English windows had the good fortune to escape the destruction by foreigners which the French had to suffer during those dreadful fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the Hundred Years' War outlasted its title, and when the hot-headed Plantagenet kings kept France continually plagued with English soldiery. Although we must record this particular immunity, other agencies equally baleful were at work. The Puritans made a practice of smashing stained glass, either because they regarded it as one of the hated insignia of popery (some of their ministers even knocking out the glass in churches under their own charge, like "Blue Dick" Culmer at Canterbury Cathedral), or for reasons of revenge, as in the case of the troops infuriated by the death of their leader in the assault upon Lichfield. Dwellers within the precincts of Lincoln made a common practice of shooting with crossbows at the windows! At Great Malvern the possible excuse of crossbow practice is missing; the villagers quite simply amused themselves by throwing stones at the great east window, just from the sheer joy of destruction. In some instances, even the mitigating circumstances of religious fanaticism, revenge, competitive sport, or even amusement are entirely lacking. Aubrey tells us in his "History of Surrey," that "At a later date, one Blesse was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass windows of Croydon." Little wonder is it that the citizens of York should have voted Fairfax, the leader of the Roundheads, a tun of wine, &c., in reward for his protecting care of the cathedral after he and his soldiers had captured that city.