^{page 1 note 1} May 16 and 17. The day on which this letter is dated, the 18th, was Whit Sunday. The dates of these letters are new style.

^{page 1 note 2} Lady Catharine O'Brien, born Lady Catharine Stuart, sister of Charles Stuart Duke of Richmond, who died, ambassador in Denmark, December 1672. Her husband was Henry Lord O'Brien, eldest son of the Earl of Thomond. Lord O'Brien perished in the shipwreck, in Yarmouth Roads, of the Gloucester frigate, carrying the Duke of York to Edinburgh, in 1682. Lady Catharine afterwards married Williamson: their intimacy is apparent in this correspondence. Evelyn drily says, “It was thought they lived not so kindly after marriage as they did before; she was much censured for marrying so meanly, being herself allied to the royal family.” Lord O'Brien is thus described in the List of Court Members of the Long Parliament of Charles II., ascribed to Andrew Marvell, and printed in 1677: “By his wife's interest has got of Secretary Williamson] l,500l. [query, 15,000l.], the reversion of Cobham Park, and other estates that were in the Crown, worth 13,000l. per annum; his son married the Treasurer's [Danby's] daughter.”

^{page 1 note 3} The ambassadors had been detained at Sheerness for ten days by contrary winds.

^{page 1 note 4} Robert Yard, a clerk in the Secretary of State's office, became Under-Secretary in 1699.

^{page 2 note 1} Lord Clifford. There was now great expectation and wonderment as to whether the would or would not publicly take the sacrament, and, by complying with the other provisions of the Test Act passed in the last session, enable himself to retain his office. He resigned on June 29.

^{page 2 note 2} The meeting of the Cabinet Council or Cabal.

^{page 2 note 3} Sir Robert Carr, Bart, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and M.P. for Lincolnshire, was brother-in-law of the Earl of Arlington. He probably assisted Arlington as Secretary of State. He was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, appointed February 14, 1672. In the list of Court members, ascribed to Andrew Marvell, printed in 1677, he is accused of bigamy: “20,000l. in boons, Chancellor of the Duchy; two wires living at this time, one Arlington's sister.” He was much addicted to the turf.

^{page 3 note 1} John Eussell, youngest son of the fourth Earl of Bedford, and uncle of the famous William Lord Russell. He had been Colonel in the Civil Wars for Charles I., and, after the Restoration, was made by Charles II. Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards.

^{page 3 note 2} Sir Thomas Morgan, an old general of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. He commanded Cromwell's expedition to Dunkirk in 1657 to assist the French against the Spaniards. When Monk marched from Scotland to London to effect the Restoration, he left Morgan behind him in chief command in Scotland. He was a very small man, of effeminate voice and appearance. Aubrey gives a funny account of his size and manners. (Letters from the Bodleian, &c, ii. 465.)

^{page 3 note 3} May 19.

^{page 4 note 1} Saturday, May 17.

^{page 4 note 2} Sir S. Morland, the great inventor, who had been employed under Cromwell in Thurloe the Secretary's office, and was rewarded by Charles II. for having betrayed secrets to him. The King made him a Baronet and Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. He was employed in the Foreign Office for the ciphers. Sir W. Temple, in one of his letters from the Hague to Lord Arlington, speaks of Morland's haying given him a lesson on the ciphers at the Foreign Office. (Courtenay's Life of Temple, i. 190.)

^{page 6 note 1} Evelyn, a warm friend of Clifford, who gives him in all other respects the highest-praise, speaks very reproachfully of his ingratitude to Arlington, who had been his patron, and powerfully helped for the King's making him Treasurer of the Household in 1668. Evelyn mentions his having seen Clifford's letters on that occasion to Arlington, and says “they were written with such submissions and professions of his patronage as I had never seen any man acknowledging.” Evelyn accuses Clifford of having pretended to Arlington that he was working in his interest to get him made Lord Treasurer, while he managed to get it for himself, “assuring the King that Lord Arlington did not desire it.” (Evelyn's Diary, August 18, 1673.)

^{page 7 note 1} Orrery is Eoger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, known as Lord Broghill during the Protectorate, when he was a friend of Cromwell. After Lord Chancellor Clarendon's fall in the end of 1667, Orrery had for some time great influence in Charles the Second's councils, but he held no office beyond being a Priyy Councillor. (Rawdon Papers, Letters 101, 103.) There is a statement, evidently derived from himself, that the Duke and Duchess of York urged him to apply for the Lord Chancellorship when Clarendon was removed. (Morrice's Memoirs of Orrery, prefixed to his State Letters, p. 76.)

^{page 7 note 2} Parliament, after the cancelling of the Declaration of Indulgence and the passing of the Test Act, had been adjourned on March 29 to October 20: when it did meet, it was for technical reasons prorogued till the 27th, and then met for a session, which was, however, suddenly cut short by a prorogation on November 9.

^{page 7 note 3} Sir Thomas Higgins, M.P. for Windsor. Marvell's description of him (1677) is: “hath a pension of 500l. per annum, and hath had 4,000l. in gifts, married to the Earl of Bath's sister.” He was married to Elizabeth, Countess of Essex, widow of Robert Devereux, third Earl, who died in 1646.

^{page 9 note 1} Prince Rupert.

^{page 9 note 2} Robert Earl of Sunderland, how thirty-two years of age, had been named Plenipotentiary at Cologne, jointly with Jenkins aud Williamson; but he never proceeded abroad. He had previously been Ambassador first at Madrid and then at Paris. He succeeded Williamson as Secretary of State in 1679, and afterwards had a conspicuous, but uot creditable, public career.

