“Although I know very well that were the wise and politic Cornelius Tacitus living, he durst not whisper unto your Majesty as he did to other Princes, prone to hear him, when he said:--‘Eo usque grata sunt beneficia quam diu solvi posse videantur ubi semel antevenere pro gratia odium vedditur.’ I am, notwithstanding, very loth to trouble your sacred Majesty in order to myself, not but I am sufficiently necessitated to importune you, even as much as any poor subject your Majesty hath; and warranted by as good a title unto it (if, after an opulent and flourishing condition to become an object of pity, through my zeal and services to the crown you wear, may challenge any esteem); but my very nature abhors anything that may seem self-interest, though indeed whatever I have or do ambition, be it of favour or benefit from your Majesty’s most gracious self, it hath been, really is, and shall be ever, but to make me able the more eminently to serve your matchless Majesty, whose advantage is my greatest comfort; and, in earnest, my very heart’s objectum adæquatum. Think of me whatever others please to suggest, yet such shall your Majesty ever find me, and unless your Majesty command me to speak, I shall still say nothing, but seeing a coldness in your Majesty, I shall continue dumb and speechless:--Leves loquunter curæ ingentes stujescunt. Yet, animated by your Majesty’s cheerful commands, I shall ingenuously lay before you the truth and nothing but the truth, and (though to mine own confusion) I will as candidly shrive me to your benign self, as to a ghostly father, and I will make your most excellent Majesty my sole judge, as well spiritual as temporal, that is to look into my inward man, as well as my outward actions and deportment.” In November we have another petition in respect to a large claim on his estate, and a report thereon, as follows:--[B] “To the King’s most excellent Majesty, the humble petition of Edward Marquis of Worcester. “SHEWETH, “That whereas your Petitioner and his late father did heretofore lend to serve his then late Majesty’s urgent necessities the sum of two hundred thousand pounds and upwards, (ninety-five thousand pounds whereof appears under his late Majesty’s hand and seal, and the rest the Petitioner, if permitted, will make appear), besides other great sums the Petitioner employed in other his Majesty’s service, by which means your Petitioner’s estate was encumbered, and continued encumbered with vast debts, insomuch that to the Petitioner and his family there is left but a small pittance for a mean livelihood; the Petitioner’s estate being charged with the debts so contracted for his late Majesty’s service, and your Majesty’s, as aforesaid.