Sch. Three Senators are deputed to confer with the Prince of Sweden, upon certain particulars to be observed in the resignation; and I hope that your Excellence will consider the importance of that affair, and will therefore attend with the more patience the issue thereof, being necessary that the advice of the Prince be had in it.
Wh. Have the three deputed Senators any order to confer with the Prince about my business?
Sch. I believe they have.
Wh. I had been here two months before the Queen mentioned this design of hers to the Council, and have staid here all this time with patience, and shall so continue as my Lord Protector shall command me; and as soon as he requires my return I shall obey him.
Sch. The occasion of the delay hitherto was the uncertainty of the issue of your Dutch treaty; and at this season of the year it was impossible for you to return, till the passage be open.
Wh. I believe the alliance with England meriteth an acceptance, whether we have peace or war with Holland; and for my return, it is at the pleasure of the Protector.
They had much other discourse; and probably Schütt was sent purposely to excuse the delay of the treaty, for which he used many arguments not necessary to be repeated; and he came also to test Whitelocke touching advice to be had with the Prince about this treaty, whereunto Whitelocke showed no averseness.
Treacherous reports to England. Whitelocke received his packet of two weeks from England. In a letter from his wife he was advertised that the Protector had spoken of his voyage to Sweden as if Whitelocke had not merited much by it, though he so earnestly persuaded it; and his wife wrote that she believed one of Whitelocke’s family was false to him; and upon inquiry she suspected it to be ——, who gave intelligence to the Protector of all Whitelocke’s words and actions in Sweden, to his prejudice, and very unbeseeming one of his family. This Whitelocke, comparing with some passages told him by his secretary of the same person, found there was cause enough to suspect him; yet to have one such among a hundred he thought no strange thing, nor for the Protector to alter his phrase when his turn was served. And though this gave ground enough of discontent to Whitelocke, yet he thought not fit to discover it, nor what other friends had written to him, doubting whether he should be honourably dealt with at his return home; but he was more troubled to hear of his wife’s sickness, for whose health and his family’s he made his supplication to the great Physician; and that he might be as well pleased with a private retirement, if God saw it good for him, at his return home, as the Queen seemed to be with her design of abdication from the heights and glories of a crown.
Part of the letters to Whitelocke were in cipher, being directions to him touching the Sound. He had full intelligence of all passages of the Dutch treaty, and a copy of the articles, from Thurloe; also the news of Scotland, Ireland, France, and the letters from the Dutch Resident here to his superiors in Holland, copies whereof Thurloe by money had procured. He wrote also of the Protector’s being feasted by the City, and a full and large relation of all passages of moment. The Protector himself wrote also his letters to Whitelocke under his own hand, which were thus:—
Letter from the Protector. “For the Lord Ambassador Whitelocke.