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His immoderate elevation; his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his mistimed return, the secret instructions for his second administration, the obstinate parsimony and persistent ill-temper of the Queen who, from the beginning to the end of the Earl's government, never addressed a kindly word to the Netherlanders, but was ever censuring and brow beating them in public state-papers and private epistles the treason of York and Stanley, above all, the disastrous and concealed negotiations with Parma, and the desperate attempts upon Amsterdam and Leyden all placed him in a most unfortunate position from first to last.
He was strongly impressed by the vast importance of wise precautions against the future occurrence of such calamities. Naturally, however, he dilates most fully upon questions of codification, and upon this head his letters tend to expand into small state-papers.
His reports to his own ministers during the single year of his office, as published by himself apparently with great satisfaction, are a monument not so much of his incapacity as of his want of training for such work. We all know his long state-papers on the "Trent" affair.
That the state-papers were usually composed by himself, a passage in the Life of the Lord-keeper Williams testifies; and when Sir Edward Conway, who had been bred a soldier, and was even illiterate, became a viscount, and a royal secretary, by the appointment of Buckingham, the king, who in fact wanted no secretary, would often be merry over his imperfect scrawls in writing, and his hacking of sentences in reading, often breaking out in laughter, exclaiming, "Stenny has provided me with a secretary who can neither write nor read, and a groom of my bedchamber who cannot truss my points," this latter person having but one hand!
As to the signature, the paper, and the Spanish language, those were minor matters. Indeed, it is difficult to say why the King of Spain should not issue a formal document in Spanish. It is doubtful whether, had he taken a fancy to read it, he could have understood it in any other tongue. Moreover, Spanish would seem the natural language for Spanish state-papers.
His immoderate elevation; his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his mistimed return, the secret instructions for his second administration, the obstinate parsimony and persistent ill-temper of the Queen who, from the beginning to the end of the Earl's government, never addressed a kindly word to the Netherlanders, but was ever censuring and brow beating them in public state-papers and private epistles the treason of York and Stanley, above all, the disastrous and concealed negotiations with Parma, and the desperate attempts upon Amsterdam and Leyden all placed him in a most unfortunate position from first to last.
We should have no Beowulf or Judith, only inferior copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and of Matthew Paris, no Layamon, no Pearl not to speak of the mass of invaluable State-papers gathered by Cotton, and the Reformation documents and letters stored up by Parker. One touch of blame rests on Sir Robert Cotton.
On the 19th of April, 1810, the American Confederation of Venezuela, in Congress assembled, undertook to rule in the name of Ferdinand VII., but in reality as an independent government. Miranda was called to the command of the native army. On the 5th of July, 1811, the Congress published their Declaration of Independence, and a Constitution, both of them remarkable state-papers.
The excommunicated King of Italy, as we have seen, took possession of Rome. A bitter papal encyclical, strangely contrasting with the courteous politeness of modern state-papers, was issued, November 1, 1870, denouncing the acts of the Piedmontese court, "which had followed the counsel of the sects of perdition."
When we admire the fertile conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizabeth, and of Bothwell, we are often defrauding Robertson of whatever admiration may be due to such deep policy. When Hume received from Dr. Birch Forbes's Manuscripts and Murdin's State-papers, in great haste he writes to his brother historian: "What I wrote you with regard to Mary, &c., was from the printed histories and papers.
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