Some days after this he was at Massingham, and one of his letters has
been preserved, dated from Massingham, 30th of January, 1296, so that
it is almost certain the great king passed one night there at least.
It is a little difficult to understand what the king was doing at
Massingham, for there was no great man living there, and no great
mansion. Sometimes I have thought that the king rode out from Castle
Acre to see what state the Walpoles of those times were keeping up at
Houghton. Had not that audacious Bishop Walpole dared to speak
plainly to his Grace the week before? But the more probable
explanation is that the king went to Massingham to visit a small
religious house or monastery which had been recently founded there. I
suspect it had already got into debt and was in difficulties, and it
is possible that the king's visit was made in the interest of the
foundation. At any rate, there the king stayed; but though he was in
Norfolk more than once after this, he never was so near you again,
and that visit was one which your forefathers were sure to talk about
to the end of their lives.
* * * * * * *
And these were the days of old. But now that we have looked back upon
them as they appear through the mists of centuries, the distance
distorting some things, obscuring others, but leaving upon us, on the
whole, an impression that, after all, these men and women of the
past, whose circumstances were so different from our own, were
perhaps not so very unlike what we should be if our surroundings were
as theirs.
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