York. The latter part of it is, to my understanding, the best way of fatisfying your Majefty's end of a proclamation, which will be very hard at this time, if not impoffible, to pass, and may hereafter, if there fhould be neceflity (as I hope there will not) be fet forth with more advantage to your Majefty than now. Men's difcourfes here are full of your Majefty's defigns of immediate force, of a retreat into Scotland, of the divifions there, to none of which your fervants give

burn these papers, and to vouchfafe me to tranfcribe any thing with your own royal hand out of them that you think fit for your fervice, without communicating it to any other eye.

God always affift your Majesty!

A rough Draught, by himself; endorfed," Mine to the King to "Newmarket.”

that, however your affairs and conveniences have invited you to York,

there as if you were at Whitehall. For your Majefty well knows, that your greatest itrength is in the hearts and affections of thofe per fons who have been the fevereft affertors of the publick liberties, and fo befides their duty and loyalty to your perfon, are in love with your inclinations to peace and justice, and value their own interefts upon the prefervation of your rights. Thefe your Majefty will not lofe by any act which may beget juft fears in them; neither can there be fo cunning a way found out to affift thofe who with not well to your Majefty, (if any fuch there be) as by giving the leaft hint to your people that you rely upon any thing but the ftrength of your laws, and their obedience.

Your Majefty will pardon me that, in thefe public dangers, I can have fo particular a care of myself, as to remember your Majefty to

T

Houfe of Parliament *.

I with all zeal and earneftness have profecuted ever fince the beginning of this parliament, the reformation of the diforders in church and commonwealth, fhould now, in a time of fo great diftraction, defert the caufe. Moft true it is, that my ends were the common good, and that [as long as] it was profecuted, I was ready to lay down my life and fortune. But when I found a preparation of arms against the King under the fhadow of loyalty, I rather refolved to obey a good confcience than particular ends; and now am in my way to his Majefty, where I will throw myfelf down at his feet, and will die a loving fubject.

June 17, 1642,

A Copy. It feems to be in the band of Mr. Walker, afterwards Sir Edward.

A Let

A Letter to Sir Ralph Hopton, Suppofed to have been written by the Earl of Effex *.

SIR,

HE experience I have had of

TH

your worth, and the happinefs I have enjoyed in your friendfhip, are wounding confideration's to me when I look upon this prefent distance between us. Certainly, my affections to you are fo unchangeable, that hoftility itself cannot violate my friendship to your perfon. But I must be true to the cause wherein I ferve. The old limitation, ufque ad aras, holds ftill; and where my confcience is interested, all other obligations are fwallowed up. I should moft gladly wait upon you, according to your defire, but that I look upon you as engaged in that party beyond the poffibility of a retreat, and confequently incapable of being wrought upon by any perfuafions. And I know the conference could never be fo close between us, but that it would take wind, and receive a conftruction to my difhonour. That great God who is the fearcher of my heart, knows with what a fad fenfe I go on upon this fervice, and with what a perfect hatred I deteft this war without an enemy. But I look upon it as fent from God; and that is enough to filence all paffion in me. The God of Heaven in his good time fend us the bleffing of peace, and in the mean time fit us to receive it! We are

I

Sir Edward Hyde to the Lady Dalkeith.

Have now recovered ease enough

to think and write; which I could hardly do when you heard from me laft, and I fhall be much revived that you are perfectly recovered; for by your's I found you were not then well. Take heed, thefe lewd times, and the unpleafantness of your own fortune, make not a greater impreffion upon your mind, than they ought to do; for you then begin to be, when the comfort and confcience of your own innocence is not a greater pleafure than the guilt of others an affliction to you. I hear no news from England or France, but of a multitude of men of honour running to compound. I neither envy nor cenfure them; though I confess I am not able to tell myself, how that comes to be lawful now, which would have appeared three or four years fince very odious to most men; or, that any thing can be honeft to recover an eftate, which had not been fo to have preferved it. And truly, though I must confefs we have by our own grofs folly and madness loft a game that might

