It was no longer the rough blow of sheer force; it was the more delicate but more pitiless tyranny of the law.

At Richard's accession Prior John of Cambridge in the vacancy of the abbot was in charge of the house.

The prior was a man skilled in all the arts of his day.

In sweetness of voice, in knowledge of sacred song, his eulogists pronounced him superior to Orpheus, to Nero, and to one yet more illustrious in the Bury cloister though obscure to us, the Breton Belgabred.

John was "industrious and subtle," and subtlety and industry found their scope in suit after suit with the burgesses and farmers around him.