Читать книгу The First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne онлайн

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“Within some few years after, King Charles the First, of blessed Memory, His Gracious Soveraign, ... thought Him the fittest Person whom He might intrust with the Government of His Son Charles, then Prince of Wales, now our most Gracious King”.

ssss1 The Earl of Strafford’s Letters and Despatches, London: Wm. Bowyer, 1739.

She omits to mention that her husband had specially desired this office and that he had for a long time schemed, begged, and asked his friends to beg, in order to obtain it. A letter from Newcastle to Strafford shows how keenly he was longing for it, although hope deferred was evidently making the heart sick.

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“Welbeck, the 5th of August, 1633.

“My most honoured Lord,

“I heartily congratulate your Lordship’s safe arrival in Ireland.... I give your Lordship thanks for your noble and kind counsel; the truth is, my Lord, I have waited of the King the Scotish journey both diligently, and, as Sir Robert Swift said of my Lord of Carlile, it was no small charge unto me. I cannot find by the King but he seemed to be pleased with me very well, and never used me better or more graciously; the truth is, I have hurt my estate much with the hopes of it,”—we may reasonably infer that “it” refers to the coveted governorship—“and I have been put in hope long, and so long as I will labour no more of it, but let nature work and expect the issue at Welbeck; for I would be loth to be sick in mind, body, and purse, and when it is too late to repent, and my reward laugh’d at for my labour. It is better to give over in time with some loss than lose all, and mend what is to come, seeing what is past is not in my power to help. Besides, my Lord, if I obtained what I desire, it would be a more painful life, and since I am so much plunged in debt, it would help very well to undo me; for I know not how to get, neither know I any reason why the King should give me anything. Children come on apace, my Lord, and with this weight of debt that lies upon me, I know no better diet than a strict diet in the country, which, in time, may recover me of the prodigal disease. By your favour, my Lord, I cannot say I have recovered myself at Welbeck this summer, but run much more in debt than I ever did, but I hope hereafter I may. The truth is, my Lord, for my Court business, your Lordship with your noble friends and mine have spoken so often to the King, and myself refreshed his memory in that particular, so that I mean not to move my friends any more to their so great trouble.”