and horse-hair cloth. Blomefield, the Norfolk
historian, records that in the reign of Henry the
Eighth the yearly sale of Norwich stuffs alone
amounted to two hundred thousand pounds,
and of stockings to sixty thousand pounds. In
1770, Arthur Young (who by-the-by was here
burnt in effigy) represents the analogous
amount at one million two hundred thousand
pounds.

Many of our kings and queens visited this
city, generally when on their way as pilgrims
to Walsingham.

There is a Paston letter extant which records
some particulars of the visit of Henry the
Sixth. William Paston, writing from Sheen,
in 1473, writes that the king was just setting
out for Norwich. "He will be there," he says,
"on Palm Sunday even, and so tarry there all
Easter, and then to Walsingham; wherefore ye
had need warn William Gognez and his fellows
to purvey them of wine enough, for every man
beareth me in hand that the town shall be
drunk dry as York was when the king was there;
and all the best-looking gentlewomen were to
be assembled, for my Lord hath made great
boast of the fayre and good gentlewomen of
the country, and so the king said he would see
them sure." An earlier letter of the same
collection incidentally mentions that as much
victuals could be bought at Norwich for one
penny, as at Calais for fifteenpence, and "a
pye of Wymondham" to boot.

Mousehold Heath, to the east of Norwich, is
a practising ground for riflemen now, as it
was for archers when Kett, the tanner, sat in
royal state under the Gospel Oak. It was
here that Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury,
came out to preach to the fierce insurgents who
built on the heath rude huts made of boughs
and sods of turf. On the same height dwelt
Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Queen Elizabeth,
when at Norwich, visited his mansion.

In the church of St. Peter, Mancroft, whose
lofty tower overhangs the market-place, lies a
great Norwich worthy, Sir Thomas Browne,
the author of those strange but delightful
books, Religio Medici, Urn Burial, and The
Garden of Cyrus. His life, written by Dr.
Johnson in 1756, first recalled public attention
to this learned physician of Charles the
Second's time, of whom his editor said: "There
is no science in which he does not discover
some skill, and scarce any kind of
knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
which he does not appear to have cultivated
with success."

The crow cannot leave Norwich without
remembering that Bishop Corbet lies in the
cathedral. "Where be his gibes now?" This
jovial, jocular prelate, now so quiet at the
upper end of the choir, was chaplain to King
James the First, who, in 1627, made him Dean
of Christchurch, where he wrote those lines on
Great Tom, which end with

And though we are grieved to see thee thumpt and
       banged,
We'll all be glad, Great Tom, to see thee hanged.

Bishop Corbet (the son of a gardener) was
fond of a joke, and never too careful of his
own dignity. Once, on a market-day, a ballad
singer complaining to him of want of custom,
Corbet put on the man's leather jacket, and
being a handsome person with a clear, full
voice, soon sold off the man's songs. Once,
when he was confirming, and the country people
pressed on him, he shouted to them, "Bear
off there, or I'll confirm you with my staff!"
It is said that he and his chaplain, Dr.
Lushington, used to sometimes visit the wine-cellar.
Then Corbet would throw off his episcopal
hood and cry, "Lie there, doctor," then his
gown, with "Lie there, bishop." Then the
toasts went round: "Here's to thee, Corbet,"
"Here's to thee, Lushington."

At Walsingham the crow, though bound for
Cromer, alights for a survey, the quiet town
at the foot of the wooded slope having been
the great centre of mediæval pilgrimages, and
more celebrated even than Becket's tomb at
Canterbury. Erasmus came here, when he
was professor at Cambridge, sneering safely
under the shadow of his hood. He calls it,
in his Colloquies, "the most celebrated place
throughout all England, situated at the
extreme coast of England, on the north-
west (north-east), at about three miles
distance from the sea." He goes on to say that
the glitter of gold and jewels at the shrine
"made it resemble the seat of the gods."
Nor does he forget a gibe or two on the monks
in his sly way, when he mentions "the
undoubted milk of the Virgin," which had been
brought from Constantinople, and looked like
chalk, or the dried white of eggs; and the
fragments of the true cross, which were so numerous
in Europe, that if put together they would load
an East India ship. Great, too, was his quiet
enjoyment of the fact that the Walsingham
monks mistook a Greek inscription for Hebrew.
He also listened complacently to his monkish
guide, who took him to the old gate-house,
still standing, and told him the miracle that had
happened there, when, in 1314, Sir Raaf Boutetourt,
a Norfolk knight, being hotly pursued
by an enemy, prayed Our Lady for deliverance,
and was instantly projected, horse,
armour, and all, through a wicket only an ell
high and three-quarters broad; the best proof
of the miracle being that a brass commemorating
the event was to be seen nailed to the
gate.

Many of our kings came to Walsingham with
cocked hat and sandled shoon, with wallets at
their side, and calibashes hanging from their
staves. Henry the Third was there in 1248;
Edward the First twice—1280, 1296; Edward
the Second and Edward the Third also visited
the shrine, and in the reign of the latter monarch
David Bruce, King of Scotland, and twenty of
his knights, obtained a safe conduct to come
hither from the wardens of the marches. Henry
the Sixth was the next king to seek the Norfolk
shrine; Henry the Seventh, too, after keeping
his Christmas at Norwich, visited Our Lady's
Church at Walsingham, and made his prayers
and vows for help and deliverance. When the