[326] When stately abodes, guarded by numerous servants, were in such danger, it may easily be believed that no shopkeeper's till or stock could be safe.

From Bow to Hyde Park, from Thames Street to Bloomsbury, there was no parish in which some quiet dwelling had not been sacked by burglars.

[327] Meanwhile the great roads were made almost impassable by freebooters who formed themselves into troops larger than had before been known.

There was a sworn fraternity of twenty footpads which met at an alehouse in Southwark.
[328] But the most formidable band of plunderers consisted of two and twenty horsemen.

[329] It should seem that, at this time, a journey of fifty miles through the wealthiest and most populous shires of England was as dangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts of Arabia.