dish,
was already impaled; and pressing the cold lips together in mockery of
their friendship set them side by side. Another head soon joined them. The
abbey gates were burst open, and the cloister filled with a maddened crowd,
howling for a new victim, John Lackenheath, the warder of the barony. Few
knew him as he stood among the group of trembling monks, but he courted
death with a contemptuous courage. "I am the man you seek," he said,
stepping forward; and in a minute, with a mighty roar of "Devil's son!
Monk! Traitor!" he was swept to the gallows, and his head hacked from his
shoulders. Then the crowd rolled back again to the abbey gate, and summoned
the monks before them. They told them that now for a long time they had
oppressed their fellows, the burgesses of Bury; wherefore they willed that
in the sight of the Commons they should forthwith surrender their bonds and
charters. The monks brought the parchments to the market-place; many which
were demanded they swore they could not find. A compromise was at last
patched up; and it was agreed that the charters should be surrendered till
the future abbot should confirm the liberties of the town. Then, unable to
do more, the crowd ebbed away.

[Sidenote: Close of the rising]

A scene less violent, but even more picturesque, went on the same day at
St. Albans. William Grindecobbe, the leader of its townsmen, returned with
one of the charters of emancipation which Richard had granted after his
interview at Mile-end to the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, and breaking
into the abbey precincts at the head of the burghers, forced the abbot to
deliver up the charters which bound the town in bondage to his house. But a
more striking proof of servitude than any charters could give remained in
the millstones which after a long suit at law had been adjudged to the
abbey and placed within its cloister as a triumphant witness that no
townsman might grind corn within the domain of the abbey save at the
abbot's mill. Bursting into the cloister, the burghers now tore the
mill-stones from the floor, and broke them into small pieces, "like blessed
bread in church," which each might carry off to show something of the day
when their freedom was won again. But it was hardly won when it was lost
anew. The quiet withdrawal and dispersion of the peasant armies with their
charters of emancipation gave courage to the nobles. Their panic passed
away. The warlike Bishop of Norwich fell lance i