According to the rude temper of the age, these disputes were
not settled by argument, but by dint of blows; and the peace
of the city was in this way so often endangered, that the
king thought it expedient to add to the civil power two
aldermen and eight burgesses assistant, together with two
bailiffs. From petty and intestine broils, the students
appear to have acquired a disposition for political inter-
ference. When Prince Edward, returning from Paris, marched
with an army towards Wales, coming to Oxford he was by the
burghers refused admittance, "on occasion of the tumults now
prevailing among the barons:" he quartered his soldiers in
the adjacent villages, and "lodged himself that night in the
royal palace of Magdalen," the next morning proceeding on
his intended journey; but the scholars, who were shut in the
town, being desirous to salute a prince whom they loved so
much, first assembled round _Smith-gate_, and demanded to be
let into the fields, which being refused by one of the
bailiffs, they returned to their hostels for arms and broke
open the gate, whereupon the mayor arrested many of them,
and, on the chancellor's request, was so far from releasing
them that he ordered the citizens to bring out their banners
and display them in the midst of the street; and then
embattling them, commanded a sudden onset on the rest of the
scholars remaining in the town; and much blood-shed had been
committed had not a scholar, by the sound of the school-bell
in Saint Mary's church, given notice of the danger that
threatened the students, then at dinner.
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