The story of the wrestling match which belongs to the year 1221 throws some light upon the internal conditions of the City. In itself it had no political significance except to show the readiness with which a mob can be raised on small provocation and the mischief which may follow. It was on St. James’s Day that sports were held in St. Giles’s Fields near the Leper Hospital. The young men of London contended with those of the “suburbs,” especially those of Westminster. Those who have witnessed a great football match in the North of England will understand the intense and passionate interest with which each “event” was followed by the mass of onlookers. A gladiatorial combat was not more warlike than the wrestling of these young men. The Londoners came out best in this match, whereupon the Steward of Westminster, according to the account, resolved upon revenge, and a very unsportsmanlike revenge he took. For he invited the young men of London to a return match. They accepted, suspecting nothing; they went unarmed to Tothill Fields, ready to renew the bloodless contest: they were received, not by wrestlers, but by armed men, who fell upon them and wounded them grievously, and so drove them back to the City. One feels that this story is incomplete, and on the face of it impossible. Holinshed’s account of what happened in consequence is as follows:— [Illustration: CORONATION OF HENRY III. From MS. in British Museum—Vitellius A. XIII.] “The citizens, sore offended to see their people so misused, rose in tumult, and rang the common bell to gather the more companies to them. Robert Serle, mayor of the Citie, would have pacified the matter, persuading them to let the injurie passe till by orderlie plaint they might get redresse, as law and justice should assigne. But a certeine stout man of the Citie named Constantine FitzArnulfe, of good authoritie amongst them, advised the multitude not to harken unto peace, but to seeke revenge out of hand (wherein he shewed himselfe so farre from true manhood, that he bewraied himselfe rather to have a woman’s heart),— ... Quod vindicta Nemo magis gaudet quam fœmina—