Chapter XXXV

Sir George More, Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower (to whom the news of his daughter's secret marriage to Donne (1601) was "so immeasurably unwelcome, and so transported him, that, as though his passion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love and errour," he had procured his son-in law's dismissal from the post of Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton), had, by the date of this letter, become "so far reconciled, as to wish their happinesse, and not to deny them his paternal blessing," though he still "refused to contribute any means that might conduce to their livelihood."

The Donnes had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Donne's cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, to be his guests, on his inheritance in 1602 of the estate of Pyrford, in Surrey, "where they remained with much freedom to themselves, and equal comfort to him for many years," says Walton. In reality their residence at Pyrford extended from some time in 1602 to the winter of 1604-5. To this period the letter belongs. The "entreaty that you let goe no copy of my Problems" may refer to some unrevised MS. of the _Iuvenalia_. (See note to XXX.)