Bulstrode Whitelocke

“ About midnight was a horrible noise, the thunder fierce and strangely loud, the sky all in flames with the wonderful lightnings; and though it be frequent to meet with great tempests of thunder and lightnings upon this sea, and much more dreadful than those in England, yet now the officers and mariners of the ship affirmed that they never saw the like to this tempest, and that they were almost blind with the shining and flashes of this lightning. ”

“ I am now an old man, and whilst I continue alive I shall do all that lies in my power to serve the Protector and the Commonwealth of England, and shall embrace your Excellence with a special bond of friendship, and will leave it in charge to my sons, when I am dead, to do the same. ”

“ The best, the noblest, the most lasting, yet not minded: our own things, poor, low, uncertain, unsatisfactory, yet pursued. The heart runneth after the wedge of gold, and the mind seeks for greatness. Give me honour, or else I die: a crown here is more desired than heaven hereafter. Divine love hath great danger accompanying it, but the recompense is answerable: ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’ Learned Paul counts all things but dung and dross to holy Christ ”

“ I then endeavour again to satisfy the Queen, and break through their designs as well as I can; to do which, and to get a good despatch against all opposition, and yet so as not to supplicate anything from them, nor in the least to prostitute the honour of my Lord Protector and of the Commonwealth, or to prejudice them, is a task hard enough for a great favourite, much more hard for a stranger, and whose differing principles may render him the less acceptable. However, I shall hope that the Lord will direct me for the best, whether they agree with my judgement or not. ”

“ In the afternoon Wrangel came to Whitelocke, and conducted him to see the Queen’s ships, which lie round about an island called by them the Holm, into which island none are permitted to enter without special license. This is a good harbour for the ships there to anchor safely. There lay about fifty ships of war, some of them carrying eighty pieces of cannon, some sixty, some fifty, some forty, some thirty, and all of them well fitted and useful, strongly built, but not so nimble and serviceable for fight as our English frigates. ”

“ Whitelocke’s great deliverance. This Wednesday was the day of Whitelocke’s greatest deliverance. After midnight, till three o’clock in the afternoon, was a great calm, and though the ‘President’ were taken with it, yet the ‘Elizabeth’ had a good wind; and notwithstanding that the day before she was left behind a great distance, yet this morning she came up near to him, and got before him; so great is the difference sometimes, and at so small a distance, at sea, that here one ship shall have no wind at all, and another ship a few yards from her shall have her sails filled. ”

“ Above all other was that most eminent deliverance near our own coast, when our ship was stuck upon the sand twelve leagues from any shore, when no help nor human means were left to save us, when pale death faced us so long together, when no hopes remained to escape his fury or the rages of the waves, which we expected every instant to swallow us ”

“ The healths they drank among themselves were in large beer-glasses of sack, which made them discourse the more freely; and most of it was of England and the late troubles there, of particular passages of the war, of Scotland, of the fleet now at sea, and the Dutch treaty; in all which Whitelocke gave them some satisfaction, as they did to him touching the Queen’s resignation, the present Ricksdag, and the new King’s coronation. ”

“ It would be idle to speculate on the political motives which may have combined with other reasons to induce Christina of Sweden to conceive and execute this extraordinary design. Other sovereigns have abdicated from the lassitude of age or the burden of unpopularity, or the desire of ensuring the succession to their offspring; but the resignation of a Queen in her twenty-ninth year, surrounded by able ministers and a loyal people, and who had reigned with splendour and success, is an event without a parallel in history. ”

“ The Queen and Kingdom aforesaid and the Lord Protector and Commonwealth aforesaid shall, as much as in them lies, endeavour to take care, with all candour and affection, to remove all the hindrances which hitherto have interrupted the liberty of navigation and commerce between both the nations, as much in the dominions, lands, seas, and rivers of either of the confederates with other people and nations. ”

“ Whitelocke went out with them in his usual equipage, his gentlemen walking before the coach, his pages and lacqueys by it, all bareheaded, and with their swords. They viewed most parts of the city, the streets, buildings, public-houses, churches, the arsenal, 363 the fortifications, the ships, the waters, rivers, and what was remarkable throughout the town. Great multitudes of people, especially at their Exchange, came forth to see them as they passed by, and all were very civil to them. To the works a great many of people also followed them, and continued there with them. ”

“ To Captain Sinclair he gave eighty ducats, and to the Vice-Admiral one hundred ducats, which were the best compliments, and thankfully accepted by them; and Whitelocke was the more liberal in these rewards, being to strangers, and for the honour of his nation.
The boats being gone, with the coaches, baggage, and most of the people, and the rest not unwilling to be on shore, Whitelocke, with most of his gentlemen, went in one of the ship-boats; the Vice-Admiral bare him company, and did him the honour to steer the boat himself; the rest of the company went in the other ship-boat. ”

“ Also her Majesty understands with great joy, that the scarcity and dearth in the late years is now changed into fruitfulness and abundance, so that the last year there was not only very great abundance of all things which the earth produceth, but further, thanks be to God, we have cause, according to appearances, to hope this year will be no less fruitful; the which great blessing of God to this country clearly shows us the great obligations which we have to Him. ”

“ It is only a Christian motive to you to eye the highest Lord and the best interest with the greatest industry; that his honour, which is best of all, be dearer to you than all country honour: life, world, are not to be named in the day of his glory. ”

