Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/767

 N'ichohrs Fidlei- 757 to James just as he was starting out on the hunt. The king, in good humor at the prospect of his favorite sport, received it good-naturedly, remarking that he was glad Fuller was penitent.^ The lady returned to London to importune Salisbury in the same manner. Fuller himself was a chief bar to his own freedom, for after all he refused to make the final submission required of him. More- over his wife and friends, for some inexplicable reason, secured from him a retractation of his first submission,- and then, as if they had not thereby placed him in sufficient jeopardy, proceeded with unaccountable stupidity or rashness to publish about the middle of December some of his letters written since his confinement, and a pamphlet which purported to be the very speech for which he had been fined and imprisoned by the High Commission. If they believed that these documents would start a wave of public opinion in his favor which would compel the government to release him, they total!}' miscalculated the number of Englishmen who favored Fuller's views, and failed to see the hopelessness of reaching them. In truth the}' only placed him in greater danger, for while no one gave serious attention to the pamphlets, the government visited its wrath upon Fuller. Fuller, however, insisted that he knew nothing of the printing of the speech, and after examining him thoroughly, the attorney- general concluded that he was telling the truth.'' To show his penitence. Fuller at once wrote to the archbishop and to the Com- pany of Stationers to urge the suppression of the pamphlet.^ He further claimed that (as was evident enough) it was not the speech that he delivered, but another that he intended to use when he was incarcerated. However that may have been, the pamphlet stated on its title-page that it was the very speech for which Fuller had been fined and imprisoned, but it contained not one syllable of the disrespectful words about the High Commission which had really caused his punishment and added a great man}' highly offe'i- ' Hatfield MSS.. 123. f. 90 (December 9. 1607). On December 10. Fuller's fine w^ taken from Patton to whom it_ had been granted, apparently because it had been remitted. State Papers, Domestic. Docquet. December 10, 1607. -Chamberlain to Carieton. January 5, 1067/8. State Papers, Domestic, XXXI.. f. 2. 3Hobart to Salisbury, Hatfield MSS., 124. f- Si. undated. Dr. Gardiner places this letter in January, 1607,8, but it seems to belong here. Chamberlain says distinctly that Fuller's friends published several books in December, and Hobart speaks here of " any of the books " and later mentions twelve ; whereas Whyte. on whose letter in Lodge, Ulnsiratxons, HI. 225. Dr. Gardiner depended, mentions but one book. 'Fuller's Submission, Hatfield MSS., 124. f. 59.