Description:Many of Vice Admiral Sir Richard Leveson’s letters in the Sutherland Papers are written to his cousin Sir John Leveson of Halling (1555-1615).
The two men were closely associated in both a professional and family context. In 1601 they worked together to co-ordinate English defences against a Spanish invasion force which had landed in Ireland. In terms of their family relationship, Vice Admiral Sir Richard Leveson entrusted his estates in Staffordshire and Shropshire to Sir John after his death, with the intention that Sir John’s younger son Richard would inherit.
The letters tell us a great deal about family relationships during the early seventeenth century. A letter from Sir Richard Leveson to Sir John Leveson of Halling written in London on 17th July 1599 portrays a good family relationship with much social interaction between the two sides of the Leveson family.
Sir Richard writes to Sir John to ‘sallute you with a few lynes desiringe to understand yo[u]r welfare’. He adds ‘The report of some suddayne Allarm[e] hasteth me down into Kent, but my own particuler occasions com[m]and me to stay, which shalbe no longer than my necessety requireth it. Howsoever I will contineu the Order of an old troblesome guest in visiting of you as I go’
The letter concludes ‘so with my dear remembrances unto yo[u]r good wyf I rest’.
These private letters allow us to construct a more detailed picture of Sir Richard’s character and of his relationship with his cousin.