About the same time, some persons, especially in Germany, affirming that they had chosen the habit and hie of religious persons of both sexes, but especially females, professed chastity and simplicity of life, and bound themselves to God by separate vows. And the women, whom we generally call Be-, guins, were so increased in number, that in one single city, namely, Cologne, they are said to have amounted to more than a thousand. And about this time, the heretics were multiplied, especially in the Ultramontane countries, and particularly that sect of heretics which we call the Paterini, who in times gone by had lain concealed, and when they were detected, were punished by painful deaths. But now, without blushing or fearing ecclesiastical punishment or censure, they burst forth into public, holding up their heads, so that many people, on account of the various novel kinds of tribulation which arose in the world from day to day, believed that the end of the world was at hand, in which the Lord will thunder out in the threatenings of the Gospel, saying, " Nation will rise against nation," &c. This year then passed by, having been one of danger to the church, pregnant with storms to the kingdom of England, yet tolerably fertile and fruitful, bringing with it the death of many nobles in Christendom, and many tumults; full of wars for the Italians ; beheld with suspicion by the Holy Land, and productive of schism between the Templars and Hospitallers, and of great scandal. About a great entertainment of earl Richard at WaUingford. A.D . 1244, which is the twenty-eighth of the reign of king Henry the Third, the said king was at the feast of the Nativity of the Lord, at Wallingford, as a guest of his brother, the earl Richard, where they feasted with exceeding magnificence, having invited nearly all the nobles of the kingdom ; and then at London, the marriage which had been begun was duly consummated, so that the rest of their thoughts should run on the nuptial feast. And there were present there, besides the nobles of England, whom it would take too long to enumerate, Beatrice, countess of Provence, and her daughter, Senechia, a mother-in-law and new bride, of exceeding beauty. And the king took exceeding pains to exhibit himself as cheerful and pleasant to them. At last, when the solemnities of this festival were terminated, the king, accompanied by the aforesaid