Policy and paint : or, some incidents in the lives of Dudley Carleton and Peter Paul Rubens

Front matter

SOME INCIDENTS !N THE LIVES OF DUDLEY CARLETON AND PETER PAUL RUBENS r.Y THE AUTHOR OF

u A LIFE OF SIR KENELM DIGBY” ETC.

\JU

Chapter I. Page

Births of Carleton and Rubens — Carleton at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford — F. N. The Carleton family — Carleton Undersecretary at Paris — Secretary to the Earl of Northumberland — Member for St. Mawes — Secretary to Lord Norris — Goes to Spain — Accused of having been implicated in the Gunpowder Plot — Offer of a mission to Florence — Knebworth . . . i

Chapter II

Carleton’s Marriage — Sir Henry Savile’s St. Chrysostom — Win wood — Offered Secretaryship of Ireland — Nearly sent as Ambassador to Brussels — Ambassador at Venice — Embassies — State of Venice —

An Interdict — Sir Henry Wotton — Caterpillars of Christianity —

How the Turks retaliated on a Bishop n

Chapter III

Deaths of Henry, Prince of Wales, and Salisbury — Marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V., Count Palatine — Pictures and antiques — Robert Carr — Carleton sends him pictures and statuary — Also to Lord Arundel — Trial of the Somersets — Savoy and Mantua — Rubens at Mantua — War between Mantua and Savoy — Carleton reprimanded — Goes to Turin — Zen — A feast to the Duke — Hunting— The Campaign — Carleton’s embassy to Turin — Unpleasantness with the French Ambassador — Peace — Ill-health — Return to Venice — Recall to England — Appointed Ambassador at the Hague — Winwood 23

Chapter IV

Revolt of the Netherlands — England and the Netherlands — The Stadholder, The Prince of Orange — The Advocate, John Barnevelt — Arminianism and Calvinism — King James and theology — Carleton holds a Brief for Predestination — The Church Militant — Arrest and Execution of Barnevelt

vii viii

Chapter V. Page

Art and Artists — Carleton as Patron and Critic — His own collection of statuary — Vandalism of ransackers for antiques — Peter Paul Rubens — Toby Matthew — Bargaining between Rubens and Carleton — List of pictures painted by Rubens and purchased by Carleton — The statuary given by Carleton to Rubens as the price — Sherburne angry at being distrusted — Rubens’s house — The Descent from the Cross given to make up for a small encroachment — Dissatisfaction with some of Rubens’s pictures — Lady Carleton sent on an expedition to buy works of art — Carleton executes commissions in works of art for Prince Charles, Buckingham, Arundel and Pembroke — Tapestries — Carleton obtains for Rubens copyright for engravings from his pictures 57

Chapter VI

Sons of Emperors and an Infanta — The father of Rubens — Rubens’s boyhood and youth — Description of Rubens — Mantua — Rome — Madrid — Death of his mother — His life at Antwerp — Death of the Archduke, who had recommended his wife to consult and follow the advice of Rubens — Rubens commissioned to keep Spain and England on good terms — If possible to procure the return of the United Provinces to the Spanish allegiance — Rubens is for an Anglo-Spanish, Carleton is for an Anglo-French alliance . . 87

Chapter VII

The Empire, France, Sweden, Denmark — The Turks — The Thirty Years’ War — Positions of King James and King Philip — Battle of Prague — The Kingdom of Bohemia which had been given to the Count Palatine, as well as the Palatinate itself, seized by the Emperor — Carleton urges James to regain them for his son-in-law — James promises much, but does little — Plot for dividing the United Provinces between England and Spain — James will not receive either Elizabeth or Frederick — Carleton’s admiration for Elizabeth — F.N. He gives her two monkeys — Project of a match between Charles and the Infanta of Spain — Alarm of Elizabeth and Carleton — Expedition of Charles and Buckingham to Madrid proves a failure— War declared between England and Spain .... 94

