And now, congeal'd with grief, can scarce implore This is that sable stone, this is the cave And womb of earth, that doth his corse embrace: Here will I paint the characters of woe; Where, though I mourn my matchless loss alone, But is he gone? and live I rhyming here, Dwell then in endless bliss with happy souls, This concerning his Sir Albertus Morton. H. W. And for what I shall say concerning Mr. William Bedel, I must prepare the Reader by telling him, that when King James sent Sir Henry Wotton Ambassador to the State of Venice, he sent also an Ambassador to the King of France, and another to the King of Spain. With the Ambassador of France went Joseph Hall, late Bishop of Norwich, whose many and useful works speak his great merit: with the Ambassador to Spain went James Wadsworth; and with Sir Henry Wotton went William Bedel. These three Chaplains to these three Ambassadors were all bred in one University, all of one College,* all beneficed in one Diocese, and all most dear and entire friends. But in Spain, Mr. Wadsworth met with temptations, or reasons, such as were so powerful as to persuade him-who of the three was formerly observed to be the most averse to that Religion that calls itself Catholic-to disclaim himself a member of the Church of England, and to declare himself for the Church of Rome, discharging himself of his attendance on the Ambassador, and betaking himself to a monasterial life, in which he lived very regularly and so died.† When Dr. Hall, the late Bishop of Norwich, came into England, he wrote to Mr. Wadsworth,—it is the first Epistle in his printed Decades,-to persuade his return, or to shew the reason of his apostacy. The letter seemed to have in it many sweet expressions of love; and yet there was in it some expression that was so unpleasant to Mr. Wadsworth, that he chose rather to acquaint his old friend Mr. Bedel with his motives; by which means there passed betwixt Mr. Bedel and Mr. Wadsworth, divers letters which be extant in print, and did well deserve it; for in them there seems to be a controversy, not of Religion only, but who should answer each other with most love and meekness; which I mention the rather, because it too seldom falls out to be so in a book-war. There is yet a little more to be said of Mr. Bedel, for the greater part of which the Reader is referred to this following letter of Sir Henry Wotton's, written to our late King Charles the First: 66 66 May it please Your most Gracious Majesty, Having been informed that certain persons have, by the good wishes of the Archbishop of Armagh, been directed hither, with a most humble petition unto your Majesty that you will be pleased to make Mr. William Bedel-now resident upon a small benefice in Suffolk-Governor of your College at Dublin, for the good of * Emanuel College in Cambridge. ↑ He had been appointed to teach the Infanta English, when the match between her and Prince Charles was supposed to be concluded. that Society; and myself being required to render unto your Majesty some testimony of the said William Bedel who was long my Chaplain at Venice, in the time of my first employment there, I am bound in all conscience and truth-so far as your Majesty will vouchsafe to accept my poor judgment-to affirm of him, that I think hardly a fitter man for that charge could have been propounded unto your Majesty in your whole kingdom, for singu. lar erudition and piety, conformity to the rites of the Church, and zeal to advance the cause of God, wherein his travails abroad were not obscure in the time of the Excommunication of the Venetians. "For it may please your Majesty to know, that this is the man whom Padre Paulo took, I may say, into his very soul, with whom he did communicate the inwardest thoughts of his heart; from whom he professed to have received more knowledge in all Divinity, both scholastical and positive, than from any that he had ever practised in his days; of which all the passages were well known to the King your Father, of most blessed memory. And so, with your Majesty's good favour, I will end this needless office; for the general fame of his learning, his life and Christian temper, and those religious labours which himself hath dedicated to your Majesty, do better describe him than I am able. Your Majesty's Most humble and faithful servant, .* To this letter I shall add this: that he was-to the great joy of Sir Henry Wotton-made Governor of the said college ;* and that, after a fair discharge of his duty and trust there he was thence removed to be Bishop of Kilmore.