The life and times of Dr John Dee

LETTER ⅬⅩ.

[Domestic Correspondence, State Paper Office, Nov. 4, 1602.]

SIR, I have had leysure enough to bethincke myself how and in what sort to thanсke you for your packet I receved at the closing up of my last that went by Peter Browne, but the more I thincke the lesse I am satisfied to see that wordes are but a windie requitall for somany pretty discourses and presents, and that I have none other meanes to acknowledge your kindnes, so that you must even put me in the number of your doubtfull or rather desperate debtors, except some extrordinarie goode fortune come to cleere me out of your booke ; and now was I leaving this theme, and falling to other matters, when your cousen Lytton calles me foorth to receve a pacquet sent from Mussi your post, three or fowre dayes after his arrivall, for the which I can adde nothing to that I saide before, but rather, if it had come sooner, might chaunce have said lesse, for leves gratiœ loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Now comming so fresh from reading your letters and discourses of Biron, I cannot go on without touching a point or two en passant. Let the French twaddle what they list of his dieng en soldat, I cannot perceve by ought I have seen or heard but that he died very timerously and childishly, which shewes that his valour was rather a French furie, then true fortitude. Another observation came to my remembraunce in reading his proces, of three straunge disasters befallen three great men,^a in three neighbour countries in three yeares successively (this, you see, passes tres sequuntur tria), and all theire cases so intricate, specially the two straungers, and theire persons and services so magnified that a great part of the world rests unsatisfied in their deaths, and will not be perswaded against their deserts by any undeservings ; but mundus vult decipi, and so let it go. I can finde neither rime nor reason in such extraordinarie usage and entertainment of your Suisse,^b being more then they were fit to receve, and more then beseemed the King to geve to such muffes ; so that we censure it here either for indiscretion or abjectnes ; and for the 800,000 crownes yearly (but that you write it) I shold hardly beleve the King wold buy them so deare. The third part of that pension being much and more then they are worth. Your brother and sister Carleton are both in towne about the funerall of Mr. Marsh, his goode hoste and frend, who died apoplecticall. No doubte but he will informe you of whatsoever he can come by. You writ to him of the comming of your boy, of whom as yet we have no tidings. We heare out of Spaine that ODonell,c riding toward the Court at Valladolid, died sodainly by the way, and being opened there was found in him a serpent(as some call it), or rather a worme, with two heades, of eight foote longe. Matters begin again untowardly in Mounster, where one Cormach Mac Teaghe (or, as some terme him, Mac Dermond), a great man, being apprehended by the Lord President for suspicion of intelligence with Spaine, made an escape, and is out in action, together with the Lord Roche, and divers other of his frends and followers. He had a sonne, a proper youth, at Oxford, who was lately sent for, and committed to the keper of the Court of Wardes. They speake of an embargo in Spaine of all Scottish and Irish, so that they must seeke trafficke elswhere. We have much talke of an apparition in Wales, not far from Chester, of great troupes of horse and foote in battell array, seene upon a mountaine by sixteen or eighteen persons of credit, but when they came to discover what they were sodainly vanisht. We have here foure youthes come from Moscovie to learne our language and Latin, and are to be dispersed to divers schooles at Winchester, Eaton, Cambridge, and Oxford. One Perkins,^a a prime man at Cambridge, and of great esteme with the precise faction, is lately dead ; and another eclipse is befaln that Universitie, for Dr. Plaifer, the Divinitie reader, is lately crackt in the headpeece for the love of a wench, as some say. Sir Walter Lewson is dead in the Fleet, and so his creditors paide in theire eare. Mrs. Bodley hath lately lost her eldest sonne, Captaine Ball,^b in the Lowe Countries by sicknes. The young Lady North is brought to bed of a sonne ; and the common report is that Dr. Dee hath delivered the Lady Sandes of a devill, or of some other straunge possession. Your Lady Thomas Norris is become a great Catholique, and takes great care and paines to convert her sisters. I have nothing els, but to pray you commend me to Mr. Winwod if he be still there, and tell him the voice runs still with him for Mr. Gilpins place ; and yet I am told there be above twenty suters, besides Wheeler^c and blacke Milles. Since before dinner I have heard further that Sir Francis Vere hath ben robd in his chamber of 2,000l. in gold, and some say he is dead of his hurt. Besides Captaine Ball, there be many other Captaines lately dead in the Lowe Countries, as Lile, Clifford, Keyes, Richards, Vanifor, Deacons, Crofts, Drake, and above fowre thousand of the sixe that went last over. Harry Butler,a that killed Russell, is taken at Carlile, going for Spaine, with letters for the Duke of Feria. This is all, unles I shold tell you that a prentise, pursued by his master to be beaten, lept out of a garret by Holbourne Bridge, and fell upon a porters necke and got away without harme. Mr. Backhouse and Mr. Borlas have them kindly commended to you ; and the drie-handed Knight must not be forgotten, for he remembered it to me by a letter out of the countrie. And so I leave you to Gods holy protection.

From London this 4th of November, 1602.
Yours most assuredly, John Chamberlain.

The Dutch men had set out a relation of the fight with the gallies, which we allow not, neither indeed do theire owne tales agree ; whereupon I thought goode to send you this report of Sir Robert Mansell, in aunswer of those drunken companions.

[Addressed,]
To my assured goode frende
Mr. Dudley Carleton
geve these.