pursuance of this arrangement, Edward Clase and Elizabeth, his wife, who had succeeded Thomas Peytevin, surrendered their lease to the Chamber in 1555. The Act Book also shows that Thomas Johnson was deprived of the tenure of the “New Inn” on the 25th July, 1582, and was succeeded by Valentine Tooker (or Tucker). This tenant had a misunderstanding with the municipal authorities, in which he induced some of his mercantile customers to take up his cause; for amongst the municipal records is a letter addressed to the Chamber on the 20th of June, 1612, in which Matthew Springham, Walter Clarke, John Pettye, and eighteen other London merchants, intercede for Tooker, who had received notice to quit his “nowe dwelling howse, the Newe Inn”; and they pray that in consideration of his years and services “some stipend may be given him.” Shortly after this, Valentine Tooker died, and in 1617 his sons, Thomas and Samuel, state, in a letter to Ignatius Jurdaine, the Mayor, that their father had recovered £43 13_s._ 4_d._ from the Chamber by a Decree in Chancery for being compelled to leave the New Inn, of which he had been tenant for many years, and they desired that it might be paid without putting them to the charge of taking out the Decree under the Great Seal. They thought it hard that their father should, without any just cause or indemnity, be thrust out of doors, “after keeping the New Inn for more than thirty years, behaving himself honestly, and paying his rent duly, albeit two or three several times raysed and enhanced therein on the promise afterwards to enjoy it for his life.” Notes are added in favour of the petitioners by the brothers Richard and Symon Baskerville. This Simon Baskerville, a near relative of the Mayor, was a man of note and influence at this time. He was the son of Thomas Baskerville, an Exeter apothecary, and was born in the city in 1573. He was successively appointed physician to James I. and Charles I., from the latter of whom he received the honour of knighthood. A mural tablet in St. Paul’s, London, records that “Near this place lyeth the body of that worthy and learned gentleman, Sir Simon Baskerville, Knight and Doctor in Physick, who departed this life the fifth of July, 1641, aged 68 years.” The transactions between the sons of Valentine Tooker and the Chamber appear to have closed on the 3rd of April, 1618, when they acknowledged the receipt from that body of £6 16_s._, “in full satisfaction, recompence and payment, of and for the full and uttermoste value of all those selynges, stayned or paynted, clothes, shelfes, and all other goods, chattels,” etc., left by them in the “New Inn.”