LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 4G1 



hearing ; but would be glad to avoid restraint, or long and 

 chargeable attendance. Let me therefore pray your good 

 lordship to move the noble earl* in that kind, to carry a 

 favourable hand towards him, such as may stand with jus 

 tice and the order of that court. I ever rest 



Your Lordship s faithful Friend and Servant. 



Indorsed To E. Dorset. Gor. 1625. 



Sir Thomas Coventry, Attorney General, to the Lord 



Viscount St. Alban. 

 My very good Lord, 



I received from your lordship two letters, the one of the 

 23d, the other of the 28th of this month. To the former, I 

 do assure your lordship I have not heard any thing of any 

 suits or motion, either touching the reversion of your 

 honours or the rent of your farm of petty writs; and, if I 

 had heard any thing thereof, 1 would not have been un 

 mindful of that caveat, which heretofore you gave in by 

 former letters, nor slack to do you the best service I might. 



The debt of Sir Nicolas Bacon resteth as it did ; for in 

 the latter end of King James s time, it exhibited a quo 

 warranto in the Exchequer, touching that liberty, against 

 St. Nicolas, which abated by his death ; then another 

 against Sir Edmund, which by the demise of the king, and 

 by reason of the adjournment of the late term, hath had no 

 farther proceeding, but that day is given to plead. 



Concerning your other letter, I humbly thank your lord 

 ship for your favourable and good wishes to me ; though I, 

 knowing my own unaptness to so great an employ ment,*f- 

 should be most heartily glad, if his majesty had, or yet 

 would choose, a man of more merit. But, if otherwise, 

 humbleness and submission becomes the servant, and to 

 stand in that station where his majesty will have him. 

 But as for the request you make for your servant, though 

 I protest I am not yet engaged by promise to any, because 

 I hold it too much boldness towards my master, and dis 

 courtesy towards my Lord Keeper,^ to dispose of places, 

 while he had the seal : yet in respect I have some servants, 

 and some of my kindred, apt for the place you write of, and 



* Arundel, Earl Marshal. 



t Bishop Williams, who had resigned the great seal, on the 25th of October, 

 1625, to Sir John Suckling, who brought his majesty s warrant to receive it, 

 dated at Salisbury on the 23d of that month. 



I That of the great seal, of which Sir Thomas Coventry was three days after 

 made Lord Keeper, on the 1st of November, 1625. 



