Travels in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; with Fragmenta regalia / or, Observations on Queen Elizabeth, her times and favourites

by Paul Hentzner; Sir Robert Naunton

KNOWLES.

Sir Francis Knowles was somewhat near in the Queen’s affinity, and had likewise no incompetent issue; for he had also William, his eldest son, and since Earl of Banbury, Sir Thomas, Sir Robert, and Sir Francis, if I be not a little mistaken in their names and marshalling; and there was also the Lady Lettice, a sister of those, who was first Countess of Essex, and after of Leicester; and those were also brave men in their times and places, but they were of the Court and carpet, and not by the genius of the camp.

Between these two families there was, as it falleth out amongst great ones and competitors of favour, no great correspondency; and there were some seeds, either of emulation or distrust, cast between them; which, had they not been disjoined in the residence of their persons, as that was the fortune of their employments, the one side attending the Court, and the other the Pavilion, surely they would have broken out into some kind of hostility, or, at least, they would entwine and wrestle one in the other, like trees circled with ivy; for there was a time when, both these fraternities being met at Court, there passed a challenge between them at certain exercises, the Queen and the old men being spectators, which ended in a flat quarrel amongst them all. For I am persuaded, though I ought not to judge, that there were some relics of this feigned that were long after the causes of the one family’s almost utter extirpation, and the other’s improsperity; for it was a known truth that so long as my Lord of Leicester lived, who was the main pillar on the one side, for having married the sister, the other side took no deep root in the Court, though otherwise they made their ways to honour by their swords. And that which is of more note, considering my Lord of Leicester’s use of men of war, being shortly after sent Governor to the revolted States, and no soldier himself, is that he made no more account of Sir John Norris, a soldier, then deservedly famous, and trained from a page under the discipline of the greatest captain in Christendom, the Admiral Castilliau, and of command in the French and Dutch Wars almost twenty years. And it is of further observation that my Lord of Essex, after Leicester’s decease, though addicted to arms and honoured by the general in the Portugal expedition, whether out of instigation, as it hath been thought, or out of ambition and jealousy, eclipsed by the fame and splendour of this great commander, never loved him in sincerity.

Moreover, and certain it is, he not only crushed, and upon all occasions quelled the youth of this great man and his famous brethren, but therewith drew on his own fatal end, by undertaking the Irish action in a time when he left the Court empty of friends, and full-fraught with his professed enemies. But I forbear to extend myself in any further relation upon this subject, as having lost some notes of truth in these two nobles, which I would present; and therewith touched somewhat, which I would not, if the equity of the narration would have permitted any omission.

PERROT.

Sir John Perrot was a goodly gentleman, and of the sword; and he was of a very ancient descent, as an heir to many subtracts of gentry, especially from Guy de Brain of Lawhorn; so was he of a very vast estate, and came not to Court for want and to these advancements. He had the endowments of carriage and height of spirit, had he alighted on the alloy and temper of discretion; the defect whereof, with a native freedom and boldness of speech, drew him on to a clouded sitting, and laid him open to the spleen and advantage of his enemies, of whom Sir Christopher Hatton was professed. He was yet a wise man and a brave courtier, but rough and participating more of active than sedentary motions, as being in his instillation destined for arms. There is a query of some denotations, how he came to receive the foil, and that in the catastrophe? for he was strengthened with honourable alliances and the prime friendship in Court of my Lords of Leicester and Burleigh, both his contemporaries and familiars; but that there might be (as the adage hath it) falsity in friendship: and we may rest satisfied that there is no dispute against fate, and they quit him for a person that loved to stand too much alone on his legs, of too often regress and discontinuance from the Queen’s presence, a fault which is incompatible with the ways of Court and favour. He was sent Lord-Deputy into Ireland, as it was then apprehended, for a kind of haughtiness and repugnancy in Council; or, as others have thought, the fittest person then to bridle the insolences of the Irish; and probable it is that both, considering the sway that he would have at the Board, being head in the Queen’s favour, concurred, and did alike conspire his remove and ruin. But into Ireland he went, where he did the Queen very great and many services, if the surplusage of the measure did not abate the value of the merit, as after-time found to be no paradox to save the Queen’s purse, but both herself and my Lord Treasurer Burleigh ever took for good service; he imposed on the Irish the charge for bearing their own arms, which both gave them the possession and taught them the use of weapons; which provided in the end to a most fatal work, both in the profusion of blood and treasure.

