The royal victory of 1322 meant a social dislocation and territorial revolution which has hitherto passed without much comment. Only detailed research into the landholding position county by county could bring its significance and long-term effects into sharp relief but the general picture of momentous upheaval is clear. It was accompanied by widespread plundering of Contrariants' property and a general breakdown of law and order. Riots and disturbances occurred which were apparently unconnected with the main civil war of 1321–2. A striking example was the attack by several hundred Cambridge towns-folk on the colleges some time shortly before May 1322. This was obviously the culmination of a good deal of town–gown troubles. A crowd led by the mayor himself ‘attacked and spoiled divers inns of the masters and scholars of the university, climbed the walls, broke the doors and windows, mounted by ladders into the solers and assaulted the said masters and scholars, imprisoned some, mutilated others and killed Walter de Shelton, parson of the church of Welton, carried away all they could of the books and other goods of the masters and scholars, so that no person dare to go to the University of the said town for study’. It is true that Edward II had called the universities of Oxford and Cambridge the ‘twin jewels in his crown’ and that he favoured the scholars of King's College, inviting them to spend Christmas with him, but these disturbances were probably not directed specifically against the king's protégés.