1607.] PASSING EVENTS. 141 



Charing Cross, November 24, J. Woode informs the 

 Earl of Shaftesbury that " His Ma'" about „ 



-^ November. 



viii. dayes since went to Newmarket, and yt ^^o''- 

 is thought will follow his disports there till yt be nere 

 Christmas ere he retourneth," * from which we may 

 assume that the king and his suite left London for 

 Newmarket on the i6th of this month. However, the 

 earliest mention of the presence of the sovereign at 

 Newmarket occurs" in a letter from the Bishop of 

 Chichester,^*^ the king's almoner, to the Court of 

 Wards and Liveries, to allow the Countess Dowager 

 of Pembroke, a portion of some goods of a servant 

 of hers, who had committed suicide, to the amount 

 that he had stolen from her ladyship.f This com- 

 munication is dated Newmarket, November 23, 1607, 

 when this riofht reverend gentleman was in attend- 

 ance upon the king. 



Sir George Chaworth,^^ in a letter to the Earl of 

 Shrewsbury, gives the following account of passing 

 events at Newmarket during this sojourn of the king 

 and court there : — 



" The King is endifferently well pleased with his 

 hunting ; and, which is to me as great newes as ease, 

 ys not so earnest, without all intermission or respect of 

 weather, be yt hott or could, dry or moyst, to goe his 

 hunting & baulking as he was ; for, though he be as 

 ernest, being at yt, as he was, yet ys he more apt to 

 take hould of a lett, and a reasonabl wynd will blowe 

 him to and keepe him at mawe all daye. I seldome 



* Lodge, Illustrations, vol. iii., p. 333. 

 t Docquet Book, sub data, MS., P.R.O. 



