Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/219



N my researches amongst the MSS. in the British Museum I met with the two following, which under the present circumstances I am induced to think will be acceptable communications to our Society, and for that purpose have transcribed them. They are both written by Mr. William Waad, of whom Dr. Birch, in his Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, (Vol. I. p. 45,) gives the following account. "Mr. William Waad was son of Armigel Waad, Esq. a gentleman born in Yorkshire, and educated at St. Magdalen College in Oxford, who was clerk of the council to king Henry VIII. and Edward VI. and employed in several campaigns abroad, and died at Belfie or Belfife House, in the parish of Hampstead, near London, on the 20th of June 1568. His son William succeeded him in the place of Clerk of the Council, and was afterwards knighted by king James I. at Greenwich, May 20, 1603, and made Lieutenant of the Tower. The occasion of his journey into Spain in the beginning of the year 1583-4, was upon the discovery of the Spanish ambassador Mendoza being concerned in the plot of Francis Throgmorton, and other English catholics, in favour of the queen of Scots, and being ordered to depart England imme-