^{page 10 note 1} Edward Seymour, afterwards Sir Edward Seymour, baronet, had been elected Speaker in the last Parliament, February 1673. He was the first Speaker of the House of Commons who was not a lawyer; and there was another innovation in his case, that he was a Privy Councillor when elected Speaker. He was the head of the elder branch of the great Seymour family, the Duke of Somerset of the time being descended from a younger son of the Duke Protector. He was made Treasurer of the Navy, on Osborne's succeeding Clifford.

^{page 11 note 1} A clerk in the Secretary of State's Office, one of Williamson's regular correspondents, who ultimately became Under-Secretary in 1682.

^{page 12 note 1} The engagement was on Wednesday, May 28. The result was indecisive. Both Commanders-in-Chief, Prince Rupert and De Ruyter, claimed victory. But the English and French losses were not very considerable, and the allied fleet remained on the Dutch coast. De Ruyter, reporting to the Prince of Orange, admitted great losses: “Five ships, which were quite disabled, I have sent to Ulising [Flushing] to be refitted. Three of our men-of-war are missing, and, I fear, lost. We have lost most of our gun-ships, and a great many men.” See Ralph's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 235.

^{page 12 note 2} Also called Captain Howard in these letters; probably a younger brother of Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle.

^{page 12 note 3} Negotiations for a marriage of the Duke of York with the daughter of the Archduke of Innspruck had been proceeding for more than a twelvemonth, and: everything was concluded, when the death of the Empress of Austria in March, leaving the Emperor free to marry this Princess, the Duke and the English government were obliged to forego this marriage. Sir Bernard Gascoigue, the English Resident at Vienna, who had conducted the negotiations there, was a Florentine by birth, who had served long in the army of Charles I. All the despatches on this matter of the Earl of Arlington to Sir Bernard Gascoigne are printed in “Miscellanea Antica,” London, 1702. Lord Arlington's despatch to Sir B. Gascoigne telling him to quit is dated May 26.

^{page 13 note 1} There were many ladies thought of after the Empress's death and the giving up of hope of the Princess of Innsprnck: the Emperor's sister, the Duchess of Guise (a cousin of Louis XIV.), a Princess of Wurtemberg, Princess of Neuburg, the Princesses d'Elbeuf of the House of Lorraine, a daughter of the Due de Retz, a Princess of Spain, and two Princesses of the House of Modena. Louis XIV. wished for the Duchess of Guise, but Lord Peterborough pronounced her ugly. The Princess of Wurtemberg was thought of by Charles and James, but they changed their minds, and sent Lord Peterborough to see the Princess of Neuburg. See No. 59 of July 21. Her appearance did not please Lord Peterborough. This Princess afterwards married the Emperor, after the death of his second wife. See full particulars in “Les Derniers Stuarts a St. Germain de Laye par la Marquise de Cavelli,” 2 vols. 4to. 1871. The choice ultimately fell on Princess Mary of Modena.

^{page 13 note 2} The Earl of Peterborough had been appointed Ambassador to Vienna for the purpose of concluding the affair of the Duke of York's marriage with the Princess of Innspruck: he had only just left England, and had not reached Paris en route for Vienna, when the news of the death of the Empress of Austria reached the English Government. He was immediately ordered not to proceed further. This Earl of Peterborough was the second of the title, and was through life a devoted friend of Charles I. and hi s sons Charles and James. He fought in the Civil Wars, and was wounded at Newbury. He died in 1697. He has given a detailed account of his mission in quest of a second wife for the Duke of York in his work on genealogies published under the name of Halstead.

^{page 14 note 1} The Ambassadors arrived at Cologne on June 3, having stayed some days at Antwerp.

^{page 14 note 2} “Mr. Blood the elder” is the notorious ruffian who had attempted to assassinate the Duke of Ormond and afterwards to steal the Crown from the Tower, and had been not only pardoned by the King (astounding enough !) but taken into his favour and rewarded with the grant of an estate of 500l. a-year in Ireland. See Sir Gilbert Talbot's relation of Blood's attempts on the Crown and Duke of Ormond in Strype's Survey of London, vol. ii. p. 91, and Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. ii. pp. 420–5 These crimes of Blood were committed in 1670 and 1671. Evelyn relates meeting him at dinner at Sir Thomas Clifford's, then Treasurer of the Household, on May 10, 1671 (but there is some mistake about the date: it would probably have been later in the year), “Dined at Mr. Treasurer's in company with Monsieur de Grammont and several French noblemen, and one Blood, that impudent bold fellow who had not long before attempted to steal the imperial Crown itself out of the Tower, pretending only curiosity of seeing the regalia there, when, stabbing the keeper, thongh not mortally, he boldly went away with it through all the guards, taken only by the accident of his horse falling down. How he came to be pardoned, and even received into favour, not only after this but several other exploits almost as daring both in Ireland and here, I could never come to understand. Some believed he became a spy of several parties, being well with the sectaries and enthusiasts, and did his Majesty services that way which none alive could do so well as he.” The murderous assault on Ormond was a greater villany. Cart& relates, in his “Life of Ormond,” that Blood had pretended to the King great power among the fanatics. “He was admitted,” says Carte, “into all the privacy and intimacy of the Court: no man more assiduous than he in both the Secretaries' offices. If any one had business at Court that stuck, he made his application to Blood, as the most industrious and successful solicitor, and many gentlemen courted his acquaintance, as the Indians pray to the Devil—that he may not hurt them. He was perpetually in the royal apartments, and affected particularly to be in the same room where the Duke of Ormond was, to the indignation of all others, though neglected and overlooked by his Grace. All the world stood amazed at this mercy, countenance, and favour showed to so atrocious a malefactor, the reasons and meaning of which they could not see or comprehend.” Amazing, indeed, were the ways of Charles the Second's government! This reference to Blood in Mr. Ball's letter shows his connection with the Secretary of State's office.

