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Six Town Chronicles of England is in Late Medieval Books.
In this year it was ordained and commanded that on the Lord's Day no victuals should be sold, nor any other merchandise. And in this same year, the riding of the sheriffs, which from ancient times had been honourably practiced, was abolished.
In isto anno ordinatum fuit et preceptum quod die dominica victualia non venderentur nee aliqua alia mercimonia.1 Et isto anno equitacio vicecomitum ab antique honorabiliter usitata fuit destructa.2
Note 1. Fabyan adds 'which ordinance held but a while'.
Note 2. It looks as if the writer had confused the sheriffdom of Norman with his mayoralty. It was as mayor in 1453 that John Norman changed the practice of riding on horseback to take oath before the King at Westminster to a journey by barge. From the way in which this chronicler records this change (ao 32, p. 108) it would appear that he disapproved of the change being made on the mayor's own initiative. Fabyan (628) has the same tone. Bale, on the other hand, says it was done 'by the desire and consent of the aldermen'; cf. also Vitellius A. XVI, 164. The city records tell us that the change was made in response to a petition of the commonalty, who, despite the objections of the Chancellor and the Duke of Somerset, were insistent on the change being made (J. E. Price, Descriptive Accotmt of the Guildhall, 1 886, p. 160).
In this year, the king, following the counsel of the Duke of Somerset, rode to various villages belonging to the Duke of York, where the tenants of the same were compelled to come naked, with cords for strangling about their necks, in the greatest frost and snow, to submit themselves to the royal grace, because they had formerly been with their lord against the Duke of Somerset, whose hour had not yet come. And although the king pardoned them, the same duke (Somerset) ordered them to be hanged.
In isto anno rex secundum consilium ducis Somersete equitavit ad diversas villas domini ducis Eboraci ubi tenentes eiusdem compulsi fuerunt venire nudi cum cordis suffocatoriis circa colla eorum in maximo gelu et nive ad submittendum seipsos regie gracie pro eo quod fuerunt cum domino suo prae antea contra ducem Somersete cuius hora nondum venerat. Et rege eis pardonante idem dux iussit eos suspendi.
And in this same year, on the feast of Saint Bartholomew [24th August 1453], at Clerkenwell, during the fair-time, a certain man called Cayles was the cause of a schism between the Mayor of London with the citizens thereof and the inhabitants of the Priory of Saint John of Clerkenwell; of whom many were slain.
Et isto anno in festo sancti bartholemei apud clerkynwell tempore (feriarum2) quidam vocatus .Cayles causator fuit scismatis inter maiorem londonii cum civibus eiusdem et inhabitantes prioratus sancti Johannis de Clerkynwell. De quibus diversi fuerunt occisi.
Note 1. This (or some similar word) is omitted. We learn from Bale that the disturbance occurred at the wrestling; Stow inserts an account of the riot in Vitellus A. XVI, 164, note.
King Edward [died] on the ninth day of April [1483].
Rex Edwardus moritur 9 die Aprilis.
[30th April 1483] Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, called Protector of England, met the prince and received him reverently at Stony Stratford, and brought him to London. Meanwhile, under the pretext of a discovered treason, he ordered that Anthony Rivers, Lord Scales, the queen Elizabeth's brother, and Lord Richard Woodville, the queen's son, together with Sir Thomas Vaughan, knight, who were the prince's necessary attendants and companions, be arrested and taken to Pontefract.
Ricardus plantagoneth dux Eboraci appellatus protector anglie occurrit principi et eum excipit venerabundus ad Stonyng Stratford et londonium deducit. Interea sub specie comperte proditionis custodiri iubet Anthonium Ryvers dominum Skalys fratrem regine Elyzabethe et dominum Ricardum Wodvyld regine filium et Warham equitem auratum necessarios et comites principis et Pomphretam deduci.
In the meantime he caused Lord William Hastings, Chamberlain of England, to be beheaded in the Tower, and immediately ordered those said lords to be beheaded at Pontefract.
Interea dominum Willelmum Hastyngs camerarium anglie in turri obtruncat et statim apud Pomphretam iubet dictos dominos decollari.
[June 1483] Then straightway the prince Edward and his brother Richard, duke [of York], were removed from the world in the Tower by a shameful murder1, the manner of their death being concealed. And he [Richard] then claimed the government for himself; yet from the ninth day of April until the twenty-sixth of June the said prince was regarded as king, since public acts and documents were issued in his name.
Tunc e vestigio Edwardus princeps et frater Ricardus dux indigna nece suppresso mortis genere in turri tolluntur e medio. Et ipse sibi regimen vendicat verumtamen a 9 die aprilis usque ad 26 Junii stetit dictus princeps ut rex quia eius nomine acta publica et scripta prodibant.
Note 1. Both this chronicle and the chronicle of Lynn (below, p. 185) add their testimony to the general belief of the early sixteenth century as to the fate of the princes.
[June 1483] In this yere the xi day of aprell Edward the Vth begayne his rene being of the adge of a xi yers and never was crowned but most shameffully murdred at the comandement of his owen uncle rychard the 3 who in Joune next after began to reyne.1
Note 1. Cf. Fabyan, 668; the chronicler may have confused ix and xi. Edward V was born in November 1470, and so would be in his thirteenth year; Richard began his reign June 26; Edward V reckoned his reign from the day of his father's death, April 9.