the violence/and penetrated into the ground, and the stone was nearly a foot long. And soon afterwards, the roof o f the tower was discovered to be on fire in consequence of the lightning, and burning downwards, the tower was destroyed for a distance of about thirty feet, or, as some say, fifty, counting the weathercock ; and a terrible foetid smell ensued, which men's noses could not bear. At last, the monks and the people coming up, and bursting into the tower with admirable daring, endeavoured to extinguish the fire, by throwing water on it ; but they laboured in vain, as it were, to quench it, or to extinguish the devices of their enemy, till (as they say) a ray of the sun streamed on the fire caused by the lightning, and so entirely put it out and extinguished it by the command of God. The same year, on the festival of Saint Urban, formerly pope and martyr, which happens on the twenty-fifth of May, pope Alexander died, and the pontificate of the Romans was vacant for about three months and a fortnight. At length, he was succeeded by the patriarch of Jerusalem, who took the name of Urban. This year there was a great sedition and disturbance among the people throughout the counties of England, excited in the matter of the institution of the new viscounts placed by the king in each hundred ; the former viscounts, to whom the counties had been entrusted by the barons and commonalty of the land, being removed by the indignation of the king. But the inhabitants of the counties, being instigated by the assistance of some of the nobles of the kingdom, and supported by their advice and countenance, being also prompted by great sagacity, gallantly drove away the viscounts above mentioned, and refused to attend before them or to give them any answers. On this account, therefore, king Henry, being disturbed by grave anxiety of mind, for the purpose of awakening the devotion and feelings of loyalty of the people, sent letters to ail the counties of England, full of great incentives to piety, and calculated to regain the good will of the people who were subject to him, the tenor of which letters shall be given at the end of this book,1 together with the provisions of Oxford. Wherefore, since, as has often been said, great dissensions had arisen between the king and the barons, which increased 1 They are not given, however.