name and rank of the lady concerned, who was grand-daughter to Chaucer, the poet, and wife of William de la Pole, who succeeded to the earldom of Suffolk upon the death of his brother Michael, a.d. 1415, the second year of the reign of King Henry V.
The only liberty we shall take with the original account is to slightly abridge it, and render it in modern orthography.
Item. It was so, that Alice, Duchess, that time Countess of Suffolk, lately in person came to this city, disguised like a country house-wife. Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and two other persons, went with her, also disguised; and they, to take their disports, went out of the city one evening, near night, so disguised, towards a hovel called Lakenham Wood, to take the air, and disport themselves, beholding the said city. One Thomas Ailmer, of Norwich, esteeming in his conceit that the said duchess and Sir Thomas had been other persons, met them, and opposed their going out in that wise, and fell at variance with the said Sir Thomas, so that they fought; whereby the said duchess was sore afraid; by cause whereof the said duchess and Sir Thomas took a displeasure against the city, notwithstanding that the mayor of the city at that time being, arrested Thomas Ailmer, and held him in prison more than thirty weeks without bail; to the intent thereby both to chastise Ailmer, and to appease
the displeasure of the said duchess and Sir Thomas; and also the said mayor arrested and imprisoned all other persons which the said duchess and Sir Thomas could understand had in any way given favour or comfort to the said Ailmer, in making the affray. Notwithstanding which punishment, the displeasure of the duchess and Sir Thomas was not appeased. And it is so, moreover, that one John Haydon, late was recorder of the city, taking of the mayor and citizens a reasonable fee, as the recorder is accustomed; he, being so recorded, had interlaced himself with the prior of Norwich, at that time being in travers with the said mayor and commonality, and discovered the privity of the evidence of the said city to the said prior, because whereof the mayor and commons of the said city discharged the said Haydon of the condition of recorder; for which Haydon took a displeasure against the said city.
By malice of these displeasures of the said duchess, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and John Haydon, the Duke of Suffolk, then earl, in his person, upon many suggestions by the said Tuddenham and Haydon to him made, that the mayor, aldermen, and commonality aforesaid, should have misgoverned the city, laboured and made to be taken out of the chancery a commission of over determiner. And thereupon, at a sessions holden at Thetford, the Thursday next after the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, the said
Sir Thomas and John Haydon, finding in their conceit no manner or matter of truth whereof they might cause the said mayor and commonality there to be indicted, imagined thus as ensueth: first, they sperde an inquest, then taken in a chamber, at one Spilmer’s house; in which chamber the said T. lodged, and so kept them sperde.
“And it was so, that one John Gladman, of Norwich, which was then, and at this hour, is a man of ‘sad’ dispositions, and true and faithful to God and to the king, of disport, as is and hath been accustomed in any city or borough through all this realm, on fasting Tuesday made a disport with his neighbours, having his horse trapped with tinsel, and otherwise disguising things, crowned as King of Christmas, in token that all mirth should end with the twelve months of the year; afore him went each month, disguised after the season thereof; and Lent clad in white, with red-herring’s skins, and his horse trapped with oyster shells after him, in token that sadness and abstinence of mirth should follow, and an holy time; and so rode in divers streets of the city, with other people with him disguised, making mirth, and disport, and plays.
“The said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, among many other full strange and untrue presentments, made by perjury at the said inquest, caused the said mayor and commonality, and the said John Gladman, to be indicted of that, that they should have imagined to have made a common rising, and have crowned the said John Gladman as king, with crown, sceptre and diadem, (when they never meant it), nor such a thing imagined, as in the said presentiment it showeth more plain, and by that presentiment, with many other horrible articles therein comprised, so made by perjury, thay caused the franchise of the said city to be seized into the king’s hands, to the harm and cost of the said mayor and commonality.”
And now we take a long stride from the reign of Henry V. to that of Charles II., omitting the intermediate century that was marked by the royal visit of the maiden queen, chronicled at length among the “pageantries;” and passing over the troubled era of the Commonwealth, the Reformation, and “Kett’s rebellion,” all of which have found a place for notice elsewhere, we find ourselves once more in the smooth waters of peace, with the tide of prosperity at the full within the walls of the old city; and we ask no pardon for making copious extracts from the journal that furnished Macaulay with materials to serve up the rich banquet that lies condensed in the few lines devoted to this period of the city’s history, in his unrivalled work. The diary of Dr. Edward Browne gives a picture of the society and habits of
the citizens in his time, perhaps not to be met with elsewhere. His father, Sir Thomas Browne, then tenanted the house now known by the title of the “Star,” and in the winter of 1663–4 was visited by his son Edward, who, during his stay, made the entries in his journal which we have extracted. At that time, Henry, afterwards Lord Howard, of Castle Rising, subsequently Earl of Norwich, and Marshal of England, resided in the city, at the palace of his brother, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was an invalid, on the continent, suffering from disease of the brain.
