did present her husband, the 3rd Earl of March, with a daughter who in process of time became the wife of Harry Hotspur, yet it does not appear that she was equally blessed during the year 1372-3. Such duties sensibly performed, William Colchester was not long in attaining to administrative office. To begin with, Abbot Litlington chose him as his Custos Hospicii; _i.e._ Seneschal or steward of his household. We have the roll on which the young monk gave an account of his stewardship for the year Michaelmas to Michaelmas, 1373-4, and as the doings it records represent his early experience of that conventual business in which he was to be immersed for nearly half a century, we may stay by it for a short space in order to get our impressions. He found his master in possession of a considerable rent-roll in various parts of the country, the manors being situate in the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Surrey, Buckingham, and Middlesex. The rentals amounted to £696 13_s._ 6_d._, and the sale of stock, including an ox sold for 18_s._ 4_d._, and a cow--timore pestilencie--for 13_s._, brought the total to £719 8_s._ 8_d._ Large as this sum sounds, especially when multiplied to correspond with present values, it was none too large for the needs of the position. Household expenses, which are not entered in detail, came to £151 1_s._ 4-1/2_d._ The purchase of live-stock--grey palfreys, bullocks, cows, steers, sheep, pigs, swans, poultry, and no less than 966 pigeons at about 1/2_d._ each--required £63 2_s._ 10_d._, and the outlay on dead stock such as bacon, salt-fish, five barrels of white herring, fourteen casks of red herring, and three casks of Scottish red herring, amounted to £31 8_s._ 4_d._ Lest it should be claimed that the Scottish variety was a special delicacy, we must add that the latter cost only 4_s._ a barrel as against 5_s._ 6_d._ for the other. Nor, if the quantities seem large, must it be lightly concluded that there was carelessness in the dispensation; indeed, it was the Seneschal's duty to enter on the back of his roll a stock-keeping account, from which it may be gleaned that all the herrings were consumed and eighty pigs; but there was a residue of five salt-fish and of two out of sixteen bullocks. Altogether in corn and wine and clothing and gifts to visitors and in other ways there was an expenditure of £684 to set against a revenue of £719.