MASTER NEGA TIVE NO. 92-80527 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded b^' the NATIONAL ENDOW Ml NT FOR THE HUMANITIES "\ -f ductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. > Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use^" that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: TOWNSHEND, DOROTHEA BAKER TITLE: LIFE AND LETTERS OF MR. ENDYMION ... PLA CE : LONDON DA TE : 1897 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as rilincd - Hxisling Bibliographic Record f ■94.?.0Gn . P03:5 ty 1 Townshend, Dorothea. (Baker) Life and letters of Mr. Eiidpiiion Porter: sometime gentlomaii of tlio beddiamber to*^Kiiig Cliarles the First; ))>' Dorothea Townshend, ^ with portraits. London, T. 1^\ Unwin, 1897. xii, 260 p. 2 pi., 4 port. (incl. front.) 22i'''". l.J^'ortcr, Kndymion, 1587-1649. 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Suite 1 1 00 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii riT I I I I I 5 iliii ITT 8 iiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiil 9 10 iiiiliiiilniili T ITT n 12 13 14 15 mm liiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliii jjmjjjm ITT 1 Inches 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ 2.8 ■ 50 2.5 1^6 |3j2 2.2 ■ 63 UUU 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.6 MfiNUFfiCTURED TO RUM STRNOnRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE* INC. %^ O .1. \j \j ^"^ V (LaiuniliM iiiiibcrsiitp in tf)t Citp of iZetu gork LIBRARY >l 1 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MR. ENDTMION PORTER I^uifonii, ill stvlt' iiikI price, 7citli this Volmm\ THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. Bv M.AkTix A S. Hi'MK. VVitli Portraits. 4th ed. THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA, and Other Historical Studies. By Martin A. S. Hlmk. 2iid ed. Illustrated. LIFE IN THE TUILERIES UNDER THE SECOND EMPIRE, by an Inmate of the Palace, By Anna L. Bickxkll. Illustrated. PRIVATE PAPERS OF WILLIAM WILBER' FORCE, Collected and Edited, with a Preface, by A. M. WiLHKKFOKCE. With Portraits. TALKS ABOUT AUTOGRAPHS. Bv Gfokcje BiKKHKCK Hill, D.C.L., LL.D. With Frontispiece Portrait, and many Facsimiles. LETTERS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL 1854-70. Edited by G. Bikkmkck Hill, D.C.L., EE.D. [/// prcf^araiioii. London: T. FISHER rxWIX. hNDYMlON PORTER Life and Letters of Mr Endymion Porter: Sometime Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Charles the First By Dorothea Townshend With Portraits London T, FISHER LJNWIN 1897 I Life and Letters of Mr. Endymion Porter: Sometime Gentleman of the Bedehamber to King Charles the First By Dorothea Townshend With Portraits London T. FISHER UNII'IN .897 [All liiilits rcscnrd] CONTENTS CHAP. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. PAGE ix c*. cc cc >- .^ I' INTRODUCTORY . . • * ' TIIK PORTKRS OF MR KLKTON GETTING MARRIKI) . • • ' THE SPANISH MATCH ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN. • 7^ THE DUKE OF BUCKINCIHAM AND HIS FAMILY 86 12 33 X. XI. XII. XIH. XIV. XV. DIPLOMACY . THE PIPING TIMES OF PEACE POETS AND PAINTERS MONEY-MAKING IN THE CENTURY P014SH I'LOTS THE bishops' war THE LONG I'ARLIAMENT THE CIVIL WAR . 99 Il6 131 SEVENTEENTH . 148 163 . 172 187 . 203 LAST DAYS OF THE KING'S OLD COURTIER 227 THE YOUNG COURTIERS OF THE KING . 238 APPENDIX 247 V 268278 I I iH LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE »l ENDVMION PORTER (W. Dobsofl) Frontispiece From the portrait in the National Portrait Galkryy London, 2. MICKLETON MANOR HOUSE To face p. 3 From a photograph kindly given by the owner of the house^ Mr. Sidney Graves Hamilton^ M.A., of Kiftsgate Courts Campden, Glost., Fellow and Bursar of Hert- ford College^ Oxford. 3. OLIVIA, WIFE OF ENDVMION PORTER {Vandyke). To face /. 82 Bought by the late Sir Thomas PhiUipps, Bart., in 1844, for his gallery at Middle Hill, from the descendants of Endymion Porter who lived at Farmcombe, Broad- way, CO. Worcester. Photographed from the original at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham, by kind fer- mission of the Rev. John E. A. Fenwick and Mrs. Fenwiiky daughter of the late Sir T. PhiUipps. 4. ENDVMION PORTER WITH HIS WIFE AND SONS, GLUKGE, CHARLES, AND PROBABLV PHILIP {Vandyke) . . . To face p. 125 This picture was an heirloom in the family of Viscount Strangford, a descendant of George Porter in the female line. Now in possession of Miss Constance Ellen Baillie, granddaughter of Philippa, wife of the Right Hon. Henry liaillie, of Redcastle, M.P. for Inverness, and eldest daughter of the sixth Viscount Strangford. Photogi-aphed from the original picture vil aih'iiififcii'nrt 'r Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PACK hy kind permission of Lady Blanche Haillie and Sir Charles Grant, K'.C.S.I. The colour in the picture docs not lend itself to very satisfactory repr(Kiuction, but the group is too interesting to be omitted from any account of the Porter family. 5. ENDYMION PORTKK {Vandyke) . To face p. 147 From the oval pit litre of I 'andyke and his friend Porter, now in the Madrid Gallery, No. 1,407. This picture has Ijecn reproduced many times, as it is considered one of the jxiinter's masterpieces. It was etched by Milius as frontispiece to " Vandyke, his Life and Work," by Jules Guiffrey, translated from the French by W. Alison. The picture has also Ixjen engraved by Selma and photographed by Braun. 6. ORNAMENT ON COVER COPIED FROM THE MEDAL BY VARIN, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. This medal is the only authority for the age of Endymion Porter, as it is dated 1635 and states in the inscription that Porter was then aged 48. % INTRODUCTORY TT THEN a modern student, searching through \ V the archives of some dusty museum, or poring over the worm-eaten pages of some for- gotten volume, happens to light upon a chance word betraying the familiar human affections common to us all, he feels as pleasant a warmth of surprise as though a living hand had been held out to him across the centuries, and he heard a living- voice whisper to him, "I, too, am thy brother." At first it is not easy for us to realise this solidarity of humanity ; we think that gaily embroidered doublets and shining armour must have covered hearts as unlike our own as the quaint raiment was unlike our modern clothes. We think that the men who made long-winded speeches, who listened with delight to interminable sermons, who breakfasted and dined at unheard-of hours, without any of the appliances which seem to us almost absolute necessaries of life ; that these cannot possibly have been men like ourselves. J It is true that it would be folly for us to seek sympathy or companionship among the prehistoric hunters of the Stone Age, or even among our own ancestral Jutes and Angles. Hut when we turn to social and civilised man, and can learn to forget mere draperies and accessories, there comes a delightful day when we become suddenly conscious that we, c^ r ix X INTRODUCTORY INTRODUCTORY XI IV. .1 too, have friends in Arcadia, that we have met Prince Hal more than once in London streets, and that King Arthur is in very truth a modern gendeman. Those who have learned to seek their friends in all ages and under all costumes, may be glad to walk awhile with a pair of King Charles the First's courtiers, and find, when a few impertinent accessories are forgotten, that Endymion and Olivia are vasdy like many a man and woman of the nineteenth century. The English character may have possibly developed, it may have acquired a few novel airs and graces, and have picked up some dearly-bought wusdom in its progress through two centuries, but at the bottom it has altered litde, and we are still what our dead fathers were. We still can laugh with them in their joy, and weep with them in their misfortunes, and learn from them, what the old Greek knew, that ''there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in an house ; a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best." It has been often said that we owe our English ideal of family life and domestic affection to the teachings of the Puritan party. But it is not easy to prove that any party or creed has the monopoly of human emotions. No doubt the Puritans num- bered among them such happy couples as Colonel and Mrs. Hutchinson, and Governor Winthorp and his Margaret. But we cannot forget that the Puritans drew their spiritual descent from such men as John Knox, whose diatribes against women roused even the grave Cecil to protest, *' Maister Knox ! Maister Knox ! non est masculus neque femina ! omnes enim, ut ait Paulus, unum sumus in Christo Jesu." We cannot forget that the great English Puritan poet hoped for nothing from his Betty but that she should cook him savoury meat such as his soul loved, and the Puritans of New England set a Boston sea-captain in the stocks for kissing his wife on a Sunday when she met him at his own door on his return from a three years' voyage.^ Natural affection was not the exclusive birthriu^ht of the Roundheads, and denied to men who wore love-locks. The Earl of Newcastle, Sir Richard Fanshawe, Sir Edmund Verney, and the Earl of Sunderland, were as true lovers as ever adorned the pages of romance, and the hurried notes that Endy- mion Porter dispatched to Olivia at every pause in a royal progress breathe a devotion as tender as that of John Winthrop's more studied epistles. The greater part of these letters to his wife appear to have been seized by the Parliament with Porter's other papers, when he left London in the King's train in 1641. F\)rtunately for us, even the private part of the correspondence was never returned to the family, but has been left safely buried among the Domestic State Papers at the Record Office. It is strange when turning over draughts of treaties and the formal dispatches of diplomatists to come upon the faded writing of these old love letters ; and it seems an insolent violation of domestic rights to turn them over and pry into their secrets. But as the papers were rummaged through by ' In 1656. See "Sabbath in Puritan New England," A. M. Earle. tr Xll INTRODUCTORY M I Parliamentary agents in search of treason more than two hundred years ago, we may hope that the ''buried lovers," as D'Avenant calls them. may pardon more sympathetic readers. A few letters that escaped confiscation were in the possession of the late Viscount Strangford, a descendant of Endymion Porter's eldest son, and have been printed by Mr. E. B. Eontblanque in his '' Lives of the Lords Strangford " (Cassell). The originals are now in the possession of Mrs. Russell, of Aden, granddaughter of the sixth Viscount Strangford. A few more of Porter's letters have been found scattered among various seventeenth- century memoirs. It may interest the curious to know that Mrs. Porter's writing was not more legible than that of other fashionable ladies of her own, and perhaps of our own, day. P^ndymion's hand is a beautiful copperplate, and his orthography excellent, except on the occasion of a disagreement with his wife, when he shows his agitation by spelling execrably. I have to return my best thanks to Mrs. Russell for a copy of an autograph letter of Endymion to his wife ; to Mr. E. B. P^ontblanque for his kind permission to reprint the information and letters already published in his " Lives of the Lords Strangford"; to Mr. S. G. Hamilton, of Kiftsgate Court, for valuable information on the Porter family, extracted from deeds in his possession, and parish registers; and, lasdy, to Mr. C. H. Pirth, without whose generous and unfailing help the book could never have come into existence. CHAPTER I THE PORTERS OF MICKLETOX WHERE the northern ridge of the Cotswold sltjpcs down through orchards and corn- fields to the fertile Vale of Evesham there lived, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a family belonging to the rank of the smaller gentry, named Porter. Some authorities » say that they derived their name and arms— three bells argent, with a portcullis as crest — from an ancestral porter who guarded the gate of some unknown fortress ; while (Hhers say that the Porter family bore the silver bells on their shields long before such things as bells were huncr at casde front doors. P)c that as it may, the family lived and increased for many generations in the villages of Mickleton ^md Aston-under-Hill, two parishes so closely connected that one priest served the two village churches, and the vellum quarto that registers the births and deaths of Aston lies in the Mickleton parish chest. A prudent man was the parson of the two parishes ; he succeeded in holding his position through all the changes between the reign of Henry VIll. and that of James I., and ' Xoles (111(1 Queries, 6th Ser. x. 209. ENDYMION PORTER although he had been so injudicious as to take to himself a wife durino- the short cUid Pro- testant reign of Edward VI., he managed to escape deprivation therefor under Mary ; • and indeed it is perfectly possible that neither he nor the Porters, his parishioners, were ever quite clear as to whether in their inmost hearts they held to the old or the reformed faith. The Porters traced their pedigree from Robert Porter, of Elrington, Warwickshire, whose great- great-grandson, Richard, setded at Mickleton.- Richard's son William was Sergeant-at-Arms to Henry VII. and accompanied Henry VIII. to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.3 His will is extant, dated 151 3. The family owned a considerable copyhold estate in Mickleton, and they also took long leases of Mickleton Manor itself. The Manor was church property, and it belonged to the Abbey of Ensham, on the Thames above Oxford ; the suppression of the monastery did not, however, trouble the Porters, as their lease, fortunately for them, did not expire till 1 6 14. All that happened to them was that they had a new landlord, the freehold of the Manor beinyf granted to Eord Lumley, who sold it to a good friend of the Porters, Sir Edward Greville, and he in turn disposed of it to Edward Fisher.4 The history of the part of the Porter possessions that lay in Aston is not so simple ; there was a ' Mr. S. G. Hamilton. 2 Had. MSS., 1543, p. 69 b, "Visitation of ( Houcestershire." 3 Burke's Commoners, vol. iii. p. 577- A tabular pedigree of the descendants of this William Porter appears at the end of the chapter. 4 Mr. S. G. Hamilton. 9 } J«*...»«. ^^y. iTTTBjS .^i^f** %' -aS:" 4 i% ^ ^PCS^^^Ej^HL ' "^ v^^^Hl^l^lpi'''''^ ^M ||^ ' "t,i^ jfp ^jSmk &i ^m3t^^^^K^ ^9^1 liK2C'1^^Si ^#Jr.' •*„^^W*5 Qib '•» .-I -"^Ji^^"^^ \ % *■..--■ ^ . d^||k|w I MICKI.FTON MANOR HOirsK. THE portp:rs of MICKLETON 3 lawsuit over them that lasted throuirh the greater part of Queen Fllizabeth's reign, so that it is not surprising to read in the old documents that Sir William's grandson William, ''having wasted the property, died in great misery." ^ But in some way or other the family fortunes recovered them- selves, and in the end of the sixteenth century there were two Porters living who could claim the title of "generosus," i.e., gendeman, although neither of them rose to the rank of " armiger," nor could write himself *' Justice of the Peace." In 1588 Nicholas Porter and Dorothy his wife and ten children were living at the " Mansion House " at Aston, and were also occupying the leasehold pro- perty at Mickleton. There can be litde doubt that this Nicholas was the eldest son of the unlucky William who " died in misery " : the pedigree in the Harleian MSS. leaves one ireneration out ; but it is clear from the deeds of the property, and from the records of the lawsuit, that William had at least one son and two daughters, and he may very well have had more. There is no doubt about his one son Edmund (probably baptised in 1546), who in 1 59 1 was living in the handsome manor house of Mickleton with its mullioned windows and picturesque gables, while Nicholas lived down among the cherry orchards in the family mansion at Aston-under-Hill. When Sir Edward Fisher bought the freehold of Mickleton and settled there in 1599, Edmund Porter seems to have moved to another house in the village, but it was in London, ultimatelv, that he died. By that time his son Endymion had risen to a ' Cal. Dom. S. P., Eliz., 1592. I MKKIFION' MWOK HOI'^J t I TIIK mRTKRS OK MI('KL1:T0X 3 lawsuit over thcin that lasted through the <>"rcater part of Oueen T^li/abeth's reiL>n, so that it is not surprisinj^- to read in the old documents that Sir William's orandson William, ''havinij: wasted the i:)roperty, died in ^^vcdl misery." ' Hut in some way or other the family fortunes recovered them- selves, and in the end of the sixteenth centurv there were two Porters livini>- who could claim the title of *' crenerosus," />., crentleman, althoui^h neither of ria and Knight of the Golden P^leece, who had accompanied Philip the Second to Plngland and married one of Queen Mary's Maids of Honour, Jane or Joanna, daughter of Sir William Dormer.- Another member of this Spanish family is mentioned in the P2nglish State Papers, John de Figueroy, who was frequently sent by Philip of Spain to carry messages to Queen Mary's Council. 3 The Spanish records •+ tell romantic tales of the founder of the family of P^igueroa, a heroic caballero of the very ancient house of Suarez, who opposed the Moorish demand of a tribute of a hundred Christian damsels, and rescued the captives at the head of a band of warriors. His spear was broken in the combat ; so, tearing down the branch of a wild fig tree, he laid about him with it so valiantly that the unbelievers were put t(^ flight, and the victor assumed the name of Figueroa and bore ^\wq^ green fig-leaves on his shield of gold in memory of the day. The original seat of this valiant family was in Galicia, one of its members was Comendado Mayor of Leon, and another fell in the Vega of Granada fighting against the Moors. 5 But how- ever glorious were the records of the family, the match with Dona J nana did not find favour in the eyes of old Edmund Porter, Giles's father, and it is said that he went so far as to disinherit his son ' " Lords Strangford," p. 8. ^ Burke's Commoners, Dormer. 3 Cal. Dom. S. P., 1556. * Nobiliario, Banos de Velasco. ^ Ibid. 6 ENDYMION PORTER for the deed.^ Possibly so severe a penalty was only threatened in order to show that Mr. Porter disapproved of Spanish papists, for in 1588 Gyles had returned home, and we hear of him as living comfortably at Mickleton and payino- ^23 rent a year.- He did not, however, give up his connec- tion with the p:mbassy to Spain, for in 1605 he was employed as interpreter to Lord Admiral Notting- ham's Spanish mission. The p:nglish Ambassador, Lord Cornwallis, mentions that ''Mr. Gyles Porter hath behaved himself very well, and with good allowance of all in his employ." In spite of Gyles having a Spanish wife (or possibly because of it), he seems to have been no friend to the Catholics, and he kept a sharp eye on the movements of the Rector of the English Jesuits in Spain, "a verie busie fellow," who repaired oftener than Mr. Porter thought well to the Lord Admiral's lodgings.3 A James Porter is mentioned among the State Papers in 1598 as bringing home from Spain forty poor PLnglishmen who had been taken prisoners in the wars : very likely this James is a slip of the scribe's pen for Gyles, as we have no knowledge of any other Porter being employed in negotiations with Spain at this period. Gyles and Dona Juana had three children, Lodo- wick, Angela, and Lucina (perhaps Lucia).^ Lucina probably died young, and Angela married her cousin Edmund Porter. Lodowick was probably named after a neighbour, Lodovick Greville, of Mickleton. » Harl. MSS., Pedigree, 1543, p. 69 b. ^ Dom. S. P., Eliz., 1588. 3 Winwood's " Memorials," vol. ii. p. 76. 4 Harl. MSS., 1543, p. 69 b, "Visitation of (lloucestershire." '\ i THE PORTERS OF MICKLETON 7 He seems to have been adopted by his Spanish relations, as the only letter of his which is preserved is signed with the surnames of both his father and mother, Porter de Eigueroa. It is written to his sisters husband, Edmund Porter, of Mickleton. *'Ueak Brothkk,— 1 did at one instant, and in one packet, receive three of yours, the one dated in July, the other in September, and the last in December. I could have been glad that they had come to my hands according to their date and severally as they were written, for then I should have avoided a good deal of unkind jealousy which I held of you ; but I see the fault hath not been yours, wherefore I must crave pardon of you, and do promise to repair the wrong I have done you in coming to see you, which I will perform with all diligence so soon as I can by any means get licence as these holidays are past. I will presendy ask leave for some two or three months, which 1 will, God willing, spend with you. Your hawk I will bring myself ; provide your mew ready. She shall be either a goshawk, a tassel of a goshawk, or a lanner ; make your choice, and write me word suddenly what your choice is, for I have acquaint- ance with all the Archduke's falconers, and will fit your turn. I am undone for want of a good water dog, for I have a piece, and here is great store of fowl, and for want of a good dog I lose half the fowl 1 kill; it is all the entertainment I have this winter to pass the time. If you can make shift to provide me a dog, I will not fail you of a hawk. I could speak of a thousand particularities, which I will refer to my coming, which believe I am as 8 ENDYMION PORTER THE PORTERS OF MICKLETON r^^ f^ ^ desirous to perform as yourself can wish : you do, I can assure you, enchant me with speaking of the o-ood music you have, for if ever my humour did like of it, it is now more addicted unto it than ever heretofore it hath been. To my niece ? (blotted) and nephew Nedd? I pray you remember me very lovingly, and so with my kindest salutations to yourself I ever rest, Brussels, this 3 of January, 161 1, '* Your assured loving brother, '* Luis Porter de P^iouerov." '' (Endorsed) '*To his very loving brother-in-law, Mr. Edmund Porter, at his house at Mickletone." ' In the year 1587 the eldest son of Edmund and Antrela Porter was born at Mickleton Manor House and named Endymion. No parish registers of Mickleton were kept till three years later, so we have no means of knowing to what godfather the boy owed his poetical name. The Cannings of Foxcote, indeed, who were connected with the Porters by marriage, had an Endymion among them, but it is pleasanter to fancy that the name of Diana's votary may have been suggested by the poet and courtier. Lord Brooke, as a happy one for a child born under the queenly sceptre of the " Virgin throned by the West." It may be more than a mere coincidence that gave the boy the name of Lyly's play, the " Endymion," that was first performed before Elizabeth's Court in the year of his birth. ' Dom. S. P., vol. Ixviii. No. 2. Be that as it may, the name was fittingly n <^ . ^•• i >■ . i s -rt Q . -*- •* 1 •/•H-^=£ m ^ 1 V- •- r- "^ r* r S5 II ' 4-t ^ »^ y ^ 1 .■M "2 -^ — .s - U2 y y "'■♦J ■«-• y > 'C ^ ^ '" ^ -> rtxi ■i xl r* 1 g-^ "52 1 s "^ . X 3£ > < -5 •0 = •0 . w •n li — _ 1. 11 r- y •0 C 1. Q 5 fc- C s « 1 - rt-co y 11 = c . f -= = £•5 «- -a ,-' y X% •^ IS y ►^ •- ^ — •. 1'": WT3 C rt b rt '£ T3.S c o^-J II i; II y :!! '^ CO > J --^^ ^ i-C d^ — t - II C/5 -" _ i = := -J ■^"S-v?" y ~' y -. =: "^N « '".'^ c?^ P'^^ ^ U;2 8 is •i*. ^ j?c ^ GETTING MARRIED 13 CHAPTER II GETTING xM A R K I E 1) ENDYM ION'S hciiulsome face and Spanish education were not destined to be left for long in country obscurity. No doubt it was Lady Boteler's influence that helped the young man to enter the household of her brother, Sir Edward Villiers/ and from there he passed on to the service of the brilliant and handsome George Villiers, who soon afterwards became the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham. He promptly made I'orter Master of his Horse, and entrusted to him his Spanish i correspondence. Probably Porter was still a member of Buckingham's household in 1619, when . he was admitted to Gray's Inn ; but he was clearly getting on in the world, for in that year we learn that he received a grant of certain fines and was also able to purchase back the family estates at Aston from his cousin, Richard Catesby." Two years later the King granted him permission to hold a Court Leet for his manor, but a license to preserve game was not given him till the year 1634. r Porter's foot was now on the ladder of advance- I ment, and he climbed swifdy. In 1620, or '21, he » Wilson's "James I.," quoted in Nicholl's " Progresses," vol. iii. 2 Mr. S. G. Hamilton's i*ai)ers. 12 was taken into the service of Prince Cliarles, and was, as Anthony Wood says, "beloved by Kuig James for his ;idniiraljlc wit, and by Charles for his ireneral learn in--, brave style, sweet temper, great experience of travels and modern languages."' With all these advantages added to his handsome face it was natural that Court gossip should be busy in finding a wife for the Prince's gendeman. It was thought that he would make a match with the widowed Lady Roos. who was wealthy and had friends at the Spanish Court, but (he had fixed his affections on a greater lady still, namely, Olivia, the young and beautiful daughter of Sir John Boteler, of Woodhall, near Hatfield, and niece of his own patron, the Duke of Buckingham. This seems to have been a very worldly-wise proceeding, but it was nevertheless as thorough a love match as ever romance devised ; and for once prudence and love went hand in hand. Olivia was a girl of much charm and remarkable spirit, with no small share of the decision and impetuosity of her splendid uncle Of their courtship we get but a glimpse, though we may well imagine that with so high-spinted a sweetheart it was hardly likely to be monotonous y smooth. One. and only one. of Endymion s early letters to "his Mistress Olive" has been preserved, but that one raises the curtain for a moment upon a lover's quarrel that doubdess proved in the end according to the adage, to be but the renewing ol love. ^ Ath. Ox., Edit. Bliss, vol. iii. p. 2. s 14 ENDYMION PORTER GETTING MARRIED 15 Endymion Porter to his Mistress Olive, " Dear Heart, — I assure you that nothing could have prevented my writing to you but want of health, which hath been the cause I have not troubled you all this while with my letters. I make no doubt that your careless disposition will not let you perish with any want of my lines, for I think that my presence affords you no more joy than my love obliges you to, nor my absence no more sorrow than you not caring whether you ever see me again or no, however you profess otherwise ; and this I gather by the salutation I had in the Park from you when I was last there, which strikes in my mind, but cannot any whit diminish that resolution I have so constantly settled in my thoughts to love you, for now I find that neither scorns from you, nor favours from any other creature can alter " Your servant, '' Endymion Porter." ' The registers of Hatfield do not extend back so far as 1620, but it was probably in 161 9 or '20 that Endymion Porter and Olivia Boteler were made man and wife. Sir John Boteler was descended from the barons of Overstey, Wem, and Sudely, and he had been so fortunate as to marry the favourite sister of the Duke of Buckingham, whereby he had become a sharer in the benefits showered on the Royal favourite, without having, according to Bankes, ''any merits, defects, or services" to account for ' Dom. S. P., James I., vol. cxviii. 74. his good fortune. He was knighted in 1607, and was created Baron Boteler of Bramfield in the first year of King Charles's reign. But his good fortune did not descend to his family ; his five elder sons died before him, and his heir and successor, William, was an idiot from his birth. We may anticipate the future for a moment to say that upon the death of this unhappy being the property passed away to his cousins, the Botelers of Walton Woodhall, and the rest of his family wealth was divided among his sisters as co-heiresses. The eldest, Audrey, married Francis Leigh, Earl of Chichester; the second, Eleanor, was wedded in succession to Sir John brake of Ash, Devon, and to Sir Francis Anderson ; she was ancestress of the great Duke of Marlborough. The third daughter, Jane, married James Ley, Earl of Marlborough. "That good Earl, once president Of England's council and her treasury, Who lived in both unstained with gold or fee, And left them both more in himself content." (') Olive, as we know, married Endymion Porter; Mary'became the wife of the notorious Lord Howard of Escrick, and was ancestress of Lord Chatham ; and Anne married Mountjoy, Earl of Newport.^ The mansion at Woodhall, which had been bought by the grandfather of the first Baron Boteler, stood close to the royal palace of Hatfield. Hatfield was given by King James L to Lord Salisbury in exchange for Theobalds; and later on, in 1690, Lord Salisbury bought Woodhall and pulled it ^ Milton, " Sonnet to I^ady Margaret Ley." « Chester Waters, " Chesters of Chicheley," vol. 1. pp. 144-9- i6 ENDYMION PORTER down. No remains of this house are left now but a brick wall and iL^ateway. Endymion and Olive be^an their married life with good prospects in a pecuniary point of view ; his name occurs repeatedly amono- the State Papers, and always in connection with some grant of Crown lands or of monopolies. In forwarding a petition of Endymion's to Lord Treasurer Middleton," Secretary Conway significantly reminded him whose serv^ant Porter had been and whose he was then, and the world at Court never forgot that he had been the favourite of the all-powerful Buckingham as well as of Prince Charles. But Endymion's popularity at Court caused many sad and lonely days to be spent by his young wife. His duty called him to attend the King on the many royal progresses which were made throughout the country, and in spite of his frequent love letters Olive felt the separation bitterly, and seems to have constantly echoed the complaint of the Duchess of Buckingham to her husband. '* Till you leave this life of a courtier I shall ever think myself unhappy." She passed most of these periods of solitude at Woodhall with her father and mother, where she not only had the company of her family, but was within a ride, though a long one, of two Royal residences (Royston and Theobalds), and was, moreover, on the direct road from London to New- market, a situation which gave her the opportunity of receiving not a few flying visits from her husband. But to be parted at all so soon after they had been made one was indeed a cruel lot, as witness ' Cal. Dom. S. P., 1619-23, pp. 78, 95. i ! GETTING MARRIED 17 the following letter, the first that we possess from Endymion to her after their marriage. Probably -her eldest son, George, was born at Woodhall. The registers of Hatfield do not begin early enough to give the needful information, but he died in 1683, ^^Red sixty-three, so he must plainly have been born in 1620. He was named George after the Uuke of Buckinoham. '* To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these. " At Woodhall \\\ Hatfield. '' Mv DKAR Olive,— All the pleasure I can take now is in thinking on thee, and the best way to vent these thoughts in absence is by writing. Sweet love, I entertain myself with the prettiest delusions my fancies can afford, for I make a thousand means to represent thee unto me, and do assure myself many times I see that all happiness of mine, thyself. Wherewith I am infinitely contented, but not satisfied, nor ever shall, till God bless me with the continual being in thy company. **At Woodstock I have commanded Charles to meet me, that I may hear of thy good health, which I pray for on my knees ; and, best love, I intreat thee not to forget how much it concerns me thy preservation. For should thou do otherwise than well, I could not live, and let Him that is the punisher of all sins, lay some plague on me if I speak not as I think. Farewell, my soul's joy, and assure thyself I will live and die ** Thy ever-loving husband, " Endvmion Porter. *' From RuFFORD, this \ 2th of August, 162 1. 3 j / \^^ i8 ENDYMION PORTER '' Remember my service to your father and mother and to your sisters." ^ '' To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these. "Mv svvKKT Olivk, — I Can attain to no content till 1 be made happy in the sight of thy pleasing- countenance. Therefore do not again imagine that I will make the time longer than necessity may force me, but rather shorten it with all the hopes and desires these two days can afford. Friday is the good one that will increase mine, by seeing myself owner of so much goodness and virtue as is in thee. Be thou still so religious that thy prayers may preserve me from dangers, then shall I have two good angels to keep me from the inconveniences my bad one would draw me in ; and so shall you also be sure to enjoy the fruits of it in making me "Your true, loving husband, *' Endvmion Porter." - '' To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these, " Mv DEAREST LovE, — Thy care in sending to me shows me how truly thou lovest me, and thy fear of my inconstancy argues no want of affection, but of faith, which if any good works of mine may strengthen, I will come on my knees to see thee, and put out my eyes, rather than look with an unchaste desire upon any creature whilst I breathe ; and to be more secure of me, I would have thee inquire if ever I was false to any friend, and then ^ Dom. S. P., James 1., vol. cxxii. 73. ^ Dated in pencil, March 16, 1622. Original in the possession of Mrs. Russell. GETTING MARRIED 19 to consider what a traitor I should be, if to a wife, such a wife, so virtuous and good, I should prove false and not to my friends. Dear Olive, be assured that I strive to make myself happy in nothing but in thee. And therefore I charge you to be merry and to cherish your health and life the more, because I live in you. But what can I say, or what is the least little I can do ? Love you. That I do and ever shall, as he that vows never to be anybody's but ** Your husband, " Endvmion Porter. '' I have sent you a bribe which this progress hath afforded me, and I pray you remember my service to your father and mother and to the right honourable parties, and to Mall ' and Nan^ and Jack, and to my sister Lee and my brother." ^ Perhaps written in August, 1622. '' To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these, '*]My dear Heart,— I cannot go farther and farther from you but with an infinite desire to hear of your amendment, although the sergeant told me thai he left you much better, which was more welcome news to me than any other worldly happiness I could have heard of. Mend apace, my sweet love, and send me word of it, that you may keep me alive with that cordial. "Your husband, *' Endvmion Porter. " RovsTON, this Saturday!' » Mall, probably Mary Boteler, afterwards Lady Howard of Escrick. '' Nan " is Lady Newport, " my sister Lee " Lady Ley. 2 Dom. S. P., James L, vol. cxxii. 104. 20 ENDYMION PORTER *'My dear Olive,— Every time I part with thee I discover in myself more love than I have patience to live without thee ; and am sorry tor nothing but that I cannot be always with thee, but that God out of His divine wisdom thought it too great a happiness to give me thee and thy company, lest I should forget there were any other glory. Sweet Olive, I thank you for your kind letter, and I protest to God I love you so as this last absence seems to me more than any I have hitherto endured, therefore believe that Friday shall be the festival day of the greatest joy this world can afford me, till when and ever I will be ''Thy true loving husband, " Endymion Porter." ^ " To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these. *' Best Love, — Thy grief is but a copy of mine, for our absence, though marriage divides it, yet the whole share of discontent for the same belongs to me ; and therefore I beseech thee be merry, and do not meddle with that which is mine, that dull sorrow, that can find no remedy for itself but thy sweet company ; let it alone for me. Your mother's ill council cannot corrupt your goodness, but your obedience shall tie me to be ever " Your most faithful loving husband, *' Endymion Porter. •' I pray commend me to Mr. Hukeley." - ^ Dom. S. P., James I., vol. cxxiv. 140-1. ^ Ibid., vol. cxxiv. 