[166] An allusion to the alliterative verse popular among the common folk, like that of “Piers Plowman.”
[167] It was mostly destroyed by fire in 1865. Most writers on Canterbury, misled by the ancient spelling, call the inn “Chequers of the Hope.” Hope, as Prof. Skeat has long ago pointed out, is simply Hoop, a part of the inn sign. Cf. Riley, “Memorials of London,” pp. 497, 524; and “Hist. MSS. Commission,” Report v., pt. i., p. 448.
[168] Mrs. Green, “Town Life,” ii., 33.
[169] A. Murimuth, ed. Hog., p. 225.
[170] Walsingham, an. 1349; Hoccleve, E.E.T.S., vol. iii., p. 93.
[171] Ed. Buchon, i., 286; ed. Luce, iv., 327.
[172] Longman, “Edward III.,” i., 225, 413.
[173] Longman, “Edward III.,” vol. i., pp. 147, 157, 178.
[174] Ed. Buchon, i., 12, 34; ed. Luce, i., 284-287.
[175] Cf. Darmesteter, “Froissart,” p. 16, and Froissart, ed. Buchon, p. 512. “The good queen Philippa was in my youth my queen and sovereign. I was five years at the court of the King and Queen of England. In my youth I was her clerk, serving her with fair ditties and treatises of love; and, for the love of the noble and worthy lady my mistress, all other great lords—king, dukes, earls, barons and knights, of whatsoever country they might be—loved me and saw me gladly and gave me much profit.”