41G LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



Thomas Meautys, Esq.* to the Lord Viscount 



St. Alban. 

 May it please your Lordship, 



As soon as I came to London I repaired to Sir Edward 

 Sackville/f- whom I find very zealous, as I told your lord 

 ship, I left him to do your service, in any particular 

 you shall command him, to my lord marquis (though it 

 were with some adventure) ; and withal he imparted to me 

 what advice he had given to my lady this afternoon, upon 

 his visiting of her at York House, when Mr. Packer also, 

 as it fell out, was come, at the same time, to see my lady, 

 and seemed to concur with Sir Edward Sackville in the 

 same ways ; which were for my lady to become a suitor to 

 my Lady Buckingham,;}; and my lady marchioness to work 

 my lord marquis for obtaining of the king some bounty 

 towards your lordship ; and in particular that of the thou 

 sand pounds for the small writs. If I may speak my opinion 

 to your lordship, it is not amiss to begin any way, or with 

 any particular, though but small game at first, only to set a 

 rusty clock a going, and then haply it may go right for a 

 time, enough to bring on the rest of your lordship s requests. 

 Yet because your lordship directed me to wish my lady, 

 from you, by no means to act any thing, but only to open 

 her mind in discourse unto friends, until she should receive 

 your farther direction, it became not me to be too forward 

 in putting it on too fast with Sir Edward; and my lady 

 was pleased to tell me since that she hath written to your 

 lordship at large. 



I inquired, even now, of Benbow, whether the proclama 

 tion for dissolving the parliament was coming forth. He 

 tells me he knows no more certainty of it, than that Mr. 

 Secretary commanded him yesterday to be ready for dis 

 patching of the writs, when he should be called for ; but 

 since then he hears it sticks, and endures some qualms; 



* He had been secretary to the Lord Viscount St. Alban, while his lordship 

 had the great seal, and was afterwards clerk of the council, and knighted. He 

 succeeded his patron in the manor of Gorhambury, which, after the death of 

 Sir Thomas, came to his cousin and heir, Sir Thomas Meautys, who married 

 Anne, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Bacon, of Culford Hall, in Suffolk, knight ; 

 which lady married a second husband, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, baronet, and 

 Master of the Rolls, who purchased the reversion of Gorhambury from Sir 

 Hercules Meautys, nephew of the second Sir Thomas. 



t Afterwards Earl of Dorset, well known for his duel, in 1613, with the Lord 

 Kinloss, in which the latter was killed. 



$ Mary, Countess of Buckingham, mother of the marquis. 



$ Catharine, Marchioness of Buckingham, wife of the marquis, and only 

 daughter and heir of Francis, Earl of Rutland. 



