Note 698 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 7)

"Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliæ" (written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare, sat in Parliament): "Quæ omnia ferret æquanimeter [plebs communis] si dominus rex noster sive regnum istud exinde aliquid commodi vel emolumenti sumpsisse videretur; etiam plebi tolerabile, si in expediendis rebus bellicis, quamvis gestis minus prospere, tanta pecunia fuisset expensa. Sed palam est, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible regem carere infinita thesauri quantitate si fideles fuerint qui ministrant ei" (p. 73). The drift of the speech is, as may be seen, exactly the same as in the Rolls of Parliament. Another specimen of pithy eloquence will be found in the apostrophe addressed to the Earl of Stafford by John Philpot, a mercer of London, after his naval feat of 1378. Ibid., p. 200.