for several successive years been the popular mayor of the city, was now seized at Windsor by the Prince's orders. His fellow-citizens would have manfully re-elected him even in 1266, had not the rival candidate, William FitzRichard, secured his own preference by means, which it is hoped are unknown in quieter times-the compulsory removal of the opposing electors'. Some of the other leaders of the city, Michael Tony, Stephen Buckerell, and John de la Flete3, were imprisoned with him for a long time in the Tower, and among these sufferers we also recognize Thomas Puvelesdon, who had accompanied Simon de Montfort during the battle of Lewes. He appears to have been a wealthy mercer, and had been employed while the barons were in power, April 1265, to receive the oath of a suspected Royalist. His forfeited estate was divided between the King of the Romans and Prince Edward, but he was again in 1286 entangled in treasonable acts. A fine of 20,000 marcs (£13,333. 6s. 8d.) was exacted from the city by the Prince, in order to repay the loans raised abroad to equip the Royalist armaments, and when the citizens of London attempted to redeem their lands by virtue of the Kenilworth decree, they were met in the King's courts of law by the plea that the act of grace did not 1 Fabyan. FitzRichard was elected only by the aldermen, not the people; but Roger de Leyborne was employed by the King to imprison the opponents. Fr. Chr. The liberties of the city were thus suspended for 5 years. "Michael Tony, orfeverer. Johan le chapeler de Flete."-Fr. Chr. Lond. 3 In the Roll of the Countess of Leicester's expenses, July 1265, is an entry of 34 ells of rosett purchased from him: "Pro 34 ulnis rosetti emptis Londineæ per Dominum Thomas de Piulesdon, 1138. 4d."-See Househ. Expenses. Thomas de Piwelesdona had been elected their Constabularius by the citizens of London, and Stephen Bukerel their Marshal; their standards led them to the plunder of the King of Romans' palace at Isleworth. Lib. de Ant. Leg. p. 61. He is said to have devised a riotous meeting of the citizens two days after the battle of Evesham (Thursday), intending to murder forty of the principal Royalists, but the rumour of the battle prevented him (p. 114). He heads the list of culprits, p. 120, and Roger de P. is also on the same list, and Richard his brother. 4 See a letter of the King, from Northampton, April 11, 1265.—Ry mer. 5 Fabyan. include them, and that all their movables and immovables had been placed at the will and pleasure of the King alone1. In their present helplessness they might have been taunted by the Prince's comrades with the same bitter derision as the Scots at a later period: "Tprot, Scot, for thy strif! Hang up thyn hachet ant thi knyf, 1 "Non comprehenduntur, sed omnino remanserunt ad gratiam et voluntatem Domini Regis."-Placit. p. 175. Thus William de St Omer refused to surrender the lands of Thomas Bax.-Placit. p. 171. Stephen Buckerel met with a similar denial. "William de St Omer" by a writ of the King to the Sheriff of Norfolk (dated Westminster, Oct. 10, 1265) had a grant of the goods and chattels of Richard de Gosesend, and John Hardel, forfeited for rebellion. -No. 407 Chanc. Rec., 5th Report. In 1269, Nov. 30, he had £40 yearly, so long as he should attend the business of the King's Bench. Chron. Jurid. [Compare Foss's Judges, Vol. III. p. 147.] Polit. Songs, p. 223, from MS. Harl. 2253, dated 1306. "Pshaw, Scot, for thy strife! hang up thy hatchet and thy knife while the life lasts of him with the Long Shanks." CHAPTER XVII. ELEANOR DE MONTFORT AND HER SONS. And tho heo hadde al clene ir joye al verlore, ROBERT GLOUC. THE quaint versifier quoted above almost warms into poetry with indignation at the treatment of the widowed Countess of Leicester by her own royal kindred. On so feeble a sufferer, now advanced in years, and one whose feminine virtues had earned from her chronicler the emphatic eulogy of being "gode woman thoru' al," the vengeance of the victorious party fell with a severity we should not have expected. Bereaved at once of her husband and her eldest son, her broken spirit had needed no additional pressure. Laying aside her purple dress she would wear nothing henceforth but woollen nearest her skin, and again assumed those garments of widowhood3, which she had been so blamed for abandoning, when she married Simon de Montfort. For a long time did she indulge her domestic sorrow in abstinence from fish or flesh, but the King her brother relaxed nothing of his stern resolve in mercy to her private feelings, and sentenced her to perpetual banishment from England, as if 1 "And tho' she had utterly lost all her joy, they banished her from England never to return. Alas! her two brothers, each of whom was a King, and had but her an only sister, and yet would so banish her! Alas! where was then their love to pronounce such a sentence on her." She was probably about fifty-three years of age at this time. T. Wyke. he considered her a fit partner in the guilt and