LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 429 



Thomas Meautys, Esq. to the Lord Viscount St. Alban. 



May it please your Lordship, 



I have been attending upon my lord marquis s minutes 

 for the signing of the warrant. This day he purposed in 

 earnest to have done it ; but it falls out untowardly, for the 

 warrant was drawn, as your lordship remembers, in haste 

 at Gorhambury, and in as much haste delivered to Sir Ed 

 ward Sackville, as soon as I alighted from my horse, who 

 instantly put it into my lord marquis s hands, so that no 

 copy could possibly be taken of it by me. Now his lord 

 ship hath searched much for it, and is yet at a loss, which 

 I knew not till six this evening : and because your lordship 

 drew it with caution, I dare not venture it upon my memory 

 to carry level what your lordship wrote, and therefore dis 

 patched away this messenger, that so your lordship, by a 

 fresh post, (for this will hardly do it) may send a warrant 

 to your mind, ready drawn, to be here to-morrow by seven 

 o clock, as Sir Arthur* tells me my lord marquis hath 

 directed : for the king gees early to Hampton Court, and 

 will be here on Saturday. 



Your books *|- are ready, and passing well bound up. If 

 your lordship s letters to the king, prince, and my lord 

 marquis were ready, I think it were good to lose no time in 

 their delivery ; for the printer s fingers itch to be selling. 



My lady hath seen the house at Chiswick, and they 

 make a shift to like it: only she means to come to your 

 lordship thither, and not to go first: and therefore your 

 lordship may please to make the more haste, for the great 

 lords long to be in York House. 



Mr. Johnson will be with your lordship to-morrow ; and 

 then I shall write the rest. 



Your Lordship s in all humbleness 



and honour to serve you. 



To Thomas Meautys, Esq. 

 Good Mr. Meautys, 



For the difference of the warrant, it is not material at the 

 first. But I may not stir till I have it; and therefore I 

 expect it to-morrow. 



For my Lord of London s J stay, there may be an error 

 in my book ; but I am sure there is none in me, since the 



* Ingram. t History of the Reign of King Henry VII. 



| Dr. George Mountain. $ His History of the Reign of King Henry VII. 



