Sir Henry Goodyere was the son of Sir William Goodyere of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire, who was knighted by James in 1603, and was the nephew of Sir Henry Goodyere (1534-95) of Polesworth in Warwickshire. The older Sir Henry had got into trouble in connexion with one of the conspiracies on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots, but redeemed his good name by excellent service in the Low Countries, where he was knighted by Leicester. He married Frances, daughter of Hugh Lowther of Lowther, Westmoreland, and left two daughters, Frances and Anne. The latter, who succeeded the Countess of Bedford as patroness to the poet Michael Drayton and as the 'Idea' of his sonnets, married Sir Henry Raynsford. The former married her cousin, the son of Sir William, and made him proprietor of Polesworth, to which repeated allusion is made in Donne's _Letters_. He was knighted, in 1599, in Dublin, by Essex. He is addressed as a knight by Donne in 1601, and appears as such in the earliest years of King James. (See Nichol's _Progresses of King James_.) He was a friend of wits and poets and himself wrote occasional verses in rivalry with his friends. Like Donne he wrote satirical congratulatory verses for _Coryats Crudities_ (1611) and an elegy on Prince Henry for the second edition of Sylvester's _Lachrymae Lachrymarum_ (1613), and there are others in MS., including an _Epithalamium_ on Princess Elizabeth. The estate which Goodyere inherited was apparently encumbered, and he was himself generous and extravagant. He was involved all his life in money troubles and frequently petitioned for relief and appointments. It was to him probably that Donne made a present of one hundred pounds when his own fortunes had bettered. The date of the present letter was between 1605 and 1608, when Donne was living at Mitcham. These were the years in which Goodyere was a courtier. In 1604-5 £120 was stolen from his chamber 'at Court', and in 1605 he participated in the jousting at the Barriers. Life at the dissolute and glittering Court of James I was ruinously extravagant, and the note of warning in Donne's poem is very audible. Sir Henry Goodyere died in March 1627-8. Additional MS. 23229 (_A23_) contains the following: Funerall Verses sett on the hearse } of Polesworth. of Henry Goodere knighte; late } [March 18. 1627/8 c.] Esteemed knight take triumph over deathe, And over tyme by the eternal fame Of Natures workes, while God did lende thee breath; Adornd with witt and skill to rule the same. But what avayles thy gifts in such degrees Since fortune frownd, and worlde had spite at these.