Letter from Sir John Bolles to Sir Robert Cecil

June 18, 1601

Back to Sir John Bolles at Dunnalong Fortress or Sir John Bolles' Young Lieutenant Farmer

In 1601 Sir John Bolles wrote to Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State Robert Cecil requesting that he be released from his command in Ireland and that his Lieutenant Farmer be appointed to the position instead.

Calendar of State Papers 1905, p. 392

https://archive.org/stream/1905calendarofstatep10greauoft#page/392/mode/2up

Letter from Sir John Bolles to Sir Robert Cecil mentioning his brother-in-law Farmer

June 18. 25. Sir John Bolles to Sir Robert Cecil. "Though many private respects do justly draw me to desire to leave the longer following of the Irish wars, yet nothing urgeth me more to shun, by all the means I may, any employment which should carry the least show of being derogatory to Sir Henry Dockwra, than the fear I have of the scandalising my poor credit, as though, under colour of negotiating for him, I had indeed supplanted him ; which how apt his friends are to conceive and report will be very apparent if your Honour may please to peruse a letter which Mr. Lenton, your servant, hath to show, that was written to me by his agent here after my departure from your Honour. Wherefore I humbly and unfeignedly beseech your Honour (to whom my service at home and abroad is dedicated), that you would vouchsafe to be a means for my stay in England, and the bestowing of my company of foot upon Mr. Farmer, my Lieutenant, according to your honourable purpose the last year. He is a young gentleman of good sufficiency, and in that he is my brother-in-law, and hath served long, I must see that he want not ; which maketh me become so bold a suitor in his behalf, and I do it the rather also because I might not seem to have left the wars in disgrace.

"Your Honour, I trust, will pardon me for presuming thus far, and either condescend to my humble request herein, or otherwise defend my reputation from such unjust taxing, and give me some small time of respite here, after the signification of your Honour's

purpose to continue my employment."

Louth, 1601, June 18.

Holograph, p. 1.