Neither was it in vain, for both our loves increased with our age, the Marquis promising to engage his life and whole estate for me, if need was, and so share his fortunes with me; and not only promising, but also performing, whenever there was occasion; yea, for my sake offering to hazard his life in combate, whose mind in wishing me well, whose tongue in honouring of me, and whose hands and means in defending me (both absent and present unto the last period of his life) hath ever assisted me. I should be more tedious than was fit, if I should rehearse every particular favour so manifestly known to the whole court, and to the friends of us both. Who then can justly blame me demanding justice, as well for the slaughter of the Marquis of Hamilton, as of my most gracious sovereign King James, seeing I know whom to accuse? My profession of physick, nor my education to letters, cannot serve to hinder me from undertaking the hardest enterprise that ever any Roman undertook, so far as the law of conscience will give way. Why should I stay at the decay, Of Hamilton's the hope ? Rather I pray a doleful day Set me in cruel fate: Than thy death strange without revenge, This soul to heaven, hand to the dead I vow; If No fraudful mind, nor trembling hand, I have: pen it shun, the sword revenge shall follow: Soul, pen, and sword, what thing but just do crave ? What affection I bore to the living, the same shall accompany the dead; for, when one (whose truth and sincerity was well known unto me) told me, that it was better for the chiefest of my friends, the Marquis of Hamilton, to be quiet at home in Scotland, than eminent in the court of England; to whom, by the opinion of the wiser sort, his being at court will cost him no less than his life; sith that, I, stretching forth mine arm (apprehending some plots laid against him) answered, If no man dare to revenge his death, I vow to God, this hand of mine shall revenge it: Scarcely any other cause to be found, than the bond of our close friendship, why, in the scroll of noblemen's names, who were to be killed, I should be set down next to the Marquis of Hamilton, and under these words, (viz. The Marquis, and Doctor Eglisham to embalm him) to wit, to the end that no discoverer or revenger should be left ; this roll of names, I know not by what destiny, found near to Westminster, about the time of the Duke of Richmond's death, and brought to the Lord Marquis by his cousin, the daughter of the Lord Oldbarro, one of the privy-council of Scotland, did cause no terror in me, until I did see the Marquis poisoned, and remembered, that the rest therein noted were dead, and myself, next pointed at, only surviving. Why stay I any more? The cause requireth no more the pen, but the sword. I do not write so bold, because I am amongst the duke's enemies; but I have retired myself to his enemies, because I was resolved to write and do earnestly against him, as may very well appear: For, since the Marquis of Hamilton's death, the most noble Marquis de Fiatta, ambassador for the most Christian King of France, and also Buckingham's mother, sent on every side to seek me, inviting me to them. But I did forsake them, knowing certainly the falshood of Buckingham would suffer the ambassador rather to receive an affront, than to be unsatisfied of his blood-thirsty desire of my blood, to silence me with death (for, according to the proverb, The dead cannot bite) if he could have found me. For my Lord Duke of Lenox, who was often crossed by Buckingham, with his brother and the Earl of Southampton, now dead, and one of the roll found of those that were to be murdered, well assured me, that, where Buckingham once misliked, no apology, no submission, no reconciliation, could keep him from doing mischief. Neither do I write this in this fashion, so freely, for any entertainment here present, which I have not, nor for any future, which I have no ground to look for; seeing Buckingham hath so much misled your Majesty, that he hath caused, not only here, but also in all nations, all British natives to be disgraced and mistrusted; your Majesty's most royal word, which should be inviolable, your hand and seal, which should be infringeable, to be most shamefully violated, and yourself to he most ingrate for your kind usage in Spain; which Buckingham maketh to be requited with injuries in a most base manner; under protestation of friendship, a bloody war being kindled on both sides, whereby he hath buried with King James the glorious name of Peacemaking King, who had done much more justly and advisedly, if he had procured peace unto Christendom; whereby small hope I have of obtaining justice on my most just complaint, unto which my dear affection unto my dear friends murdered, and extreme detestation of Buckingham's violent proceedings hath brought me. Your