And soe I leave you for this tyme, untill I heare further from you. From the Court at Wylton, this 25th of October, 1603. Yor Lovinge freind & Lord, SUFFOLKE.” James I. in 1616, granted a Charter to the town, thus removing “divers doubts and ambiguities” which had “arisen concerning the ancient liberties, francheses, &c., of the town and borough of Oswaldstre,” and extending their liberties and privileges, as well as confirming them a body corporate, by the name of “the Bayliff and Burgesses of Oswestry, in the Countie of Salope.” About this period a heavy blow was struck at the commerce of the town, by the Drapers of Shrewsbury (a reference to whose complaints and apprehensions has already been made), “who weary,” says Pennant, “of their weekly journeys to Oswestry, determined to transfer the market to their own town, from that in which Queen Elizabeth had established it. But this attempt proved in the first instance abortive. The Lordship of Oswestry was enjoyed at this time by Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, to whom it had been granted by the late queen, in the 43rd year of her reign. He was in great favour with James, in whose Court he held the office of Lord Chamberlain, and to whom he had recently recommended himself by his vigilance and promptitude in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Possessed of the highest notions of the privileges of the peerage, and jealous of the infringement of his rights by the traders of Salop, he issued his mandate to them by one of their own body,—Arthur Kynaston, merchant of the staple, a younger brother of the house of Ruyton,—to desist from such attempts in future. Their answer is recorded in their own books: it is entitled ‘The copy of a letter sent by the Company to the Earle of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of his Majestie’s househoulde, ye 24th June, 1609.’ ‘Right Honerabell,—Your letter bearing date the second of this June, by the hands of Mr. Kiniston wee have received: wherein ytt appereth yor Lordship was informed that wee the Societie of Drapers wentt aboute by underarte and menenesse to withdraw your markett of Walsh clothe from your towne of Oswester;’ and they proceed to exculpate themselves from the charge in those phrases of submission which were in that day the established usage of inferiors in their addresses to those above them. This was their tone during the plenitude of the Earl’s power, which, five years after the date of this letter, received a great increase by his appointment to the exalted post of Lord High Treasurer of England. During this time we may be sure ‘the market for frize and cottons continued, where, according to Heylin, it was originally fixed, at Oswestry.’ But in 1618, the King’s necessities caused an enquiry into the management of the treasury, and Suffolk, whose unbounded expenses in his magnificent palace at Audley-End, had brought