and prepared to march upon the castle, if he did not actually lay siege to it, in July, 1222. He was officially told that the King was “greatly astonished,” not, it would seem, at his taking the law into his own hands in any case, but merely at his doing so after the transfer of the castle had been agreed upon in the King’s presence and undertaken by the King himself.[837] The crowning instance of lawlessness occurred a fortnight later; and this time the offenders were neither foreign soldiers of fortune nor English earls, but citizens of London. [Sidenote: 1222] From time immemorial the fields around the Tower had served as a holiday resort for the younger citizens, who spent their leisure time there in wrestling and other athletic sports. A trial of strength and skill in wrestling was arranged to take place hard by Queen Matilda’s Hospital, between the young men of the city and those of the suburbs, on S. James’s day, 25th July. The citizens won the match. Among their antagonists was the Abbot of Westminster’s steward; and he brooded over his own defeat and that of his comrades till he devised a way to avenge it. First, he sent out a general notice inviting all who would to come to a wrestling match at Westminster on the next holiday, the feast of S. Peter in Chains, 1st August; the prize was to be a ram. Next, he gathered on his own side a picked band of strong and expert wrestlers, and secretly provided them with arms. The unsuspecting citizens came in crowds; for a while the wrestlers seemed equally matched; suddenly the Westminster side produced their weapons. The unarmed Londoners were soon overcome; beaten and wounded, they fled helter-skelter into the city. A mighty tumult arose; the common bell was rung, a mass-meeting was held, schemes of vengeance were proposed. Serlo the mayor, “a prudent and peaceable man,” advised that a complaint should be laid before the Abbot of Westminster, and urged that if the abbot would make a fitting compensation on behalf of himself and his men, “all ought to be satisfied.” The angry citizens, however, were more inclined to listen to a certain Constantine Olaveson, “a great man in the city,” who proposed that “all the abbot’s buildings” and his seneschal’s house should be pulled down;[838] and next morning an armed mob made a raid upon Westminster. Their first intention was to attack the church; but from this “some wise man” dissuaded them,[839] and they contented themselves with pulling down the steward’s house and doing as much damage as they could to his property and that of the abbot.[840]