Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/241

 state and took the oaths (, ii. 332). A few days later he entered the House of Commons as member for Buckingham. On 7 April he received the post of secretary for life.

Winwood's duties included leadership of the House of Commons during the few months in the spring of 1614 that parliament sat. He was wholly untried in parliamentary life, and was not of the conciliatory temperament which ensures success in it. The chief question that exercised the House of Commons was James I's claim to levy impositions without their assent. On 11 April 1614 Winwood moved a grant of supplies, and read over the list of concessions which the king was prepared to make; but the grant was postponed. On 21 May 1614 Winwood spoke in support of the theory that the power of making impositions belonged to hereditary, although not to elective, monarchs. Parliament was soon afterwards dissolved without any settlement with the opposition being reached; it did not meet again in Winwood's lifetime.

The king's want of money embarrassed his ministers. His debts amounted to 700,000l., and Winwood next year urged on him the wisdom of making some concession to the parliamentary opposition. On 25–28 Sept. 1615 the council debated the question of obtaining a liberal grant from a parliament to be summoned anew for the purpose. Winwood expressed a wish that a special committee might examine the impositions, and suggested that assurance should be given to the parliament that whatever supplies it might grant should be employed upon the public service, and in no other way. But the proposal was not accepted. On 24 Jan. 1615–1616 Winwood's responsibilities were reduced by the appointment of Sir Thomas Lake to share with him the post of secretary. Thenceforth less satisfactory means of raising money were adopted, and by them Winwood personally benefited. In 1616 the need for providing Lord Hay with funds for his mission to Paris was met by the sale of peerages. The sum obtained by the first sale—to Sir John Roper—was handed to Hay. The proceeds of the second sale—to Philip Stanhope—was divided equally between the king and Winwood, who received 10,000l. and was promised 5,000l. more when the next baron was made.

Winwood had not maintained personal relations with Somerset after he assumed office, and in 1616 was much occupied in arranging for the trial of the earl and countess and their accomplices on a charge of murdering Sir Thomas Overbury four years before. There is no ground for the widespread suspicion that Winwood in any way connived at the murder of Overbury. There is no reason to doubt his statements in his letter to Wake (15 Nov. 1615, State Papers, Savoy): ‘Not long since there was some notice brought unto me that Sir Thomas Overbury … was poisoned in the Tower, whilst he was there a prisoner; with this I acquainted His Majesty, who, though he could not out of the clearness of his judgment but perceive that it might closely touch some that were in the nearest place about him, yet such is his love to justice that he gave open way to the searching of this business.’ Winwood throughout the proceedings exerted himself in the interests of justice. Far less creditable were his relations in his latest years with Sir Walter Ralegh. Winwood was largely responsible for the release of Ralegh in 1616, and for the grant to him of permission nominally to make explorations in South America, but really, although covertly, to attack and pillage the Spanish possessions there. Winwood's hatred of Spain was the moving cause of his conduct, but the expectation of pecuniary gain was not without influence on him. For carrying out the filibustering design Ralegh was executed, but before that result was reached Winwood died, and his complicity was unsuspected while he lived. It is certain that had his life been spared he would have suffered Ralegh's fate.

Early in October Winwood fell ill of fever. Mayerne attended him, and it is said bled him ‘too soon.’ He died on 27 Oct. 1617 at his London residence, Mordant House, in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less, in the church of which he was buried. He left a nuncupative will.

According to Lloyd, Winwood was ‘well seen in most affairs, but most expert in matters of trade and war.’ His fanatical hatred of Spain impaired his statesmanship, and led him into doubtful courses, as his relations with Ralegh prove. He sought to do his duty as far as his narrow views permitted, but a harsh and supercilious demeanour prevented him from acquiring popularity. By his best friends his manner was allowed to be unconciliatory. The story of a trivial quarrel between him and Bacon in 1617 illustrates his temperament on its good and bad sides. Winwood, coming into a room where Bacon was, found a dog upon his chair. He struck the animal. ‘Every gentleman,’ Bacon remarked, ‘loves a dog.’ A few days afterwards Bacon fancied that Winwood pressed too close to him at the council-table, and bade him keep his distance. When, some months later, the queen,