Raleigh's letter, directed "to the Right Honorabell my verie good Lords, the Lorde Keeper of the Great Seale and my Lorde Chiefe Justice of Ingland, and to my verie good friende, His Majesties Atturney Generall," is as follows:--"I received a warrant from your lordships, my Lorde Keeper and my Lorde Chiefe Justice, and signed also by Mr Atturney Generall, requiringe me to deliver the possession of Deram House to the Byshoppe of Deram or to his Atturney before the xxiiiith day of June next insuing, and that the stabells and gardens should be presentlie putt into his hands.... This letter seemeth to me verie strange, seeinge I have had the possession of the house almost xx yeares, and have bestowed well neare 2000 L. uppon the same out of myne owne purse. I am of opinion that if the King's Majestye had recovered this house, or the like, from the meanest gentleman and sarvannt hee had in Inglande, that His Majestye would have geven six monenths tyme for the avoydance, and I doo not know but the poorest artificer in London hath a quarter's warninge geven him by his landlord. I have made provision for 40 persons in the springe ... and now to cast out my hay and oates into the streates att an hour's warninge, and to remove my famyly and staff in 14 dayes after, is such a seveare expulsion as hath not bynn offered to any man before this daye." It is more than likely that Raleigh wrote several of his poems in Durham House. His _Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores_ (1591), and his _Discovery of the Empire of Guiana_ (1596), were published during his tenure of Durham House. Raleigh was Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and, as such, many cases were brought before him here, the most celebrated of them being that of Glanville _v._ Courtney, which was heard at divers stages in 1591 and subsequent years, Thomas Egerton (afterwards Baron Ellesmere), and Viscount Brackley, lord chancellor, being counsel on one occasion. In 1600, when Raleigh was away in Jersey, where he had been appointed governor, some of the out-buildings of Durham House were destroyed by fire, and this was the beginning of the end of the magnificence which had for so long attended this palace on Thames-side.