Chapter VIII

Carleton fails to get Secretaryship of State — His present of valuable marbles to Buckingham — Project of a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria of France — Richelieu’s resourcefulness — The massacre of some Englishmen by the Dutch at Amboyna — Death of King James — Death of Maurice, Prince of Orange — Marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria — Buckingham goes to Paris to perix suade Louis to join in a war against Spain and the Emperor — He fails; but his portrait is painted by Rubens, who tries to influence him in favour of Spain — Buckingham goes to a Congress at the Hague to make an alliance between England, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, with good will from France — Nothing comes of it — Carleton recalled to England and made Vice-Chamberlain of the King’s Household — England and Holland give some assistance to Louis in his quarrel with his Huguenot subjects — The English Protestants very angry with both Charles and Buckingham for this — Much alarmed, Charles begins to put into force the penal laws against his own Catholic subjects and expresses sympathy for the French Huguenots — Friction between France and England, which Carleton is sent to Paris to assuage — He and Richelieu get on well together and by their tact prevent their Kings from going to war — Carleton elected member for Hastings — The Parliament angered against Buckingham — Bristol and Buckingham — Impeachment of both — Eliot and Digges — Carleton’s famous speech in defence of the conduct of the King — The Remonstrance — Charles dissolves Parliament — Carleton created Baron Carleton of Imbercourt . . 107

Chapter IX

Charles quarrels with his Queen — Sends her entire retinue back to France — He sends Carleton to Paris to pacify Louis ; but Louis refuses to be pacified — Deaths of the wives of both Rubens and Carleton — Lady Carleton — Her niece — Death of the Carletons’ only child — Carleton sent again to the Hague — Balthazar Gerbier —

He becomes a medium between Buckingham and Rubens — A pair of painting diplomatists — Correspondence between them — Carleton finds himself in a very false position at the Hague — Defeat of Buckingham’s expedition to the Isle of Rh£ 127

Chapter X

Buckingham inclines towards a peace with Spain — Gerbier deputed to treat with Rubens — Carleton’s dislike of amateur diplomacy — Many diplomats take part in the negotiations — Failure — France and Spain come to terms — Carlisle and Rubens — The Archduchess and Rubens still anxious for peace between Spain and England — Sale of Rubens’s collection of pictures and statuary to Buckingham — The Archduchess sends Rubens to Madrid to influence Philip towards a peace with England — Rubens and Velasquez — Carleton has a miserable time at the Hague — Recalled to England — The Secretaryship vacant — Promised to Carleton — In order to regain his lost reputation, Buckingham prepares an expedition for the relief of the Huguenots at La Rochelle — Carleton created Viscount Dorchester — The Venetian Ambassador proposes terms of peace between Charles and Louis — They are on the point of being concluded when Bucking-

X ham is assassinated — Treaty with France falls through — Charles sends an expedition to the assistance of the Huguenots — It is defeated— Louis totally conquers the Huguenots and then grants all Protestants toleration — Carleton appointed Secretary of State —

Long negotiations between Carleton and Daniel Nys for the purchase of, and payment for, the celebrated collection of pictures and statuary, belonging to the Duke of Mantua, for King Charles . 141

Chapter XI

Charles so delighted on learning that his Queen is about to become a mother that he is ready to do anything to please her — Peace with France formally ratified — Rubens comes to England to paint for King Charles — His chaplain drowned in the Thames — Ambiguous position — People wonder whether Rubens has come as painter, or as Ambassador, or as both — This clandestine diplomacy creates excitement at all the embassies in Europe — Rubens disposes Charles towards a peace with Spain — Pictorial work of Rubens while in England 169

Chapter XII

Rubens knighted — He returns to Brussels — Letter of complaint from Gerbier — Who breaks his oath — The Emperor dislikes the idea of a peace between Spain and England — Rubens marries a second time — He is sent by the Archduchess to Madrid to urge Philip to ratify a peace with England — Ratification of the peace — Distress and anxiety of Princess Elizabeth — F.N. Carlisle’s famous supper to the King — Birth of Elizabeth’s twelfth child, who became the mother of George I, King of England — Underhand dealing of Cottington, if not of Charles himself — The successes of Gustavus Adolphus incline Charles to cool in his friendship for Spain — Gustavus Adolphus offers to endeavour to restore the Palatinate if Charles will send troops directly to his assistance — On Charles’s shrinking from doing so, Elizabeth writes him a letter of remonstrance— Anger of Charles — He makes Carleton write strong letters to both Elizabeth and Frederick 183

