Hamilton,

I never expected other than that you would have too just grounds to dissolve this Assembly; and certainly I were very unjust if I did not approve you therein, since not onely your Instructions warrant you the same, but even the Council hath testified to me the Necessity of it. And now I shall lay before you some Considerations; in the first place to take care, that your coming away do not cast things so loose, that the honest men of my Party do believe that you leave them as in a case desperate, or at least, that by your Absence they be denuded of Advice and Protection: therefore I hope before you come up you will take so good order, that your Absence do neither dishearten, nor prejudice my Party. As for my Preparations, I doubt not but ere this you have had a full account by your Cousin Sir James, whereby you find that I shall not be able to shew my self like my self before February or March; wherefore I lay it to your Consideration, whether it were not fit to give hopes that the Parliament shall hold, (notwithstanding all the impertinencies of this last Assembly) so that their Follies break not out into open Acts of Rebellious Violences: and really I will not say, but (that things may be so prepared) it may be fitting that it should hold. To conclude, I hope you do not conceive, that the Date of your Commissionership is out; wherefore I expect that (if you find cause) you send out Commissions of Lieutenantries to Huntley for the North, and to Traquair or Roxburgh, either joyntly or severally, (as you shall find most fit) for the South: yet all as subaltern to you. This I confess is not to be done but upon great necessity, of which I leave you (as upon the place) to be Judge, (being abundantly satisfied of your zeal and dexterity to serve me) as I do of all that I have now written: and so I rest

Your assured constant Friend,
Charles R.

Whitehall,
7 Dec. 1638.

1638.—December 7.
105. Letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Hamilton.[133]

My very good Lord,

I received your Letters of the second of December upon the sixth of the same at night, and could not speak with His Majesty till this day. This day I did, and shewed him your Letters and the Deans; and I read to him more than the later half of all the long Discourse which the Dean wrote unto me, for his Majesty was very desirous to know what occasion you took to dissolve the Synod, and how you prosecuted it; in both which that Paper gave him great satisfaction.

With your Letters I have received three other Papers, that which shews you have keeped within your Instructions, the Copy of the Proclamation which dissolves the Assembly, and a Copy of the Councils Letter to the King; both which His Majesty takes to be very good Service done for him, and commands me to give your Grace thanks in his Name, which I am very glad to doe, and I doe it heartily.

For the Earl of Argyle I can say no more than I have already, though now I know him more perfectly than I did. Your Resolution was to put him from the Council-Table, if he refused the Kings Covenant; he hath now deserved it more, but whether it be a fit time as yet to proceed so far, I dare not determine here. This I am sure of, if he do now publickly adhere to the Covenant and the Assembly, nay be the professed Head of the Covenant, (as the Dean calls him,) yet he will have much ado to look right upon that, who ever looked asquint upon the Kings business.