bat he invited a still greater number to meet him joyfully on the festival of Saint Edward, whom he loved and reverenced with much more cordiality than the other saints. And they came cheerfully, both on account of the love and veneration with which they regarded the saint, and also because of the reverence they bore to the blood of Christ, which had been lately received, as has been already mentioned, and of the pardon for sins, which was conferred upon it, and allowed to be obtained by the faithful, and also because of their respect for the authority of the lord the king, who had invited them. And there were present with the king and queen, having been duly invited, the two earls, Richard, the brother of the lord the king, and the mareschal Roger, with four other earls, and an equal number of bishops, there assembled. And while the lord the king was staving at Westminster, that is, at the season of Christmas, the earl of Leicester returned from the province of Guienne, with some other nobles, and several knights and esquires, who having been sent thither, had approved themselves faithful soldiers of the lord the king. And their arrival caused no small joy to the king and all his court ; for the aforesaid earl had compelled a wicked traitor to the lord the king, by name Gascon, the son of the countess Biarde, who had done great mischief in that district, to submit to a truce against his will ; and the same earl had taken prisoner in the tower of the same princess, and consigned to the strictest custody, a certain other public robber and incendiary and bloody enemy of the lord the king, by name William Brett. But while the wheel of fortune was revolving in such gyrations as these, unprecedented and terrible rumours were spread through the provinces of England, to the effect that the threats of the Gospels were being verified ; that there would be commotions in all places of the earth. Some town in the county of Savoy, not far from the common road, which runs through the vallies of Maurienne, to the number of nearly twelve, with two houses of religious orders, were overwhelmed and perished with all their inhabitants, who amounted to about ten thousand, in consequence of the mountains turning over and coming together with a fearful crash. In those days, Nicholas, the bishop of Durham, being now in delicate health, following the example of the bishop of Carlisle, voluntarily resigned his bishopric to Walter, a man of eminent learning, that he himself might have freer leisure