The following were Masters or Priors of the Hospital: Robert Lincoln, 12 Rich. II.; Robert Dale, 1 Hen. IV.; Edw. Atherton, 15 Hen. VI. He was clerk of the closet to the King. John Arundel, 35 Hen. VI.; Thomas Hervy, 37 Hen. VI.; John Browne, later in the same year; John Smeathe or Sneethe, 49 Hen. VI. John Davyson was removed 19 Edw. IV., when Walter Bate and William Hobbes were made custodes, with benefit of survivorship as Master to either (Dugdale, op. cit., p. 622).
[58] French, crèche, a manger.
[59] Argent, two bars sable, a labell of five points, throughout gules, on a chief azure, an estoile of sixteen points, or, charged with a plate thereon, a cross of the third between a human skull, in a cup on the dexter side, and a basket of bread, i.e. wastell cakes, all of the fifth, on the sinister.
[60] Stow, edit. 1603, p. 452. On Bethlem, see p. 166.
[61] "More pity that the eagle should be mewid, while kites and buzzards prey at liberty" (Shakespeare). As hawks were caged while moulting or mewing (Fr. mue, from mutare), a mew or mews came to mean a place of confinement. "Stable so called from the royal stables in London, which were so named because built where the king's hawks were mewed or confined" (Webster). Wordsworth has "violets in their secret mews." An asylum might be correctly styled a "Lunatic Mews."
[62] Op. cit., p. 139.
[63] Act i. sc. 4.
[64] "The Workes of Sir Thomas More," vol. ii. p. 901. Edit. London, 1557.
[65] Malcolm's "Londinum Redivivum," 1803, vol. i. p. 351.
[66] Charity Commissioners' Report, 1837, from which much valuable information has been derived.