allows a latitude, am as like to be deceived by my own reafon as another man; but if ever I quit the foundation of my innocence upon confidence of King or Parliament, and go out of that known tract, in hope that my own wit will find a better way, I will in the next place renounce all known divinity, and truft my own fpirit for a new religion. I know a friend of your's who was once asked, whether if the King directed him under his hand to do one thing, he would promise to do another, becaufe he might know that was contrary to his intentions, and that he would not be obeyed though he had figned fuch a warrant : he was fo rude as to anfwer (and it may be hath been trufted the less fince) that the King had no reafon when he deferted himself, in that which was abfolutely in his own power, to expect, that the fault fhould be repaired by another's courage: and that in a bufiness which was only lawful or unlawful to be done, with reference to his commanding or not commanding it, it were unreasonable to expect that his visible command under his hand should be difobeyed, under the prefumptuous notion of his intentions; and therefore he defired to be excused in those ftratagems of difcretion. I tell you, I will have the law on my fide, or elfe I dare not be hanged; and fo much for that. I fhould be very forry that the peace between Spain and France fhould be concluded, and I hope these late loffes in Italy will prevent it; and how confident foever other men are of it, I do not think it likely; for the French will expect to keep all by the treaty, which they have gotten by the war;. and the Spaniards are mad if they

confent to that. I looking upon the taking of Dunkirk as the rendering a peace impoffible; except the French would confent to the reftoring it, or the Spaniards to give up Flanders with it. But if it fhall fall out, Lord have mercy upon poor England! for I do more fear a French army, than the prefbyterians and independents. It must be the refurrection of the English courage and loyalty muft recover England to the King, and it may be, a Julep from the North may not be unfeafonably applied to the fever of the South, but fure a foreign aid (except of arms and money) will never reconcile those hearts and affections to the King and his pofterity, without which he hath no hope of reigning. And in this opinion I am and have been fo far from being nice, that they have it under my hand, and have been fo far from thinking me worth the reforming or converting, that they have only laughed at me, and faid that I am a mad man of Westminfter-hall, which you know is a warmer place than Tyburn. I thank God, the villainy of this prefent generation, nor the fire of this odious rebellion, hath not des ftroyed or burned up my natural affection to my poor country; not do I wish it overcome by the Turks, becaufe at this time, their religion is little better than Mahometan. I affure you, I comfort myself with the hope that the English will hereafter (though poffibly I may be dead firft) repair the breaches they have made, vindicate their loyalty and religion, and entertain, their neighbours with the ftories of their well-employed valour, as they do now with their romance of treafon' and rebellion; and that they will

I am very glad your patrons at London are conftant in their unmercifulness to the excepted, amongst whom I will not leave my place to be lifted amongst the compounders. For my part, let him want mercy that will ask or take it from them. I remember my old acquaintance Cato, when he was told that Cæfar had a defire to have friendship with him, and was willing to give him a pardon, grew into a paffion, and faid, he was a tyrant to offer him a pardon, for by it he affumed to himself a power over the lives of the citizens of Rome. I affure you, Mr. Secretary, I will not receive a pardon from the King and Parliament when I am not guilty; and when I am, I will receive it only from him who can grant it.

to a fenfe of the injuries done to their neighbours, I have given over any hope that way; and the rather, because the cafe cannot be prefented with the liveliness and vivacity to them, as by those inftances which might be really perverted, and would be paffionately resented against thofe who profefs that religion in those states. And the truth is, there is naturally that abfence of the chief elements of chriftian religion, charity, humility, juftice, and brotherly compaffion, in the very policy and inftitution of princes and fovereign ftates, that as we have long found the civil obligations of alliance and marriage to be but trivial circumstances of formality towards concord and friendship, fo those of religion and juftice, if urged for confcience fake, are equally ridiculous: as if only the individuals, not any state itfelf, were perfect Chriftian. And I affure you, I have not been without many melancholy thoughts, that this juftice of God, which of late years hath feemed to be directed against empire itself, hath proceeded from the divine indignation against thofe principles of empire, which have looked upon confcience and religion itself, as more private, fubordinate, and fubfervient faculties, to conveniency and the intereft of kingdoms, than duties requifite to the purchase of the kingdom of heaven. And therefore God hath stirred up, and applied the people, in whom princes thought it only neceffary to plant religion, to the deftruction of principalities, in the inftitution whereof religion hath been thought unneceffary.