142. GETTING MARRIED 21 / *' To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these, " At Woodhall. " Dear Heart, — Let all the true friendship that ever was between friends, and all the best affection i that hath been in the world betwixt man and wife, present my unfeigned love to thee, and let that love enjoy so much happiness as for my sake you would be merry and believe that I am not absent. P\)r whenever I go to sleep I send my soul to watch with thee, and whatsoever w^aking I can see with mine eyes, 1 look on it, through thee ; for if it be a beauty it is none to me, my thoughts do so prefer thine, that I see nothing but thy goodness and love, which makes me happier in thee than the world can with all the rest of the pleasures it can afford. I have sent thee three shirts, and the fourth I keep back to make it an occasion of another letter betwixt this and Friday next^ till when I shall not enjoy thy pretty desired company, but I hope in God (by thy good prayers to Him) we shall come to take our rest together and to give Him many thanks for having made thee my wife and me '* Thy loving husband, " Endymion Porter. '' Do not trouble yourself to answer my letters, but foreet not to love me." " To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these. ''This day, my sweetest love, I write unto thee, and make no doubt but that you are as well acquainted with my heart as with my hand, yet because I received one from you, 1 thought it want of true love to send this messenger without a letter, although so many may weary and clog you, and 22 ENDYMION PORTER you may think that I overtell you that 1 love you, because it is no new thing but the very same affection, your old friend, grown somewhat bigger since you first knew it: nor would I have your thoughts to seek out answers for my lines, but when you can afford me news of your health in one, 1 will esteem it as a large episde of your love ; let it therefore suffice that you know that neither fortune can make me rich without you, nor misery make me poor, so long as I enjoy you and give myself the tide of "Your husband, *' Endvmiox Porter. '' Send me word if it be so."' " To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these, "Mv DEAR Olive,— God of heaven bless thee and send thee a very safe delivery; my lord will by no means consent that I should come unto you, which grieves me extremely, and for God's sake believe it, there never happened a thing that doth so much trouble me. Good sweetheart, show thy love to me now in excusing to thyself the wrong I do thee to thyself, in not leaving the commands of a master to see so good a wife, at such a time. I protest to God, I am distracted with discontent and know not what to say more than that I love thee as my life and will ever be thine both friend and your husband, " EndYxMion Porter." - ' Dom. S. p., vol. cxxiv. 145. ^ Ibid., vol. cxxiv. 144. GETTING MARRIED 23 *' To my dear Wife. Olive Porter, these, **Mv ONLY Love,— This night will divide me from the happiness of seeing thee, but to-morrow I shall enjoy that company of thine which indeed I must confess I do not deserve; for my man tells me you say I might have lost a wife ; I do confess I might and such a one, as the world hath not the like."^ But since God hath preserved you as a greater blessing for me, I give Him thanks and acknowledge my unworthiness, praying to the Almighty to bestow on thee as many graces as He can, that thou mayst be blessed and thy posterity and that I may never forget to be '' Thy loving husband, " Endymion Porter. -On Wednesday your young gendeman will be Georgified : pray God bless it." ^ - To my dear Wife. Olive Porter, these. - Mv sweet Love,— Although it be very ill news to hear of George his being not well, yet the good news they bring me of thy health makes amends for that, or any misfortune that can come to me, and, dear Olive, believe me, that I love George for having such a mother, as well as for being my own flesh and blood. I hope it is nothing but breeding of teeth, and when they come forth he will be well. In the meantime if you love me, be not overmuch discontented with anything that may happen, for God who is the giver of all good things can take them away when He pleaseth, and His divine will be done. ' Dom. S. P., vol. cxxiv. 147. 24 ENDYMION PORTER GETTING MARRIED 25 '' And, sweetest Heart, I thank you for your letter, although I perceive by that, you mistake mine, for I protest to the Almighty that I believe thy love to me to be serious and thy tears unfeigned, and think myself happy in nothing but thee. '* Farewell, and God bless thee and George. I will live and die thy faithful loving husband. *' Endvmion Porter." ' *' To viy dear ^Vife, Olive Porter, these, ''Mv ONLY Sweetheart, — The great desire I have to see thee keeps alive thine image in me, and the extraordinary love which I receive from thee makes me discover mine with as much zeal as my poor understanding will afford, for I am sure I do outlove you, and will be a precedent to all mankind if ever I have occasion to show how a husband ought to love so good a wife. Be happy in all thou thinkest of me, if anv deserts in me can make thee so, for be assured that I will never change. God bless thv child and make him a Saint Georgfe, and let not your prayers be wanting for your true friend and your loving husband, '' Endvmion Porter." - *' To your Sister, my Wife, Olive Porter, these. '' Mv (;ooD Olive, — What with the erief of parting with you and the weariness of the way, I came to Newmarket sick and tired ; but since, I have been very well, and am like to continue so, unless I shall hear that you want health, which I hope never to do as long as I live, for if I should, ' Dom. S. P., vol. cxxiv. 148. ^ Ibid., vol. cxxiv. 149. « ^y I know poison cannot take a speedier course to shorten my days than that sorrow would finish them. Therefore, as you love me, make much of yourself, and cherish with care that on which all my happiness depends, and still remember to pray for me that God may bless us both with such love to one another, as neither diseases nor age may alter our affection. ''The Lord bless litde George, and give him o-race to be eood and virtuous. I will never for- get to be thy '' True loving husband, '' That will not go to Saxum, ''Endvmion Porter."^ It was jealousy, jealousy and nothing less, that caused his eood Olive to wish her true, loving husband not to cro to '' Saxum." Saxham was the house of Sir John Crofts near Newmarket, and Sir John had three lovely and witty daughters, who were great favourites with King James.^ The fair sisters invited the whole Court over to a Masque in 1620. In 1622 it is recorded that the King went a-shroving to Saxham, and that Lady Crofts and her beautiful daughter Cicily were much at Court. Cicily married Thomas Killigrew, gendeman of the bedchamber. Her sisters made great matches, Anne marrying Lord Wentworth, Earl of Cleve- land, while Dorothy married Sir John Bennett, and was the mother of Ossulton and Arlington. After Endymion purchased the family property ' Dom. S. P., vol. cxxiv. 150. 2 Nicholl's " Royal Progresses," James I., vol. iii. p. 587. 26 ENDYMIOX PORTER GETTING MARRIED 27 at Aston, he and Olivia occasionally went down there, but it seems to have been too far from London to be visited very often. Herrick, in several poems addressed to Endymion, credits him with country tastes, nor need this be regarded as merely a poetic fiction. Town and country life were not so sharply separated then as now. When a good part of a gentleman's food came from his own farm, and his money was derived from agricultural rents, ' was natural that he should himself take no small interest in the management of his land, and that ijood Robert Bee, the steward, should go into many small details in his letters to his master, when he sent him the Aston accounts at the year's end. But Herrick, not having a wife's bills for jewellery and Court dresses to pay, is inclined to take a more romantic view of country life. He describes how Endymion may " Walk about thine own dear bounds, Not envying others' larger grounds, I'^or well thou know'st not the extent Of land makes life, but sweet content. When now the cock, the ploughman's horn, Calls forth the lily-wristed morn, Then to thy cornfields thou dost go, Which tho' well soiled, yet thou dost know That the best compost for the lands Is the wise master's feet and hands. . . . This done then to the enamelled meads Thou goest, and as thy foot there treads Thou seest a present godlike power Imprinted in each herb and flower. And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine, Sweet as the blossoms of the vine." But there were livelier proceedings at Aston than supervising the cornfields and enamelled meads; one of Endymion's friends and neighbours was the cele- ) brated Robert Dover,' the founder of the Olympic Cotteswold Games. These games were celebrated on a rising ground above Mickleton, about a mile from Chipping Campden ; there, above the broad green vale that stretches away across to the Malvern Hills, the country folk assembled at Whitsuntide, and danced, and raced, and sang, and wresded, and enjoyed the various sports which Mr. Dover trusted ''would imbue the people of the neighbourhood with chivalrous valour." Mr. Dover was master of the revels, riding about on a fine horse, arrayed in a suit of clothes which had belonged to King James himself, and had been presented by him to Mr. Dover, through Endymion Porter, for the greater encouragement of this patriotic undertaking. And among the assembled gentry around Mr. Dover in his high hat and padded suit, were young Mr. Porter with his Spanish elegance, and a tribe of Porter cousins from the neighbourhood; and more distinguished guests were there ; D'Avenant and the great Ben Jonson himself came to honour the sports with their presence, and write sonnets in their praise ; - and who knows whether a certain Mr. William Shake- speare may not have ridden over from Stratford, through the orchards, on one of those gay Whit- Thursdays, to see Justice Shallow's greyhound outrun on Cotsall. Even for an ambitious young man it must have been hard to leave this fair western home for the gilded slavery of the Court where a rising favourite » A deed witnessed by Mr. Dover is among the Porter Papers (Mr. Hamilton). 2 " Annalia Dubriensia." 28 ENDYMION PORTER GETTING MARRIED 29 had to work very reasonably hard to keep his position. Herrick, under the name of Lycidas, reproved Endymion for forsaking that country Hfe, which the poet himself did not love quite so much in reality as in pastoral verse. " In this regard that thou dost play Upon another plain, And for a rural roundelay Strik'st now a courtly strain, Thou leav'st our hills, our dales, our bowers, Our finer fleeced sheep, Unkind to us, to spend thy hours Where shepherds should not keep. I mean the court : let Latmos be My loved Endymion's court. {Eniiyiiiioii)Bui I the courtly state would see. (Lyciilas) Then see it in report. Break, if thou lov'st me, this delay. (£//i/>'/;//t)//)I)ear Lycidas, ere long I vow by Pan to come away And pipe unto thy song. Then Jessamine with Floribel And dainty Amaryllis, And handsome-handed Drosomel Shall prank thy hook with lilies. (Lyciifus) Then Tyterus and Corydon And Thyrsis, they shall follow With all the rest, while thou alone Shalt lead like young Apollo ; And till thou canst, thy Lycidas In every genial cup Shall write in spice, Endymion 'twas That kept his piping up." Once, at least, we know that Endymion went down to Aston without his wife, but his letter to her from thence makes no reference to any errand of business or pleasure ; he mentions neither Lycidas nor Mr. Dover, neither cousins nor stewards' accounts ; with lover-like eaoerness all /' that Endymion notices at Aston is his wife's picture.^ " To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, >n coming to see you smce my departure, lor a hope to be saved, there is nothing in the world so pleasing as thy sight, nor a greater affliction for mc than thine absence. I was at Aston where I had the happiness to see thy picture, and that did somewhat please me, but when I found it wanted that pretty discourse which thy sweet company doth afford I kist it with a great deal of devotion, and with many wishes for the original, there I left it. Now 1 am coming nearer towards you, but cannot as yet have so great a blessing as these lines shall have, to be seen by you, but when the King comes to Windsor I will hazard the loss of all my friends, rather than be a day longer from thee. In the meantime let our souls kiss and my faith and true love shall never fail to assure thee that though fortune hath not given you a rich and powerful man yet God hath bestowed one on you that will live and die ''Your true loving husband, '' Endymion Porter." Once, at least, too, Olivia seems to have been left at Aston while her husband was attending on a royal progress, in which it would appear that her sister. Lady Newport, was also taking part and sympathising with poor forlorn Endymion in being thus separated from his Olivia. * Morrison Collect, of MSS. "?r.g?5*iiiw--j;j«E3^ras .- 30 ENDYMIOxN PORTER *' To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these. ''Aston. *' Sweet Love, — Thy welcome letter did revive me and afforded me more content than all the pleasures I have seen in this tedious progress ; yet I must confess that the company of your good sister represented unto me a good deal of happi- ness, for she did still wish for you as if she would outwish me, but I am sure that if our desires were seen mine would prove much the greater ; but for a sister s love (to give her what's her due) I think it reacheth to the skirts of mine and might serve as a dwarf to my giant love, for I am sure where all natural love ends there mine begins, and can never diminish as long as your virtuous thoughts cherish it : for when my eyes, by gazing after any other beauty, offend you, let them fall out, and if my mind shall harbour a thought that is not of you, I wish it may become as blind with ignorance, as they for want of light, and when I shall alter from this, I wish the body may perish with the eyes and mind. " Some ten days hence I hope to see you, which seems an age to me, in the meanwhile, take my soul and let that enjoy your happy company till I come and give you a true account, how you are esteemed of by your husband, " Endvmion Porter. "You sent me word in your letter to Salisbury theit you hoped I did not think what I spoke on the hill, which subject hath made me a poet, and 1 have sent you the fruits of my labour here."^ Unfortunately the verses are not preserved. ' Dom. S. l\, James 1., vol. cxxiv. No. 143. .^ CHAPTER III THE SPANISH MATCH AS if the cruel partings enforced on these married lovers by the gay Court progresses round P^neland were not enoujjfh to bear, fortune was now preparing to separate them more widely. P2ndymion's connections and education had from the first commended him to Buckingham as a fit secretary to carry on correspondence with Spain, and his importance increased as Buckingham and his royal master both fell captives to Spanish fascinations. The memories of the days of the great Emperor Charles V. still cast a golden veil over the waning greatness of Spain, and the semi-oriental pomp and formalities of the Court of ?^Iadrid, still pardy con- cealed its real poverty. In truth, Spain was growing yearly poorer, and she was not really the richer for all the gold mines that dazzled the imagination of King James and the rest of Europe; she had neither trade nor manufacture, she had nothing but memories. But there was no veil at all cast over the needs of the King of I^igland. He had an expensive family and magnificent ideas. His parliament was tired of voting funds to be squandered on favourites 31 32 ENDYMION PORTER or muddled away by mismanagement. It was no agreeable task to him to be compelled to beg for more, and in his judgment it was a vile degradation for a monarch by divine right to have to come cringing to his parliament for money. Further, the old king believed that he had a divine mission to oive cfood advice to all the nations upon earth, and compose their differences with no expense but fair words. He had given England peace with Spain,' as the greatest, possibly the only, benefit of his reign, and now a Spanish marriage might be the coping-stone of his pacific designs. '' Beati pacifici " is engraved round his portrait as the motto of his choice, and just now he had specially strong reasons to desire peace, for his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, by a wild clutch at the Bohemian crown had been swept into the vortex of the war that was devastating Germany and driven from his electorate. James hated war, he hated decided action, he hated spending money abroad, and it seemed as if this very inconvenient son-in-law would drive him into all the courses which he most disliked. But to his mind there was one brilliant solution for all his difficulties — marry the Prince of Wales to the Spanish Infanta. Then the two great western nations. England and Spain, would give peace to the world, then Spanish influence would alter the whole course of European politics, and replace Frederick in his electorate, a humbler and a wiser man. Spanish gold would fill the coffers of the English king, and every one would be happy. The King's ingenious scheme was not, however, very popular in the English Parliament. The ' Seeley, "Growth of Brit. Policy," vol. i. p. 329. THE SPANISH MATCH 33 country had not yet accustomed itself to look on Spain as an ally instead of an enemy. England would have preferred a more forward policy — to marry the Prince to some Protestant lady and aid the Protestant Elector and his wife, the Queen of Hearts, with luiglish money and P^nglish men. But Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, knew how to play the game. With jests and flattery the wily diplomatist won his way with the old King, and made of Buckingham a mere tool to carry out Spanish schemes. The Prince was, on the whole, indifferent ; shy, reserved, refined, he detested the idea of a marria^re of convenience, and *' wished it were no sin to have two wives, one for purposes of state, and one to please himself" But he was warmly attached to his sister, the Elector's wife, and, since marry he must, he was ready to endure any marriage that might be of service to her cause. All throucfh these slow negotiations Porter was acting as Secretary, and at last, in October, 1622, it was decided to send him off to Madrid as the bearer of a final proposal. England was weary of Spanish delays and excuses ; the business never advanced ; and now the dispatches which Endymion was to carry to Lord Bristol, the I^iglish Ambassador, commanded him to break off all matrimonial nego- tiations, unless the Spanish king declared himself ready in ten days to assist the Elector with a Spanish army, or at least to allow the PLnglish forces to march through Flanders for that purpose. But this very peremptory message was not the only one that Porter bore ; he had secret instruc- tions of a very different character. He was directed to tell Bristol that, rather than lose the Spanish 4 34" ENDYMION PORTER match, he was to offer even better terms than before, and to promise that any children born to the Spanish princess mi^/ht be educated by their CathoHc mother till they were nine years old, a concession that would have raised no slight storm had it been known in England. This proposal was large, yet Buckingham was devisine even more starding schemes. He was personally jealous of Bristol, and sure that no plan could succeed that was not managed by himself ; so he absolutely wrote to his Spanish friends that the Admiral was getting the fleet ready, and that he himself intended to take ''his friend" (Prince Charles) with him to Spain, to bring home "the beautiful angel." But the old Kinir and the Council had no hint of this wild scheme, and as Porter left the royal presence, all joined in the farewell cry, " Bring us war, brine us war! " It was '' much marvelled that having already in Spain an ordinary and an extra- ordinary ambassador, besides an agent, there should be need of another messenger of his quality," wrote Mr. Joseph Meade in a news-letter.^ Sir Francis Nethersole also said it was suspected that the King had given Porter private instructions differing from those delivered by the Council, as well as letters written by his own hand, of which none knew the contents. Endymion probably crossed the Channel in a ship commanded by his brother Tom ; certainly Tom was with him at the disastrous close of the short voyage, when the vessel grounded near Calais. The passengers hurried over the side into a boat, * " Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 344. THE SPANISH MATCH 35 but in leaping down Endymion missed his footing and fell, breaking his shoulder, and his servant trying to follow him, jumped short, fell into the sea, and was drowned. There is another version of the accident which says, that a collision took place between two vessels as they neared Calais, and that it was in "throwing himself upon the larger ship" that luidymion fell; and his ill-fated servant slipped down and was crushed between the two ships. "The Roman augurs," remarked Mr. Meade in his journal, '' would have taken this for an ominous siirn of the success of the busi- ness. ^ The unlucky P^ndymion in his crippled state was obliged to stay for some time at Calais, where instructions were sent him not only to forward his letters to Spain, but to follow himself in person as soon as he was able, which latter command con- firmed the public fears that in very truth some confi- dential and important messages had been secretly entrusted to him. Two letters written during this stay at Calais are preserved. The first shows that, though he was thoroughly cross and miserable, he would not frighten his wife by telling her of his accident till he was quite recovered. *' To viy dear loving Wife, Olive Porter, these, " Mv SWEETEST Olive, — I am on my journey, and Tom will acquaint you how I do. I am fearful that the King's favour to you may make you lessen your care of me, but I know thy everlasting love will not let thee look upon anything but my return, ' *' Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 344. 36 KNDVMIOX PORTER which the hopes to see thee will be much sucldener than otherwise it could. All I can say is that I love thee better than my life and nothing- shall alter '' Your true lovini^^ husband, " Mv DKAR Olive, — Althoucrh I writ you in my last that I was well, it was not beincr so, for I had my share of the hurt and all the misfortune. My shoulder was broken, which now is as well as ever it was in my life, and Tom and I are very merry, and do heartily drink your health, wishing it were possible to have you here with us. " On Wednesday, if it please God, I propose to go to Spain, till when I have intreated my t)r()ther to stay with me, and then I will write you more at large. My sweet and kind Olive, I })r()test unto God I am now merry, well, and joyed to think how thy good prayers did preserve me; when 1 return 1 will thank thee with as many kisses as thou canst let me take, wherein I know thy bounty will afford an equality to my desires. God in heaven bless little George and make him a dutiful child to thee and his grandmother, to whom I desire to be remembered, for I love her dearly, and I pray you forget me not to Sir John and my Lady, and to Mall, and all the rest of our worthy friends. " Farewell, dearest love, " Your true loving husband, " Endvmion Portkk." "Calais, this Monday morning, ''the \^th of October, 1622. ' Dom. S. P., vol. cxxxiii. 40. THE SPANISH MATCH 37 " As I hope to be saved, my brother is very weel, I thank God for itt, and I ame " Youer trew lovinge brother, "Thomas Portfr." ' On the 1st of November Porter reached Madrid, and was told the King was away hunting. King Philip the Fourth was a mere boy of seventeen, and not at all ea^er for the EnoHsh match. His father, on his death-bed, had bidden Philip make his sister an Empress, and, as the poor girl herself detested the idea of a marriage with a heretic, Philip was unwillinuf tc) force her into it. He was, however, almost entirely absorbed in his own amusements, and the real ruler of Spain was the favourite Olivares, a man both honest, intelligent, and resolute, but one who, like a true Spaniard, was unable to realise that any nation or any individual might hold other vit^ws than his own. He quite agreed with King James that the proposed marriage might solve many difficulties, but there his agree- ment stopped. If Spain condescended to honour Kno-land with the hand of the Infanta, she certainly need not be called on to make any further conces- sions, or to take any new line about the Palatinate; but he was, on the other hand, determined that England should remove the galling and oppressive disabilities from P^nglish Romanists, and he hoped the marriage might even end in restoring the heretical Prince of Wales and all his people to the fold of the true Church. Buckingham had probably told Porter to consider himself free to act independently of the stately » Fontblanciuc, 'T>ords Strangford,' p. 24. 3« ENDYMION PORTER m English Ambassador, Lord Bristol. At any rate, Endymion decided to waste no time in the delays so dear to the Spanish Court, ''the hospital of hope and the grave of the living," as Cornwallis, a former envoy, had well called it. Olivares was no stranger, as Porter had once been a page in his household, so instead of waiting for the formalities of a tedious etiquette which he remembered only too well, he went straight to his former patron, and asked him plainly for an engagement that the Spanish Army in the Palatinate should support the PLnglish troops under Vere. Olivares was starded out of his self- control, and betrayed himself. He exclaimed that it was preposterous to expect the King of Spain to take arms against his Catholic allies, and "as for this marria^re," said he, " I know not what it means." • Endymion had got what he wanted. It mattered litde to him that next day Olivares sought to cover his blunder by telling Bristol that '' Porter was not a public minister and it was unfit to trust State secrets to such a man." Bristol was unwilling to admit that his work had failed, that the negotiations were at a standstill, and that Spain, even if she wished, could do little in the Palatinate ; thus the solemn farce proceeded, every player in it too much absorbed in himself to guess what his antagonist might do next. The Pope was asked to grant the needful dispensation for the heretical marriage, the arrangements for the Infanta's future household were discussed, and fresh articles were drawn up, with which Porter started back to England on the 13th of December. No word had been breathed to Bristol of Buckingham's wild scheme, but no doubt Porter > I , THE SPANISH MATCH 39 saw that nothing would come of these half-hearted negotiations unless the Spanish hand were forced, and so he gladly carried a private message to the Prince from Gondomar (who was just now in Spain), welcoming the project of his visiting Madrid. On the 3rd of January, 1623, luidymion arrived in England, and on the 15th of P^ebruary his second son was baptised and given the name of Charles, a clear proof that the IVince, at any rate, was not dissatisfied with p:ndymion's diplomacy. Opposition was by this time beginning to awaken the natural obstinacy of Prince Charles and give him some inclination towards the marriage. It was easy for Buckingham to make good use of Gondomar's message and imbue Charles with the belief that the business must inevitably be mismanaged unless the bridegroom undertook it himself, and that the really chivalrous thing would be to go and fetch his bride home in person, as his father had done before him. Like a knight of old, he would face the diplomatic dragons and carry off his lady-love in spite of Pope or King. Clarendon's account of the scene that followed with King James is very dramatic. The Prince, on his knees, confessed his desire to journey to Spain, and urged his request with great importunity, while the Marquess (Buckingham was not yet made Duke) stood by for a long time without saying a word; at last he joined in, and through their vehement persuasions ''the King, with less hesitation than his nature was accustomed to, and much less than was agreeable to his great wisdom, gave his approbation." ' But when the two vehement young ' Clarendon, ''('.real Rebellion," vol. i. pt. i. pp. 17-25. 40 ENDYMION PORTER men were gone out, it did not need any great wisdom in the King to see upon reflection the im- prudence of the proposed journey, the risks to which his only son would be exposed, and the advantage which the possession of the Prmce's person would give to any evil-disposed councillors in Spain. These considerations were so terrible to him, that the next time the Prince and the Marquess came he fell into a great passion and told them, with tears, that he was undone and that it would break his heart if they pursued their resolution. The Prmce reminded the King of his promise, and the Marquess, "who knew what kind of arguments were of prevalence with him," treated him more rudely, until at last the Prince's ''humble and importunate en- treaty and my lord Buckingham's rougher dialect prevailed," and the King consented to an im- mediate departure. The young men then said that as it had been decided, for the sake of secrecy and haste, that they should only take two more in their company, "they had thought (if he approved of them) upon Sir F'rancis Cottington and Endymion Porter, who, th(nigh they might safely, should not be trusted with the secret till they were ready to be embarked." "The persons were both grateful to the King, the former having been long his Majesty's Agent in Spain and was now Secre- tary to the Prince ; the other, having been bred in Madrid, after many years' attendance upon the Duke was now one of the bed-chamber to the Prince ; so that his Majesty cheerfully approved the election they had made, and desired it might presently be imparted to the two gentlemen, saying THE SPANISH MATCH 41 that many things would occur to them as necessary to the journey that they two would never think of." Accordingly Sir Francis was sent for into the ante-roonr. "Cottington," said the King, "here is Baby Charles and Stenny, who have a great mind to go by post into Spain to fetch home the Infanta, and will have but two more in their company, and have chosen you for one— what think you of the journey?" Cottington often protested afterwards that when he heard the King he fell into such a trembling that he could hardly speak, but he made answer by reminding the King of the most obvious objection to the scheme; upon which the King threw himself upon his bed crying out, " 1 told you this before," and fell into a new passion and lamented loudly that he was undone, and should lose Baby Charles. At this there appeared displeasure and vexation in the countenances of the Prince and of Buckingham, and the latter exclaimed, angrily enough^ that, as soon as the King sent for Cottington, he had himself whispered in the Prince's ear that Sir Francis would be against it, and thereupon he turned upon Cottington with all possible bitterness, and reproached him with a thousand hard words. But this violent outburst on the part of Buckingham only threw the poor King into a new agony on the behalf of a servant who, as he foresaw, was doomed to suffer for having answered his question honestly, and he said with some commotion, '' Nay, by God, Stenny, you are very much to blame to use him so ! He answered me direcdy to the question I asked him, and very honesdy and wisely ; and yet you know he said no more than 1 told you before he was called in." X 42 ENDYMIOX PORTER THE SPANISH MATCH 43 However, in spite of the King's better judgment and Cottington's warnings, the journey was im- mediately agreed on, but the King saw plainly that the scheme was really of Buckingham's de- vising, and, it is said, never quite forgave him for it. The Prince and Buckingham started from Theobalds, giving out that they were riding to Buckingham's house of Newhall ; then putting on false beards they started with all speed for the coast, calling themselves John and Tom Smith, servants to Sir Francis Cottington. " But their fine coats," says the news-letter, "gave suspicion they were no such manner of men." ' Buckingham increased the suspicion with which they were viewed by giving the ferryman at Gravesend a purse of gold, so that he, supposing them to be duellists, intending »* to cross the sea to fijj^ht, ••ave information to the magistrates, and they were pursued, and only escaped by the swiftness of their horses. Porter and three other wntlemen had been sent to await them at Dover, with such secrecy that Porter was not even allowed to say farewell to his wife. As soon, however, as the party reached Paris, he lost no time in writing his explanations to her. " Mv DKAR Olive, — Since my departing from you I have enjoyed very little content, although I have had health and everything I could desire, wanting nothing but your sweet company, by which you may perceive in how great a measure I esteem yours, that can prefer it before a Prince's and a Lord's, both of whom I honour and love as my ^ "Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 366. i.**^ life, and the worst of whom would serve for com- pany to the best man living. 1 give God thanks we are all safely arrived at Paris, where it hath pleased his Highness and my lord to stay this day to see the town. To-morrow we set forwards from hence towards Spain, and, good Olive, let us have your prayers every day along with us to help to conduct us thither. I make no doubt but we shall have them the heartier for our return ; because I fear there may be a grudge remaining still in you for not acquainting you first with my journey, but I was conjured to the contrary by my master, which I hope will fully satisfy you that I ought not to have done it. '' I would have you send Charles and the Spaniard along with the Prince's servants that come by sea. They are to be allowed as my men to come in the ship, and let them bring me one dozen of shirts, and litde George his picture, and yours in the gold case which is at Gerbier's, and half a dozen pairs of silk stockings, three black and three colours, and your chain of diamonds, and let me intreat you to make much of yourself that I may hear of your health, which news will somewhat mitigate the pain of this absence. '' Little George and Charles will serve to put you in mind how much you are to love me, and my own conscience shall make me remember that I am not to do anything that may offend the faith I owe to so good a wife. Farewell, sweet Olive, and God Ahnighty bless thee and thine. I will ever be thy true loving husband, m " Endvmion Porter. '' Paris, Ms 22nd day of February, 1623. 