BISHOP AYLMER. 127 



one Thomas Aylmer, of Norwich, grocer; whose last will CHAP. 

 bare date 1500 ; who therein left a legacy to his aunt, Mar- _ 

 garet Parker : which Margaret seems to have been grand 

 mother to Matthew Parker, Queen Elizabeth s first and 

 most worthy and well-deserving and learned Archbishop of 

 Canterbury. 



Of this family, I suppose, was Laurence Aylmer, Sheriff Siow sSurv. 

 of London anno 1501, and Mayor 1507 ; serving out the 

 year upon the decease of William Brown, Mayor. This 

 Laurence was a draper, and son of Thomas Aylmer, of 

 Ellesnam in Essex, a neighbour county to Norfolk. 



And of the same family I make no doubt was that George Geo. Ayl- 

 Aylmer, one of the chief of the Friars of the Priory of St. j^ s of 



John of Jerusalem in London, who at the dissolution of Jerusalem. 

 religious houses under King Henry VIII. was one of those 

 stout Knights of the Priory that would not surrender the 

 house to the King, as many of the other monasteries did. 

 But however, when this house was dissolved by act of Par 

 liament, he fared pretty well, notwithstanding his obsti 

 nacy, having 100/. pension allowed him for life by the same 

 act. 



To all the rest let me add, that I find one Mrs. Fraunces MSS. in 

 Aylmer, a gentlewoman of the Court, who was one of the ^ r c&amp;gt; Ar ~ 

 ladies that attended Queen Jane, King Henry Villas most 

 beloved wife, on horseback at her most splendid and so 

 lemn funeral s. 



6)ur Bishop kept a good house, having eighty servants The Bi- 

 with him in his family. And besides, he built and repaired J^j|? kee 

 houses, bridges, scoured and cleansed ditches and common ing and 

 sewers, Sec. in which he spent more than any Bishop of expen 

 London before him had done in forty years. And whereas 

 it was not unusual in those times for Bishops to obtain the 

 Queen s release of first-fruits, he generously forbore to sue 

 for it, considering the Queen s great charges. 



And yet by his good and provident husbandry he laid His pur- 

 out 160001. in purchase of lands not long before his death. chase 



t See Additions, Numb. VII. 



