* * *
Sir, my Lord[226.2] hath kept sessions at Colchestre, and my maister
Yelverton with hym, and he desired me to write to yow to be wel ware if
ony fals suggestion or lesynges wer made by Tuddenham and Heydon and
that to your power thei be answerd in his absence. As for my Lord
Scales, her be seven of housold meny indited of felony, which are strong
thefes. Item, I pray yow, write in hast to the Meir of Norwich to gif
credens to me whan I come to hym, and if ye so do I shal shape their
articles in billes in to a nother facion I trust, and make thaym redy
and delyver thaym resonably wele. My Lord purposeth to be at London the
ende of the first weke of Lent, and not erst. I pray your maistership,
se sum meane that White do me not that harme in the Chauncery wherof ye
sent me word by Brayn, for, as God sauf my soule at the day of Jugement,
I fonde surete for the pees, but the Maister of the Rolles[227.1] ful
untruly recordeth that surete takyn as a baile, wher of treuth it was
otherwise, and ful synnefully ruleth that mater, and never wold suffir
me to execute the acte but lettid me, notwithstandyng it is a law
private in the self as I shal clerly declare whan I come. The Holy
Trinite preserve yow. I write to yow thus that ye may kyt awey this
lower part of this lettre.
[Footnote 226.1: [Add. MS. 34,889, f. 169.] This letter must
have been written in a year when Easter fell after the 20th
April, as Lent does not appear to have begun on the 4th March;
and as it was during the life of Cardinal Kempe, we may pretty
safely fix it to the year 1451. The year 1454, indeed, might be
possible as regards Easter, but there is no indication here of
those troubles of which the writer complains so bitterly in that
year on the 20th March. _See_ No. 239.]
[Footnote 226.2: The Earl of Oxford.]
[Footnote 227.1: Thomas de Kirkeby.]
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