44 ENDYMION PORTKR THE SrAXISH MATCH 45 " You must not let it be known from me whither we are gone, but say you know nothing, nor speak to Charles till you hear further from me of coming, for the Prince will not have it spoken of, and I charge you not to tell anybody whither I am gone. Remember my humble duty to my mother and burn this letter." ^ In Paris the Prince's lightly worn disguise was soon penetrated ; and he was received with all royal hospitality ; and then, after making but a short stay, '' the sweet boys and dear venturous knights worthy to be put in a romance," to use King James's phraseology, set their faces southward for Spain. We know less of the Prince's adventures on the way than of those which befell the gentlemen who followed him in a couple of months' time. They described the road as *' terribly stoney," part of it a narrow passage two feet broad passing over snowy mountains like a stair. One village Sir Richard Wynn was clear '' the devil himself doth inhabit, if he dwelleth on earth." Their lodging there had no windows and the floors " were without a foot that wanted holes." They were provided with neither table nor stools for the supper ; " with much ado we got a piece of timber round which we stood and orcls Strangford," p. 27. being mounted on the best horse of the party ; Sir Richiird Wynn and his friends could find nothing to ride but pack mules with no Ijridles, so that when the mule of Dr. Maw, the chaplain, "began with infinite bounces to teach the churchman how to prove a good horseman," the lesson ended in the poor cleric " lighting full on his head and shoulders, where he lay groaning and his mule went into the river." The Prince travelled 750 miles in thirteen days, an average rate of nearly sixty miles a day. He rode, at ally rate, like no laggard in love. As the party approached Madrid, he left Cottington and Porter half a day's journey behind, and galloped on with Buckingham and the guide. They reached the Earl of Bristol's house at eight of the night on March 7th, and desired to speak presendy with His Lordship as having a letter to deliver him from Mr. Cottington, who was behind and had a mischance by the"' way ; they having promised to speak with his Lordship before they went to their lodging. The servant said that his Lordship was retired into his study and there was busy about his papers, yet upon their importunity the servant went in to him, who sent for them up. " The Marquess came m first," says Howell, " with a portmanteau under his arm then the Prince who stayed awhile on t'other side of the street in the dark." They were brought through the Countess' chamber into Lord Bristol s study and then they made themselves known. We may imagine the dismay of the harassed diplomatist, when his visitors threw off their cloaks and he beheld the handsome faces of the Prince and his favourite, radiant with glee at the trick they had 46 ENDYMIOX P0RTP:R THE SPANISH MATCH 47 played. Here was the precious heir to the throne of England walking calmly into a trap, and his friend Buckingham bent on nothing but amusing himself and thwarting the unhappy Ambassador whose business it was to represent the English crown. Poor man, he had no course but to make the best of it, and he sent at once to tell Gondomar the news. Next morning, before the travellers were up, the King of Spain sent Olivares to welcome Bucking- ham, who, with the Prince, presently arose, yet before they could be ready to admit the favourite, the King himself was come. Great was the joy at meetinof, ^ the Kini»; exclaiminu-, " Though it were Lent, it was not now Lent to him ! " When Gon- domar first saw the Prince he fell flat on his face crying, " Nunc dimittis," and would not be raised up ! This day, Howell says, Sir Francis Cottington and Mr. Porter came, and towards evening" on Saturday, Buckingham went in a close coach to Court where he had a private audience with the King who sent Olivares to escort him back, and Olivares on being introduced to the Prince fell at his feet, hugging the royal knees, and *' delivered how immeasurably glad his Catholic Majesty was of him coming, all of which Mr. l^orter did interprete." It was not only his Catholic Majesty and the courtiers who were charmed by the IVince's roman- tic journey, it exacdy suited the Spanish popular taste ; songs were written in praise of it and people cried out that the Prince deserved to have the Infanta thrown into his arms. The poor girl herself ' "Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 379. took a very different view of the case. A pious, crende creature, with a round face like a Flemish Madonna, she could think nothing but horror of marrying a heretic. Her confessor worked her up to a pitch of despair. '' What a comfortable bed- fellow you will have," he said; "he who lies by your side and who will be the father of your chil- dren, is certain to go to hell ! " ' The Prince s handsome face and gallant bearing made no impres- sion on her, and as his compliments had to be all translated for him by Lord Bristol, his conversation was limited, and he was reduced to watching her, so Olivares said, " as a cat watches a mouse." 2 The English suite were not at all pleased with the Spanish way of living, although Cottington wrote, '' we are the braveliest entertained that ever men were." The rest would have agreed with him if entertainment meant processions and ceremonials, but when *' the worst chamber to be got was at forty shillings the week, a turkey at ten or twenty, and a hen at five or six," the gendemen began to grumble. The Prince spent ten days at Lord Bristol's, and then made a magnificent public entry, with a cloth of state held over his head, in the same form that the kings of Spain do at their coronation.3 iiut after all this glory when his gendemen arrived at the Palace, they found he had only two litde rooms with a garden, ''so nasty and illfavourably kept that a farmer in England would be ashamed of such another." Porter, being used to the Spanish way of living, no doubt was less uncomfortable than ^ Gardiner, "Puritan Revolution," p. 41. 2 Howells, July 10, 1623. 3 " Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 378, 48 EXDVMION PORTER his less experienced companions. His letters to his wife though very full do not contain the lanienta- tions that mi^ht he expected. '' Mv swKKTKST Lo\ K, — Although I hav^e so much employment here at Madrid, that I have scarce time to dress myself, yet if I should not watch and lose my sleep to write to thee, I were unworthy of such a wife and could not deserve the smallest part of thy inestimable love to me. Oh, that you did but know how great a grief it is for me to live without you, fot then you would believe that nothing but you could give me content, nor any but the want of you cause sorrow in me. Had I but expressions for my love, they should satisfy you and ease me, but if you can give faith to an honest heart, then be assured that my life only depends on that love which 1 hope for from you, and all the happiness this world can give me leans upon the same. The Prince and my lord are well and have been the braveliest received that ever men were. Yesterday the King and Queen came publicly abroad, and the Infanta with them in the coach, where my master and my lord with the Ambassador and myself in another coach (with the curtains drawn in the street) stayed to see them go by, and the Prince hath taken such a liking to his mistress that now he loves her as much for her beauty as he can for \y€\\\\i sister to so great a king. She deserves it, for there was never seen a fairer creature. Although the Prince was private and the curtains of his coach drawn, yet the searching vulgar took notice of it, and did so press about the coach to see him, that we could not pass through the streets, in- THE SPANISH MATCH 49 somuch that the Kin^j^'s cruard was forced to beat them from it and make way through the multitude. They all cried ' God bless him,' and showed as much affection generally as ever was seen among people, only they took it ill he showed not himself to them in a more public manner. Last night the King of Spain had a great desire to see the Prince, and in a coach only with the Conde Olivares, my lord Marquess and myself, he came privately at eleven of the clock at night, and met the Prince in the fields without the town, who came with the two ambassadors only, and there they discoursed in the coach above an hour, and the King used him with so much love and respect, giving him the better hand still, that he is as well affected to his Majesty's nobleness and courtesy as to his sister's beauty. Dear Olive, all these things I thought fit to acquaint you withal, that you may not say I never tell you anything, but all these things, compared to the desire I have to see thee, are nothing but vanity, that is the real felicity only which makes me breathe, and God Almighty grant me leave that it may be quickly, and His blessing light on you and George and Charles, and I pray you send me word how you do, and which is the prettiest boy. Good Olive, intreat my mother to pardon me, for the Prince having but me alone here, I have so much to do that I cannot awhile to write to anybody. Entreat her to send me her blessing, and commend me to my sisters. I will never fail to be, '* Thy true loving husband, *' Endvmion Porter. '' Madrid, this \oth day of March, 1623. S so EXDYMION P0RTP:R THE SPANISH MATCH 51 ** I would have Ned go to Monsieur St. Antoine * presently to learn to ride, I have spoken with him already, and Dick Oliver will carry him to him. I pray you remember me to Mr. Oliver, and read the manner of the Prince's being here to him. Let Charles come as soon as he can." - "Mv DEAR Olive, — Since my coming into Spain 1 have received four letters from you, and the two first with so much kindness in them, as I thought my love rewarded ; but the two last are so full of mistrusts and falsehoods, that I rather fear you have changed your affection than that you have any sure grounds for what you accuse me of in them, for as I hope for mercy at God's hands I neither kist nor touched any woman since I left you, and for the innkeeper's daughter at Boulogne, I was so far from kissing her, that as I hope to be saved I cannot remember that I saw any such woman. No, Olive, I am not a dissembler, for I assure you that the grief which I suffered at the parting with you gave me no leave to entertain such base thoughts, but rather lasted in me like a consumption, increasing daily more and more. But seeing you have taken a resolution without hearing what I could say, never to be con- fident of me again, I will procure to be worthy of your best thoughts, and study to have patience for any neglect from you. " I understood that you sent me two kisses by a gentleman, God reward you for them, and since your ^ Monsieur St. Antoine was considered the best master of horsemanship of the time. See " Life of the Uuke of Newcastle," p. 195, ed. C. H. Firth. ^ Dom. S. P., James 1., vol. cxxxix. No. 81. % bounty increases, I think it unfit my thanks should diminish. I perceive you would be glad to hear of my kissing of innkeeper's daughters every day, that you might have some excuse to do that which nothing but my unworthiness and misfortune can deserve. "Alas, sweet Olive! Why should you go about to afflict me. Know that I live like a dying man, and as one that cannot live long without you. My eyes grow weary in looking upon anything, as wanting that rest they take in the company and sight of thine ; nor can I take pleasure in sports, for there is none that seems not a monster to my understanding where my Olive is wanting. With thee I only enter- tain myself and were it not for the force of remembering thee, I know not how my life should have maintained itself so lono-. '* You have a great deal of advantage of me in this absence, your two little babes, and less affection. They serve to entertain you and it teaches you to forget me. Yet, for pity in this banishment and misery let me hear of your health and theirs, and I assure you it will be no small comfort to me. '*Good Olive, let me receive no more quarrelling letters from you, for I desire but your love, it being the thing that only affords me pleasure in this vile world. Send me word how the children do, and whether Charles be black or fair, and who he is like ; but I am sure that nurse will swear that he hath my eyes or nose, and you may perchance be angry and say you never saw anything so like some brother of yours as he. I would to God I could hear thee discourse, I would never come to Boulogne to kiss my host's daughter although you would intreat me. I I THE SPANISH MATCH 52 ENDYMION PORTER 53 *'The Prince visited the Infanta yesterday, whose beauty gave him a just occasion to Hke her. 1 he marriage will be, as yet I know not when, but if my desires to see you could hasten it, I assure you I would make bold to trouble you before the two months' end which you allow me in your last letter. '' I have sent my Lady Villiers a tobacco-box, I hope she will esteem it as a token of my love, and that you will deliver it with the best grace your father has taught you, which is, ' Hold up your head, Olive.' Now I am sure you laugh and forget the just cause I have to be angry with you, but till I receive more kisses from you I shall not be well pleased. *' I would have you send me word whether my lady be with child and how my little lady doth.' I pray you remember my humble service to my lady and tell her that my lord and I wish you both here very often, for which I hope you will pardon us. We live very honest and think of nothing but our wives. I thought to have sent you a token of some value, but I found my purse and my goodwill could not agree, and I, considering that my letter would be welcome to you, I leave to do it, only this ring which I hope you will esteem if not for love, I think, for charity. The conceit is that it seems two as you turn it, and 'tis but one. " My dear Olive, be assured that I can love nothing but thee, nor can the times afford a place for one thought that doth not let me know my happi- ness in having thee. Therefore let me entreat you that there may be a fair correspondance and that ' " My lady," the Duchess of Buckingham ; " My little lady," I^dy Mary \''illiers, the Duke's eldest child. you will call to mind how often you have sworn you could love nothing but me. I hope you continue the same, for all your protesting never to be confi- dent of me aoain. " I would have you send me my cutwork bands by the first and send me word what hopes you have to receive any money out of Ireland, which Dick Oliver ' will inform you, and if Sir Edward Villiers can receive the five hundred pounds of Sir Henry l^ines.- I would have you pay Bloxum out of that money. Howsoever, let it be paid out of the money from Ireland, which you may advise wnth Dick Olivier and my brother Canning. " I pray you pardon me this long letter, if you have patience to read hither. Howsoever, I will always do it till you forbid me, for this is the happiest time I pass in this country. I hope to have some employment that may bring me home before you look for me, and although I should not be welcome, I must needs be glad to come having no other heaven, nor joy, but the hope of seeing you. God Almighty bless you and George and Charles and give you His grace, and I pray you remember to pray for him that will ever be " Your true loving husband, '' Endvmion Porter. ''Madrid, //lis ly/A of April, 1623. ' ' For you rself, ' ' 3 '' Dear Olive, — At this instant I received a letter from you wherein you find fault with me for my opinion of you. I hope I shall have no just ^ See page 50. / Fiennes ? 3 Dom. S. P., James I., vol. cxlii. 41. 54 ENDYMION PORTFR cause to accuse you, but i^ive me leave till I be better satisfied of some reports (which cannot be till my coming home) to suspect something not that you can be unworthy, but that I may be unfortunate. But, for God's sake, do not put me in mind of any unkindness lest my grief help to make an end of that life which gloried in nothing but you. I sent you the ring enclosed in the letter, therefore I know you could not miss of it, but it may be somebody liked it well and so it lost itself. '* I had no money to send you, but here I send you a jewel which you may pawn if we have no more credit. My lord told me my lady should furnish you with what you wanted. I know not whether he hath done it yet or no, but I am sure he will. The jewx'l which this gentleman brings you is a very pretty one, therefore I w^ould have you keep it and wear it every day to put you in mind of me ; and be you what you will, the world shall ever know that you had and have in me one that loves you as his soul and as well as you can deserve. " I have sent my lady and my Lady Denbigh ^ each a box. Remember my humble service to them and assure yourself I will ever be " Your true loving husband, '* Endvmion Porter. ''Madrid, this \6fh of May, 1623. " 7^ my dear Wife. Olive Pointer, these y - ''Mv DEAR Olive, — This day I writ unto you and sent you by Mr. Knowles a jewel of diamonds ^ Susan Villiers, sister of the Duke of Buckingham, m. l^eld- ing, Earl of Denbigh. - Dom. S. P., James I., vol. cxlv. 8. THK SPANISH MATCH 55 worth some hundred pounds and also two boxes for my Lady Marquis of the same work my Lady Villiers' was, and now I send you by this bearer a box with perfumes of another kind, I hope you will esteem as tokens of my love, not regarding the value. " If you did but know how truly I love you, you would never be jealous of me, and had you such reports of me as you conclude for truths, yet if you loved me half so well as I deserve you would not give credit so easily to them. I know you are not so sorry as you would make me believe for my absence, for I hear you are very merry and can take upon you to command other young men to travel from their wives. Long may you be merry, and if I thought my ccjmpany would diminish it, I love you with that extremity that to give you as much content as I can, I would bar myself from the happiness of seeing you as long as my many desires would uive me leave, and my master's business would keep me here. '* My brother Ned writes that Charles his nose and his are very like, but that he is very pretty. God of heaven bless him and my George and send you as much happiness as I can desire, for myself the chiefest thereof is to be accounted " Your true loving husband, ''Endvmion Porter. '' Madrid, this \6th of May, 1623." ' " Mv DEAR Olive, — I wonder why you should find fault with me for not writing by those I never heard of, till they were gone, and God is my » Dom. S. P., James L, vol. cxlv. 9. 56 ENDYMION PORTER THE SPANISH MATCH 57 witness 'tis true, therefore you have as little cause to be angry with me for that as for kissini^ the inn- keeper's daughter at Boulogne. " The other letter which I had writ some eiirht days past, I thought to have sent by my Lord of Rocheford, who was to depart suddenly from hence, but upon some occasion stayed, whereupon I found means to make over all the four hundred pounds by this bearer, Sir Francis Cottington, and so I send you bills here for that quantity. Three hundred and thirty-three pounds Sir Francis is to pay you, for he received the same of me here, and one hundred and twelve pounds my Lady Gary in Tuttle Street is to pay you, I having lent her son here so much, as appears by his bill, which you are to send presendy to her that she may accept it and pay it fifteen days after. But after she hath seen it and set down on the back side the allowance of it, you must keep the bill till you receive the money. The bill that is to Mr. Alexander Stafford is the money that Sir Francis Cottington is to pay, which he hath promised me shall be paid at first sight, though the bill be twenty days after. So you may send him word that you have need of the money presently, as I make little doubt you have ; and assure yourself it hath not little grieved me to think you want, for there can be nothing in this world that I would not do, to make you see my care of you is greater than of myself; and should you do anything that were not fitting your modesty it would grieve me more for the loss you would sustain, than for the shame could come to me of it. " I have no news to send you, nor secrets to write unto you, for which I am sorry, that you might ^ discourse with the one and tell the other. This last letter you sent me was the kindest I have yet received, with which I am so contented that I can vaingloriously brag of it, and by that means deserve the like hereafter. '* I would have you pay Bloxum out of the monies you receive from Ireland, for they are clamorous people, and therefore I hope you will have a care to see him satisfied. " Send me word how my little boys do, and whether Charles will be black or fair. I have sent here three purses ; if you like them not for yourself, you may send them to Lady Boteler, and to Mall, and the Lady Justice.^ I took out the toy of gold and little rubies, which was in the purse, and send it apart with the purses, and filled the purse which was for you full of perfumes. " 1 would have you give my mother forty-five pounds as a token from me, so there will remain four hundred for yourself, which may serve you to spend till I come home, which, as yet, I cannot tell you seriously when it will be. I have written to my mother that I have sent her that money, there- fore I pray you have a care to deliver it to her as soon as you shall receive it. " I would have you make Ned- a suit of clothes, or else irive him one of mine, which you shall think fittest for him, and let him go to Mr. St. Antoyne, where if he do not well, I may jusdy forsake him and let him never hope for anything from me. This is my desire, and I hope you will see it fulfilled. " I have some hopes that my lord will write to ' Olivia's mother and sisters. ^ His brother Edmund. \k . ■^. ^. »,-^-. 58 p:ndymion porter THE SPANISH MATCH 59 the Kiiv'- in mv behalf, and that he will j^ive order to my lady to succor you with some monies, and you shall do very well to speak to her to write to my lord to favour us with something. Howsoever, be you contented, and although 1 dig for my living you shall never want, but with our poverty we will love as richly as they that have the greatest plenty ; and bread with thy company shall please me better than the "ht assure the thousands who would question him concerning his Highness's return. "He told me that by the assistance of the Almighty he would be there by the loth of June. I entreated him to take a further day and then not to fail. To conclude, he laid with me a purse of forty pieces that he would be landed by that day, which I told him I would as willingly lose as ever I won any other wager." Porter's hopes began to rise as autumn drew on, and his next letter is in a happier strain. '' My dear Olive, — Now the happy time for me grows near, for now I am sure it will not be long- before I shall see that face of thine wherein all the joy and content this world can afford me lieth. Be satisfied, sweet Olive, that I love thee as my soul, and although I might say in some other letter that never man did love his wife as I did you, there is none lost, so long as you continue such as I imagine THE SPANISH MATCH 67 I left you, but rather increased, if to so complete and great an affection anything could be added. And for your suspicion of my having any other creature here, I know you writ that bit to make up your letter. I will have so charitable an opinion of you that I dare swear you have not such a thought nor can be guilty of so much malice. No, dearest love, I cannot forget how much reason I have to be constant to you ; what pawns you have of mine to oblige me to be so, and what a George and a Charles, the memory of whom were sufficient to keep me chaste, though mine own devilish disposi- tion might lead me to any unworthy act. Believe me that nothing shall ever have power to make me offend you in a thought, for as I hope to be saved I cannot endure the sight of any woman. And good sweet love, do not find new ways to vex me ; let it suffice that I live from you, which is so great a punishment that death cannot be greater, this absence being every hour accompanied with grief enough to make an end of my days. " The 9th of September we are to set forwards from hence, so that I hope within these six weeks I shall be with thee. '' I had nothing to send you now but my true love which comes in these lines, though with a bad expression, yet with as much affection as my haste can afford. I wonder you never send me word what tokens you receive and I never heard of a picture and two boxes of perfumes that came with the trunks and cabinet that my lord sent my lady : you might take the pains to tell me you had received them although you did not esteem them. I would entreat you to inquire after the picture, for b 68 ENDYMION PORTER I would not lose it. It is the picture of a Mary Magdalene with a pot of flowers by her. I pray you ask my lady if it came not with the perfumes and three boxes of china with perfumes for you. Though they be but trifles I would willingly know what becomes of them, and that which 1 sent you by my Lord of Rochford. I sent you by Sir John Epsley six litde glass botdes with silver chains for little George, and I make no doubt but he will keep a terrible stir with them. I pray you send me word whether he hath ever a great tooth yet or no, and how many teeth little Charles hath. " My dear Olive, you cannot believe with what extremity I am joyed that I shall now come home and stay there till you bid me go away. I am resolved never to leave thee now, but to live with thee free from the troubles of this wicked world. I protest to God, I am happier in thee than in my life, and I am sure that nothing can afford me any content till I see thee again. God of His great ofoodness ^Wg me leave to come safe home. " I would have you cut George his hair somewhat short, and not to beat him overmuch. I hope you let him go bareheaded, for otherwise he will be so tender that upon every occasion you will have him sick. " I writ to your father and mother and my sister Marie, hoping they would have answered me, but it seems the letters were never delivered, which was no fault of mine. I could not at this time do it for want of notice of the post's going away, therefore I entreat you to excuse me to them and assure them it is not for want of love and respect. '' I pray you remember my services to my brother THE SPANISH MATCH 69 Ley and my sister, whom I did hear was very sick and I am extream sorry for it, and am glad to hear that my Lady Ley hath 'scaped her sickness. ** Farewell, my sweet Olive, and I must entreat you to make much of yourself that I may find you merry and well when I come to you. God of heaven bless you and send you all the happiness He can, and as much content as I wish for my own soul, and believe it that whilst I breathe I will ever be " Your true lovinuf husband, " Endvmion Porter. "Madrid, ////> 28//1 of August, 1623. '' Mr. Secretary Cottington is very sick."' '* Mv DEAR Olive, — I had no leisure to write more than that I am well and to-morrow I am to set forward for that happy place where I shall see thee. God of heaven bless thee and thine, and as you love me, believe I could write no more, for I knew not of this gentleman's departure till it was so late that he could not stay, nor had I time to express my love to thee. Farewell, sweet love, and as my soul's health I wish thine, and will ever be, ** Thy true loving husband, *' Endvmion Porter. ** Madrid, the ^i/i 0/ September, 1623." The happy day of departure at last came. The Prince was heartily tired of Spanish procrastination, and at last accepted the fact that he could succeed no better than other ne^^otiators. ' Dom. S. P., James I., vol. cli. 75. 70 ENDYMION PORTER Many courtesies were exchanged on leaving Madrid, and Olivares made splendid presents to the gentlemen in attendance on the Prince, giving jewels of great value and excellent swords *' with their furniture," to the keeper of the wardrobe, Mr. Endymion Porter and Mr. Thomas Carey. The romantic courtship had sunk into a mere farce, but the farce was played out to the end. The Infanta continued her I^nirlish studies and had masses said for her heretical suitor's safety at sea. The events at least turned out well for her. She was rid of her English bridegroom, and before long was married to her orthodox cousin Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and lived to satisfy her father's dying wish and reign an Plmpress of Germany. But one actor had no mind to play out the farce to the end. It was never Buckingham's fashion to conceal his feelings, and he told Olivares very roundly on parting that if ever it was his chance, he would requite him.' Two years later an I^nglish fleet sailed to wreak Buckingham's vengeance on Spain.- ' " Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 423. ^ Dyer's " Modern Europe," vol. ii. p. 535. CHAPTER IV EN(iLAND A(;AIN, AND A NEW RKICN TniiRE were grand festivities throughout the country to celebrate the Prince's safe return from Spain. It was no disappointment to the people that he had failed in the immediate object of his journey ; it was possible that he might now look out for a Protestant wife; at any rate, the bells should be rung and the bonfires li^rhted, and the future mipht be left to take care of itself But a pretence at negotiations for the marriage still went on, and Don Diego de Mendoza was sent over from Spain to report officially to the Spanish Court that the Prince had arrived at home and that the Infanta's masses for his safety might cease. A curious little peep at manners and Court etiquette is afforded by one of the incidents of Don Diego's stay in England.' Precedence was a very solemn matter in those days ; a little later there was a real battle for precedence between the French and Spanish am- bassadors, when swords w^ere drawn and men lost their lives for what was considered the honour of their country. But now the chief difficulty lay, not * Nicholl's " Royal Progresses," James I., vol. iii. p. 587. 71 |: 1 72 ENDYMION PORTER between the jealous representatives of the rival kin^^doms, but between no less than three Spanish ambassadors; for Don Diego beinj^ the newest arrival considered himself to be the most important personaj^e, while the ambassador who was already in England, the Marquess de la Injosa, was a man of higher rank ; and by way of complicating matters still further a third Spanish nobleman, Don Diego de Mexia, the Ambassador of the Archduke, was also in England at the time ; and this Don Diego was a very great personage indeed. Buckingham wished to give a grand banquet in honour of Don Diego de Mendoza, but as it was impossible to setde the respective positions of the three stately dons, in order to solve the difficulty Endymion Porter was sent to propitiate the highest in rank of the trio, namely, the Marquess, in a very quaint fashion, and to induce him to stay at home. For this purpose he was accompanied by *' a regale of three large flaskets filled with cates intended for the feast," and he bore this message, "that the Duke kissed the Marquess's hands and would have held it an honour to have his company at his feast, but as he would be deprived of it. he prayed the Marquess to taste what he had provided." The Marquess does not seem to have been exactly flattered by this very curious message, but answered shortly "that the Duke might have had his company had he been pleased to command it." We do not know whether Endymion's skill in Spanish compliments enabled him to salve the wound to the great man's pride. The report only tells us that the Marquess bade the company good- night, and supped privately in his chamber. '/ ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 73 But Spain and the Spanish Infanta became steadily more unpopular, and in a play called ** Gondomar," that Spanish statesman was actually caricatured on the London stage, the actors taking the trouble to procure a suit of his clothes to make the likeness perfect.' Moreover, Buckingham's visit to Paris had turned his weathercock fancy in a new direction ; he was too deeply offended with Spain to endure further intercourse with her, and PVance was now the land he favoured. So, in October, 1624, when the Spanish Ambassador went down to Royston, the King was said to be too unwell to receive him.- I'he excuse, it is likely enough, may have been per- fectly true, but it seems to be a curious coincidence that just before the arrival there of the Spanish grandee "the Prince and the Duke went unex- pectedly to Royston." This sudden visit of the pair, as it is mentioned by several contemporary writers, seems to have attracted some notice ; pro- bably they hastened down as soon as they heard that the Ambassador was going to seek an audience, and arrived there just in time to disappoint him. Endymion's letters about this time seem to have been written during attendance on the Prince at his various hunting-boxes and on progresses through the kingdom. There was a Midland progress which began in July, 1624, and halted at Burleigh, where there were grand festivities including a pageant designed by Inigo Jones and written by Ben Jonson. It was during this journey that Endymion writes from Rufford. In the spring of 1625 he * " Court and Times of James I.," vol. ii. p. 473. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 483. iK.'?^ 74 ENDYMION PORTER accompanied the Court to Theobalds and New- market. The following letter is undated, but must have been written at earliest in 1624, as it mentions he had been four years married : — " Mv DEAR Or.ivi:, — I hope that you have for- gotten all the unkindness of last night, although I must confess I did suspect by your letter there was something remaining in your mind, for it came not accompanied with that hearty expression of affection as at other times, or else it may be my jealousy let me not see the true meanino- of it ! " Olive, believe me, that what so ever I am, beinir angry, when it is past I love nothing in the world near a comparison to you : all the joy and comfort I have is in you : therefore, blame me not if I desire to have you according to my own heart, and assure yourself we shall never agree if we seek not to please one another. Be you still to me as I shall deserve, and let me want that happiness of your affection, if ever I fail to show myself a careful friend and a true husband to vou. God knows how unwilling I am to show any kind of distaste when you cross me, but to prevent a greater mischief, I think 1 had better make show of an^er for small offences than conceal them, and let oreater be the ruin of our loves. '* We have been four years married and God hath blessed us with children. Let not our carriaires make the world take notice of so much inconstancy in us that time should diminish the obligations we have to love each other. Before I gave you my hand of husband, you did engage your word to me, that in whatsoever I should advise you, nothino- I I V « "4 ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 75 should hinder you from following my directions, and I swore to you that if you did so, no man breathing should love a woman more than I would you. I have kept mine oath, and whether you have your promise, that I leave to you ; but, my dearest Olive, 1 wonder why you should suspect me for Saxum ' when as I hope to be saved, I think of ncHhing but thy sweet love, which to me is above all the beauties that ever God created : be careful to preserve the best part of us both, which is our affections, and when I fail let God plague me with thv neiJ^lect, which would be the worst of all diseases. ** God bless our babes, and send me the blessing of seeing thee quickly, till then I rest, *' Thy true constant loving husband, " Endvmion Porter." - Olivia seems to have remained in London during the autumn of 1624, as her third son was christened at St. Martin's-in-the- Fields on the ist of October. The entry in the register calls him " Endymion, filius Sagasissimi viri Endymion Porter." The letters show that Olivia felt her husband's absence at such a time very keenly, and found it hard to believe he could not obtain leave of absence from Court. "Little Dim" as he is called in the letters, only ' It will be remembered that very early in their married life Olive had heard with anxiety of her husband's visits to the lovely ladies of Saxham. It may be hoped this solemn protest fjuieted her fears, for we hear no more of the Crofts family. See Chap. II. p. 25. ^ FontbUuKjue's ''Lords Strangford," p. 45. Original in posses- sion of Mrs. Russell. ^•^^ 76 ENDYMION PORTER lived to be two years old and was buried in London in November, 1626. The date of the following letter is uncertain, but from the references to his babes in it, it cannot be earlier than 1623 and very possibly belongs to 1624. *• Mv DEAREST LovE, — I write unto you from Theobalds, but having so fit a messenger, I could not let this occasion slip without the remem- brances of my best love to you, for I do as I would be done withall. If you did but as truly love me, as I do you, nothing would make a difference between us, but the want of true affection on your side, gives way to an easy belief of un- worthiness in me without desert. 1 have no reason to Hatter you, nor do I fear anything that you can do but wrong yourself, which if I seek to prevent, you ought rather to cherish me as a true friend than by unkindness make me your enemy. I protest to God, I love you as my soul and as by choice you were pleased to think me worthy to be your husband, so I desire not to change the constant resolution 1 made God witness of when I took you to be my wife, let us therefore enjoy one another with that true content that nothing may make me sorry for our choice. I will ever endeavour to let you see that I esteem you above all earthly things, but still I shall wish that you would know I must govern you and not you me. My dear Olive, farewell, and let me hear from you, for next your . . . company your lines afford me the greatest . . . I can ever have. In haste, with mv blessiniday. I must attend him, and therefore (as I have already told you) till then I cannot make myself happy. Good Olive, I have so often told you I love you that I can find no new way to express the same in words, believe that it is true, I do so strive to make myself appear in your opinion kind, that I write nonsense : but could you see the secret of my heart, there you might discover strange conceits all tending to the everlasting affection I bear you, and may I want love of God and man, when 1 fail to be, " Thy true loving husband, '' Endvmion Porter. ** RuEFORD, this 24/// of October, 1624. ** God bless my babies. '' To viy dear Olivet ^ '' My DEAR Olive, — Your kind letter came in good time to accompany me in this place which affords me no comfort but desires to see you, in them I take a great deal of pleasure, and with thinking of you I do lighten the burden of absence which otherwise were unsufferable. I understand ' Dom. S. P., vol. clxxiii. No. 75. 