160 EVESHAM AND BENGEWOHTH.

the county town, and resisted all efforts for an "amalgamation" of societies. The young lady required a few more years of liberty - I will not say coquetry - and then no doubt she would have been glad enough of any "reasonable offer." But sooth to say, while the courtship was in progress she sickened and died - a catastrophe which might have been averted had she consented to timely matrimony.

Vines were cultivated here and in the Vale generally in the middle ages, as may still be traced by the name; and flax was grown here towards the close of the last century, when Government offered a bounty for the same.

My last remaining note of Evesham is an account of "A most cruel and bloody murder committed on New Year's Even last past, beeing the last daye of December, 1582, in the towne of Esam, in Worcestershire, by one Thomas Smith, a town dweller, upon his neighbour, Robert Greenoll, who, when he had cruelly murdered him, made a grave in his seller, and there buried him." There is a long story of this murder in a black-letter book, "imprinted at London by Roger Warde, dwelling neere Holburne Conduit, at the Bigne of the Talbot, 1583." This account shows how the murderer and his victim were mercers. Greenoll, a bachelor, was much beloved, and in good trade, which Smith envied, and inviting Greenoll to his house to spend New Year's Eve on wine and apples, he sent his servant to the play, and his wife being elsewhere with some friends, the two men were left alone, when Smith, taking the opportunity of Greenoll stooping to turn an apple by the fire, struck him on the head with an iron pestle, and continued beating him till he died, when he dug a grave in the cellar and buried him. Then he robbed the deceased's house, but was identified by the watchman, who saw him carrying away the things ; and search being made, and the dead body found in the cellar, Smith was tried, convicted, and hung.