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62 VERSES ON THE EXCHEQUER January Nam thesaurator ac Henricus tibi gaudent Dum cupis esse dator, quia propter munera plaudent. 20 fo. 234. Percipiant doni camera tores ibi bini, Aurum sunt proni sibi sumere vasaque vini. Tu sic vexate, per tortores cruciate, Non dices vere propter tales, Miserere ? Die, Confundantur omnes qui sic operantur ; 25 Die quod bufo crati, Maledicti tot dominati. Amen. The poem can be dated approximately by the names of the two remembrancers, Thresk and Bank. Robert Thresk was appointed king's remembrancer on 28 July 1398 and held office till 141 9. 1 Richard Bank was actually lord treasurer's remem- brancer in 1404. 2 In 1410 he was promoted to be one of the barons. 3 The date of the poem, therefore, is probably between 1398 and 1410. During this time John Bell, to whom the poem is attributed in the Lansdowne MS. 259, 4 was a customer of Boston and the adjacent ports. In 1389 he was appointed controller of the collectors of the subsidy in Boston and all ports between Grimsby and Wisbech. 5 Customs accounts are extant by John Bell as one of the two collectors for Boston from 13-14 Richard II to 6-7 Henry V. 6 His name appears frequently on the patent rolls between 1389 and 1419. He was evidently a man of some wealth and local importance. He received a grant of land in Boston from the queen for sixty years at 13s. 4d. a year in 1386. This was confirmed by the king in 1391, when the grant was made perpetual. 7 He and others received a mandate from the pope in 1392 allowing them to found three chantries in the churches of Leek and Leverton, and to augment a chantry already founded. 8 In the same year he and seven other tenants 19.' ac L ; hac 0. 23. L reads Tu sic vexatus tortoribus et cruciatus Foelix es natus ab eis cum sis liberatus Pro talibus vere non die Deus o miserere [Talia tunc propter mestus dices Miserere i?] Sed confundantur 1 See Jones, Index to Becords, ii., s.v. Rememorator ; [Cal. of Patent Bolls, 1396-9, p. 374 ; 1399-1401, p. 5 ; 1416-22, pp. 217, 247 ; cf. Wylie, Henry V, i. 41 ; Hansisches Urkunderibuch, vi, no. 233.] 2 Issue Rolls, 1404. 3 Rot. Pat., 11 Henry IV, pt. 11, m. 13 ; Cal. of Patent Bolls, 1403-13, p. 205. 4 [Some lines in the poem are cited from a different text by James P. Andrews, Hist, of Great Britain (1795), ii. 143, who ascribes them to Henry Bell, collector of the customs, c. 1412.] 5 Cal. of Patent Bolls, 1388-92, p. 50. 6 K. R. Customs Accounts, 7/21 (13-14 Richard II), 7/23 (14-15 Richard II), 7/25 and 7/26 (15 Richard II), 8/5 (3 Henry IV), 8/7 (5-6 Henry IV), 8/16 (10 Henry IV), 8/18 (10-11 Henry IV), 8/26 (4-5 Henry V), 8/28 (6-7 Henry V). 7 Cal. of Patent Bolls, 1388-92, p. 424. 8 Cal. of Papal Letters, 1362-1404, p. 422.