2 Ibid., vol. clxxiii. No. 85. 8o ENDVMIOX PORTKR by Mr. Sheldon that you were well and very merry, which was welcome news to me, for by that means I hope you will preserve your health till I have the happiness to see you ajrain, you have the odds of me much, for the company of the little boys will help you to pass away this tedious time better than if I were with you. I beseech God to bless them and you and make me once able to enjoy you without this curse of absenting myself from you, yet, if necessary, will not give way to it. I must have patience, and hope that God gives it me here as a punishment for my former sins, which have been so great, that if I might live still blest with your company, I should fear that the pains in the world to come would be jusdy laid upon me having felt none in this. My dearest love, farewell, and believe that whilst I breathe I will ever be, " Your true loving husband, " Endymion Portkk. '* Send me some cuffs. " Newmarket, this 20th of Janitarii\ 1625. " Commend my service to your bedfellow." ' '' To my dear wife Olive Porter, these T '' Mv ONLY DEAR LovE, — Having written a former letter by Mr. Saunderson, this gendeman would needs have another, and by cause you may see my judgment I can temper my quarrel so that nothing he brings shall savour of distaste. I know you will approve of me for it, and give me more thanks for my understanding than for my letter. I have been very ill with an ague, which if it continue ^ Dom. S. P., vol. clxxxii. No. 23. ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 81 I shall come home (cum whome) and trouble you with my company, therefore I hope you will pray for my health. My dearest Olive, when I fail or slacken my love to you, may I want all that's good, and nothing but misfortune fall upon me ; I know you may sometimes be ill and unfit to write to me, but I presume your affection would be always putting me in mind of you and it, and if I love myself, the chiefest cause is for being " Your husband, '' Endymion Porter. ** Newmarket, this i^th ofjanitarie, 1625.' In March, 1625, Charles succeeded to his father's throne, and in May, the long uncertainties con- cerning the King's marriage came to an end, and in Howell's words, there arrived "a most noble, new Oueen of England, who, in true beauty, is beyond the long-wooed Infanta, for she is of a fading flaxen hair, big-lipped and somewhat heavy-eyed, but this daughter of France is of a more lovely and lasting complexion of a dark brown. She hath eyes that sparkle like stars, and as for her physiognomy she may be said to be a marvel of perfection." Elndymion was one of the gallant train who accompanied Charles to meet Henrietta Maria at Dover, where the poor girl could hardly get through her little formal address for tears and was consoled as tenderly as the chivalrous King could do it. On Barham Downs, *'a goodly train of choice ladies" received the royal bride, ''drawn up in two rows," but Howell thought the country ladies far overshone the courtiers. Doubdess Olive Porter ' Dom. S. P., vol. clxxxii. 51. 8o ENDVMIOX PORTER by Mr. Sheldon that you were well and very merry, which was welcome news to me, for by that means I hope you will preserve your health till I have the happiness to see you aoain, you have the odds of me much, for the company of the little boys will help you to pass away this tedious time better than if 1 were with you. I beseech God to bless them and you and make me once able to enjoy you without this curse of absentinjr myself from you, yet, if necessary, will not give way to it. I must have patience, and hope that God gives it me here as a punishment for my former sins, which have been so great, that if I might live still blest with your company, I should fear that the pains in the world to come would be jusdy laid upon me having felt none in this. My dearest love, farewell, and believe that whilst I breathe I will ever be, " Your true loving husband, *' Enovmton Portku. " Send me some cuffs. '' Newmarket, /kis 20th of Janua}^it\ 1625. '' Commend my service to your bedfellow." ' " To my dear imfe Olive Porter, these ^ " Mv ONLY DEAR LovE, — Having written a former letter by Mr. Saunderson, this gendeman would needs have another, and by cause you may see my judgment I can temper my cjuarrel so that nothing he brings shall savour of distaste. 1 know you will approve of me for it, and give me more thanks for my understanding than for my letter. I have been very ill with an ague, which if it continue * Dom. S. P., vol. clxxxii. No. i^,. ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 81 I shall come home (cum whome) and trouble you with my company, therefore I hope you will pray for my health. My dearest Olive, when I fail or slacken my love to you, may I want all that's good, and nothing but misfortune fall upon me ; I know you may sometimes be ill and unfit to write to me, but I presume your affection would be always putting me in mind of you and it, and if I love myself, the chiefest cause is for being " Your husband, " Endymion Porter. '' Newmarket, this i^th of Januarie, 1625.' In March, 1625, Charles succeeded to his father's throne, and in May, the long uncertainties con- cerning the King's marriage came to an end, and in Howell's words, there arrived ''a most noble, new Queen of England, who, in true beauty, is beyond the long-wooed Infanta, for she is of a fading flaxen hair, big-lipped and somewhat heavy-eyed, but this daughter of F' ranee is of a more lovely and lasting complexion of a dark brown. She hath eyes that sparkle like stars, and as for her physiognomy she may be said to be a marvel of perfection." PLndymion was one of the gallant train who accompanied Charles to meet Henrietta Maria at Dover, where the poor girl could hardly get through her little formal address for tears and was consoled as tenderly as the chivalrous King could do it. On Barham Downs, '*a goodly train of choice ladies" received the royal bride, '* drawn up in two rows," but Howell thought the country ladies far overshone the courtiers. Doubdess Olive Porter ' Dom. S. F., vol. clxxxii. 51. 82 ENDYMION PORTER would have willingly been one among these fair courtiers, and to see no more of the gay reception than her husband's account of it did not quite content her, and she let him know it. She was probably at this time at Woodhall. She had been at Aston in the spring when her little son Villiers was baptised,' and there can be litde doubt the baby died soon after, as his name is never men tioned in the letters. Olive was unwell and lonely, and doubtless fretting over the loss of her boy, all of which things may pardy account for her *' swaiJ^<^eri nir letter " of which her husband com- plains. He also was often unwell, overworked, worried, and liable to ague. It was not much wonder that both occasionally lost their tempers ! " Mv DKAR Olive, — I did not think to have received such a swaggering letter from you, but I see you can do anything now, for time hath worn out the kindest part of your love, which I did hope would have lasted longer. I am glad you had not the keeping of mine towards you for so we might have been without by this time, but be it spoken to your comfort or your grief, I will preserve mine whilst I have breath, nor shall age nor time make me forget my Olive. I know my own thoughts best, and I am not ignorant that you are the best of them, and therefore do not tell me that you will not be unworthy, for if you be you will wrong your- self most. *'The Queen is expected this night at Dover, and on Wednesday we shall be at London ; the King will not come to Greenwich at all. 1 pray you ' See Aston Registers, April 28, 1625. a^^ J %\ I'OKTKk. ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 83 have a care of my children, and suffer not Guittens to come in the house, for he runs into all the ale- houses in town. God bless George and Charles and Dim and you, and so in haste I rest, *' Your loving husband, " Kndvmion Poktkr. " Canterburie, this Sunday. " To my dear Wife, Olive Porter, these.'' ^ *■ 1 " Mv DEAR Olive, — This last night the King and the Queen did lie together here at Canterburie, long may they do so, and have as many children as we are like to have. 1 have sent you two of the King's points, one for yourself and another for a friend, and I have sent you this little ruby ring which I would have you wear for my sake. On Thursday I hope we shall meet at London, and although 1 desire in- finitely to see my children, yet I would not have you let them come to London, you and I will go to them on PViday. God Almighty bless them and you, and fail me when I fail to be " Your true loving husband, " Endvmion Porter. "Canterburie, this Tuesday morning^ - It was at his old home at Aston that Endymion hoped to join his children. That house seems now to have been left to the farmer who occupied the land, for old Edmund Porter had died during Endymion's absence in Spain in 1623, and Angela • Dom. S. P., vol. iii. 56. Endorsed in pencil, ** 12 June, 1625?" 2 Ibid., Charles I., vol. iii. 69. 84 ENDYMION PORTKR seems usually to have made her home with her son in his house in the Strand. But her dau^rhter Mary Canninj^^ still lived not far off, and of the many cousins scattered throu^jh the nei^^rhbourhood, young Fulke Porter and his wife Ellen were setded at Mickleton, close by. The plague was now so violent in London that the King and Queen were forced to make their State entry by water to avoid the dangers of the narrow and crowded streets. It was small wonder that Endymion wished his children to remain in the pure country air under the tender care of their grandmother, whose charming letter gives a pleasant idea of the life among the ''enamelled meads" Herrick sang of. It may be hoped that Olivia soon reccwered her health and spirits in her country home, with the companionship of her husband and children, and of her deliu:htful mother-in-law. " A HOC /a Porter to Endymion. "Mv DEAR SoxN,— You havc now given me all the consolation that this will give you, and at the same time myself, and if you had communicated good news of my daughter-in-law, nothing of what I most desire would have been wanting ; but 1 hope in God that I shall hear of her health, and I beg of you to order your servant to communicate with me relating thereto on the first occasion, for I am well aware you have other things to occupy your attention, and truly I cannot be so happy as these pretty children give me occasion to be, until I hear she is entirely restored to health. " I wish you could see me sitting at the table with ENGLAND AGAIN, AND A NEW REIGN 85 my little chickens, one on either side ; in all my life I have not had such an occupation to my content, to see them in bed at night and get them up in the morning. " The litde one is exactly like what you were when you were of his age, and if it were not tiring you, I would give you such a sermon, but I take up too much time in speaking of them. "You may rest assured that you need not be anxious : this situation is healthy, and no care that can be bestowed upon them is wanting to keep them in health. In reference to what you say regarding their food, you must know that they have here butter and cheese in abundance. They have also very good cows, and before the children came they killed a sheep once a week and sent it to market, for beef they do not kill on account of the heat, and veal and lamb sometinies they buy in the market; other times they kill when the cows breed. It would be well to do all that I have talked over with her ; but I can assure [you] that she is well pleased that you have again trusted her. '' I will inform you respecting everything, but I must now go and see my little ones to bed. '' The Lord bless you, and allow me to see you as I would wish. '' Your mother, "Angela Porter." ' « Fontblanque, " Lords Strangford," p. 48. CHAPTER V THE DUKE OF l^UCKINCillAM AND IIIS FAMILY ENDYMION and Olivia were not the only married pair who had their little sciuabbles. The course of the Kino's married life did not at tu'st run smooth, and the differences between him and his bride were so serious as to draw threats of armed interference from her brother the French king. Henrietta Maria had been promised the free exercise of the rites of her Church, and was deeply hurt by the difficulties that were put in the way of the due performance of the Catholic services. It was also natural that she should be jealous of the overwhelming- influence of Buckincrham, who was determined that the young Queen should be a mere cypher in her husband's court. She was surrounded from the day of her landing by the ladies of Ikickingham's family, and it is litde wonder if she grew occasionally tired ot their company, for she was in truth hardh more than a child, and a very self-willed and foolish child to boot. In the end of 1625, when the King was hunting in the New Forest, the Queen visited Titchfield, as the truest of Buckinc^ham's elder sister. Lady Denbigh. She, like most of the Villiers lamily, THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND FAMILY 87 was a lady of decided character, and was a somewhat militant dau- return, but otherwise I will endure it no longer, but speedily remedy my own torment by coming to you. I have sent this messenger of purpose to see you, and that I may by him truly know how you are, for nothing else would satisfy me ; send him back so soon as you can for till I see him arain I shall not rest well. I thank you for the band you sent me, but it had no cuffs which I also want, therefore I must intreat you to supply all this by bearer. And assure your- self that my affection is such to you that nothing in this world is like it, for every man else loves by chance and I only have reason for it, and I presume you will never give an occasion of the contrary to " Your true lovino" husband, ** Endvmiox Porter. ''Newmarkett, //lis 26//1 of Fch7'uarit\ 1627 {0,S.) " Kiss all my little boys for me and ask Mun half a dozen to send me as a tc^ken. '' I bade you not write, yet you did it, and I know it hurts you, therefore I will not thank you for it. ''To my dear U^ife, Olive Portci\ theses ^ '' Mun," young Edmund Porter, was evidently a very devoted uncle to the three little boys and loath ' Dom. S. P., vol. xciv. 53. <^% THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND FAMILY. 93 to spare any of his "litde partridges'" kisses, even to their father. He seems to have been an established inmate of the Porter household in London, for it will be remembered there are several mentions of him in the letters from Madrid. He appears, however, to have been put to some business in London, and was receiving a regular salary. But in the year 1628 he died, aged only twenty-five, and no further record of him exists but the following curt business letter : — '' Worthy Sir, — I have received your letters concerning your brother's things which are all safe in my custody and ready to be delivered when you shall please to send for them, and for the time when he entered into wages his warrant will specify, which is in his trunk. He deceased the 30th of December which I know no other but that his pay runneth on till that time, and for any wages that he hath received in the mean time I know of none nor no debts that he oweth, and so for present resting " Your obediently to be commanded, " Nathaniel Gooolad. *' London, //lis 21 si ofjanuarie, 1627 (0.5.)" ^ The family in the Strand, however, continued to increase. Mountjoy Porter was christened at St. Martin's-ln-the-Fields on the 3rd of February, 1627 ; and Philip Porter in 1628. Mountjoy only survived for two years, but Philip lived to grow up and become one of the reckless cavaliers of Restoration days. ' Dom. S. P., vol. xci. 28. 94 ENDYMION PORTER Ot" the anxieties of public life at this time, the luckless expedition of Buckingham to Rhe, and the levy of tonnage and poundage, Endymion, who in one letter avows himself to be " no politician," says nothing ; but no man could keep himself entirely out of public life, however little interest he took in politics, and Porter's share in all Spanish negotia- tions kept him before the public mind as one of the faction of the feared and detested Uuke of Bucking- ham. In 1626, Bristol, who had been recalled from Spain and ordered into retirement, craved justice aeainst Buckin^rham to whom his disgrace was due. Charles, alarmed for the safety of his favourite, ordered the Attorney-general to draw up a counter accusation against Bristol. The Lords commanded that the charo-es ai>ainst Bristol and Buckingham should proceed simultaneously, in order that it should be finally decided whether Bristol had made too many concessions during the Spanish negotia- tions, and whether he had tried to convert the Prince to Romanism, and whether everything that had gone wrong during that foolish expedition was due to Bristol or to Buckingham. Bristol was sent to the Tower, but he soon showed Buckingham that he was by no means inclined to be made a scape- goat. He demanded an examination before the Privy Council, and there he questioned Porter so closely about the Royal letters which he had carried and the messages which had been entrusted to him, that both the favourite and his master saw that it would be advisable to hush up the whole business as quickly as might be. Neither side was ready to carry matters to extremity, and the project of im- peaching Buckingham was dropped ; but Bristol's .) I THE DUKE OE BUCKINGHAM AND EAMILY 95 enmity to the favourite had made him acceptable in the eyes of the popular party, and King Charles's third parliament insisted on his being restored to his place in the House of Lords. All this time the King had continued his futile endeavours to regain the Palatinate for his sister, and had only succeecied in plunging lingland into a war with both Prance and Spain. But in this eventful summer of 1628, Buckingham set his wandering affections on a Spanish alliance. When Spanish letters were to be written or Si)anish messages carried Porter was usually con- nected in some way with the business, and it was therefore natural that when the Duke decided to patch up a peace with Spain, the first step should be to dispatch Porter to pave the way with Olivares. But the real object of this journey was not explained to the English public ; they were merely informed that Porter was going to Italy to buy pictures. Salvetti, who represented the Tuscan Court in England, mentioned this report in his dispatches, but added that he thought the journey was of a mysterious character. Salvetti considered that the general disposition in Flngland at this time was to make peace with Spain, and that all that was needed was a mediator between the countries. On the 12th of July he reported, " Mr. Porter is gone to Genoa, where he will embark for Spain to treat with Olivares. Porter will be accompanied by an Irish Dominican friar who lately came from Spain with a statement of the inclination of Count Olivares to make peace. Probably Porter will send the friar before him into Spain, to prepare the way, while he himself will 96 ENDYMION PORTER visit the Italian Courts." ' The news-letters oot hold of the name of the Irish friar and were more convinced than ever that Porter and Buckingham had been in league with the Jesuits to sell England to the Pope. Endymion's departure was delayed a litde, and he seems to have been in England at the christening of his son Philip, on July the 15th, for Salvetti writes again on the 25th of July, '' Mr. Endymion Porter will go next week to Flanders on his way to Italy, and was to accompany the Ambassador of Savoy as far as Brussels." We hear soon after that Porter was at Brussels, that he had an interview with the Archduchess Isabella, the Spanish Regent, and that she sent her Secretary to act as his escort through France. Still mysterious, Porter disguised himself, and shaved off his beard so as not to be known, showing thereby how much the fashions had changed since the days when he accompanied the Prince and Buckingham to Madrid and they bought beards for a disguise. But although he reached Spain in safety Spanish neo"otiations were never rapid, and Buckingham did not wait for Porter to send him news of a Spanish alliance before prosecuting the war with F^rance. The failure of his attempt to aid the Hu<^'*uenots of Rochelle the previous year still stung his pride, and he was resolved to wipe out that disgrace by taking command of the magnificent Heet now equipped to relieve that important city. He went down to embark at Portsmouth accom- panied by a brilliant escort of friends. Olivia Porter wrote her godspeed to the great Uuke as follows : — '■ Salvetti, Hist. MSS. Com., xi. Kept., Mr. Skrinc's MSS. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND FAMILY 97 '* M\ Lord, — When vour Grace is at leasure, if you take it (s/c) is that I have remembered my dutie and respects unto you, it will satisfie mee for you shall not neede to trouble vourselfe anie further nor to lose soe much tyme as to reade my letter, my name will suffice. And your noble imagination give you to understand, that the rest can bee nothing but prayers, and good wishes for your happiness and safe returne, a sacrifice of a i>Tatefull hart w^hich I? owes your goodness all that I and mine have and shall be daylie offered by " You - - ser - - '' Olivk P(jkti:r." ' But the good wishes of Pjuckin^ham's friend ^ were a poor guard against the hatred of the nation. He was warned again and aoain of the danger of assassination, but he proudly replied, "We have no Roman spirits now." He did not dream that a new spirit was awaking in F.ngland, and that he should be the first of the King's friends to fall before it. He was assassinated in his inn at Portsmouth on the 23rd of August, and with his death, a chapter of English history closed. Bv few could the Duke of Buckincrham have been mourned more sincerely than by Porter, for to him Endymion owed all ; his position, his wealth, and his wife. - Warm personal affection combined with his gratitude to make the name of Buckinirham sacred to him to the day of his death. Only a part of the letter in which he pours out his sorrow to Olivia has been preserved, but even in his las ' Dom. S. P., vol. cxi. 57 (Conway Papers). 8 98 EXDYMION PORTER will the name of Buckinn^ham is mentioned with oratitude. -Now, my dear Soul I could wish myself wings to tly unto thee, for this day I set forwards towards the seaside, to seek a ship to carry me for England, and if I find one ready, I shall quickly be there, but if in the port I go to there be none, then you must not expect me so soon and therefore if this letter come to you before you see me, be not affrighted with anything, for by the grace of God I shall come safe to you. You cannot believe what a comfort your letter was to me, for till I saw it 1 have suffered the ill news of the miserable loss of my Lord Duke, which no man can suffer so much as 1, and my very soul hath been sensible of it. Good sweet Olive, make much of yourself that by seeing of you 1 may receive a remedy for the hurt that grief hath caused in me. "With a thousand kisses, I rest "Your true friend and loving husband, " EnDVMION roRTER. '* Madrid, the \st of Deccmbei^ 1628."^ Among the many memorials of the death of the Duke one of the best known is Gervase Warmestry's poem, " England's Wound and its Cure," which he dedicated to Endymion Porter. » Fontblanque, "Lords Strangford," p. 51. CHAPTER VI DU'UJMACV THE return of Porter from Madrid was anxiously looked for by all parties in P^ng- land. Some thoui^ht we were bound in honour to support the revolted Huguenots in Prance, and that a Spanish alliance would give us valuable assistance in the P^rench war. Others, more clear- sighted, saw that the war in PVance was not really one of religion, and that to ally ourselves with the country of the Inquisiti(jn under colour of supporting the PVench Protestants was a manifest absurdity. Yet peace with any European nation was better than haphazard war with all, so Porter's arrival was looked for and talked of, and expected, but in vain. The weeks i^rew into months, and still no tidini^s came of the signing of a treaty with Spain on the return of the envoy. At last when winter had set in came news that Porter was indeed in P^ngland, but only as a shipwrecked waif on the Dorset shore. The Spanish ship in which he sailed had run aoTound at Burton on the Dorset coast, and had gone to pieces.' The crew and passengers reached shore in safety, but the Brutonians, as one of Porter's friends called the men of Burton, stripped ' '* Court and 'limes of Charles I.," vol. ii. p. 4. lOO ENDYMION PORTER the shipwrecked travellers of all their valuables, and even of their clothes, and so left them naked for many hours before they would afford them any harbour or courtesy, although Porter cried ance as well as with Spain. ■ Sainsbury, " Rubens I'apcrs," p. 146. • I04 ENDYMION PORTER DIPLOMACY 105 Now thiit the favourite 110 longer stood between Henrietta Maria and her husband, she had no further complaints to send to the French Court, and as the l^rench KiniL^ had no desire to destroy his Huo-uenot subjects unless they forced him to it by rebellion, the two causes of differences between France and PLngland had ceased to exist. A treaty was sio-ned at Susa, and there seemed now to be no reason why Fno;land should not be the one quiet and prosperous country of Europe. The sorrows of the FLlector Frederick ended in 1632, and many men said it was really of a broken heart that he died. His brother claimed the recrency of the electorate as guardian of the young Charles Louis, but no country seemed inclined to take up arms in his behalf, or to try to expel Maximilian of Bavaria, on wh(Mii the electorate had been conferred. Charles, however, lost no opportunity of remind- ing every one that he would be obliged if they would champion the cause of his nephew, and English foreign policy grew to mean nothing but a series of idle and futile negotiations on behalf of the young Elector. In 1634 excellent reasons were discovered for sending a mission to Brussels. The Spanish troops had united with the Imperial army in inflicting a crushing defeat on the Swedes at Nordlingen, and the victorious Spaniards, under the Cardinal Infante, had just arrived in the Netherlands. Porter had known the brilliant young general twelve years before in Madrid as a handsome dark-eyed boy, more popular among the Spaniards than the fair Flemish-looking king. What could be 'S more obvious than to dispatch Porter from F2ngland to coneratulate the Cardinal Infante on his successes. Incidentally he might also try to obtain some redress for Spanish robberies on Flnglish trading vessels, for Charles was beginning to look with much jealousy on any infringment of the PLnglish lordship of the Narrow Seas, and he was not to fail to put in a word on behalf of the Elector whenever there was an opening. Porter was accompanied by his two sons, and travelled in some state with a train of twenty gendemen and a large retinue of servants. He was received with warm hospitality by Gerbier, who was now English Resident at Brussels. Reports vary as to Gerbier's success in that position. He was a poor man with a large family of handsome and expensive children, and his enemies said he had not been able to resist the bribes offered by the ministers of the Regent Isabella, and had betrayed PLnglish secrets to them. He certainly did not find his position at Brussels a bed of roses, and the visit of the Porter family seems to have made him quite h(jmesick for England. The following year he wrote an elaborately jocose letter to Porter lamenting his life in so miserable a place and saying if only he could return : "How would the mother sheep and all the litde lambs skip and kiss the happy tlnglish ground ! " ' One suspects this patriotic letter was a hint that Porter might use his interest with the Kino- to cret the Gerbier family a comfortable post in Eni^^land. But it was not only Gerbier who was delighted ' " Lords Strangford," p. 64. io6 ENDYMION PORTER DIPLOMACY 107 to welcome Porter to Brussels in 1634; the re- ception afforded him at the Court was also exceed- ingly gracious, and the Count de Noyelles was sent to' convey him to the palace in one of the royal coaches. But this compliment and a parting present of '' a brush sett with diamonds and a diamond ring to each of his sons," proved to be all the satisfliction the English p:nvoy got at Brussels. His first reports, however, had been very hopeful. He wrote to Windebank :— '' May it i-lkask your Honour,— The last week I gave you an account of what had passed till then ; since which time I have had another audience with this Prince, wherein I represented unto him the complaints of our merchants for the laying of new impositions upon our cloths and other commodities here contrary to the articles of peace : and also of the excesses and robberies committed by those of Dunkirk upon our merchants in general and in particular upon the fishing busses, for all of which I hoped his Highness would give order to see his ministers here, that full satisfaction and remedy might be had, and to that purpose (with Mr. Jerbier's advice) I drew a remonstrance, and it is referred to the President of the Council of those countries, who seems to be a wise and an honest man ; and gives me hopes that all shall be done as is desired, which is the only cause of my stay now. I write your Honour no news, for the Resident will do it better than I can : he useth me so extream kindly as I must intreat your Honour to thank him for it, and when it lies in my power to rec^uite it, I will not forget the obligation 1 have to serve him. r ■J Your Honour may be confident of my love and respects to you, and whensoever you shall be pleased to command me, I will not fail to make my actions run equal to my words, as one that desires to be esteemed ''Your Honour's true friend and humble servant, '' Endymion Porter. " Brussels, 5 December. 1634." ^ This mission had naturally been watched with some anxiety by the PLnglish adherents of the young Elector. But they were too wise to hope for much advantage to be reai)ed from an empty exchange of compliments with the Spanish General, the brother- in-law of the Austrian whose troops were carrying havoc over the fair fields of the Palatinate. For her own part, the high-spirited and ardent Elizabeth hoped rather that some lucky chance might disturb the formal courtesies of this reception at Brussels. A trifiing misunderstanding might lead to a quarrel and then open war and honest blows should arbitrate the Elector's cause, instead of the feeble requests and idle compliments of hollow diplomacy. Elizabeth's faithful friend. Sir Thomas Rowe, sharply on the look-out for signs of discord, sent Strafford a very different report of Porter's recep- tion to the one which Porter himself had written to individuals. Sir Thomas says — " Mr. Porter sent to congratulate the Cardinal Infante has received no great satisfaction, for the Prince never moved his hat or foot. What dis- » " Lords Strangford," p. 60. io8 ExNDYMION PORTER pleased him we may not guess, and his friends excuse him that it is the way of Spain, and he never unveiled to any but the Queen Mother of France, since he came here." ^ Spanish etiquette was still what it had been when the handsome young Elarl of Carlisle was presented to the Infanta during Prince Charles's visit to Madrid, and the Princess did not even deign to look at him, but sat enthroned like a waxen Madonna.- Spain was still more Oriental than P>uropean. Sir Thomas goes on : " This is at best a proud defence, but we think there is more in it, for he offered to write back, but not giving upon his letters the due title of Majesty to our King, Porter refused to bring it ; upon this it was formalised, and a week was spent, but in conclusion, persisting in the diffi- culty, Porter has returned without any answer. Some say his Majesty subscribing ' a mon tres chere cousin,' and not 'altesse,' from thence grew the exception, but it is not the style of kings to inferiors, but that of Majesty is due from all inferiors to them." Garrard, writing to Strafford, adds the information that Mr. Secretary Coke drew the letter in French and gave the Cardinal the style of " Vous," which the Spaniard abhors as a kind of thou-ing one, whereas he expected " Altesse Royale," or at least *' Altesse." It is a pity that Mr. Secretary Coke did not consult Porter about Spanish etiquette, but that ereat man was somewhat jealous of outsiders ' Rowe to Wentworth, Dom. S. P., Jan. 1635, N.S. ^ See aiitt', p. 64. DIPLOMACY r 109 intrudine on his business, and, as it was, he complained not long after to the King of Flndymion s interference, so he had to be left to mismanage correspondence in his own way. Coke's royal master also continued to mismanage his diplomatic affairs after his own fashion, and filled English statesmen with dismay, and foreign Powers with impatient contempt. The war that F:iizabeth desired was not declared, but Charles continued to negotiate, and more than once was on the verge of giving material aid to the Pllector. The disastrous P^uropean conflict still raged, but the stru<^>-gle was not now between Protestant and Catholic, Gustavus Adolphus and the Emperor, but between France and Spain, and Charles offered his alliance indifferently to whichever country would help his nephew, though it was obvious that Spain would never have the will, and Strafford^ doubted if France would ever have the power to place Charles Louis on his father's seat. One of the most miserably mean of the King's manceuvres has an almost respectable aspect put on it by the elegance of the letters in which Porter conveys his Majesty's wishes. It was in 1639 that a great Spanish fleet destined to carry on the war against France in the Low Countries was forced by the Dutch under Tromp to take refuge in p:nglish waters. Of course the Spanish ships were, for the time, in safety, and the Spanish and Dutch ambassadors both appealed to the P:nglish King, the Spaniard for the continuance of his protection, the Dutch for permission to attack the enemy in English waters. ' Seeley, " English Foreign Policy," vol. i. p. 395. no ENDYMION PORTER This was a situation after Charles's own heart. He desired the rival ambassadors to state what each of their governments were ready to do for the Prince Palatine, and while weighing their pro- posals he did his best to force both tleets to keep the peace. But the Dutch Admiral, Tromp, had no fancy to remain idle with his prey within reach, and he soon took the matter into his own hands. He attacked the Spaniards, drove twenty of their ships on shore, and so handled the rest of that stately fleet that not eighteen of the whole reached Dunkirk. Penning- ton, the English Admiral, protected the ships that had gone ashore in Kent, and the King had already ordered the Lord Warden of the Cinque l\)rts to provide hospitality for any Spaniards who might take refuge on English soil, as long as they could pay for it. But he considered, if the Spaniards were to be sunk, they ought to oblige him by being- wrecked in deep water, so as not to ruin his harbour, "but," Porter comments sadly in his letter to Secretary Windebank, "the Spaniard regards nothinir but his own accommodation. »» *' To Windebank. " 1639. '' May it please your Honour, — Last night, at nine of the clock, I received your Honour's letter, with one enclosed from Don Alonzo de Cardenas, and I acquainted his Majesty with the contents of it, and he commanded me to let your Honour know that he would have you make answer to the Resident (if he require it) that the King hath shewed his care of the Spanish fleet, and that if the wind sit DIPLOMACY III where it doth, it will be impossible for his ships to come to protect them against the Hollander, but his ALijesty will do the best he can. Howsoever he would have the Spaniards prepare themselves for the worst, for they cannot imagine but that he will be pressed to limit a time for their abode in his port, and, in the mean time, he shall keep them from hostility if it be possible ; and his Majesty hath (dven the best order he can to that purpose ; and your Honour can inform them how great a prejudice it would be to the King if they should fight in the harbour, for if any ships should miscarry aiid be sunk there it would be the ruin of the best harbour in the kingdom ; but it seems the Spaniard regards nothing but his own accommodation, nor will thev look about them, until the King assign them a day to set sail, the which will be required from him ; and when they are out of the port, they must trust to their own force, for his Majesty will protect them no further. As for their making any proposition, I think they are such dull, stupefied souls that they think of nothing, and when 1 acquainted his Majesty with their negligence in that particular, he told me that the Resident was a silly, ignorant old fellow. I would I could serve your Honour in anything : I have so many reasons to do it, as I should be accounted by all the world an ungrateful man, if I were not inviolably " Your honour's most devoted '* Endymion Porter. ''Windsor, this gth of October, 1639." ^ I " Lords Strangford," pp. 67, 68, 69. 