† In both places his life was so holy, as seemed to equal the primitive Christians: for as they, so he kept all the Ember-weeks, observed-besides his private devotions-the canonical hours of prayer very strictly, and so he did all the Feasts and Fast-days of his mother, the Church of England. To which I may add, that his patience and charity were both such, as shewed his affections were set upon things that are above; for indeed his whole life brought forth the + Sept. 3, 1629. * Aug. 1627. fruits of the spirit; there being in him such a remarkable meekness, that as St. Paul advised his Timothy in the election of a Bishop, “That he have a good report of those that be without ;" so had he for those that were without, even those that in point of Religion were of the Roman persuasion,—of which there were very many in his Diocese,—did yet-such is the Power of visible piety-ever look upon him with respect and reverence, and testified it by a concealing, and safe protecting him from death in the late horrid rebellion in Ireland, when the fury of the wild Irish knew no distinction of persons: and yet, there and then he was protected and cherished by those of a contrary persuasion; and there and then he died, not by violence or misusage, but by grief in a quiet prison (1629). And with him was lost many of his learned writings which were thought worthy of preservation; and amongst the rest was lost the Bible, which by many years labour, and conference, and study, he had translated into the Irish tongue, with an intent to have printed it for public use. More might be said of Mr. Bedel, who, I told the Reader, was Sir Henry Wotton's first Chaplain; and much of his second Chaplain, Isaac Bargrave,† Doctor in Divinity, and the late learned and hospitable Dean of Canterbury; as also of the merits of many others, that had the happiness to attend Sir Henry in his foreign employments: but the Reader may think that in this digression I have already carried him too far from Eton College, and therefore I shall lead him back as gently and as orderly as I may to that place, for a further conference concerning Sir Henry Wotton. Sir Henry Wotton had proposed to himself, before he entered into his Collegiate life, to write the Life of Martin Luther, and in it the History of the Reformation, as it was carried on in Germany for the doing of which he had many advantages by his several Embassies into those parts, and his interest in the several Princes of the Empire; by whose means he had access to the * 1 Tim. iii. 7. + Dean of Canterbury, born at Bridge, in Kent, in 1586, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge. He was fined 1000l. at the commencement of the Civil Wars, for being a member of the Convocation; and, in 1642, Colonel Sandys, whom he had saved from execution, threw him into the Fleet, which caused his death in January, 1643. Records of all the Hans Towns, and the knowledge of many secret passages that fell not under common view; and in these he had made a happy progress, as was well known to his worthy friend Dr. Duppa, the late reverend Bishop of Salisbury. But in the midst of this design, his late Majesty King Charles the First, that knew the value of Sir Henry Wotton's pen, did, by a persuasive loving violence to which may be added a promise of 5007. a yearforce him to lay Luther aside, and betake himself to write the history of England; in which he proceeded to write some short characters of a few Kings, as a foundation upon which he meant to build; but for the present, meant to be more large in the story of Henry the Sixth, the Founder of that College, in which he then enjoyed all the worldly happiness of his present being. But Sir Henry died in the midst of this undertaking, and the footsteps of his labours are not recoverable by a more than common diligence.* This is some account both of his inclination and the employment of his time in the College, where he seemed to have his youth renewed by a continual conversation with that learned society, and a daily recourse of other friends of choicest breeding and parts; by which that great blessing of a cheerful heart was still maintained; he being always free, even to the last of his days, from that peevishness which usually attends age. And yet his mirth was sometimes damped by the remembrance of divers old debts, partly contracted in his foreign employments, for which his just arrears due from the King would have made satisfaction but being still delayed with Court-promises, and finding some decays of health, he did, about two years before his death, out of a Christian desire that none should be a loser by him, make his last Will; concerning which a doubt still remains, namely, whether it discovered more holy wit, or conscionable policy. But there is no doubt but that his chief design, was a Christian endeavour that his debts might be satisfied. And that it may remain as such a testimony, and a legacy to those that loved him, I shall here impart it to the reader, as it was found written with his own hand. * The passages from, "for I shall here make a little stop" in page 148 to this place were not in the first edition. |
