A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 
A year later * the king’s visit to Dunstable found the town still in 
revolt. He was entreated by the prior to mediate, and in his presence 
the burgesses indeed consented to submit; but as soon as his back was 
turned they resumed hostilities. The case went to Westminster ; the 
amount of fine was limited to 4d. as the burgesses had asked, and after 
a second appeal it was granted that only those who held of the prior m 
capite should pay the tallage. | Peace seemed at last to be secured ; but 
the manner in which the tallage was collected by the burgesses appointed 
for the purpose provoked a fresh outbreak. Again the people withdrew 
their offerings, refused to use the prior’s mills, and harried his servants 
in every way they could. Men and women rose in a body against the 
bailiff who tried to distrain any man’s goods; they said they would 
rather go to hell than pay the tax. They even went so far as to negoti- 
ate with William de Cantelow, lord of Eaton Bray, to give them forty 
acres where they might build another town and leave Dunstable for ever. 
At this juncture, when justiciars were weary of the matter, and the 
town was in a state of anarchy, ‘the Lord visited the spirit’ of John 
Houghton the archdeacon, and the tempest was turned into a calm. 
An agreement was made by which the burgesses were to pay £60 down 
instead of the tallage, and were no more to be taxed individually.’ 
From this time there seem to have been very few difficulties, and the 
relations between the prior and the tenants were on the whole quite 
friendly,’ until the end of the fourteenth century. 
John Houghton, who plays such a prominent part in this dispute, 
was one of the most notable of the early archdeacons. He held office 
from 1218 to 1231 * (when he was transferred to Huntingdon), and was 
employed as a mediator in several matters more important than this. 
He was sent to Rome in 1228° with the dean of Lincoln, who had to 
render an account to the pope for his boldness in summoning to his 
chapter one of the canons who was a cardinal and an alien. He had 
been one of those who were sent to negotiate between the king and 
the followers of Fawkes de Bréauté ° before the taking of Bedford Castle 
in 1223. In 1224” he was busy collecting a loan for the king in Eng- 
land, and the next year® in France. He was employed with others by 
the pope to inquire into the case of the abbot of Tewkesbury, who was 
suspected of having forged papal letters.’ All these commissions would 
call out the same qualities as the troubles at Dunstable ; he must have 
been a man of considerable tact and sympathy, and ready to take some 
pains to understand both sides of the question at issue. 
Another archdeacon of Bedford who did important public work 
1 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iii. p. 118. 
2 Ibid. p. 122, where the concordia is printed in full. 
3 e.g. in a quarrel between the king’s falconers and the prior’s men in 1276. The townspeople 
were quite ready to take the part of the prior (ibid. pp. 273, 274). 
4 Ibid. pp. 53, 128. ; 
5 Ibid. p. 109. ® Ibid. p. 88. 
7 Pat. 8 Hen. III. m. 10. 8 Ibid. 9 Hen. III. m. 3. 
® Cal. of Pap. Letters, i. 88, 95. 
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