[204] Quarter Sessions under Queen Eliz., A. Hamilton, p. 19.
[205] The Privy Council write that they "are given to understand that divers of the inhabitants of the Town of Cambridge seeking their own private gain with the public hurt and incommodity of the whole University and Town have heretofore accustomed to build and erect houses upon sundry spare grounds in and about the said Town; but of late and at this present especially they do not only increase and continue the same but do more usually divide one house into many small tenements and those for the most part do let and hire out to the meanest and poorest persons, which tenements ... are a means ... as we are informed whereby the University and Town are overburthened in yearly allowance towards the maintenance of the poor." The Mayor and Vice-chancellor therefore with the assistance of the "best and discretest persons and officers of the University and Town" are to cause inquiry to be made as to how many tenements there are and as to how many people inhabit them, and are also to find out if the tenements had been built or divided within ten years. They were then to take measures to alter as many tenements and to remove as many of the inmates as they should deem expedient. The letter is dated June 8th, 1584, and is signed by Burghley, Walsingham, and several other members of the Privy Council. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Vol. II. p. 398.
[206] Cal. of State Papers, Vol. 133, No. 56.
[207] Journals of the Common Council of London, Vol. XX. No. 1, f. 15b.
[208] Journals of the Common Council of London, Vol. XX. No. 1, f. 24.
[209] Ib. f. 25.
[210] Ib. f. 32 b.
[211] Journals, f. 42.
[212] Ib. Vol. XX., No. 1, f. 119.
[213] Ib. f. 122 b, 8th April, 1574.