Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/211

 sit on the bench, he was handed a posy consisting of budding hawthorn, beanflowers and a columbine flower, in token of the unusual precocity of the season. Two years later there was brought to Mr. Nicholas Reynold, then Mayor, on St. Leonard's Day (November 6th), "a chester of appletree blooms." The tomb of Thomas Bett lies in All Saints' Church. He left nearly all his property to Robert Newcombe, the eldest son of Thomas Newcombe, who had married his daughter Katharine. Robert Newcombe, in 1540, bought the house in the old High Street opposite to All Saints' Church, where the family resided and carried on the business. He was a Churchwarden of All Saints' Church, and was elected Mayor of Leicester in 1550. The accounts of the estate of this well-to-do mediaeval burgess admit us into his household on a footing of unusual intimacy. They were rendered to the governing body of the town, to whom all the expenditure on orphans had to be submitted. Richard Pratt, one of the Executors, returned the value of his testator's assets at £261 16s. 8d. The funeral expenses were £6 13s. 4d.; and the Legacies comprised £31 13s. 4d. to Wife; ;£20 each to Sons, Edward and William, and £20 6s. 8d. to his daughter Anne in money, and in plate £31 6s. 8d.; to his Curate, 3s. 4d.; To five men servants, ten shillings each; to two maids, ten shillings; to the poor, twenty shillings: to the overseers of his Will, twenty shillings; for the mortuary, ten shillings. The expenses of Probate were 33s. 4d.; the keep of four children of testator and two maids to attend them for sixteen weeks was £10 13s. 4d. The wages of two servants, £4 2s. 4d. After allowing the difference between the estimate made in the inventory and the actual prices received, there was a loss "in the price of a certain metal "of £12 13s. 4d.; in the price of the wood, £3 6s. 8d.; and the price of the bark, £1 6s. 8d., and in the price of two kine, thirty-two shillings. The total of all these expenses was stated to be £150 14s. 4d.

The debts paid since the testator's death were £10 7s. 7d. The expenses of the children since the death were £34 14s. $2 1⁄2$d., and comprised such items as "three yards of frieze to make Edward a coat, 3 shillings," "Elizabeth Newcombe's board at 165