In August 1549, he wrote to the Earl of Rutland that he was unable to cross the flooded Tweed at Wark with his tired horses to bring money to the camp at Stichill.
[6] He wrote from Basel to William Petre, Mary's secretary, on 19 November 1554, apologising for his absence due to illness which left him unable to travel.
[9] The English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton in Paris and the diplomat Thomas Randolph organised the rescue and secret journey of Châtellerault's son, the Earl of Arran, from France to Scotland via Switzerland.
[11] Randolph, who used an alias Barnaby, wrote from Hamilton to Sadler at Berwick in cipher, with a pleasantry referring to their codework "desiring no less pleasure to Mr Railton in deciphering his own new invented orthography than I have in writing of it".
[12] William Cecil asked Sadler to tell Railton to keep the ciphered letters short and "write no more than needeth" to save labour reading them.