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ROBERT CARY,

EARL OF MONMOUTH,

WAS a near relation of queen Elizabeth, but appears to have owed his preferment to the dispatch he used in informing her successor of her death. Her majesty seems to have been as little fond of advancing her relations by the mother, as she was solicitous to keep down those who partook of her blood-royal. The former could not well complain, when she was so indifferent even about vindicating her mother's fame. This will excuse our earl Robert's assiduity about her heir, which indeed he relates himself with great simplicity. The queen treated him with much familiarity. Visiting her in her last illness, and praying that her health might long continue, she took him by the hand and wrung it hard, and said, "No, Robin, I am not well," and fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs; which he professes he never knew her to do in all his lifetime, but for the death of the queen of Scots. He found

[For which he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber. Vide Nuga Antiquæ, vol. i. p. 337.]

she would die-"I could not," says he, "but think in what a wretched estate I should be left, most of my livelyhood depending on her life. And hereupon I bethought myselfe with what grace and favour I was ever received by the king of Scottes, whensoever I was sent to him. I did assure myselfe it was neither unjust nor unhonest for me to do for myselfe, if God at that time should call her to his mercy." These words are taken from an account of that princess's death, published by Dr. Birch among sir Thomas Edmonds's papers, and are extracted from the only work of this earl, viz.

"Memoirs of his own Life;"

a manuscript in the possession3 of the carl of Corke and Orrery, by whose favour an edition of it is now preparing for the press.

[These Memoirs were published in 1759, 8vo. and the following elegant compliment was paid to lord Orford in the earl of Corke's preface:

"An honourable author," says the earl, "in a just piece of criticism, has exhibited so spirited a manner of writing, that he has given wit even to a dictionary,

[Or rather custody, for the MS. was only lent to lord Corke by lady Eliz. Spelman. See note in the next page.]

and vivacity to a catalogue of names; and has placed our royal and noble English writers in a more learned and eminent light than they have ever appeared before. In concurrence with his judgment, and from a desire to exhibit a new picture of queen Elizabeth and king James the first, the following Memoirs 4 are sent into the world, with such explanatory notes to the obscure and remarkable passages, as may possibly render those passages more intelligible than they would otherwise have been. The Memoirs themselves," adds the noble editor, "are characteristics sufficient of their author. They are true records of facts, which are either not mentioned, or are misrepresented by other historians. They are written in an unaffected, simple, intelligent style. Veracity is their only ornament; but it is an ornament far beyond all others in historical anecdotes."

From these Memoirs we gather, that Robert Cary had his birth in 1559 or 1560, and was the youngest of ten sons; he had learned tutors provided for his education, but confesses that he had not then ability to profit much thereby. After he attained the age of

• Lord Corke transcribed them with his own hand from a manuscript intrusted to him by lady Elizabeth Spelman, daughter to the earl of Middleton, to whom he was in some degree allied; and his lordship most religiously adhered to the original manuscript, not having even altered a single letter in the orthography. Pref. p. xxxiii. The dying scene of queen Elizabeth had previously been published by Dr. Birch in his Historical View from the year 1592 to 1617. It has since been transferred by Mr. Nichols into his second volume of Progresses and public Processions.

seventeen, he attended sir Thomas Layton or Leighton in his embassy first to the States and then to don John of Austria; after his return, the duke of Anjou coming to visit queen Elizabeth in the quality of her lover, his juvenile thoughts were engrossed by tilts, tournaments, and court-triumphs, in every one of which he was a distinguished actor. The summer after, he went with secretary Walsingham to Scotland, when the king took such a liking to him, that he made an earnest request to queen Elizabeth to suffer him to return and attend at his court. With this the queen at first complied, but afterwards countermanded the consent she had given. He therefore returned to the English court; and when lord Essex stole away from thence to go to Sluys, the queen sent him after the earl, with orders to persuade that indiscreet favourite to return. He found him at Sandwich, and having conducted him part of the way back, gave him the slip; returned to Sandwich, where he had left the earl of Cumberland, and sailed with him in a small bark for Sluys, but when they came to Ostend were informed that Sluys was yielded. At Ostend he found his brother Edmund, a captain of the town, and staid with him some time in expectation that the place would be besieged; but when that expectation was at an end, he went to the earl of Leicester at Bergen-opZoom; and, seeing no prospect of any good action, towards Michaelmas returned to England, having found by that little experience, " that a brave warre and a poore spirit in a commander never agree well together." "The next year," 1586, says his Memoir,

"was the queen of Scottes beheading. I lived in court; had small meanes of my friends: yet God so blessed mee that I was ever able to keep company with the best. In all triumphs I was one; either at tilt, tourney, or barriers, in maske or balles". I kept men and horses farre above my ranke, and so continued a long time. At which time, few or none in the court being willing to undertake the journey, her majestie sent me to the king of Scottes, to make known her innocence of her sister's death, with letters of credence from herself to assure all that I should affirm 7. I was way-layd in Scotland, if I had gone in, to have been murthered: but the king's majestie knowing the disposition of his people, and the fury they were in, sent mee to Berwick, to let me know that no power of his could warrant my life at that time !"

In the following year he was again sent embassador to king James, and was entertained by him fourteen

These, observes lord Corke, were small branches of those many spreading allurements which Elizabeth made use of to draw to herself the affections and the admiration of her subjects. She appeared at them with dignity, ease, grace, and affability.

7 Reasons of state, says lord Corke, and the impossibility that two suns should shine in one hemisphere, might induce queen Elizabeth to put an end to the miserable life of Mary queen of Scots; but her affectation of mourning, her letters, her embassies, her excuses, her treatment of Davison, and her whole behaviour in regard to her own act and deed, are black spots appearing too plainly amidst the remarkable splendour of her shining reign.

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