[1] The Dictionary of National Biography’s article on Francis Willis, written, I understand, by a descendant of his, hardly does justice to this one of his sons. The writer mentions John and Robert as concerned with treating the King at different times, but does not bring forward Thomas, who, so far as I can make out, was closely in charge during the attack of 1801.

[2] Letting in Elizabethan English, of course, bore the opposite meaning to ours, as in “let and hinder.”