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annuity derived from his father's will he had before disposed of to his brother, the Baron,-and he had expended more than the income derived from his state employments, in generous living, and indulging in his fondness for the fine arts. When he took possession of his apartments in the College of Eton, he was actually without the means of furnishing them. There appears at this time to have been arrears of money due to him the from exchequer, and he was compelled to exertall the interest he had at court, to obtain a payment of £500 to defray his temporary expences.

What the exact nature of these arrears was, does not satisfactorily appear; whether portions of established salary unpaid, or claims of remuneration for extraordinary expences incurred during his state employments. Both James the First and his successor, were, it is well known, constantly necessitous, but it is too much to assert, without clear proofs, that either of them would suffer an old and faithful servant to sue in vain for claims justly due to him. It is most probable, that the arrears sought to be obtained by Sir Henry Wotton were of a disputable nature, and might have been the payment of debts incurred by him in his public capacity, where his established salary did not equal his expences, Dr. Zouch, in a note appended to his edition of Walton's lives, bas quoted the following passage from the Strafford letters:-"Sir Henry Wotton is at this time under an arrest for three hundred pounds, upon execution, and lies by it. He was taken coming from the Lord Treasurer's, soliciting a debt of four thousand pounds due to him from the King,"-The correctness of this assertion may be doubted. In a petition presented to the King in 1628, Sir Henry Wotton gives

the following account of his services, and claims.—" 1 served the King your father, of most blessed memory, from the time he sent for me, at the beginning of his reign, out of France, twenty years, that is, almost now a third part of my life, in ordinary and extraordinary employments abroad. I had many comfortable letters of his contentment, or at least, of his gracious toleration of my poor endeavours; and I had under his royal hand, two hopes of reversion. The first, a moiety of a six clerk's place in Chancery. The next of the office of the Rolls itself. The first of these I was forced to yield to Sir William Beecher, upon the late Duke of Buckingham's former engagement to him by promise, even after your majesty had been pleased to intercede for me with your said ever blessed father. And that was as much in value as my Provostship were worth at a market. The other, of the reversion of the Rolls, I surrendered to the said Duke, upon his own very instant motion, though with serious promise, upon his honour, that he would procure me some equivalent recompence. I could likewise remember your majesty, the losses I have sustained abroad, by taking up moneys for my urgent use, at more than twenty in the hundred: by casualty of fire, to the damage of near four hundred pounds in my particular; by the raising of moneys in Germany, whe eby my small allowance when I was sent to the Emperor's court, fell short five hundred pounds; and other ways." He goes on to beg some portion of the profits derived from the office of the Rolls, "towards the discharge of such debts as he had contracted in public services, yet remaining upon interest;" and the next good Deanery that shall be vacant by death or remove.”

An indirect censure is passed in this document upon the conduct of his good lord and patron, Buckingham; but nothing is said of the bargain concluded when he acquired the Provostship; which appears to have been given him as an equivalent to the offices he had been promised, and conditionally, that he should on such appointment resign his claim to them: this is expressly mentioned by his biographer. If a debt of several thousand pounds had been due to him, it is most probable it would have been included in his statement of his claims upon the King, but nothing of the kind occurs. What he requests of the King, he "humbly begs," to use his own words, from his "royal equity," and his "very compassion." If arrears of salary had been due to him, he might have demanded it of his justice. Whatever may have been the nature of his claims, it is certain that a pension of £200 a year was settled upon him immediately after his petition was presented; and this pension was increased to £500 two years afterwards. This augmentation was made in a very handsome and delicate manner; it was connected with a compliment paid to his literary attainments by the king, and was expressly assigned to him to enable him to compose the ancient history of England, and to bestow £100 upon the amanuenses and clerks necessary to be employed in the work.* Upon the whole, there are good reasons to believe that Sir Henry Wotton had as little cause to complain of the ingratitude of princes, as most men who have devoted their lives to their service. His employment abroad was of his own selection; and it might probably, with prudent

* Acta Regia-p. 815.

management, have been as profitable to him as it certainly was pleasant. He chose his own time of retirement and in a few months after his return home, he obtained an appointment in every respect suited to his habits, and adapted for his wants. In addition to this he received by successive grants, the pensions above noticed.

When he had been Provost of Eton three years, Sir Henry Wotton, from scruples of conscience, entered into holy crders, which was not strictly required of him, as the office had been previously held by laymen, though considered an ecclesiastical benefice, and under the jurisdiction of a Bishop. It is most probable that Sir Henry had private views in assuming the clerical stole; we have seen that he petitioned the King for the "next good Deanery," and it is likely that he aimed at ́annexing other church preferment to his situation of Provost. In this he was however disappointed.

When established in his Provostship, Sir Henry Wotton might have assumed the philosopher bidden adieu to the cares of the world, and enjoyed in perfection the otium cum dignitate so much the object in perspective, of all enterprising men. But he was oppressed with debts, which harassed his mind, and destroyed his independence. He had been too long engaged in politics to withdraw his attention entirely from the arena of the state; and his time of life, and growing infirmities, checked his ardour in the several literary projections in which he at different times indulged.

Sir Henry Wotton enjoyed the Provostship of Eton fifteen years, and died in November, 1639, in the *72nd year of his age. His will, which bears date two years before his death, is curious: "concerning which,"

says Walton, "a doubt still remains, whether it discovered more holy wit, or conscionable policy. But there is no doubt, that his chief design was a christian endeavour that his debts might be satisfied." In this will, he bequeathed legacies of pictures and other valuables to the King, Queen, and the Prince their son; and to the Archbishop Laud aud Bishop Juxon, each a valuable picture. Earnestly requesting the prelates, that they would intercede with the King, to procure an order that his creditors should be satisfied out of his "arrears due in the Exchequer." It is satisfactory to be told by Walton, that his honest desires were accomplished.

The whimsical epitaph which he selected for his monumental stone, hardly deserves notice. It is neither original, elegant, nor just, and exhibits the declining faculties of old age.*

*

Sir Henry Wotton was, to use his own words, courtier in dangerous times,"-dangerous for honest independence, sound integrity, and dignified conduct. The king he served was a weak vain man, who expected and as far as he could extorted, from all his agents, unconditional submission; who ruled as he thought by divine right, but was himself governed by worthless favourites and abject parasites; who escaped from being a tyrant, by being in his nature a coward. To James however, more than to any king that ever reigned over it, England is indebted, and to his pusillanimity, or if it be a more decent term, his pacific disposition, it owes the improved constitution of government it now

* Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus author. Drsputandi PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES.-Nomen alias quære.

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