The Whitsun playes were playd openly in pageants by the Cittizens of Chester in the Whitsun Weeke. Nicholas the fift Then was Pope in the year of our Lord 1447. Ano 1628. Sir Henry ffrancis, sometyme a Monke of the Monestery of Chester, obtained of Pope Clemens a thousand daies of pardon, and of the Bishop of Chester 40 dayes pardon for every person that resorted peaceably to see the same playes, and that every person that disturbed the same, to be accursed by the said Pope untill such tyme as they should be absolued therof.’ (_f_) 1669. Randle Holme made a note upon his copy of the ‘White Book of the Pentice’ (_Harl._ 2150, f. 86ᵇ), of the ‘Whitson plaies ... being first presented and putt into English by Rand. Higden, a monck of Chester Abbey.’ (_g_) _Seventeenth century._ A ‘later hand’ added to the copy of Newhall’s proclamation on the fly-leaf of MS. _h_ (1600) of the plays: ‘Sir Io Arnway, maior 1327 and 1328, at which tyme these playes were written by Randall Higgenett, a monk of chester abby, and played openly in the witson weeke.’ (_h_) _Seventeenth century._ An account of the plays amongst Lord De Tabley’s MSS.[782] assigns them to ‘Randall Higden, a monk of Chester Abbey, A. D. 1269.’ Up to a certain point these fragments of tradition are consistent and, _a priori_, not improbable. About 1328 is just the sort of date to which one would look for the formation of a craft-cycle. Randall or Randulf Higden[783], the author of the _Polychronicon_, took the vows at St. Werburgh’s in 1299 and died in 1364. An accident makes it possible also to identify Sir Henry Francis, for he is mentioned as senior monk of Chester Abbey in two documents of May 5, 1377, and April 17, 1382.[784] The occurrence of the name of this quite obscure person in a tradition of some 200 years later is, I think, evidence that it is not wholly an unfounded one. It is true that Newhall’s proclamation states that Francis ‘devised and made’ the plays, whereas the Banns of 1575 and the later accounts assign the ‘devise’ to ‘done Rondall.’ But this discrepancy seems to have afforded no difficulty to the writer of 1628, who clearly thought that Heggenet ‘made’ the plays, and Francis obtained the ‘pardon’ for them. The Pope Clement concerned is probably Clement VI (1342-52), but might be the Antipope Clement VII (1378-94). The one point which will not harmonize with the rest is that about which, unfortunately, the tradition is most uniform, namely, the connexion of the plays with the mayoralty of Sir John Arneway. For neither Higden nor Francis could have worked for a mayor whose terms of office extended from 1268 to 1277. But even this difficulty does not appear to be insoluble. I find from Canon Morris’s invaluable volume that a later mayor bearing a name very similar to Arneway’s, one Richard Erneis or Herneys, was in office from 1327 to 1329, precisely at the date to which the tradition, in some of its forms, ascribes the plays.