And this reminds me that though archdeacons, and bishops, and even an
archbishop, in those days might be and were very important and very
powerful personages, they were all very small and insignificant in
comparison with the great King Edward, the king who at this time was
looked upon as one of the most mighty and magnificent kings in all
the world. He, too, paid many a visit to Norfolk six hundred years
ago. He kept his Christmas at Burgh in 1280, and in 1284 he came down
with the good Queen Eleanor and spent the whole of Lent in the
county; and next year, again, they were in your immediate
neighbourhood, making a pilgrimage to Walsingham. A few years after
this he seems to have spent a week or two within five miles of where
we are; he came to Castle Acre, and there he stayed at the great
priory whose ruins you all know well. There a very stirring interview
took place between the king and Bishop Walpole, and a number of other
bishops, and great persons who had come down as a deputation to
expostulate with the king, and respectfully to protest against the
way in which he was robbing his subjects, and especially the clergy,
whom he had been for years plundering in the most outrageous manner.
The king gave the deputation no smooth words to carry away, but he
sent them off with threatening frowns and insults and in hot anger.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113