Note 446 — Chapter V

D'Ewes, 291; Hatsell, 93. The latter says, "I cannot but suspect, that there was some private history in this affair, some particular offence against the queen, with which we are unacquainted." But I believe the explanation I have given will be thought more to the purpose; and so far from having offended the queen, Hall seems to have had a patron in Lord Burleigh, to whom he wrote many letters, complaining of the Commons, which are extant in the Lansdowne collection. He seems to have been a man of eccentric and unpopular character, and had already incurred the displeasure of the Commons in the session of 1572, when he was ordered to be warned by the serjeant to appear at the bar "to answer for sundry lewd speeches used as well in the house as elsewhere." Another entry records him to have been "charged with seven several articles, but having humbly submitted himself to the house, and confessed his folly, to have been upon the question released with a good exhortation from the speaker." D'Ewes, 207, 212.