punishment of her husband's treason. From many of the interesting letters of Adam de Marisco being addressed to her, we learn that the Royal Countess had accompanied Simon de Montfort to Gascony, during the time of his government there amid the turmoils of civil war. The worthy friar seems to have valued her correspondence, and to have anxiously watched the course of events around her, often when absent expressing his regret, and when present reporting to the earl even her throes of coming childbirth with scrupulous anxiety. He cautioned her while abroad against the prevailing fashion of costly dress, "for too wanton ornament (he observes) leads matronly modesty into suspicion; who does not execrate this madness, which daily increases the wild desire of superfluous ornament, causing so much expense, and the employment of so many administering hands, offending the divine majesty and honesty of countenance?" He implored her even with tears to exhibit before God and man the example of praiseworthy matrons in all things. In one of his letters to the Queen of England', Adam de Marisco refers to the Queen's wish of conversing attentively with the Countess of Leicester at Easter "concerning the salvation of souls, and hopes that the grace of God may lead her to the way of eternal salvation;" seeming thereby to imply that the religious principles of the Princess were of a superior character, and looked up to with respect by the Queen and himself. A very curious detail of the private habits of Princess Eleanor has been lately brought to light, which enables us to trace her movements, her guests, and her every meal daily during six months of this eventful year, 1265; and the parti 1 The preface of the letter is in Latin, the rest in French.-Ad. de Marisco, Epist. p. 290, ed. Brewer. 2 Manners and Household Expenses, &c. The Roll of the Depenses pour la Comtesse de Leicester (Add. MSS. 8877) recovered from the wreck of the Mont argis nunnery during the French revolution, consists of many narrow slips of parchment, several yards in length: every item of her housekeeping from Feb. 19 to August 29, 1265, is entered in it day by day in a clear small writing, culars throw so much light on the state of society as to deserve our attention. According to the entries of her household expenses by her steward, we learn that the luxury of the rich then consisted in supplying the table, amid some scanty dainties, with articles of food such as would now be rejected from the meanest hovel. What Roger Bacon then prophetically said of science holds good in meaner matters: Wise men are now ignorant of many things which hereafter shall be known to the very mob of scholars'." The art of multiplying food has happily so advanced with the demands of an increasing population, that nobody is now reduced to feed on grampus or whale, which were then served up to princes. The tail and tongue of whale' were then prized as choice delicacies, to be dressed with peas, or roasted; and the porpoise3 was served up with furmenty, almond-milk, sugar and saffron; but there would be little temptation in either dish at modern tables. apparently her steward Christopher's, though some entries are scrawled in by another hand, Eudo, from April 15 to 28; the beginning and end of the Roll are missing. It is the earliest document extant of a private individual's expenses. 1 66 Multa enim modo ignorant sapientes, quæ vulgus studientium sciet in temporibus futuris."-Rog. Bac. De Secr. Oper. Art. et Nat. C. VII. 2 Two hundred pieces of whale cost 348. The whale fishery was carried on in the third century, as mentioned by Oppian, Liv. v., and the Flemish fishers used harpoons in the eleventh century (Life of S. Arnoud, Bishop of Soissons). The whales seem to have frequented the coasts of Europe in these early times, and the flesh was sold in slices in the market-places on the coast. Indeed the supply of food seems to have been the only motive for this adventurous fishery, the method of extracting oil being unknown till long afterwards.-See Vie privée des François, par le Grand d'Aussy, p. 84. 66 3 Even in 1425 this formed an article in the city feasts of London, the prices were then as follows: Porpeys, 10d.; oysters and muscles 6d.; salmon and herring with fresh ling, 15d.; a salmon, 21d.; codling's head, 8d.; 5 pykes, 68. 8d.; lampreys, 68. 8d.; turbot, 3s. 4d.; eels, 2s. 4d.; 800 herrings, 10s. 6d."-S. M. 754. In the l'Estrange accounts in 1519 are the following entries: "Item paid to Mr Wm. Dadymond for a conger that my Master gaffe parte to my Lord of Norwiche, and parte spent in the house:"1520,"18th weke. Item paid to William Inglond for a porpes, that my Master gaffe Sir Thomas Bedyngfeld the Pryor of Walsingham, Sir John Shelton and Sir Roger Townsend."- Archæologia, xxv. p. 425. At a later period Judge Walmysly at Dorchester had dolphin; at Launceston, porpoise; at Winchester, poor John (hake), muscles, whelks, razorfish; gull, puffin, kite, sparrows.-Expenses of Judges of Assize, 1596-1601. |