"The most serene Prince our lord the King has urgently required of us that in this present time of dire necessity we should be instant in prayer to the most High with all our hearts for the good estate of King and country. For enemies without and rebels within are confederate in their malicious plots to shatter the peace of the realm. You therefore to whom (under us) belongs the administration of government in our monastery we hereby urge and enjoin that, considering what we say above, you should put a limit upon the Brethren's walks abroad and upon their ridings into distant parts--except of course in the case of the Monk Bailiff--until God grants us more peaceful times. Call all and singular your Brethren to Chapter and bid them from me to be content with their usual recreation within the house and to give themselves so much the more earnestly to meditation and prayer as the distress and wickedness of the times become more pressing. Go in solemn procession every fourth day round the bounds of the monastery, and every sixth day through the vill of Westminster, praying for a successful issue and for the common weal of the King and the realm--petitions which are already earnestly commended to the private prayers of all the Brethren. Summon all the chaplains and clerks dwelling within St. Margaret's parish to join you, and specially the clerks of our Almonry, according to custom. Fare you well in Christ now and for ever." The Abbot wrote from Denham; but his heart was with his Brethren in a time of trouble. There are also signs that in normal times he was exercising an effect on the organization of conventual activity. In his roll for 1393-4 the officer called the Warden of the Churches made entry that he had paid to Peter Coumbe, as Sacrist, the sum of 32_s._, at the rate of 4_s._ for each of the Abbey's eight principal feasts, "in accordance with the recent ordinance of the lord William now Abbot."[75] It is an intimation that the Abbot was already making his influence felt, and was encouraging his Brethren to regard the solemnities of divine worship[76] as the chief care of their monastic life. VIII THE ABBOT ABROAD