Library at Oxford; and I have to express my gratitude to all the officers of those establishments, to whom I have at any time had occasion to apply, for the readiness with which they have afforded me their assistance. But many of the most curious and interesting letters are derived from private sources, and I experience the utmost pleasure in acknowledging the kind and liberal spirit in which the Marchioness of Bath, the Earl of Ashburnham, Lord Bagot, and William Hulton, Esq., of Hulton, admitted me to the treasures in their charge and possession. The letters derived from Lord Bagot and Mr. Hulton, are indeed beyond all price. The Reverend Lord John Thynne gave me an excellent drawing and history of a ring which is preserved at Hawnes, and is supposed to be that given by Queen Elizabeth to Essex, and treacherously detained by the Countess of Nottingham. Charles Warner, Esq., the Queen's Attorney-General in Trinidad, permitted me to make a drawing from another ring, an heir-loom in his family, which claims the same distinction. To Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., I am indebted for the block from which the engraving of Chartley is taken1, as well as for much information on points of family history. 1 In a note, p. 172., Vol. I., I have stated that the hangings of a bed, worked by Mary, Queen of Scots, during her confinement at Chartley, were burnt with the house in 1781. This was an error; the hangings in question not only escaped that fire, but, on the occasion of a second fire in 1847, the conflagration stopped at the very room containing the bed, which is entirely uninjured. |