^{page 15 note 1} An Act had been passed in the last Session for granting a supply of 1,238,750l.

^{page 15 note 2} Lady Thurles, widow of Thomas Lord Thurles, eldest son of the eleventh Earl of Ormond, who died before his father's death, and thus did not become Earl. Lady Thurles died in May, 1673, in her eighty-sixth year. Her eldest son, James, twelfth Earl, was created Duke of Ormond on the coronation of Charles the Second.

^{page 16 note 1} Lady Catherine O'Brien.

^{page 17 note 1} Colonel James Hamilton, eldest brother of Anthony Hamilton, author of the “Memoirs of Count Grammont.” He was a favourite of Charles II. and a groom of the bedchamber.

^{page 17 note 2} Lowestoft.

^{page 17 note 3} This is an authoritative account from the fleet of a second engagement with the Dutch on Tuesday, June 4. Mr. Hartgill Baron, the writer, was an old Royalist who had rendered many services to the royal cause during the Commonwealth, and he was now, it is to be presumed, secretary to Prince Rupert, the Admiral. The losses and injuries sustained by the English fleet in this engagement were much more serious than in the previous one.

^{page 20 note 1} The eldest son of the Duke of Ormond; he was Bear-Admiral of the Blue Squadron in this fight.

^{page 21 note 1} Major Fitzgerald, an Irish officer, had been Deputy-Governor of Tangier.

^{page 21 note 2} Lord Grandison was uncle of the Duchess of Cleveland, Charles's mistress; he had succeeded his brother, her father, as Lord Grandison. Edward Villiers was his brother, another uncle of the lady. The grant was for her benefit.

^{page 22 note 1} Henry Jermyn was nephew of the Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Chamberlain, who had been married privately to Charles II.'s mother, Queen Henrietta. Jermyn was created Baron Dover in 1685.

^{page 22 note 2} By the original rules of the order, founded in 1612, every Baronet was required to pay 1,0952. for the honour.

^{page 22 note 3} The Earl of Euston, afterwards Duke of Grafton, natural son of Charles by Lady Castlemaine, had been betrothed at the early age of eight on August 1, 1672, to the daughter of Arlington, then four years old. The betrothal was with all the solemnity of a marriage. They were re-married November 6, 1679.

^{page 23 note 1} The celebrated antiquary, Sir “William Dugdale. The Baronage of England was published in 1675 and 1676, in 3 vols. folio.

^{page 23 note 2} Younger brother of George, Lord Halifax, born Sir George Savile, Bart. In 1674 he was appointed Envoy at Paris, and in March, 1682, he came home to be a Commissioner of the Admiralty. He had, in 1680, been appointed Vice-Chamberlain; he was continued Vice-Chamberlain under James II.

^{page 23 note 3} Two city aldermen.

^{page 24 note 1} Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, appointed Lord Lieutenant August 5, 1672.

^{page 25 note 1} See later in Sir R. Southwell's and Mr. Ball's letters of June 13, a similar question with Sir Robert Shirley and the Warwickshire justices. Licenses for Dissenters’ worship were given under the King's Declaration of Indulgence of March, 1672: and Parliament had compelled the cancelling of this Declaration on March 7, 1673.

^{page 26 note 1} Second Lord Widdrington; his father had died fighting at the Battle of Wigan for the King, 1 August, 1651. This Lord was a Roman Catholic.

^{page 26 note 2} The Earl of Norwich, so created in 1672, and at the same time made Earl Marshal; afterwards by inheritance Duke of Norfolk.

^{page 27 note 1} Sir Edward Walker was Garter King of Arms.

^{page 27 note 2} The Earl of Anglesey, appointed May 29, 1673.

^{page 27 note 3} There is a letter of Evelyn addressed, June 20, 1665, to Sir Peter Wyche, Knight, as Chairman of a Committee appointed by the Royal Society to consider of the improvement of the English Tongue, in Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, iii, 159.

^{page 28 note 1} There was published at this time a book called “Mr. Baxter baptized iii blood,” giving an account, which was fabulous, of a Church “of England minister, named Baxter, being murdered in New England by Anabaptists with circumstances of great barbarity; and this book was licensed by Dr. Parker, afterwards Bishop of London. A. Marvell comments severely on Dr. Parker's licensing of this book in his Rehearsal Transprosed, Part 2, p. 100 (ed. 1674).

^{page 28 note 2} Richard, Lord Power, or le Poer, of Ireland, who was created Viscount Decies and Earl of Tyrone in October of this year, 1673. He died in the Tower of London in 1690. (Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, edit. Archdall, ii. 306.)

^{page 28 note 3} Mr. Milward and Sir Thomas Strickland had been, with Sir Edward Bering, Commissioners of the Privy Seal, since 1669, when Lord Roberts, Lord Privy Seal, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Strickland was M.P. for Westmerland, and Milward for Stafford. See, later, Sir R. Southwell's letter of June 13, p. 34.

