tenure which had been kept up so long, for it gave the death-blow to serfdom, and the old services in kind, of which mention has been made. Discontent had long lurked in the manors of Durham, but from this time it became active and aggressive, until it pushed the peasants out to assert themselves and to seek for more congenial conditions of life. Elsewhere the transition was effected by bloodshed; in the territories of St. Cuthbert it came more peacefully, but to the accompaniment of much mutual mistrust and variance. It is possibly in connection with all this covert rebellion on the part of the masses that Cardinal Langley built or finished the great gaol in the North Gate in Durham. This large building running up to the castle keep on one side, and down towards the river on the other, spanned Saddler Street for four centuries, until it was taken down in 1820. It was often filled with criminals who were imprisoned here for various offences in its gloomy dungeons. There was another gaol at Sadberge, but it does not seem clear what relation this bore to the more important building in Durham. But the fifteenth century brought its own special anxieties. In the dynastic troubles which led to the Wars of the Roses, the Palatinate was generally Lancastrian in sympathy. Henry VI. (only one of many English Kings who visited Durham) came to the shrine of St. Cuthbert at a time when his dominions had been cut short upon the Continent, and were still further menaced by the Scots. In the bitter days that followed, when he was driven from his throne, he took refuge in the Bishopric, whilst his brave wife went to the Continent to seek for troops to enable him to regain the crown. Even rectories were fortified in those days, for men had to take one side or the other, and to defend their property against bands of marauders. Of religious trouble and dispute, Durham had no large share at that particular time, though elsewhere the ferment caused by the Lollard Movement was producing much unrest. The Bishopric was too much under the control of the Church to allow much freedom of thought. Yet there were isolated instances of Lollard sympathy, exceptions to prove the rule, which were instantly repressed by ecclesiastical authority.