“Good cousin Cecil, after my very hearty commendations to my good cousin, your wife and you, with like thanks for your great friendship showed me in this my lord’s deliverance and mine, with the obtaining of the Queen’s Majesty’s most gracious favour thus farforth extended towards us, I cannot but acknowledge myself bounden and beholding unto you therefor. And as I am sure you doubt not of mine own dear lord’s good-will for the requital thereof to the uttermost of his power, so I beseech you, good cousin Cecill, make the like account of me during life to the uttermost of my power; beseeching your farther friendship for the obtaining of the Queen’s Majesty’s most gracious pardon and favour towards me, which, with upstretched hands and downbent knees, from the bottom of my heart most humbly I crave. Thus resting in prayer for the Queen’s Majesty’s long reign over us, the forgiveness of mine offence, the short [speedy] enjoying of [the company of] my own dear lord and husband, with assured hope through God’s grace and your good help and my Lord Robert [Dudley] for the enjoying of the Queen’s Highness’s favour in that behalf, I bid you, my own good cousin, most heartily farewell. From Pyrgo the thred of September.
“Your assured friend and cousin to my small power,
“Katheryne Hartford.”
“To my very loving cousin Sir William Cicyll, Knight, Chief Secretary to the Queen’s Majesty, give these.”—[“Mine own dear lord,” of whom she makes mention, is, of course, her husband, Hertford.]
[86] The letter to Cecil is worded as follows:—
“What the long want of the Queen’s Majesty’s accustomed favour towards me hath bred in this miserable and wasted body of mine, God only knoweth, as I daily more and more, to the torment and wasting thereof, do otherwise feel than well able to express; which if it should any long time thus continue, I rather wish of God shortly to be buried in the faith and fear of Him, than in this continual agony to live. As I have written unto my Lord Robert, so, good cousin Ceycell, do I unto you. I must confess I never felt what the want of my Prince’s favour was before now, which by your good means and the rest of my very good lords, once obtained, I shall not require of any of you, if it fall, through my default, to be means for the restitution thereof, so mindful, God willing, shall I be, not to offend Her Highness. Thus desiring the continuance of your friendship, I most heartily bid you farewell, good cousin Cecil, praying you to make my hearty commendations to my cousin your wife. From Pirgo, the xiii of December.
“Your poor cousin and assured friend to my small power,
“Katheryne Hartford.”
[87] This part of the letter (which is in the Lansdowne MSS. No. 7, fol. 110) is as follows:—
“But because you shall truly know what charges my lord [Hertford] is at, and hath been at, with my lady [Katherine], since her coming hither, I have herein enclosed true inventory, besides my lady’s whole furniture of her and hers, with hangings, bedding, sheets, drapery and plate, for neither she nor her little boy hath one piece of plate to drink, eat, or keep anything, but of me; which, though it cannot be much, yet is as much as I have.... I learn from Hanworth that he [Hertford] hath been very plain with Newdigate, since which Lady Katherine hath received twenty pounds, and been promised to have beds and sheets sent to her, howbeit they have not yet come; she had nothing to send any friend at New Year’s tide, which induced Lady Clinton to give Lady Grey a pair of silk hose, to present to Lady Knowles in Lady Katherine’s name, as if from her.” Lord John goes on to say that he thinks Newdigate ought to have told Cecil how unprovided she was when she first arrived at Pirgo: “for the inventory of all she had when he left her here I could send to you, but I am ashamed, for that it was so bare.”