ABSTRACT
I hope my last letter came safe to yr hands, which is ye third you ought to have received from me, and should have been ye thirtieth if I could hope to write from this Retreat any thing which might be agreable or useful to your Lordship. may this find you in better humour with yr self and yr friends, my Dear Lord. I can answer for my self, and for those of ym, whom I live with, that they are sincere & affectionate; and will continue so, because you desire to preserve ym; for to use a farmers simile, the best soils become barren with neglect. when ye news came of ye D:[uke] of Bedfords death, 1 I was att London, wholy taken up by Jo: Taylor, 2 and the lawyers, about this damned suit, which we expected would have come to a hearing then, and which must do so in a fortnight. this hindered me from writing to you upon yt occasion. Receive my compliments now, & those of yr mother. be so good as to make them for us both to my Lady Essex, 3 to whom I hear that his late Grace has left an annuity of 500ll p[e]r an:[num.] the news of her perfect health, & of the childs, was ye more welcome to all her, & yr humble servants, because of ye contrary reports which had been spread.
