Major John Mason of Connecticut, major figure in the 1630s Pequot War, is named in several older publications as the recipient of a letter from England supposedly from an old comrade-in-arms, Thomas or Ferdinando Fairfax, asking him to return to the home
country to assist in military matters.

The earliest reference to this letter that I can find is in the Rev. Thomas Prince's 1735 introduction to Mason's own writing, _A Brief History of the Pequot War_.

"Major Mason having been trained up in the Netherland War under Sir Thomas Fairfax ; when the Struggle arose in England between K. Charles L and the Parliament about the Royal Powers and the National Liberties ; that Famous General had such an esteem for
the Major's Conduct and Bravery, that He wrote to the Major to come over and help Him. But the Major excusing himself, continued in this Country as long as he lived, and had some of the greatest Honours his Colony could yield him."

https://archive.org/details/collectionsofmas28mass/page/124/mode/2up?q=fairfax

Rev. Prince is usually considered to be a trustworthy historian, but it would be nice to be able to see the letter (if it has survived). As part of his war narrative, John Mason notes that "There was a great Commander in Belgia who did the States great
Service in taking a City ; but by going beyond his Commission lost his Life : His name was Grubbendunk." This may help verify he was in the Low Countries.

In a Fitch genealogy, Roscoe Fitch repeats the speculation of Winchester Fitch upon John Mason's ancestry, a guess likely based on this possible connection to Lord Fairfax:

"Mr. Winchester Fitch writes that Major Mason, a friend of Robert Chapman of Saybrook, Conn., and a friend of Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, who wrote to ask him to return to England, was perhaps akin to the Woodehouses and William Mason who married a relative
of Rhoda Chapman, the second wife of Lord Fairfax."

It was an earlier John Mason, not William, who married Rhoda Chapman, the aunt of Rhoda, wife of Lord Fairfax. See the account of Portcullis Keith Murray in _The Genealogist_ (1918), "Chapman of Hertfordshire and London."

"5. Rhoda [Chapman], bapt. 28 October 1584, married first John Mason, secondly, Israel Ellis, by whom she had a son William, mentioned in the will of his grandfather Thomas Chapman, 1615; and thirdly, William Wilkinson of London, by whom she had a
daughter Anne, aged 14 in 1634. She was buried in Mercers Chapel."

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Genealogist/myI9AQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22mentioned+in+the+will+of+his+grandfather+thomas+chapman%22&pg=PA4&printsec=frontcover

I'm not too confident about this clue, but it does seem to be the family to which Winchester Fitch was alluding. The fact that Major John Mason had an eldest daughter called "Israel" might be a slight sign it could be "barely" possible.

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