276 LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



stoutness upon his purse; but yet I could scarcely have 

 imagined he would have dealt either so dishonestly towards 

 myself, or so contemptuously towards her majesty s service. 

 For this Lombard (pardon me, I most humbly pray your 

 lordship, if being admonished by the street he dwells in, I 

 give him that name) having me in bond for three hundred 

 pounds principal, and I having the last term confessed the 

 action, and by his full and direct consent, respited the 

 satisfaction till the beginning of this term to come, without 

 ever giving me warning, either by letter or message, served 

 an execution upon me, having trained me at such time as 

 I came from the Tower, where Mr. Waad can witness, we 

 attended a service of no mean importance ;* neither would 

 he so much as vouchsafe to come and speak with me to 

 take any order in it, though I sent for him divers times, 

 and his house was just by; handling it as upon a despite, 

 being a man I never provoked with a cross word, no nor 

 with many delays. He would have urged it to have had 

 me in prison ; which he had done, had not Sheriff More, 

 to whom I sent, gently recommended me to a handsome 

 house in Coleman Street, where I am. Now because he 

 will not treat with me, I am inforced humbly to desire your 

 lordship to send for him according to your place, to bring 

 him to some reason ; and this forthwith, because I con 

 tinue here to my farther discredit and inconvenience, and 



* It is not easy to determine what this service was ; but it seems to relate to 

 the examination of some prisoner ; perhaps Edward Squire, executed in No 

 vember, 1598, for poisoning the queen s saddle ; or Valentine Thomas, who 

 accused the King of Scots of practices against Queen Elizabeth [Historical 

 View, p. 178.] ; or one Stanley, concerning whom I shall insert here passages 

 from two MS. letters of John Chamberlain, Esq., to his friend Dudley Carleton, 

 Esq. ; afterwards ambassador to Venice, the United Provinces, and France ; 

 these letters being part of a very large collection, from 1598 to 1625, which I 

 transcribed from the originals. &quot; One Stanley,&quot; says Mr. Chamberlain, in his 

 letter dated at London, 3rd of October, 1598, &quot; that came in sixteen days over 

 land with letters out of Spain, is lately committed to the Tower. He was very 

 earnest to have private conference with her majesty, pretending matter of great 

 importance, which he would by no means utter to any body else.&quot; In another 

 letter, dated 20th of November, 1598, Mr. Chamberlain observes, that on &quot; the 

 day that they looked for Stanley s arraignment, he came not himself, but sent his 

 forerunner, one Squire, that had been an under purveyor of the stable, who 

 being in Spain was dealt withal by one Walpole, a Jesuit, to poison the queen 

 and the Earl of Essex ; and accordingly came prepared into England, and went 

 with the earl in his own ship the last journey, and poisoned the arms or handles 

 of the chair he used to sit in, with a confection he had received of the Jesuit ; as 

 likewise he had done the pummel of the queen s saddle not past five days before 

 his going to sea. But because nothing succeeded of it, the priest thinking he 

 had either changed his purpose, or betrayed it, gave Stanley instructions to 

 accuse him ; thereby to get him more credit, and to be revenged of Squire for 

 breaking promise. The fellow confessed the whole practice, and, as it seemed, 

 died very penitent,&quot; 