^{page 29 note 1} The Earl of Derby was a minor, only eighteen, and Lord Ossory's daughter, granddaughter of the Duke of Ormond, was only fourteen, when this marriage took place. Lord Derby was immediately sent abroad to travel with a Scotch tutor, James Forbes, whom Dryden has libelled as Phaleg in tie second part of Absalom and Achitophel.

^{page 29 note 2} Thomas Newcombe was entered on the Stationers’ Register as proprietor of the Gazette, but probably Williamson was real owner. The Gazette had been begun at Oxford, November 13, 1665.

^{page 30 note 1} Muting, changing, means the same as moulting, but the word is very rare in this meaning. Richardson in his Dictionary gives one example from Beaumont and Fletcher:

“Not one of my dragon's wings left to adorn me: Have I muted all my feathers?”

The Little Thief, Act iv. sc. 1.

To mute has another special meaning as applied to birds, and especially to hawks, which is mentioned in all dictionaries, viz. to make dung. The following curious passage is given in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words from “Wits, Fittes, and Fancies,” 1595: “One used an improper term to a falconer saying that his hawk dunged. The falconer told him that he should have said muted. Anon after, the fellow stumbled and fell into a cowshare, and the falconer asking him how he came so berayed, he answered in a cowmute.”

^{page 31 note 1} This letter is from Sir John Robinson, Bart. Lieutenant of the Tower, and a City Alderman. He was a member of the City Clothworkers’ Company with Williamson. Pepys mentions calling on him when he was Lord Mayor in 1663, and thus describes him: “My Lord Mayor, a talking, bragging, buffleheaded fellow, that would be thought to have led all the City in the great business of bringing in the King, and that nobody understood his plot, and the dark lanthorn he walked by; but he led them and ploughed with them as oxen and asses, his own words, to do what he had a mind; when in every discourse I observe him to be as very a coxcomb as I could have thought had been in the City:” and more to the same purpose (Pepys's Diary, March 17, 1663). Sir John was nephew of Archbishop Laud.

^{page 31 note 2} Sir Robert Hanson.

^{page 31 note 3} Brentford.

^{page 31 note 4} He did not serve.

^{page 31 note 5} Sir John Howell; he survived until 1676, when he resigned and was succeeded by Sir William Dolben, afterwards a judge of the King's Bench.

^{page 32 note 1} A false report.

^{page 32 note 2} Sir John Robinson was owner of Farming Woods, near Kettering, Northamptonshire.

^{page 32 note 3} Giles Strangways, M.P. for Dorsetshire. He was with Sir John Bobinson, when Pepys visited him March 17, 1663, “in the cellar drinking.” See note, p. 63.

^{page 33 note 1} A Moorish Prince near Tangier, who had frequently attacked it.

^{page 33 note 2} Deputy Governor of Tangier.

^{page 33 note 3} The Earl of Anglesey, Arthur Annesley of the Restoration.

^{page 34 note 1} See note on H. Ball's letter of June 6, p. 25.

^{page 34 note 2} Sir Thomas Meres was member for Lincoln.

^{page 34 note 3} Sir E. Dering was a Commissioner of the Treasury, from March 1679 to July 1684.

^{page 35 note 1} Sir R. Southwell and “Williamson were joint Clerks of the Privy Council.

^{page 35 note 2} Lord O'Brien was a member of the Clothworkers’ Company with Williamson.

^{page 35 note 3} Peace.

^{page 37 note 1} Spring his loof, “from going large, clap close by the wind.” Coles's Dictionary, 1696.

^{page 37 note 2} Schomberg, son of Count Schomberg, a German, by an English lady, was born in 1615. He entered the French service in 1650: he was a pious Protestant. Passing through England on his way to Lisbon soon after the Restoration, he advised Charles II. to set up for the head of the Protestant religion, and not to sell Dunkirk. Not pleased now with his treatment in England, he returned home to Prance, and afterwards left France on account of the persecution of Protestants. He came over to England from Prussia with the Prince of Orange in 1688, and was then made Commander in Chief of the English forces. He was made an English Duke.

^{page 38 note 1} John Lord Berkeley of Stratton was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from June 1671 to August 1672, when succeeded by the Earl of Essex. He died in 1678.

^{page 40 note 1} For the Duchess of Cleveland, his niece.

^{page 40 note 2} For the Duchess of Cleveland, their niece.

^{page 41 note 1} Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle.

^{page 42 note 1} The Earls of Manchester and Sandwich were kinsmen. Lord Sandwich (Edward Montagu) was son of Sir Sydney Montagu, Master of Requests to James I. Lord Manchester (Robert, third Earl) was grandson of Sir Henry Montagu, created Earl of Manchester, brother of Sir Sydney.

^{page 42 note 2} Widow of Josceline, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, whom she had married in 1662, and who had died in May, 1670. She was daughter of the Earl of Southampton, the Lord High Treasurer. She afterwards married Ralph Montagu, who was ultimately created Duke of Montagu.

^{page 45 note 1} Sir Thomas Chichley, Knight, M. P. for Cambridgeshire, was one of the Commissioners of Ordnance. He was married to Lady Savile, the widowed mother of George Savile, Lord Halifax.

^{page 48 note 1} Prince Rupert.

^{page 48 note 2} The Count D'Estrées was the French Admiral of the joint fleet.

