The prior fumed at the audacity of this reply, and still more at the delay in returning it, for more than six weeks had elapsed since his bill of complaint had been issued. His rejoinder[406] was drawn up in two days, a briefer space. The mayor had besought him (not without hypocrisy, to Deram's mind) "that he would be as good to the common weal as his predecessors had been," so that "love ... betwixt" him and the city might "continue and dayly better increce"; but he distrusted these professions of peace. "And whereas," he said, "the meire and his brethren prayen hertly to the prior and his convent lovyngly to accept their answeres made to their compleynts, thei think it is (in them) no lovyng desire." "His greves," he reminded them, had been presented in writing "the xvi day of November last past ... to the which the iide day of Januar next followyng" they had returned answer: "by the which I and my bredern," the good man went on, lapsing into the first person in the heat and hurry of his sentences, "thinke is no thyng accordyng for reformacion, but delayes; wherefore I and they desyre and prey you to have us excused of further communicacion.... For we trust to God in [that] our compleynts ben no feyned matiers, but such as shall be proved be credible proves in writyng." "And for your answeres," he added with a touch of irony, "ye have taken longe leysar to conceyve, suasyous-like (persuasive) as it appereth," they would have none of it, "but we trust to haue oder remedye wher trowthe shalbe knowen." How strangely this dispute sounds in our ears, with its childish display of offended dignity on one side, and half-soothing, half-taunting tone on the other! But the petulant old prior did not long add to the difficulties of the corporation. When John Boteler, the untiring steward, went to London in the following Lent to find out what course the convent meant to pursue with regard to the suit at law between them and the city, he learnt that the enemy was dead.[407] But though the article about surcharging and the minor questions sank into insignificance the dispute about the murage continued for many years, the convent still refusing to pay the tax. At last, in 1498, the matter was set at rest by the bishop's arbitration, the prior paying the annual tax, upon condition that he should in future be made privy to the chamberlains' accounts, in so far as they related to murage.[408]