That year, 1280, or just 602 years ago, when Archbishop Peckham paid his visit to Norfolk, was a very disastrous year for the farmers. It was the beginning of a succession of bad seasons and floods even worse than any that we have known. The rain began on the 1st of August, and we are told that it continued to fall for twenty-four hours, and then came a mighty wind such as men had never known the like of; the waters were out, and there was a great flood, and houses and windmills and bridges were swept away. Nay, we hear of a sad loss of life, and many poor people were drowned, and many lost their all; flocks, and herds, and corn and hay being whelmed in the deluge. In November there was a frightful tempest, the lightning doing extensive damage; and just at Christmas-time the frost set in with such severity as no man had known before. The river Thames was frozen over above London Bridge, so that men crossed it with horses and carts, and when the frost broke up on the 2nd of February there was such an enormous accumulation of ice and snow that five of the arches of London Bridge blew up, and all over the country the same destruction of bridges was heard of. Next year and the year after that, things went very badly with your forefathers, and one of the saddest stories that we get from a Norfolk chronicler who was alive at the time is one in which he tells us that, owing to the continuous rain during these three years, there was an utter failure in garden produce, as well as of the people's hope of harvest. The bad seasons seem to have gone on for six or seven years; but by far the worst calamity which Norfolk ever knew was the awful flood of 1287, when by an incursion of the sea a large district was laid under water, and hundreds of unfortunate creatures were drowned in the dead of the night, without warning. Here, on the higher level, people were comparatively out of harm's way, but it is impossible to imagine the distress and agony that there must have been in other parts of the county not twenty miles from where we are this evening. After that dreadful year I think there was a change for the better, but it must have been a long time before the county recovered from the "agricultural distress;" and I strongly suspect that the cruel and wicked persecution of the Jews, and the cancelling of all debts due to them by the landlords and the farmers, was in some measure owing to the general bankruptcy which the succession of bad seasons had brought about. Men found themselves hopelessly insolvent, and there was no other way of cancelling their obligations than by getting rid of their creditors. So when the king announced that all the Jews should be transported out of the realm, you may be sure that there were very few Christians who were sorry for them. There had been a time when the children of Israel had spoiled the Egyptians--was it not fitting that another time should have come when the children of Israel should themselves be spoiled?