Chapter XIII

Gerbier, now English Ambassador at Brussels, is distrusted by Rubens as well as by the Archduchess — Rubens offends the Duke of Arschot — Carleton contemplates a second marriage — Deputes his friends to find him a wife — Various candidates — Marries Lady Bayning — His ill-health — Gout and other diseases — Still anxious for advancement —Death — Buried at Westminster Abbey — His character — His good influence on diplomacy — Unfortunate for the author that he has had no opportunity of exhibiting the better side of King Charles I 198 xi

Chapter XIV. Page

Gerbier, when Ambassador at Brussels, tries to seduce the Archduchess’s subjects from their allegiance — He induces Charles to guarantee their independence — He sells his King and the names of her traitorous subjects to the Archduchess for 20,000 crowns — Death of the Archduchess — She is succeeded by the Cardinal Infant, Ferdinand, brother of the King of Spain — The artistic work of Rubens during the eight years by which he outlived Dudley Carleton — His kindness and generosity to other artists — A martyr to gout — His death — Comparisons between Rubens and Carleton —

High praise of both — Both were fortunate in the dates of their deaths ............ 209

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Dudley Carleton, Viscount Dorchester. From a picture by

C. Janssen Von Ceulen, in the National Portrait Gallery Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Sir Ralph Winwood. From an engraving after Mireveldt, 1613, by

George Vertue, 1723 14

Elizabeth, Princess Palatine and Queen of Bohemia. From a

picture by Gerard Honthorst in the National Portrait Gallery . 24

John Van Oldenbarnevelt. Engraved after a picture by Mireveldt

by William Delff 52

Sir Peter Paul Rubens. From a drawing by that artist ... 64

George Villiers, ist Duke of Buckingham. From a drawing by

Rubens in the Albertina Museum at Vienna 78

Rubens and his first Wife. From the picture by that artist in the

Pinakothek at Vienna 88

Count Gondomar. Engraved from a picture formerly in the Strawberry

Hill collection 104

Sir John Eliot. Engraved by F. Holl, from a picture at Port Eliot,

painted a few days before his death in the Tower .... 126

Sir Balthazar Gerbier. From an engraving by Paul Pontius after

a picture by Van Dyck 134

Philip IV, King of Spain. From a picture by Rubens in the Pinakothek at Munich 152

The Archduchess Isabella of the Spanish Netherlands, Infanta

of Spain. From the picture by Rubens at Brussels . . . 176

Helen Fourement, second Wife of Rubens. From a picture by

that artist in the Pinakothek at Munich 186

Gerbier later in life. From an old engraving

Chapter I

The title, Policy and Paint , may suggest reprints from the eloquent orations delivered at the Banquets of the Royal Academy, where the most eminent politicians and painters forgather once a year for mutual admiration. The “ Annual Dinner,” however, of whatever sort or kind, had not become the most sacred of British Institutions at the time to be dealt with in the following pages, in which a sketch will be attempted of some incidents that took place during the early part of the seventeenth century, in most of which incidents, politics, and in many of them painting, were important factors. They will group themselves round two names, of which that of the painter may be more generally known than that of the politician. Of both Dudley Carleton, a professor of diplomacy and an amateur in art, and Peter Paul Rubens, distinguished in the profession of art and an amateur in politics, it can safely be said that they were remarkable above most of their fellows for their honourable conduct, during a period of exceptional corruption and depravity. An attempt will be made to show, not only how the politician and the painter came to have dealings both in politics and in paintings, but also how painting became a medium in politics,

i

This humble work will not aspire to be biography much less to be history ; it will be merely an attempt to give a rough idea of the lives of the two principal characters and their surroundings.

The two men in question were born in successive years ; Dudley Carleton, a scion of an old English family, on io March, 1573, and Rubens, according to some the son of a Flemish chemist, on 27 April, 1574. Most attention will be paid here to the less f known history of Dudley Carleton. Indeed, throughout the first four chapters, little or nothing more will be heard of Peter Paul Rubens ; but he will figure largely in the fifth.

The career of Dudley Carleton is familiar enough to serious students of history ; but it deserves to be better known among general readers. Anything like a Biography of Carleton ought to include a large number of the letters that passed between himself and Chamberlain. In a book like the present they must be firmly excluded, except in a few instances. It may be observed, however, that a very agreeable and profitable task is open to any man of research who will produce a book of well-selected and carefully annotated letters from the enormous correspondence between Carleton and Chamberlain in the Record Office and elsewhere. It should be one of the most entertaining and popular of all books dealing with the last years of the sixteenth and the first quarter of the seventeenth century.

