Catalogue description The QUEEN to the LORDS JUSTICES, LORD LIEUTENANT, and COUNCIL.

"We have understood that you our Secretary (Fenton) are now to go to the borders to speak with Tyrone, and that Warren is appointed to assist you in this service, as one of whose person the traitor is not suspicious." If he present such offers as prove his intention to become a good subject, "we will rather vouchsafe mercy than spend the lives of our subjects one against another."

When Essex returned, he acquainted us with Tyrone's offers, which "are both full of scandal to our realm and future peril in that State." What would become of all Munster, Leyx, and Ophally, "if all the ancient exiled rebels be restored to all that our laws and hereditary succession have bestowed upon us?" It is probable that, "by the ill carriage of all our actions of late, he had discovered that the likelihood of prevailing by present prosecution or plantation of Northern garrisons was taken away, and therefore sought to possess our late Lieutenant with these demands."

Consideration should be had of the expense and charge at which we have been to so little purpose; but if we may do so with honour, and without raising him "to a greater exorbitancy, we will pardon his past faults." It would be an indignity that those who were always his enemies, until they united in rebellion, must now publicly work their good by him that wrought them into their treasons.

"For himself and the Northern traitors, if he did only seek to compound, so might the matter be carried,--as it was heretofore in Norries' time, which is well known to you our Secretary,--that he might be assured under hand that they should be pardoned upon their own reasonable submission, though in the face of the world they should be left single to crave our mercy. For any other personal coming in of himself, or constraint in religion, we can be content for the first that he may know he shall not be peremptorily concluded, and in the second that we leave to God, who knows best how to work his will in those things, by means more fit than by violence, which doth rather obdurate than reform And therefore, as in that case he need not to dread us, so we intend not to bind ourselves further for his security than by our former course we have witnessed; who have not used rigour in that point, even when we might with more probability have forced others, then those [Qu. mistake for "than those who," &c.] are so far from religion as they are scarce acquainted with civility.

"That the last cessation was kept by Tyrone we do understand, and therefore allow better of that point in him than before we had cause. For those things that were done by you our cousin of Ormonde, in revenge of them that brake it in Wexford, we think it done both valiantly and justly if it be as we do hear. Only this we must recommend unto you, as a matter of consequence, that you do not irritate nor oppress any such as have submitted themselves to us, and do continue obedient, in respect of any private unkindness of your own, as Mountgarrett, Cahyre, or others, if they do not fall from their duties again. Of both which we would know on what conditions they were received, and what surety they have given for their continuance; it being strange to us, even for honour's sake, that when Tyrone assented first to a cessation, that he did not, as in all former times men have done, put in pledges for the observation.

"For the secret satisfaction which he pretended by Essex to receive from us by him that was our Governor, we have written to our Secretary to make him know our pleasure, which we conceive he cannot be so senseless as not to esteem all one, though he hath it not by the mean he would receive it; for that were to make us think that he were more carried and addicted with private affection to our subjects and servants than with loyal and entire humbleness and love to his Sovereign. For what can any man's power be to do him, or any, good, which must not be derived from us?" He is not to pretend fear or doubt of our mercy, "because those who have deserved our displeasure for other things are not still honoured with our employments." On this subject we have written to our Secretary Fenton.

"Though we will not assent in other provinces to the restitution of all traitors to their livings, or the displantation of our subjects that have spent their lives in the just defences of their possessions which they have taken and held from us or our ancestors, yet if any of them, by voluntary encroachment, by packing false titles, or unjust oppression, have drawn any into misery or rebellion, we will see these things justly and duty with all speed reformed, and in the point of justice make no difference of persons when justice shall be craved by all in one fashion."

If we be driven to use our sword, "we do think all courses vain that shall be carried on with plantation of garrisons, thereby to make the war in another sort than it hath been; and therefore can we not but still challenge you all, and you especially, our cousin of Ormonde, that contrary to that counsel you did so strangely urge our Lieutenant against his own mind (as he protesteth) still to range so far from place to place in Munster, and to spend so long time as not to arrive at Dublin before July were a third part spent, whereby you know that all the forces he carried (which were the flower of our army) were tired and harassed, and it [was] accounted honour enough to bring them back again; whereof you saw this effect to follow, that in some corners whole regiments were defeated in many places, divers disasters happened, and in all places, wheresoever the army itself marched, some losses fell of our best commanders, which was to those base rebels an honour, though not a victory, and to our nation a discouragement, whilst the traitor triumphed, whom all you [knew we ?] so earnestly wished to be first attempted, who contrarywise sat still and kept our army [in] play with the overplus of his loose men, which he was desirous to rid of himself.

"Surely we must still say that the errors were excusable in none of you that prolonged the time, though in him less than any other who best knew our pleasure in that and all other things, wherein he more directly and more contemptuously disobeyed us; and though we did not disallow it for some short time at first in all you when we heard of it, yet we dreamed not of such a prolongation as should make it impossible either to plant at Loughefoile, or prosecute him in other places of his country, but that both the time and means should be so consumed and disjointed for such an action; for he that shall read any of his letters after he came last to Dublin shall only see great words, what he meant and wished to be done, but in the substance of his letters nothing appeared but impossibilities to do anything."

Should gracious dealing be unavailing, we will cause Loughfoile to be planted, and make war upon Tyrone, "being now in great terms to compound the wars with Spain; wherein, to the intent you our cousin of Ormonde may see your mistress, after the old fashion, loveth rather to be sought to than to seek to, we have caused our Secretary by his particular letter to inform you, and to show you how the Lieutenant of the King of Spain's army in the Low Countries, being by the House of Austria his cousin, and a Cardinal, made the first overture of that peace, and still pursued since by letters and messages earnestly, until the King of Spain and the Archduke with his wife, the Infanta, have declared themselves in it so far as it is now reduced to the terms it stands on; so as the rebels of Ireland shall have little cause to look for help from him, nor we be distracted from a considerate and judicial proceeding to end that war."

"What will be the answer of the traitor for the last treason of the bridge where Esmond's company was defeated, we do attend by your next despatch, and what reason he will yield for usurping so unjustly in the time of the cessation to place Bremingham in the county of Kildare. But of these things we could wish that you would cause Fenton to expostulate as from you our Governor there, rather than to take it from us, because we are desirous--if there may be appearance of any good means to save that kingdom from the curse of continual war--rather to seem for a beginning to be ignorant for some offences, than by taking notice of them to make them desperate." [The following proverb is quoted here: "He goes far that never turns."]

Although we purpose to send over some nobleman of this kingdom to make prosecution if there be cause, yet we repose so much upon the judgment and fidelity of you our cousin of Ormonde, that we wish you to make your greatest residence at Dublin in the meanwhile.

We hear of soldiers continually coming over, "not only sick men, but very able bodies."

Richmond, 6 November 1599.

Copy.

Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, ed. J. S. Brewer & W. Bullen (6 vols., 1867-73, vol. III, document 327.