Item. It was so, that Alice, Duchess, that time Countess of Suffolk, lately in person came to this city, disguised like a country house-wife. Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and two other persons, went with her, also disguised; and they, to take their disports, went out of the city one evening, near night, so disguised, towards a hovel called Lakenham Wood, to take the air, and disport themselves, beholding the said city. One Thomas Ailmer, of Norwich, esteeming in his conceit that the said duchess and Sir Thomas had been other persons, met them, and opposed their going out in that wise, and fell at variance with the said Sir Thomas, so that they fought; whereby the said duchess was sore afraid; by cause whereof the said duchess and Sir Thomas took a displeasure against the city, notwithstanding that the mayor of the city at that time being, arrested Thomas Ailmer, and held him in prison more than thirty weeks without bail; to the intent thereby both to chastise Ailmer, and to appease the displeasure of the said duchess and Sir Thomas; and also the said mayor arrested and imprisoned all other persons which the said duchess and Sir Thomas could understand had in any way given favour or comfort to the said Ailmer, in making the affray. Notwithstanding which punishment, the displeasure of the duchess and Sir Thomas was not appeased. And it is so, moreover, that one John Haydon, late was recorder of the city, taking of the mayor and citizens a reasonable fee, as the recorder is accustomed; he, being so recorded, had interlaced himself with the prior of Norwich, at that time being _in travers_ with the said mayor and commonality, and discovered the privity of the evidence of the said city to the said prior, because whereof the mayor and commons of the said city discharged the said Haydon of the condition of recorder; for which Haydon took a displeasure against the said city. By malice of these displeasures of the said duchess, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and John Haydon, the Duke of Suffolk, then earl, in his person, upon many suggestions by the said Tuddenham and Haydon to him made, that the mayor, aldermen, and commonality aforesaid, should have misgoverned the city, laboured and made to be taken out of the chancery a commission of over determiner. And thereupon, at a sessions holden at Thetford, the Thursday next after the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, the said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, finding in their conceit no manner or matter of truth whereof they might cause the said mayor and commonality there to be indicted, imagined thus as ensueth: first, they _sperde an inquest_, _then taken_ in a chamber, at one Spilmer’s house; in which chamber the said T. _lodged_, _and so kept them sperde_.