March 16, 1653.
Despatches from England. Whitelocke received his letters from England, and in those from Thurloe he writes thus:—
“The particular account your Excellence gives of your negotiation is very acceptable here, as is also your dexterous management thereof. The paper you were pleased to send to me shall be represented to the Council; and your Excellence may be assured that a due care will be taken of that business, as well for justice’ sake as that your present business be not hindered by things of this kind. The bales of the Queen’s goods shall also be taken care of, and any omissions which have been therein rectified; and I do assure your Excellence that the Queen’s Commissary here hath such speedy and effectual despatches in everything he makes application for, that I know he cannot but give notice of it to the Queen.”
Then he gives in his letters a full relation of the state of the Dutch treaty, and all particulars of it, and the likelihood of its taking effect; and gives intelligence of the French news; and sends copies of Beningen’s letters from Upsal to the States, and of the posture of affairs in England, Scotland, and Ireland: and concludes,—
“Therefore, with my humble thanks for your Excellence’s favour to me of your weekly letters, and hearty wishes for your safe and honourable return to your friends and relations here, I rest,
“Your Excellence’s most humble and faithful servant,
Jo. Thurloe.
“February 16, 1653.”
Whitelocke received many letters from his private friends, his brothers-in-law, Mr. Hall, Mr. Cokaine, Mr. Eltonhead, Sir Charles Woolsey, Colonel Sydenham, and one from Mr. Selden, which for the extraordinary respect thereof, and the person’s sake (of whom the Queen made often inquiry), is fit to be remembered, and was thus:—
Letter from Selden. “To his Excellence the Lord Whitelocke, Lord Ambassador to her Most Excellent Majesty of Sweden.
“May it please your Excellence,
“There is nothing happens here that can be worthy of your knowledge but you meet with it doubtless long before I could send it,—indeed, I think, long before I know it,—so that I cannot present you with any English news: my still keeping in from the open cold air makes me a mere winter stranger in my own country. The best news I have heard since I had the honour to see you, and that which brought me with it an ample store of gladness, was the assurance of your Excellence’s safety, which a false rumour with great confidence had utterly destroyed here. There is none living can with more hearty affection wish all happiness to you, and good success in your great employment there, and a safe and timely return, than doth most really,
“Your Excellence’s most obliged
“and most humble servant,
“J. Selden.
“Whitefriars, February 10, 1653.”
The occasion of that passage in his letter of a false rumour was news brought into England that Whitelocke was stabbed and murdered in Sweden; and thus his death was with much confidence reported from several hands, and from divers intelligences out of several parts of Christendom. Whitelocke’s friends were much startled at this news, and the more because of former intelligences of designs of that nature against him, whereof they wrote him word; and he was glad to read the news, and that, through the goodness of God, he was able to confute those reports. They were kept from Whitelocke’s wife by the care of his friends, till one in gladness came to give her joy that the ill news of her husband was not true; which brought the whole matter to her knowledge, and herself to great perplexity upon the sudden apprehension and fright of it, though there was no truth in it.
Whitelocke, that he might not seem wholly to neglect the Queen’s favour, had sent a packet of his letters which had no secrets unto Monsieur Bonele, the Queen’s Commissary in England, who wrote back an account to Whitelocke of his care of them, and of the command he had received from the Queen so to do, and prayed Whitelocke to speak to the Queen on Bonele’s behalf.