LETTER FROM AGNES, COUNTESS OF HILLINGDON,
TO AMELIA, PRINCESS OF SOLMS.
Madam,
Not knowing where to address her Majesty, I enclose to you the account which she required of the events which have befallen me since the 23d of August last; and I beg that your Highness will present it to her Majesty, with my humble duty, as soon as an opportunity shall offer.
The signature of this letter will show you that I have not failed to obey her Majesty's command, conveyed to me by Mr. Carleton, to give my hand to my Lord the Earl of Hillingdon, sooner than I had myself proposed.
I trust that your Highness will receive the assurances of unalterable attachment with which I am
Your Highness's most faithful servant,
Agnes Hillingdon.
The Hague,
This 29th October, 1622.
Post Scriptum.--I forgot to mention in the enclosed that the page joined us three days since, by the boat from Rotterdam, and the ransom of the old servant who was taken, has been agreed upon for two hundred French crowns.
FOOTNOTES
Footnote 1: By some authors it is stated that Craven was not at this time at the electoral court; but of course the chronicle which we copy is the better authority.
Footnote 2: By some historians he is called Baron de Dohna.
Footnote 3: Some letters, from a person who pretended to be an eyewitness, state that Frederic accompanied the Queen and the rest of the court from Heidelberg to Amberg, in a train of eighteen carriages; but it is beyond all doubt that he, and the gentlemen who accompanied him, rode the whole way. The King himself performed the journey to Altdorf, near two hundred miles, on one horse; there the poor beast fell dead, and the stuffed skin was to be seen for many years in the library of that place.
Footnote 4: This last secret visit of Frederic to Heidelberg is now I fancy placed beyond doubt.
Footnote 5: This is fact, not romance.