The town was at that time celebrated for its religious houses, Grey Friars, Black Canons, White Monks, Benedictines, Carmelites, and all manner of brotherhoods and botherhoods of papal Rome. Mendicants of all descriptions accosted the industrious with a boldness such as no beggars dare in these days assume, for fear of the treadmill. But the terrors of Rome were much greater upon the priest-ridden yet industrious Britons than ever the treadmill could be to the vicious. Those who were sanctioned by the Pope to beg, carried along with them a mandate which few dared refuse to obey. The anathemas of the church were then bestowed with such a plentiful outpouring of bile upon such trivial subjects, too, as would have made Longinus laugh at the sublimity of their pompousness. But men trembled then with scarcely any conscience, for absolution had its pecuniary price, and could be purchased for sins, past, present, and to come. The holy brethren at the Friar's Gate bent lowly to De Freston as he gave them his salutation, and passed on through St. Nicholas Street, past Robert Wolsey's house, down to St. Peter's Priory, along the warder's way, over the Bailiff's Customs Quay, through the parish of St. Clement, into the hamlet of Wyke's Ufford. The cavalcade then proceeded on what was termed the procession-way, leading to the shrine of St. Ivan, from which they digressed on the broad Palace Road to the Bishop's Gate. The whole party soon passed over the drawbridge, then under the warder's arch into the area of the palace, where the verger, with the silver and golden ornaments of office, stood prepared with a number of serving-men to receive the noble. 'Here, my men,' said De Freston, after he had assisted Ellen to alight, 'ye will refresh yourselves and horses, and then set forth upon your return by the way ye came, and see that ye keep well together, and enter into no broils with any one. Ye will be in readiness for your summons for our return whensoever ye receive command. Pass on!' De Freston and his daughter passed into the presence of Bishop Goldwell, who was seated in a chair of state at the upper end of a long and vaulted chamber prepared for their coming. He rose, his step was proud and stately, and his large and noble eye glanced a penetrating look upon the noble. Goldwell would maintain in private the same dignity which he was accustomed to show in public. He was gracious though grand; his manner mild, bland, yet becomingly distant. Though a man of state, he was also a man of ease, and showed what was due to his own person, and what he expected even if he did not deserve it--which he did as much as any other man could. He received the Lord De Freston and his daughter with such a courteous manner, as only to seem himself to be proud before his household. With the most paternal air he accosted Ellen, receiving her hand at her father's request, and led her to a seat, and, with great politeness, welcomed De Freston to his palace.