though his visits, being occasionally of longer duration, were just so much harder to be borne. In the chronicles of Jocelin of Brakelond, we read how once the king came with a large retinue to the convent of St. Edmundsbury, and stayed there for two whole weeks, eating up the monk's provisions at a fearful rate, emptying the cellars of their choicest wines, and making, no doubt, what with drunken, swearing soldiers and insolent court parasites, sad riot and confusion within those peaceful walls. At last, however, the weary fortnight was over, and the guests stood marshaled to depart; but not before his gracious majesty had made offering, as guerdon for two weeks' entertainment, of a silk cloak to cover St. Edmund's shrine, which same cloak was promptly borrowed back again by one of the royal train, and the monks beheld it no more. In addition to this elusive legacy, which left the shrine as bare as it found it, Jocelin records that the monarch, ere he rode forth, presented the convent with the handsome sum of thirteen pence, in consideration of a mass being said for his soul, which sorely needed all the spiritual aliment the good monks could furnish it. We
