But they found the hand of the powers that be a
very heavy one. Forty knights were billeted on them at free quarters with
all their men. Every morning the butler had to distribute to them food and
pay in the great hall; and in vain were their complaints of bad faith.
William meanwhile, who loved money as well as he "loved the tall deer,"
had had 1,000 (another says 700) marks of them as the price of their
church's safety, for the payment whereof, if one authority is to be
trusted, they sold "all the furniture of gold and silver, crosses, altars,
coffers, covers, chalices, platters, ewers, urnets, basons, cups, and
saucers." Nay, the idols themselves were not spared, "for," beside that,
"they sold a goodly image of our Lady with her little Son, in a throne
wrought with marvellous workmanship, which Elsegus the abbot had made.
Likewise, they stripped many images of holy virgins of much furniture of
gold and silver." [Footnote: These details are from a story found in the
Isle of Ely, published by Dr. Giles. It seems a late composition,--
probably of the sixteenth century,--and has manifest errors of fact; but
_valeat quantum_.] So that poor St. Etheldreda had no finery in which to
appear on festivals, and went in russet for many years after. The which
money (according to another [Footnote: Stow's "Annals.
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