112 EXDYMION PORTER " To IViudcbank, May it plkask volk Honour, — His Majesty hcivin<>' taken into his irracious consideration what may happen, if the Flollanders should, in a hostile manner, fall upon the Spaniards in the Downs, and by any such act drive them to run on shore for safeguard of their lives, and thereby those that scape may be much necessitated, both for victual and lodging, and the King's subjects damnified by the unruly carriage of soldiers in want : his Majesty (out of his pious care to prevent disorder on all sides) hath commanded me to let your Honour know that it is his royal pleasure you signify unto the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and to the Deputy Lieutenants of Kent that they (in such case of necessity) see provision be made for the billeting of strangers in such places, as for their moneys they may have all necessaries of meat, drink, and lodging, that thereby the world may see his Majesty's christianlike intentions to the subjects of his friends and allies. These are his Majesty's commands : and when I can make your honour any return for the favours I daily receive from you in any particular, I will freely let you see that I have hearty desires to be accounted " Your honour's most faithful humble servant, *' Endvmion Portkk. ^ ''Windsor, this \oth of Ocfohcr, 1639."^ Porter's next letter on the subject of the Spanish fleet, is to ask the PLnglish Admiral's help for a Spanish officer. ^ *' Lords Strangford," p. 69. DIPLOMACY 113 " Noble Sir, — I am so confident of your love to me, as I proclaim to all the world the many obligations you are always ready to lay upon me, and having occasion at this time to make use of your favour, I could not desire you to shew it to one I honour and respect more than this gallant gentleman Senor don Simon de Mascarenas, one whose birth and quality claim from all the world kindness ; he is Coronell of a regiment of foot which was passing into Flanders in English ships, but by misfortune the Hollanders lighted of the great part of them, but those few that remain he is to embark in the Downs. Let me conjure you by all our friendship to assist him in what you may, and to advise him the best way and the securest for his own person and his men ; and not doubting of your love and care in this, I commit you to God,' and rest "Your true friend and humble servant, '* Endvmion Porter. " London, the lofk of July, 1639. ''This noble gentleman tells me that one Captain Fletcher had in his keeping the chains and jewels which did belong to the Sargeant- Major and other Captains. I beseech you let him be arrested, for it is a dishonour to our nation that he should go away and cozen (cousen) poor strangers of their goods; he is now in the Downs, and I hope you will not let him go without restoring what he most unjusdy detains." ' A month later Porter wrote again 2 to Pennington with many compliments and apologies, to beer him ' I)om. S. P., vol. ccccxxvi. 10. ^ Ibid., vol. ccccxxix. 20. 114 ENDYMION PORTER DIPLOMACY 115 to convey another Spanish gentleman to Dunkirk in some merchant ship. Aorain in October he writes : — '' You see how the Spaniards beHeve that I have power with you, for though this bearer, the Veedor, have my lord Admiral's warrant for a convoy, yet he thinks himself not safe without my recommending him to your care ; and believe me, sir, he is a very honest gentleman, and I hope for my sake you will use him with that love you have ever shewed to my friends, and let me assure you that I shall make you hearty returns whensoever you shall find an employ- ment for ''Your most obliged humble servant, ''Enuvmion Porter. ''Whitehall, this 30/// of October, 1639." ' Porter had soon an opportunity of showing his gratitude to Pennington, as the Admiral was mv prisoned to mark the King's anger at his failure to protect the Spanish Heet ! - We know litde more of Porter's missions to foreign Powers. The bare fact is recorded that he was once sent to Brussels with the eccentric genius Sir Kenelm Digby, but no letters mention the object of the visit or describe its incidents. It is also believed that later on, during the Civil War, Porter was more than once sent to the Continent to sell or pawn royal jewels and plate. He was the most likely person to be dispatched on such errands, but there is no documentary evidence ' Dom. S. P., vol. ccccxxxi. 73. 2 Dyer, " Modern Europe," vol. ii. p. 607. \ I I t of them to be found, and possibly the rumour may have arisen from the sale of royal jewels by the Duke of Buckingham during the early days when Porter was in his service. Porter certainlv was in Paris during" the course of the Civil War, for Lord Digby, writing to Henry Jermyn from PVance, mentions that he had sent his letters to PLnoiand bv the hand of Porter. It cannot be doubted that Porter was employed in more foreign negotiations than we are ever likely to trace, for as his missions were always confidential and generally secret, some pains were doubtless taken to hide the evidence of such negotiations. A guarded tongue is an important part of a diplomatist's ecjuipment, and if Porter was no politician, he had not a few of the qualities that make a good diplomatist. Unfortunately, the caution and reticence which made him a valuable serv^ant to the Kino- make him also a tantalisincr subject for his biographer, and we can only collect scattered hints of the most interesting part of his varied career. THE PIPING timf:s OF pp:ace 117 \ CHAPTER YII THE rii'ixNc; TiMi:s of peace THE custom of Royal Progresses seems to have o-one out of fashion under Charles, and as time went on Flndymion was evidently able to spend more time at home, and the letters to his wife grew pro- portionately fewer. The blank left in the history by the absence of letters is, however, filled up to a great extent by the bundles of bills and accounts which were confiscated with the rest of the Porter correspondence. From them we learn that Mr. and Mrs. Porter sat in winter by wood fires, and lit their rooms with candles costing five shillings for the dozen pounds. When Mr. Porter was in attendance on the King at Oatlands and tore his scarlet coat it cost him a shilling to have it mended, and once when he was unlucky at the bowling green and had forgotten his purse, he had to borrow five and sixpence from his groom to pay his debts. The groom also sends in his account for shoeing the horses, and a cousin, George Boteler, did some horsedealing for Endymion, but he wrote that horses were hard to come by and he could not get one for less than thirty pounds. The bills which the tailor sent in for Mrs. Porter's dresses enable us to realise how that handsome lady looked in her e\^ery-day life, when she was not sitting in white satin and pearls to be painted by Vandyke. Ladies seem usually to have worn some sort of short jacket with a stomacher or waistcoat which generally matched the skirt of the gown in colour. Mrs. Porter and little Marie, her eldest girl, both had cloth of silver waistcoats, and Mrs. Porter had a '* labby Rose coulered pettycoat and wastcoate " and also ones of black and of "sky colered satin." The petticoats were sometimes trimmed with "gold and silver parchment" — evidently parchment lace — and also with bone lace. A petticoat and stomacher of incarnadine satin were " lased with two broad silver laces about." There were also a petticoat and '' hougerlin " ' of black '* pudesaw," probably paduasoy, and a waistcoat of "aurora colered satin." The bodices seem to have been stiffened in the fashion of Oueen Elizabeth's days, for there is an entry of half-a-crown for fustian "to lay between the stiffening and the outside." Sometimes the bodices seem to have been cut low and laced across the stomacher, and were then called "stays." "A black mooehaire sut" had stays to match ; and a " zebelah coulered satin sut" was made with satin stays. "Zebela colour" is obviously Isabella colour, a shade of tan. A pair of red baise sleeves were covered with sarsenet, and there were an unlimited number of pockets at one and sixpence each. Six holland coats cost a guinea to make, including "fustian and tape to them." Making a dress cost one pound two shillings. Mrs. Porter ' Possibly the "Hungerland bands" mentioned in Massenger's play, "The City Madam." ii(> ii8 ENDYMION PORTER seems to have supplied the dress materials, so only the linino-s, buttons, &c., are charged in the bills. However, a few details on prices may be collected from them. Black satin was fourteen shillino-s a yard, black Taffety sarsenet nine shillings, and black velvet only eight and eightpence. One of these dressmakers' bills amounts to twenty-two pounds twelve and elevenpence, and sad to relate, Mrs. Porter only paid one pound towards it. Her shoes came most appropriately from a maker named Heele and cost three shillings a pair. Her o-oldsmith's bill is marked " reseved in foell." It included gold earrings that cost twelve pounds, two head pieces at seventeen pounds, and a "cullett" for a hatband setting that cost a pound. The high crowns of the hats seen in portraits of James the First seem often to have been surrounded by a hatband of jewels. A diamond hatband was given by King Charles to the painter Rubens, and long- afterwards a diamond hatband was given as a bribe to Lord Howard of Escrick. One of the beautiful satin " suts " and " hattband setting " mentioned in the bills was probably worn by Mrs. Porter at a gay meeting at Hatfield, described by a correspondent of Lord Conway's in 1636.^ He tells how Lord Salisbury's guests all rode out on horseback to meet Mrs. Porter, who was expected to dinner at Lord Hoteler's house, Hatfield Woodhall. The Countess of Arundel was there, the wife of that stately nobleman who was said to go to Court because there only was a greater man than himself, and who went thither the seldomer because there was a i^reater man than himself. • (i. (larrard to Conway, Dom. S. 1\, 1(^)36. THE PIPING TIMES OE PEACE 119 Among the party, too, was Sir J. North, as well as the famous Sir Toby Matthews, who was so mixed up in all the Roman Catholic matters, and had that morning arrived from Wrest. Lord Salisbury killed a deer in the woods, which was presented to Lord Cottington, who was "bravely horsed and wearing a white beaver hat with studded hatband, his coach attending- him." Then thev went to see the deer called, and a bow was put into Lord Cottington's hands, but he bungled and shot thrice before he killed, all the ladies standing by to see his failures. If he was a bad shot, he was a successful gardener, for the next morning he sent a present of nine melons, and six more in the evening, of brave kinds, some white as winter melons. The mention of melons reminds us of the great advances that were made at that time in rardening under Tradiscant and Parkinson. At another date is an entry in the Porter accounts of ten shillings given "to one that brought a present of Spanish melons." Country gentlemen were proud to send the produce of their gardens and farmyards up to their less fortunate friends in London, and substantial presents seem to have been all the fashion. Lady Crane sent up poultry to Mr. Porter, and a buck from the park at Grafton. Probably this Marie Crane was some connection of Endymion's youngest sister, Mrs. Elinor Crane. From Burdrop Park, on the Wiltshire Downs, comes a letter from Sir William Calley telling how he had met Endymion's brother-in-law. Canning, at Stow Fair, on May-day, 1628, and rode with him to his house at F^oxcote. He says he does not mean to come to London this term, by reason of the 120 ENDYMION PORTER THE PIPING TIMES OF PEACE 121 foggy air, but hopes to see Endymion and his wife in the Long Vacation. Sir Wilh'ani was always sending up country dainties to his friends in London. By Richard Harvey, I^ndymion's trusted servant, came one time "four collars of brawn, two dozen hogs pudding, half white and half black, and a fat young swan. And love and service to good old Mrs. Porter." P^or Christmastide, in 1639, came another two dozen of hogs puddings and six collars of brawn ; evidently there had been a great pig- killing at Burdrop in preparation for Christmas. These good things were sent up to London by the waggoner, and a week later arrived Lady Galley's present, a " small rundlet of Metheglin." The good old knight did not live to see his fair country overrun by hostile armies: he died in 1641, taken away while yet peace reigned over his gardens and farmyards. But the Porter correspondence ranges over a fine variety of subjects. Young men starting on their travels, duchesses and farm stewards, needy poets and wealthy merchants, all had compliments to pay and favours to ask. The widowed Uuchess of Buckingham writes to "her wod cousin" about a steward whom "her dear lord had a special care of." Sir Henry Martin, a man of very different politics, nevertheless acknowledges Porter's good offices with the King, and even in the troubled days of 1640, when the storm of civil war was about to burst, Porter found time to make jokes in his letter to the Farmers of the Customs. He writes : — " Endymion Porter, F2sqr., desires a Bill of Stores for four hogsheads of Graves white wine and half a ^ hogshead of Rhenish wine, packed up in the dry cask which came from Amsterdam in the Elizabeth, the Master's name being Michael Jockley, M.^. with the mark in the margin, it being for the expense of his own table. The ship lieth at Somers Quay. If you will not allow me a Bill of Store for my wine I will bring my friends to your houses, and all those that come home to mine shall drink water, for I live by your favours, and am " Your humble servant, *' Endvmion Porter. ''July 9, 1640." Stay-at-home parents looked with wonder and respect on the experienced man who was familiar with the strange ways of foreign countries ; Mr. W'armestry, a Worcestershire friend, writes con- sulting Porter on the advisability of letting his sons go to Paris with Lord Danby ; and Lord Dorchester referred to him for advice when Lennox was going abroad. Mr. Warmestry's letter is not confined to tourist business ; he makes suggestions for a smart petticoat for Mrs. Porter, and winds up with a request that FLndymion will give him due notice if he and Lord Newport come " through Worcester this summer, as otherwise" they "may chance to fast!" The following very quaint letter is really worth preserving in full : — '* Sir, — Upon my speedy haste out of Worwick- shire, I committed a Jewel (juall) of my wife's her little Dog to the charge of one of my Footmen to bring after me, who (by reason of the Dogs finding of a Hare) lost him upon the way. He not daring h 122 ENDYMION PORTER THE riPIXG TIMES OF PEACE 123 to acquaint me with it, upon inquiry understandin^i^ he was taken up by you. came as it appears unknown to me to demand him in my name ; but you denying- the deHvery he was forced to reveal the truth, and require my letter ; and I must confess, had I sent the Boy, I should have writt howsoever. But thus much I must ingeniously tell you, I esteenVd it over great a curiosity in you to detain the Dog upon those nice terms when the confirmation of so many of my friends and my Hon. Lord that answer'd the truth might sufficiendy have satisfied any man ; but since lines (lins) are of greater efficacy with you than your respect to a friend, let these that plead in my wife's behalf, require a restitution of her Dog back, which she highly values. Thereby you may much indear him that bears you true affection and swear to be ''Your perpetual friend and servant, ''Charles Smithk. ** AsHBV, this Saturday. " To his noble and worthily respected friend, Mr. P^ndimion Porter, at Beauvor present." ^ The registers of the parish of St. Martin's supply some of the blanks left by the lack of letters, and from them we learn that on July 20, 1632, William Porter was baptised and buried the same day, and in 1634 another little Endymion was baptised, but did not live a year. London was not favourable to child life in those days. The gardens of the Strand stretched down to the Thames, and green lanes surrounded St. Martin's Church, but the plague claimed its victims yearly, and the closely fastened ' l)om. S. P., vol. cccclxxv. 88. * windows and crowded houses prevented any real improvement in public health for many a year to come. The followinir letter tells of the most serious quarrel that we know of between Endymion and Olivia. Probably Olivia was unwell and in bad spirits, just as when she wrote the ''swaggering" letter soon after little Villiers' death. ''August I, 1634. " Olivk, — I writt unto you a letter by this gentle- man which it seems you take unkindly. As I hope for salvation I know no cause for it, but sure you arc apt to mistake me, and are fearful that I should oblige you overmuch to esteem me ; wherein, though you show but little love, yet 'tis a sign of a good conscience. God continue it in you, and send me grace to mend my life as I will my manners, for I will trouble you with no more of my letters, nor with any design of mine, yet I will not despair of you as )X)u do of me, for I hope that age and good considerations will make you know I am " Your best friend, *' Endymion Porter. "Commend me to the children, and send this enclosed to D'Avenant with all speed."' '"Olive Porter to Endymion. " SwKKTHKART, — My brofher tells me you are very angry with me still. 1 did not think you could have been so cruel to me to have stayed so long away, and not to forgive that which you know was spoke in passion. 1 know not how to beg your pardon, because I have broken my word with you ' Dom. S. P., vol. cclxxviii. 3. 124 ENDYMION PORTER before ; but it your orood nature will forgive me, come home to her that will ever be *' Your loving and obedient wife, "Olivk I^ortkk. " AugiisL 1634." ' Was the brother who acted as peacemaker Captain Tom Porter? Olive had no brother of her own living but poor weak-witted Lord Boteler, so she must allude to one of her brothers-in-law ; and who so likely as the good-natured sailor, Endy- mion's favourite brother, to say a word in season ? Captain Tom probably made his home with Endy- mion when he was on shore, for he never married, and Endymion seems to have managed his business for him, even to buying him a feather bed and other beddine. These must have been of uncommonly good quality, as they cost ;f 16, while the usual price of a feather bed and bolster was only ;^4 I OS. Captain Tom, wo doubt, stood god- father to Endymi(jn's litde son Thomas in 1636. He shared to some extent in Endymion's good fortunes; in 1630 he was granted lastage and ballastage to the value of ^50 a year, and the reversion of Alfarthing Manor was also settled on him. In 1632 there was ''much contention between Captain Porter and Captain Plumley, who should be general of four ships royal," and it was popu- larly believed that Porter would get them.^ In March, 1635, Captain Thomas Porter was command- ing the Henrietta Maria, and he had the " carrying ^ Dom. S. P., vol. cclxxiii. 83. 2 "Court and Times of Charles I.," vol. ii. p. 189. ^ a m .t^ ^ i¥ m THE PIPING TIMES OF PEACE 125 X 'A < •J. a: 'X, y. ^* y. of Lord Ashton to Spain." » The following year, August, 1636, he was mentioned by Captain Giles Penn in a letter to Secretary Nicholas about the Sallee Rovers, whose piratical expeditions were a terror to the south-western shores of England and Ireland. Captain Penn asked that Endymion should be consulted about his brother undertaking an expedition against the Corsairs, saying : ** Captain Porter is fittest to be employed on the action, both for language and other respects." - No doubt Tom's knowledge of Spanish would have been useful in the Mediterranean, but the expedition did not sail till 1637, when a civil war had just broken out among the Moors, and they were glad to purchase English neutrality by surrendering no less than two huiidred and seventy-one captives. But the expedi- tion was not commanded by Tom Porter ; he had sailed on his last voyage. In the autumn of 1637 Sir Wm. Galley wrote regretting to hear of the weakness of Captain Porter at a time when Endy- mion also was ill, " labouring under a fever," which prevented his visiting Sir William at Burdrop ; and the next mention we find of Thomas Porter is the bill for his funeral. Endymion heid his brother buried with all due observance; the velvet pall cost £\ and escutcheons were £\ 7s. Herrick, who with D'Avenant acted as a sort of Poet Laureate to Endymion, wrote a poem on Thomas's death, but it has no personal interest. As time goes on the Porter children take their share in the family correspondence, and their bills add to the family expenses. When Gharles Porter » Garrard to Strafford, Oct. 3, 1635. ^ Cal. Doni. S. P., August, 1636. THE IMIMNC; TIMKS OF PKACK 125 / V y i of Lord Ashton lo Spain.' • The followinor year, Au<>ust, 1636, he was mentioned by Captain Giles Penn in a letter to Secretary Nicholas about the Sallee Rovers, whose piratical expeditions were a terror to the south-western shores of Eni^land and Ireland. Captain Penn asked that luulymion should be consulted about his brother undertaking- an expedition aoainst the Corsairs, sayin<; : " Captani Porter is fittest to be employed on the action, both for lanoLiaj^e and other respects." - No dinibt Tom's knowleclj^e of Spanish would have been useful in the Mediterranean, but the expedition did not sail till 1637, when a civil war had just broken out amono- the Moors, and they were olad to purchase Kn-lish neutrality by surrendering- no less than two huirdred and seventy-one captives. But the expedi- tion was not commanded by Tom Porter; he had sailed on his last voyage. In the autumn of 1637 Sir \Vm. Calley wrote reorettino- to hear of the weakness of Captain Pc^rter at a time when l^idy- mion also was ill, ** labourin- under a fever," which prevented his visiting Sir William at Hurdrop ; and the next mention we fmd ^>\ Thomas Porter is the bill for his funeral, l^ndymion had his brother buried with all due observance; the velvet pall cost £\ and escutcheons were £\ 7s. Herrick, who with D'Avenant acted as a sort of Poet Laureate to luidymion, wrote a poem on Thomas's death, but it has no personal interest. As time goes on the Porter children take their share in the family correspondence, and their bills add to the family expenses. When Charles I^orter ' (;arrard to Strafford, Oct. 3, 1635. ' Cal. Dom. S. i\, August, 1O36. 126 FNDYMION PORTER went to Spain in 1637 he wore a pair of black silk garters with roses that cost eighteen shillings, and five shillings was paid for the carriage of one of his letters. Possibly it may be the one that follows : — " Dear Mother, — I have received your letter, in which I understand that my father and arc very angry with me, which hath not troubled mc a little to think that I should deserve any anger at either of your h \forn off] the ways that possibly can be to retain your loves will do my endeavour to amend any fault you accuse me of. Therefore, 1 be- seech you, sweet mother, not to let your anger continue, for it is the only thing I desire to shun in this world. I am extremely glad to hear that my litde brother Tom proveth so fine a child, and that my nurse and you are friends again : I pray you to let it last both with her and me. '' Your dutiful and obedient son, '' Charles Porter. " Madrid, the 16/// of January. 1637, OS, " I pray remember my humble duty and service to my lady Duchess and my Lady of Arundel." * George Porter received a safe conduct in a journey to PVance and Spain in October, 1638. There must have been some hurry in his departure, for Lord Conway writes : " Sir W. Howard is gone into Holland with the Prince Selector, and with him young Mr. Porter, neither of them with any more clothes or shirts but what they had on their backs." - George did not return till the following July, so it is to be hoped that his wardrobe followed him. He ' Dom. S. P., vol. cccxliv. 24. ^ Hist. MSS. Com. xii. THE PIPING TIMES OF PEACE 127 travelled home with his aunt. Lady Newport. A letter announcing his landing at Dover to his mother, says, "His aunt will not suffer him to come without her, who will to-morrow morning be coming toward you." ' It may be gathered from the following French letter from litde Philip Porter (perhaps written as an exercise), that George had been ill while he was abroad.- *' MoN TRES CHER Frere,— Je suis fort joyeux d entendre que vous avez perdu votre fievre. Je seray bien aise de vous voir icy ou a Londres. Ma tante estoit malade hier, mais auiourdhuy elle se porte mieux. Tous se recommendent a vous et le demeure. " Vostre tresayme Frere, '* PiiiLH* Porter. ''17 September, 1638. '* A son tres cher frere Monsr. George Porter." 3 A couple of letters from Woodhall tells of the doings of the younger children while George and Charles were on the Continent. While Endymion acted as guardian to poor William Hoteler, Wood- hall, which was setded on Olivia after her brother s life, seems to have been used as a country house for the family ; it was more conveniendy situated than Aston, and Alfarthing never seems to have been a favourite place of residence. In 1638 the two younger boys were at Woodhall with their sister Marie. "Mr. Thomas" was at this dme aged three, and " Mr. James " was eight months old. • Barter to Mrs. Porter; Cal. Dom. S. P., 1638. 2 See Chapter XI 11. 3 Dom. S. P., vol. cccxcviii. 108. 128 ENDYMION PORTER " Honest Mr. Harvkv, — I am very glad to hear of your good health and of your coming to town, and more will I be when it is my fortune to see you, that I may give you thanks for so maiiy Courtesy and good Counsel as I have Received at your hands. Truly we were here in expectation to see my noble Mr. and Lady some days of this week, but 1 now see our selfs frustrated. The bay Nagg that you writt of shall be taken in, and well kept and breathed against my Mr. is pleased to send for it. John Aldridge the Keeper desireth my Mr. and lady to know that if they will have some does to be kill'd that it must be within this 7 or 8 days at the furthest, because this wet weather will make them fall away. Both Mr. Thos. and Mr. James are in very good health, God be Thanked, and Mrs. Mary continues still in her quartan ague, and is very desirous to go to London if my lady will be pleased. She gives you many Thanks for your Kind Commendations and returns to you her kind love and service, as I do and the rest of our Company, and wishing you all health and happi- ness. Resting for Ever " Your humble servant, " Fran. Dorvan. " Pray do me the favour to present my best service to Mrs. Dorothy. "WooDHALL, October 22, 1638." ^ The other letter from Woodhall tells of the early promise of Philip Porter. The tutor, James Gibbs, who writes, was probably a cousin, for letters are extant from Ralph Gibbs to his uncle, Nicholas ' Dom. S. P., M., vol. cccc. 77. THE PIPLNG TLMES OF PEACE 129 Porter of Aston, and from Gertrude Gibbs to her uncle Edmund of Mickleton.^ A litde later James writes to Harvey that he wants his money matters settled that he may go abroad to Padua or Bologna to complete his medical studies. He says his only reason for remaining in England had been ''Signior Endymion." It is probable that when he went abroad he took Mr. Philip, Jiis " maister piece," with him, for less than a month after the following- letter was written a license was issued to permit Philip Porter to travel abroad with two servants for three years. " Mr. Harvey, — This is to bid you welcome to London again, and to give you notice that I had, and have a great resentment of the misfortune of not seeing you when you called at Woodhall passing by. Here we are all alone, and apply ourselves to our books diligendy, and so much the better, by how much the less distraction we find, and farther we are from London. I hope to make Mr. Philip my ///^/V/^/'piece, according as he pro- ceeds with me, and takes Learning. I have already shewed his father the profit he hath made to his great satisfaction and joy, of one yt [that] could scarce read a word in English when I first under- took him. This I speak without any exaggeration, or desire to arrogate more to myself than many that know it will give me. His Father told us we should shordy be going over Sea, but I fear it will not be before next Spring. I should be very sorry to come to London to teach him in the interim, for the many occasions of divertment that daily present » Cal. Dom. S. P., 1648-9, p. 429. 10 I30 ENDYMION PORTER themselves. So that I mean to write to mi Senor to know his intention shortly, and if we go not away this winter, that he would please to let us live in the Country far enough with some friend or other of his. But this with you alone, and under seal. What you please to advise me, I shall be glad to follow. -As for Mr. Charles, no great matter could be worked with him ; wherefc^re I should urge (?) some setded course should be thought on for him."' The tutor's prophecies were not fulfilled. Charles, with whom he could do nothing, turned out one of the best of the family, while poor Philip, the master- piece, made entire shipwreck of his talents and of his life. » Dom. S. P., vol. cccclviii. 21. CHAPTER VIII POHTS AND PAINTKRS THERE are not many references to be found among Porter's letters to his literary and artistic pursuits, so it is only from other con- temporary records that wc can picture the m- tellectual coterie that he gathered round him in his house in the strain where Herrick could sing " When to thy porch I come and ravished see The state of poets there attending thee, Those bards and I all in a chorus sing ' We are thy prophets, Porter, thou our king.' " One of the pleasantest offices of Porter's historian is to gather the notices of the generous help which he extended to needy men of letters, painters, and musicians. Hardly a poet of the time can be found who had not to thank Porter for encouragement, and generally for substantial support. In the days of his dependence on the Duke of Buckingham, he carried the Duke's gifts to Ben Jonson ; and when he became a rich man, Herrick, D'Avenant, Decker, and May, all had to thank him for assistance. Porter was not a mere parvenu who thought the crifts of the muses could be bought with money ; he ^ 131 132 ENDYMION PORTER wrote verses himself that were no worse than those of many contemporary minor poets, and to his literary friends he could, in Herrick's words, give " Not only subject matter for our wit, But likewise oil of maintenance to it." He wrote an elegy on the death of the poet Donne. Inspiration will not always come to the writer of memorial poetry, and this "sad inscription," as he calls it, does not perhaps rise much higher than the ordinary level of the tombstone class of literature. » But the verses he prefixed to D'Avenant's poem of Madagascar are pleasanter reading than the funereal apostrophe to the Dean of St. Paul's, and indeed are a good deal livelier than the poem they introduce. The poem of Madagascar was addressed to Prince Rupert, at the time when there was a wild project of setting him up as a sort of seventeenth century Rajah Brooke in the Island of Madagascar. On the tide-page of the book are the words, "If these poems live, may their memories by whom they were cherished, PLndymion Porter, H. Jermyn, live with them." Porter's introduction runs thus — *' I am compelled by your commands to write Fth' frontispiece of this, and sure 1 might, With cjuaint conceits, here to the world set forth The merit of the poem and your worth. Had I well fancied reasons to begin, And a choice mould to cast good verses in. But wanting these, what power, alas, have I To write of anything ? Will men rely See Appendix. POETS AND PAINTERS i33 On my opinion ? which in verse or prose Hath just that credit, which we give^ to those That sagely whisper secrets of the Court Having but lees for essence, from report. And that's the knowledge that belongs to me. For by what's said, 1 guess at poetry ! As when I hear them read, ' strong lines ' I cry, ' They're rare,' but cannot tell you rightly why. And now I find this quality was it That made some poet cite me for a wit. Now Ciod forgive him for that huge mistake ! If he did but know with what pains I make A verse ! he'd pity then my wretched case, For at the birth of each, I twist my face As if 1 drew a tooth ; 1 blot and write. And then look pale as some that go to fight. With the whole kennel of the alphabet I hunt sometimes an hour, one rhyme to get. What I approved of once, I straight deny Like an inconstant prince, then give the lie To my own invention, which is so poor As here Fd kiss your hand and say no more. Had I not seen a child with scissors cut A folded paper, into which was put More chance than skill ; yet when you open it. You'd think it had been done by art and wit. So 1 perchance may hit upon some strain Which may in time your good opinion gain. And howsoever, if it be a plot \'ou may be certain that in this you've got A foil to set your jewel off, which comes From Madagascar, scenting of sweet gums Before the which my lay conceits will smell Like an abortive chick, destroy'd in the shell. Vet something I must say, may it prove fit. Fll do the best I can, and this is it. What lofty fancy was't possest your brain, And caused you soar into so high a strain ! Did all the muses join to make this piece l^xcel what we have had from Rome or Greece ! Or did you strive to leave it as a friend To speak your praises when there is an end Of your Mortality ? If you did so. Envy will then scarce find you out a foe. Hut 'let me tell you, Friend, the heightening came From the reflexion of Prince Rupert's name, AVhose glorious genius cast into your soul Divine conceits, such as are fit t'enrole hi 134 ENDYMION PORTER In great Apollo's Court, there to remain For future ages to transcribe again. For such a poem in so sweet a style As yet was never landed on this isle, And could I speak your praises at each pore, 'Twere little for the work, it merits more." D'Avenant was one of the most grateful and attached friends of the Porter f^imily ; and he was not only a friend, he also constituted himself their poet laureate, and celebrated not only Endymion and Olivia, but also their son George and Captain Tom. D'Avenant was first introduced to the world by Fulke Greville, Lord Brook. Brook was one of the stately figures that lingered on after the Eliza- bethan age was past. The schoolfellow and friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and no mean poet himself, he was also, what is more to our purpose, the godfather of litde Fulke Porter of Mickleton, and the near relation of Sir Edward Greville of Aston. In one of these old Gloucestershire manorhouses the young D'Avenant probably grew to know Endymion Porter, and when Lord Brook's tragical death in 1628 threw the poet on the world, he found a new patron in Porter, and soon had good reason to write : — " Wise love that sought a noble choice, To tune my harp and raise my voice. Forbids my pinnace rest Till I had cured weak hope again By safely anchoring within Endymion's breast." Porter did his best to forward his friend's interest at Court, as the following letter to Harvey shows. POETS AND PAINTERS 135 ** Richard Harvkv,— I would have you solicit my Lord Duke who is now in London, to know what he hath done with my Lord Keeper con- cerning Mr. Uavnant's Patent: if he hath procured the passing of it : follow it close and attend the sealing : Ft hath already passed the Signet and Privy Seal, and they are both paid for, there only remains the Great Seal to pay for : disburse the money for it, and keep the Patent until Mr. Davnant send you the money (which by the next opportunity let me understand how much it comes to) and until with the money he send under his hand to whom he shall deliver it : then deliver it. " Your true loving friend, '' Endvmion Porter. ''April 16, 1639. '' (^Endorsed) To my loving friend Mr. Richard Harvey at Mr. Ondimion Porter's House in the Strand." ^ Porter also did a very important service to D'Avenant when his play - The Wits" was brought out. Herbert, Master of the Revels, who exercised the censorship of plays, did not approve of various exclamations introduced into the play, and bowd- lerised it carefully before he let it appear. D'Avenant complained to Porter, who laid the matter before the King, and the royal critic decided that -faith," '' death," and ''sleight" were assevera- tions and not oaths, and might be replaced in the text. It is not easy to understand what matters our fathers strained at as camels and what they considered as mere gnats. If Herbert could pass » Dom. S. P. vol. ccccxvii. 