they would to their abbat; and the earl and all the chief men and the monks drove the other abbat Henry out of the monastery, and well they might, for in five and twenty years they had never known a good day. All his great craftiness failed him here, and now it behved him to creep into any corner, and to consider if perchance there yet remained some slippery device, by which he might once more betray Christ and all Christian people. Then went he to Clugny, and there they kept him, so that he could go neither east nor west; the abbat of Clugny saying that they had lost St. John's minster through him, and his great sottishness; wherefore seeing he could give no better compensation, he promised and swore on the holy relics, that if he might proceed to England he would obtain for them the monastery of Peterborough, and would establish there a prior of Clugny, a churchwarden, a treasurer, and a keeper of the robes, and that he would make over to them all things both within and without the monastery. Thus he went into France and abode there all the year. May Christ provide for the wretched monks of Peterborough, and for that miserable place, for now do they stand in need of the help of Christ and of all Christian people.
A. 1132. This year king Henry returned to this land; then the abbat Henry came, and accused the monks of Peterborough to the king, because he desired to subject that monastery to Clugny; so that the king was well nigh beguiled, and sent for the monks; but by God's mercy, and through the bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln, and the other great men who were there, he found out that the abbat dealt treacherously. When he could do no more, he wished that his nephew might be abbat of Peterborough, but this was not the will of Christ. It was not very long after this that the king sent for him, and made him give up the abbey of Peterborough, and depart out of the country, and the king granted the abbacy to a prior of St. Neot's named Martin, and he came to the monastery, right worshipfully attended, on St. Peter's day.
A. 1135. This year, at Lammas, king Henry went over sea: and on the second day, as he lay asleep in the ship, the day was darkened universally, and the sun became as if it were a moon three nights old. with the stars shining round it
