May, 1626. The Copy of my Report after the Examination of the Lord of Oldebare's Daughter.

ACcording to His Majesties good pleasure sig∣nified unto me by an Order from His Coun∣sel. Table, under the 19th. of May, and delivered by an express Messenger on Monday morning the Page  546 22. of the said Moneth, at His Majesties Colledge of Eton, that I should examine the Lord of Olde∣bare's Daughter, now resident in the Town of Windsor, in the circumstances of a business which His Majesty had committed to my trust; vid. con∣cerning a certain Roll of Names mentioned in a late malicious diffamatory Pamphlet, which one George Eglisham had scattered in Print; pretending there∣in that it was a Roll of divers great Personages which were to be poysoned by the now Duke of Buckingham, and among those Great ones, the said George Eglisham himself for one; which said Roll (as the said Eglisham affirmeth) the foresaid Daughter of the Lord Oldebare had brought to the late Lord Marquess of Hamilton her Cousin, who was one of the inrolled to be poysoned; grounding this defamation upon the testimony of that Roll, brought by the said Gentlewoman to the foresaid Marquess: I say, According to His Majesties Command herein, I * repaired, the next day after the receit thereof, to the said Lord of Oldebare's Daughter, by Name Anne Lion, (though not nominated by the foresaid Eglisham, but under her Fathers Title) at her Lodging in Windsor, where I found her accompa∣nied with her younger Sister, and a Gentlewoman of her attendance, who were all three in the Room while I spake with her, and I brought in with me Mr. Michael Branthwait, heretofore His Majesties Agent in Venice, as a Gentleman of approved con∣fidence and sincerity. At my access unto her, be∣cause I was a stranger, and the business somewhat harsh and umbrageous, I laboured to take from her all manner of shadow touching her self; which in Page  547 truth I found very needless: For after I had shew∣ed her my Commission, and the places in Eglisham's Book wherein she was traduced for a Witness of this foul defamation, she was so far from disgui∣sing or reserving any circumstance, that she pre∣vented all my inquisitiveness in some Questions which I had prepared, making a clear, a free, and a noble report of all that had passed, which she did dictate unto me, as I wrote in her Window, in her own words, without any inforcement or inter∣ruption, as followeth:

At His Majesties being in Spain, a Carr-man of one Smith a Woodmonger in Westminster, found a Paper, as he said, and gave it to my Mothers Foot-man to read, whose Name was Thomas Allet, who brought it immediately to me; it was half a sheet of Paper laid double by the length, and in it was written in a scribled hand, the Names of a number (above a dozen) of the Privy Counsel: some words had been written more, which were scraped out. The Names were not writ in order as they were of quality. In it, next to the Marquess of Hamilton, was writ, Dr. Eglisham to imbalm him. No mention of poysoning, or any such thing, but very Names. I not knowing what it might import more, the Marquess of Hamilton not being at that instant in Whitehall, I sent for Iames Steward Ser∣vant to the Duke of Richmond, and desired him to shew his Lord that Paper, wherein was his Name. He said he would not present it himself, but would give it to Alexander Heatley, his Secretary: So he took the Paper from me; and within a day or two after he brought it back to me, and said, the Se∣cretary thought it not necessary to trouble his Lord with all, for as he did conceive, some that Page  548 had a Cause to be heard before the Privy Counsel, or in the Star Chamber, had written these Names to help his own memory, to reckon who would be with him or against him. Immediately then I sent the said Allet to David Strachen, Servant to the Marquess of Hamilton, and bade him give that to his Lord from me immediately; which he said he did, and that his Lord read it, and put it in his Pocket.

These are the very express and formal words, which this noble Gentlewoman, with a very frank and ingenious spirit, as I am bound to testifie of her, did dictate to me, in the presence of the above-named: Whereby may appear to any reaso∣nable creature, what a silly piece of malice this was, when Mr. Alexander Heatley, a Gentleman of sober judgement, to whom the Roll was first sent, though that be concealed by Eglisham, did think it too frivolous to be so much as once shewed to his Master, howsoever named therein. At this first Conference, as I was ready to depart, my Lord of Oldebare's Daughter desired of me a view of the Book, out of which I had read her some passages, wherein her Name was traduced; which could in no equity be denied. So I left it with her till the next day, praying that I might then have her full judgement of it: When repairing again unto her, she told me as freely as the rest, in the hearing of the same company as before, except her Gentlewo∣man, that Eglisham had gone upon very slight grounds in so great a matter.