Notes and Illustrations. 315 
which have the highest offices under the king in all this realme, 
shall greatly lacke the vse of singinge, preachers and lawyers, 
because they shall not, without this, be able to rule theyr dres/es for 
euerye purpose.”—Lond. 1571, fo. 86 ; and in Strype’s Life of Arch. 
Parker it is stated that ‘‘In the Statutes of Stoke College, Suffolk, 
founded by Parker, is a provision in these words: ‘ of which said 
queristers, after their dveas/s are changed, will the most apt of wit 
and capacity be holpen with exhibitions of forty shillings.’ ” 
118. 8. Nicholas Udall was the author of our oldest known 
comedy “ Roister Doister.’” He was born 1505, and was Master 
first at Eton and afterwards at Westminster, at both of which places 
he became notorious for the severity of his punishments. He wrote 
several dramas, now lost, one of which, ‘‘ Ezekias,” was acted 
before Queen Elizabeth at Cambridge, and, in all probability, 
** Roister Doister” was intended to be performed by his pupils. 
113. 11. As to Tusser’s pedigree see letter from the Windsor 
Herald, in the Biographical Sketch. 
113. 12. “‘ Tiburne play.” Tyburn appears from authentic records 
to have been used as a place of execution in the time of Edward III. 
and probably before. See also stanza 35 post. There was another 
place of execution, in the parish of St. Thomas-a-Waterings, in 
Southwark, called for distinction Tyburn of Kent. See Pegge’s 
Kenticisms, ed. Skeat, Proverb 11, and Dr. Johnson’s Poem of 
London, |. 238, and the note on it in Hales’s Longer Eng. Poems, 
1O72, Dp: 313: 
113. 16. “A towne of price.’ A common expression in old 
English, meaning of high estimation, noble. See Halliwell, s.v. 
113. 18. ‘ Norfolk wiles,” etc. The East Anglians were noted 
for their litigious propensities. Fuller, in his Worthies, says, 
“Whereas pedibus ambulando is accounted but a vexatious suit in 
other counties, here (where men are said to study law as following 
the plough-tail) some would persuade us that they will enter an 
action for their neighbour’s horse but looking over their hedge.” 
An Act was passed in 1455 (33 Henry VI. cap. 7) to check the 
litigiousness of the district: ‘‘ Whereas, of time not long past, 
within the city of Norwich, and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, 
there were no more but 6 or 8 attornies at the most that resorted 
to the King’s Courts, in which time great tranquillity reigned in the 
said city and counties, and little trouble or vexation was made by 
untrue and foreign suits. And now so it is, that in the said city 
and counties, there be fourscore attornies or more, the more part 
of them having no other thing to live upon but only his gain by the 
practice of attorneyship, and also the more part of them not being 
of sufficient knowledge to be an attorney, which come to every fair, 
market, and other places, where is any assembly of people, ex- 
horting, procuring, moving and inciting the people to attempt 
untrue foreign suits for small trespasses, little offences and small 