^{page 49 note 1} Sir Robert Howard, a younger son of the Earl of Berkshire, was M.P. for Stockbridge; soon Auditor of the Exchequer. He was a poet and playwriter, Dryden married his sister. Marvell gives a bad account of him: “Auditor of the Receipts of the Exchequer, worth 3,000l. per annum; many great places and boons he has had, but his whore Uphill spends all, and now refuses to marry him.” Evelyn calls him an universal pretender. Shadwell brought him on the stage as “Sir Positive Atall.” He died in 1698, at the age of 72.

^{page 51 note 1} Sir Simon Leech, K.B. of Cadleigh, co. Devon.

^{page 56 note 1} Osborne must be a mistake for Dunblaine; as also in p. 62. This Scotch title of Dunblaine was first given, and Latimer in the English peerage a little later. He was made in August Baron Kiveton and Viscount Latimer. He was raised to be Earl of Danby in the following year, June 27, 1674. He is called Lord Dunblaine in a later letter, p. 77.

^{page 57 note 1} Rosse had been tutor to the Duke of Monmouth, and was King's Librarian.

^{page 57 note 2} Sir George Carteret, Bart. See note, p. 59.

^{page 58 note 1} Lord Clifford is probably intended.

^{page 58 note 2} The other side is the party in the Cabinet acting with Prance, and for carrying out the policy promoted by the Duke of York and Lord Clifford, who had been forced to retire. The Duke of Buckingham was at this time on that “other side.”

^{page 59 note 1} Mr. Seymour.

^{page 59 note 2} Sir George Carteret, Baronet, had been a servant of Charles I. and Governor of Jersey, where he made a gallant defence against the Parliament forces. He was made at the Restoration Vice-Chamberlain, Treasurer of the Navy, and a Privy Councillor. In 1667 he exchanged the latter post with Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey, for that of Deputy-Treasurer of Ireland. He died in 1679, at the age of eighty.

^{page 59 note 3} Werden had been Secretary of the Lord High Admiral.

^{page 59 note 4} Dr. Worsley was Secretary of the Council of Trade and Plantations, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury was President. Dr. Worsley was succeeded as Secretary by John Locke, as will be seen in a later letter, No. 118.

^{page 61 note 1} Sir Walter Vane had been Envoy to the Elector of Brandenberg during the first Dutch war, and John Locke had been his secretary.

^{page 61 note 2} “The French invested Maestricht, and carried on the siege with so much vigour and success that, on the 17th of June, the day the Duke of Monmouth came on duty, four several attacks were ordered to be made, and his Grace was particularly commanded to make a lodgment in the counterscarp, which he performed with so much spirit and gallantry as rendered him deservedly famous; and six days after the place was surrendered on capitulation, the garrison being allowed to march out with all the honours of war.”—(Ralph's Hist, of England, i. 236.)

^{page 62 note 1} Lady Catharine O'Brien.

^{page 63 note 1} A. Marvell's description of Sir E. Holmes is as follows, in his “Seasonable Argument,” &c, 1677: “First an Irish livery-boy, then a highwayman, now Bashaw of the Isle of Wight, got in bonds and by rapine 100,000l.: the cursed beginner of the two Dutch wars.”

^{page 63 note 1} Colonel Giles Strangways, Member for Dorsetshire, a great Cavalier leader. He was now being courted: in July 1675 he was made a Privy Councillor, and he died immediately after. He had been very active and prominent in the late session of Parliament against Shaftesbury on the question of writs issued by him as Lord Chancellor, while Parliament was not sitting. Andrew Marvell, having mentioned his promotion to the Privy Council in a letter to William Eamsden of July 24, 1675, adds a postscript: “Strangways, a man of seven or eight thousand pounds a year, having, as I told you, been lately made Privy Councillor, is dead like a fool. He was one with the country, swoln with his new honour and with venom against the fanatics. He had set the informers to work, and died suddenly.”—(Marvell's Works, Thompson's Edition, i. 427.)

^{page 67 note 1} I have not been able to discover a copy of this letter of Lord Shaftesbury to the Duke of York.

^{page 68 note 1} Colonel Richard Talbot, brother of Peter, a gentleman of the Dnke of York's bed-chamber, and always a favourite of his. On the accession of James he was made Earl of Tyrconnel, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

^{page 68 note 2} M.P. for Cornwall, and in the Duke of York's service. Marvell describes him (1677): “one that is known to have sworn himself into 2,000l. at least in his account of the Paye Office, Controller to the Duke, and has got in gratuities to the value of 10,000l. besides what he is promised for being an informer.”

^{page 68 note 3} Very shortly after this elected Chamberlain of the City, see Letter No. 42 from Sir John Robinson, Bart. Player was very conspicuous in the City agitation against the Duke of York, and for his exclusion. He was one of the Members for the City in the three last Parliaments of Charles the Second. He is accused of having blundered in his violent oratory against the Court by saying that he could hardly go to sleep for fear of waking with his throat cut. He is described as Rabsheka in the Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel (Tate's).

^{page 69 note 1} Sir John Smith, son of Alderman James Smith, was also an alderman, and knighted when sheriff in 1670. He married for his second wife Jane, daughter and heir of Robert Deane, esq. of the co. York, by whom he had issue Sir John Smith of Isleworth, created a Baronet in 1694: see Wotton's Baronetage, 1741, v. 54.

^{page 69 note 2} Sir William Hooker.

