The time being come when he was prickt for Sheriff he modestly refused
it as unable to take so great a charge, and would willingly have paid
his fine, which his father-in-law would not suffer, at whose persuasion
he took the place upon him, in which he so well behaved himself in the
management of all affairs belonging to his office that he not only left
it without the least taxation, but with a general love and approbation,
insomuch that the universal eye of the whole city was fixt upon him in
an hopeful expectation what a profitable member of that united body he
might futurely prove, and this hapned in the year of our Lord 1493, Sir
John Hodley grocer being mayor and Drewerie Barentine his fellow
Sheriff, of the truth of which Mr. Fabian in his _Chronicle_ and Mr.
John Stow in his _Survey of London_ can fully satisfie you.

In the year 1497 and the one and twentieth of the same Kings reign, Sir
Richard Whittington was Lord Mayor of London, John Woodcok and William
Askam being Sheriffs, and he held the place with great reputation and
honour. In which time of his Mayoralty there was much discontent in the
kingdom, by reason of many differences betwixt the King and the Commons;
the circumstances whereof were here too long to relate, only one thing
is worthy of observation that whether by his adventures or no may it be
questioned, bringing in yearly such store of gold, silks, sattins,
velvets, damasks, stones, and jewels, &c. into the kingdom might be the
cause of that great pride and rioting in apparel which was used in those
days. But as Harding, Fabian, and others have left to me how in that
year of his Mayoralty and after there resorted to the Kings Court at
their pleasures daily, at the least ten thousand persons. In his kitchin
were three hundred servitors, and in every office according to that
rate. Moreover of ladies, chambermaids, and laundresses about three
hundred, and they all exceeded in gorgeous and costly apparel far above