In 1263 we find that the town, anx ious to maintain neutrality between Henry III. and the barons, refused to admit Prince Edward. 'The Clerks being shut inside the Town, and denied a sight of their Prince, and their daily and usual sports in Beaumont, came to Smithgate to go out, but one of the Baillives being there, flatly denied them and bid them begone to their respect ive Inns. Upon this they returned, and hav ing got axes, sledges and other weapons, as also bows and arrows, which they by force took from the Fletchers' shops, came in great multitudes and broke the gate open. "This being done, the Mayor laid hands on and imprisoned them; with which, being not contented, albeit the Chancellor desired to have them set at liberty, he the sd Mayor and the Commonalty of the Town, with ban ners displayed and in order marshalled, in tended to have set up the Scholars to beat, and despitefully use them before they were aware. But being espied at their appear ance in the High street near to All Saints' Church, a certain Clerk ran and rung the Scholars' bell at St. Mary's to give notice to his fellows, being then generally at dinner; and no sooner the bell rang a minute but they all left their meat, ran to their bows, swords, slings, bills, etc. and gathering to gether in a body fought most courageously against them, wounded many and made the rest fly. In the conclusion the Clerks finding none to oppose them, they went about the streets, brake up many houses, spoiled and took away divers goods, and did what pleased them without any opposition. At length they went to the house of one of the Provosts of the Town, and burnt it to the ground. Then to the house of William le Espycer, the other Provost, which being sit uated in the Spycery, they brake it up with
all the Spycery itself from one end to the other, and spoiled most of the goods there in. Then did they hasten to the house of the Mayor aforesaid, by trade a Vinter, situated in the Vintery, which place also they brake up, drank as much wine as they could, and wasted the rest." l It is no wonder that the Burghers began to build their houses of stone, and to fortify them with tile and slate." As a result of this riot, the University might have lost some of its hard earned privileges, but this misfortune was averted by the political confusion of the times. Many students had fled the town. The King suspended all lectures and ordered all the students to leave the University until after the session of Parliament about to be held at Oxford. Д month later Henry III. was a prisoner in the hands of Simon de Montfort, who, in the King's name, com manded the dispersed Scholars to return,. by mid-summer the University was rees tablished, and the riot and its merits ap pear to have been overlooked in the new order of things. Later we find the King's Baillive at Northgate disputing the right of the Uni versity to decide cases between scholars and citizens and, although convicted of per jury, he accused the Masters of robbery, imprisoned the Bedells for two days, and even laid hands on the Vice Chancellor him self. "This crafty veterano," we are told, "did so confront and nose them in relation to their liberties, that they seriously vowed before Almighty God, that all scholastic ex ercises should cease, their school doors he closed, and their books flung away, unless 'Wood, L, p. 263. 'To the capture of Northampton, whither many of the students fled, and to the suppression of its schools. Rashdall attributes "the regrettable fact that England possesses no more than two> ancient universities." Vol. n., 2, p. 397.