“Jan. 1st. (1663–4.) I was at Mr. Howard’s, brother to the Duke of Norfolk, who kept his Christmas this year at the Duke’s palace in Norwich, so magnificently that the like hath scarce been seen. They had dancing every night, and gave entertainments to all that would come; hee built up a room on purpose to dance in, very large, and hung with the bravest hangings I ever saw; his candlesticks, snuffers, tongues, fire-shovel, and and-irons, were silver; a banquet was given every night after dancing; and three coaches were employed every afternoon to fetch ladies, the greatest of which would holde fourteen persons, and coste five hundred pounde, without the harnesse, which cost six score more; I have seen of his pictures, which are admirable; he hath prints and draughts, done by most of the great masters’ own hands. Stones and jewels, as onyxes, sardonyxes, jacinths, jaspers, amethysts, &c. more and better than any prince in Europe. Ringes and seales, all manner of stones, and limnings beyond compare. These things were most of them collected by the old Earl of Arundel (the Duke’s grandfather).
“This Mr. Howard hath lately bought a piece of ground of Mr. Mingay, in Norwich, by the waterside in Cunisford, which hee intends for a place of walking and recreation, having made already walkes round and across it, forty feet in breadth; if the quadrangle left be spacious enough, he intends the first of them for a bowling-green, the third for a wildernesse, and the fourth for a garden. These and the like noble things he performeth, and yet hath paid 100,000 pounds of his ancestors’ debts.
“Jan. 6th. I dined at my Aunt Bendish’s, and made an end of Christmas at the Duke’s palace, with dancing at night and a great banquet. His gates were opened, and such a number flocked in, that all the beer they could set out in the streets could not divert the stream of the multitude.
“Jan. 7th. I opened a dog.
“Jan. 9th. Mr. Osborne sent my father a calf, whereof I observed the knee joint, and the neat articulation of the put-bone, which was here very perfect.
“This day Monsieur Buttet, who plays most admirably on the flageolet, bagpipe, and sea-trumpet, a long three-square instrument, having but one string, came to see me.
“Jan. 11th. This day, being Mr. Henry Howard’s birthday, we danced at Mr. Howard’s, till 2 of the clock in the morning.
“Jan. 12th. Cutting up a turkey’s heart. A monkey hath 36 teeth: 23 molares, 4 canini, and 8 incisores.
“Jan. 13th. This day I met Mr. Howard at my Uncle Bendish’s, where he taught me to play at l’hombre, a Spanish game at cards.
“Jan. 21st. I shewed Dr. De Veau about the town; I supped with him at the Duke’s palace, where he shewed a powder against agues, which was to be given in white wine, to the quantity of three grains. He related to me many things of the Duke of Norfolk, that lives at Padua, non compos mentis, and of his travailes in France and Italy.
“Jan. 23rd. Don Francisco de Melo came from London, with Mr. Philip Howard (third grandson of the Earl of Arundel), to visit his honour, Mr. Henry Howard. I met them at Mr. Deyes the next day, in Madam Windham’s chamber.
“I boyled the right fore-foot of a monkey, and took out all the bones, which I keep by me. In a put-bone, the unfortunate casts are outward, the fortunate inward.
“Jan. 26th. I saw a little child in an ague, upon which Dr. De Veau was to try his febrifuge powder; but the ague being but moderate, and in the declension, it was thought too mean a disease to try the efficacy of his extolled powder.
“Feb. 2nd. I saw cock-fighting at the White Horse, in St. Stephen’s.
“Feb. 5th. I went to see a serpent, that a woman, living in St. Gregory’s church-yard, vomited up, but she had burnt it before I came.
“Feb. 16th. I went to visit Mr. Edward Ward, an old man in a fever, where Mrs. Anne Ward gave me my first fee, 10s.
“Feb. 22nd. I set forward for my journey to London.”