In December 2006 a manuscript dealer approached the Archives and Manuscripts Department of the Wellcome Library with a small collection of fourteen letters, several of which were written by a doctor, and others included references to treatments and disease. All the letters were written to Richard Bellings-Arundell by members of his extended family between 1709 and 1719. The fact that we do not have any communications between his correspondents makes him appear a central and significant figure in their lives. This is further reinforced by some of the letters themselves, as when, for example, his cousin Margaret Jernegan asks him to intervene on her behalf in a dispute with her father-in-law Sir Francis Jernegan, rather than approaching her brother, Sir Henry Arundell Bedingfield, the third Earl of Burlington, as might have been expected.1 It is evident that the letter writers saw him as a patriarchal figure whose approval was important to them. The Arundell papers contain plenty of material to help future generations verify this. The archive of the Arundell family consists of over 28,000 documents, divided between the county record offices of Cornwall and Wiltshire, reflecting the division of the family into two branches: the Arundells of Lanherne, Cornwall, and the Arundells of Wardour, Wiltshire.2 During the period from which these letters date, the two branches of the family were completely separate, and had been since Sir Thomas Arundell, second son of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, purchased the castle and manor of Wardour from Sir Fulke Greville in 1547, establishing a junior branch of the family in Wiltshire. His grandson, also called Thomas, was created first Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1605. The Arundell family were united once again in 1739 when Henry, seventh Baron Arundell of Wardour, married Richard Bellings-Arundell's only surviving daughter and heiress, Mary Arundell.3 The line finally died out on 25 September 1944, when John Francis Arundell, the sixteenth Baron, was killed in action during the Second World War.4 Richard Bellings-Arundell (d. 1725) was heir to the Cornish estates, and thus head of the senior branch of the Arundell family. He inherited the estates from his maternal grandfather, Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, the last direct male heir. Initially named Richard Bellings after his father, he changed his surname to Arundell in 1701 in accordance with his grandfather's will. Thereafter he was generally known as Richard Bellings-Arundell to avoid confusion with other relations who had the same first name.5 The other family featured in this correspondence are the Jernegans of Norfolk, sometimes also known as Jerningham. Both families were Roman Catholic.6 The Jernegans and the Arundells were connected through marriage, the first recorded union between the two families being that of John Arundell and Ann Jernegan in 1587.7 During the time covered by these letters another such marital link occurred in 1704 between Richard Bellings-Arundell's cousin Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Bedingfield, and John, eldest son of Sir Francis Jernegan.8 However, the interchanges extended beyond marriage. John Jernegan's younger brothers Charles and Henry were also connected to Bellings-Arundell in their own right. Charles was his physician, and had aspirations to marry Lady Elizabeth Roper, Bellings-Arundell's cousin.9 The only letter in our collection not written by a member of the Jernegan family is from Elizabeth, requesting Richard's blessing on her marriage to Charles.10 Charles would also be named as one of Bellings-Arundell's executors on his death in 1725.11 Henry Jernegan was a goldsmith, banker and artist who had business dealings with Bellings-Arundell, as one of the letters in the collection shows. In a letter dated 29 January 1719, on his return from a visit to Paris, he wrote: I have saved you a great deal by the exchange for tho it was high when I went a way from England, yet nothing like to what it has been since, & is now, being at 3,600 livres for a 1,000 pound sterling. Your cash 50 bills is received, and should it find with your convenience to lend me any more at present you would much oblige.12 It is unclear whether these relationships stem from the marriage of John and Margaret, or whether they pre-dated them and were conceived independently. None the less, the letters demonstrate that the Jernegan and Arundell families were closely linked.