A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



surrender before help arrived. Earl Hugh must have regretted his support 

 of Prince Henry, for the first demand of the new king was for the surrender 

 of his castles, and in 1 1 57 x Framlingham and Bungay were given up. Orford 

 and Eye and Walton were in the king's hands, and were garrisoned by his 

 knights. In 11 68 Orford 2 was refortified, and during the war with his son 

 in 1 173 all the king's castles were put into a state of thorough defence ; 3 two 

 Norman engineers being sent from Ipswich to Orford to oversee the work 

 there. Walton was garrisoned by twenty foot soldiers and two horsemen under 

 the command of four knights, Gilbert de Sanford, Roger Esturmey, William 

 Tollemache, and William Vis-de-Leu, all members of south-eastern Suffolk 

 families. Ships were sent from Orford to Sandwich to prevent the landing 

 of the Flemish allies of the prince. The preparations were justified, for on 

 29 September, 1 173, the earl of Leicester landed near Walton with an army 

 of Flemings. Presumably he took the castle, but it does not necessarily 

 follow, for he failed before Dunwich. In conjunction with Earl Hugh he 

 garrisoned Bungay and Framlingham, took Hagenet, and secured Norwich by 

 treachery. Then he marched westwards from Framlingham towards Bury, 

 for, as the chronicler gibes, the hospitality of St. Edmund's was proverbial. 

 At Farnham St. Genevieve they were met by the abbot's forces under Walter 

 fitz-Robert and the king's men led by Richard de Lucy and the earl of Arundel, 

 who had both come with all speed from the Scottish border, and defeated. 

 The countess of Leicester was captured crouching in a ditch, and her husband 

 was also taken. The hapless Flemings, scorned as weavers, were butchered 

 by the county levies armed with scythes and other primitive weapons, and 

 great was the slaughter which followed the presumption of the foreigners in 

 over-running the territory of St. Edmund. 4 This defeat, however, did not 

 make peace in the county, for the Flemish garrisons in Bungay and Fram- 

 lingham led by Earl Hugh terrorized the surrounding county. He besieged 

 Eye, swept off the cattle and corn belonging to the castle, and destroyed the 

 fish-ponds, cow-houses, and barns. 5 The garrisons were increased in Walton 

 and Orford, and the following year 1 174—5 Earl Hugh made peace with the 

 king and gave up Framlingham Castle, which was levelled to the ground, as 

 also was Walton. The earl went on a crusade and died abroad in 1 1 77. 

 Crusading zeal had seized hold of Suffolk. Numbers took the cross, and as 

 an earnest of their prowess in the Holy Land they 6 massacred the Jews in 

 Bury on Palm Sunday, 1190. Those who survived were banished from the 

 place for ever. In Sudbury, Bungay, and Ipswich, the same fate overtook 

 them to the filling of the royal coffers and the easement of local debtors. 

 Grateful Richard sent the standard of Cyprus to decorate the shrine of 

 St. Edmund. During Richard's absence, the bishop of Ely had been 

 supported in his quarrel with John by Walter fitz-Robert, who held the 

 castle and honour of Eye for the king. There was a general loosening of 

 the central authority, and by the death of Richard the earl of Norfolk re- 

 gained his power and seized his castles and refortified them. If John had been 

 able to retain the fealty of the two Liberties his cause in Suffolk would have 



1 Roger of Wendover, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 1 6. 



' Pipe R. 14 Hen. II (Pipe Roll Soc), 15. • Ibid. 19 Hen. II, 117., 



4 Chron. of Jordan Fantosme (Rolls Ser.), 283-97. i Pipe R. 20 Hen. II, 126. 



6 Florence of Wore. Chron. (Engl. Hist. Soc), ii, 158. 



166 



