"That he wold make the seid Chamberlein to curse the tyme that ever he sigh hym and wolde make him to wepe water with his yen,[400] and for to be revenged vppon hym he saide he wolde ryde to complayne vppon him unto our soveraign lorde the Kyng."
The petition ends with a list of the fields enclosed by the prior, the Trinity guild, and others of the city.
It is clear from the recorder's speech that there was expectation of battle toward, and Boteler had no mind to give quarter. Meanwhile Laurence, by his appeal to the prince's council, had stolen a march upon his enemies. A letter, dated September 30, 1480, required that some discreet persons of the city council should ride to Ludlow, bearing a copy of the chamberlain's oath, in order that the prince's council might compose "a variance between certain people of the city about a common pasture." This letter revealed to the corporation the chamberlain's secret mission. "We, your humble and true servants here," the mayor and his brethren wrote in reply, "know no variance betwixt any person here for any common pasture but that we among ourselves, by the grace of God, shall amicably and righteously settle." They begged that Saunders' words might not be "printed in the prince's remembrance," and hoped to have license to punish this troublesome citizen, inasmuch as he would raise up "commotions among the people," and by this means discourage "other misruled to presumptuously attempt such things herafter." As the prince still insisted that the suit should be heard at Ludlow, eighteen "worshipful" men, chosen by the common council, set forth on the journey. Among them were numbered the recorder, lately recovered from sickness; the master of the Trinity Guild; John Boteler, town clerk, presumably a son of the recorder; and William Hede, the chamberlain, Laurence's fair-weather friend, who had betimes humbly submitted to the corporation. The wardens, to whom the paying of extraordinary expenses fell, went with the party to pay for the cost of the journey. There was a goodly following of servants, bringing up the number to forty-four persons in all, for the worshipful folk travelled luxuriously, and to secure their comfort a cook and a harbinger were of the company. The cost of the journey—amounting to £15, 11s. 11d.—was afterwards, by decree of the mayor and council, discharged by Laurence Saunders. There is nothing related of the proceedings of the case, save that the decision was against Laurence. The Leet Book says, as openly was proved, he intended no "reformacion, ... but feyned matiers to th' entent to have be venged for the due punysshement yeven to him for his obstinacy."[401] So he came home to receive "correction," and in his company there came a gentleman of the prince's council to see that he fulfilled all the commands laid upon him. There was nothing for it now but to bow before the storm. In the presence of the mayor, the council, and divers "commons" assembled in S. Mary's Hall, Laurence, it is said, knelt down and besought the mayor's forgiveness, acknowledging his wrong-doing. He was then committed to ward. After a little time his friends' intercession prevailed, and he was allowed to leave the prison, being bound in £500 to appear at the next quarter sessions. The bond, too—for the corporation were little inclined to allow further complaints to royalty—was to be renewed "till content wer' had" of his "sadde demeasnyng."
But though Saunders had been effectually silenced, the strife he had kindled raged on. Bristowe and the prior, whose transgressions in the matter of surcharging were revealed in Laurence's complaint, were both ready to pour forth counter-claims and accusations against the corporation in the hearing of the prince's council, at the time when Saunders' case was still under discussion. Prior Deram being advised to present his grievances in writing to the mayor and his brethren, tendered, on November 16, 1480, an exhaustive list of them,[402] which list the corporation hardly received in a befittingly serious spirit.
Although in the prior's complaint the matter of surcharging is kept somewhat in the background, there can be little doubt that here the real grievance lay. The mayor and his friends had been perhaps very lenient to the convent in this particular until Laurence's petition to the prince had aroused their scruples, and they may have been forced to revive old regulations concerning the "stint." When the prior argued that as "lord of the soil" he was not "admeasurable," but able to drive on to the pasture what number of cattle he chose, the mayor and his brethren feigned blank ignorance. They did not know, they declared, that the prior was "lord of the soil,"[403] but were of opinion that his action would be "disseizin of the common."[404] They even tried to shield Laurence Saunders when the prior alleged that his "slanders" were a source of great annoyance to the convent. He had been examined, they affirmed, and declared he never "noised" such lands as were held by the monks to be common, but those he had believed were so according to "the black book of the city"; but if Laurence had offended, they continued, he would be pleased to abide by what the mayor and prior chose to command him.
There was another memory that rankled with the monks—the tumult on S. Nicholas' day, 1469, and the subsequent action of William Saunders to prevent the prior from "troubling" the city with a lawsuit. His gardens, Deram indignantly reminded them, and his woods at Whitmoor, had been broken into at that date; and he was not allowed to sue the misdoers at law. Again he was met by a front of stolid ignorance. The mayor and community remembered no such breaking, or any hindrance to the prior's suit, which he was at liberty to pursue. Grievances Deram had to pour forth in plenty. The town wall was built on his land, he complained, though his payment of £10 for murage, of pure good will, for repairing the town wall outside his ground entitled him to some consideration in this matter. The folk of the city gave him hourly torment. They broke down his underwood, birches, holly, and hawthorn in Whitmoor Park, and carried them away; they trod under foot his grass and his corn, damaged his hedges "at their shooting called roving, to his hurt a hundred shillings"; they washed in Swanswell pool, and fished in his ponds "by night and by day," and made his orchard and several grounds a sporting place with shooting and other games, and when "they been challenged by his sergeants they gyven hem short langage, seying that they will have hit their sportyng place." The churchwardens lopped off the boughs of the trees in S. Michael's churchyard, and all manner of filth was deposited in the convent ground, "so that the prior may not have his carriage through his orchard"; while by reason of the refuse swept into the river his mill was "letted to go," and himself and his brethren sorely hurt and discomfited by the stench. At divers times the prior had put up bills against the offenders "in certen sessions, but," he concluded resentfully, "thei ben so supported within this citie and the enquestes so favourable to hem that no reformacion nor punysshement hath ben don."
