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Document number: 3227
Date: Thu 17 Mar 1836
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: PARSONS Daniel
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 29th December 2010

Scriven Park, Knaresborough
Thursday March 17. 1836

Sir

I have been engaged for some time past in preparing for the press Sir Henry Slingsby’s Diary <1> from a M.S. copy here, and it was not till yesterday that it was suggested to me that you might have in your possession an original M.S., in Sir Henry’s own hand, of his Diary. I have therefore determined at once to take the liberty to ask you the question, hoping that in a matter of some public interest you will be good enough to forgive this freedom in a stranger. Should you possess such a M.S. I should feel myself much indebted to you by your permission to collate it with the M.S. here.

I remain, Sir Your very obedient Servant
Daniel Parsons

P.S.
My address is
Revd D. Parsons
Scriven Park

I have one or two letters of Sir John Talbot who married Barbara Slingsby prepared for the press: they are addressed to his brother in law Sir Thomas Slingsby and relate to some discontents in the early part of the reign of K. Charles II. <2> I am very anxious to know whether this Sir John Talbot <3> was the Gentleman who was the Duke of Buckingham’s <4> second in his duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury <5>

– Talbot Esqre
Lacock House
Chippenham
Wilts


Notes:

1. Parsons, The diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, of Scriven, Bart.: now first published entire from the ms. : a reprint of Sir Henry Slingsby's trial : his rare tract, A father's legacy, written in the Tower immediately before his death, and extracts from family correspondence and papers: with notices and a genealogical memoir (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1836).

2. Charles II (1630–1685), King of Great Britain and Ireland.

3. See H J P Arnold, William Henry Fox Talbot; Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science (London: Hutchinson Benham, Ltd, 1977), p. 18.

4. George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687).

5. Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury.