rontals, the books of the library, the very vats and dishes of the
kitchen, all disappeared. The monks estimated their losses at ten thousand
pounds. But the townsmen aimed at higher booty than this. The monks were
brought back from prison to their own chapter-house, and the spoil of their
registry, papal bulls and royal charters, deeds and bonds and mortgages,
were laid before them. Amidst the wild threats of the mob they were forced
to execute a grant of perfect freedom and of a gild to the town as well as
of free release to their debtors. Then they were left masters of the ruined
house. But all control over town or land was gone. Through spring and
summer no rent or fine was paid. The bailiffs and other officers of the
abbey did not dare to show their faces in the streets. News came at last
that the abbot was in London, appealing for redress to the court, and the
whole county was at once on fire. A crowd of rustics, maddened at the
thought of revived claims of serfage, of interminable suits of law, poured
into the streets of the town. From thirty-two of the neighbouring villages
the priests marched at the head of their flocks as on a new crusade. The
wild mass of men, women, and children, twenty thousand in all, as men
guessed, rushed again on the abbey, and for four November days the work of
destruction went on unhindered. When gate, stables, granaries, kitchen,
infirmary, hostelry had gone up in flames, the multitude swept away to the
granges and barns of the abbey farms. Their plunder shows what vast
agricultural proprietors the monks had become. A thousand horses, a hundred
and twenty plough-oxen, two hundred cows, three hundred bullocks, three
hundred hogs, ten thousand sheep were driven off, and granges and barns
burned to the ground. It was judged afterwards that sixty thousand pounds
would hardly cover the loss.

Weak as was the government of Mortimer and Isabella, the appeal of the
abbot against this outrage was promptly heeded. A royal force quelled the
riot, thirty carts full of prisoners were despatched to Norwich;
twenty-four of the chief townsmen with thirty-two of the village priests
were convicted as aiders and abettors of the attack on the abbey, and
twenty were summarily hanged. Nearly two hundred persons remained under
sentence of outlawry, and for five weary years their case dragged on in the
King's Courts. At last matters ended in a ludicrous outrage. Irritated by
repeated breaches of promise on th