eaded in Cheapside.
The mob, having tasted blood, hastened to sack the house of Walter
Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, who as Edward's treasurer, had confiscated
the queen's property. It so happened, that the bishop himself, attended by
two esquires, was riding towards the city intending to have his midday
meal at his house in Old Dean's Lane (now Warwick Lane), before proceeding
to the Tower. Hearing cries of "Traitor!" he guessed that something was
wrong, and made for sanctuary in St. Paul's. He was caught, however, just
as he was about to enter the north door, dragged from his horse, carried
to Chepe, and there put to death in the same way as John le Marchall had
been executed a short hour before.(416)

The bishop's two attendant esquires also perished at the hands of the mob.
Their bodies were allowed to lie stark naked all that day in the middle of
Chepe. The head of the bishop was sent to the queen at Gloucester,(417)
but his corpse was reverently carried into St. Paul's after vespers by the
canons and vicars of the cathedral. It was not allowed, however, to remain
there long; for hearing that the bishop had died under sentence of
excommunication, the authorities caused it to be removed to the church of
St. Clement Danes, near which stood the bishop's new manor house of which
we are reminded at the present day by Exeter Hall. The parish church was
in the gift of the Bishop of Exeter for the time being, and John Mugg,
then rector, owed his preferment to Stapleton. He was, therefore, guilty
of gross ingratitude when he refused to take in the corpse of his patron,
or to allow it the rites of burial. Certain poor women had more
compassion; they at least cast a piece of old cloth over the corpse for
decency's sake and buried it out of sight, although without any attempt to
make a grave and "without any office of priest or clerk." Thus, it
remained till the following month of February, when it was disinterred and
taken to Exeter. The treatment of Bishop Stapleton caused other prelates
to look to themselves, and many of them, including the primate himself,
began to make overtures of submission to Queen Isabel.

After the Bishop's murder there was no pretence of government in the city.
The mob did exactly as they liked. They sacked the houses of Baldock, the
Chancellor, and carried off the treasure he had laid up in St. Paul's. The
property of the Earl of Arundel, recently executed at Hereford, which lay
in the Priory of Hol