Sydney Papers, consisting of a Journal of the Earl of Leicester, and original letters by Algernon Sidney. Edited, with notes, etc, by R. W. Blencowe

Preface

. Having been resident, during a considerable portion of the last three years, in the neighbourhood of Penshurst, in the county of Kent, I was frequently induced to visit that ancient seat of the Earls of Leicester. Independently of its general interest, the place had peculiar attractions for myself, from the circumstance of my having been permitted, by the kindness of its present possessor, Sir John Sydney, to examine the papers and manuscripts which are preserved there. I found, indeed, as was to have been expected, that, with the exception of a manuscript journal of the Earl of Leicester, and some few other papers which appear to have escaped observation, all of what is most interesting, with reference to general or family history, had been already published in Mr. Col lins's valuable Collection of the Sydney Papers. b VI

PREFACE.

. The Journal alluded to is the work of Robert, second Earl of Leicester, the nephew of Sir Philip, and the father of Algernon Sydney, a nobleman, as appears from the concurring tes timony of his contemporaries, distinguished for his ability, integrity, and learning.* Though thrown, by the circumstances of the times, into active life, and occupying several important public stations, Lord Leicester found leisure and opportunity for the indulgence of his fa vourite habits of study .f He wrote much; % and recorded, with great care, almost every fact and circumstance as it occurred, either of public or private nature, to which he attached any importance. A part of what he thus wrote has * Sir William Temple, speaking of Lord Leicester, says " that he was a person of great learning and observation, as well as of truth ;" and Lord Clarendon's character of him corresponds with this account. t Lady Leicester writes thus to her husband, when at Paris — " If either business or ceremonie to such persons as may be use ful to you be the occasion of your seldom writing, I do dispense with the omition ; but if your old inclination to reading be the cause, I do not forgive it." — Colluis's Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 45 6. { I believe there is a brother of mine here has forty quires of paper written by my father, and never one sheet of them was published ; but he writ his own mind, to see what he could think of it another time, and blot it out again may be. — Sydney's Defence, State Trials, vol. ix. p. 878.

PREFACE, VII been published by Mr/Collins ; more, of course, has been lost in the lapse of time ; but some letters and manuscripts still remain, which, per haps, are not altogether unworthy the attention of the public. Amongst these manuscripts is the Journal, which commences its account of public transactions, about the beginning of the year 1647. Whether Lord Leicester ceased to record events, because they no longer excited any other feeling than that of painful interest, or whatever else may have been the cause, the work, towards its conclusion, is very meagre and irregular in its details ; but this is not the case with the earlier and much the greater part of the Journal, which is remarkable for its gene ral accuracy and precision : and it appeared to me, considering the distinguished character of the writer, and the interest attached to that period of our history to which it refers, that a work of this nature,contemporary with the events which it records, would not be considered al together uninteresting in these times, when a spirit of research after all authentic historical documents so generally prevails.

The Journal consists principally of the re cords of the Acts and Ordinances of the Par liament, which are recited almost in the pre cise terms in which they were passed ; and of b2

PREFACE.

. VIII extracts from the newspapers of the day, accompanied occasionally with Lord Leicester's observations and remarks. The passages thus extracted, though of little importance, perhaps, at the time that they were first published ; like coins, of small intrinsic worth when first struck off, or passing in general currency; have ac quired a value from the lapse of time. The originals from whence they are taken have become rare, and are accessible only to a few; and they are curious, as illustrative of the feelings and opinions of an age that has passed away. As far as they relate to public events, it may be presumed from the care with which Lord Leicester has copied them, that he considered them faithful accounts of the transactions which they record ; and the circumstance of the Journal having been written (which is evidently the case) only for the author's private use, with out any view to publication, is satisfactory as affording the best proof that we have therein his genuine and sincere opinions.

But whatever may be the merits of the Jour nal, it would probably never have been published, had 1 not accidentally become possessed of some other interesting original manuscripts, which are now for the first time offered to the public. During a visit which I was paying to

PREFACE.

. IX Mr. Lambard, of Sevenoaks, the conversation happened to turn upon the Sydneys : upon which Mr. Lambard produced a number of ma nuscripts, which I immediately recognized to be in the hand -writing of the Earl of Leicester, and of his son Algernon Sydney, with whose writing I had become familiar in the library at Penshurst. Upon discovering their importance, I applied to their possessor for permission to publish them ; a request which was granted with that kindness, of which this is but one among many instances which I have experi enced from him. The first of the following series of letters was written from the Continent, a short time before the period of the Restoration, when Sydney was employed by the Parliament as one of the me diators of peace between the hostile kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark ; a difficult and em barrassing negociation, but which he appears to have managed with characteristic spirit and ability.

