108 The Westbury Acorn Cuf. 



The fortunes of the Ley family do not seem to have improved in 

 the next generation if we may jiidge from the following piteous 

 letter printed in The. Calendar of MSS. of the Marquess of Bath 

 preserved at Lnngleat, vol. I., 1904, p. 204. [Historical MSS. 

 Commission.] 



'• M[argaret, Countess of] Marlborough to [the Earl of Oxford.] ' 



1711. June 7. Though I have not the happiness to be personally known 

 to you, yet my grievous circumstances and present extremity will, I hope, 

 plead my excuse for troubling you in this manner, being unable to wait 

 on you myself, and indeed destitute of any friend— except the gentleman 

 that brings you this — to solicit my affair, which is humbly to dtsire that 

 you will please to take into your consideration the prayer of my petition 

 now lodged in the treasury, and that some immediate relief may be 

 ordered me, for I am now reduced to the last extremity. My Lord for 

 God's sake let not the multitude of your weighty affairs make you forget 

 the deplorable condition of, &c." 



[Since the exhibition of the cup at Devizes Sir J. C. Eobinson 

 has published a note upon it, with a good illustration, in the 

 Ancestor^ ; but the circumstances are so curious that it has seemed 

 worth while to give this somewhat fuller note in the Magazi^ie^k 

 also. For some of the information therein contained I have to^ 

 thank Mr. A. Schomberg.] 



* Widow of William Ley, fourth and last Earl of Marlborough. 

 ■ No. 9, pp. 187—190. 



