The sturdier Flemish burghers only wrested payment from him by holding his royal person as their security.

His own subjects fared no better than foreigners.

The prerogative of "purveyance" by which the king in his progresses through the country had the right of first purchase of all that he needed at fair market price became a galling oppression in the hands of a bankrupt king who was always moving from place to place.

"When men hear of your coming," Archbishop Islip wrote to Edward, "everybody at once for sheer fear sets about hiding or eating or getting rid of their geese and chickens or other possessions that they may not utterly lose them through your arrival.

The purveyors and servants of your court seize on men and horses in the midst of their field work.