to proceed with their suits, or, if such peaceful picketing proved unavailing, to terrorise the justices. Chief of these was Sir Walter Bradshaw. He had been one of the sworn adherents of Sir Adam Banaster in his rebellion, and having assisted in the attack on Liverpool Castle and the capture of Halton, had fled the country after the defeat of his friends at Preston. Returning later, he carried on a private war with Sir Richard de Holand, another ruffian of the same kidney, each of them riding about with small armies, oppressing each other's tenants and openly defying the courts. These quarrels between county families were undoubtedly more exciting when the process of cutting one another was conducted with swords instead of with averted eyes and upturned noses, but whether they were more conducive to the merriness of their rival retainers may be doubted. These retainers, if we may trust Sir Ralph Evers, did not always play their parts with the politeness and courtesy which their masters displayed, and, in fact, on one occasion he remonstrated with Sir Roger Hastings' servant, saying, 'Ye false hurson kaytyffes, I shall lerne you curtesy and to knowe a gentilman.' It is possible that he was feeling irritated at the time, as he had been lying in wait to ambush Sir Roger, and it must have been annoying to find that he had only caught his servants. Sir Roger himself seems to have been rather quick-tempered; he had a grudge against one Ralph Jenner, and on his way to church on Christmas Day discovered that Ralph was in the church; he at once decided that the season of peace and goodwill was a suitable occasion to make an end of his quarrel (and of his adversary), but the vicar flung himself on his knees before him, while Lady Hastings ran up to Ralph Jenner exclaiming, 'Woo worthe man this day! The chirche wolbe suspended and thou slayn withoute thou flee away and gette thee oute of his sighte.' Whereupon Ralph, either out of consideration for the parishioners or himself, prudently fled. [Illustration: '_He incontinently fled._']