The answer of the townsmen (1298) to the Chancellor's retort quoted above was distinctly vigorous. They seized and imprisoned all scholars on whom they could lay hands, invaded their inns, made havoc of their goods and trampled their books under foot. In the face of such provocation the Proctors sent their bedels about the town, forbidding the students to leave their inns. But all commands and exhortations were in vain. By nine o'clock next morning, bands of scholars were parading the streets in martial array. If the Proctors failed to restrain them, the mayor was equally powerless to restrain his townsmen. The great bell of S. Martin's rang out an alarm; ox-horns were sounded in the streets; messengers were sent into the country to collect rustic allies. The clerks, who numbered three thousand in all, began their attack simultaneously in various quarters. They broke open warehouses in the Spicery, the Cutlery and elsewhere. Armed with bows and arrows, swords and bucklers, slings and stones, they fell upon their opponents. Three they slew, and wounded fifty or more. One band, led by Fulk de Neyrmit, Rector of Piglesthorne, and his brother, took up a position in High Street between the Churches of S. Mary and All Saints, and attacked the house of a certain Edward Hales. This Hales was a long-standing enemy of the clerks. There were no half measures with him. He seized his crossbow, and from an upper chamber sent an unerring shaft into the eye of the pugnacious rector. The death of their valiant leader caused the clerks to lose heart. They fled, closely pursued by the townsmen and country-folk. Some were struck down in the streets, and others who had taken refuge in the churches were dragged out and driven mercilessly to prison, lashed with thongs and goaded with iron spikes. Complaints of murder, violence and robbery were lodged straightway with the King by both parties. The townsmen claimed three thousand pounds' damage. The commissioners, however, appointed to decide the matter, condemned them to pay two hundred marks, removed the bailiffs, and banished twelve of the most turbulent citizens from Oxford. Then the terms of peace were formally ratified. Following the example of their Chancellor, who was gradually asserting his authority more and more in secular matters, and thought little of excommunicating a mayor for removing a pillory without his leave (1325), the clerks became continually more aggressive. Quarrels with the townsmen were succeeded by quarrels with the Bishop of Lincoln, when the latter, in his turn, tried to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the Chancellor. Peace, perfect peace, it will be seen, had not yet descended upon the University. The triumph of Dulness had not arrived, when the enraptured monarch should behold: "Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, And Alma Mater lie dissolved in port."