Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/373

 i2s. vm. Anui,ie, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 303 The fifth of the ballads was occasioned by Guiscard's attack on the Earl of Oxford in the spring of 1711. Of its eight verses the following is the first : When Lewis the Great Had heard of the fate Of Guiscard, his booted apostle ; Not Scarron's delight, His Maintenon bright, Could allay in his breast the fierce bustle.* The sixth and last of the ballads is one I on the Peace, which must have been com- i posed in the early months of the year 1713. i It seems to have rivalled in popularity > the ' Lamentation,' for, like the latter, it was translated into Latin. Of its six i verses the following is the last : With safety you now The ocean may plow, Since to Philip you've yielded all Spain ; Go trade where you please, My lords of the seas, He'll assist you to bring home your gain ; ' 'Tis Robin that says it, and that may suffice, I hope that my Robin doth tell me no lies.f F. ELBINGTON BALL. AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE ARCHIVES. (See ante, pp. 23, 45, 66, 83, 124, 146, 181, 223, 241, 262, 284.) THE EXPULSION OF MASTER WILLIAM BOTT ; FROM THE STRATFORD CHAMBER. SQUIRE CLOPTON'S agent, William Bott, who had removed from Snitterfield to New ! Place and obta'ned a seat among the Alder- 1 men of the Borough, won an evil reputation i in Stratford. He claimed " estimation among his fellows, as a liege subject of the Queen within the counties of Stafford, | Warwick, Worcester and Northampton, filling ' divers creditable and lucrative offices within the same " ; but he quickly lost caste. The old Town Clerk, in his blunt fashion, called him i " dishonest. " One Sunday in the autumn of 1563 (Oct. 24) Bott met Roland Wheeler i at the Swan Inn and used some hard words. ! "Art thou there?" he cried with great vehemence. " I will lay thee fast by the heels, for thou art a villain and a rogue." This threat to put him in the stocks Wheeler rebutted with a similar charge and threat : 1 The Whimsical Medley.' It contains the Latin version as well as the English. " Such good rewards thou dost recompence them that have taken thy part, but before thou shalt prove me a rogue I do trust to see thee set upon the pillory." The stocks were outside the gaol in High Street ; the pillory was at the Market Cross. Squire Clopton complained bitterly of his servant. When he Went abroad with his wife, some time after the baptism of their daughter Margaret on Sept. 30, 1563, having sold New Place to Bott, the latter took advantage of his absence to withhold his rents, burden his tenants, and even to forge a deed relating to his property. He " oppressed divers poor men," it was said, " and took away their cattle," so that they appealed " to one Master Underbill, a man of law, a very good man dwelling near by," desiring his help " for God's sake " as they were utterly undone. This was William Underhill of Idlicote, younger son of the late Edward Underhill, of Eatington, and cousin of Edward Underhill, the " hot gospeller " and Bishop Hosper's " cham- pion." He took the matter in hand and became known as the poor man's friend. Bott also got into trouble with the Strat- ford Chamber, speaking evil words of the Bailiff, good Richard Hill, and declaring that there was not an honest man in the Council. They sent for him, and he declined to come. Accordingly, on May 9, 1565, it Was resolved : " that forasmuch as William Bott one of the Aldermen, by report of credible persons, hath given such opprobrious words he is not worthy henceforth to be of the Council, he is expulsed." With peculiar satisfaction Symons must have penned this order in his picturesque Gothic hand, concluding with the words : " and to this agreement the Bailiff, Aldermen and Burgesses hereunto have subscribed their names and set their marks.' : But signatures and marks, if they were appended, are lost, and We have not the pleasure of seeing once more the glover's compasses of John Shakespeare, who was present, highest but one on the list of Burgesses attending. On June 18, two days before Bretch- girdle made his will at the Vicar's House on the opposite side of the Chapel lane, Richard Spooner, painter and decorator, living next door but one to New Place, enraged Master Bott by removing from his premises certain pieces of timber to which he thought himself entitled. They were lying squared and sawn in Bott's close, called the Barnyard adjoining New Place garden, and had been
 * Brit. Mus., 1346 g. 2 (32).