Rumours of the coming scourge reached England in the early summer. On August 17th, 1348, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Ralph of Shrewsbury, sent letters through his diocese ordering "processions and stations every Friday, in each collegiate, regular, and parish church, to beg God to protect the people from the pestilence which had come from the East into the neighbouring kingdom," and granting an indulgence of forty days to all who, being in a state of grace, should give alms, fast or pray, in order, if possible, to avert God's anger.[122] The "neighbouring kingdom" spoken of by the Bishop [p072] in his letter may be taken almost certainly to refer to France. From Calais it is probable that the pestilence was brought into England in certain ships conveying some who were anxious to escape from it. Most of the contemporary accounts agree in naming the coast of Dorsetshire as the part first infected. Thus Galfrid le Baker, a contemporary, says "it came first to a seaport in Dorsetshire, and then into the country, which it almost deprived of inhabitants, and from thence it passed into Devon and Somerset to Bristol."[123] Two or three of the chronicles, also, more particular than the rest, name Melcombe Regis as the memorable spot where the epidemic first showed itself in England. "In the year of our Lord 1348, about the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas (July 7th)," writes the author of the chronicle known as the _Eulogium Historiarum_, who was a monk of Malmesbury at this time, "the cruel pestilence, terrible to all future ages, came from parts over the sea to the south coast of England, into a port called Melcombe, in Dorsetshire. This (plague) sweeping over the southern districts, destroyed numberless people in Dorset, Devon, and Somerset."[124] So, too, a continuation of Trivet's chronicle, taken down to the death of Edward III. by a canon of Bridlington, who was thus probably a contemporary of the event, says that "the great plague came into England to the southern districts, beginning by some (ships) putting in from the sea into a town called Melcombe."[125]