The mayor and community[405] assured the prior in return that they were most anxious to maintain a friendly understanding with the convent. The authorities of the city, they said, "maken dayly als gret diligens as they can to knowe the stoppers of the seid common ryver, and when eny be perceyved, they ben punysshed after their deserve." As to the breaking of the underwood, every year masters of the crafts, by the command of the mayor, enjoined the members to refrain from this "in eschewyng the doughtfull censures of the Church," and also temporal punishment. But the prior was reminded how "the people of every gret cite as London ... yerely in somer doon harme to divers lords and gentyles hauyng wods and groves nygh to such citees ... and yit the lords and gentils suffren sych dedes ofte tymes of their goode will." And if the town wall ran on the prior's land—as it did on other freehold within the city—the convent owed their security to these fortifications, and ought of right to contribute to their erection and repair, "because their lyffeloode within this citie, and their proper Churche may rest in surte be measne of the seid murage." The lopping of trees in the churchyard they laid to the charge of the vicar; while as for the fish in Swanswell pool, they profited by the washing there, and thereby grew "the fatter!" Let the prior, the mayor continued, send in the names of the shooters, trespassers, and the like, and bring an action against them; and take proceedings against the casters of refuse—for they were his own tenants—in his own court leet.
The prior fumed at the audacity of this reply, and still more at the delay in returning it, for more than six weeks had elapsed since his bill of complaint had been issued. His rejoinder[406] was drawn up in two days, a briefer space. The mayor had besought him (not without hypocrisy, to Deram's mind) "that he would be as good to the common weal as his predecessors had been," so that "love ... betwixt" him and the city might "continue and dayly better increce"; but he distrusted these professions of peace. "And whereas," he said, "the meire and his brethren prayen hertly to the prior and his convent lovyngly to accept their answeres made to their compleynts, thei think it is (in them) no lovyng desire." "His greves," he reminded them, had been presented in writing "the xvi day of November last past ... to the which the iide day of Januar next followyng" they had returned answer: "by the which I and my bredern," the good man went on, lapsing into the first person in the heat and hurry of his sentences, "thinke is no thyng accordyng for reformacion, but delayes; wherefore I and they desyre and prey you to have us excused of further communicacion.... For we trust to God in [that] our compleynts ben no feyned matiers, but such as shall be proved be credible proves in writyng." "And for your answeres," he added with a touch of irony, "ye have taken longe leysar to conceyve, suasyous-like (persuasive) as it appereth," they would have none of it, "but we trust to haue oder remedye wher trowthe shalbe knowen."
How strangely this dispute sounds in our ears, with its childish display of offended dignity on one side, and half-soothing, half-taunting tone on the other! But the petulant old prior did not long add to the difficulties of the corporation. When John Boteler, the untiring steward, went to London in the following Lent to find out what course the convent meant to pursue with regard to the suit at law between them and the city, he learnt that the enemy was dead.[407] But though the article about surcharging and the minor questions sank into insignificance the dispute about the murage continued for many years, the convent still refusing to pay the tax. At last, in 1498, the matter was set at rest by the bishop's arbitration, the prior paying the annual tax, upon condition that he should in future be made privy to the chamberlains' accounts, in so far as they related to murage.[408]
But though the prior was dead, and Laurence for the moment quiet, the troubles and litigations in which the corporation was involved were by no means past. On Lammas day, 1481, Bristowe, contrary to the tenor of previous arbitration, refused to allow the chamberlains to enter and throw open his field at Whitley, threatening, if they did so, to sue them for trespass. Immediately the recorder, town-clerk, and others rode to Worcester to lay the matter before the prince's council.[409] There it was decided that until the prince could appear to adjust the rival claims neither party should enjoy the use of this meadow. Two experts came[410] by order of the prince's council to examine documents, but Bristowe's were not ready, and after a repetition of the old practice of consulting the oldest inhabitants, the decision was postponed. But the common people could not afford to wait the law's delays. After the departure of the lords of the prince's council, says the Leet Book, "divers evell disposed persons in gret nombre of their frowardnesse went to the seid grounde and ther cast down heggs and dikes." Harry Boteler, the recorder, always active when trouble came, went out and bade them "leave off their frowardness." All went back to their work save one, John Tyler, who gave the recorder "froward and unfitting language," and was committed to prison. A riot took place on the Trinity guild feast day, the Decollation of S. John the Baptist, the rioters rang the common bell, and made an attempt to rescue Tyler. Until, the writer of the Leet Book says with evident relief, "loued (praised) be God, the meir and dyvers of his brethern came among them and sessed them," Tyler being delivered to the citizens under surety for that time.[411]