The hero of the poem was the leader of a notorious band of robbers which infested the metropolis, and was probably alive at the time of its publication. He is mentioned by Samuel Rowlands in “Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell, his Defence and Answere to the Belman of London,” printed in 1610, who describes him in these terms:--“After him, succeeded by general councell, one Cocke Lorrell, the most notorious knave that ever lived: by trade he was a tinker, often carrying a panne and a hammer for show: but when he came to a good booty, he would cast his profession in a ditch, and play the padder,[1] and then would away, and as hee past through the toune, crie, ‘Ha you any worke for a tinker?’ To write of his knaveries it would aske a long time: I referre you to the old manuscript remayning on record in Maunder’s Hall.[2] This was he that reduced and brought in forme the Catalogue of Vagabonds, or Quarterne of Knaves, called the five and twentie Orders of Knaves: but because it is extant, and in every mans shop, I passe them over.... This Cocke Lorrell continued among them longer than any of his predecessors before him, or after him, for he ruled almost two and twentie yeares, until the yeare An. Dom. 1533, and about the five and twenty yeare of K. Henry the Eight.” The “Catalogue of Vagabonds” to which Rowlands alludes in the above extract as having been written by Cocke Lorell, is a tract printed by John Awdely in 1565, and of which a second edition was issued by the same printer in 1575. It is not improbable that Awdely may have himself been the compiler of the “Catalogue.” A copy of the edition of 1575 is in the Bodleian Library, the quaint title of which is as follows:--“The Fraternitye of Vacabondes. As wel of ruflyng Vacabondes, as of beggerly, of Women as of Men, of Gyrles as of Boyes, with their proper names and qualities. With a description of the crafty company of Cousoners and Shifters. Whereunto also is adioyned the XXV Orders of Knaues, otherwyse called a Quartern of Knaues Confirmed for euer by Cocke Lorell. _The Vprightman speaketh._ Our Brotherhood of Vacabondes, If you would know where dwell; In graues end Barge which seldome standes, The talke wyll shew ryght well. _Cocke Lorell aunswereth._ Some orders of my Knaues also In that Barge shall ye fynde; For no where shall ye walke I trow, But ye shall see their kynde. Imprinted at London by John Awdely, dwellynge in little Britayne Streete withoute Aldersgate, 1575.” Dr. Bliss describes the above mentioned tract at length, in the “British Bibliographer,” Vol. II., p. 12, and makes further allusion to it in his edition of Earle’s “Microcosmography,” p. 256, published in 1811.