Letter of James IV to the Earl of Mar and Edward Bruce, 8 April 1601

My lord and your fellow labourer,

According to your desire in your last letter, I have considered upon your
three doubts and has thought good hereby to send you a resolution thereof
under my own hand.

As for the first, then, how to walk surely betwixt these two precipices of
the Queen and the people, who now appears to be in so contrary terms, the
only right outgait [way out] therein is to be well and surely informed of
the people's present disposition and inclination and to conform your
behaviour accordingly; that is, to know with which of two sorts of
discontentment the people are presently possessed: whether it be only
against the present rulers in the court (keeping always that due
reservation of love and reverence to the Queen which they were ever wont to
do), or if the discontentment be grown to that height that they are not
able any longer to comport either with prince or state, which I can hardly
believe, playing tint [lost], if they had been so minded, so many fair
occasions as have at this time been offered unto them. For if their
discontentment be after the first sort, then will they be content and allow
that ye keep you in good terms with the Queen and dalie [dally] with the
present guiders, building in the meantime the surety of your hopes upon the
pillars of their hairtelie [wholehearted] devotion. And if it be after the
last, then are ye to be resolved of their course therein and by what means
they are able to effectuate the same, upon the knowledge whereof I shall
then determinate what your part shall be. For above all ye must in this
errand learn to be well fensid [fortified], the chief property whereof is
to take the time right, which will make you to eschew the two extremities:
either by precipitation to mar all for lack of good backing, or else by
starting too late (if they groan so under the burden that they are like to
faint) to give the people a ground of excuse that, by suffering them to be
overthrown for not declaring myself in time, they were forced to sue to
other saints for shunning of their present overthrow. But, in this last
point, beware with the facility of the people and the craft of the Council,
for I know they concluded before that ever they saw you to deny you
whatever ye craved, thereby to force me to kythe [appear, make known] in my
own colours as they call it.

As to your next doubt, It touches the main ground of your commission,
which, if ye deeply consider, ye cannot misbehave yourselves therein. For
at the time of your despatch (things were so miscarried by that unfortunate
accident) [1] as I was out of all hope that ye could come any speed at the
Queen and council's hand anent the main point. And therefore your whole
commission was divided in two parts: to wit, to deal with the Queen and
present guiders, and to deal with the people-with the first publicly and
for the present time, with the next privately and for the future time; with
the first to obtain a surety for holding off of evil (since there was small
appearance of the grant of any good), with the next to obtain a certain
assurance for the furtherance of future hopes. And therefore the particular
points that ye was to crave of the Queen and Council were, first to release
or give just punishment for known and proved offences to all such as are
detained only for speaking with me, and specially for poor lvers [2]. The
next is to give out a plain declairaitoure, which must be enacted in her
own records, that I am untouched in any action of practice that ever hath
been intended against her, especially in this last (wherein I wonder that,
according to your former letter, ye have written nothing in this last). The
third is that hereafter a difference be put betwixt such honest men of her
subjects as shall be known to love and deal with me and those that
practises with her greatest enemies or rebels. The fourth is that she would
liberally consider of my necessities, holding forth in that point your suit
already begun for the lands of my grandmother [3]. And the last, and of
most importance, is that it would please her to renew her old promise that
nothing shall be done by her in her time in prejudice of my future right
nor no cheue under cure [check under cure?] reserved against me (excepted
always if she be not to endure as long as the sun and the moon).

In these heads ye must so deal with Master Secretary [4] and her principal
guiders as ye may assure them that, as I find my requests answered in these
points, I will make account of their affections towards me accordingly, and
(if in these points I be satisfied) that ye have power to give them full
assurance of my favour, especially to Master Secretary, who is king there
in effect. And as to your doubt in what sort to leave there, it must be
according to the answers ye shall receive to these former demands. For if
ye be well satisfied therein, then must ye have a sweet and kind parting.
But, if ye get nothing but a flat and obstinate denial, which I do surely
look for, then are ye in both the parts of your commission to behave
yourselves thus: first ye must be the more careful, since ye come [can?] so
little speed in your public employment with the Queen, to set forward so
much the more your private negotiation with the country. And if ye see that
the people be not in the highest point of discontentmeiit (whereof I
already spake) then must ye by your labours with them make your voyage at
least not alluterlie [entirely] unprofitable, which doth consist in these
points: first, to obtain all the certainty ye can of the town of London
that in the due time they will favour the right; next, to renew and confirm
your acquaintance with the Lieutenant of the Tower; thirdly, to obtain as
great a certainty as ye can for the fleet by the means of 3 nephew [5] and
of some seaports; fourthly, to secure the hearts of as many noblemen and
knights as ye can get dealing with and to be resolved what every one of
their parts shall be at that great day; fifthly, to foresee anent armour
for every shire, that against that day my enemies have not the whole
commandment of the armour and my friends only be unarmed; sixthly, that (as
ye have written) ye may distribute good seminaries through every shire that
may never leave working in the harvest till the day of reaping come; and
generally to leave all things in such certainty and order as the enemies be
not able in the meantime to lay such bars in my way as shall make things
remediless when the time shall come.

