The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution. Samuel Rawson Gardiner
for this voyage without prejudice to the public safety. They were discharged when there was an accommodation propounded and allowed; which was, that they should forthwith prepare other ships for the home service, whilst they went on with their voyage; which they accordingly did.
That the motion made in the Commons’ House was without the Duke’s knowledge or privity; that when there was a rumour that the Duke had drawn on the composition by staying of the ships which were then gone, the Duke was so much offended thereat, that he would have had the formal communication to have broken off, and have proceeded in a legal course; and he sent to the Company to that purpose. But the Company gave him satisfaction that they had raised no such rumours, nor would nor could avow any such thing, and entreated him to rest satisfied with their public act to the contrary. That, after this, their ships being gone, themselves, careful of their future security, solicited the dispatch of the composition, consulted with counsel upon the instruments that passed about it, and were at the charge thereof; and the money was paid long after the sentence, and the sentence given after the ships were gone, and no security at all given for the money, but the sentence; and when this money was paid to the Duke, the whole sum (but two hundred pounds thereof only) was borrowed by the King, and employed by his own officers for the service of the Navy. If these things do upon proof appear to your Lordships, as he is assured they will, he humbly submitteth to your judgments, how far verbal affirmations, or informations extrajudicial, shall move your judgments, when judicial acts, and those which were acted and executed, do prove the contrary.
7. To this article, which is so mixed with actions of great princes, as that he dareth not in his duty publish every passage thereof, he cannot for the present make so particular an answer as he may, and hath, and will, do to the rest of his charge.
But he giveth this general answer, the truth whereof he humbly prayeth may rather appear to your Lordships by the proof than any discourse of his, which, in reason of state, will happily be conceived fit to be more privately handled.
That these ships were lent to the French King at first without the Duke’s privity; that, when he knew it, he did that which belonged to an Admiral of England, and a true Englishman; and he doth deny that, by menace, or compulsion, or any other indirect or undue practice or means, by himself, or by any others, did deliver those ships, or any of them into the hands of the French, as is objected against him.
That the error which did happen, by what direction soever it were, was not in the intention any ways injurious, or dishonourable, or dangerous to this state or prejudicial to any private man interested in any of those ships; nor could have given any just offence at all, if those promises had been observed by others, which were professed and really performed by His Majesty and his subjects on their parts.
Since the Duke’s answer delivered into the house, he hath himself openly declared to their Lordships, that for the better clearing of his honour and fidelity to the state in that part of his charge which is objected against him by this seventh article, he hath been an earnest and humble suitor to His Majesty, to give him leave, in his proof, to unfold the whole truth and secret of that great action; and hath obtained His Majesty’s gracious leave therein; and accordingly doth intend to make such open and clear proof thereof, that he nothing doubteth but the same, when it shall appear, will not only clear him from blame, but be a testimony of his care and faithfulness in serving the state.
8. To this article, wherewith he is taxed to have practised for the employment of the ships against Rochelle, he answereth, that so far from practising, or consenting, that the said ships should so far be employed; that he shall make it clearly appear, that, when it was discovered that they would be employed against those of the religion, the protestation of the French being otherwise, and their pretence being that there was a peace concluded with those of the religion, and that the French King would use those ships against Genoa, which had been an action of no ill consequence to the affairs of Christendom; the Duke did by all fit and honourable means, endeavour to divert the course of their employment against Rochelle; and he doth truly and boldly affirm, that his endeavours under the royal care of his most excellent Majesty, hath been a great part of the means to preserve the town of Rochelle, as the proofs when they shall be produced will make appear; and when His Majesty did find that, beyond his intention and contrary to the faithful promises of the French they were so misemployed, he found himself bound in honour to intercede with the most Christian King, his good brother, for the peace of that town and of the religion, lest His Majesty’s honour might otherwise suffer; which intercession His Majesty did sedulously and so successfully pursue that that town and the religion there will and do acknowledge the fruits thereof. And whereas it is further objected against him, that when, in so unfaithful a manner, he delivered the said ships into the power of a foreign state, to the danger of the religion, and scandal and dishonour of our nation, which he utterly denieth to be so; that to make his ill intentions in cunning and cautelous manner he abused the Parliament at Oxon, in affirming, before the committees of both houses, that the said ships were not, nor should be, so used or employed; he saith, under the favour of those who so understood his words, that he did not then use those words which are expressed in the charge to have been spoken by him; but, there being then a jealousy of the mis-employing of those ships, but the Duke having no knowledge thereof, the Duke knowing well what the promises of the French were, but was not then seasonable to be published; he, hoping that they would not have varied from what was promised, did say, that the event would show; which was no undertaking for them; but a declaration of that in general terms which should really be performed, and which His Majesty had great cause to expect from them.
9. That the Duke did compel the Lord Robartes to buy his title of honour, he utterly denieth; and he is very confident that the Lord Robartes himself will not affirm it, or anything tending that way; neither can he or any man else truly say so; but the said Duke is able to prove that the Lord Robartes was before willing to have given a much greater sum, but could not then obtain it; and he did now obtain it by solicitation of his own agents.
10. For the selling of places of judicature by the Duke, which are specially instanced in the charge; he answereth, that he received not, nor had a penny of these sums to his own use; but the truth is, that the Lord Mandeville was made Lord Treasurer by his late Majesty, without contracting for any thing for it; but, after that he had the office conferred upon him, his late Majesty moved him to lend him twenty thousand pounds, upon promise of re-payment at the end of a year. The Lord Mandeville yielded to it, so as he might have the Duke’s word that it should be re-paid unto him; accordingly the Duke gave his word for it. The Lord Mandeville relied upon it, and delivered the said sum to the hands of Mr. Porter, then the Duke’s servant, by the late King’s appointment, to be disposed as His Majesty should direct; and accordingly that very money was fully paid out to others; and the Duke neither had, of a penny thereof to his own use, as is suggested against him. And afterwards when the Lord Mandeville left that place, and his money was not repaid him, he urged the Duke upon his promise; whereupon the Duke, being jealous of his honour, and to keep his word, not having money to pay him, he assured lands of his own to the Lord Mandeville for his security.
But when the Duke was in Spain the Lord Mandeville obtained a promise from his late Majesty of some lands in fee farm, to such a value as he accepted of the same in satisfaction of the said money; which were afterwards passed unto him; and, at the Duke’s return, the Lord Mandeville delivered back unto him the security of the Duke’s lands which had been given unto him as aforesaid.
And for the six thousand pounds supposed to have been received by the Duke for procuring to the Earl of Middlesex the Mastership of the Wards, he utterly denieth it; but afterwards he heard that the Earl of Middlesex did disburse six thousand pounds about that time; and his late Majesty bestowed the same upon Sir Henry Mildmay, his servant, without the Duke’s privity; and he had it and enjoyed it, and no penny of it came to the Duke, or to his use.
11. To this article the Duke answereth, that it is true that his late Majesty, out of his royal favour unto him, having honoured the Duke himself with many titles and dignities of his bounty, and as a great argument of his princely grace, did also think fit to honour those who were in equal degree of blood with him, and also to ennoble their mother, who was the stock that bare them. The title of Countess of Buckingham, bestowed upon the mother, was not without precedent; and she hath nothing from