MATTHEW Of WIBTMHTSTEB. A.D. 1198. of the church which the said archbishop had lately built at Canterbury. For the monks were afraid lest the archbishop ehould transfer the seat of his diocese to Lambeth, as he had threatened. On which account they went to Rome, and, complaining to pope Innocent, they prevailed on him to depose the archbishop from the office of justiciary, and in this the archbishop displayed great arrogance and audacity in résistance. For it really was not proper for him to involve himself in matters of secular business, and be present in cases where human life was put in peril. Accordingly, the bishop having, by the Roman church, been removed from the office of justiciary, the king appointed Geoffrey, the eon of Peter, in his stead. In those days, also, Philip, king of France, and Richard, king of England, met in battle between Guisnes and Vernon, when the king of France and his army, being unable to withstand the shock of the conflict, consulted their safety by flight, and fled for refuge to Vernon. But before they could enter the castle, king Richard overtook them with the edge of the sword, and took prisoners twenty knights and two hundred and sixty men of inferior rank. About the same time, Richard, bishop of London, paid the debt of nature ; and, in the course of the same year, king Richard, having assembled all his forces, took by storm three castles from the king of France, namely, those of Sirefontaine, Buris, and Courcelles, being nobly assisted by his English troops. But the king of France having reinforced his army by four hundred knights and a thousand esquires, and with the garrisons which he drew from Nantes and other places, sallied forth, and marched to relieve the castle of Courcelles, which he believed had not yet fallen. But when king Richard knew this, he marched to meet him, and a most severe and bloody battle took place in the plains between Courcelles and Gisors ; but the king of France not being able to withstand the shock of the battle, was routed with his army, and fled to the castle of Gisors ; and when, in the flight, his troops had all thrown themselves pell-mell on the bridge of Gisors, it broke down under the number of those who tried to cross it, and the king of France himself, in complete armour, on horseback, fell from the height of the bridge into the river Eure, with a great number of his soldiers besides ; but the king himself got out of the river, though deep and rapid, and was dragged out of the mud, and so, though with difficulty, saved