TO LADY HATTON.

     “MADAM, 10th July, 1617.

“Seeing these people speak no language but thunder and lightning, accounting this their cheapest and best way to work upon you, I would with patience prepare myself to their extremities, and study to defend the breaches by which to their advantage they suppose to come in upon me, and henceforth quit the ways of pacification and composition, heretofore and unseasonably endeavoured, which, in my opinion, lie most open to trouble, scandal, and danger; wherefore I will briefly set down their objections, and such answers to them as I conceive proper.

“The first is, you conveyed away your daughter from her father.  Answer.  I had cause to provide for her quiet.  Secretary Winwood threatening that she should be married from me in spite of my teeth, and Sir Edward Cook dayly tormenting the girl with discourses tending to bestow her against her liking, which he said she was to submit to his; besides, my daughter daily complained, and sought to me for help; whereupon, as heretofore I had accustomed, I bestowed her apart at my cousin-german’s house for a few days, for her health and quiet, till my own business for my estate were ended.  Sir Edward Coke never asked me where she was, no more than at other times, when at my placing she had been a quarter of a year from him, as the year before with my sister Burley.

“Second.  That you endeavoured to bestow her, and to bind her to my Lord of Oxford without her knowledge and consent.

“Upon this subject a lawyer, by way of invective, may open his mouth wide, and anticipate every hearer’s judgment by the rights of a father; this, dangerous in the precedent to others; to which, nevertheless, this answer may be justly returned.

“Answer.  My daughter, as aforesaid, terrified with her father’s threats and hard usage, and pressing me to find some remedy from this violence intended, I did compassionate her condition, and bethought myself of this contract to my Lord of Oxford, if so she liked, and thereupon I gave it to her to peruse and consider by herself, which she did; she liked it, cheerfully writ it out with her own hand, subscribed it, and returned it to me; wherein I did nothing of my own will, but followed hers, after I saw she was so averse to Sir Thomas Villiers, that she voluntarily and deliberately protested that of all men living she would never have him, nor could ever fancy him for a husband.

“Secondly.  By this I put her under no new way, nor into any other than her father had heretofore known and approved; for he saw such letters as my Lady of Oxford had writ to me thereabouts; he never forbad it; he never disliked it; only he said they were then too young, and there was time enough for the treaty.

“Thirdly.  He always left his daughter to my disposing and my bringing up; knowing that I purposed her my fortune and whole estate, and as upon these reasons he left her to my cares, so he eased himself absolutely of her, never meddling with her, neglecting her, and caring nothing for her.