These letters were given to Mr. Lam bard by his sister, who received them from her friend, Lady Smythe, the widow of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Mr. Smythe, the lineal ancestor of the Chief Baron, married Lady Sunderland, the sister of Algernon Syd ney, and the widow of Lord Sunderland, who X

PREFACE.

. fell at the battle of Newbury ; by her it is pro bable they were first brought from the store house at Penshurst. They have been carefully compared with the manuscripts which remain there, and there cannot be a doubt of the iden tity of the hand-writing. These circumstances are mentioned, to account for their not having appeared in Mr. Collins's work with the other papers of the family, and for the complete sa tisfaction of the reader ; but, perhaps, unneces sarily, as the internal evidence afforded by the letters themselves is too strong to admit a moment's doubt of their authenticity. Other letters, which have already appeared at different times, and in various publications, have been added to this small collection, as being interesting in themselves, and in some degree ne cessary to preserve the thread of the correspondence.

There is probably no one at all distinguished in history, who is more differently estimated, with respect to character and conduct, than Algernon Sydney. As the partialities or pre judices of those who judge of him prevail, he is either admired as a patriot and a martyr, or condemned as a restless and relentless enemy to all legitimate order and authority. The publication of the following letters will probably

PREFACE.

. XI tend rather to confirm than to change these se veral opinions. The bold and uncompromising avowal which they contain of the same senti ments, under all circumstances, will be regarded by one party as a criminal obstinacy in error, which no experience of its mischief could shake ; and by the other it will be looked upon as an honourable consistency of principle, from which no selfish views of interest could induce him to swerve. There are points, however, in Sydney's character and life, upon which no difference of opinion can exist, and which would give im portance to any relics of him less interesting than those which are now offered to the public. He was a man of great natural powers of mind, which he had cultivated and improved by habits of deep thought and extensive reading ; and he possessed extraordinary resolution, spirit, and energy of character ; and such was his behaviour in the last scenes of his life, in the hour of his trial and his death, that it is impossible even for those who most condemn the principles, and mistrust the motives which influenced his public conduct, to regard him without strong feelings of interest and respect. Of the spirit and talents of their writer the following lettters will not, I conceive, be deemed unworthy. Some of them are written with that

PREFACE.

. XII power and force, both of style and matter, for which Sydney was remarkable ; and although in the course of the correspondence, many proofs will occur of that sternness of character, which had been tempered to a greater degree of hard ness in the fiery times in which he lived and acted, yet the tone of duty and affection towards his father which generally prevails, notwithstanding occasional bursts of irritation, which circumstances explain and justify, proves that he was not altogether a stranger to more kindly feelings.* f Both Hume and Sir John Dalrymple, speaking of Sydney, have not hesitated to class him among the deists of his time ; assertions which * It appears that Algernon Sydney when a child was remarkable for his sweetness of disposition. The following pas sage occurs in a, letter written by Lady Leicester to her husband when at Paris.

" To Algernoone I do send a blessing, whom I do hear much commended by all that comes from you ; and Nic who spake well of verie few, saide he had a huge deal of wit, and much sweetness of nature." — Collins's Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 445. t "The second were the Deists, who had no other object than political liberty, who denied entirely the truth of revelation, and insinuated that all the various sects, so heated against each other, were alike founded in folly and in error." "Martin, Challoner, Harrington, Sidney, Wildman, Nevil, were esteemed the heads of this small division." — Hume, vol. vii. p. 226. See Dalrymple s Memoirs, 1st book, p. 21, 4to edition.

PREFACE.

. XIII are not only unsupported by proof, but are made in contradiction of direct evidence to the contrary. Many of those with whom he gene rally acted, such as Martin, Neville, and others, though upon the great question of the trial and execution of the king, he differed and separated from them; avowedly were so. But Sydney in his writings, not only frequently adopts the language of the Scriptures, but defers to their authority as paramount and conclusive; and the last words he ever wrote are these : " God will not suffer this land, where the Gospel hath of late flourished more than in any part of the world, to become a slave of the world ; he will not suffer it to be made a land of graven images; he will stir up witnesses of the truth, and in his own time spirit his people to stand up for his cause and deliver them.

I lived in this belief, and am now about to die in it. I know that my Redeemer lives, and, as he hath in a great measure upheld me in the day of my calamity, hope that he will still uphold me by his spirit in this last moment, and, giving me grace to glorify him in my death, receive me into the glory prepared for those that fear him, when my body shall be dissolved — Amen." Sydney's character* and fate have naturally * Those who are not acquainted with the principal circum-

PREFACE.

