101, 10. _precept of Seneca._ Mr. Arnold says: "Many things resembling this sentiment occur in the 109th Epistle of Seneca; but probably the passage is somewhere else in his works."
103, 18. _thrown down the standard._ Henry of Essex's act of cowardice took place in 1157, during an expedition into Flintshire, when the Welsh made a sudden attack. His dropping the standard brought King Henry II. and the Royal army into great peril (Gervase, i. 165, Rolls ed.).
104, 1. _Roger Earl of Clare._ There seems to be an attempt at punning, at this point, by the monk who wrote the original story in Latin: "Rogerus comes Clarensis, clarus genere et militari clarior exercitis, cum suis Clarensibus maturius occurrisset."
104, 9. _trial of battle._ This fight between Henry of Essex and Robert de Montfort took place in 1163 (Ralph de Diceto, _Ymag. Hist_. i. 310, Rolls ed.), on an eyot in the Thames, and is still traditionally remembered at Reading.
106, 6. _stay at Melford._ The manor of Melford was given to the monastery in the time of Leofstan (second Abbot) by Earl Alfric, the son of Withgar (Parker's _History of Long Melford_, p. 1). At Long Melford, 13 miles south of Bury, was a country house belonging to the Abbots of Bury; and at the present Melford Hall there are said to be still some relics of this occupancy. After Samson died, in 1211, there was a dispute that lasted a considerable time as to the validity of the election of Hugo, his successor; and the Papal Legate, Nicholas, Bishop of Tusculum, who tried vainly to compose it, stayed for some time at Melford (Arnold, ii. 46). Abbot Simon of Luton died at his manor of Melford in April, 1279.
108, 8, 13. _forty pounds a year from the town._ Battely prints (_App._ xvii. 149) a letter from Pope Eugenius III. (no date) addressed to Helyas, the sacrist (Ording's nephew), confirming Ording's instructions as to the rents of the town being applied to the service of the Altar.
112, 8. _Charter from King Henry the Second._ "All the men of London shall be quit and free, and all their goods throughout England, and the ports of the sea, of and from all toll and passage and lestage and all other customs" (Charter Henry I.). "All the citizens of London shall be quit from toll and lastage throughout all England and the ports of the sea" (Charter of Henry II.--confirmed by Charter of Richard I., 23 April, 1194, and by Charter of John, 17 June, 1199). (Birch's _Historical Charters of the City of London_, 1887, pp. 3, 5.)