Miraculously, Essex survived, and lived the rest of his life in penitence among them – where many years later, he met the unremarkable chronicler. The king ordered the local monks to carry Essex's body away and bury it. Amid much clattering of blades on armour, he fell. He flew at his opponent blindly, abandoning everything he had ever learned. At first, Essex defended himself with skill, but after a series of visions of those he had wronged, he was filled with shame and fear. With crowds watching from the muddy banks of the River Thames, the accusing relative – also a knight – attacked with 'hard and frequent blows'. Six years later, in Reading, one of his own relatives publicly declared that this had been treason and challenged him to a duel. Essex mistakenly announced that the king was dead, almost causing the army to give up and flee. Then a bizarre incident at a battle in Wales threatened everything. He also wasn't very nice – he stole money, brought shame on women, and had an innocent man tortured. He was a knight famous for his skill with a sword, and trusted by Henry II of England. In 1157, Henry of Essex had been noble – by birth, rather than deed – wealthy, and powerful. In hushed tones, this man explained how he had become a monk by accident.

Among them was one who immediately stuck out as unusual – a monk who, though now dressed in the same hooded robes as the rest, had once led a very different life. Within the imposing building's rough flint walls, in the shadows of a virtually unlit room, he met the resident brothers. The anonymous monk's interest had begun at another abbey, in Reading, where he had been visiting. He was chronicling the scandalous life of a man he had met some years earlier – the story, he hoped, was not too improper. One day, in the mid-12th Century, an unremarkable monk sat down in St Edmund's Abbey, Suffolk, and set pen to parchment.

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