“ Being driven by the wind about a mile from the sand, there they cast anchor, and fell into discourse of the providences and goodness of God to them in this unhoped-for preservation. One observed, that if Whitelocke had not positively overruled the seamen, and made them, contrary to their own opinions, to take down their sails, but that the ship had run with all her 421 sails spread, and with that force had struck into the sand, it had been impossible for her ever to have come off again, but they must all have perished. ”

“ Whitelocke said it would be a great inconvenience to furnish the enemies of either nation with arms which could not be had elsewhere than in England or Sweden, and that this clause would put a bridle in the mouths of the enemies of either nation. The Chancellor and his son replied that arms might be had in the province of Liége,88 and in many other places in Germany; that Sweden scarce afforded any other commodities but arms, or such things as were serviceable for war; and that the Queen would by no means be induced to that clause as Whitelocke would have it. ”

“ He commended their care of Whitelocke and their good deportment, by which they had testified much courage and civility, and had done honour to religion and to their country; he gave them thanks for it, and assurance of his affection to them when any occasion should be offered for their good or preferment. They withdrew, full of hopes, every one of them, to be made great men; but few of them attained any favour, though Whitelocke solicited for divers of them who were very worthy of it. ”

“ Bundt. Mr. Beningen, the Holland Resident in this Court, acquainted me that his superiors have concluded the agreement with England: only some provinces desire a more express inclusion of the King of Denmark than is yet contained in the articles; and they are much troubled that, being upon the conclusion of the treaty, you make so great preparations of war, and have so powerful a fleet at sea; and we here do much wonder what should be your design to have so strong a fleet, and so soon out at sea. ”

“ In the last place stepped forth the Marshal of the Boors, a plain country fellow, in his clouted shoon, and all other habits answerable, as all the rest of his company were accoutred. This boor, without any congees or ceremony at all, spake to her Majesty, and was interpreted to Whitelocke to be after this phrase:—
“O Lord God, Madam, what do you mean to do? It troubles us to hear you speak of forsaking those that love you so well as we do. Can you be better than you are? You are Queen of all these countries, and if you leave this large kingdom, where will you get such another? ”

“ The forces of this city constantly in pay are fifteen hundred men, besides twenty-five companies of the citizens, each company consisting of two hundred men, and two troops of horse of the citizens. Their chief strength, under God, consisting in the bodies of their citizens, proper and stout men, who, if they come to fight pro aris et focis, for religion, liberty, wives and children, and estates, for their all, are full of courage; not like mercenary, unfixed, unfaithful men, whose trade is in blood, and who are pests to mankind. ”

“ This day the wind came about reasonable good for Whitelocke’s voyage, who thereupon ordered the captains away to their frigates and his people to prepare all things in readiness for his departure tomorrow; his baggage was carried down and put on board the frigates. He gave his most hearty and solemn thanks to the Resident, and to all the gentleman of the English Company of Merchants here, who had very nobly and affectionately entertained Whitelocke at their own charge all the time of his being in this city. ”

“ His genius led him most to warfare, and the sea affairs seemed most suitable to his affections; whereof he would much discourse with Whitelocke, and admired his relations of the English fleets and havens. His valour and conduct had commonly the best associate, good success, which he used to improve, not parting with the least advantage. This brought him to the favour of his Queen and honour of his country, wherein he was a Ricks-Senator, and as a Field-Marshal commanded the army, and was Ricks-Vice-Admiral, which charge he attained in the late war with Denmark ”

“ England hath had no reason to give a liberty of contraband goods when their enemies deny it, and it were hard to forbid friends to bring prizes into the ports of friends, being no prejudice to the owner of the port, but a discourtesy to the friend; neither is it reason to deny a friend to enter into my harbour because he is an enemy to another that is my friend also, whose quarrel I am not bound to wed. For the liberty of herring-fishing, it may be had from our Commonwealth upon reasonable conditions ”

“ In this walk, Whitelocke viewed in the fair street near his lodging the monument set up to the honour of Queen Christina at her coronation, which is beautiful to the view. It is a triumphant arch, of the height of the highest houses, raised upon three arches, which give three passages; those on each side the more strait and low, the middle arch of twice the height and wideness of the other two. ”

“ I presume you will not use force in the Queen’s presence.
Wh. Master, it is impossible for me, if it were in the presence of all the queens and kings in Christendom, to forbear to use any means to hinder the dishonour of my nation in my person.
Mast. Cer. I believe the Danish Ambassador would not be so high as you are.
Wh. There is no reason why he should: he knows his nation never pretended to have the precedence of England, and you, being master of the ceremonies, cannot be ignorant of it.
Mast. Cer. I confess that your nation always had the precedence of Denmark when you were under a king. ”

“ Whitelocke took coach between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, Sir George Fleetwood, Potley, Ingelo, and Andrews, in his coach with him; the rest on horseback; they came about noon to the place where fresh horses staid for them, and did not tarry long there, wanting good entertainment, but, taking fresh horses both for coach and saddle, they proceeded in their journey. The country through which they passed was better than that near the sea, less rocky and more fruitful, not so replenished with seats of the nobility further off, as nearer to Stockholm. ”

“ Ravius, Professor of the Eastern tongues; and a French gentleman, captain of one of the companies of Guards, doing Whitelocke the honour to dine with him, had very learned discourse, particularly of languages and of the affinity between the Swedish, English, Danish, and High Dutch tongues, whereof they gave many instances, and Whitelocke was able to add to them. The professors discoursed only in Latin, as most proper for them; the others in French; and they hold it a discourtesy if a man be not answered in the same language which he speaks. ”