ut fuel, instead of which
the rectory of South Petherton, and its four daughter chapelries, was
handed over to this bereaved convent. This was in April, 1181. This
transaction was some gain to the game-loving king, for the Withamites
ate neither pork nor beef, and so the stags had freer space and more
fodder.

But nevertheless the monks' poverty was almost ludicrous. Hugh wanted
even a complete and accurate copy of the scriptures, which he used to
say were the solitary's delight and riches in peace, his darts and arms
in war, his food in famine and his medicine in sickness. Henry asked why
his scribes did not make copies. The answer was that there was no
parchment. "How much money do you want?" asked the king. "One silver
mark," was the ungrasping request. Henry laughed and ordered ten marks
to be counted out and promised a complete "divine library" besides. The
Winchester monks had just completed a lovely copy (still in existence).
King Henry heard from a student of this fine work and promptly sent for
the prior. With fair words and fine promises he asked for the Bible. The
embarrassed monk could not well say no, and the book was soon in Hugh's
hands. This Prior Robert shortly after visited Witham and politely hoped
the copy was satisfactory. If not, a better one could be made, for great
pains had been taken by St. Swithun's brethren to make this one
agreeably to their own use and custom. Hugh was astonished. "And so the
king has beguiled your Church thus of your needful labour? Believe me,
my very dear brother, the Library shall be restored to you instantly.
And I beg most earnestly through you that your whole fraternity will
deign to grant pardon to our humility because we have ignorantly been
the occasion of this loss of their codex." The prior was in a fright, as
well he might be, at the shadow of the king's wrath. He assured Hugh
that his monks were all delighted at the incident. "To make their
delight continue, we must all keep quiet about the honest restoration of
your precious work. If you do not agree to take it back secretly, I
shall restore it to him who sent it hither; but if you only carry it off
with you, we shall give him no inkling of the matter." So the Winchester
monks got back their Bible, and Witham got the said Prior Robert as one
of its pupils instead, fairly captured by the electric personality of
the Carthusian.

Though Hugh's influence was very great, we must not quite suppose that
the king b