In 1273, for instance, we read of an encounter between the Northerners and the Irish, which resulted in the death of several Irishmen. So alarming, apparently, was this outbreak that many of the leading members of the University departed in fear, and only returned at the stern command of the King. The bishops, too, issued a notice, in which they earnestly exhorted the clerks in their dioceses to "repair to the schools, not armed for the fight, but rather prepared for study." But the episcopal exhortation had about as much effect as a meeting of the Peace League in Exeter Hall would have now. Quarrel after quarrel broke out between the rival nations. They plundered each others' goods and broke each others' heads with a zest worthy of an Irish wake. In spite of their reputation for riotousness, however, the Irish students were specially exempted by royal writ from the operation of the statute passed by Parliament in 1413, which ordered that all Irishmen and Irish clerks, beggars called Chamberdekens, should quit the realm. Graduates in the schools had been exempted in the statute. This exemption does not appear to have conduced to the state of law and order painfully toiled after by the mere Saxon. For a few years later, in the first Parliament of Henry VI., the Commons sent up a petition complaining of the numerous outrages committed near Oxford by "Wylde Irishmen." These turbulent persons, it was alleged, living under the jurisdiction of the Chancellor, set the King's officers at defiance, and used such threatening language, that the bailiffs of the town did not dare to stir out of their houses for fear of death. The Commons therefore prayed that all Irishmen, except graduates in the schools, beneficed clergy, professed monks, landowners, merchants and members of civic corporations, should be compelled to quit the realm. It was also demanded that graduates of Irish extraction should be required to find security for their good behaviour, and that they should not be allowed to act as principals of halls. This petition received the royal assent. But it was stipulated that Irish clerks might freely resort to Oxford and Cambridge, if they could show that they were subjects of the English king. It was in vain that students were compelled to swear that they would not carry arms; in vain were seditious gatherings and leagues for the espousal of private quarrels forbidden.