waggon loads of furniture, plate, wine, cooking utensils, and I do not know what besides; with their domestics and retainers of all descriptions, who formed a numerous retinue.
41. Now, the inhabitants of any city, where the king happened to be holding his court, were obliged to give board and lodging, at free cost, to all these people, who generally behaved very ill; for they would insist upon having the best rooms, order whatever they chose, and treat the family just as if they were their servants.
42. It was, therefore, a very good thing for the Londoners when king Henry released them from this heavy burthen, but all other towns had to bear it for a very long period.
43. In this reign the first manufactory for woollen cloth was established in this country, by some weavers from Flanders, where the best cloth was made from English wool, which was the staple commodity of England at that period; I mean, the thing of which they had most to sell; for quantities of sheep were reared on every estate.
44. England had no manufactures then, so there were no employments for the lower classes but agriculture, and the few useful arts, that were but very imperfectly understood.
45. Henry the First died in the year 1135.