Dudley Carletons father was Anthony Carleton,1 of Baldwin Brightwell, Oxfordshire, and his mother was Jocosa, daughter of John Goodwin, of Winchington, Buckinghamshire. As a boy he went to school at Westminster, and he became an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, at eighteen.

After leaving Oxford, Carleton was sent abroad to study foreign languages, and in the year 160^ when he was at the age of twenty-eight, he went to France with the English Ambassador at Paris, Sir Thomas Parry, as Under Secretary ; but he got on badly with the First Secretary, a Huguenot named St. Sauveur, and he soon resigned his post.

Shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth, when he was thirty, he became Secretary to the Earl of Northumberland. At best, the Percys were a dangerous family to serve under. Few Earls of Northumberland had died in their beds. It is true that the

*At Dugdale’s Visitation of Cumberland in 1665, Sir Wm. Carleton, of Carleton Hall, certified his descent, through eighteen generations, from Baldwin de Carleton, who lived shortly after the Conquest, and from him “ all the famous Carletons ” were descended, says Sanford (“ Cumberland MSS.” deposited at the Chapter House, Carlisle). From a branch of the family descended from Adam de Carleton {temp. Edward I) came Dudley Carleton. There were also Carletons who settled in Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Lincolnshire, and Ireland. One of the latter became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Baron Carleton of Anner, and Viscount Carleton of Clare (1797). His title became extinct in 1825. See Burke’s “Dormant and Extinct Peerages,” pp. 103-4. In his notice of Dudley Carleton, Burke spells his surname Carlton.

*

I eighth Earl, the brother of Dudley Carleton’s employer, did so, but as violently as if he had been on the scaffold or the field of battle, being shot — or possibly having shot himself — as he lay in his bed, in the Tower, where he was imprisoned for plotting, in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, against Elizabeth. The previous Earl had been beheaded for the Northern rising of 1569, and his father, Sir Thomas Percy, had been executed for the Pilgrimage of Grace, in the reign of Henry VIII. His grandfather was murdered. His great-grandfather, his great-great-grandfather, his great-great-great-grandfather, and his great-great-great-great-grandfather had all been killed in battle, one at Towton, one at St. Albans, one at Shrewsbury, one at Bramham Moor. Perhaps scarcely any other family had been so often concerned in rebellions, or in reputed rebellions, during the lengthy period in which so-called rebellions frequently consisted of attempts to depose rebels from the throne.

The particular Earl of Northumberland who had taken Carleton as his Secretary, was actually, although not ostensibly, at enmity with the powerful Salisbury, and this made Carleton’s appointment one of very doubtful attractions.

An incident which brought trouble two years later, to Carleton, was a very simple and innocent act of duty on his part as Secretary to Northumberland. The Earl commissioned him to go to a certain Mrs. Susan Whynniard, and ask her to let a house in her possession to a cousin of Northumberland’s named Thomas Percy. It so happened that this house stood next to the Houses of Parliament, but that was no concern of the Secretary’s. Carleton had good cause to regret having executed this apparently harmless commission. All went smoothly, however, during that year and the next ; but it is probable that Carleton perceived, as he was taken more into the confidence of Northumberland, that he was in a dangerous service, or that, at the least, it was not a service likely to lead > to preferment ; for he either resigned, or lost, his post.

In the year 1604, Carleton was elected Member of Parliament for the Borough of St. Mawes, in Cornwall. His constituency was a small seaport town, consisting of one street, and returning two members to Parliament. It was a Parliamentary Borough from 1562 to 1832. He at once took an active part in the debates, showing himself to be a very able speaker ; and Kippis says, “ The figure which he made in the House of Commons is thought to have been the principal thing that first recommended him to the notice and favour of that admirable judge of men, the Lord Treasurer Salisbury.”

In April, 1605, Carleton was appointed Secretary to Lord Norris, on an expedition to Spain. His opinion of Spain, after his visit there, was summarized in two expressive words : Superba Miseria. On the way back, through France, Lord Norris became seriously ill in Paris, and Carleton remained there in attendance on him for some months.

