"ROGUES AND PROCTORS" 119 



in those days an excellent chance of losing their heads ; 

 merely remarking that she appeared to have a brown 

 complexion rather than the fair one that had been 

 represented to his Majesty. 



" Alas ! " replied the King, " whom shall men — to 

 say nothing of kings — trust ? I promise you I see no 

 such thing in her as hath been shewed to me of her, 

 either by pictures or report, and am ashamed that men 

 have praised her as they have done ; and I like her 

 not." Which, of course, was final. 



Queen Elizabeth, of course, was here, not once 

 but thrice, and on her first visit she stayed at the 

 " Crown " inn, " which," says Francis Thynne, " is 

 the only place to intertaine Princes comming thither." 

 It was, indeed, the place where her father stayed, 

 and where, according to one account, Anne of Cleves 

 lodged ; and was the scene of the inimitable colloquy 

 between the carriers in Henry the Fourth, just previous 

 to the robbery on Gad's Hill. The " Crown," of course, 

 is gone now, and an ugly building, bearing the same 

 sign, but dating only from 1863, stands on its site. 



On the last day of her visit, the queen was entertained 

 by " that charitable man but withal most determined 

 enemy to Rogues and Proctors," Master Richard 

 Watts, whose almshouse for the lodgment of six poor 

 travellers bears still upon its front the evidence of his 

 aversions. Controversy has long raged around the 

 term " proctor," and the victory seems to rest Avith 

 those who declare that the class thus excluded from the 

 benefits of Master Watts' charity was that of the 

 " procurators " who were licensed by the Pope to go 

 through the country collecting " Peter's pence " ; 

 but I have my own idea on that point, and I believe 

 that the " proctors " referred to were not papists, but 

 either " proctors that go up and downe with counterfeit 

 licences, cosiners, and suche as go about the countrey 

 using unlawfuU games " ; or the " })roctors " especially 

 and particularly mentioned in the Statute Edw. VI. c. 3, 

 s. 19, licensed to collect alms for the lepers who at that 



