written, but he is mentioned long afterwards by the same designation by which he had been styled for years before, viz. as knight for the royal body. It was on 16 June 1525 that he was first ennobled as Viscount Rochford, when the kingls illegitimate son was created duke of Richmond; shortly before which he had a rather anxious duty as commissioner for the forced loan in the county of Kent to prevent the outbreak of disturbances.

There cannot be a doubt that not only his elevation to the peerage, but several earlier tokens of royal favour besides, were due to the fascination his daughter had begun to exercise over the king. Early in 1522 he filled the office of treasurer of the household, and he is so styledin a patent of 24 April in that year granting him the manor of Fobbing in Essex; On the 29th of the same month various offices about Tunbridge, Brast ed, and Penshurst were granted to him and his son George in survivorship. On 1 Sept. 1523 the keepership of the park of Beskwood, of which he had before received a grant in reversion, was given to him and Sir John Byron in survivorship. It was, perhaps, about the same time that he received also the keepership of Thundersley Park in Essex, the grant of which is enrolled without date in the fifteenth year of Henry VIII (Calendar, iv. p. 125). In 1524 or 1525 he was made steward of the lordship of Swatfham in Norfolk {ib. p.568). Some