Majesty may find most just causes to accuse him in my petition to the parliament, which shall serve for a touch-stone to your Majesty, and a whetstone to me and many other Scotchmen; and which, if it be neglected, will make your Majesty to incur a censure amongst all virtuous men in the world, that your Majesty will be loth to hear of, and I am astonished to express at this time. A serpent lurketh in the grass. No other way there is to be found to save your honour, but to give way to justice against that traitor, Buckingham, by whom manifest danger approacheth to your Majesty, no otherwise than death approached to King James. If your Majesty will, therefore, take any course therein, the examination upon oath of all those, that were about the King and the Marquis of Hamilton in their sickness, or at their deaths, or after their deaths, before indifferent judges (no dependants on Buckingham) will serve for sufficient proof of Buckingham's guiltiness. In the mean time, until I see what be the issue of my complaint, without any more speech, I rest Your Majesty's daily Suppliant, GEORGE EGLISHAM. To the most honourable the Nobility, Knights, and Burgesses of the Parliament of England. The humble Petition of George Eglisham, Doctor of Physick, and one of the Physicians to King James of happy Memory, for his Majesty's Person, above the Space of ten Years. WHEREAS the chief human care of kings, and courts of parliament, is the preservation and protection of the subjects lives, liberties, and estates, from private and publick injuries, to the end that all things may be carried in the equal balance of justice, without which no monarchy, no commonwealth, no society, no family, yea, no man's life or estate can consist, albeit never so little: It cannot be thought unjust to demand of kings and parliaments the censure of wrongs, the consideration whereof was so great in our monarch of happy memory, King James, that he hath often publickly protested, even in the presence of his apparent heir, that, if his own son should commit murder, or any such execrable act of injury, he would not spare him, but would have him die for it, and would have him more severely punished than any other: For, he very well observed, no greater injustice, no injury more intolerable can be done by man to man, than murder. In all other wrongs fortune hath recourse; the loss of honour, or goods, may be repaired, satisfaction may be made, reconciliation may be procured, so long as the party injured is alive. But, when the party injured is bereft of his life, what can restore it? What satisfaction can be given him? Where shall the murderer meet with him, to be reconciled to him, unless he be sent out of this world to follow his spirit, which, by his wickedness, he hath separated from his body? Therefore, of all injuries, of all the acts of injustice, of all things most to be looked into, murder is the greatest; and, of all murders, the poisoning, under trust and profession of friendship, is the most heinous; which, if you suffer to go unpunished, let no man think himself so secure to live amongst you, as amongst the wildest and most furious beasts in the world: For, by vigilancy and industry, means may be had to resist, or evict, the most violent beast that ever nature bred; but, from false and treacherous hearts, from poisoning murders, what wit or wisdom can defend? This concerneth your lordships, every one in particular, as well as myself. They (of whose poisoning your petitioner complaineth) viz. King James, the Marquis of Hamilton, and others, whose names after shall be expressed, have been the most eminent in the kingdom, and sat on these benches, whereon your honours do now sit. The party, whom your petitioner accuseth, is the Duke of Buckingham, who is so powerful, that, unless the whole body of a parliament lay hold on him, no justice can be had of him. For, what place is there of justice, what office of the crown, what degree of honour in the kingdom, which he hath not sold; And sold in such craft, that he can shake the buyer out of them, and intrude others at his pleasure? All the judges of the kingdom, all the officers of state, are his bound vassals, or allies, and are afraid to become his out-casts, as it is notorious to all his Majesty's true and loving subjects; yea, so far hath his ambitious practice gone, that what the king would have done, could not be done, if he opposed it; whereof many instances may be given, whensoever they shall be required: Neither are they unknown to this honourable assembly, howsoever the means he useth be, whether lawful or unlawful, whether human or diabolick, so he tortureth the kingdom, that he procureth the calling, breaking, or continuing of the parliament, at his pleasure; placing and displacing the officers of justice, of the council of the