TO HIS GRACE 



THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, 



My Noble Lord, — It hath always been my hearty prayer 

 to God, since I have been your wife, that first I might prove 

 an honest and good wife, whereof your Grace must be the only 

 judge : next, that God would be pleased to enable me to set 

 forth and declare to after ages, the truth of your loyal actions 

 and endeavours, for the service of your King and country ; 

 for the accomplishing of which design, I have followed the 

 best and truest observations of your secretary John Rolles- 

 ton 1 , and your Lordship's own relations, and have accordingly 

 writ the history of your Lordship's life, which, although I 

 have endeavoured to render as perspicuous as ever I could, 

 yet one thing I find hath much darkened it ; which is, that 

 your Grace commanded me not to mention any thing or 

 passage to the prejudice or disgrace of any family or particu- 

 lar person (although they might be of great truth, and would 

 illustrate much the actions of your life) which I have dutifully 

 performed to satisfy your Lordship 2 , whose nature is so 

 generous, that you are as well pleased to obscure the faults 

 of your enemies, as you are to divulge the virtues of your 

 friends. And certainly, my Lord, you have had as many 

 enemies, and as many friends, as ever any one particular 

 person had ; and I pray God to forgive the one, and prosper 

 the other. Nor do I so much wonder at it, since I, a woman, 

 cannot be exempt from the malice and aspersions of spiteful 

 tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some deny- 

 ing me to be the true authoress of them ; for your Grace 

 remembers well, that those books I put out first to the judg- 

 ment of this censorious age, were accounted not to be written 

 by a woman, but that somebody else had writ and published 



1 Rolleston died in 1681. His epitaph is printed in Bailey's Annals of Notts, ii, 988. 



2 This is probably the reason for the obliteration of so many proper names in the 

 first edition, which was done by hand after the book had been printed. 



XXXV 



