that Sutton was contemplating this
disposal of his property, and suggested that a barony should be
conferred upon him. Sutton, however, had no ambitions in this direction,
and when he heard of the matter wrote to the Lord Chancellor and the
Earl of Salisbury declining the honour. He says: "My mynde in my younger
times hath been ever free from ambition and now I am going to my grave,
to gape for such a thing were mere dotage in me." Further, he prayed for
"free liberty to dispose of myne owne as other of his Majesty's loyal
subjects."

Sutton had already formed the intention of founding a hospital at
Hallingbury, in Essex, and had conveyed all his estates in Essex to the
Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham, the Master of the Rolls, and others
for this purpose.

In 1609 an Act was passed in the legislature for the creation of a
hospital at Hallingbury. Shortly after, however, Sutton changed his mind
with regard to the locality of the hospital, and determined to acquire
Howard House for the purpose. On June 22nd, 1611, he obtained letters
patent from King James, with license of mortmain, which set aside the
Act of 1609 and enabled him to carry out his altered intentions, and
found his hospital on the Charterhouse site. The letters patent set out,
at length, the purpose of the founder to establish a hospital for old
people, and a free school, and schedules the lands given for this
purpose, as well as the names of the sixteen original governors of the
institution. Amongst these were Launcelot Andrewes and Dean Overall.
Fuller says:--

[Illustration: CHARTERHOUSE HALL.]

"This is the masterpiece of Protestant English charity designed
(by the founder) in his life; completed after his death, begun,
continued and finished with buildings and endowments, solely at
his own charges, wherein Mr Sutton appears peerless in all
Christendom on an equal standard of valuation of revenue."

Sutton had hoped to become himself the first master of the new
establishment, to the foundation of which his latter years had been
devoted. This, however, was not to be, and the munificent donor died at
his house in Hackney on December 12th, 1611, at the age of seventy-nine
years.

The foundation of the hospital thus initiated was not carried through
without a legal struggle. Shortly after his death Sutton's nephew, Simon
Baxter, laid claim to the estates as next-of-kin to the founder, and in
this design obtained the supp