PREFACE. HE period covered by this Volume extends from November 1586 The entries in the Black Books are of the same character as those contained in Vol. I., with one omission from the year 1642 onwards. After that date, the Pensioner's and the Treasurer's Rolls were no longer copied into the Black Books: and the detailed record of expenditure in these books comes to an end. A Red Book, begun in 1614, "concerning Chambers only and in which all orders concerning Chambers and all admittances into Chambers were to be entered," contains entries which indirectly give much information about the sites of the various buildings of the Inn. Entries from the Red Books have, where material, been inserted in the text. A third book or series of books, called the White Book, was begun in p. 214 1619. An order made in that year runs, "there shall be provided a Book for Rules, Respites, Considerations, and Remembrances at Councils, so as the same shall not need to be entered into the Black or Red Books, until they come to be resolved or conclusive orders." It is probably in the White Books, that were entered "the ordinary directions and dispatch of such p. 191 matters of the House as daily did arise to be ordered and decided at the Bench table." No doubt the White Books contained many entries which would at this distance of time have been of interest, and it is to be regretted that no one of the series has been preserved to this day. Another "Book of Remembrance was ordered in 1654 to be kept with the Black Books in the Library": this was either the White Book or the same as "the entry of the abstract of the House evidences (ie., title deeds) collected by Mr. Prynne in the Leiger Book of the evidences." This too has disappeared. THE HALL. Perhaps at a later stage, a satisfactory account of the internal arrangements of the Hall may be put together. At present, collation of the scattered notices from which an account has to be built up reveals discrepancies which cannot now be reconciled; the reason being (it would seem) that on the building of the Chapel, the site of the Buttery was changed and structural a |