ll
as if it were burning fire; so that all who saw it were so
dismayed as they never were before. That was on the third day
before the ides of January. This same year was so great a
murrain of cattle as never was before in the memory of man over
all England. That was in neat cattle and in swine; so that in a
town where there were ten ploughs going, or twelve, there was not
left one: and the man that had two hundred or three hundred
swine, had not one left. Afterwards perished the hen fowls; then
shortened the fleshmeat, and the cheese, and the butter. May God
better it when it shall be his will. And the King Henry came
home to England before harvest, after the mass of St. Peter "ad
vincula". This same year went the Abbot Henry, before Easter,
from Peterborough over sea to Normandy, and there spoke with the
king, and told him that the Abbot of Clugny had desired him to
come to him, and resign to him the abbacy of Angeli, after which
he would go home by his leave. And so he went home to his own
minster, and there remained even to midsummer day. And the next
day after the festival of St. John chose the monks an abbot of
themselves, brought him into the church in procession, sang "Te
Deum laudamus", rang the bells, set him on the abbot's throne,
did him all homage, as they should do their abbot: and the earl,
and all the head men, and the monks of the minster, drove the
other Abbot Henry out of the monastery. And they had need; for
in five-and-twenty winters had they never hailed one good day.
Here failed him all his mighty crafts. Now it behoved him, that
he crope in his skin into every corner, if peradventure there
were any unresty wrench, (163) whereby he might yet once more
betray Christ and all Christian people. Then retired he into
Clugny, where he was held so fast, that he could not move east or
west. The Abbot of Clugny said that they had lost St. John's
minster through him, and through his great sottishness. Then
could he not better recompense them; but he promised them, and
swore oaths on the holy cross, that if he might go to England he
should get them the minster of Peterborough; so that he should
set there the prior of Clugny, with a churchwarden, a treasurer,
and a sacristan: and all the things that were within the minster
and without, he should procure for them. Thus he departed into
France; and there remained all that year. Christ provide for the
wretched monks of Peterborough, and for that