314 LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



To the Lord Keeper.* 

 My honourable Lord, 



Whereas the late Lord Chancellor thought it fit to dismiss 

 out of the chancery a cause touching Henry Skipwith to 

 the common law, where he desireth it should be decided ; 

 these are to entreat your lordship f in the gentleman s favour, 

 that if the adverse party shall attempt to bring it now back 

 again into your lordship s court, you would not retain it 

 there, but let it rest in the place where now it is, that, 

 without more vexation unto him in posting him from one to 

 another, he may have a final hearing and determination 

 thereof. And so I rest 



Your Lordship s ever at command, 



G. BUCKINGHAM. 

 My Lord, 



This is a business wherein I spake to my Lord Chan 

 cellor ; whereupon he dismissed the suit. 



Lincoln, the 4th of April, 1617. 



which may arise of this conjunction, as the union of both kings in actions of state, 

 as may make the difference in religion as laid aside, and almost forgotten. 



As first, that it will be a means utterly to extinguish and extirpate pirates, 

 which are the common enemies of mankind, and do so much infest Europe at 

 this time. 



Also, that it may be a beginning and seed (for the like actions heretofore have 

 had less beginnings) of a holy war against the Turk ; whereunto it seems the 

 events of time do invite Christian kings, in respect of the great corruption and 

 relaxation of discipline of war in that empire ; and much more in respect of the 

 utter ruin and enervation of the Grand Signer s navy and forces by sea ; which 

 openeth a way (with congregating vast armies by land) to suffocate and starve 

 Constantinople, and thereby to put those provinces into mutiny and insurrection. 



Also, that by the same conjunction there will be erected a tribunal or praeto 

 rian power, to decide the controversies which may arise amongst the princes and 

 estates of Christendom, without effusion of Christian blood ; for so much as any 

 estate of Christendom will hardly recede from that which the two kings shall 

 mediate and determine. 



Also, that whereas there doth, as it were, creep upon the ground a disposition, 

 in some places, to make popular estates and leagues to the disadvantage of 

 monarchies, the conjunction of the two kings will be able to stop and impedite 

 the growth of any such evil. 



These discourses you shall do well frequently to treat upon, and therewithal 

 to fill up the spaces of the active part of your negotiation ; representing that it 

 stands well with the greatness and majesty of the two kings to extend their cogi 

 tations and the influence of their government, not only to their own subjects, but 

 to the state of the whole world besides, specially the Christian portion thereof. 



* Harl. MSS. vol. 7006. 



t This is the first of many letters which the marquis of Buckingham wrote to 

 Lord Bacon in favour of persons who had causes depending in, or likely to come 

 into, the court of Chancery. And it is not improbable that such recommenda 

 tions were considered in that age as less extraordinary and irregular than they 

 would appear now. The marquis made the same kind of applications to Lord 

 Bacon s successor, the Lord Keeper Williams, in whose Life, by Bishop Hacket, 

 part i. p. 107, we are informed, that &quot; there was not a cause of moment, but, 

 as soon as it came to publication, one of the parties brought letters from this 

 mighty peer, and the Lord Keeper s patron.&quot; 