. XIV attracted much of the public attention to. his life ; but this is not the case with his father, the Earl of Leicester, who though a considerable person from his character, ability, and rank, took a less active and decided part in the trans actions of his day ; a short account, therefore, of the principal events of his life may not be considered altogether uninteresting or unnecessary. Robert, the youngest and only surviving son of Sir Robert, first created Viscount Lisle and afterwards Earl of Leicester, by James I., was born in the year 1595. He was sent to Oxford, according to the custom of that age, when very young, and it would appear from a letter writ ten from thence by his tutor to his mother, Lady Lisle, when he was only thirteen years old, that he was remarkable even then for those studious habits which distinguished him in after life,* Upon leaving the university he engaged stances of Sydney's life are referred to Mr. Meadley's zealous and accurate history of him published in 1813. * Collins, Sydney Papers, vol. i. It is uncertain to which of Lord Lisle's sons, a Mr. Edmund Lascelles alludes in the following letter, written to the Earl of Shrewsbury, in the year 1 605 ; but probably he refers to an elder brother of the second Earl of Leicester, of whom there were several, who died young. " Some tow dayes since came newes to the Court from Nonsuch, that young Mr. Sydney my

PREFACE.

. XV in the service of the United Provinces, where he had the command of a regiment, and upon his return home was chosen to represent the county of Kent, and in the two succeeding par liaments the county of Monmouth, till upon the death of his father, in 1626, he was called to the House of Peers. Lord of Lyells his sonn, that was with the Prince (Henry), had stabbed his schoolemaster with a knife, for offering to whip him, so dangerously as it is thought he cannot live. The King, when he was told of it, was very much displeased, and gave commande ment presently that he should be discharged from attending the Prince any longer, and so he is sent away to his father. His father was gone over to Flushing before this mischance hap pened." — Lodge' s Illustrations of British History, vol. iii. p. 289.

This young nobleman was not the first of his family who was disposed to avenge himself in the same manner. Sir Philip Sydney writes thus to his father's secretaiy in Ireland. Mr. Mollineux, Few words are beste. My letters to my father have come to the eyes of some, neither can I condemne any but you for it. If it be so, you have plaide the very knave with me, and so I will make you know if I have good proofe of it. But that for as much as is past — For that which is to come, I assure you before God, that if I know you do so much as reede any letter 1 write to my father without his commaundment or my consente, I will thrust my dagger into you and truste to it, for I speak it in earnest, in the mean time, farwell. From Court, the last day of May.— By me, Philipi-is Sydney. Collins's Sydney Papers, vol. i.

PREFACE.

. In 1618 he married Lady Dorothy Percy, the eldest daughter of Henry, Earl of North umberland. Many of Lady Leicester's letters, written to her husband during his absence in France, are still preserved, and prove her to have been a person of considerable talents, and gifted with much of the hereditary spirit of her line.* With her brother, Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, represented by Clarendon as the greatest and proudest peer of his time, Lord Leicester appears to have lived upon terms of the strictest intimacy and friendship, and their opinions upon the great public ques tions of the day (though Lord Clarendon claims the Earl of Leicester as an adherent to the king's cause,) seem to have been in many respects the same. In 1632 Lord Leicester went as ambassador to Denmark, and in 1636 he filled the same high station at the court of Frances He remained * Of the six sons and nine daughters, the offspring of this marriage, many died young.

Four of the sons survived their father : Philip, who succeeded to the title, Algernon, Robert, and Henry, who was created Earl of Romney, by William III. Of the daughters, Lady Dorothy and Lady Lucy Sydney have been celebrated by Waller, the former under the name of Sac charissa. t A manuscript of Lord Leicester, preserved in the British Museum, contains a curious account of a conversation between

PREFACE.

. XVII there till the year 1639^ when Charles, seeing the storm, which soon afterwards burst forth with so much violence, gathering over his head, and having then great and just confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the Earl of Leicester, summoned him to attend his councils in England. The king was then at York with the army which had been raised to oppose the Scots, who had risen in arms to repel the rash and unjustifiable attempts which had been made to force upon them a liturgy and a system of church government from which they were averse. The counsel which Lord Leicester gave on this occasion is thus recorded in a manuscript at Penshurst — " King Charles sent for me to come out of France at the beginning of our unhappy troubles and differences with the Scots. I was then in good favour at the Court, made a Privy Counsellor, and the King commanded me to follow him to York, which I did ; — but it was not God's will that the King should follow the advice which I gave him, to accommodate his differences with the Scotts, himself and Archbishop Laud, upon the subject of his attend ing, as ambassador, the Protestant service at Charenton. It is evident what Lord Leicester thought of Laud's inclination to popery. See Note (A.)