100. f /ii 136 ENDYMION PORTER POETS AND PAINTERS 137 ii' the plots of D'Avenant's plays it was curious he should object to the asseverations. When ''The Wits" was printed D'Avenant, as was due, dedicated it to Porter in the following words — '' To the chiefly beloved of all that is ingenious and noble, Endymion Porter, of his Majesty s bed- chamber. '' Sir, — Though you covet not acknowledgements, receive what belongs to you by a double title. Your goodness has preserved life in the author, then rescued his work from a cruel faction which nothing but the forces of your reason and your reputation could subdue. If it became your pleasure now, as when it had the advantage of presenta- tion on the stage, I shall be taught to boast some merit in myself ; but with this inference, you still, as in that doubtful day of my trial, endeavour to make show of so much justice, as may countenance the love you bear to your most obliged and thankful humble servant, -W. D'AVKNANT." D'Avenant wrote at least eight addresses to Porter. Some are mere complimentary vers de soci(^t^ as when he says, if ever Endymion should prove unkind, he cannot survive the blow, but " Olivia then may on thy pity call To bury me and give me funeral." And when the poet accompanied Porter on one of his expeditions into the country, he wrote a moving k\ account of the dangers of Worcestershire lanes in bad weather when the floods were out, and " Each man did wish His hands and legs were fins, his horse a fish." But when the travellers put up for the night at Wickham, their merry hearts made them forget their bad accommodation. ** He, who to-night ruled each delighted breast, (iave to the palate of each ear a feast, With joy of pledges made our sour wine sweet And nimble as the leaping juice of Crete, Was the brave Endymion " Another of these society verses is a dialogue supposed to have been carried on between Porter and one of his Court friends, Henry Jermyn. Jermyn was the Queen's favourite attendant, and, in later days, her most trusted counsellor. All the King's servants were not looked on with favour in her Majesty's circle, but Porter seems to have been popular everywhere, except among the Puritans. In the dialogue, jermyn and Porter lament the supposed death of George Goring at the siege of Hreda, and describe Goring as resembling Philip Sidney in manners as in fate. From what we know of George Goring's later life he must have fallen sadly below his early promise! But the verses addressed to Olivia are too charming to be merely conventional compliments. Such, for example, is D'Avenant's New Year's greeting ^ to " Endymion's love." ' A copy of this poem is to be found in a commonplace book among the Sloane MSS. 1792. It has sometimes been alluded to as a poem by Porter himself, but there seems to be no authority for the assertion. / 138 ENDYMION PORTKR u Go ! hunt the whiter Ermine and present The wealthy skin as this day's tribute sent To my Endymion's love, though she be fair More gently smooth, more soft, than Ermines are. " do ! climb that rock and when thou there hast found A star contracted in a diamond, (;ive it Endymion's love : whose glorious eyes Darken the starry jewels of the skies. *' Go ! dive into the Southern sea ! and when Thou'st found to trouble the nice sight of men A swelling pearl, and such whose single worth Boast all the wonders that the seas bring forth, Give it Endymion's love ! whose every tear Would more enrich the skilful jeweller. " How I command ! How slowly they obey ! The churlish '1 artar will not hunt to-day : Nor will that lazy sallow Indian strive To climb that rock, nor that dull negro dive. Thus poets, like to Kings, by trust deceived. Give oftener what is heard of, than received." D'Avenant also wrote a duet supposed to be sung by End) mion and Olivia. Olivia begins — ''Olivia. " Before we shall again behold In his diurnal race the world's great eye. We may as silent lie and cold. As are the shades where buried lovers lie. "Endymion. "Olivia, 'tis no fault of love To lose ourselves in death, but, O, I fear When life and knowledge is above Restored to us, I shall not know thee there. " Olivia. " Call it not heaven, my love, where we Ourselves shall see, and yet each other miss, So much of heaven I find in thee As thou unknown, all else privation is. POETS AND PAINTERS "Endvmion. " Why should we doubt before we go To find the knowledge that shall ever last That we may then each other know? Can future knowledge quite destroy the past ? " Olivia. " When at the bowers in the Elysian shades I first arrive, I shall examine where They dwell who love the highest virtue made. For I am sure to find Endymion there. 139 " Endymion. " From this vext world when we shall both retire Where all are lovers and where all rejoice, I need not seek thee in the heavenly choir For I shall know Olivia by her voice. Hut D'Avenant was not the only poet who found Endymion a haven of refuge from the unkindness of fortune. Complimentary verses addressed to him by grateful and expectant authors are preserved in plenty, and the fashionable craze for anagrams even enabled one iMr. Jones to turn '' Endymion Porter " into '' Ripen to more End" and expand that senti- ment into a sonnet which reads somewhat like the beginning of an epitaph — " The fruit of man at first like blossoms be Which pleasing to the eye hang on the tree." The reader will doubdess spare the rest. As a patron of so many literary men Porter received many dedications of books, amongst which we may mention Decker's *' Dream," and in 1631 Thomas May presented his '' Antigone " in the following words : — 140 ENDYMION PORTER POETS AND PAINTERS 141 it To the most highly honoured Endymion Porter Esq,, one of his Majesty s bedchamber. *' To speak of you as you deserve I dare not, since your known modesty woukl check my pen, but this I dare say, there no wits or any other true abiHties that ever had the happiness to know you but will spread your worth, and think you most worthy to stand as you do in the presence of a King, wishing you long blest in his Majesty's favour and the Kine blest with more such servants as you are." The critic Edmund Bolton was a f^ir-away cousin to the orreat Buckincrham, and seems to have been intimate with Porter, whom he calls his ''gocxl and noble friend" in the dedication of his '' Historical Parallel showing the difference between PLpitomies and just histories." Bolton is best remembered by his grand scheme of a literary Academy, which was to review and superintend all English secular writ- ings and translations from foreign languages and to publish an Index Expurgatorius for the benefit of the vulgar. It was to be under royal patronage, to meet at Windsor Casde, and, in fact, was to establish an order of nobility for literature. There were to be three ranks in the society, and to the third, the Essentials, P^ndymion Porter was to belong with Ben Jonson, Drayton, Sir Kenelm Digby, and many other distinguished men. King James was rather pleased with the scheme, and had it been carried out, Bolton's Academy would probably have numbered among its members all the literary men catalogued by Suckling in his Session of Poets. But Suckling's bards were not collected by the fiat of Bolton, nor even by the wisdom of the far-famed i British Solomon. Suckling tells that Apollo in person had descended to select a poet laureate for Ensjland. Ben lonson demanded the honour as his right, but was only elevated to be host of the New Inn; poor D'Avenant, whose beauty was certainly not his strong point, was told that he could not hope for the wreath, as " In all their records, either in verse or ptrose, There was not one laureate without a nose." Mr. Hales, of Eton, would not compete, but merely sat by, smiling, and Falkland, who might have claimed any honour he chose to ask, had his mind too intent on higher things to care for any earthly fame. Porter was present with many more, but Apollo passed them all over and placed his wreath of bavs on the head of an alderman, as he judged that " it was the best sign Of good store of wit, to have good store of coin ! " The wisdom of the decision was applauded by all, especially by the needier of the poets, who hoped to borrow largely from the well-lined pockets of such a laureate. It is curious for us to remember that there was one writer who is not numbered among Suckling s poets, but who might have been judged and criti- cised as a new and not entirely satisfactory author by Bolton's academicians. The passionate Eliza- bethan age was over and the era of Dryasdust begun. Shakespeare was not then the writer quoted by every penny-a-liner and read in every 142 ENDYMION PORTER boys' school. To the learned men of that day he was still " Fancy's child Warbling his native woodnotes wild," and there was some doubt whether '' woodnotes wild" were the proper thing in literature. There is a story of a very serious discussion held by Porter- and some of his literary friends, concerning the amount of Shakespeare's learning.' Porter's own part in the conversation is not remembered, but D'Avenant, Suckling, and the learned Ben Jonson were eager in the argument, and Mr. Hales, true to Suckling's description— "Set by himself most gravely did smile, To see them about nothing keep up such a coil." Suckling, who was a professed admirer of '' fancy's child." was defending him with some warmth against the criticisms of learned Ben Jonson, till Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, interposed, and told them ''that if Mr. Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen anything from them : and that if the opponents would produce any one topic finely treated by any one of them, he would undertake to show something on the same subject at least as well written by Shakespeare." But the literary muse was not the only one served by Porter. The mention of music books in his letters makes it probable that he inherited the musical tastes of his uncle, Don Luis, and he appears to have been as generous a patron to both musicians and painters as he was to poets. ^ Nicholas Rowe. POETS AND PAINTERS 143 When Sir Francis Cottington was sent to Spain in 1629, Porter's commissions to him combined the purchase of pictures with greetings to an admired Spanish singer. Cottington wrote from Portsmouth on the day of his embarkation,' promising to do his best to bring back to Porter some paintings by Titian, and Porter especially begged him ''not to forget the book of drawings of Leonardo de Vinzi. It is in Don Juan de Espino's hands, who every one knows, and Vinzente Juares best, who is the wench's father who sings so well." Cottington wrote from Madrid the following April : " I have read your letter in Spanish to Donna F'rancesca and her father, and they are exceedingly glad to hear from you, and that his Majesty doth please to remember them. Donna Erancesca's angelical voice has more power to give life than Orpheus." 2 A good many letters refer to this admired prima donna : a couple of years later Gabriel Hippesley wrote from Madrid 3 that he had heard Endymion's "Mistress," and will ever commend his taste " for Donna Francesca is the rarest in the world." It may be remembered that any lady who was much admired was termed Mis- tress just as the word Servant was used as a term of affection to Prince Charles by his own mother on her death-bed, and by Lord Anglesea in writing to Endymion.4 But music and poetry were after all no new things in England : for many generations they had been patronised by great people and loved by small ones. The really new departure at this time was in paint- ing : pictures began to be valued as works of art » Sainsbury, " Rubens Papers," p. 308. 3Cal. Dom. S. P., 1631, April 15. - Ibid. -* See Chapter IV. H 144 ENDYMION PORTER and not merely as family portraits. The King led the way in this awakening of taste, and the example he set was followed by most of the great nobles ; Buckingham, Arundel, and many others began then to form the collections of which the country is still proud. It is very probable that Porter had learnt to love Art and had become familiar with great pictures during his boyhood in Spain. In his riper years he was not only a generous patron of artists, but also one of the King's favourite picture collectors. Charles found no small pleasure in being surrounded by cul- tivated and artistic attendants, and moreover it was very convenient to him to select as a messenger to Spain or Italy an envoy whose varied capacity could combine a little diplomacy with many visits to studios, and could carry a letter or whisper a word to a foreign statesman, while he seemed to be ab- sorbed in bargaining for statues or paintings. As has been seen, more than once when Porter went abroad, the public were uncertain whether he were only '' buying pictures," ' or if he were indeed nego- tiating treaties and every ambassador and envoy was expected, like Cottington, to keep his eyes open for bargains in pictures or marbles. One of the earliest artists invited by the King to England was Horace Gentileschi, an Italian painter who arrived in 1625, and was granted an annuity of a hundred a year, besides furniture for his house *' from top to toe " valued at four thousand pounds. The Duke of Buckingham shared the King's ad- miration for Gentileschi, but was so slow in paying for his pictures that "Mr. Endimion Porter was ' See Chapter V. ' POETS AND PAINTERS 145 forcctt to solicitt " for the artist.' It is said that Porter was handsomely rewarded for this use of his interest, but it must be remembered that acknow- leduments of the sort were at that time rather looked on as fees than as bribes. In 1627, the King made a most important addition to his galleries, for he was so fortunate as to secure the entire collection of the Duke of Mantua," which included twelve iMiiperors by Titian, the " Mercury instructing Cupid," by Correggio, which is now in the National Ciallery, a Madonna by Raphael, and paintings by Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto and Tintoret. The pictures were bought by Daniel Nys and Lanier, the Master of the King's music, but much of the correspondence passed through Porter's hands. Money was sorely needed in England just then to equip the fleet for Bucking- ham's disastrous French war, and Burlamachi, the Rothschild of the day, was dismayed at the large sum that was to be diverted from sterner uses. He writes to Porter, " If it were for two or three thousand pounds it could be born, but fifteen thousand will utterly put me out of any possibility to do any thing in those provisions which are so necessary for my Lord Duke's relief." However, the money for the pictures was found, and a month later Lanier was sent back to Italy to repair them and arrange for their transport to England. Lanier seems to have made purchases for Porter as well as for the King, and was also selecting statues for the Duke, but, like Gentileschi, he had to seek Porter's aid in o-etting his money matters setded. He writes to > Sainsbury, " Rubens Papers," pp. 310-16. 2 " Rubens Papers," pp. 320-40. II 146 ENDYMION PORTER Porter, " 1 find you still the best friend, to be by me for ever religiously beloved and honoured above all others. . . . Thoui^h the Duke of Mantua be dead and a son of the Doi^e of Venice ha\c murdered a senator in St. Mark's Palace, yet I do not forget to give you infinite thanks for the favour you have done my poor wife in getting her my money." ' Mr. Petty, the Agent for the ¥.dr\ of Arundel, was busy searching for marbles, but Porter's friend, Sir Peter Wych, the Ambassador at Constantinople, secured two statues, which "Mr. i'etty desired infinitely," and shipped them home from Scio to Porter for his Majesty's collection, and also an- nounced nineteen statues, great and small, as being already on their way from Smyrna, '' some of them I heare are rare peeces." Those were indeed fortunate days for collectors. The ruined cities of Greece were practically a virgin field for the searcher, and eager agents were ran- sacking the most remote islands for the treasures of classical days. Mr. Petty, Sir Peter Wych, and Sir Thomas Roe, seemed to have run each other hard in the business, and Sir Peter was a proud man when he could write to Porter of his finds, "There are two men in strife for them, but I shall decide the differences and take them from them both ! " But not only were marbles being shipped from Smyrna, and Titians and Correggios from Italy; there were great artists then living, and Vandyke and Rubens were ready to paint fashionable ladies and plump nymphs for whoever chose to order. Buckingham was one of the first admirers of ' Sainsbury, " Rubens Papers," p. 353. ^■^;I i I S\ ,\*': ENDYMION PORTER, -i»_ '■k: '•i^: t?N-- ^^^^^l'- — ■'7- y i I L.Mi'YMlUN l-'Uh ; Lh \ POETS AND PAINTERS 147 Rubens' work, and bou<(ht the master's whole cabinet in 1625. Thirteen pictures by Rubens himself, with paintings, statues, and medals, by other hands, were secured by the Duke for one hundred thousand florins. The King shared his favourite's tastes, and became one of the great painter's most admiring and generous patrons.^ But the Flemish artist was not the only great painter who was welcomed at the Court of the art-lovincr Kino;. William Dobson, " the English Tintoret," as Charles named him, has preserved for us the features of many of the remarkable persons of the time, but it is Vandyke who is so completely identified with the Court of Charles I. that we could better spare most of the memoirs of the time than one of his vivid portraits. His name first comes before us among the Porter papers in March, 1630, when Porter bought one of his paintings, *'The Story of Rinaldo and Armida," "and delivered it to the King for seventy-eight pounds." The artist had already paid a short visit to England in 1620, and in 1632 he returned and setded in London, and was appointed painter-in- ordinary to the King. He became very intimate with the Porter family, and painted them more times than can easily be counted. One cannot help suspecting a little friendly malice in one picture in which the painter introduces his own portrait beside that of P^ndymion, and makes the literary and artistic courtier look a mere jovial cavalier in contrast to his own refined and dreamy face.^ ' See ante, pp. 1 01 -103. 2 This portrait is at Madrid. A tentative list of Vandyke's portraits of Endymion will be found in the Appendix. I MONEV-M CHAPTER IX AKINO IN Tin- SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BV the middle of the seventeenth century crentlemen had grown too highly civilised to keep their money in an old stocking, or even in a painted money chest with many locks, such as that ill which Lord Bacon hoarded his treasures. Like Shylock. men now wished to make their gold increase ; trading was made more aristocratic as well as more profitable by monopolies granted by the Crown to favoured individuals and companies, and many undertakings were now started by Court aendemen as well as by London merchants. Shrewd Bishop Williams warned Buckingham early in the reign that these monopolies were irritating the public to a dangerous extent, and implored h.m not to listen to the advice of interested flatterers " Oh, hearken not to Rehoboam's earwigs ! Bu he warned in vain, and the monopolies flourished till the Long Parliament took them into considera- tion. Then Culpepper rose to protest against the ubiquity of the monopolists. " These men, he said, "like the frogs of Egypt, have got possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room iree from them. They sup in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by our fire ; we find them in the dye- 1^8 < MONEY-MAKING IN THK 17TH CENTURY 149 vat, the wash-bowl, and the powdering-tub. They shelter themselves under the name of a corpora- tion." ' In more than one of these ubiquitous monopolies Porter had a share, and his soap company involved him in the war with the wash-bowls as his connec- tion with the Yarmouth Salt Corporation did with the powdering-tub. But it must be admitted that these grants or monopolies were not entirely invented to enrich favourites or to raise money by rents to the ex- chequer. Justices of the peace had long counted it part of their duties to setde the rate of wages and to keep down the price of food ; it was no novelty for a paternal government to supervise trade, to encourage the manufacture of good articles and punish dishonesty. Very good intentions, which conspicuously failed. The question of the soap monopoly was of more importance than would at first appear, or than Strafford thought when he wrote that "he feared the kingdom was not so cleanly given as to raise the business to any high consideration." A patent had been granted by King James to a company for manufacturing soap by a new process, from materials entirely produced in England. In 1632 Charles erected a new company to buy up these rights and pay £4 to the Crown for every ton sold ; the King helping them by prohibiting the export of tallow and potash. The new company chiefly consisted of the Roman Catholic clique who had attached themselves to Lord Treasurer Pordand, and grown rich through his favour ; Endymion ' Gardiner's *' Hist. Eng.," vol. ix. p. 239. i ,50 ENDYMION PORTER Porter was one of the shareholders. Naturally, all other manufacturers of soap were very indignant at the new company, and asserted that it was a device of the Jesuits to ruin the country. ' They declared their soap was quite as good as this new production, and had only been condemned because the inspector was unfair. So the Kmg's paternal and conscientious Council determmed to decide this matter themselves, and sent for two washerwomen, who were directed to bring their tubs and bundles of linen, and then and there, in their lordships' august presence, make trial of the two sorts of soap ! But whether the washerwoman who used the Company's soap was the more skilful or not, the Court gentlemen triumphed, their soap was approved of by the Council and they retained their monopoly. When Portland died in 1635, the soap manufacturers made another attempt against the Company, and Laud, who was virtually first in the Council, was inclined to favour them, as he was shrewd enough to see that professional manufac- turers were more likely to produce a good article than a company of Court gendemen. Hut Cotting- ton was on the Treasury Commission and walked in Pordand's footsteps. He only thought of the duty of filling the Treasury and balancing his accounts, and when the Company offered to pay a little more for their right, he threw all his interest into their scale. But when Juxon was raised to the Treasury in 1637 Laud had his own way, and the old soap- makers were allowed to buy out the Company, paying the King /8 on every ton manufactured. Then having got the place of the Company, the ■ "Commons' Journals," vol. ii. p. i33- (, MONEY-MAKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY 151 manufacturers proceeded to make exacdy the same use of their monopoly that their predecessors had done, to hunt down rivals, and petition for their suppression, while their own soap, being safe from competition, was no better than the article produced before ; and so the soap question vanishes for the time, among subdued murmurs from Court ladies and washerwomen, who mourned together over the havoc wrought by bad soap on laces and lawns. But the matter was not really forgotten nor for- given, and when the question of monopolies was brought before the Long Parliament, and it was suggested that they were all invented by the Jesuits, the^evils of the monopoly of soap were laid at the charge of the Queen s confessor ! But if Court gendemen could not make money by soap, there were plenty of other projects offered to their choice. In 1635 a company was formed at Shields for the production of salt, to replace that brought from the Bay of Biscay, and in January, 1638, Endymion Porter was invited to take oath as an associate of the Corporation of Salt Makers (jf Yarmouth. In 1633 a society for fishing was founded by Portland, his Roman Catholic friends, as in the soap company, being principal shareholders.' He himself con- tributed ^1,000, the Duchess of Buckingham ^300, and Endymion Porter /lOO. In March, 1638, Porter petitioned about a harbour light at Filey, perhaps for the convenience of this same fishery company. But the Dutch had hitherto had the monopoly of the fisheries, and were not likely to give up such a profitable matter without a struggle, ■ Dom. S. 1'., 1633 ; also (lardincr, vol. vii. p. 349. 152 ENDYMION PORTER while England was so weak at sea that the Kmg actually debated the possibility of securing Spanish ships to protect his fishermen! It is not much wonder that the next year found Parliament discussing ship money, and that some said the King had good reason for raising it. If only his methods had been as good as his reasons and intentions ! A list of twenty-two men is given in the Domestic State Papers for March, 1635, who Endymion Porter desired might not be pressed for service on the magnificent and ill-fated fieet, which Charles was preparing with the help of ship money. These twenty-two men belonged to two merchant ships, the Samaritan and Roebuck, which were to sail for the East Indies the following April. The small trade carried on by England in the East at this time was in the hands of the East India Company, but public opinion seems to have supported the King in infringing their monopoly, and allowing Samuel Bonnell and Sir William Courteen to open a trade in pepper with the Portuguese of the Malabar coast. The preamble to the license of the new association states that the East India Company had accomplished nothing for the good of the nation in proportion to their privileges and funds ; and authorises the Adventurers to trade at Goa and other places where the Company was not already setded before 1635.' The Adventurers were so fortunate as to gain the support of luuly- mion Porter, who persuaded the King himself to take a share.- In 1637 the Roebuck reached Eng- ' Rymer, " Foedera." « " Court and Times of Charles I.," vol. 1. pp. 262-4. MONEY-MAKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY 153 land once more and entered Ealmouth harbour, briuLnnii news that her Admiral, Captain Oldfield, and most of his crew were dead, having been cast away on an island before they even reached the Red Sea. Hut as a trading venture the voyage had been a success, every member of the expedition having made ^20 a share. Naturally the East India Company circulated very shocking reports how the Roebuck had taken two pinks in the Red Sea, and in them about ^60,000 in money, and so tortured the poor Indians by setting burning matches to their fingers to make them confess where their treasure lay, that they had burnt their fingers to the hand. Upon complaint of the great wrong done reaching India, *' all our factors at Surat are clapt in prison, and ^20,ocK) seized upon, and our merchants are in great distraction." The East India merchants, » who seem to have been unable to sustain the smallest competition without their trade falling into confusion, went down to Hampton Court to petition the King to send letters to the Great Mogul and the Governor of Surat, to disavow his having authorised such piracies. He granted the letters, saying that he knew of the going of the ships, but that he had of course not given any commission to do such acts. Not content with their petition to the King, they also proceeded to lay an action at law against the Adventurers ; but Endymion Porter at once went to Lord Keeper Coventry ''to move that a mild course should be taken in the business." The Company took fright at finding Porter stirring in the matter, and hastened » Mill, "Hist. India," vol. i. ch. iii. p. 71- 154 ENDYMION PORTER to assure him that no action should be brought against him personally, unless his partners involved him of themselves. However the Privy Council treated all the story of torture as a fabrication (which Mill thinks it probably was), and then suggested that the terms of Courteen's license should desire him not to trade with the same places as the Company. That was such small satisfaction for the alarmed directors, that they threatened to abandon the East India trade altogether, so at last the difficulty was ended by a promise that if they would raise sufficient capital to trade on a proper scale, Courteen's license should be withdrawn. Some years later Courteen's and Porter's names are again associated in a grant of Petty Customs, and, in the beginning of the civil wars, Sir William did his best to preserve Porter's plate and valuables from the hands of the Parliamentary party. ' In June, 1628, Endymion was granted the lease of Alfarthing Manor from the Crown. ^300 was paid down for it, and the rent was to be /40 yearly. The mansion stood on a rising ground near Wandsworth Common : it is now pulled down, but its name is preserved in Alfarthing Lane close by. The lease to Elndymion was granted with remainder to his brother, Captain Thomas. There is no record that any of the family lived there much during ILndymion's life, and when the troubled times came the property was mortgaged and sold by the mortgagees. But it was eventually recovered and held for several generations by Elndymion's descen- dants, John Porter being seated at Alfarthing in » See page 201. K MONEY-MAKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY 155 171 1. There is an entry in the accounts for 1638, of wood sold at Alfarthing to the value of ^ 1 8. In July, 1628, a pension of ^500, granted to r:ndymion in 1625, was revoked and converted into an annuity for himself and his wife. The reversion of the keepership of Hartwell Park was also granted by the King to his godson. Charles Porter ; it was to become his after the death of Richard Oliver. This Mr. Oliver seems to have been a friend of the family. Lord Mansfield, after- wards Earl of Newcastle.' mentions him with Porter, as forwarding business for him with the Uuke of Buckingham in 1627, and Endymion sent messages to him from Spain in 1623. But it would be wearisome to catalogue all the grants that marked the royal favour to Endymion Porter. A monopoly for the manufacture of writmg- paper seems appropriate to such a voluminous correspondent. He was also collector of fines to the Star Chamber, an office that brought hmi m some /750 a year. He had royal grants of land in many places, Hartpurv in Gloucestershire, Raby Park in Dur- ham, and Marsley Park in Denbigh, and lands on Exmoor. The following letter refers to the grant of post- master, under Lord Stanhope of Harrington, to whom this office had been granted by King James. There had been various infringements of his monopoly of the right of forwarding letters and keeping posthorses for travellers on the principal high roads. In a petition by George Porter in 1660, . "Life of Duke and Duchess of Newcastle." Ed. Firth, p. 322. 156 ENDVMION PORTKR he says the office when he first took it was not worth ^5,000 a year, but he and his ajjents had so improved the business that at the Restoration it was farmed for ^21,500. The office had been formally granted to Endy- mion Porter with reversion to his son George, in September, 1635, but probably there had been some delay in confirming the grant, and Porter applied to Windebank for help in April, 1636. The letter is rather a good exam[)le of the way in which courtiers spoke of the Stuart monarchs. *' May it please your Honour, — You are best acquainted how long I followed the business of the Postmaster's place, as being one to whom it was referred for the ending and settling of it, and I have made bold to intimate unto his Mat" in an humble letter his former gracious intentions towards me in the said business, of which I have received so favourable an answer from his sacred mouth, as I assure your honour it hath much lessened my sickness ; yet I fear by something his Mat' said, that he might imagine I was not willing to have the Lord Stanhope's Patent made void ; therefore I made choice' of your honour to do me the favour as to let his Mat'' know, that I have no disposition nor thought to be averse to any intentions of his, and for this I will hope that his Mat" doth it for the good of me his poor (pore) servant and creature, and if I be thought worthy by his Mat'' to have the office, I will make it such a one for his honour and profit, as his Mat'' shall have no cause to think it ill-bestowed ; but I refer all to his Mat''' gracious will, for he best knows at what time, and with what MONEY-MAKING IN THE ./TH CENTURY i57 place to irratify each servant. And if your honour can pardon me the trouble 1 have given you ni this, your charity is as great as the rest of your favours are to " Your honour's obliged thankful servant, ^^ " Endvmion Porter." ' Amon: '• nXoh itkencVs MedaUic History." 3 Dom. S. P. vol. can. 38. 158 ENDYMION PORTER able for the disorder and lack of discipline of the City military forces. Captain Roydon consulted Porter on the possibilities of reor^^anising the regiment as a " Royal Regiment of selected Guards," and Porter conveyed to him his sacred Majesty's gracious approval of the scheme. But the Alder- men were not at all pleased at their City Company being turned into a Royal Regiment, and desired him to proceed no further in the matter.' However another regiment seems to have been raised in place of that projected by Roydon,- as in 1637 four hundred of the "military or trained bands commanded by Mr. Endymion Porter" formed a oruard of honour on the arrival of the Ambassador of the Flmperor of Morocco. When the great Lord Vere, the "fighting Vere," died, a royal warrant was issued to flndymion Porter, Captain of the Military Company, and to the Colonel of the London Artillery, giving the Company of Trained-bands permission to attend the funeral of the great soldier. In 1638 Porter signed a petition to the King to restore to the gendemen of the privy chamber the privilege they had enjoyed under former reigns, among others that of " keeping the linen of his Majesty, and that his Majesty may not be put to needless expense in his linen, and therefore none is damned without his knowledge and approbation." The petition also prays that "such parts of his Majesty's dyett as shall rest when he eateth privately be served the gendemen and grooms of » " Hist. Hon. Art. Co.," vol. i. p. 70. ^ Ibid. \ Ml MONEY-MAKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY 159 the bedchamber, and their leavings to his Majesty's barber and pages who are otherwise unprovided."^ It appears that the King's servants made a practice of hunting up any unconsidered trifles that might help to fiH the royal purse and leave some reward for the discoverer. Porter discovered defalcations on the part of several public officers and received a part of the money recovered, and he was also granted a reward for the discovery that the dignity of baronet is not "descendable, but that the King may avoid whom he pleases and retaigne only those that deserve his grace and power." ^ Another valuable addition to the royal wealth was the discovery of waste and unreclaimed lands, which could be claimed as Crown property. A areat movement was begun about this time for reclaiming marsh lands in the east of England, and the system seems to have been extended to Ireland. A letter 3 from Porter to Nicholas in 1641, refers to a piece of bog land which he hoped would prove valuable if he could establish his right to it. " I must beg your favour in sending this enclosed letter to Sir 'Edward Savage, who will present unto you a paper signed by his Majesty, the which concerning me partly, as may appear by the contents. It is a grant which the King was formerly pleased to make to me and Sir Ed. and Mr. Wyndham of certain marsh lands in Ireland. What the Council did with the Irish commissioners, about such things, you may be pleased to inform yourself in every particular, before you put the seal to the letter, for I. would not have you put yourself to the hazard of ^ Fontblanque, " Lords Strangford," p. 64. 