Thomas Birch

Since my last to you, I have received yours of the 10th of this present; and the very same day I wrote, the late lord chancellor left this world, being visited in articulo mortis, or not full half an hour before, by the new lord keeper, with a message from his majesty that he meant presently to bestow on him the title of the Earl of Bridge-water, to make him president of the council, and give him a pension of 3000 a-year during his life.

— from The court and times of James the First, 1848