Catalogue description LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY to LORD WILLOUGHBIE.

--"I receaved yesterday letters from your Lordship and others to the Counsell, signefyeng your proceedynges in the cause of the complaynt of the Erle of Lyncolns tenants at Tatershall ageynst the Erle, which your Lordship's letters with other wrytynges, parteaning to that cause, have bene red and hard in the whole Counsell this fornoone, and therto your Lordship shall receave ther thankfull acceptance of your labars. At the same [time] I receaved also a pryvat letter of your own to me, wherin yow gyve me knolledg of an information gyven to yow by my son Thomas Cecill, of a report which he had hard of certayn wordes which Shute, (my unfaythfull servant) shuld speak to yow at the tyme yow cam to take his house, but what the wordes shuld be your Lordship doth [not] mention. But I presume by the report they shuld be evill wordes of me, ageynst the which your Lordship doth affirm that uppon some speches your Lordship and he had concerning your dwellyng neare to me and the office of Barwyk, he assured your Lordship that in that and all other causes I did favor yow, and therto yow add, that yf it had bene otherwise, yow wold have notefyed the same befor any other, with many frendly and kynd wordes of your good disposition towardes me. For answer herto, I confes I hard of such lewd languag used by Shute, wherwith I did [by] my letter chardge hym, and uppon his denyall I suspended my creditt, although I have proved hym of late to have exercised his tong very unruly and untruly, but now uppon your Lordship so honorable a testimony to cleare hym herin, I am better satisfyed than by his denyall, assuryng your Lordship that my contynuall frendship hath bene such to yow, though I have not had power to perform my desyers, as nether Shute nor any lyvyng creatur cold justly chardg me with any omission of any poynt due for frendship to your Lordship. In the end of your Lordship's former letters yow add that for Shute's houss, which yow have taken for your helth, ease and releff, if I shuld lyk of it, it or any thyng yow [have] shall be at my commandment. I do most hartely thank your Lordship for it, but beyng sought by your Lordship as you wryte, for your helth, ease and releff, I shuld be an inhumane person ether to require or to desyre it, and therfor wish yow may therat satisfy your concept. Yet my Lord consideryng how Shute by my means and countenance cam to the howss, I cannot allow his unnaturall forgetfullness, to depart or to offer it without first sekyng my allowance, beyng Lord of the town and of the markett place, wher the howss is amongst my rentes, but besyde my Lord, I am hable to prove that to the buyldyng of that howss, he hath robbed me of all the matteryalls ther employed, as of tymber, stone, lead, waynscote and a nombre of other thynges, besyde the work of my masons &c, and all his cariag by my tenants, so that if all that your Lordship hath at that howss might be restored, the howss wold be a naked thyng and all the clothing therof ought to be sent to Burghley; and in truth if your Lordship had not a lykyng to the howss but that Shute shuld have the possession therof, I wold prove how by law I might recover the vallew of the thynges about the howss which I can prove to have bene carryed from my howss at Burghley.

"My Lord I pray you do me the plesure, as to procure from my Lord of Lyncoln whyther I had none horss or colt from hym, for in very truth I receaved nothyng from his Lordship but a stag whan hir Majesty was at my howss, and yet I dowt it was at an other tyme. By an other letter of your Lordship dated the 9th of this month, your Lordship maketh the lyk kynd offer for Shute's howss, which as I tak thankfully, so I wish your Lordship to contynew your helth therby.

From the Court at Grenwych, with a weak hand."

Holograph. Seal with crest (a garb, supported by two lions), in garter.