Mowbrays and De la Poles thought of that breaking of the cloud in the North we know not. The municipal history of the fifteenth century is doubly important as regards Suffolk, as showing the connection of the county with the Metropolis, and as marking a great advance in the position of the county town. It is no mean testimony to the moral and intellectual education in the provinces that so many country lads should go up to London, serve faithfully in the lower stages of office work, and rise by degrees to the aldermen's bench and to the lord mayoralty. Such was Sir Henry Barton, citizen and skinner of Mildenhall, or rather, I suspect, from Barton Mills, in which village there is an ancient house which may have belonged to his father. He was Lord Mayor in 1416 and in 1430, and became the father of the public lighting of London, ordaining lamps to be hung outside each citizen's house at night, from All Hallows to Purification. The noble parish church of Mildenhall contains his tomb, and a font bearing the City arms and those of Barton, a municipal relic whereof the City should not be unmindful, for it is getting dilapidated, and may, perchance, find its way into a stonemason's yard, should some benevolent person present the church with a new one. Barton turns up in the 'Paston Letters' in his proper character as skinner, being requested to send to Thomalin Grys, spicer, of Norwich, some 'loder' (leather) as soon as he can goodly buy it. Such also were another Mildenhall man, Sir William Gregory, Lord Mayor in 1451, and Sir Thomas Cooke, a native of Lavenham, Lord Mayor in 1462; and there will be two more from Suffolk in the next chapter. Meanwhile, the town of Ipswich was rising in commercial importance. The earliest of its charters was granted in the first year of King John, before which time. the borough was in the position of Norwich, Lewes, Oxford, and other places, paying two-thirds of its revenue to the King, and the third penny' to the Earl. The Domesday Book extract makes this clear. Earl Guert in the time of Edward the Confessor, and Roger Bigod after the Conquest, received this 'third penny.' But the place had gone terribly down in the world, the burgesses having fallen in that interval from 538 to 210, half of these too poor to pay more than a penny a head to the King's Geld. There were then 328 empty houses, and the borough was in perpetual debt. John's charter was apparently to be paid for by clearing off these arrears, a process occupying more than a year, if we may judge from the slow action on the part of the burgesses in acting on their new privileges. They had no fixed place of meeting, but held their first assembly in the churchyard of St. Mary-le-Tower, where they chose their two bailiffs, and subsequently, by committee, their twelve portmen. Passing over intermediate charters, we come to that of 24 Henry VI., whereby the two bailiffs and four of the portmen received the commission of the peace, with all fines, etc., accruing thence, with the assize of bread, wine, and ale, the admiralty, and clerkship of the market. With the exception of magisterial privileges, this was only putting in black and white what had been matter of custom. Edward IV., in 1464, after his manner, totally ignored what the Lancastrian usurpers had done, but took care that his charter should in no way abridge their newlygranted rights. The town is now incorporated by the title of the 'Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty.' The two bailiffs are to be elected at the Guildhall every eighth of September, and the burgesses are to be exempt from jury service. The incorporation soon made by-laws, and pigs, in Ipswich as elsewhere, were among the first reformanda.1 Stray hogs might be sold by those in whose gardens they were found, half the money to be kept by the injured person, the other half to go to the town; and those who suffered their swine to go at large were to pay for every foot one penny at the first offence, and twopence at the second. A third transgression could be expiated only by the forfeit of the whole hog, the origin of one of our proverbial expressions. 