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MEMOIRS OF LADY FANSHAWE
MEMOIRS OF LADY FANSHAWE
WIFE OF SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE, BT. AMBASSADOR FROM CHARLES II. TO THE COURTS OF PORTUGAL & MADRID WRITTEN BY HERSELF CONTAINING EXTRACTS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BEATRICE MARSHALL AND A NOTE UPON THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALLAN FEA...
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
There is a deathless charm, despite the efforts of modern novelists and playwrights to render it stale and hackneyed, attaching to the middle of the seventeenth century—that period of upheaval and turmoil which saw a stately debonnaire Court swept away by the flames of Civil War, and the reign of an usurper succeeded by the Restoration of a discredited and fallen dynasty. So long as the world lasts, events such as the trial and execution of Charles Stuart will not cease to appeal to the imaginat
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INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
It may, possibly, be thought unnecessary to prefix to this work a biographical sketch of the persons whose careers are faithfully related in it; and it may be considered an act of imprudence to place the cold and measured statements of an Editor in juxta-position with the nervous and glowing narrative of the amiable historian of the lives of her husband and herself. The latter objection, however true, ought not to prevent such remarks being made as may cause her labours to be better understood,
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EXTRACTS
EXTRACTS
The Letters from which part of the following Extracts have been taken, were printed in 1701, under the title of "Original Letters of his Excellency Sir Richard Fanshawe, during his Embassies in Spain and Portugal; which, together with divers Letters and Answers from the Chief Ministers of State of England, Spain, and Portugal, contain the whole negociations of the treaty of Peace between those three Crowns." 8vo, pp. 510. The remainder are now printed, for the first time, from the rough copies o
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FROM THE DUKE DE MEDINA DE LAS TORRES, TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE.
FROM THE DUKE DE MEDINA DE LAS TORRES, TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE.
Madrid, 27th of May, 1664. "The Bull-feast will be on Thursday next; and by reason that your Excellency seems desirous to be a spectator incognito, I have taken care to procure you a shady balcony in the first story. I have likewise ordered a window to be secured for your Excellency's retinue. If there be anything more wherein I can serve your Excellency, I hope you will freely command it, as I shall be always forward to serve you. God keep your Excellency, and grant you the long life I desire."
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TO HIS EXCELLENCY DENZILL LORD HOLLES, AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY IN THE COURT OF FRANCE. FOR HIS MAJESTY'S SPECIAL SERVICE.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY DENZILL LORD HOLLES, AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY IN THE COURT OF FRANCE. FOR HIS MAJESTY'S SPECIAL SERVICE.
[See MEMOIRS, pp. 170, 171] Madrid, June 10/20, 1664. After a long progress from Cadiz to Ballecas, a village one league distant from this Court, and almost as long a parenthesis there—which the French Court will say was no elegant piece of oratory, nor the middle at all proportionable to the beginning with me, whatever the end may prove—upon the 8th instant I arrived happily at my journey's end howsoever; where, as speedily then as myself could possibly in any measure be ready for it, namely, u
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SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR.
SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR.
I humbly thank your Excellency for the civility you showed to the King my Master, and the honour you did me, in sending your coach and domestics to accompany my entry; and whereof I retain so lively a sense, that I am just going to acquaint my Master with it, not doubting in the least but it will meet with that esteem from him which your Excellency so highly deserves. My instructions, indeed, were to observe a more than ordinary intimacy and amity with your Excellency at this Court, which I shal
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TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 179.] Madrid, Wednesday, 12th of October, 1664, English style. "Since my last to you of yesterday, the President of Castile having by the King's special and angry command, gone forth to the neighbouring villages, attended with the hangman, and whatsoever else of terror incident to his place and derogatory to his person, the markets in this town begin to be furnished again plentifully enough, yet so as that the bullion remaining fallen to the half value, bread, wine, and other pr
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TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 178.] Madrid, Wednesday, 19th of October, 1664, English style. Upon the 10th instant, stilo novo, invited by the delicacy of the weather, and not knowing whether I should have another opportunity for it during my residence in this Court, together with my family, man, woman, and child, I took a small journey by stealth, of three days going and coming, to Aranjuez. As soon as it was known that I was gone, the Duke of Medina de las Torres sent a post after me, with a letter to myse
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TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
Madrid, Wednesday, 12th November, 1664, N.S. On Monday last, in the afternoon, I should by appointment have had a conference with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, but in the morning his Excellency sent to excuse it for that time, upon notice then arrived of the death of his kinsman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, which obliged him to the offices which those cases require. The manner of this Duke's death, like his quality, was extraordinary. His Excellency was, for his diversion and recreation, bei
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TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
Madrid, Monday, 14th of November, 1664, English style. "Inclosed with this, I send you a print of that new invention here for ploughing, which you did lately command me to enquire out." [Footnote: Mr. Bennet, in a letter to Sir Richard Fanshawe, dated 29th of September, 1664, observed, "Sir George Downing tells me of a new invention of a plough in Spain. I beseech your Excellency to enquire after it. He saith an Italian hath made it, and that it is not only received in Spain, but sent into the I
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TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 185.] Madrid, Wednesday, 14th of December, 1664, O.S. These five or six nights last past here hath appeared a very strange blazing star, so high and so clear that I presume it must needs have been seen in England likewise, and therefore forbear to give any description or judgment thereof, the people of this country not being so curious in such matters as ours are there. Yesterday I went to give the King and Queen the nova buena of her Majesty's birth-day, which was the day befor
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TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
Madrid, the 24th of January, 1664, N.S. I send your Lordship herewith enclosed, two transcripts, the one of a project, at making of which I was never good; but this is of a peace, and therefore I wish I were; a peace between Castile and Portugal, hardly practicable upon any terms, as I do humbly conceive, much less upon these, proposed by an unknown author, with regard to either side; yet I have thought them not unworthy your Lordship's notice, as possibly more practicable elsewhere, as to form,
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TO LORD ARLINGTON.
