The new order of things, however, did not last six months. John II., deeply wounded at the scant civility shown to his wife, refused to acknowledge the new constitution: the patricians' quarrel, he said, was his own, and, worse still, he swore to make no terms of peace without their consent, and until they had been fully indemnified for the losses they had sustained. This was in the middle of February 1306. Some attempt at negotiation seems to have been made, but without success, and early in May the patricians in a body left the town for Vilvorde, whither John had shortly before arrived along with what knights he had been able to muster, and whither also presently came the craftsmen in battle array, determined to exact at the sword's point the privileges denied them. When the knights at Vilvorde saw the crowd drawing nearer and nearer to camp, some of them suggested that 'the curs meant submission'; when the howling pack was at their throats, they knew better. During the first shock of battle the Duke himself was unhorsed, some said slain, and for a moment the craftsmen thought they had won, but it was only for a moment, they soon found to their cost that their enemy was again in the saddle and in the forefront of the fray, whereat they lost heart, and unable to bear up any longer against the charge of the cavalry frantically made for home. The patricians followed at full speed. It was a wild, fierce race for Brussels. On its issue hung their fate. The people knew it, and fear and hope gave to their feet wings. If only they could outstrip those cursed horsemen, were it but by a hair's-breadth, they would slam the town gates in their noses, and thus at the last moment turn defeat into victory. Vain hope. The hour of the craftsman's salvation had not sounded yet: the outcome of the contest was a dead heat, and once more the iron entered into his soul. Seventy craftsmen had been slain at Vilvorde or in the mad rush home, the old constitution was re-established with all its odious privileges and all its time-honoured abuses, and there was a heavy bill of costs to pay, wherein note this item, 'a hundred _livres_ to Willem Moll for burying weavers and fullers alive.' At Mechlin, at Léau, at Tirlemont, at Louvain, all of which towns were about this time the scene of insurrection, the result was the same: in every case the patrician triumph was accomplished with less difficulty than at Brussels, and everywhere the lot of the plebeians became harder than it had been before. The most stringent precautions were taken to guard against further disorder, craftsmen of all kinds were disarmed, their guild meetings strictly prohibited, and at Brussels at least it was death for a weaver or fuller to pass the night within the town.[10] These turbulent folk were enjoined to remain after dusk in their own wretched suburbs or pay the price of their temerity.