3 Nicholas Papers, Camd. Soc, vol. i. p. 70- Ibid., p. 65. i6c ENDVMION PORTER a censure by our oreat Secretary here,' for m(^re than twenty such businesses are worth. 'Tis true I have spent monies in finding' the marsh for the King, and many other reasons which make the grant very just to me, but. Sir, I beseech you beHeve me I love you beyond any benefit, and cannot deserve anything from good men if I should desire anything of you which may be inconvenient. Thus much I thought good to advertise you, not knowing what the desire of gain may lead other men to do ; but I pray you take no notice of what I say here, but do in the business what justly you may and I shall be obliged to you for it." But Porter's hopes of wealth to be dug from Irish bo<£s soon vanished. In less than a month from the day this letter was written the storm of war burst in Ireland and swept the fortunes of great and small into one hopeless mass of ruin. The schemes of land reclamation were, however, more successful in England. In 1626 Hatfield Chase had been drained by Vermuyden, adding much valuable land to the country, and driving away the fevers and agues which infested the flooded lands, but arousing much ill-feeling among the men who had made their living by fishing, fowling, and osier cutting. The beginning of the great Bedford Level in 1629 aroused even stronger opposition, and the commoners, as the fishermen and willow cutters were called, had a hope that the KiniJf would be on their side aoainst the F^arl of Bedford. It was at last decided by commissioners sent down on purpose, that the inhabitants should retain their commons till the drainage was com- ' Sir H. Vane. i MONEY-MAKING IN THE 17TH CENTURY 161 pleted, and the work should l^e undertaken by the Kini*-. Porter was i^ranted a tract of marsh lands at North Summercotes, on the Lincolnshire coast, in 1632, on condition of his conv^eying one sixth part of the reclaimed land as compensation to the commoners, but what value reclaimed meadows could be to fishermen and osier cutters is not ex- plained. In his petition, long after, to the Com- mittee for Compounding, he says the land was 1,000 acres and certain waste lands lying without the banks, but the commoners had resumed posses- sion of them, and he had never got one penny in recompense of his charges of embanking, the banks beino- now thrown down and the land used in common. Till they were repaired the land was not worth more than ^40 a year. The original grant appears to have been of 22,000 acres, but part of that was given as compensation to the commoners, and to the lord of the manor. The entire enclosure is still known as " Porter's March. "^ Naturally a good many of the letters about land among the Porter correspondence refer to Aston. It appears that the rentals of Aston and Mickleton together amounted to ^144 for the half year, and a chief rent of ^5 was paid to Sir Edward Pisher. The Aston property consisted of over 640 acres.- Among the tenants are Sir N. Overbury, Mr. T. Southerne, and Richard Canning, the husband of Mary Porter. An undated letter from the Aston steward probably belongs to 1625, when Angela had George and Charles staying there with her, ' See Glohc\ Jan., 1881. I have to thank E. Endymion Porter, Esq., of Easthill, Fronie, for the above information. - Cal. Dom. S. P., 1648, \). 432. 12 1 62 ENDYMION PORTER for the writer, the steward Richard Bee, says, '' My old mistress and Mr. Porter's children are in <(ood health." Bee's letter is chiefly concerning- his letting- of land ; a tenant, John Huyns, was going to give up a house and some land to Richard Can^ning, and Bee advises that Endymion should insist on the outgoing tenant paying the rent he owed ^40. There was constant trouble about that piece of land. In July, 1641, a new tenant was going to take it, but there was some difficulty about Mr. Canning, and Bee wrote that it were best to give Mr. Canning the satisfaction he demanded, as he had not £s worth of goods in the house to distrain upon, and the new tenant wished to enter into possession peaceably, or not at all. Perhaps Aston was setded on Olivia, certainly she took the management of the business there, as in November, 1638, Bee sends an account of his mistress's last half year's rents. Angela i'orter was always called ''my old mistress" in the steward's letters. CHAPTER X POPISH PLOTS PORTFIR'S mysterious visits to Spain and Italy and familiarity with foreign courts had made him an object of suspicion to the Puritan party from the earliest days of King Charles's reign, and as time went on these suspicions were greatly strengthened by the doings of Porter's friends in linuland. Europe was at that time divided into two great camps, Protestant and Roman Catholic, and ever since the Kind's marriaiJfe with Henrietta Maria she had been looked on with fear and dislike because she represented the Roman Catholic party. Behind her pretty figure might lurk Spanish Armadas and Roman Inquisitors and the masked conspirators of a new Gunpowder Plot. The Queen took no sort of pains to quiet these Puritan alarms ; on the contrary, she was exceedingly proud of her intimacy with Con, the special envoy sent from Rome to recall England to the fold of the Church. She was not L^reatlv interested in the theological difference between the Churches, but she was flattered at finding persons of fashion inclining to embrace her religion and looking to her for protection against disagreeable consequences. Naturally every con- J^'3 1 64 ENDYMION PORTER cession made to the Queen and her Roman Catliolic friends filled the opposite party with fresh alarm, and even the principles of the King himself began tu be doubted. Porter was in attendance on his Majesty m 1636, when he paid a solemn visit to Oxford in order that a compliment to that ancient and orthodox university micrht reassure the public on the Royal loyalty to the Church.' The Oueen was never able to claim Porter as one of her "Converts, but Olivia followed the fashion, was received into the Roman Catholic Church, and became a valuable acquisition to her Majesty's party. Mrs. Porter's vehement energy and warm feeling made her an admirable agent for spreading her new opinions among her friends and relations. Such activity on Olivia's part confirmed the suspicions that were felt of her husband, and very possibly some of his serious words of warning found in his letters may refer to her imprudent enthusiasm. More than once he writes : '• You must be ruled by me " ; " you will find me your best friend " ; but such caution was too foreign to Olivia's nature to be readily adopted. She did not confine herself to arguments when active deeds were needful ; when hel- father, old Lord Boteler, was drawing near his end, Mrs. Porter saw that no time was to be lost in withdrawing him from heretical influences and reconciling him with the true Church. So she drove down to Woodhall and hurried the iM man into her coach, and carried him off in safety ; but only just in time, for her elder sister. Lady Newport. ■ Wyanc to Nicholas, Aug., 1636, Cal. Dom. S. P. % • POPISH PLOTS 165 who was a very vehement Protestant, had heard of this Popish plot, and also drove down to Woodhall, with all haste, to rescue her father, but she was too late ; Lord Boteler was in the Porter coach, Olivia triumphed, and Con i^^ained one more convert of quality. The lovely young Marchioness of Hamilton was Olivia's next object of attack. She was the daughter of Lord Denbigh, and her uncle, the Duke of Buckingham, had been proud to make her a Marchioness. But the grand match was a loveless one on the part of the bridegroom, and now the beautiful and amiable young creature's short life was drawiniJ: to a close. Con was very anxious to secure such a distinguished convert, and found her cousin, Mrs. Porter, a most valuable assistant. He wrote in October, 1637 : — " We have here, laid up with a hectic fever, the Marchioness of Hamilton, who, being brought up in Puritanism, has shewn great violence against the Catholic Religion, until some months ago she began to walk with much moderation. Besides some talks I have had with her on the occasion of visits, I have several times had speech with her through her cousin, Mrs. Porter, who informs herself daily of what should be said to her, furnishing her with books and discourses, Catholic manuscripts, but her father, who is a Puritan Ass, being afraid, makes the pseudo Bishop of Carlisle come to her, who avoids holding any conference in the presence of the Marchioness, to whom he says in order to fortify her, that he would give his soul for hers, but Mrs. Porter has well replied, ' Litde will it help you, my 1 66 ENDYMION PORTER POPISH PLOTS 167 sister, that the soul of that old man shall be with you in the Devil's House.' I visit her daily, God knows what will follow."' However, Olivia did not succeed entirely, for, at any rate, the conversion of the Marchioness was never openly announced. There must have been very strong counter-influences in her family, as not only was her f^ither a "Puritan Ass," but on the outbreak of the civil wars her brother joined the Parliamentary side, so it cannot be doubted that he must have viewed the visits of Con and Olivia with extreme disapproval. But if the Marchioness disappointed the prose- lytisers, they soon got an even more striking convert, namely. Lady Newport herself! She was so unwise as to engage in a controversy with some Romanist priests, and her knowledge not being equal to her zeal, she was soon worsted in argument and admitted herself vanquished. No time was lost ; one evening, after the play, she got into a coach with the Duchess of Buckingham and Mrs. Porter, and drove off in secret to the house of a priest, and was there received into the Church of Rome. Lord Newport was exceedingly angry and appealed to the King, who shared both his vexation and his helplessness. He did make some endeavours to moderate the childish vehemence of Henrietta Maria, but with so litde effect that he was unable to prevent her from holding a public parade of her distinguished converts at a grand Christmas Eve service, of which Con writes, '' Such a concourse had seldom been seen." » Add. MS. 15390, 1637, from Sig. Georgeo Coneo, Oct. 23rd. Her Majesty was triumphant, and when she returned to her apartments she ran up to Con in an ecstasy, crying, ''Now you see the effects of the King's proclamation ! " The ao-ent himself had to admit that his flock were imprudent and very difficult to manage ; so far from trying to avoid giving cause of offence to the Puritan party, on that very Christmas evening while he was talking to the Queen, they rampandy insisted on keeping their chapel open and most brilliandy illuminated, in order to outdo the Christ- mas solemnities held at the Spanish Ambassador's ! The names of many of these fashionable converts may be found in the Middlesex Sessions Rolls, with the amounts they were fined for recusancy and not coming to their parish churches during a whole month. In 1641 there is a long list of fourteen hundred and thirty persons who were proceeded against, and among them is " the wife of Elndymion Porter, Esq., being late of St. Martin's-in-the- Fields." When so many Romanist ''alarums and excur- sions" were occurring, it was small wonder that Porter got the credit of many of his wife's sayings and doings. The danger of his position was increased by the inevitable connection between the King's favourite servant and the King's favourite Minister, Arch- bishop Laud ; the growing public hatred of Laud heightened Porter's unpopularity, while Porter's mysterious comings and goings increased the suspicions that Laud was intriguing with the enemies of the English Church and people. An example of the way in which Porter and Laud I 1 68 ENDYMION PORTER were connected in men's minds may be found in the story of Sir Matthew Mennis. Sir Matthew was a crentleman of liti^^ious disposition who held various pieces of land in lease from the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a disaoreeable nei.irhbour, and a country oemleman who lived near him could not refrain from expressi(^ns of pious thankfulness when he wrote to tell Laud that '' it hath pleased God that Sir Matthew Mennis should lately fall into the reach of the law and that the leases he holds from you are forfeited."' But although it was the Archbishop who profited by Sir Matthew's downfall, it was Porter who got the credit of the deed, and Sir Matthew tells in his will of *'the great plot and conspiracy against me by Flndymion Porter and his accents wherein I suffered in my estate seventeen hundred pounds." - A litde later Parliament was informed by two of the official searchers of the Port of London that many Popish books and relics had been rescued from them by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr. Endymion Porter. So the suspicions grew, and it was not long before people were convinced that Porter was as dark and dangerous a Papist as Laud himself. These rumours received a tremendous confirmation on Laud's arrest, when Prynne, searching among his papers at Lambeth for materials to prove the Arch- bishop's guilt, found (or said that he found) a letter from Sir William Boswell, the English Ambassador at the Hague, which charged Master Porter, of the King's bedchamber, with being *' most addicted to ^ Sir R. Honey wood to Laud, Dom. S. P., 1640. 2 Xotcs ami Queries, 3rd Ser. iv. 144. V POPISH PLOTS 169 the Popish religion and a bitter enemy of the King. He reveals all his greatest secrets to the Pope's Legate, although he only rarely meets with him, yet his^vife meets him so much the oftener, who being informed by her husband, conveys secrets to the Legate. His sons are secredy instructed in the Popish religion : openly they profess the reformed. The eldest is now to receive his father's office under the King which shall be [/.^'., under Charles H.]. A cardiiml's hat is provided for the other if the design shall succeed well. Above three years past the said Master Porter was to be sent away by the King to Morocco, but he was prohibited by the Society [i.e., by the Jesuits] lest the business should suffer any delay thereby."' By the time this astcninding accusation was printed the civil war had broken out, and Porter was far away from London, so it remained un- criticised and unanswered, and it cannot now be known if it was built upon any shred of actual fact. Porter's real religious opinions will probably never be discovered. It was an age when every one had religious opinions, but it is possible that every one did'^not formulate these opinions with logical clear- ness. The Porter family had always belonged to the National Church; various members of the family had held office in it as churchwardens of Mickleton and Aston, and had left legacies under the care of the clergyman of these parishes. Endymion's own office was that of gendeman in attendance on King Charles, who prided himself on his loyalty to the Anglican Communion, and who, at the end, persuaded himself that he died its ' " Rome's Masterpiece," W. Prynne, 1644, p. 20. % \yo ENDYMION PORTER POPISH PLOTS 171 martyr. A Roman Catholic convert would have been far more in place in the household of Henrietta Maria than in that of the Kini(. On the other hand, Porter's Spanish relations and Spanish education can have hardly failed to influence his mind at the most receptive aire, and he cannot have looked on alien faiths with the horror felt by ordinary Anglicans or Presbyterians. England is the country of compromises, and we may imagine that a genial man of the world hke Porter would succeed in devising some I'ia media that satisfied his own conscience, and did not wound either his Anglican master or his Catholic wife. A curious letter to his confidential servant, Richard Harvey, shows that whatever may have been the nominal views of the Porter household, they were ready to make use of any religious cere- monies that might help on their business.' The writer, Wych, tells that a chest of Mr. Porter's, from Madrid, had been stolen "out of my chamber at Bilbao." Instead of sending for the police the messenger invoked the means employed by the Cardinal in the '' Ingoldsby Legends," when " The Cardinal rose with a pious look, He called for his candles, he called for his book ; In holy anger and pious grief, He solemnly cursed that rascally thief." \n Bilbao the measures taken were, '' I had an excommunion and paulinas read in churches and other places where I suspected." It was the custom to invoke the help of St. • George Wych to Harvey. Dom. S. 1*., 1638. V Paulina, virgin and martyr, as a protection against thieves, but no exact parallel for the excommunica- tion seems to be known.' Porter's servants seem to have shared their master's ingenuity and readiness for emergencies ! « I have to thank Canon E. T. Quinn, P.P., Ballybrack and Cabinteely, for this information. » CHAPTER XI THK HISHOrS WAR THERE were sharp religious controversies in England, and vague fears of Jesuits and Papal plots, but such differences were trilling compared to the tempest that was now raging in Scotland. The King had been for some time engaged in trying to introduce uniformity of doctrine and the use of a prayer-book into Scotland, with the result that in February, 1638, all classes were signing the Solemn League and Covenant with wild enthu- siasm, as a national protest against royal tyranny. Charles could not realise that his own country- men of Scotland were actually on the verge of a rebellion. He condescended to make various pro- posals, which seemed to himself vasdy gracious, and to the angry Scots seemed to be adding insult to injury, till at last even he was obliged to realise that his fair words were wasted, and that he must prepare for action. It was not easy for the King to get troops to- crether without the help of Parliament, but a parlia- ment would be an even worse adversary than the Scots ; so he made shift to gather together an army composed of raw recruits and Court gentlemen. With these hasty levies, half starved and ill-appointed, he 172 THE BISHOPS' WAR 173 marched to meet the Sots, hardy and enthusiastic northerners, officered by veterans who had learnt their business under Gustavus Adolphus. l-ndvmi^X}vKn.\^\,lhe ydof May, \'^19- .. ••I pray you send me truly your opinion ot ^^EZ'loscd) "To my very loving friend Mr. Richard Harvie these, London. " •'Ri.MARi. H.vKViK,-! must intreat you to send me by this bearer two pair of calsons of shamwayes made to come low beneath my knees, and 1 pray vou give order that the seams be curiously sewed so as they do not hurt me, and if Tom ken.stone give you a small piece of fine calico 1 pray you let it be ' Dom. S. 1»., vol. ccccxx. 34. 174 ENDYMION PORTER brought likewise with him ; the messenger is in haste, and therefore I say no more, but rest '' Your true friend, " Endvmion Porter. " Newcastle, the i8/// of May, 1639. ** I left a watch with Este to make for the King, and he had a curious case of gold enamelled of me, so that he makes nothino- but the intrails. He is to have seven pounds for it, I pray you let him be paid for it, and see that you send it me safe. '' 7^0 my loving friend, M7\ Richard Harvie, London.'''^ Mr. Fontblanque believes this watch to have been the one afterwards worn by the King at his execu- tion, and deposited as a precious relic in Ashburn- ham Church. But, he says, "one of the pious pilgrims to the church not believing, perhaps, in the efficacy of touch alone, carried it away with him.'*- While Endymion was busy over warlike matters Olivia was trying to get in rents. There is a long and lamentable letter to her from Butler, the tenant of Summercotes, the reclaimed land in Lincoln, at this time. 3 His letters were always lamentable and generally long, and he signs himself in one ** your poor kinsman," so that it would seem that the poorer relations of the Botelers turned into plain liutlers. Richard Harvey generally wrote the business letters, but Olivia herself had added some sharp words to his letter this spring, and Butler writes that he knows she expects money, but he has not been able to sell * Dom. S. P., ccccxxi. 75. 2 Fontblanque, " Lords Strangford," p. 58. ^ Cal. Dom. S. P., 1639. THE BISHOPS' WAR 175 his oats, the keel being pressed for the King's service, and also a command had been issued in view of the Kin^^'s march to the north that no oats should be sold away from those parts. He there- fore resolved to sell at Newcastle, but the weather was too stormy for a ship to go there, '' Wherefore, good Madam, do but consider how the times are, but by the time the carrier comes to London again you shall receive both my account and such moneys as can be made of your corn." In the following September things seem to have come to a crisis ; we find Richard Harvey going down to take up the accounts, with eleven-years-old Master Philip to represent his parents ; and poor Butler wails that he is just thrown out of service when he had got the harvest in. Another tenant, Mr. Cutteris, is de- scribed as a good tenant who, though he had paid no rent, had spent ^160 on buildings and improve- ments, but the Council's commands had prevented his selling a singular good crop. Endymion wrote from the camp that both tenants were cozening knaves to whom he sent a sharp letter. From the camp, on June 3rd, Thomas Windebank writes to his father, the Secretary, that " never was such confusion seen in business of so great weight. Porter presents his services and is very ready, I am confident, to do you service, but he says he is not so able to give so quick despatch to your business as he desires by reason that Secretary Coke has made a complaint of him to the King for intruding upon business, which makes his Majesty slow in despatching anything that passed not by Secretary Coke's hands." * * Cal. Dom. S. P., June, 1639. iy6 ENDYMION PORTKR The Scots were not anxious to take such a de- cisive step as invadinii^ England, and the Kini^'s army was so plainly unfit for a campaign that he was not disinclined to come to terms, and on June loth his Majesty agreed to a treaty. Both sides felt, however, that there was no stability in this patched-up peace, and Strafford came over from Ireland and advised the Kin^f to call a parliament. But, when it met. Parliament proved to have more sympathy with the Scots than with the King, and his Majesty dissolved it after only three weeks' service, and began once more to try and construct an army. George and Charles Porter were now lads of nineteen and eighteen respectively, and received their commissions, A friend from Brussels writes to Harvey, " I wish Captain George Porter all happiness, as I do the noble Cornet. I lon^jf for to have the om the several relations of the people of this town, I collect that the enemy is possessed with so strange a senseless fear that they will not believe any place tenable to which your Highness will march. Sir Miles Hubbard did not march with above one hundred armed foot from this place, and those that came from Newark are most of them dispersed. 1 am employing as many men as 1 can get to slight the works about the base town, l)ut those about the close are so very strong that it will require time, and I think it worth your Highness' con- sideration whether those works should be slighted or no. To-morrow I march towards Gainsborough \i and will send you these cannon. If you have any commands for me, I desire to receive them, and they shall be faithfully observed by &c., &c." ''Newark, March I'^th. *' I understand since your Highness' departure how that you are very much offended with me for that I did not wait upon your Highness before you went, and [for] expressing an unwillingness to come under Colonel Hunkes his command. As for the first I have most just excuse which I am con- fident will prevail with your Highness when you shall remember the haste my letter from Lincoln required ; notwithstanding I was to wait on your Hi^^diness, but your Highness was gone before, and I could not allow myself so much leisure to follow. Then as concerning Colonel Hunks, if your Highness would but be pleased to look upon me with an impartial eye, I should certainly be freed from your displeasure, there was so much justice on my side, for I offered him to resign half the command I had in these parts both of the horse and foot which I desired Major Legg to persuade him to, but he would not, and nothing would con- tent the Colonel but the absolute command of all, which I now most humbly beseech your Highness would confer on him, and so I shall be free to march to the aid of Yorkshire, which your Highness by these enclosed will find stands in great need of it. I beseech your Highness let your good nature so rule your Highness as to send imme- diately Colonel Hunks, whose zeal for the King's service joined to your Highness' commands will 2l6 ENDYMION PORTER THE CIVIL WAR 217 certainly persuade him to make no delay. Your Highness, &c., &c. *' I beseech your Highness let me know your resolutions with all speed." ''Newark, Ma7'ch 30M. *' I find fortune is strangely contradictory, else 'twere impossible a discourse so little intended to your Highness could have been an occasion of barring me from it. F'or the passion I expressed was meant for those who, I was informed, had first persuaded your Highness to send Colonel Hunks as commander of all these forces in chief and next for furthering your Highness' displeasure against me, because I was importunate with your Highness for the recalling- the commission you had given, and he that told your Highness part of my discourse micrht likewise have told vou that at the time I named your Highness I only said 1 was accurst to find their tricks and desires could so prevail upon your good nature. I hope this will satisfy your Highness. However, 1 shall in my absence from your Highness endeavour to let you see how your Highness in your distrust, injures one who is most faithfully, &c., &c., S:c. " I have just now received an order from my Lord General to march with all the horse and foot I can iret toirether to meet with Sir Thomas Fairfax who is in Yorkshire." *• Lincoln, Ap7'il i, 1644. *' May it pleask vouk Hkiiiness, — Yesterday I received an order from his Excellency to march into Yorkshire, which I am preparing to do with < f all expedition, but in the interim I thought fit to represent to your Highness the advantage 'twould be to the King's service, my stay here some small time, if not longer, for whereas now I cannot move with above six hundred foot and a thousand horse, in that space might add at the least two thousand foot and some horse. This likewise I have made my Lord General acquainted with, whose answer 1 hourly expect, but I am sure would be pleased to have me observe your Highness' directions who best understands the state of these counties. Wherefore 1 beseech your Highness consider on these reasons are here represented to your Highness by the Commissioners, and lay your commands on him who will punctually observe them, as bein^' "Your Hiohness' most faithful and obedient servant, " Geor(;e Porter. "There is one Lieutenant Leelborne, a prisoner at Newark by your Highness' command, who if you please to bestow him on me will release Major Wheeler whom Colonel Jerret will assure your Highness to be very deserving." ' Newcasde was gradually falling back before the advancing Scots who had at last crossed the border to succour the Parliamentary army, and he was also threatened by F'airfax, who stormed Selby on the I ith of April, a disaster which Newcasde wrote to the King was entirely owing to the lack of assistance from Lord Loughborough and Colonel Porter, as ' The above letters from (leorge Porter are from a transcript of the Rupert Correspondence, in the possession of Mr. C. H. Firth. 2l8 ENDYMION PORTER they had time enoui^h, and orders too, to come to his aid. The Scots and the two Fairfaxes now joined in besieging- York with the aid of the Earl of Manchester. Rut, as Rupert drew near, they raised the siege in order to avoid beinir cauj^ht between two enemies, and took up a position on Marst(Mi Moor. Newcastle did not think it prudent to follow them up and force them to a battle until reinforcements arrived. Rupert, however, was in possession of a letter from the King, in which was expressed an earnest hope that he would be able to fight the enemy and beat them. The letter coincided exactly with Rupert's own feelings, and, appealing to it as being a positive command from the King, he overruled Newcastle's objections. The Royalist forces accordingly advanced to give battle to the combined armies of the Scots and of the English Parliament. Rupert and his hitherto invincible cavalry were posted on the right ; Goring led the cavalry on the left ; in the Royalist centre, which was marshalled by the experienced Eythin, George Porter held the rank of Major-General of foot.^ According to the " P^ull Relation," which Dr. Gardiner attributes to Lord Eglinton, who com- manded one of the Scottish regiments of horse. Goring, after scattering the cavalry on the Parlia- mentary right, assaulted the Scottish foot in the centre with the aid of Porter. Elglinton maintains that the Scottish foot beat off this combined assault by cavalry and infantry, but it is an undoubted fact that it went so hard with them that Lord Leven, ' 9th Report Hist. iMSS. Comm. p. 435 ; Vicar's "Cod's Ark," p. 277. >. THE CIVIL WAR 219 the Scottish General, thought the day was lost, and ried headlong from the field in utter ignorance of what had taken place upon his left. Here, however, a very different state of affairs prevailed. Por the first time Rupert met his match, and Cromwell, after putting his cavalry to rout, was free to come to the rescue of the centre with his victorious Ironsides. By this most timely aid the tide was turned, and the King's army was overwhelmed in utter ruin. More than four thousand were slain, and George Porter was captured along with many other Royalist prisoners. After some discussion in Parliament concerning his exchange, he seems ultimately to have succeeded in regaining his liberty in the ensumcr wmter. ' In the west the Royal arms were more fortunate. The King in person chased Essex into the barren hills of Cornwall, and compelled his army to sur- render at L(3Stwithiel, a brief success which flattered the hopes of the Royalists for a moment ; but it was followed by the indecisive (second) batde of New- bury in October, and in November Charles was back in Oxford. Probably Endymion Porter was in attendance on the King during this campaign, whose one barren victory was far indeed from counterbalancing the heavy blow of Marston Moor. Charles found himself in sore straits, and decided that he had now no choice but to seek what help he might from beyond the Irish Channel. At this stage he needed all that any of his friends could do for him. One of the most powerful supporters of the Royal ■ "Commons' Journals," vol. iii. pp. 658, 709-11 ; Rep. Duke of Portland's MSS., vol. i. pp. 192-6. 220 ENDYMION PORTER THE CIVIL WAR 221 cause clurinance, from Dover or Rye ; and that the Sergeant-at-arms should send one of his servants to see her shipped. She delayed, no doubt trying to collect some of her property, and on the 25th she was peremptorily ordered to leave the country before the ist of May, 227 » 228 ENDYMIOX PORTER under pain of being treated as a spy. She probably joined her husband in Paris, where Kndymion wiis meeting with that gratitude which Strafford had said, long before, might be expected by those who put their trust in princes. His letter to his old friend Nicholas, who was now in exile at Caen, tells of his poor plight. '' May it i'Lkask your Honoi^r, — I did receive your Honour's of the 3rd January, and yesterday I had likewise the other of the 14th, by which I understand your Honour hath mine that gaYe your Honour an account of the Queen's answer, and I forgot to send you then my cousin Grant's letter, which I have now inclosed in this. I am a sad man to hear your Honour is reduced to want ; but it is all our cases, for I am in so much necessity, that were it not for an Irish barber that was once my servant, I might have starved for want of bread. He hath lent me some money that will last me for a fortnight longer, then I shall be as much subject to necessity as I was before. Here in our Court no man looks on me, and the Queen thinks I lost my estates from want of will, rather than from my loyalty to my master ; but God be thanked I know my own heart, and am so satisfied in my conscience, and were it to do again, I would as freely sacrifice all without hopes of reward, as 1 have done this. They discourse here of a journey to Ireland. 1 pray God it succeed better than the rest of the designs have done, and truly they had need to think of some course, for businesses go so ill in England, as I fear our poor Master will see himself in a worse .state than ever he was, if Almighty God help him I LAST DAYS OF THK KING'S COURTIER 229 not. It seems your Honour's friends the Scots have sold him, and yet they are his White Boys.' And our Grandees lav the fault on his not taking the covenant and signing the propositions, yet I am of opinion they would have done like Scots had he done all the unworthy acts they could have desired of him. If your Honour remembers the second letter I wrote your Honour at Oxford from hence, I told you in that how you were to expect nothing from hence, though at that time they made believe here that we should have ten thousand men pre- sently, and named officers, and sent Sir Dudley Wyatt to secure the loss of all the remainder of our horse, which without hope of such a supply might have made their escape and have kept on foot to this day. But I am of opinion the P>ench Ambassador and Montreul went to the Scots and not to his Majesty, and your Honour will see that when we fall out among ourselves the Scots and French will fall upon us and divide us. ''The Spaniard and Hollander have made peace, and these people here are much troubled about it, and no question but it may be an occasion of rebellion here, and those that have fomented all the uproars of Christendom may by the Tyler's law be paid in their own kind, for in this country there is as much com- bustible matter to take fire as in any place of the world, the whole kingdom being discontented. '* Both our Court and the French Court are vehemently angry with my Lord of Norwich, and say he hath been a main stickler in the agreement between Diego and Haunce.- But why should we * i.e., his favourites. ^ The Spanish and Dutch plenipotentiaries at Munster. 