“My Noble Lord,
“I must and ever will most thankfully and humbly acknowledge your Lordship’s civil and obliging language and carriage towards me, your humble servant. But pardon me if I cannot conceive how my Lord Arlington, Principal Secretary of State, and as well of the Bourne [?] as Cabinet Council, and that most deservedly, can, notwithstanding, miss of an opportunity to acquaint and receive his Majesty’s answer to the meanest of his Majesty’s subjects; praying but a reference to the chiefest of his Privy Councillors, and by them only to be heard for the King’s service, as well as his own concerns. His Majesty little thinks what he hath, or doth daily lose for not suffering himself to be disabused of a premeditated opinion concerning me; nor doth your Lordship imagine what services I do intend to your Lordship’s most worthy self, and that the King will have cause to thank you for any service you may please to afford me whose aim (I take God to witness) is in chief more really to the King’s advantage and service than mine own interest, who could not want forty or fifty thousand pounds yearly beyond seas, and do as good as want bread at home, where I was born to five and thirty thousand pounds, land of inheritance, and two hundred thousand pounds in cash left me by my grandfather, which, for so good a cause as I have lost it for, I joyfully renounce.
“Monsieur La Sual told me that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy censured England very much for so ill requiting my services and sufferings, and being so little sensible of my yet abilities to serve it; and yet those Kings and Princes know not the quarter, and mine own King the least of all, or the least sensible and persuaded, as well not to understand what I can yet perform, as not to reflect upon what is past.
“My dear Lord, look once more upon both my petitions; and if the King thinks me not worthy of common justice to be heard, or you deem them fit, and me, to be laid aside, I will gladly acquiesce, and I will not further trouble the King, nor importune your Lordship, but, fair and far off, ever quietly without more importunity remain,
“My Lord, your Lordship’s
“most faithful and most humble servant,
“Worcester.”
In the April of this year, the plague had commenced its appalling ravages in the metropolis, the stagnant air of which was partially purified by means of large bonfires, to promote circulation, the air having, it was supposed, become noxious through unusually prevalent calm sultry weather. The unhealthy state of the town may have had its influence on the Marquis, contributing to weaken a constitution already sufficiently harassed; yet so far from relief of any kind coming to solace him in his afflictions, we next find him compelled to petition for protection of his public works, which (as noted three years before, in his Century), were again being similarly nearly taken from him, “without (as he observes) the least regard of above ten thousand pounds expended by me, and through my zeal to the common good.” His application is endorsed—“10 Jan. 1666. The Marquis of Worcester’s Petition for a Fee and Farm of Works House at Foxe Hall:”[I]—and is as follows:—
“To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. The humble Petition of Edward, Lord Marquis of Worcester.
“Humbly Sheweth,