LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 385 



To the Lord Chancellor. 

 Most honoured Lord, 



I presume, now after term (if there be any such thing as 

 an afterterm with ypur Lordship,) to offer this inclosed 

 paper * to your sight, concerning the Duke of Lerma; 

 which, if your lordship have not already read, will not I 

 think be altogether unpleasing, because it is full of parti 

 cular circumstances. I know not how commonly it passeth 

 up and down more or less* My friend, Mr. Gage, sent it 

 me lately out of Spain. But howsoever, I build upon a 

 sure ground ; for though it should be vulgar, yet for my 

 desire to serve your lordship, I cannot demerit so much, as 

 not to deserve a pardon at your lordship s most noble hand. 



Before the departure of the Duke of Lerma from that 

 court, there was written upon the gate for a pasquinade, 

 that the house was governed por el Padre, y el Hijo, y un 

 Santo ; as in Paris about the same time was written upon 

 the Louvre gate, C est icy Vhostel des troys Roys ; for 

 Luynes s brother is almost as great as himself. But the 

 while there is good store of kings now in Christendom, 

 though there be one fewer than there was. 



In Spain, there are very extraordinary preparations for a 

 great armada. Here is lately in this court a current speech 

 as that the enterprise (whatsoever it should have been) is 

 laid wholly aside: but that were strange. Yet this is 

 certain, that the forces of men, to the number of almost 

 two thousand, which were to have gone into Spain from 

 hence, are discharged, together with some munition, which 

 was also upon the point of being sent. Another thing is 

 also certain, that both in the court of Spain and this, there 

 is at this time a strange straitness of money ; which I do 

 not conceive, for my part, to proceed so much from want, 

 as design to employ it. The rendezvous, where the forces 

 were to meet, was at Malaga, within the Straits ; which 

 makes the enterprise upon Algiers most likely to be in 

 tended. For I take that to be a wild conceit, which thinks 

 of going by the Adriatic per far in un Viaggio duoi servitii; 

 as the giving a blow to Venice, and the landing of forces 

 in aid of the King of Bohemia about Trieste. 



Perhaps the King of Spain would be glad to let the 

 world see, that now he is hors de paye ; and by shewing 

 himself in some action, to intitle the Duke of Lerma to all 



* I have, out of a ragged hand in Spanish, translated it, and accompanied it 

 with some marginal notes for your lordship s greater ease. Note of Mr. Matthew 

 VOL. XII, C C 



