POLITICAL HISTORY At this time the Flemings appear to have been threatening the east coast. Though this principally affected the ports, we find that Norwich offered for defence against them sixty armed footmen or _^200, and that the king preferred to take the money. Just before this the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk had been ordered to raise 500 footmen and to bring them to Coventry against the Scots, the king having previously ordered him to pro- claim that all knights, squires, men-at-arms, and footmen, between sixteen and sixty, were to be ready, as certain rebel magnates had gone to the north in great numbers and had besieged the king's castle of Tickhill.* On 28 March, in the same year, the sheriff was ordered to attach by their persons all who had not come and seize their lands.^ In July all old and new corn and other victuals were ordered to be sent to the north to the king with all possible speed, and an assurance was given that all food sent up might be sold and nothing taken without their consent. This order was sent to Lynn, Norwich, Blakeney, and Burnham, amongst other places, and next year 700 footmen of Norfolk and Suffolk were ordered to proceed against the Scotch rebels.^ The king spent the Christmas of 1325* at Bury St. Edmunds, whither he probably went to try to ward off the impending invasion in Suffolk, which took place in September, 1326. In January, 1326, the king came to Norwich, and from there issued orders for musters to be made all over England and for beacons to be kept ready. ^ During his stay here he confirmed the city charters. ° The queen landed in 1326 at Orwell in Suffolk, and aided by the earl of Kent, Roger Mortimer, and many of the barons, came through Bury and drove the king through London to Wales. The latter attempted to raise forces in Norfolk and Suffolk, and directed writs for that purpose to Thomas Bardolf, Constantine de Mortimer, Edmund Hemegrave, and John de Cove, but with what success it is impossible to say. The king was murdered at Berkeley Castle, 21 September, 1327. The end of this unhappy reign was marked in Norfolk by one interesting event — the peaceful invasion of Flemings, which took place in 1326, and which resulted in the foundation of the worsted manufactory at the village of that name near North Walsham. When in 1330 Edward III succeeded in freeing himself from the tutelage of his mother and her favourite, the former was detained at Castle Rising.^ One of the first acts of the new reign was the confirmation by the king of all his estates to his half-brother Thomas de Brotherton and his continuance in his office of constable of Norwich Castle. As in the last reign, we find prohibitions of tournaments in this county and in Suffolk in 1327* and 1331.' Under the date 1330, Baxter's Chronicle tells of how Sir Robert Venile, a Norfolk knight, who accepted the challenge of a huge Scotch champion, ' Close, i; Edw. II, m. 1% d. ' Ibid. m. 14a'. * Ibid. m. 33</.
- Blomefield (op. cit. iii, 77) by mistake says 1326, which confuses his narrative.
' Pat. 19 Edw. II, m. 4. ^ Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 77. ' As to Queen Isabella's detention at Castle Rising, Harrod, in his Castles and Convents, pp. 33,sqq. shows that Miss Strickland's story of close confinement is incorrect. There are several references to her stay in the county. Her goods to the value of j£ 1 00 were carried away at Yarmouth in 1329, and her servant was assaulted (Close, 3 Edw. Ill, m. 13). In 1333 Master Pancius de Coutrone, the king's leech, was paid by the bailiffs of Norwich for good service done to her (Close, 7 Edw. Ill, m. 1 1). « Close, I Edw. Ill, m. 12. ' Ibid. 5 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 19 d. 2 481 61
