by-gone events that serve to cast a ray of intellectual sunshine

over the dusky town and the ruined hamlet, will be left

The Miscellaneous Rolls in the Queen's Remembrancer's Office, give the following disbursements for repairs carried on at Rockingham castle.

In the year 1279^[1] expended on

For the expenses of Master Thomas, in the week in which was the feast of St. Lawrence, upon the stars, in the little chamber of the king and in the great chamber of the king—(circa astres or astros), probably stars of Bethlehem (a common conventional decoration, as may still be seen on a cope of crimson velvet preserved at Chipping Campden, and also on the vaulting of the Blessed Virgin's chapel in the cathedral of Canterbury), and upon stools (stanna) in the Queen's chamber, stairs and windows in the tower, and plastering the rooms there, and placing a cage (cabies) upon the wall of the tower and barbecan, with his eight underlings, because they were found in victuals (quia præbentur), 9s. 6d. The cage was a kind of defence in which men standing under shelter might throw down stones and fire on the besiegers; it was sometimes called a lantern.

To Michael de Welydon, John de Cotingham, and Maurice de Stanerne, layers, making the walls about the greenhouse (viridarium) near the chamber of the Queen, 3s. 6d. namely to each, 1s. 2d. In payment to seven labourers