490 LETTERS FROM THE LAMBETH LIBRARY. 



A Letter to my Lord Treasurer Lea.* 

 My Lord, 



I humbly entreat your lordship, and (if I may use the 

 word) advise your lordship to make me a better answer. 

 Your lordship is interested in honour in the opinion of all 

 that hear how I am dealt with. If your lordship malice 

 me for Long s cause, surely it was one of the justest busi 

 nesses that ever was in Chancery. I will avouch it ; and 

 how deeply I was tempted therein your lordship knoweth 

 best. Your lordship may do well to think of your grave as 

 I do. of mine, and to beware of hardness of heart. And as for 

 fair words, it is a wind by which neither your lordship nor 

 any man else can sail long. Howsoever I am the man that 

 shall give all due respects and reverence to your great 

 place. 



20th June, 1625. FR. ST. ALBAN. 



LETTERS FROM THE LAMBETH LIBRARY. 



NEVER BEFORE PRINTED. 



To the Marquis of Buckingham.! 

 Good my Lord, 



Procure the warrant for my discharge this day. Death, 

 1 thank God, is so far from being unwelcome to me, as I 

 have called for it (as Christian resolution would permit) 

 any time these two months. But to die before the time 

 of his majesty s grace, and in this disgraceful place, is 

 even the worst that could be ; and when I am dead, he is 

 gone that was always in one tenor, a true and perfect 

 servant to his master, and one that was never author of 

 any immoderate, no, nor unsafe, no (I will say it), not un 

 fortunate counsel ; and one that no temptation could ever 

 make other than a trusty, and honest, and Christ loving 

 friend to your lordship ; and howsoever I acknowledge 

 the sentence just, and for reformation sake fit, the justest 

 Chancellor that hath been in the five changes since Sir 

 Nicholas Bacon s time. God bless and prosper your lord 

 ship, whatsoever become of me. 



Your Lordship s true Friend, living and dying, 

 Tower, 31st May, 1621. FR. ST. ALBAN. 



Indorsed To the Marq. of Buckingham, from the Tower. 



* Addit. MS. Mus. Brit. 5503. fol. 109 b. k 



t MS. Gibson, Lambeth Library. 936. fol. 147. Orig. 