PREFACE.

. XVIII and not to make warr, where nothing was to be gained, and much to be lost ; which the world hath since found to be very true." Lord Lei cester returned soon afterwards to Paris, from whence he was finally recalled in 1641. How ably he had conducted himself during his em bassy, and how highly he was esteemed at the court of France, may be best collected from a letter written by Louis to Charles upon his de parture, in which he says, " That the care, wisdom, and ability, with which he had always carried himself during his embassy, for main taining the good understanding and correspon dence between the two crowns, had given him perpetual satisfaction and contentment.* Immediately upon his return to England, Lord Leicester was nominated to the government of Ireland, a post which had become va cant by the death of the Earl of Strafford, who, it is supposed, recommended him to the king as his successor.!

This great appointment, * Collins, Sydney Papers, vol. i. At my coming away the French king gave me a jewell valued at ,£1200, and the queen of France gave my wife another jewell valued at £600, but hardly worth so much. — Manuscript at Penshurst. t Lord Clarendon — Collins.

PREFACE.

. XIX however, rendered more important and more honourable by the dreadful state of Ireland at that period, during the rebellion of 1641, was never carried into effect. Speaking of it himself, he says, .' that it pleased God that that which should have been for his good, be came unto him an occasion of falling ; though not by his fault, as he could make appear to any reasonable person."* Several circumstances combined in those times of general distrust to shake the confidence which Charles had hitherto reposed in him. It may be col lected from Clarendon, who discusses the causes of this change, that, after the rebellion had broken out in Ireland, and the king had entirely committed the task of repressing it to the two Houses of Parliament, Lord Leicester thought it the best policy to ingratiate himself with that party, upon whom he depended for the necessary forces and supplies.

In this he succeeded ; but in proportion as he rose in estimation with the Parliament he fell in esteem at Court. His connection and intimacy with the Earl of Northumberland increased this distrust, and the publication, by order of the Parliament, of a letter, which the Earl of Leicester had writ- * Manuscript at Penshurst. XX

PREFACE.

. ten to that nobleman from Nottingham, in which he completely justifies himself, and casts upon Charles the whole discredit of his delay in taking possession of his government ; * and probably more than all this, his manly and honest conduct, of which that letter gives the account, so alienated the favour of the king, that he determined to revoke his commission, and to confer it upon some one more devoted to his interests and his cause. This however was not done immediately, and Lord Leicester remained in attendance upon the Court, both at York and Nottingham, anxiously, but for a long time ineffectually, soliciting his last instructions and dispatches. During his stay at Nottingham, he wrote the two following letters to the Countess of Carlisle, Lady Leicester's sister ; they are curious and characteristic, and justify Lord Clarendon in what he says of the staggering and irresolution of Lord Leicester's nature, t Madame, Sure he was in the right that sayd, those benefits are most honorable which are deserved, and those most obliging which are not deserved. Such are yours to me, and to them my acknow- * See Note (B). f See Note (C).

PREFACE.

. XXI ledgements are referred ; neither is the point of honour in this unsatisfyde ; for your good opinion is equal unto merit. In a very good time it comes, or rather is continued to me, as a consolation to support the uneasyness of my condition ; for I am environed by such contra dictions, as I can neither get from them, nor reconcyle them. The Parliament bids me go presently ; the King commands me to stay till he dispatch me. The supplyes of the one, and the authority of the other, are equally necessary. I know not how to obtain them both, and am more likely to have neither ; for now they are at such extremes, as to please the one is scarce possible, unless the other be op posed. I cannot expect the Parliament should supply me, because it is not confident of me ; and as little reason is there to thinke that the king will authorise me, for he is as little confi dent.

The one says, Why should we give money and armes, which may be employed against us? and the other says, Why should I give power and authority, which may be turned against me ? Yet this is certain, that the Par lement must trust and supply me ; the King must trust and authorise me ; or else I can do nothing, but help to make myself unhappy. I ever thought that a man might be wiser in c

PREFACE.

. his own conceit, than in other's judgments, and that peradventure I was as like to offend that way as any other ; but I conceived that any body might know better than another, how neare he himself comes unto an honest man ; and I thought I might do so too ; but now I begin to doubt of that ; for I am suspected and distrusted of either syde, by those, whom I never betrayed nor deceived, neither have I ever offended either of them, but in my desyres and endeavours to serve both. How soon I shall get myself out of this labyrinth I cannot tell your ladyship ; much less do I know when or how I may performe to your ladyship any of those services to which I am obliged ; but I beseech your ladyship to be assured that I am, with unalterable resolution,* Your ladyship's, &c. 25th Aug. 1642, Leicester.

