A.D. 1258. THE KING OP GERMANT LANDS AT DOVER. 3Ò7 fourth was named Hugh le Brun, and the fifth JEthelmar, afterwards bishop of Winchester. Arlot, the nuncio of the lord the pope, returned to Rome without having succeeded in the business which was the object of his coming. An,d not long afterwards, Richard, earl of Gloucester, and William de Clare, his brother, were made ill by a draught of poison. The earl, indeed, was relieved by prompt assistance, and recovered ; but the other died before aid could reach him. On the vigil of the festival of the blessed John the Baptist, a terrible storm of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, fell on and raised all the waters of the Severn from Shrewsbury to Bristol, to a degree that has not been seen in our times : owing to which inundation, which, as it were, burst forth (as men say) from the secretest gulfs of hell, all the meadows and all the corn-fields near the Severn were overwhelmed, and the crops utterly destroyed. Some men were even drowned in the violent waters, and innumerable boys, and great quantities of animals of every sort. The same summer, many thousand men died in London, and other parts of England, from being wasted away by famine. And the ripening of the crops was so late in the autumn, owing to the excessive abundance of rain, that, in many parts of the kingdom, the harvest was not got in before the feast of All Saints. This year, Patrick de Chan ton, lord of Kedwelly, and Hugh de Vyun, both illustrious knights, were treacherously slain near Carmadin, and many others also, both knights and men at arms, were slain by the Welch. On the feast of Saint Michael, that splendid church at Salisbury was dedicated, in the presence of the lord the king Henry, and many of the nobles of England, who had come thither at that time. About the Purification of the blessed Virgin, Richard, king of Germany, brother of the king of England, returning home, landed with his queen at Dover, on the twenty-eighth of January. And he caused one of his knights to swear by his soul, in the presence of our king and his new counsellors, and the other nobles of his kingdom at Canterbury, that he, out of zeal for the honour of God and the advantage of the king of England and his heirs, would obey the ordinances and institutions of the counsellors of our king, who were especially sworn to this in accordance with the provisions made at Oxford.