page 295 note * The most ancient mace of the Lord Mayor of London is termed the “sceptre.”

page 296 note * Fosbroke's “Encyclopaedia of Antiquities.”

page 296 note † See Le·Grand's, M. “Fabliaux of the xii. and xiii. Centuries,” by Way, and Ellis, , i., p. 190Google Scholar.

page 297 note * Meyrick's, “Antient Armour,” i., p. 88Google Scholar.

page 297 note † Ibid., p. 89.

page 298 note * The earliest part of this ancient building belonged to the religious guild of Corpus Christi. It contains the minstrels' gallery, and there is strong circumstantial evidence of Shakspere and Burbage having performed in it with the company of players of which they were members. The hooks and pulley to which the curtain was attached still remain.

page 300 note * Thompson's History of Leicester, p. 102.

page 302 note * Published by J. Russell Smith, London, 1865.

page 303 note * A valuable series of Sir William Herrick's MSS. as a Teller of the Exchequer, &c., arranged and bound in volumes under the superintendence of the late Mr. John Gough Nichols, F.S.A., and also original letters of “rare old Herrick, the Cavalier Poet,” chiefly asking for loans of money, are preserved at Beaumanor.

page 303 note † His portrait also hangs in the Mayor's parlour at the Town Hall, and has the following quaint lines painted on the canvas:—

“His pecture whom you here see,

When he is dead and rotten,

By this shall remembered be

When he shall be forgotton.”

page 304 note * Lansdown MSS., No. I.

page 310 note * He was installed as archdeacon on the 31st March, 1531.

page 311 note * Town Book of Acts, p. 37.

page 311 note † Hall Book, p. 272.

page 312 note * That part of the town lyng between these two bridges is still known as Frog Island.”

page 314 note * These are more fully described in my “Royal Progresses to Leicester” (privately printed), and the whole subject has been most ably and eloquently treated in the “History of Leicester during the great Civil War,” by my late friend J. F. Hollings, Esq.

page 315 note * It is probable that this was Prince Louis (who was usually thus designated), and who visited Leicester, and was entertained by the Corporation, on the 12th August, 1636. Prince Rupert was here with the royal forces on the 25th August, 1641, three days after the royal standard had been erected at Nottingham, and the Chamberlains' account for that year contains the following entry:— “Item, given to Prince Rupefrt, at his first coming to towne, one gallon of white wine, one pottle of clarett, one pottle of canarie, and one pound of sugar—ix^s vj^d”

page 316 note * This lady resided at Leicester Abbey, where Charles took up his quarters after the siege and capture of the town in 1645, and on his departure the royal troops set fire to and destroyed the building.

page 316 note † Hall Papers.

page 318 note * Authorities differ as to the precise day on which this important historical event took place. The 22nd is here given on the authority of Rushworth. Clarendon, in one part of his “History of the Rebellion,” names the 25th as the day, but he subsequently incidentally confirms the date given by Rushworth as correct. The point has been carefully considered in my “Royal Progresses to Leicester.”

page 318 note † As given in evidence at the king's trial, by Humphrey Browne, of Whissendine.

page 319 note * Item paid, which was given to Mr. William Billars, Jun., by Mr. Maior his appointment for searching for the old Mace, vj ^s—Chamberlains' Account,

page 321 note * Hall Book, p. 590.

page 322 note * In noticing the visit of this unhappy monaarch to Leicester on the 22nd July, 1641, we ventured to express a doubt of the accuracy of Clarendon's description of the “great expressions of duty and loyalty, and the full acclamations of the people,” with which, he states, the king was received here. This supposition as to the real feelings of the towns-people toward the King has, since the completion of this paper, received positive confirmation by the following entry in the catalogue of the late Mr. J. Camden Hotten's Collection of Civil war Tracts, &C., now in course of dispersion by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson:–

“No. 682. Charles I. at Leicester, a petition from the Towne and Country of Leicester, unto the King's most excellent Majesty; also another for Removing the Magazine of the Country.—Interesting Leicestershire Tracts, 4to. At the sign of the Axe, 1642.”

