LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 311 



in the Star-chamber, set down by Mr. Solicitor, 1 * and 

 mentioned in the letters which your majesty received from 

 the lords. I leave all in humbleness to your majesty s 

 royal judgment: but this is true, that it was the clear 

 opinion of my Lord Chancellor, and myself, and the two 

 Chief Justices, and others, that it is a cause most fit for the 

 censure of the court, both for the repressing of duels, and 

 the encouragement of complaints in courts of justice. If 

 your majesty be pleased, it shall go on; there resteth but 

 Wednesday next for the hearing ; for the last day of term 

 is commonly left for orders, though sometimes, upon extra 

 ordinary occasion, it hath been set down for the hearing of 

 some great cause. 



I send your majesty also Baron Bromley s,t report which 

 your majesty required ; whereby your majesty may perceive 

 things go not so well in Cumberland, which is the seat of 

 the party your majesty named to me, as was conceived. 

 And yet if there were land winds, as there be sea-winds, 

 to Jbind men in, I could wish he were a little wind-bound, 

 to keep him in the south. 



But while your majesty passeth the accounts of judges 

 in circuits, your majesty will give me leave to think of the 

 judges here in the upper region. And because Tacitus 

 saith well, opportuni magnis conatibus transitus rerum ; now 

 upon this change, when he that letteth is gone, I shall 

 endeavour, to the best of my power and skill, that there 

 may be a consent and united mind in your judges to serve 

 you, and strengthen your business. For I am persuaded 

 there cannot be a sacrifice from which there may come up 

 to you a sweeter odour of rest than this effect whereof I 

 speak. 



For this wretched murderer Bertram, J now gone to his 



them, and only dispersed them unsealed in the fields, the purport of them being 

 this : that, whereas, the Lord Darcy had said that, but for him, his servant 

 Beckwith had beaten him to rags, he lied ; and as often as he should speak it, 

 he lied ; and that he would maintain this with his life : adding, that he had 

 dispersed those letters that his lordship might find them, or somebody else bring 

 them to him ; and that if his lordship were desirous to speak with him, he might 

 send his boy, who should be well used. For this offence, Mr. Markham was 

 censured, and fined 500/. by the Star-chamber. 



* Sir Henry Yelverton. 



t Edward Bromley, made one of the Barons of the Exchequer, February 6. 

 1609-10. 



t John Bertram, a grave man, above seventy years of age, and of a clear 

 reputation, according to Camden, Annales Regis Jacobi J. p. 21. He killed, 

 with a pistol, in Lincoln s Inn, on the 12th of November, 1616, Sir John Tyn- 

 dal, a master in chancery, for having made a report against him in a cause, 

 wherein the sum contended for did not exceed 200/. He hanged himself in 

 prison on the 17th of that month. 



