Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/260

 252 LETTERS CONCERNING April tions he had raised and to whom he appears to have been much attached. These two and John Keating were rival claimants. At the last moment, only a day or two before his death, the chancellor made a fresh will, which he dictated to his friend Sir John Kennedy. It was alleged that he was then in a paralysed and dying condi- tion, and was instigated to make the will by Maurice Eustace. By this will, he left most of his real estate and also, on the death of his widow, the Lady Charity Eustace, most of his personal estate to his nephew Maurice. He also appointed Sir John Kennedy and the said Maurice executors. The charge of undue influence was brought by the earl of Anglesey and John Keating against Maurice Eustace and Sir John Kennedy, but was not upheld by the court. The following letters and docu- ments were evidently put in by the defendants to prove the regard the chancellor showed for his nephew Maurice by pajdng for his education at Lincoln's Inn and by urging him to diligence in his legal studies. It was maintained by the other side that for the last few years of his life the chancellor had been for diverse reasons (one of them being that they both declined to marry according to his advice) 'completely estranged from his nephews Maurice and John. It was also alleged {inter alia) that the chancellor was much displeased with his nephews for taking on themselves the honour of knighthood, to which there is a reference in the letter, printed below, from the chancellor to King Charles II. Some of the letters that follow throw light on student life in the Inns of Court in the first half of the seventeenth century and on the condition of Ireland after the Restoration. They are taken from the transcripts in the records of the Court of Delegates, of which those headed ' Muniment Book ' are now in the Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, and the remainder in the Public Record Office. Some errors of the transcripts have been corrected. Francis W. X. Fincham. I Del Muniment Book, lib. i, p. 361. 11 May 1660 Sir Maurice Eustace to Maurice Eustace For Mr. Maurice Eustace Student at Lincolns Inne these. Nephew Mam-ice. I receaved your letter touching my brother Keating's death & did hke well the matter thereof ' sed materiam superabat opus ' the couching of it soe succinctly & without sweUing words (condemned by the poet writing of one ' proiicit ampullas et sesquipedaUa verba ') pleased me very well & when you write studdy a Laconian brevity & to be sententious, rather than a Ciceronian style. Deliver the inclosed which hath no superscription to M' Ansley & though the times be distracted be not you soe but composed in your thoughts & settled in your resolutions to follow yoiu: study. I doe