an elder brother of Peter Carew (Pedro Caro) who is
archdeacon of Exeter (I am not sure that I am quite right about
the name of this church). He was married in time of King Edward,
but his wife is dead. They tell me he is neither learned nor wise.
Although the Chancellor the Lord Treasurer and Privy Seal have
been received into the Council, they have not been confirmed in their
offices. Lord Robert, the Master of the Horse, is in the Council.
A Mr. Rogers (fn. 6) has been made vice-chamberlain. He was a servant
of King Henry and they say he is a soldier.
They say that last year the Treasurer, without orders from the
Queen, had the tomb over King Henry's grave removed, and left it
bare, and this summer secretary Boxall, who is the dean, when he
returned from the feast of St. George there (Windsor), told the Queen
of it, whereupon she was very angry, according to him, but things
remained as they were. The new Queen has however ordered the
tomb to be restored as before, and even better. I am very much afraid
that if the Queen do not send her obedience to the Pope or delay
doing so, or if he should take into his head to recall matters concerning
the divorce of King Henry there may be a defect in the succession
of this Queen which will help to upset the present state of things
here more than anything else. Your Majesty will consider whether
it will be well to write to Rome and in some good way get the Pope
sounded about it to see whether he will act. I think your Majesty
ought to do it.—25th November 1558. |