Page:Chronicle of the Grey friars of London.djvu/139

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Additional notes.

P. 1, 1. 7. The word imperfect in the MS. is in Arnold's Chronicle, "Portchaf," i. e. Port Jaffa or Joppa.

P. 15, 1. 4. For "Stawe" read Strawe.

P. 22. A blacke sterre. So our MS., but in Arnold's Chronicle "a blasing starre," i. e. a comet.

P. 26, 4th 1. from foot. "And this yere was brent a palmer." This is a flagrant clerical error of the MS. In Arnold's Chronicle we read "this year was brent ye towne of Paburh'm." Qu. was this Baburham or Babraham, co. Cambridge?

P. 30. Evil May-day and John Meautys. In the fuller account which Stowe gives of these riots, he relates that the mob ran from Cornhill "to a house east from Leadenhall, called the Green Gate, where dwelt one Mewtas, a Pickard or Frenchman, within whose house dwelled divers Frenchmen, whom they likewise spoiled, and if they had found Mewtas they would have stricken off his head." The present chronicle tells us how he escaped,—by hiding in the gutters of his house. The history of that house, "a fair house of old time called the Green Gate," will be found in Stowe's Survay, where he states that "John Mutas, a Pickarde or Frenchman, dwelt there, and harboured in his house many Frenchmen that kalendred wolstedes, and did other things contrary to the franchises of the citizens." This John Meutas, or Meautys, (called James in the present chronicle,) founded a family in England, of which a pedigree will be found in Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire, vol. i. p. 93, and some further account in the memoir accompanying the portrait of Sir Thomas Meautys, (sometime secretary to lord chancellor Bacon,) engraved for the Granger Society.

P. 31. Alice lady Hungerford. The passage relating to this execution is extracted by Stowe from the present chronicle, which is cited in his margin as the "Register of the Gray Fryars," but he has inserted after the lady's name the following words,—"a knight's wife, for murthering her husband." In order to recover some further particulars