[39] Rymer, passim.
[40] Id. xix. 512. It may be curious to mention some of these. The best turkey was to be sold at 4s. 6d.; the best goose at 2s. 4d.; the best pullet, 1s. 8d.; three eggs for a penny; fresh butter at 5d. in summer, at 6d. in winter. This was in 1634.
[41] Id. xx. 113.
[42] Id. 157.
[43] Rymer, xviii. 33, et alibi. A commission was granted to the Earl of Arundel and others, May 30, 1625, to enquire what houses, shops, etc., had been built for ten years past, especially since the last proclamation, and to commit the offenders. It recites the care of Elizabeth and James to have the city built in an uniform manner with brick, and also to clear it from under-tenants and base people who live by begging and stealing. Id. xviii. 97.
[44] Rymer, xix. 375.
[45] Rushworth Abr. ii. 232.
[46] Rushworth, ii. 79.
[47] Id. p. 313.
[48] Rushworth Abr. iii. 123; Whitelock, p. 35; Strafford Letters, i. 374, et alibi. See what Clarendon says, p. 293 (ii. 151, edit. 1826). The second of these tells us, that the city offered to build for the king a palace in St. James's park by way of composition, which was refused. If this be true, it must allude to the palace already projected by him, the magnificent designs for which by Inigo Jones are well known. Had they been executed, the metropolis would have possessed a splendid monument of Palladian architecture; and the reproach sometimes thrown on England, of wanting a fit mansion for its monarchs, would have been prevented. But the exchequer of Charles the First had never been in such a state as to render it at all probable that he could undertake so costly a work.