Description:Many documents in the Sutherland Papers reflect Sir Walter’s financial problems. By providing details of costs and expenditure, these documents tell us about the type of lifestyle which Sir Walter led and the difficulties he experienced with his finances, culminating in imprisonment.
One document written in 1598 refers to Sir Walter’s repayment of monies owed to a man named Francis Littleton. Sir Walter states in the document that Littleton ‘did lend me in ready mony the some of One hundred poundes of lawfull mony of England which I have not yet repayd or satisfied unto the saide Franncis’. In addition, Sir Walter writes that Francis Littleton ‘did likewise …fynd for me my wyef and seventeen other persons being my servants and folowers , our dyett, att his owne chardges for and during the tyme of one whole yere and eyghte weekes, which amounteth unto the value or some of Two hundred and Fyfty poundes’. The document suggests that by the late sixteenth century Sir Walter had become dependent on his associates to support his household.
In the document Sir Walter pledges to pay money ‘towards the satisfaction of the saide Francis aswell for the saide tabling or dyett as also for the saide some of one hundred poundes which I had of him in ready mony’. In order to do so, Sir Walter states that he has ‘geven graunted bargained sold…my goodes chattels aswell quick as dead chattels corne and grasse growing bedding napery pewter brasse plate jewels ready mony and staffe of housholde what soever they be moveable and unmoveable… within the countie of Salopp and Stafford and either of them as els where within the Realme of England’.
This overview of Sir Walter’s possessions – particularly the ownership of ‘jewels’ and also ‘pewter’, ‘brasse’, and ‘plate’ - reflects a considerably comfortable lifestyle. He states that these goods had been ‘geven and graunted unto the saide Francis Littleton’, an arrangement formalised and confirmed ‘by the delivery of one gold ring’. The document suggests that giving someone a ring was an accepted way of formalising an agreement between parties at this time.