declaring that "of benevolent and faithful heart for the goodly zeal and effectual pleasure that he had unto the honourable and worshipful office of Mayoralty of the town of Leicester, the which was by him IIII sundry years maintained and occupied," he granted unto the said Mayoralty a house in the High Street of Leicester by the High Cross there on condition that the Mayor for the time being should find a priest perpetually to sing for the souls of the said John Reynolds, his wife, his father and mother, his brother and all his benefactors. He was a brother of the Guild of Corpus Christi, from whom he rented a house in the parish of St. Peter, and when his wife died, a few years before the above-mentioned deed of grant, she was buried with the rites of the Guild. It was probably his son, another John Reynolds, who in 1460 was acting as Deputy for Richard Hotoft, the Town Bailiff, had a cottage in Dead Lane, in the parish of St. Peter, and became Alderman of the Seventh Ward, which comprised the western portion of the modern High Street, and Mayor in 1463, when he was described as a "yeoman." His son, another John, entered the Guild Merchant in 1469, and when his own father died, sometime before 1478, he in his turn became John Reynolds the Elder. He was a Justice of the Peace for several years and Mayor in 1477.
There were many Clarkes among the town officials of the 15th century, but three, who became well-known in the 16th, deserve special mention. They are Alderman James Clarke, Thomas Clarke of the Blue Boar, and Thomas Clarke, the Shoemaker.
James Clarke was an active member of the Council, who became Mayor in 1569, and again in 1585, and was Member for the Borough in 1592. He died on October 16th, 1599. During the year of his second Mayoralty he had occasion to visit London on the Town's business, and some items in the expenses of his journey are worth quoting:—
"Fyrst: paid for the solinge of my bootes xii d.
Item for a male pillyon and ii girthes of leyther for the same xii d.
Item paid for a boxe to carrye wrytings in viii d.
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