This strange thing hapned in the second time that he was elected Lord
Mayor and that was upon the twenty-seventh of April, being Tuesday
in Easter week: William Foxley, Pot maker for the Mint in the Tower
of London, fell asleep, and so continued sleeping and snoring and
could not be wakened with pricking, cramping, or otherwise burning or
whatsoever till the first day of the term, which was full 14 days and
15 nights. The cause of this his sleeping could not be known though
the same was diligently searched for by the King’s Command of his
Physicians and other learned men, yea the King himself examined the
said William Foxley, who was in all points sound at his awaking to be
as if he had slept but one night, and yet lived 41 years after. But in
length of time did call to mind how he did wish to God that he might
sleep a fortnight together if it was not so and so concerning a bargain
between a neighbour of his and himself.
One Thursday in Whitson week following the Duke of Somerset with
Anthony Rivers and four others kept Justs and Tournament before the
King and Queen and others of the nobility in the Tower of London,
against three Esquires of the Queen’s Bedchamber, which were performed
before some of the French nobility that then were Prisoners to the
King, which he took in France, to the great admiration of those
strangers who never saw the like action before, being so earnestly
performed. There was also Sir Richard Whittington and the two
Sheriffs, and that night the King and Queen did sup with the Lord Mayor.
Those strangers which beheld those Justs were prisoners in the Tower at
that time, namely, the Duke of Orleance and Burbon, brother to the Duke
of Britain, the Earls of Vaudosine, of Ewe and Richmond, and the High
Marshal of France, and many other Knights and Esquires to the number of
seven hundred, all which were at one time prisoners to the King, but
nobly used and attended every one according to their rank and quality,
who when they were ransomed made it known to their King how honourably
they were attended in England, and what respect the King and our
English nation shewed them being prisoners who might have taken their
lives away as well as their persons prisoners.
The second thing that was remarkable in Sir Richard Whittington’s year
was that the King kept his Christmas at Lambeth, and at the feast of
Purification seven Dolphins of the sea came up to the River of Thames
and played there up and down until four of them were kill’d.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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