^{page 71 note 1} Sir William Lockhart was at this time our envoy in France. It will be seen from later letters, that he was dissatisfied with his rank there, and succeeded in his wish to be ambassador. Evelyn speaks of him in his Diary on September 3, 1673, as “my Lord Lockhart, designed ambassador for France, a gallant and a sober person.” He had been ambassador in France under Cromwell; he had married Cromwell's niece. Bishop Burnet speaks of him in high praise (i. 77, 391). “I have ever looked on him,” says Burnet, “as the greatest man that his country [Scotland] produced in this age, next to Sir Robert Murray.” He died in 1676.

^{page 71 note 2} Our ambassador at Madrid.

^{page 71 note 3} The English government zealously supported France in a demand from Spain for satisfaction for their attack on Charleroi. See Arlington's Despatches to Sir W. Godolphin, April 14, June 9, August 11, in Arlington's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 412–423.

^{page 72 note 1} John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, now in his twenty-fifth year, was afterwards distinguished in literature and politics. He is author of an “Essay on Satire,” which was first attributed to Dryden, and an “Essay on Poetry,” both poems. Dr. Johnson has given him a place in his Lives of the Poets. He held high offices of state in the reigns of James, William and Mary, and Anne. He was made Marquis of Normanby by William, and Duke of Buckinghamshire by Anne. He died in February, 1721, in his seventy-second year. Lord Mulgrave has left some Memoirs. of this period of Charles II.'s reign. He was a munificent friend of Dryden, and erected in 1721 a monument in Westminster Abbey to his memory.

^{page 73 note 1} This appears to have been a false rumour.

^{page 74 note 1} Mademoiselle de la Querouaille, the King's mistress from France, brought over in 1670, and now soon to be made Duchess of Portsmouth.

^{page 75 note 1} The blank is for the Duke of York.

^{page 76 note 1} See before in p. 30.

^{page 77 note 1} The Earl of Shaftesbury.

^{page 77 note 1} Parta tueri non minor est virtus quam quærere.

^{page 78 note 1} Henry Earl of Ogle, eldest son of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle; he died November 1, 1680, having been married in 1679 to Lady Elizabeth Percy, heiress of the Earl of Northumberland.

^{page 79 note 1} Charles Fitz-Charles, natural son of the King by Catherine Peg. He was afterwards created Earl of Plymouth, and married a daughter of the Earl of Danby, Lord Treasurer.

^{page 81 note 1} Sir Martin Wescombe; see letter No. 55 p. 111.

^{page 82 note 1} Neither of these gentlemen served as Sheriff.

^{page 83 note 1} M.P. for Shropshire; described by A. Marvell (1677) “a pensioner, one of the horses in Madame Fontelet's coach.”

^{page 85 note 1} Sir Robert Murray was one of the founders and the first President of the Royal Society. He was a great friend of Burnet, who has written a glowing character of him. (History of his Own Time, i. 59, 355.) He was a particular friend of the Earl of Shaftesbury, after dining at whose house it appears from a later letter, No. 46 of July 7, that he was suddenly taken ill. Evelyn, records his attending the funeral, July 6,1673: “This evening I went to the funeral of my dear and excellent friend, that good man and accomplished gentleman, Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of Scotland. He was buried by order of his Majesty in Westminster Abbey.”

^{page 87 note 1} Sir George Hewitt was believed to be the original of Etherege's, “Sir Fopling Flutter” in his play “The Man of Mode.” He is described in a previous letter No. 34 of June 26, p. 67, as “the young gallant cornet.” He was called Beau Hewitt, and was a notorious dandy. Mr. Ravenscroft was an inferior play-writer; he had a controversy with Dryden. See Globe Edition of Dryden's Poetical Works, pp. 414–17.

^{page 87 note 2} Eldest son of the Earl of Dorset, a man of wit and a poet, was raised to the peerage as Earl of Middlesex during his father's lifetime, in 1675, and succeeded as Earl of Dorset in 1677. He died in January 1706, in his seventieth year. After the Revolution of 1688 he was appointed Lord Chamberlain. Horace Walpole says of him: “He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous Court of Charles II. and in the gloomy one of King William: he had as much wit as his first master, or his contemporaries Buckingham] and Rochester, without the Royal want of feeling, the Duke's want of principles, or the Earl's want of thought.” (Royal and Noble Authors ii. 96, ed. 1749.) He was a man of great wit, and skilled in satire; Price said of him, that he was “the best-natured man with the worst-natured Muse.”

^{page 87 note 2} This fracas, of which there is more in later letters, may have been part of the allusion of Dryden in his Epilogue, spoken at the opening of the new King's Theatre, March 26, 1674:

“So may Fop-corner full of noise remain, And drive far off the dull attentive-train: So may your midnight scourings happy prove, And morning batteries force your way to love: So may not France your warlike hands recall, But leave you by each other's swords to fall.”

^{page 89 note 1} The famous miniature-painter.

^{page 89 note 2} See p. 17.

^{page 92 note 1} Governor of Jamaica.

^{page 92 note 2} Sixth Lord Willoughby of Parhara, made Governor of Barhadoes in 1672.

^{page 96 note 1} Don Bernardo de Salinas came over from Holland on the part of Spain, but without Spanish credentials, to endeavour to persuade the King of England to make a separate peace with the Dutch. He had letters from the Prince of Orange and from the Conde de Monterey, the Spanish governor of Flanders, which the King refused to receive. Salinas was handsomely treated, but had no success.—(Arlington to Sir W. Godolphin, July 24, 1673, in Arlington's Letters, ii. 422.) See Letter No. 52, p. 106.