“This curious piece, sold at a house with an unpleasantly suggestive tittle gives a refulation to the statement made by Clarendon, that in Leicester ‘he was received woth freat expressions of duty and loyalty.’”

page 322 note † “Item, paid to John Turvile for making the Seale and enlarging the Mace vj^li x⁸”

“Chamberlaines' Account,” 1647–8.

page 326 note * Throsby's, “History of Leicester,” p. 163Google Scholar.

page 327 note * Page 853.

page 327 note † In the account for 1649—50 is entered a payment to “Thomas Carter for mendyng the place for the new mace at St. Mary's Church and Town Hall.”

page 327 note ‡ “History of Leicester,” p. 163.

page 328 note * “History of Leicester,” p. 163.

page 328 note † Pages 168—174.

page 330 note * The newly elected municipal rulers of Lecicester were not, however by any means alone in pursuing this course, as I learned from several literary friends. when in the summer of 1866 a subscription was set on foot to repurchase the great mace, and to aid which movement I prepared for one of the local newspapers a brief sketch of its history. My late correspondent, Richard Sainthill, Esq., formerly “Common Speaker” of Cork “to whom as well as to his fellow-townsman, the late John Lindsay, Esq., the learned numismatist, I have been indebted for many literary courtesics), wrote as follows:— “‘Forms’ carry much weight, and it is to be regretted that in England and Ireland, with the change of the Corporations (much required in both countries), the incoming parties too often considered change and improvement synonymous— ‘Whatever was, was wrong The Corporation of Cork had a Mayor and two Sheriffs—a splendid Mansion House for the Mayor—salary, £1,200 a year … The three personages had handsome and weighty gold chains for every day's wear to mark their dignities, and for state occasions the Mayor had a magnificent gold enamelled chain—so like the collar of the Garter that Garter King-at-Arms, in England, would have ‘come down’ on the Corporation; and this collar is all that remains of the old pomp. The salary is reduced to. £300 a year; the Mansion House is an hospital; and all the other insignia, maces, chains, sword of state, furniture, china, &c., &c., sold and dispersed to the four winds of heaven by the auctioneer's hammer.”

Dr. Aquilla Smith, M.R.I.A., stated that 'the reformed Corporation of Dublin was inclined to dispose of (or rather destroy) the municipal insignia, but public opinion prevailed, and the Gold Medal presented to the Lord Mayor of Dublin by King William the Third is still worn by the Lord Mayor.

“The Kettle-drums which had been played at the battle of the Boyne were preserved at Drogheda, until the reformed Corporation came into power, since which time all trace of the drums has been lost.”

The late Albert Way, Esq., F.S.A., who had in his possession one of the four maces that had belonged to the Corporation of Chichester, and which were sold about 1835, wrote: “You do not mention for which officials the four lesser maces were designed, and I conclude that they were appropriated to the Chamberlains or carried before them. I usually find four small maces as part of early municipal insignia, and they appear to have been carried by sergeants, one for the mayor, but I imagine that there was no uniform practice.”

[I cannot learn that at Leicester any other official than the mayor had a mace appropriated to him, although I have been told that the handsome mace now in Mr. G. H. Nevinson's possession has by some been designated as the “Recorder's Mace.”]

And Sir Henry Dryden, in mentioning that “a silver oar given by Queen Elizabeth to Yarmouth or Lynn was sold,” very truly remarked that “in the fanaticism attendant on the Reform Bill (and fanaticism attends all great changes) numbers of old cups, chains, maces, &c., were sold and so mostly destroyed. But fashion has been nearly as bad as fanaticism, and desire for ‘improvement’ has improved lots of valuable thngs into melting-pots.”

It appears that in other towns also the new corporations sold the ancient insignia of the mayoralty.

page 331 note * This cup—which was purchased at the sale for about 20 guineas by Mr. James Rawson, a leading member of the old corporation, a magistrate, and former mayor of the town-afterwards passed into the hands of Mr. Ellison, as soon after that gentleman acquired the great mace. These two relics were exhibited, and a paper descriptive of them readbefore the Society of Antiquaries, at Somerset House, by the late John Bruce, Esq., who afterwards evinced great interest in the restoration of the mace to the town. The cup is thus described by that late estimable and learned antiquary:—

“The other article exhibited on the table is a very handsome silver cup, long known as ‘The Loving Cup of Leicester.’ An inscription upon its cover accounts for its name, and another round the rim of the cup tells its history. The former is ‘Honour the King. Love the Brotherhood.’ The latter is ‘The gift of Sr Nathan Wrighte, knight, Serjeant at law, late Recorder of this Burrough. Anno Dom. 1699. Engraven in Mr. Samuel Woodland's Maioralty.’ Sir Nathan Wright was the well-known Lord Keeper who held the seals intermediately between Lord Somers and Lord Cowper. He was Recorder of Leicester from 1680 to 1689. This cup was sold at the same time as the mace, but not to the same person.

“Whether the Corporation of Leicester was right or wrong in disposing of such articles, I am quite sure that, in this Society, there can be but one feeling towards the gentleman who, at a large expense, has rescued the mace from a custody inadequate to its dignity, and by his interference has placed both these articles beyond the reach of many of those chances which are daily fatal to so many memorials of our forefathers.”