230 ENDYMION PORTER be angry at it I know not, lor that peace can no ways retard our Master's, and in my mind that is the only thing that all honest English hearts should look after. So soon as I can get a small sum to carry me into Flanders I resolve to go thither, and I shall not starve there ; beside I may be able to do my Master some service in those parts, and when I go I will advertise your Honour of my departure, for by your Honour's good advice I may do some- thing for our King's good, and that I will study all the days of my life, whether I be commanded to do it or no, and if the Independents would but alter their opinions a little, and say they would have a King, I would go to them presently and kiss their feet, for that were the right way to dispatch the business ; but a pox upon the Presbyterians and them too ; they will not fall out till it be too late to do our Master good, or to save our nation from general ruin, which I am afraid will be the i:m\. I am so retired into the skirts of a suburb that I scarce know what they do at the Louvre, and 1 want clothes for a Court, having but that poor riding suit I came out of England in, which shows I am constant in my apparel as I am in my respects to your Honour, and I am confident that when your Honour shall take a survey of all my actions you will find that I never altered, nor was fantastical in seeking after new friendships ; I ever profess't to love and honour you, and I am and will be " Your Honour's most faithful *' humble servant, '* Endvmion P(;utkr. ''Paris, //w xo^tli January, 1647. " P.S. — This epigram was sent me from London. LAST DAYS OF THE KING'S COURTIER 231 * The Scots must have two hundred thousand pound To sell the King and quit our English ground. And Judas like, I hope 'twill be their lots To hang themselves, so farewell, lowsy Scots.' " » From Paris, Porter moved to Brussels. He had visited it so often in more fortunate days, that it is probable he was welcomed there by old friends, and his worst necessities were at an end ; his letters certainly grew more cheerful. There he also found '' my sweet Marquess of Newcasde," and William Aylesbury, the translator of Davila's " History of the Civil Wars in France," and brother-in-law of Hyde. One of the pleasantest features of that time is the brotherly feeling shown among the exiled English. As soon as one Royalist gentleman escaped from starvation he immediately turned to share his crust with some countryman in distress. A sign of Porter's better fortune is that he was able to be of some use to the Marquess of New- castle. The Duchess tells,^ in her memoir of the Duke, how " My Lord, notwithstanding that litde pro- vision of money he had, set forth from Rotterdam to Antwerp, where for some time he lay at a public inn, until one of his friends that had a great love and respect for my Lord, Mr. Endymion Porter, who was groom of the chamber to his Majesty King Charles the First (a place not only honour- able? but very profitable), being not willing that a person of such quality as my Lord should lie in a public-house, proffered him lodgings at the house » Nicholas Papers, p. 73. , - "T.ife of William, Duke of Newcastle," 1886. Ldited by C. H. Firth, \^. 97- 232 ENDYMIOX PORTER where he was, and would not let my Lord be at quiet until he had accepted of them." The Duke was still, however, in i^reat difficulty about raising money, till "Mr. Aylesbury, a very worthy gende- man, and a great friend to my Lord, having some monies that belonged to the now Duke of Bucking- ham, and seeing my Lord in so great distress, did him the favour to lend him ^200, which money my Lord since his return hath honesdy and jusdy repaid." The following letter from Porter to Mr. Aylesbury refers to this loan : — *' Brussels, the \^th of August, 1648. "Sir, — I received a former letter from you which I did answer and send you word therein of an indisposition I had which kept me from waiting on you, and to tell you the truth 1 expected you here before this ; but by ycjurs of the i8th present I find you have not received mine, and that you continue your desire of speaking with me con- cerning some business of my Lord's wherein I shall be ready to show all the love and duty my heart can afford, and I would it were large enough and joined with such a capacity of understatiding as might show me a grateful man ; 1 find by your letter likewise that you have a desire to see your brother Hyde, and to tell you the truth I was engaged to my wife to wait on her in a journey which she goes to-morrow, and is to return hither on Saturday. If you by that time think you can be back from Middleburgh let me know by F'ather Clayton to Father Uarcey, who kisses your hands, and would have done it by letter, had he known 1 fij^^ LAST DAYS OF THK KLNG'S COURTIER 233 of your being in Antwerp. He is with much affection your servant, and he will at my return on Saturday deliver me your desire of what I am to do and when I am to meet you, for you shall dispose of "Sir, " Your most affectionate humble servant, " F^NDVMioN Porter. " If you see Mr. Chancellor assure him that I am one that loves and honours him with all my heart. - ** For uiy much honoured and noble friend Mr. Aylesbury, these. Antwerp.'' ^ The following letter Is written to Sir Richard Browne, of Says Court, Deptford, the father-in-law of John Evelyn. Sir Richard was sent as resident to the Court of France both under Charles I. and Charles IL, and it was in his chapel, at the Embassy, that the Duke of Newcasde married his second Duchess, the writer of his memoirs. Lady Browne was PLlizabeth, daughter of Sir John Pretyman, of Dryfield, Gloucestershire. No doubt Flndymion had known her as a child, as he was a man of twenty-three when she was born. She died in 1652, aged forty-two. Sir Richard Browne's tomb may be still seen in Deptford Church. " To Sir Richard Browne. " Brussels, this 29//^ November, 1647. " Most honoured Sir, — I write not often to you for fear of troubling you. But I wish myself often in your company, because I love it as you do pie, and God send me but good news next week of our » Clarendon Papers, Bod. Lib., 1648, 2,859. I !% 234 ENDYMION PORTER I poor Master's safe delivery from his enemies the Agitators and I will be merry with you in my next. Was there ever so cursed a nation as we are, that must be thought murderers, for a company of fellows that are possessed with legions of devils and would make us believe they have the Holy Ghost. I hope the Lord will serve them, one of these days, as he did those whom he sent a-fishing in the Swine! For unless there be some such course taken with them we shall never live at quiet. 1 beseech you buss my sweet country-woman for my sake, with such a buss as made the lass turn nun. Come, Sir Richard, if our Gloucestershire mistress were out of the verge of wife, she is worth one thousand drabs that make you believe the moon is made of crreen cheese. I thank God I am now past these things, paternoster and good wine are the pastime of the aged. Present my humble service to Mrs. Evelyn and to the sweet Lazala of Dept- ford, and be pleased to assure yourself that " I am, honoured sir. " Your most affectionate humble servant, '' EndYxMIOn Portkr. '' I beseech you convey this inclosed to my Lord Marquess of Montrose, and this other to my sweet Marquess of Newcastle." * " To Sir Richard Broivnc. "Most honourkd Sir, and my dkar Rksidknt, — I wrote unto thee last week, but we have a cooler from Encrland this, and therefore I cannot be so merry as I thought to have been : yet methinks Sir William Fleming and William Murray should not ' Add. MSS., 15,858. ^ LAST DAYS OF THE KING'S COURTIER 235 come hither empty handed. I hope they bring you chirping news, and that you will give William a rouse at the ' Spread Eagle ' and not forget me, but dash me in one glass as you do an orange peel, and I believe William will not like the wine the worse. We are here in a state of grace with the taking of Coutraye and are confident to relieve Ypres, which if we do, let me tell you, there will be trouble at Paris, for all the huge bang the Swedes have given the Emperor ; but why should we English hearken after what other nations do. I would we were quiet at home and let them fight dog, &c. Kiss my sweet lady and country-woman for me, and assure her I love her with my whole heart : and you may be confident that I am, ** Dear sir, "Your faithful and most affectionate humble servant, '' Endymion Porter. " Brussels, iMay 30, 1648. '' I beseech you command this letter to be sent to my Lord of Newcasde." ^ The task of negotiating with those in power in England, and of collecting the wrecks of royalist fortunes, was generally at that time the part of the women. Mrs. Porter, like Mary Verney and many other anxious ladies, came over to London for the purpose. In the winter of 1647 8 she had managed to procure a pass, but it was revoked in January. She begged leave to remain longer in Plngland to arran<»-e for her husband compounding, and m ' Add. MSS., 15,858. Printed in Bell's "Fairfax Correspond- ance," vol. ii. p. 3°- 236 EXDYMION PORTER November, 1648, she seems to have succeeded in her negotiations, for Endymion himself was given leave to come to England, and in April, 1649, he compounded, being only fined £222. probably in consideration of his property being mortgaged and himself penniless. His house in the Strand was half-ruined by the soldiers who had been quartered in it ; one would like to know if a corner of it was made habitable, or if George took care of his parents as he had taken good care of himself. Porter's ruling tastes were not quenched by his misfortunes. The last we hear of him is from Evelyn's ''Diary," May 12, 1649, "In the after- noon went to see Gildron's collection of paintings, where I found Mr. Endymion Porter, of his late Majesty's bed-chamber." But Endymion did not long survive his royal master. He was buried at St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, August 20, 1649. He died a bankrupt ; his creditors, Sir W. Cooke Russell and Exlmund Cooke were his administrators, with George, his s(jn and heir. His will cannot be found.' The executors are, however, said to have been the Duke of New- castle and the Marquis of Worcester. The late Eord Strangford preserved an extract from it, which contains a graceful tribute to his early benefactor.- '' I charge all my sons upon my blessing, that they, leaving the like charges upon their posterity, do all of them observe and respect the children and family of my Lord Duke of Buckingham, deceased, to whom I owe all the happiness I had in the world." ' A note in the possession of Mr. l^>nest Leggett says it was dated 1639. 2 Fontblanque, " Lords Strangford," p. 82. LAST DAYS OF THE KING'S COURTIER 237 It is easy to pass judgment on the Courts of the Stuart kings, and laugh at the coarseness of King James and the debaucheries of the " godless Cava- liers," yet the gay and accomplished Flndymion and his spirited wife were not the only married lovers of their day. A Court and time cannot be all evil that can show such men and women. CHAPTER XV THE YOUNG COURTIERS OE THE KINCl IT is a dangerous experiment to raise the curtain once more after the hero of the play has fallen, and it is not cheering to turn from the brilliant servant of King Charles to follow the fortunes of the shabby actors who played the part of Royalists on the Commonwealth stage. They seem to have consoled themselves for the dulness of life under a Puritan Government by fighting as many duels as they could arrange, and personal squabbles, abortive plots, and ignoble misdemeanours make up the history of most of the English followers of the " king over the water." Among these surroundings the once proud and admired Olivia Porter lived out the last years of her life. F'our of her sons were still with her, and probably more than one daughter was living.^ It may be believed that George Porter's easy orood-humour aided him to assume the duties of an elder son with a pleasant grace, and brighten the loneliness of her widowhood with the joviality for which he was famous. But George's own life was ' There is no record of Lettice's death, and there seems to have been an elder daughter, Mrs. Grenville. See Appendix. 23« THE YOUNG COURTIERS OF THE KING 239 not exacdy a peaceful one, and he was several times imprisoned, not for his Royalist convictions, but for his invincible taste for fighting duels. Tom Porter was as pugnacious as his brother, and narrowly escaped being hanged for running a soldier through in Covent Garden in 1655. He admitted the manslaughter, which he could not very well deny, as the gendeman, Mr. Saikeld, died of the wound, but he pleaded that he was innocent of murder. He was lucky enough to save his neck by the strange old legal fiction that any one who could read was a clerk and free from the authority of the common law, so he '' read his verse and pleaded his clergy," and was only branded in the hand. ^ The only other of Tom Porter's duels that need be mentioned was one he fought long afterwards with Sir Henry Bellasis, which Mr. Pepys noted in his "Diary" was worth remembering for "the silliness of the quarrel, and," he continues, "is a kind of emblem of the general complexion of this whole kingdom at present." The pair were most intimate friends, but once being merry in company, Tom Porter said he should like to see the man in England who would dare to give him a blow, and with that Sir Henry Bellasis gave him a box on the ear. For this folly they fought and wounded each other, but Sir Henry, finding himself severely hurt, called Tom Porter and kissed him and bade him fly, "for," says he, "Tom, thou hast hurt me ; but I will make shift to stand upon my legs till thou mayst withdraw, for I would not have thee troubled for what thou hast done." Tom profited ' Middlesex Sessions Rolls, vol. iii. p. 233. 240 ENDYMIOX PORTER by his friend's generosity and escaped to France, but Sir Henry died a few days kiter, "and," Mr. Pepys concludes, "it is pretty to see how the world do talk of them as a couple of fools that killed one another out of love." ^ But foolish as this story is, it is not so hopeless as what is perhaps the saddest bit of the Porter family history — the story of the third son, Philip. On the outbreak of the civil war he was on the Continent, under the care of a tutor, who proudly termed the boy his " masterpiece." But life abroad was not the strictest sort of training, and Philip returned to England one of the worst of the '* Deboshed Cavaliers " who gave the Common- wealth ma^iistrates so much trouble. In 1652 he was bound over to keep the peace towards his mother, after which he '' again, in a very rude and unnatural manner and with wicked oaths before her door, did disturb and threaten her and her friends," and was finally committed to Newgate, there to remain till discharged by due course of law.- Later on he was again imprisoned, at one time for debt, at another for duelling, and lastly for being privy to a plot against the life of the Lord Protector.3 In 1655 his short and sorry life came to an end. He probably died reconciled to his family, as he left his litde all, one thousand pounds, to his " dear mother, the Lady Olivia Porter, and his brothers Thomas and James." Thomas Porter's life was rather less squalid than ^ Pepy's " Diary," vol. iv. pp. 140, 141, 150. 2 Middlesex Sessions Rolls, vol. iii. 3 " Com. Journ.," vol. iv. pp. 486, 511 ; Cal. Committee for Compounding, p. 1,097. THE YOUNG COURTIERS OE THE KING 241 that of his luckless brother Philip, and as he in- herited his father's literary tastes, he devised other and more romantic fashions of breaking the com- mandments than by swearing at his mother or even fighting duels. His first performance was to elope with his cousin Anne Blunt, daughter of Lord Newport,' a girl of eighteen, who left her father's house with her too fascinating cousin and was contracted to him in the Inn called the ** Catherine Wheel," in Southwark, that they might afterwards be married in St. George's Church. Her father did his best to prove that the marriage was invalid, as Anne was under age, and St. George's was not the parish church of either of the contracting parties. Perhaps he succeeded in postponing the acknow- ledgment of the marriage till Anne was of age, for her son George was not born till several years later, and a Chancery suit mentions that Anne married without her father's consent. Lady Anne Blunt cannot have long survived her marriage, as in 1659 Tom Porter married as his second wife, Roberta Anne Culpepper, one of the most uncanny of that odd and clever family. This marriage was also petitioned against, as Roberta's brother wished to justify his refusal to pay her dower, but he failed in proving his case, and probably had no foundation for it, for he is said to have been nearly out of his mind, though a man of considerable learning and talent. Lady F'anshawe, who loved ghost stories, spent a Sunday at Canterbury and there picked up a » Middlesex Sessions Rolls, vol. iii. p. 237; Cal. Dom. S. P., 1645, 74, 577; Merc. Polit., 5,164. \ 242 ENDYMION PORTER ghastly legend about Roberta Porter, which was told by the Dean of Canterbury himself and confirmed by many other gentlemen. Roberta was daughter of Sir Thomas Culpepper, second husband of Barbara, Lady Strangford, whose son, the second V^iscount Strangford, married Mary, daughter of the first George Porter, in 1 66 1. " Roberta and her brother were atheists," said the good Dean, "and living a life according to their profession, went in a frolic into a vault of their ancestors and pulled some of their father's and mother's hairs. Within a very few days Mrs. Porter fell ill and died. Her brother kept her body in a coffin set up in his buttery, saying it would not be long before he died and then they would be buried together ; but from the night after her death until the time we were told the story, which was three months ago, they say that a head, as cold as death, with curled hair like his sister's, did ever lie by him wherever he slept, notwithstanding he removed to several places and countries to avoid it, and several persons tell us they have felt this apparition." ' Thomas Porter does not appear to have been troubled by the ghost, and married as his third wife his cousin, Anne Canning, of P'oxcote. With the Restoration the good fortune of the Porter family returned. Tom gave up eloping and settled down as a successful literary man. His three comedies, **The Carnival," **A Witty Combat," and "The F'rench Conjuror," all drew crowded houses. ' '* Mem. Lady Fanshawe," 1830, pp. 156-7. I 4 }' THE YOUNG COURTIERS OF THE KING 243 D'Avenant was still alive and showed his inte- rest in the son of his old patron by writing an epilogue to his play *' The Villain." But George Porter was the great man of the family. His chance had now come, for he matched the humour of the second Charles as well as his father, Endymion, had suited his own stately master. He returned to Court as Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the Oueen Mother, Henrietta Maria, iuid the world went well with him. Many of the royal grants to Endymion were now renewed to his widow, and George's name is generally associated with his mother's in the deeds. Aston had been sold directly after P2ndymion's death, but other valuable property was recovered, and George succeeded in recoverin^^ Alfarthino- from the hands of the mort^auees. It is probable that Olivia lived in her house in the Strand for the two years that she sur- vived to enjoy the return of prosperity, and she was then laid to rest beside her husband in the Church of St. Martin's-in-the- Fields on December 13, 1663. That same year, George was honoured by a commission to the (xjurt of PVance, ^200 being allowed by the Privy Seal for his expenses. Anne of Austria, the Queen Mother of France, was dying, and George was to carry letters of condolence from Queen Henrietta Maria and King Charles II. to Henrietta of Orleans, the King's lovely and favourite sister. *' I send the bearer, George Porter," wrote Charles, ''with no other errand than upon the % 244 ENDYMION PORTER subject of the Queen Mother's indisposition, who, I fear by the nature of her disease, and what I find by letters from thence, will not lon^ be in a position to receive any compliments. This bearer will tell you of our fleet bein^^r gone out to seek the Dutch, and you know him so well that I need say nothing more to you. He will play his own part and make you laugh before he returns, which is all the business he has there, except to assure you with how much kind- ness, '* I am yours, In 1665 George Porter was in attendance on the Duke of Monmouth, in company with the Duke of Ikickingham, evidently on a round of visits, as Lord Arlington reported that they were ''all enoaored in warm country dances." ^ In fact, George seems generally to have been selected whenever, in King Charles's words, *'all the business is to make you laugh," but we really know little else of this merry servant of the Merry Monarch. Flven the poem D'Avenant addressed to him gives no further information, being chiefly concerned with a certain " fair Chlo- rinda." GeorL^e did not live to see the dethronement of the last Stuart king, and was spared having once again to choose between his loyalty and his comforts. He died on the nth of December, 1683, aged 63. His brother James appears, as far as his life ' " Madame,'' J. Cartwright, p. 215. =« Cal. Dom., S. P. Dec, 1665. Arlington to the Ring. K I THE YOUNG COURTIERS OF THE KING 245 is known, to have been the most worthy of the Porter sons. ThrouLrh TOod and evil fortunes he was true to James the Second, acting as colonel to a troop of volunteers raised to oppose Mon- mouth's rebellion, and as lieutenant-colonel in the Irish war which ended his Royal master's reign in the British Islands. Just before King James landed in Ireland he had been dispatched to beg assistance from Pope Innocent, and when the batde of the Bovne drove the King into exile, James Porter followed him to France and resumed his duties as Vice Chamberlain in the English Court at St. Germain's. There he remained till the King's death, and fulfilled his last duties by collecting the materials for a funeral oration.' Endymion's youngest son, at least, lived true to his father's creed, " My dut> and my loyalty have taught me to follow the King my master, and by the grace of God, nothino- shall divert me from it." Dedicated to the King of France. Translated into English, 1702. APPENDIX i \\. EPITAPH ON DR. DONNE liV ENDVMION PORTER, PRINTED WITH versf:s 1!V many other admirers in the edition of donne's poems in 1639. '"T^HIS decent urn a sad inscription bears 1 Of I )onne's departure from us to the spheres ; And the dumb stone with silence seems to tell The change of this life, wherein is well Exprest, a cause to make all joy to cease, For us it is impossible to find One frought with virtues to inrich the mind. But why should death with a promiscuous hand At one rude stroke impoverish a land ? Thou strict attorney unto stricter fate Did'st thou confiscate his life out of hate To his rare parts ? or did'st thou throw thy dart With envious hand, at some plebeian heart And he, with pious virtue, stept between To save the stroke, and so was killed unseen By thee ? O 'twas his goodness so to do Which human kindness never reached unto. Thus the hard hands of death were satisfied And he left us like orphan friends, and died. Now from the pulpit to the people's ears Whose speech shall send repentant sighs and tears ? Or tell us if a purer virgin die Who shall hereafter write her elegy ? 24*) i 250 APPENDIX Poets, be silent, let your numbers sleep, For he is gone, that did all fancy keep. Time hath no soul but his exalted verse Which with amazement we may now rehearse. APPENDIX II DESCENDANTS OF ENDYMION PORTER (leorge, eldest son of Endymion Porter, left three sons, George, Endymion, who died aged twenty-three, and Aubrey. The latter was made a " page of honour " in 167 1. He had also five daughters, of whom Mary married Phihp Smyth, Lord Strangford, as his second wife; Isabella married Edward Bedell, of Woodrising, Norfolk : Anne married Thomas Condon ; and Olivia and Diana appear to have remained single. It is not always easy to distinguish between George I'orter and hi!^ eldest son George, i'he latter was made (Gentleman Usher to the Queen in 1663, and later on Vice-Chamberlain. Young George married Mary, daughter and heiress of John Mawson, and left several children, his eldest son being seated at Alfarthing. Thomas, Endymion Porter's second surviving son, left one son George, by his first wife Lady Anne Hlunt, who inherited Newport House from his grandfather, Lord Newport. In 1678, while still a minor, (George endeavoured to gain permission to sell the house, saying it was unfit for his habitation, but the House of Lords refused him leave to do so. In the year 1659 he was left ^5,000 by his godmother, the Countess of Portland, and in December, 1684, he was indicted at the Old Bailey for killing Sir James Hackett in a scuffle outside a theatre. He was found guilty of manslaughter, as there was no evidence of premeditation, but less lucky than his father he was for some reason not allowed the benefit of the legal fiction of "reading his neck verse," and was "barred his clergy," and stood a good chance of being hanged. However, the King was merciful and granted him a royal pardon. Perhaps to show his gratitude to the House of Stuart, he was, after the Revolution, involved in a plot to assassinate William HI. But he soon thought • V- 251 ^ A^ k , better of his Jacobite schemes, and betrayed his associates to the Government, bringing two of them to the gallows as traitors in 1696, and earning a pension of ^260 a year for himself. He died in 1726, apparently leaving no children, as his widow, Eliza- beth Porter, of St. James', Westminster, was his sole executrix. In the report of the trial of Rookwood, Fenwick, and other con- spirators, he is called Captain Porter. James, third surviving son of Endymion Porter, left no children. It is not known who Endymion Porter's daughter Lettice married. No record is to be found of the birth of any other daughter, whether in the registers of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, or of Aston. The registers of Hatfield do not begin at so early a date, so it is possible that another daughter was born to the Porters at Woodhall, and afterwards married with the Greville family, for an undated letter to Endymion is signed by his grandson Richard (ireville. Sir Edward Greville, of Mickleton, and luilke Greville, Lord Brooke, were old friends of the Porters, and a match between one of Endymion's daughters and a member of the (Greville family was a very probable thing, but it is at present only a supposition. The letter itself gives no clue. " Mv unfi:i(;nkdly honoured Grandfather, — I must heartily beseech you to favour me in so acceptable a kind as to command me in all or any occasion to give yourself most assur- ance of my faithful heart's desire to be approved most covetous of your service, and it is and daily shall be prosecuted by my prayers to God for yourself and my (Grandmother's happy long life. 1 have here inclosed sent you all my receipts and rules for shooting, that I can call to mind without book, some more I have which shall be all yours when I can come into my country to send them to you, in the mean time I must crave your excuse, and so according to my beginning, my continuance, and last end, shall testify these words, that you have not any one friend in the whole world that more fervently and faithfully loves you than myself. " Your constant devoted servant, "Richard Greville. '{Endorsed) For my dearly honoured Grandfather Mr. Endimeon Porter, these." ' • Doni. S. P., vol. cccclxxv. No. 91 (endorsed in pencil "try 1640"). APPENDIX 253 252 APPENDIX III PORTRAITS OF THE PORTKR KAMILN There are so many portraits scattered through public and private galleries that only an attempt can be made to give a Hst of them. Besides those reproduced in this volume, some of the best known are the Vandyke portrait of Endymion owned by Lord Mex- borough. It "is life size, wearing a red doublet slashed with white under a dark orange cloak which is worn over the left arm, seen to the knees and turned to the left, in three-ciuarter view of face and figure, pointing downward with left hand." ' Lord Hardwicke possesses another \ andyke portrait of Porter. Another interesting Vandyke portrait was in Sir T. Phillipp's collection at Middle Hill, and is now in the gallery of the Rev. J. E. A. Fenwick, at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham; it much resembles the Dobson portrait engraved in this work. A group by \^andyke of the whole Porter family, which seems to be identical with that reproduced on page facing 125, was once in the collection of Sir P. Lely, and is now in one of the Royal collections.^ A sketch of this picture in grisaille is in the possession of Mr. Ernest Leggett, of 62, Cheapside. Another portrait of Olivia Porter is at Petworth. There are two portraits of Porter by William 1 )obson, whom King Charles named the English Tintoretto. The one in the National C.allery has rather a self-conscious expression, he is bare- headed, dressed in amber-coloured doublet and point lace collar, he holds a fowling-piece in his hands, and is attended by a page carrying a dead hare. The other portrait by 1 )obson is reproduced as Frontispiece. The portraits of Endymion vary greatly. Engravings are even more perplexing than paintings, as engravers had a way of altering the name under a picture, and then selling it as a portrait of whatever distinguished personage might be most in reiiuest. One portrait of Endymion, engraved by Faithorn from a painting by Dobson, is suspiciously like Lord Fielding, and is actually known to have been sold for the Earl of Essex. There is also a miniature engraved in Mezzo by Earldom ' iNoles on Vandyke Exhibition, 1887. V. G. Stevens. ^ Ibid. vM showing a young man, smiling, but not very attractive. Also a Mezzo by Richardson, a side face view of a stout somewhat Italian- looking man. In the Sutherland collection at the Hodleian there are drawings by Bulfinch and Flight, and a coloured drawing by W. W. Oardner from the picture at Wimpole, a handsome Vandyke type of face, light brown hair, hazel eyes, light beard and moustache, and red dress. The Print Room at the British Museum has several reproductions of the Madrid portrait by Vandyke. *•**% • ■<>, il INDEX -ii Aston-under-hill, 1,12, 26, 29, 83- 4, 127, 161 Aylcsbiu V, Win., 231-2 B. Hanker, Chief Justice, 204 Hedell, Kdward, 250 Bee, Richard, 1O2 Bellasis, Sir H., 239 Blunt, Lady Anne, 241 Bolton, Ednnnid, 140-1 Bonnell, Samuel, 152 Boteler, Anne, see " Newport, Countess of " ,, Audrey (Countess of Chichester), 15 ,, Eleonor (Lady Drake), Elizabeth Villicrs, Lady, 4, 9, 12, 57 John, Baron, 13-15, 164 Jane (Countess of Marl- borough), 15, 19, 08 Mary, see *' Howard of Escrick, Lady" ,, Olivia, see ** Porter " ,, William, Baron, 15, 127, 201 Bristol, Earl of, 33, 38, 45, 94 Brook, Greville, Lord, 4, 134,251 >> M )> Browne, Lady (Elizabeth Prety- man). 233 Browne, Sir Richard, 233 Buckingham, Cieorge Villiers, Duke of, 4, 12, 34, 39, 4 ^ 45, ^^5, 70, 73, 94, 102, 145, 236 ,, Duchess of, 16, 89, 120, 151, 198 Burgoyne, Sir Roger, 201 C. Calley, Sir Wm.. 119, 125 Canning, Anne, 242 Canning family of Eoxcote, 8 Canning, Richard, 53, 119, 162 Cardinal Infante, 104 Carlisle, Earl of, 64 Cary, Lady, 56, 58 Catesby, Richard, 12 Charles L, 13. 39, 63, 81-7, 104, 164, 195, 198-9 H-, 243 Coke, Secretary, 108, 175 Colepepper, see " Culpepper " Con, 165, 167 Condon, T., 250 Conwav, Lord, 16, 177, 180, 183, i«5 ■ Cooke, Col., 225-6, 236 Cornwallis, Sir John, 9 Cosin, Dean, 87 Cotswold games, 27 Cottington, Secretary, 40, 41, 42, 44, 56, (x), 119, 143, 150 Courteen, Sir W., 152-4, 173, 200-1 1 «.) 257 / J 258 INDEX Crane, Lady, 1 19 Crofts, Anne (Countess of Cleve- land), 25, 75 ,, Cicily (Mrs. Killi^revv), 25. 75 Dorothy (Ladv l^ennett), 25. 75 ,, Sir John, 25 ,, William, 201 Cromwell, 219, 225 Culpepper, 4, 148, 241-2 Culpepper, Roberta (Mrs. J^orter), 241-2 D. D'Avenaiit, 27, 123, 132, 134-7, 141- 243 Decker, 139 Denbij^li, Countess of, 54, 86 Diego, 229 Digbv, Ivord, 1 15 ,, Sir Kenelm, 1 14 Dobson, William, 147, 252 Donne, Kpitapli on, 249 Dorchester, Lord, 121 Dormer, Jane, 5 Dorvan, Frances, 128 Dover, Robert, 27 Dover, Earl of, see " Rochford " E. Earldom, 252 Elrington, 2 Elizabeth, Electress and Queen of Bohemia, 33, 107 En sham, Abbey of, 2 Essex, Earl of, 208, 219 Evelyn, John, 233, 236 Eythin, Lord. 218 F. Fanshawe, Lady, 241 Figueroa. Don Gomez (Count of Feria), 5 „ J nana de, 5 Fisher, Sir E., 2, 3 Fleming, Sir W., 234 Fletcher, Captain, 113 G. Gage, 103 Gentileschi, 144 Gerbier, 43, 10 1, 105 Gibbs, James, 128 Glamorgan (Lord Herbert), 220-1 Godolphin, up Gondomar, 33, 46, 73 Goring, George, 137, 176, 189, 22I-f) Gream, Dick, 65 Greville, Sir Edward, 2, 134, 251 „ Lodovic, 6 ,, Richard, 251 (irimes, Richard, C)0 H. Hackett, Sir James, 250 Hales of Eton, 141-2 Hamilton, Marquis of, 191, 198 ,, Marchioness of, 165 Harvey, Richard, 170, 173, 175 Haunce, 229 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 81, 87, 104, 163, 188, 201, 206, 228,243 Herrick, 26, 125, 131 Hippesley, Gabriel, 143 Howard of Escrick, Ladv (Marv lk)telcr), 15, 19, 57 Howell's letters, 63, 81 Hunks, 215 Hyde, h/d, 206, 2^2 I. Infant. I, 46-8, 63, 70, 81 Infante, Cardinal, 104 J. James L. 31-3, 39, 40-1, 73 II., 245 Jermyn, 115, 137, 189 Jerret, 217 L. Lanier, 145-6 Laud, 150, 167-8 Legg. 215 Ley, Lady, see Huteler, Jane Littleton, 203 Loughborough, Lord, 217 Lumlev, Lord, 2 Lyly, 8 M. Matthews, Sir Tobv, 119 May Thomas, 139 Mawson, Mary, 250 Mendoz.i, Don Diego de, 71-2 Mennis, Sir Matthew, 168 Meutys, 79, 101 Mexia, Don Diego de, 72 i -4^* INDEX 259 Mickleton, 1, 2. 3, 8, 84 Middleton, Lord Treasurer, 16 Monmouth, Duke of, 244-5 Montreuil, 229 Montrose, 191, 234 Murray. W., 201, 234 X. Newcastle, Duke of, 207, 211, 231, 232-4, 236 Newport, Countess of, 15, 19, 29, 127, 166 ,, House, 250 Nicholas, 159, 191-2, 206, 228 Nottingham, Admiral, 6 Norwich, Earl of, 176, 229 Nys, Daniel, 145 O. Olivares, Count of, 10, 37, 46, 49, 65. ^h 95» ^02 Oliver, Richard, 50, 53, 155 Ormond, Duke of, 194-5 W Pennington, Admiral, 110-114 Petty, 146 Philip IV. of Sp.iin, 37, 46, 48, 49 Porter, Angela, 4, 57, 61, 84, 85, 162 „ Anne, 250 ,, Aubrey, 250 „ Cartwright, 4 „ Charles, 39, 126, 130, 177. 181 „ Diana, 250 „ „ Lady, 176, 226 „ Dorita, 4 ,, Dorothy (Underhill), 3 „ Edmund, 3, 4, 7. 83 „ Edmund, 5 (Ned), 10, 50, 55.57.65.91-3 ,, Eleonor (Crane), 10 ,. Elizabeth, 251 ICndymion, birth, 8 ; edu- cation, 9, 10 ; master of liorse to Huckingham, 12 ; marriage, 13 ; sent to Madrid, 33 ; Calais shipwreck, 34 ; to Madrid with Prince Charles, 42 ; at the king's marriage, 81-3 ; mission to Spain, 95 ; »> shipwreck at Burton, 98 ; mission to Brussels, 105-8 ; poems, 132, 249 ; relations with D'Ave- nant, 135 ; with Rubens, 102 ; with Vandyke, 147 ; trading com- panies, i4(>-5i ; East India speculations, 152 ; grants of land, 154-5 ; draining schemes, 160 ; suspected of being a papist, 168 ; attends the king in the Scotch war, 173 ; member of parlia- ment for Droitwich, 184 ; army plot, 189 ; attends the king to Edinburgh, 191 ; to Windsor, 199 ; to Ox- ford, 208 ; flies to France, 227 ; Brussels, 231 ; return to England and death, 236 Porter, Endymion, 75 Endymion, 122- „ (son of George), 250 Erisey, 209 George, birth, 17; christening, 23 ; journey to France, 126 ; entered army, 176 ; married, 176 ; resigned com- mission, 185 ; proposed for Irish command, 194; taken prisoner near Derby, 204 ; relieved Newark, 213; letters to Prince Rupert, 212-17 ; Prisoner at Marston Moor, 218-19; in the west under Cioring, 221 ; rout of Lamport, 223 ; quarrel with Tuke, 224 ; makes terms with Parliament, 226 ; gentleman of the bedchamber to ^ueen Dowager, 243 ; death, 244 George, 250 „ (son of Tom), 250 Gyles, 4, 5, 6 »> >> )> >> >> M 26o INDEX Porter, (ivies, lo, 181, 183, 208 ,, Helnor, 4 Isabella, 250 „ James, 127, 244-5, 251 Jane (Bartelete), 10 „ Joiin, 154 Lettice, 202, 250 ,, Lodowick. (>-"] ,, Lucia, () Margaret (Hoi tun), 10, 89 Marie, 117, 128,200, 207 Mary (Cannin<4), 10 Mary, 250 Mo lint joy, 93 Nicholas, 3, 4 Olivia (Boteler), 13, 16, 97, 123, 164-7, 208, 227, 235,210, 243 Olivia, 250 Philippa, 4 Philip, 93, 127-1;, 240 Robert, 2 Richard, 2 Thomas, Captain, 9, 10, _ 13,34.37,124-5, 154 Thomas, 124, 127, 200, 239, 241-2 ,, Villiers, 82 ,, William, 2, 3 William, 122 Portland, Earl of, 149 Countess of, 250 Poudrel, 204 R. Raco\v>ki, 157 Rochford, Lord, 58-9 Roe, or Rovve, Sir T., 107, 146 Roos, Lady, 13 Roydon, Captain, 157 Rubens, 101-2, 118, 147 Rupert, Prince, 132,210-19 S. St. Antoine, 50, 57 Salkeld, 239 Salvetti, 95 Siivage, Sir E., 159 ,1 &ixham, 25, 75 Selden, \(yo Seymour, Colonel, loi) Shakespeare, 27, 142 Smith, Charles, 122 Stanhope, Lord, of Harrington. '55 Major, 205 Strafford, 180, i(;o Strangford, Viscount, 242, 250 Suckling, 141-2, i88-(> Summercotes North, 161, 174 Sutherland Collection, 253 T. Thynne. Lady Isabella, 201; Traquair, 191, 193 Tuke, Colonel, 224 V. Vandyke, 147, 2^2 Vane, iTk), 191 Vavasour, 205 Verc, Lord, 158 Verney. Edmund, 184-5 ,. * Sir Ralph, 201 Villiers, Christopher, sec *' Angle- sea Elizabeth, vtv'^^oteler" Su^an, sec " Denbigh " Sir Edward, 12 (ieorge, sec ** Bucking- ham " Mary, 52, 66, 89-(p W. Wake, Lionel, 10^ Walls, 186 Warmestry, Ciervase, 98 Warmestry, 121 Wheeler, Major, 217 Windebank, 112, 156. 175, 188 Winter, T., 201 Woodhall, 15, 16, 17, 127, 251 Worcester, Marquo^ of, 220, 236 Wych, George, 170 ,, Sir P., 146 W^iin, Sir R., 44, 6C) I \\VIN I5K0THERS. THK C.kKSH AM I'RESS, WOKING AND LONDON COLUM — «»' T Tp T^Tr ^rn COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES V CD 0022770984