* * * *
It is good-to see that Dr. Gladys A. Thornton's History of Clare, Suffolk, has passed into a cheaper edition (Cambridge, Helfer, 10s. 6d.), for it is a most interesting and scholarly work by an expert hand. Clare is now a quiet little town, near Sudbury. In the early Middle Ages it was the fortified seat of a powerful family who took their name from the place. Simon de Montfort had cause, for example, to lament the defection of first Richard, and then Gilbert, of Clare. Gilbert's daughter founded Clare College, Cambridge. Her daughter married Lionel, son of Edward III, and Lionel's title of Duke of Clarence was evolved from the Honour of Clare. The lands passed to the Mortimers, and thence to Richard of York, and to Edward IV, and to the Tudor Kings later. Moreover, Clare was for centuries a seat of the woollen industry, first of the old broadcloth and then of the " new draperies "—the " bays " and " says," or rough serges, for which Suffolk was noted up to about 1700. Dr. Thornton has collected much new material from the records about this woollen trade, and worked it into a really valuable monograph. One Poulter, a solicitor who had become lord of the manor, is credited with having killed the industry by forbidding his tenants' children to become apprentices. He was fearful, it seems, lest aged weavers should want poor relief, and therefore sought to drive the trade away.
• (Continued on page 717.)
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