The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was made in November of the same year. Shortly afterwards a letter came to Carleton from the Lords of the Council, expressing a desire for an interview with him. The news that his late patron and employer, the Earl of Northumberland, was under honourable restraint, in the house of the Archbishop of Canterbury, under a charge of having been implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, led Carleton to look forward to his interview with the Lords of the Council with feelings other than of pleasure. As to the feelings of the Lords of the Council, the curious absence of Dudley Carleton on the Continent at that particular and very critical moment, and, perhaps (owing to Lord Norris’s illness and affairs), some delay in his return in obedience to their summons, may have increased their suspicions.

Almost as soon as he had reached England, he was arrested and imprisoned at the house of a bailiff, in Westminster. He was now in a very unpleasant position. It was well known that he had been Secretary to Northumberland, and the prosecution would be certain to maintain that he had been an exceptionally confidential Secretary at the very time when Northumberland had obtained, by means of Carleton, the house next to the Houses of Parliament, for the Conspirator, Percy. The comparatively short service of Carleton under Northumberland might be considered evidence that he had merely been employed for the express and traitorous purpose of thus rendering the execution of the horrible plot possible, by negotiating the tenancy of the only house through which it could be carried out. Finally his seeking an appointment abroad for the year of the proposed massacre, and the fact of his lingering in Paris after the discovery of the conspiracy, were highly suspicious actions.

To a young man hoping for the favours of royalty imprisonment on a charge of having been concerned in an attempt to murder the King and his Parliament seemed to shatter all his ambitions. And it appeared far from improbable that he might have a long term of prison life before him, or possibly a short shrift and death on the gallows.

At the trial of Guy Fawkes, among other evidence adduced was that of Susan Whynniard, which is thus summarized in the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic, 1603-10, p. 243). “ Her house close by

the Parliament House, let to Henry Ferrers, of Warwickshire, was assigned, in March, 1604, with her consent, to Thos. Percy, at the entreaty of Mr. Carleton, Mr. Epsley, and others of the Earl of Northumberland’s men. She also assigned to him, a year afterwards, the Vault under the Parliament House.”

These examinations were made in November, 1605. In December we find, on page 265 of the same volume : “(The Earl of Salisbury) to the (Earl of Dumferline), Lord Chancellor of Scotland. . . .

The Earl of Northumberland is suspected of having received a general^caution from Percy, but not of any knowledge of the real plot.”

On the same page, there is a precis of a letter from Northumberland to Salisbury : “ Recommends the bearer, Dudley Carleton, formerly his Secretary. Would be sorry were he to be involved in his own misfortunes. Marked ‘ Not sent ’.”

Next to this comes “ Dudley Carleton to the same (Salisbury). Begs that he and the Council will acquit him of suspicion of bearing a part in the barbarous villainy. Has been in restraint nine days.” Presently a letter is noticed from Dudley Carleton to John Corbett. “Is ill from his confinement; begs him to speak a good word to Lord Salisbury in his favour.” There are several other letters written in December by Carleton to Salisbury, begging for his liberty and pleading his innocence.

In the February of the following year, Dudley Carleton was not only at liberty, but “airing himself on the Chiltern Hills, in order to take away the scent of powder,” as he wrote to his friend, Chamberlain.1

But the suspicions concerning his patron overshadowed him for some months longer, and in August Northumberland 2 wrote to him, from the Tower, declaring that his own misfortunes did not trouble him, because he was innocent, but that he felt sorrowful in reflecting that his dependents were

1 S.P. Dom. James I. 28 Feb. 1606. Huntercomb.

2 lb. 20 Aug.

suffering for his sake. He thought “ the Court the best sphere for Carleton ” ; but he could do little, or nothing, to help him there. . . . He would allow Carleton “a small pension, to keep him from sinking”. But, on the same day, Carleton wrote to Chamberlain that he thought it would be dangerous to accept any offer of money from Northumberland. On 1 6 November he wrote to Salisbury, expressing a hope that, as his innocence had been proved with regard to the Gunpowder Plot, the prohibition against his taking his seat in Parliament might be withdrawn. He also begged Salisbury to give him some appointment, since “having been trained for public life,” he was “ unfitted for any other ”.

Even so late as 13 September, 16 11, long after his innocence of the Gunpowder Plot had been proved, gossip would still appear to have implicated him in it ; for he wrote to Sir Walter Cope saying that he was worried by the “suspicions of the powder plot” against him. Protesting his innocence, he declared that he had never held the conferences, or conducted the correspondences, with Percy of which he was accused ; on the contrary he stated that Chamberlain could bear witness to the fact that a coolness had arisen between Percy and himself, which had made him desirous to leave the service of Northumberland.