1 Taylor, In and about Ancient Ipswich,' p. 45. CHAPTER XI. PERPENDICULAR ARCHITECTURE-DOMESTIC LIFE-SIR JAMES TYRELL-TRENTALS-LORD MAYORS. WHI HILE the din of arms was resounding in other counties, the clink of the trowel was rather the prevalent note in Suffolk. The church-building and housebuilding which went on apace in the middle and the latter part of the fifteenth century have left us some grand later Perpendicular examples, eminently the churches of Lavenham and Long Melford. No church in the county possesses a nave of finer proportions than Lavenham. It is in six bays; and capitals, spandrels, cornice, and foliated bosses have drawn forth the highest eulogy of many an architect. Long Melford nave, which is very late, consists of ten bays, but, as at Blythburgh, the judicious arrangement of detail prevents the eye being wearied by excessive length. The peculiar use of flint in conjunction with stone attains its greatest development about this time. The flint forms the panel, and the stone, which does not project from it, divides panel from panel. Thus the best effects are introduced in an exceedingly durable and economical way. While no part of the building was neglected, the porches received the fullest share of attention; indeed, it would be invidious to single out any for especial praise. In some parts of the county the traveller may go from parish to parish assured that, if there be little else to see, his eyes will be gratified by the porch, as often as not. Sometimes the stone is worked into an inscription, as at Botesdale Chantry, or into a riddle as at Blythburgh. The naves began to be seated, and that in the bestseasoned oak, carved with great skill. The figures of the saints show admirable treatment of drapery, and there is generally a calm dignity about these little wooden statuettes where they have survived Puritan fanaticism, rustic hack-knives, and Georgian notions of comfort. At Laxfield, Eriswell, and Combs, for instance, the saw and plane have been cruelly busy. Fressingfield is as good an example as can be found of pews standing in the original kerb. One of the best of the bench-ends is figured in Chambers's New Encyclopædia, art. Pew, and the back of this seat bears the emblems of the Passion, from the Cock-crowing to the Seamless Coat, and the Dice-box for casting lots whose it should be. Here also we may see a good Sanctus-bell cot, with the spout for the rope passing through the chancel arch, while at Hawstead the bell for this purpose, about the size of an ordinary house-bell, is placed on the top of the rood screen. In these ways and the like, the money earned by grain and hay, wool and meat, found employment, and, passing through the hands of carpenters and masons, stimulated further the trade of the country. It was clearly a time of great material progress. The Duke of Suffolk, John de la Pole, who had married the sister of Edward IV., a grasping tyrant, to judge from the Pastons' estimate of him, was on the side of the successful Yorkists, and no fines diminished the fecundity of his estate, while the temporary downfall of the De Veres only affected the south of the county, and that not extensively. The business of electing knights of the shire lay solely in the hands of little knots of influential men. In 1472 the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk settled the Norfolk election, probably at Framlingham, where the former lived, and where John Paston discovered that the conclusion was foregone, and that his brother need not trouble the county with his candidature. East Anglia seems to have regarded such events with sublime indifference. Such as could be got at were told to tarry at home, and there were a dozen towns in England which chose no burgess as they were bound to do. In spite of the small store set by political liberty, and the occasional outbreaks of epidemics, the times seem prosperous. Material progress and civic freedom are often dissociated, and under a clever despot mankind is apt to be better off than in the days of unrestrained gabble and disinclination to hard work. Fortunately, we have a picture of domestic life in the MS. of Robert Melton of Stuston, probably steward to Cornwallis, the lord of the neighbouring manor of Brome. The book containing Melton's memoranda and much else was edited in 1886 by Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith for Lady Caroline Kerrison. It is a strange conglomeration of poetry, sacred and secular, prayers, directions for a trental, a carol for the Annunciation, manorial documents, private accounts, and, to conclude, 'A Medyson for the Zelow Jawdys.' The sayings and puzzles at the beginning of the book are not conceived in a spirit of devotion to the ladies, and would have been reprobated by any chivalrous knight, e.g. : 'The hart lovyt the wood, the hare lovyt the hyll, The knyth lovyt hys sword, the carll lovyt hys byll; The fowlle (fool) lovyt his folly, the wysseman lovyt hys skyll, The properte of a schrod qwen (shrewd quean) ys to have hyr wyll.' The puzzles are worse: 'Take iij claterars: B pkf, B kbk, B xpmbn. Take iij lowrars: B bpf, B pwlf, B xpmbn. Take iij schrewys: B xbspf, |