THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
were as full as they could hold of Churchmen, Canonists, Casuists, Surrogates, Lawyers, Chancellors, Summoners, Apparitors, and Clerks, together with a great army of hangers-on and camp followers, who all ate and drank and walked and talked from one end of the town to the other; but kept themselves very quiet for all that, since they were terribly afraid that the Knight knew their business and would burst upon them and make holes in their skulls with that axe of his to let out the Canon Law and Divinity and Clergy and so render any processes invalid. Certainly Sir Jenkin must have been somewhat thick-headed, for he could not help seeing a great big stake driven into the ground by the west door of the Priory Church as one might say right under his nose, and likewise fellows coming in from the country bringing huge loads of dry sticks on their backs, and on mules, and in wagons, and any man-of-letters could have told him that these preparations looked very bad indeed. But on the morrow when the Abbot of Tintern had sung Pontifical High Mass, the Abbot of Caerleon being deacon and the Abbot of Grace-Dieu Sub-deacon, the Court was formed in the Chapter House, and the sub-prior of Abergavenny read a great many letters from the Churchmen who hold the chief authority in these merry affairs, by which the Court was fully constituted and invested with plenary power to deal with this detestable and monstrous case. Then Sir Jenkin Thomas was summoned to appear in the Chapter House by a grim-looking personage in a yellow
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