For Francis Bacon, ‘just and parfitte historie’ had three forms–the chronicle of a ‘time’, the ‘life’ of a person and the narrative of an ‘action’, and this book is none of them, particularly it is not a ‘life’ of Thomas Kebell. But it is impossible to investigate over more than two decades the career of a single individual, so that any index automatically falls open at the letter ‘K’, without wanting to know something of the man himself. And here is temptation. It is all too easy to disguise ignorance with probability–‘some others were, therefore Kebell was’–or to invest the known with plausible imaginative colour–‘In June 1484 Kebell rode to Kirby Muxloe with a heavy heart’–or to exaggerate a supporting role–‘Kebell was present, therefore Kebell did’. Much of our evidence must come from the year books, and J.H. Baker has warned that reports and the like

are not materials on which to assess character or ability–a judicial biography of that kind is only appropriate for those very few judges… whose contributions are marked and remarkable.

The caution is just, and even more true of counsel, so that discretion would leave the character and abilities of Kebell in that historical limbo of things we shall never know. But indiscretion is sometimes irresistible, and, for what they are worth, some speculative conclusions about Kebell's ideas, attitudes and personality can be offered.