t captains for the
severe campaign, and he ran his keen eye over England and beyond it for
wise, learned, and godly men who could help a stranger. He wrote a
touchingly humble letter to Archbishop Baldwin to help him to find
worthy right-hand men, "for you are bred among them, you have long been
a leader, and you know them 'inside and under the skin,' as the saying
goes." Baldwin, an Exeter labourer by birth, by turns a schoolmaster,
archdeacon, Cistercian abbot, Bishop of Worcester, and primate--a
silent, dark, strong man, gentle, studious, and unworldly--was delighted
at the request. He sent off Robert of Bedford, an ardent reformer and
brilliant scholar, and Roger Roldeston, another distinguished scholar,
who afterwards was Dean of Lincoln. These, like Aaron and Hur, upheld
the lawgiver's hands, and they, with others of a like kidney, soon
changed the face of affairs. Robert died early, but Roger was made
Archdeacon of Leicester, confessor, and at the end executor to the
bishop. After gathering captains the next thing was an eight-fold lash
for abuses--decrees (1) against bribes; (2) against vicars who would not
sing Mass save for extra pay; (3) against swaggering archdeacons who
suspended churches, and persons beyond their beat. These gentlemen, in
the absence of a bishop, seem to have grown into popes at the least. (4)
Mass not to be laid as a penance upon any non-priestly person. This was
a nimble way by which confessors fined penitents to their own profit.
(5) Annual and other customary masses to be said without temporal gain.
(6) Priestly administration only to be undertaken by those who are
proved to be duly ordained by the archbishop or one of his suffragans:
forged orders being plentiful. (7) Incumbents to be tonsured, and clergy
to wear "the crown" instead of love-locks. (8) Clergy not to sue clergy
in ecclesiastical cases before civil justices, Erastian knaves being
active, even then.

Next year brought a much more fighting foe, Godfrey the chief forestar.
There was a Forest Assize only three years back, and a great outbreak of
game preserving, dog licensing, bow confiscating, fines, imprisonment
and slaughter, new rights for old tyrants, boys of twelve and clergy to
be sworn to the hunting peace, mangling of mastiffs, banishment of
tanners and parchmenters from woodlands--and if this was within the law,
what could not be done without the law by these far away and favoured
gamekeepers? The country groaned.