Carleton seems to have been justified in his distrust of Northumberland and in his refusal to avail himself of offers from him ; for, on 29 September, 1611, Sir Henry Savile wrote, from Eton, saying that Northumberland implicated Carleton “ in the firing of the house at Westminster”; but Savile advised Carleton to take no notice of this unless he were “ specially charged

In September, 1607, Salisbury offered Dudley Carleton a mission to Florence. Just then Carleton was about to be married to Ann, daughter of George Garrard, a step-daughter of Sir Henry Savile ; and Carleton wrote to Salisbury in November, expressing his willingness to go there for a limited time, and to take his wife with him. Probably this qualified acceptance did not satisfy Salisbury ; for late in December, Carleton was still in England, and he wrote to Chamberlain, from Knebworth, that he had just shot a doe, and that the party staying in the house amused themselves with carols, fireside tales, and “ making war upon the blackbirds ”. His correspondent replied by telling him that his name was on Salisbury’s “ bead-roll ” for employment.

Another year of weary idleness had passed when, in November, he again implored Salisbury to give him foreign employment, declaring himself tired out with doing nothing, and at the same time thanking Salisbury for having set him right with the King as to the Gunpowder Plot.

Chapter II

Carleton’s marriage took place in 1607, and during the first year of their married life he and Ann his wife lived at Eton with his step-father-in-law, the Provost. At that time Sir Henry Savile was engrossed in preparing an edition of the works of St. Chrysostom, a labour in which Carleton rendered him considerable assistance. Four years before his marriage, when he was in Paris with Lord Norris, Carleton had collected manuscripts and sent them to Savile for his work, and he had written from that city, saying that he was “plodding at his Greek letters”. Literature and painting are fellow-servants to art. Here we find Dudley Carleton interested in the first named, and before long, he will be found an ardent patron of the last named servant. And after all, as Ruskin says (. Modern Painters , vol. I, chap, xi.), painting is “ nothing more than language- ... We should call a man a great painter only as he excelled in precision and force in the language of lines, and a great versifier, as he excelled in precision and force in the language of words.”

Of Saviles St. Chrysostom , Thomas Birch wrote in his Historical View of the Negotiations between

England , France and Brussels , 1592-1607 (a book published in 1749)1 : — “This edition, which cost Sir Henry Savile £ 8,000 , was printed at Eton College in 1613, in a most beautiful manner in eight volumes in folio, and was the most magnificent work which our nation had then produced.”

From this it may be pretty safely inferred that Sir Henry was a wealthy man. £Syooo at his time would be the equivalent of several times that amount in our own, and he must have known that his book was not of a character likely to command a rapid sale ; nor is it surprising to find him lamenting to Carleton some time after its publication (13 March, 1616), that it was “selling so badly”.

In 1609 Dudley Carleton wrote the following letter to Win wood, bemoaning his want of an appointment, and humbly desiring to keep himself “ in sight,” lest he should be altogether forgotten by men of influence.

Carleton to Winwood.2

“London, 7 April, 1609.

“ . . . I assure you I have not slept in answering both yours and my other friends expectation, in my best endeavour to set myself forward in the world as far as in modesty and good manners I might ; but non est volentis neque currenti. All depends upon the will of the Lord. ... I have here in my poor habi-

*Page 299. 2“Winwood’s Memorials,” Vol. Ill, p. 7.

tation a special benefit of near neighbourhood to Sir Thomas Bodley, from whom I receive many favours, and yesterday my wife was invited by him to Fulham, whither we went and Mr. Chamberlain as our company. ... I have of late met with a malady, not much to be bragged of unless it were to wish an enemy, the stone, whereof I have had two shrewd fits.”

Carleton’s apparent friendliness with Win wood, and his desire not to slip out of the mind of so influential a statesman, are the more remarkable because he personally disliked the man. In a letter to Sir Thomas Edwards,1 on 30 March, 1609, he wrote of Winwood : “ In his self-conceitedness, he will only prove his own enemy”.

The year 1610 was an all-important one, if not the turning point, in the career of Dudley Carleton. In a letter which he wrote to Winwood on 25 July, he describes its principal incidents.