4 
is the best part of my strength and means of well doing. 
Wherefore my humble request to your Lordship is, that you 
would be so good unto me as to discharge me and sureties of 
that recognizance of £1,100. That when it shall please his 
Grace and the rest to deliver me from the Marshalsea, whereof 
have hope I may no longer be stayed from those businesses in 
the country, whereof I have now more, than yet in all my life 
I ever had. 
Thus I most humbly take my leave, and betake your Lord- 
ship to God’s protection, this 25th day of February, 1601, 
from the Marshalsea. 
Your Honour’s, in all humble service. 
Ever to be commanded. 
To the Right Honourable CHR. BROOKE, f 
Sir Thomas Egerton, Knight, 
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal 
of England.” 
We learn from this letter that the Lincoln’s Inn barrister was 
then a member of the Northern Circuit, and through what he 
calls ^^my mother’s favour” enjoying a profitable practice at the 
Assizes of his native city and county. A few years later, by his 
^Lnother’s favour,” he was raised to greater distinction. In the 
early part of 1604 writs were issued for the election of mem¬ 
bers to the first parliament of King James the First, and the 
citizens of York turned their eyes towards Christopher Brooke 
as a proper person to be one of their representatives. To qualify 
himself to be a candidate, he took up his freedom of the city, 
wLich he had not done previously, although entitled to claim 
the franchise by patrimony. He was admitted, not as a lawyer, 
but a merchant, being entitled to that designation by having 
been long one of the company of Merchant Adventurers. 
On the 5th of March he was elected by the corporation of 
York to be one of their burgesses in the ensuing parliament. 
His colleague was Alderman Robert Askwith, who was after¬ 
wards knighted by King James I. 
On this occasion the corporation adopted a peculiar mode of 
proceeding. There were several candidates, but the contest lay 
t Ivempe’s Lozeley MSS., London, 1836. Svo. p. 336. 