Nottingham. Madame, We are now about the equinoctial, a time which, by natural reservedness, suspends itself * For these letters and several other curious manuscripts, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Lloyd, of Buckingham Street, to whom I am happy in having this opportunity of ex pressing my obligations.

PREFACE.

. XXIII from declaring for day or night, for summer or for winter. Methinks the condition of our affaires is not. unlike it, for whether it will con tinew unto us the pleasant peace wherein we have lived, or lead us into a hideous warre, they are better both astronomers and politicians than I am, that can tell. I know what I wish and what I labour for with the little meanes that God hath given me ; but I have small hope of it, though others much more able employ themselves to the same end with me. I feare it is not so much a malignant party, as malig nant fate that guides us ; for I am confident that never any people were in such danger of ruine by such unknown causes. For ought I see, we know not what we do, nor what we would have, unlesse it be our own destruction. If this hold on as it is like to do, I cannot ima gine how any man can escape ; No, not that wise man, who, as it is reported of the bevar, ****** to save himself, parted with the Exchequer and the Wardes.

My Lord of Newport, it seemes, is upon other terms, for they say, the Parlement hath voted him out of his estate, and the king hath in a manner putt him out of his office. I am not dangerous enough to do that yet. If I were resolved, I should be contented. Incertitude, the most grievous c2

PREFACE.

. XXIV thingto the minde of man, is that wherein I languish, for I do not know that I am sure of any thing, but of being your ladyship's most faithful and obedient servant, Leicester. Nottingham, \2th Sept. 1642. Lord Leicester at length received his final in structions and dispatches ; but when he arrived at Chester, on his way to Ireland, where he was detained for some weeks by a severe illness, he received an order from the king, to repair im mediately to him, at Oxford, which command, after a fruitless effort to avert it, he obeyed. He was detained there nearly a year, before his commission was officially revoked, and con ferred upon the Marquis of Ormond, for whom it had probably been long intended. Distressed and mortified at the indignity thus offered him, Lord Leicester addressed the Queen, to whose interest he had been much indebted for his former favour with the King, in the following spirited letter of appeal. Madame, Suffer yourself, I beseech you, to receive from a person happy heretofore in your Ma-

PREFACE.

. XXV jestye's good opinion, this humble petition. That whereas the King hath conferred a great honour upon me, which now he hath taken from me, after a long and expensefull attendance for my dispatch ; and after his Majestye had divers times signifyde, not only to me, but to my Lord Percy also, his intention to send me into Ireland, since which, I cannot imagine what I have done to alter his Majestye's just and gratious purpose towards me. And whereas it hath pleased the King to tell me lately, that he both acquainted your Majestye at the first with his intention to give me that employment, and since that he would deprive me of it ; I humbly conceive it to be very likely that the King hath also told your Ma jestye the cause that moved him to it; for, I presume, that upon a servant of his and your's, recommended to his favour by your Majestye, he would not put such a disgrace without telling your Majestye the reason why he did it.

But as I could never flatter myself with any conceit that I had deserved that honour, so I cannot accuse myself neither of having de served to be dispossessed of it in a manner so extraordinary and so unusual in the King, to punish without shewing the causes of his displeasure. In all humility, therefore, I beseech

PREFACE.

. XXVI your Majestye to let me know my fault, which I am confident I shall acknowledge as soon as I may see it ; for though it be too late to offer such satisfaction as, being graciously accepted, might have prevented the misfortune which is fallen upon me, yet I may present the testi monies of my sorrow for having given any just cause of offence to either of your Majestyes. I seek not to recover my office, Madame, but your good opinion, or to obtaine my pardone, if my fault be but of error ; and that I may either have the hapiness to satisfy your Majestyes, that I have not offended, and so justify my first innocence ; or gaine repentance, which I may call asecondinnocence. I must confess this is a very great importunity, but I presume your Majestye will forgive it, if you please to consider how much I am concerned in that which brings in stant destruction to my fortune, present disho nour to myself, and the same for ever to my poore family; for I might have passed away unreguarded and unremembered, but now, having been raised to an eminent place, and dis^ possessed of it, otherwise than I think any of my predecessors hath bin— the usual time not being expired, no offence objected, nor any re compence assigned — I shall be transmitted to the knowledge of following times, with a mark