king's court, of the courts of justice, to his violent pleasure, and as his ambitious villainy moveth him. What hope, then, can your petitioner have, that his complaint should be heard, or, being heard, should take effect? To obtain justice he may despair; to provoke the duke to send forth a poisoner, or murderer, to dispatch him, and send him after his dead friends already murdered, he may be sure of this to be the event. Let the event be what it will, come whatsoever can come, the loss of his own life your petitioner valueth not, having suffered the loss of the lives of such eminent friends, esteeming his life cannot be better bestowed, than upon the discovery of so heinous murders. Yea, the justness of the cause, the dearness and nearness of his friends murdered, shall prevail so far with him, that he shall unfold unto your honours, and unto the whole world, against the accused, and name him the author of so great murders, George Villers, Duke of Buckingham; which, against any private man, are sufficient for his apprehension and torture. And, to make his complaint not very tedious, he will only, for the present, declare unto your honours the two eminent murders committed by Buckingham, to wit, of the King's Majesty, and of the Lord Marquis of Hamilton; which, for all the subtlety of his poisoning art, could not be so cunningly conveighed, as the murderer thought, but that God hath discovered manifestly the author. And, to observe the order of the time of their death, because the Lord Marquis of Hamilton died first, his death shall be first related, even from the root of his first quarrel with Buckingham, albeit many other jars have proceeded, from time to time, betwixt them. Concerning the Poisoning of the Lord Marquis of Hamilton. BUCKINGHAM, once. raised from the bottom of fortune's wheel to the top, by what desert, by what right or wrong, no matter it is; (by his carriage the proverb is verified) Nothing more prould than basest blood, when it doth rise aloft.' He suffered his ambition to carry himself so far, as to aspire to match his blood with the blood royal both of England and Scotland. And, well knowing, that the marquis of Hamilton was acknowledged by King James to be the prime man in his dominions, who, next to his own line, in his proper season, might claim an hereditary title to his crown of Scotland, by the daughter of King James the Second, and to the crown of England, by Joan of Somerset, wife to King James the First, declared, by an act of parliament, heretrix of England to be in her due rank, never suffered the king to be at rest, but urged him always to send some of his privy-council to solicit the marquis to match his eldest son with Buckingham's niece, making great promises of conditions, which the mean family of the bride could not perform without the king's liberality, to wit, fifty thousand pounds sterling, valuing five hundred thousand florins with the earldom of Orkney, under the title of Duke, and, whatsoever the marquis would accept, even to the first duke of Britain. The glorious title of a duke the marquis refused twice, upon special reasons reserved to himself. The matter of money was no motive to cause the marquis to match his son so unequal to his degree, seeing Buckingham himself, the chief of her kindred, was but a novice in nobility, his father obscure amongst gentlemen, his mother a serving-woman; and he, being infamous for his frequent consultation with the ring-leader of witches, principally that false Doctor Lambe, publickly condemned for witchcraft; whereby the marquis, knowing that the king was so far bewitched by Buckingham, that, if he refused the match demanded, he should find the king's. deadly hatred against him; and seeing that Buckingham's niece was not yet nubile in years, and that, before the marriage should be confirmed, a way might be found out to annul it; unto which he was forced by deceitful importunity; therefore he yielded unto the king's desire of the match: Whereupon, Buckingham and his faction, fearing that delays would bring lets, urged my Lord Marquis to send for his son, upon a Sunday morning betimes, in all haste, from London to Court at Greenwich; where never a word was spoken of marriage, to the young lord, till a little before supper, and the marriage made before the king after supper, And, to make it more authentick, Buckingham caused his niece to be laid in bed with the marquis's son, for a short time, in the king's chamber, and in his Majesty's presence, albeit the bride was yet innubile. Many were astonished at the sudden news thereof, all the marquis's friends fretting thereat, and some writing unto him very scornful letters for the same. The marquis, having satisfied the king's demands, did what he could to prevent the confirmation of the marriage, and intended to send his son |