Page:Maid Marian - Peacock (1822).djvu/32

 the gate. King Henry (the second) swore by Saint Botolph to make him rue his sport, and, having caused him to be duly and formally accused, summoned him to London to answer the charge. The earl, deeming himself safer among his own vassals than among King Henry's courtiers, took no notice of the mandate. King Henry, sent a force to bring him, vi et armis, to court. The earl made a resolute resistance and put the king's force to flight under a shower of arrows: an act which the courtiers declared to be treason. At the same time, the abbot of Doncaster sued up the payment of certain, monies, which the earl, whose revenue ran a losing race with his hospitality, had borrowed at sundry times of the said abbot: for the abbots and bishops were the chief usurers of those days, and, as the end sanctifies the means, were not in the least scrupulous of employing what would