Moreover it is recorded that in the time of this worthy pretor Sir Richard Whittington the glorious city of Constantinople was taken by Mahomet the Second, Prince of the Turks, whose souldiers sacked it with all extremity and omitted no manners of cruelty by violence to either virgins, aged women, or sucking babes.  This Sir Richard Whittington had traffick from thence by his factors which there abode, and were then taken prisoners, so that he lost near upon fifteen thousand pounds, which when he heard of never was so much as cast down or dismayed, but said God will send more; yea such was the incessant practice of the Turkish tyranny upon this imperial city, as it exceeded the damage, rapes and spoyls of other cities.  They also beheaded at the same time Constantine, sticking his head upon a launce, and with derision caused it to be carried thorow the Turkish camp.

In the space of a week after, there hapned a horrible tempest of thunder and lightning which burned almost eight hundred houses and spoiled three thousand people at the sacking of the aforesaid city by the said Mahomet.  The Turks found therein so much treasure that they wondred that the citizens would not spend it in souldiers for their own defence, but so dotingly to spare the true spending thereof to become an enticing prey for their irreconcileable enemies, for indeed it was thought that if the State would have hired souldiers, and given them good pay they might have raised the siege of the Turks.  It is an old and true saying, Covetousness is the mother of ruine and mischief.

This strange thing happened in the second time that he was elected Lord Mayor and that was upon the twenty-seventh of April, being Tuesday in Easter week:  William Foxley, Pot maker for the Mint in the Tower of London, fell asleep, and so continued sleeping and snoring and could not be wakened with pricking, cramping, or otherwise burning or whatsoever till the first day of the term, which was full 14 days and 15 nights.  The cause of this his sleeping could not be known though the same was diligently searched for by the King’s Command of his Physicians and other learned men, yea the King himself examined the said William Foxley, who was in all points sound at his awaking to be as if he had slept but one night, and yet lived 41 years after.  But in length of time did call to mind how he did wish to God that he might sleep a fortnight together if it was not so and so concerning a bargain between a neighbour of his and himself.

One Thursday in Whitson week following the Duke of Somerset with Anthony Rivers and four others kept Justs and Tournament before the King and Queen and others of the nobility in the Tower of London, against three Esquires of the Queen’s Bedchamber, which were performed before some of the French nobility that then were Prisoners to the King, which he took in France, to the great admiration of those strangers who never saw the like action before, being so earnestly performed.  There was also Sir Richard Whittington and the two Sheriff’s, and that night the King and Queen did sup with the Lord Mayor.