238 LETTERS FROM STEPHENS. 



crown in succession is not diminished, and yet the quan 

 tity of the land which you have upon your value is en 

 larged ; whereby you have both honour and profit. 



Secondly, By the help of Sir Lyonel Cranfield I ad 

 vanced the value of Sherbourn from 26,000/. (which was 

 thought and admitted by my Lord Treasurer and Sir John 

 Deccomb as a value of great favour to your lordship, 

 because it was a thousand pounds more than it was valued 

 at to Somerset) to thirty two thousand pounds, whereby 

 there was six thousand pounds gotten and yet justly. 



Thirdly, I advised the course of rating Hartington at 

 a hundred years purchase, and the rest at thirty-five years 

 purchase fee-farm, to be set down and expressed in the 

 warrant ; that it may appear, and remain of record, that 

 your lordship had no other rates made to you in favour 

 than such as purchasers upon sale are seldom drawn unto; 

 whereby you have honour. 



Fourthly, That lease to the feoffees, which was kept as a 

 secret in the deck (and was not only of Hartington, but also 

 of most of the other particulars in your book,) I caused to 

 be throughly looked into and provided for ; without which 

 your assurance had been nothing worth ; and yet I han 

 dled it so, and made the matter so well understood, as you 

 were not put to be a suitor to the prince, for his good will 

 in it, as others ignorantly thought you must have done. 



Fifthly, The annexation,^ (which nobody dreamt of, 

 and which some idle bold lawyer would perhaps have said 

 had been needless, and yet is of that weight, that there 

 was never yet any man that would purchase any such land 

 from the king, except he had a declaration to discharge it;) 

 I was provident to have it discharged by declaration. 



Sixthly, Lest it should be said, that your lordship was 

 the first, (except the queen and the prince) that brake the 

 annexation, upon a mere gift ; for that others had it dis 

 charged only upon sale, which was for the king s profit 

 and necessity ; I found a remedy for that also ; because I 

 have carved it in the declaration, as that this was not gift to 

 your lordship, but rather a purchase and exchange (as 

 indeed it was) for Sherbourn. 



Seventhly and lastly, I have taken order (as much as in 

 me was) that your lordship in these things which you have 

 passed be not abused, if you part with them ; for I have 

 taken notes in a book of their values and former offers. 



* The annexation by which lands, &c. were united or annexed to the Duchies 

 of Cornwall and Lancaster, 



