RICHARD TAYLOR, PRINTER, SHOE-LANE. [Illustration: ALERE FLAMMAM.] [Illustration: Fac-simile of a page of the Chronicle of London in the Harleian M.S. 565, fol. 37. _J. Shuttleworth & Co. Lithog^{rs}. 28 Poultry._] TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LONDON. This Volume presents to your notice an early Chronicle of the great Metropolis over which you preside. The rising taste for literature, and particularly that part of it relating to the History of your ancient City, which has lately been evinced by you in the formation of a Library, as well as in the private Collections made by several of your members on the same subject, renders it probable that the publication of this Chronicle, which has never before been printed, may not be deemed unacceptable. Amongst the "Illustrations" will be found some interesting and important documents taken from the Archives of your Corporation;--they give a faint idea of the valuable historical information contained in your Records; and it may be hoped that these specimens will induce you to follow the example set by the Great Council of the Nation in printing the Parliamentary Records, and that at no very distant period measures may be taken for the publication of such of the documents in your possession as will illustrate the History of England, and of the City of London. [Illustration: [signature] E^{d.} Tyrrell.] London, February 1827. PREFACE. The present period is so distinguished for historical research, that the publication of an English Chronicle, written in the fifteenth century, will not it is presumed require any other prefatory remarks to recommend it to attention, than a brief account of the MSS. from which it has been transcribed. Two copies are extant in the British Museum; the one in the Harleian MS. 565, the other in the Cottonian MS. Julius B. I. and the material variations between them are either alluded to, or inserted in the Notes. The copy in the Harleian MS. ends with the 22nd year of the reign of Henry the Sixth, Anno 1442, about which time the volume was evidently written: but the other transcript, which is in a much later hand, is continued to the death of Edward the Fourth, Anno 1483, though after the accession of that monarch the narrative is barren and unsatisfactory. It may therefore be inferred that the original compiler did not survive the death of Henry the Sixth, and that the continuation was by another person. With the events of that period the writer is consequently to be deemed contemporary; and all which he relates of the reigns of Henry the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth, are peculiarly deserving of notice; for some curious facts are mentioned, many of which have never, it is believed, been so fully detailed, even if they were previously known; whilst of earlier times his statements are as worthy of credit as those of other Chroniclers who did not live in the ages of which they respectively treat.