But at his return, and upon some account sent home before, touching the state of that kingdom, the Queen poured out assiduous testimonies of her grace towards him, till, by his retreat to his Castle of Cary, which he was then building, and out of a desire to be in command at home as he had been abroad, together with the hatred and practice of Hatton, then in high favour, whom he had, not long before, bitterly taunted for his dancing, he was accused for high treason, and for high words, and a forged letter, and condemned; though the Queen, on the news of his condemnation, swore, by her wonted oath, that the jury were all knaves: and they delivered it with assurance that, on his return to the town after his trial, he said, with oaths and with fury, to the Lieutenant, Sir Owen Hopton, “What! will the Queen suffer her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to the envy of my flattering adversaries?” Which being made known to the Queen, and somewhat enforced, she refused to sign it, and swore he should not die, for he was an honest and faithful man. And surely, though not altogether to set our rest and faith upon tradition and old reports, as that Sir Thomas Perrot, his father, was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and in the Court married to a lady of great honour, which are presumptions in some implications; but, if we go a little further and compare his pictures, his qualities, gesture, and voice, with that of the King, which memory retains yet amongst us, they will plead strongly that he was a surreptitious child of the blood royal.

Certain it is that he lived not long in the Tower; and that after his decease, Sir Thomas Perrot, his son, then of no mean esteem with the Queen, having before married my Lord of Essex’s sister, since Countess of Northumberland, had restitution of his land; though after his death also (which immediately followed) the Crown resumed the estate, and took advantage of the former attainder; and, to say the truth, the priest’s forged letter was, at his arraignment, thought but as a fiction of envy, and was soon after exploded by the priest’s own confession. But that which most exasperated the Queen and gave advantage to his enemies was, as Sir Walter Raleigh takes into observation, words of disdain, for the Queen, by sharp and reprehensive letters, had nettled him; and thereupon, sending others of approbation, commending his service, and intimating an invasion from Spain; which was no sooner proposed but he said publicly, in the great chamber at Dublin:—“Lo, now she is ready to * * herself for fear of the Spaniards: I am again one of her white boys,” which are subject to a various construction, and tended to some disreputation of his Sovereign, and such as may serve for instruction to persons in place of honour and command, to beware of the violences of Nature, and especially the exorbitance of the tongue. And so I conclude him with this double observation: the one, of the innocency of his intentions, exempt and clear from the guilt of treason and disloyalty, therefore of the greatness of his heart; for at his arraignment he was so little dejected with what might be alleged, that rather he grew troubled with choler, and, in a kind of exasperation, he despised his jury, though of the Order of Knighthood, and of the especial gentry, claiming the privilege of trial by the peers and baronage of the realm, so prevalent was that of his native genius and haughtiness of spirit which accompanied him to the last, and till, without any diminution of change therein, it broke in pieces the cords of his magnanimity; for he died suddenly in the Tower, and when it was thought the Queen did intend his enlargement, with the restitution of his possessions, which were then very great, and comparable to most of the nobility.

HATTON.

Sir Christopher Hatton came to the Court as his opposite; Sir John Perrot was wont to say, by the galliard, for he came thither as a private gentleman of the Inns of Court, in a masque: and, for his activity and person, which was tall and proportionable, taken into her favour. He was first made Vice-Chamberlain, and, shortly after, advanced to the place of Lord Chancellor. A gentleman that, besides the graces of his person and dancing, had also the endowment of a strong and subtle capacity, and that could soon learn the discipline and garb, both of the times and Court; and the truth is, he had a large proportion of gifts and endowments, but too much of the season of envy; and he was a mere vegetable of the Court that sprung up at night and sunk again at his noon.