^{page 100 note 1} Richard Cooling, secretary to the Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Chamberlain.

^{page 101 note 1} Christopher, second Duke of Albemarle, succeeded his father in January, 1669; he was afterwards appointed Governor of Jamaica, and he died there in 1687.

^{page 101 note 2} Marquis of Worcester; third Marquis, succeeded his father, the mechanical philosopher, in 1667; was made Duke of Beaufort in 1682. See his praises under the name of Bezaliel in the Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel.

^{page 101 note 3} Third Earl of Northampton; had fought gallantly for Charles I. in the Civil War. He was made a Privy Councellor, March 7,1672. He died in December, 1681.

^{page 101 note 4} Lord Vaughan, eldest surviving son of the Earl of Carbery. His elder brother, first husband of Rachael, Lady Russell, had died in 1667, and he then became Lord Vaughan.

^{page 102 note 1} Sir William Coventry, son of the Lord Keeper Coventry, and brother of Henry, the Secretary of State. He had been Secretary of the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral, and a Commissioner of the Treasury. After Clarendon's fall in 1667, he was thought likely to succeed him as virtual Prime Minister, but a quarrel with the Duke of Buckingham put him out of favour with the King and out of office. He was a man of great ability and high character. He died in 1686.

^{page 103 note 1} An Irish Peer: he was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Duke of York.

^{page 104 note 1} Sir Robert Long had been Private Secretary of Charles I.; was made a Baronet in 1662.

^{page 104 note 2} Sir Robert Howard succeeded Sir Robert Long as Auditor of the Exchequer. See note, p. 49

^{page 104 note 3} Charles Bertie, brother of the Earl of Lindsey, and brother-in-law of Osborne the new Lord Treasurer. He was M.P. for Stamford.

^{page 105 note 1} Became Under-Secretary of State in 1692.

^{page 105 note 2} The Duke of Monmouth.

^{page 105 note 3} The King of France.

^{page 108 note 1} John, second Earl of Bridgwater, had been made a Privy Councillor in 1666: he was a man of learning. Shaftesbury was Lord Chancellor, though not a professional lawyer; and others were spoken of in this and following reigns for the Great Seal, who were not lawyers, as the Earl of Orrery, Earl of Anglesea, Earl of Mulgrave.

^{page 108 note 2} Lord Roberts had been one of the Presbyterian leaders in the great Civil War. After the Restoration, he was made Lord Privy Seal, and in 1669 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. lie was later created Earl of Radnor, and in October 1679 he succeeded the Earl of Shaftesbury as Lord President of the Council.

^{page 109 note 1} Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been a member of the Cabinet in 1664. (Pepys, March 2, Nov. 8, 1664.)

^{page 109 note 2} The famous George Savile, now Baron, afterwards successively Earl and Marquis of Halifax. He was now forty years of age. He had been joint plenipotentiary with Buckingham and Arlington in the summer of 1672 to the King of France.

^{page 109 note 3} Duchess of Cleveland, formerly Lady Castlemaine.

^{page 119 note 1} Arlington.

^{page 121 note 1} Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire (Earl of Mulgrave), gives an account of this incident in his “Memoirs in the reign of Charles II.” He is the Mulgrave who was with Schomberg, and whose flag was used. He attributes to annoyance on account of this affair Prince Rupert's ordering all the land forces under Schomberg's command to Yarmouth, “where they lay encamped all the summer by the sea-side, without being ever reimbarked, or able to do the least service; M. de Schomberg obeyed, but took no leave of the Prince, and engaged me personally to carry him a challenge after the expedition was over, which the King prevented, though not out of kindness to either of them.”

^{page 122 note 1} Sir Thomas Modiford was Governor of Jamaica in 1671, when a raid was made from thence by buccaneers under Morgan on the Spanish possessions of Chagres and Panama in the Central American Isthmus, and he was recalled for alleged connivance with the buccaneers, and on his return home sent a prisoner to the Tower to give satisfaction to Spain. His son in the meantime was imprisoned for him. (Arlington's Letters, ii. 327.)

^{page 122 note 2} See note on Letter No. 7, p. 13, where a reference is made by mistake to letter No. 59; it should be No. 60, this letter.

^{page 123 note 1} Sir Philip Warwick had been in the service of Charles I., and was on the Restoration appointed Secretary of the Lord Treasurer, Earl of Southampton. He died in 1682. He wrote “Memoirs of Charles the First.”

^{page 123 note 2} The leaguer, the siege of Maestricht.

^{page 131 note 1} To look at the Princess of Newburg. See letter No. 60, July 21, p. 122.

^{page 131 note 2} Bishop Burnet gives a lively account of the Duke of York's passion for Lady Bellasys, widow of Sir Henry Bellasys, K.B. who was the eldest son of John Lord Bellasys, and who had died during his father's life-time. Lord Bellasys was a Roman Catholic. His daughter-in-law, Lady Bellasys, who captivated the Duke of York, was a Protestant. He tried in vain to convert her, but, his passion prevailing over his religion, he- gave her a promise to marry her. When her father-in-law heard of this affair, he feared that she would convert the Duke, and spoil all hope of introducing the Eoman Catholic religion; so he went to the King and told him of the Duke of York's matrimonial intention. The King prevented the marriage.—See Burnet's Own Time, i. 353.