TO LORD ARLINGTON.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 200.] Madrid, Wednesday, August 1665. My last to your Lordship of this day was a se'nnight, made mention of a conference I was to have the Friday following with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, but it happened the same Wednesday night I fell so extremely sick as forced me on Thursday to send my excuse to his Excellency, continuing my bed all that day, and since my house, though, I thank God, with some amendment daily, and now to such a competent degree of health and strength, t
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TO LORD ARLINGTON.
TO LORD ARLINGTON.
[See MEMOIRS, p, 201.] Madrid, Thursday, 7/17th September, 1665. My letter to your Lordship, delivered his Catholic Majesty, King Philip the Fourth, in a condition utterly deplored by most, though with a little spark of hope in some, even physicians, upon a lightening that showed itself before death as it proved, his Majesty giving up the ghost this morning between four and five of the clock, witnessed immediately by all the bells in the town; this being somewhat observable in my opinion, that n
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TO LORD ARLINGTON
TO LORD ARLINGTON
Madrid, Wednesday, 18/28 October, 1665. "This evening I have had audience of the young King; giving him, in our Master's name, first the pesame, and then the parabien of the time. On Friday, begin the honras of the King, his father; after which, and, as I do believe, on the 5th of the next month, because it is the King's birth-day, the Queen will give her first audience to Ambassadors; none having yet seen her Majesty but the German, and he in his private capacity."—Ibid. f. 415....
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FROM LORD SANDWICH TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE
FROM LORD SANDWICH TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE
[See MEMOIRS, p. 211] La Coruna, March 20/30, 1666. Being arrived at this place through necessity of the weather, which put us off from Santander, whither we were designed, I find it requisite to give speedy notice thereof to Madrid, and in the first place to your Excellency; hoping this letter will have the good fortune to meet you there, and if it do, I then beseech you, either from yourself to give notice to the Court of my arrival, or direct this gentleman, Mr. Weeden, of whom I have great e
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TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
Madrid, Thursday, 15/29 April, 1666. "The Empress, married by proxy, which was the Duke de Medina de las Torres, upon Sunday last, did yesterday begin her journey from this Court towards Vienna. Her Imperial Majesty carried along with her a vast treasure in money, plate, and jewels; so, in that respect, will much enfeeble this summer's preparation against Portugal: in another regard the despatch of that great affair out of the way, which hath wholly taken up these Councils in pro's and con's for
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TO SIR PHILIP WARWICK.
TO SIR PHILIP WARWICK.
Madrid, 3rd of May, 1666, s n. There was due to me on 6th of March last past, upon my ordinary entertainment, the sum of two thousand pounds, of which I have not yet received one shilling, notwithstanding that I was forced to run myself in debt for my late journey to Portugal; as I have written long since to my Lord Arlington, requesting I might, by his Lordship's means, obtain a particular Privy Seal for the reimbursement of my laying-out therein, as was promised when that case should arrive. M
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TO HIS MAJESTY.
TO HIS MAJESTY.
Madrid, Thursday, 3rd of June, 1666, stilo loci. By the hands of my Lord of Sandwich, who arrived in this Court, upon Friday last, was delivered to me a letter of Revocation from your Majesty, directed to the Queen Regent; and at the same time another, with which your Majesty honoured me for myself, implying the principal, if not the only, motive of the former to have been, some exceptions that had been made to the papers which I signed with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, upon the 17th of Dec
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FROM LYONEL FANSHAWE, ESQ., TO JOSEPH WILLIAMSON, ESQ.
FROM LYONEL FANSHAWE, ESQ., TO JOSEPH WILLIAMSON, ESQ.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 217.] Madrid, Thursday, 7/17 June, 1666. My Lord having been taken with a very sharp fit of sickness two days since, and not yet being well able either to write or dictate a letter himself, hath commanded me to entreat you, that you will please to present his most humble service to my Lord Arlington, and beseech his Lordship to excuse his not writing by this post. The Empress is said not to be yet embarked, though there are thirty galleys ready to attend her in her voyage. My Lo
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THE FORM OF A PRAYER USED BY MY LORD'S CHAPLAIN, IN THE DAILY SERVICE IN HIS EXCELLENCY'S CHAPELIN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN.
THE FORM OF A PRAYER USED BY MY LORD'S CHAPLAIN, IN THE DAILY SERVICE IN HIS EXCELLENCY'S CHAPELIN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN.
Blessed God, we beseech thee to be propitious in a singular manner to my good Lord, his Excellency, his Majesty's Ambassador in this kingdom; preserve him unto us in health and strength, and grant that he may so manage those weighty affairs he is employed in, that the issue of his negotiation may be to thy glory, the satisfaction of our Sovereign, and the mutual good and benefit of all his subjects and allies. Bless his most virtuous Lady; imbue her with the blessings of this life, and that to c
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A PRAYER USED IN THE DAILY SERVICE OF THE CHAPEL, AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD AMBASSADOR.
A PRAYER USED IN THE DAILY SERVICE OF THE CHAPEL, AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD AMBASSADOR.
Blessed God, which suppliest the wants and relievest the troubles of thy servants, be particularly gracious to this family, and here, in a special manner, bless my most virtuous Lady, and give her patience under thy hand, submitting to thy will, and contentedness under every change; and we beseech thee so continually to assist her in the course of her life, that she may experimentally find thee a God all- sufficient, though the helps of this world fail: make her children thy children; bestow upo
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