Letters: Earl of Oxford to Baron Burghley, September 1572. [Spelling modernized.]

BL Harley 6991/5, ff. 9-10, Oxford to Burghley, September 1572.

[Click here for original spelling.]

My Lord,

I have understood by your Lordship’s letters, that Robert Christmas, according to my appointment, hath repaired to your good Lordship about my causes, and as your Lordship thinks good therein, as touching a new survey, so do I determine shall be done for both, as your Lordship perceives; and also myself I have been greatly abused in the former, by such as I put in trust [until now], but [as] that is past now I have no other remedy but to look better to amend the fault in the rest of my dealings hereafter. [A]nd as for my timber at Colne parke; therein, I had no other meaning save only to make, as it were, a yearly rent, so as I may, without disparking [=clearcutting] the ground. But now for the surveyor which your Lordship hath named, I must get him by your Lordship’s means, and for your Lordship’s sake, for I am utterly unacquainted with him.

And for those large leases, which your Lordship hath been advertised of, to be granted by me, I do assure your Lordship without dissembling my faults to you to whom I perceive myself so much to be bound unto for your singular care over my well-doing: I must confess my negligence and too little care with the too too much trust I have put to some over mine own doings. It may be I am greatly abused, but as yet until I search into those things now upon your Lordship’s most gracious admonitions I do not know.  But it is likelier to be as your Lordship doth guess than otherwise, and if it be not so it is more by good hap than of my providence.

The device of making free my copyholders my Lord I never thought of otherwise than a motion made to me by Robert Christmas wherein among the other things I bade him tell it [to] your Lordship at whose disliking I was to be ruled in anything. [K]nowing if it were a thing fit or unfit for me I should by your Lordship’s good advice quickly understand, and so I left it to be not done, or taken in hand, and  thus sir for these matters both in this as in all other things I am to be governed and commanded at your lordship’s good devotion.

I would to god your lordship would let me understand some of your news, which here doth ring doubtfully in the ears of every man of the murder of the admiral of France and a number of noblemen and worthy gentlemen, and such as greatly have in their lifetimes honored the Queen’s Majesty our mistress, on whose tragedies we have a number of French Aeneases in this city that tell of their own overthrows with tears falling from their eyes, a piteous thing to hear but a cruel and far more grievous thing we must deem it then to see. [A]ll rumors here are but confused, of those troops that are escaped from Paris, and Rouen where Monsieur hath also been, and like a vesper Sicilianus as they say that cruelty spreads over all of France.  Whereof your Lordship is better advertised than we are here.  And since the world is so full of treasons, and vile instruments, daily to attempt new and unlooked-for things, good my Lord, I shall affectionately and hardily desire your Lordship to be careful both of yourself and of her Majesty that your friends may long enjoy you and you them.  I speak because I am not ignorant what practices have been made against your person lately by Matter, and later as I understand by foreign practices, it it be true.  And think if the admiral in France was an eyesore or beam in the eyes of the papists, that The lord treasurer of England is a block and a crossbar in their way, whose removal they will never stick to attempt, seeing they have prevailed so well in others.

This estate hath depended on you a great while, as all the world doth judge, and now all men’s eyes, not being occupied anymore on these lost lords, are as it were on a sudden bent and fixed on you, as a singular hope and pillar whereto the religion hath to lean. And blames me not though I am bolder with your Lordship at this present than my custom is, for I am one that counts myself a  follower of yours now in all fortunes; and what shall happen to you I count it happen to myself; or at the least I will make myself a voluntary partaker of it.

Thus my Lord I humbly desire your Lordship to pardon my youth, but to take in good part my zeal and affection towards your Lordship As on whom I have built my foundation either to stand or fall.  And good my Lord think I do not this presumptuously as to advise you that I am but to take advice of your Lordship but to admonish you as one with whom I would spend my blood and life so much you have made me yours. [A]nd I do protest there is nothing more desired of me than so to be taken and accounted of you.  [T]hus with my hearty commendations and your daughters we leave you to the custody of Almighty God.

Your Lordship's affectionate son in law.
(signed) Edward Oxenford

Addressed (O): To the right honorable and his singular good Lord the lord Tr[easur]er of England give these. [trace of seal]

Endorsed (mixture of two hands): September 1572; [E]dward the Earl of oxford, to my Lord treasurer; Concerning his Estates. Reflexions upon the Paris massacre, the danger his Lordship was in. And the Earl’s concern for his well-doing.

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