Perhaps Mistress White's brother accompanied Sir Edward Herbert, who
writes (_loc. cit._),
"The occasion of my going hither was thus: hearing that a war about
the title of Cleves, Juliers, and some other provinces betwixt the Low
Countries and Germany, should be made, by the several pretenders to
it, and that the French king [Henry IV] himself would come with a
great army into those parts; it was now the year of our Lord 1610,
when my Lord Chandos and myself resolved to take shipping for the Low
Countries, and from thence to pass to the city of Juliers, which the
Prince of Orange resolved to besiege. Making all haste thither we
found the siege newly begun; the Low Country army assisted by 4000
English under the command of Sir Edward Cecil."
Juliers surrendered on August 22, 1610.
V
Sir Henry Kingsmill died October 26th, 1624, the day on which this letter
was written. If the Lady Kingsmel, or Kingsmill, to whom it is addressed,
was the Bridget White of the first four letters, the difference in its
tone is the more interesting. The girl to whom Donne wrote so gaily
fifteen years before, is now a widow, and the poverty-stricken student of
1609 has become the great Dean of Saint Paul's.