Now as to the terms ye shall leave in with the Queen, in case of the
foresaid flat denial: let your behaviour ever be with all honour, respect,
and love to her person; but at your parting ye shall plainly declare unto
her that she cannot use me so hardly as it shall be able to make me to
forget any part of that love and respect that I owe to her as to my nearest
kinswoman, and that the greatest revenge that ever I shall take of her
shall be to pray to God to open her eyes and to let her see how far she is
wronged by such base instruments about her as abuses her ear, and that
(although I will never give her occasion of grief in her time) yet the day
may come when I will crave account at them of their presumption when there
will be no bar betwixt me and them. And ye shall plainly declare to Master
Secretary and his followers that, since now when they are in their kingdom
they will thus misknow me, when the chance shall turn I shall cast a deaf
ear to their requests; and whereas now I would have been content to have
given them, by your means, a full assurance of my favour if at this time
they had pressed to deserve the same, so now, they condemning it, may be
assured never hereafter to be heard, but all the Queen's hard usage of me
to be hereafter craved at their hands. And thus shall ye part without any
just offence to the Queen, please the humour of the people, and use no
greater threatenings than such as I shall be very able to perform in the
owin [own] time.

But above all, ye must not forget to deal as earnestly as ye can for
obtaining of yon declairaitoure that I am clear and untouched in any of
these practices, which if by no means ye can get granted unto you, then
must ye desire to be publiciv heard before the nobility and whole Council
and, if it can be possible, in the Star Chamber, where, having delaitid
[informed] how many vile and untrue calumnies have from time to time been
spread of me. that I should have been upon the counsel of divers practices
against the Queen's person and state, notwithstanding of my ever upright
and honourable dealing with her, that ye are come there to declare unto
them how, in my name, ye have earnestly craved of the Queen and Council
that I might now be cleared of all these imputations, which being denied
unto you, ye could do no less than publicly there to protest ye are and
ever was ready to answer in case she would have accused you of such
practices; otherwise, if nothing be laid to my charge during your presence,
that ye protest that I shall be counted clear of any such imputations for
all times hereafter and this for fear of after checcis [check], and that ye
desire this protestation to be enacted in their records, and this ex iure
gentium [by the law of nations] cannot well be refused unto you.

Ye see now how your doubts, obscurely proponed without making me
particularly acquainted how matters goes, hath forced me against my nature
to write rather in a historical than logical style. I wish ye may be as
sore wearied in reading as I was in writing hereof, but I must conclude now
with giving you a checce [check], that ye are so hasty to return as ye
begin to count the day thereof before ye see the end of your errand, which
is of that weight that I, as master, and ye, as servants, must set our
whole rests upon the well-going thereof, respecting not quam cito but quam
bene [Not how quickly but how well] ye may put an end to your affairs
there. It shall not also be amiss that ye impart such parts of this letter
to such known and trusty friends as ye know shall have a sympathy with
their humours, making end with my hairtelle [wholehearted] wishes to God
that he may so prosper your labours as the fruits thereof may yield
contentment to me, a security to that afflicted estate and country, and
honour to yourselves that are employed ministers therein. And thus I bid
you heartily farewell.

From Linlithgow the viii of April.

JAMES R

[1] The Essex Rebellion

[2] Sir William Ivers

[3] Margaret Stuart, Countess of Lennox

[4] Sir Robert Cecil

[5] "3" was a code word for Lord Henry Howard, his nephew being Lord Thomas
Howard

Document Location: National Library of Scotland, MS. 33.1.7, VoL XXI, item
40

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    Copyright © 1997 The Gunpowder Plot Society; Transcribed by Jennifer
                                 O'Brien.