^{page 131 note 3} The Duke of York's valet.

^{page 131 note 4} Mr. Blomer was married to a sister of John Locke; this Church preferment was probably owing to the influence of the Earl of Shaftesbury.

^{page 134 note 1} The Teat Act framed in the late Session of Parliament required the oaths of allegiance and abjuration of the Pope to be taken before August 1, to enable holders of offices to retain them.

^{page 134 note 2} Countries, the common word at the time for counties.

^{page 136 note 1} Guidon, standard-bearer.

^{page 138 note 1} There were four Clerks of the Council.

^{page 139 note 1} The residence of Lord, Arlington.

^{page 139 note 2} Arrears of payment as Clerk of the Council and Keeper of the Paper Office.

page 143 note ¹ Prince Rupert, a zealous Protestant and opponent of a French policy, besides being much exasperated with the French for their conduct in the war.

page 145 note ¹ It would appear from this that he was Governor of Yarmouth. But I have not found any other information to that effect. He was, in 1679, made Governor of Hull.

page 145 note ² Byas. “Bias (Biais, F.) a weight fixed on one side of the bowl, turning the course of the bowl that way towards which the bias looks: inclination, bent.” (Bailey's English Dictionary.) The derived meaning of bias, its present familiar use, was becoming common at this time, yet there was always a trace of its first meaning in connection with the game of bowls. Andrew Marvell in “Rehearsal Transprosed” Part 2, p. 368, ed. 1674: “Some rub has been interposed, unhappily, that has thrown all of the bias and so lost the cast.” Shadwell in his Epilogue to his play of “The Humourists:”

page 149 note ¹ This illegitimate daughter of Charles had been, before her marriage with Mr. Paston, married to Mr. James Howard, grandson to the Earl of Suffolk.

page 150 note ¹ Alresford and Alton.

page 150 note ² The inquiries were made probably for Madame de Qnerouaille, soon to be Duchess of Portsmouth. See letter No. 81, p. 165.

page 150 note ³ At this time only eighteen years old. He became an important political person in the reign of William, and was appointed in March, 1692, first Commissioner of the Admiralty and a Privy Councillor. He married his second wife in May, 1688, the widow of the Duke of Monmouth. He died in 1698 in his forty-third year.

page 153 note ¹ The Prince Rupert.

page 154 note ¹ Compare this with the statement in Mr. Ball's letter immediately preceding, No. 74, which is the correct statement, that the father was made Peer chiefly on account of his son.

page 155 note ¹ Query, experientia. This mysterious reference may be to a dissension between Arlington and Clifford.

page 155 note ² Fucus, a dye, a trick or deception.

page 159 note ¹ The elder brother of Lord Arlington, who was, in November 1682, created Lord Ossnleton.

page 160 note ¹ Sir Robert Carr.

page 162 note ¹ August 11.

page 169 note ¹ Fifth, but second surviving, son of the first Duke of Ormond: he was created Baron Butler of Weston. He had been made an Irish Peer with the title of Earl of Arran in 1663.

page 170 note ¹ This was a false report. The fight had lasted from the 11th of August to the 13th. Ralph thus describes the close of the fight, in which Spragge, fighting like a lion, was drowned, and Prince Eupert showed immense bravery and skill. The French played him false. “De Ruyter, with the residue of the Dutch Fleet, came up close with the Prince, and renewed the attack with all possible fury. Out of ninety, his Highness had but thirteen serviceable ships, exclusive of the French remaining: yet even with this wretched remnant of a Fleet, did he not only make head against the enemy, but recovered the wind, and, by the help of two gunships, put them into great disorder. Upon this he again made the signal for the French to engage; and had they even then, late as it was, obeyed it, without sharing the danger of the fight, they would have acquired the honour of the victory. But they continued still insensible, and the Prince found it expedient to give over the contest, and make the best of his way to port, whither he carried along with him the name and merit of a victory without any ef the advantage.”—(Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 240.)

page 174 note ¹ Prince Eupert.

page 176 note ¹ Lady Elizabeth Noel, daughter of the Earl of Southampton, married to Mr. Edward Noel, son of Viscount Campden, and afterwards created Earl of Gainsborough. She was sister of Rachael, Lady Russell; and she and Lady Russell were both half-sisters, by different mothers, of the countess of Northumberland, now married to Ralph Montagu.

page 179 note ¹ Ralph Montagu was eldest son of Edward, second Lord Montagu of Bough ton, who died in 1683. Ralph, third Lord Montagu of Boughton, was in 1689 made Earl of Montagu, and in 1705 Duke of Montagu.

page 180 note ¹ A French troop first swept all things in its way, But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay; Yet, to our cost, in that short time we find They left their itch of novelty behind. The Italian Merry-Andrews took their place, And quite debanched the stage with lewd grimace. Instead of wit and humour, your delight Was there to see two hobby-horses fight; Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in, And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.

page 182 note ¹ A false rumour: Parliament met in October.

page 183 note ¹ Sir Robert Carr.

page 188 note ¹ The Duke of Monmouth.

page 189 note ¹ The words printed in italics are iu cipher in the original.

page 192 note ¹ The son of Thomas, Lord Grey, the Earl of Stamford's eldest son, who had died in 1657. This new Earl of Stamford was a strong opponent of James II., and a favourer of Monmouth's rebellion, and was befriended by William III.

page 195 note ¹ Royal Highness are, probably, the words omitted: the Duke of York.