EVESHAM AND BENGEWORTH. 153

thorough overhauling. St. Lawrence's has undergone partial restoration and re-arrangement, and it is hoped that more will goon be done. These churches (then chapels) were appropriated to the Abbey, and the chaplains were kept on similar diet to that of the monks. St. Lawrence is now united to All Saints. In Nash's time St. Lawrence's was in ruins, and used only as a place of burial for those who died of small-pox and other contagious distempers. The visitor will not fail to observe the Norman work of the gateway leading into the churchyard as being one of the oldest relics of the town of Evesham.

But now it is high time that we take some note of the town which had gradually grown up around the walls of the monastery, and was as much under its protection and control as under that of the castle of Bengeworth, when held by those powerful barons the Beauchamps. Indeed the abbots knew how to defend and avenge themselves of such noble neighbours as these when the latter proved to be aggressive, for in the year 1158 Abbot William seized Bengeworth Castle (which stood at the foot of the bridge) from William de Beauchamp, and demolished it, in return for the said William having destroyed the walls of the cemetery and robbed the church, for which he was also excommunicated. Two bailiff's governed the town, but they were subservient to my lord the abbot. We read that Evesham was well built with timber, and had celebrated fairs and markets. Near here was fought the great battle between the barons and the forces of Henry III, in which the former were defeated. Charles I was here with his army in 1644, the King staying at Alderman Martin's house on the 5th of June, before passing on to Worcester. On the 3rd of the following month the King again honoured the Alderman with his company, and likewise in May, 1645. In one of his 1644 visits his Majesty took the Mayor and certain of the Aldermen prisoners to Oxford. The town had been taken by Massey in the previous year. James I granted the town a Mayor and Corporation, and the suburb of Bengeworth