is clearly not autograph; but these additions, together with the title and colophon,[92] are in a different handwriting, and, although the editor seems to have been unaware of the fact, it is beyond question that of William Worcester, or Botoner, who was not only Fastolf’s servant and secretary, but is also known as an annalist and a diligent collector of matter on historical, topographical and other subjects.[93] The editor therefore dismissed his claims to the authorship of the work rather too hastily, for, as the final touches were certainly his, the only question is whether he was also responsible for the whole of it from its inception. From the limit of date of the events mentioned there is some reason to believe that it was originally composed within Fastolf’s lifetime and was only revised and enlarged in 1475 for a special occasion; and its date may perhaps be fixed still more exactly, since there is an allusion (p. 42) to “another gret armee and voiage fordone for defaut and lak of spedy payment _this yere_ of Crist M^lccccli.” Apart from the final additions there is evidence to connect Worcester with it in a passage of the prologue to a series of documents relating to the wars in France which were collected by him,[94] mainly no doubt from materials that belonged to Fastolf, and which may be regarded as _pièces justificatives_ to the “Boke of Noblesse.” This collection also appears to have been designed for Edward IV., but the original prologue was awkwardly recast, as we now have it, after Worcester’s death by his son for dedication to Richard III. The passage in it referred to, for which he is responsible, is as follows: “And I, as moost symple of reasone, youre righte humble legemane, cannot atteyne to understond the reasons and bokes that many wise philosophurs of gret auctorite have writtene upone this vertue of Force, but that my pore fadyr, William Worcestre ... toke upone hym to write in this mater and compiled this boke to the most highe and gretly redoubted kyng, your most nobille brodyr and predecessoure, shewyng after his symple connyng, after the seyng of the masters of philosophie, as Renatus Vegesius in his Boke of Batayles, also Julius Frontinus in his Boke of Knyghtly Laboures, callid in Greke Stratagematon, a new auctoure callid The Tree of Batayles.”