The nightly sojourn at inns was a great feature of the wayfaring merchant's life, for it was only in sparsely-peopled districts that monasteries afforded hospitality to the travelling trader.[566] "Strangers and baggers of corn between Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kendal, and Westmoreland and the bishopric," the people of the north declared at the dissolution, "were greatly helped both horse and man by the said abbeys; for never was in these parts denied either horse-meat or man's meat, so that the people were greatly refreshed by the said abbeys, where now they have no such succour."[567] But the majority of wayfarers sought shelter either at inns or at _herbergeors'_ houses, for the private citizens, even the richer merchants, frequently increased their gains by the entertainment of travellers. The public inns were often the scene of gambling and intrigue, and unwary guests, who had not the wherewithal to discharge the heavy bills they had been induced to contract, frequently found their baggage seized to several times the amount of the debt. "The greater barons and knights were in the custom of taking up their lodgings with herbergeors, rather than going to the public hostels; and thus a sort of relationship was formed between particular nobles or kings and particular burghers, on the strength of which the latter adopted the arms of their habitual lodgers as their signs."[568] It might still be possible to learn the story of the connection between certain noble houses and the inhabitants of a given district by means of inn-sign heraldry; while from the same source we could gather a hint of popular political feeling at a later date. The jubilant cavalier would swing his sign of the _Royal Oak_ at the Restoration, and the staunch adherent of the "Great Commoner" flaunt his _Old King of Prussia_ in the next century, just as surely as the mediæval inn-keeper decorated his sign with the _White Hart_, _White Boar_, or _Bear and Baculus_, in honour of his patrons Richard II., Richard III., or the Earl of Warwick. Famous old inns in Coventry were the _Crown_, in "platea vocata Brodeyatys" hard by the Langley's inn, the _Cardinal's Hat_, in Earl Street.[569] The _Peacock_, still existing in the last century, was in the Broad Gate, but the locality of the _Angel_, where Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, lodged, is unknown. One authority speaks also of the _White Rose_, of late years the _Roebuck_, still standing in Little Park Street, where the Yorkists held rendezvous, and the _Red Rose_ in Much Park Street, a meeting-place for Lancastrians.[570] The herbergeors frequently received distinguished guests. Henry VII., after a triumphal entry into Leicester on his way from Bosworth field, came to Coventry, and took up his lodging in the house of Robert Onley, the mayor, at the Bull, in Smithfield Street, a visit he repeated in two years' time, when he conferred on his host the honour of knighthood.[571]