There was also a fixed place for the weighing and sale of wool, called the Wool-hall, adjoining the Drapery, and likewise the property of the guild.[433] The trade in wool was, no doubt, chiefly in the hands of the wealthy merchants, many of whom were "of the Staple of Calais." The wardens also overlooked the weighing, and took from the owners certain dues "for the profit of the town."[434] These dues must have increased the price of wool, so that the weavers or clothmakers--or whatever body of men purchased the wool for manufacture in the first instance[435]--suffered by reason of such a regulation, and poor householders who bought the wool to weave for their own use were in like case. The enforcement of this order[436] and the consequent collection of dues were bitterly resented, and the citizens, reminded of the traditional "toll freedom" of their market, cried that the city that had been free was now in bondage. "Dame goode Eve[437] made hit fre, & now the custom for wol & the draperie." But before Green's year of mayoralty was past, the corporation found that they would still have to reckon with Laurence Saunders. It was on Lammas day, 1494, in the presence--so the mayor and council were "credibly informed"--of forty persons, that he spoke these words: "Sirs, her me! we shall never have our rights till we have striken of the heads of III or IIII of thes Churles heds that rulen us, and if thereafter hit be asked who did that dede, hit shalbe seid, me and they, and they and me." "He shuld constreyn," Laurence went on, "William Boteler to drive his Cart laden with Ots into the Croschepyng, and ther to unlade the seid cart." Now, William Boteler was probably either a forestaller and regrater, who intercepted, in defiance of all manner of ordinances to the contrary, the grain intended to be sold openly in the market, or he had encroached upon the common land. Laurence, it appears, fulfilled his threat, and cried out to the crowd assembled in the Cross Cheaping or market place: "Come, Sirs, and take the corn who so wyll, as your owne."[438] The whole proceeding utterly scandalised the mayor and his worshipful brethren. On the "Wednesday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross" they committed Laurence to prison, and fixed his fine at £40. For months he lay there, while two friends, whose names were Alexander Horsley and Robert Barlow,[439] were surety for the payment of this great sum. But this amount meant ruin, and drove Laurence's party to fury. The mayor and council had treated a fellow-citizen no better than one of those hated Scots. And this was not enough. They also bound over this sower of strife "to good bearing," and the next year, whether for the sake of old offences or for the commission of new ones, wiped out his name from among the number of the rulers of the city. Laurence Saunders was "discharged," the order ran, "from the mayor's council, the common council, and all other councils ...