[566] Coates’s Reading, 53, 54. All this time matters were made easier for the townspeople by constant talk of loans to the King. In 1420 the town officers went to Wallingford to discuss the matter with the King. There was a loan made in 1430, and another in 1445. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 173, 174.
[567] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 174.
[568] Under Henry the Eighth, he received £10. (Coates’s Reading, 55, 56.) A woman of the town left three silver cups and one gilt cup for the mayoralty in 1479. Public dinners at each election began in 1492, and feasts for the burgesses at Christmas and Shrovetide. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 180-1, 176.)
[569] Ibid. 180.
[570] Eng. Guilds, 298.
[571] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 175, 180.
[572] Ibid. 212.
[573] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 7, 176.
[574] Coates’s Reading, 52, 53.
[575] Coates’s Reading, 54-5. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 168-9.