346 LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



the charitable work your lordship shall do in making an 

 end of a controversy between those, whom name and blood 

 should tie together and keep in unity, I will acknowledge 

 your favour as unto myself, and will ever rest 

 Theobalds, the 9th Your Lordship s faithful Servant, 



of January, 1617. G. BUCKINGHAM. 



To the Lord Chamberlain. * 

 My honourable Lord, 



His majesty having given order to Mr. Solicitor f to 

 acquaint your lordship with a business touching alehouses, J 

 that upon consideration thereof you might certify your 

 opinion unto his majesty, whether it be fit to be granted or 

 not ; I have thought fit to desire your lordship to give it 

 what favour and furtherance you may, if you find it rea 

 sonable, and not prejudicial to his majesty s service, because 

 it concerneth Mr. Patrick Maule, and my brother, Christo 

 pher Villiers, whose benefit I have reason to wish and ad 

 vance by any just courses. And so I rest 

 Royston, the nth Your Lordship s faithful Servant, 



of Jan. 1617. G. BUCKINGHAM. 



To the Lord Chamberlain. 

 My honourable Lord, 



Sir John Cotton || having acquainted me with a petition 

 he intended to exhibit to his majesty, that without any 

 apparent fault committed by him, he was put from his 

 office of custos rotulorum ; I have persuaded him to forbear 

 the presenting of his petition until I had written to your 

 lordship, and received your answer. I have therefore 

 thought fit to signify unto your lordship, that he is a gen 

 tleman of whom his majesty maketh good esteem, and hath 



* Harl. MSS. Vol. 7006. t Sir Thomas Coventry. 



| The Lord Chancellor, in his letter to the Marquis of Buckingham, dated 

 January 25, 1617, printed in his works, has the following passage : &quot; For the 

 suit of the alehouses, which concerneth your brother, Mr. Christopher Villiers, 

 and Mr. Patrick Maule, I have conferred wifch my Lord Chief Justice and Mr. 

 Solicitor thereupon, and there is a scruple in it, that it should be one of the 

 grievances put down in parliament : which if it be, I may not in my duty and 

 love to you, advise you to deal in it ; if it be not, I will mould in the best man 

 ner, and help it forward.&quot; A patent for licensing alehouses being afterwards 

 granted to Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchel, and greatly abused 

 by them, they were punished for those abuses by the parliament, which met 

 January 30, 1620-1. 



Harl. MSS. Vol. 7006. 



j| Of Landwade, in Cambridgeshire, knight. He served many years as knight 

 of the shire for that county, and died in 1620, at the age of seventy-seven. His 

 eldest son, Sir John Cotton, was created a baronet, July 14, 1641. 



