they were directed ; and in consequence the number of those who joined them increased every day. For already nearly all the persons throughout the whole kingdom who were pre-eminent for power or conspicuous for nobility of birth, had come over to them ; and each in his own province miserably oppressed the foreigners with all kinds of depredation and plunder, so that it was a sad sight, even to those who were jealous of the strangers, to see their confusion. For whoever was unable to speak the English language, was considered a vile and contemptible person by the common people. Owing to which, it happened that many persons of foreign nations, both members of religious orders and others, escaped under the protection of secret flight, fearing the punishment of death, or at least the ruinous danger of imprisonment, and so fled from the kingdom. And even John Mansel, the rector, or I should say the occupier of many churches, and the magnificent possessor of such revenues as were beyond calculation, so that there was not one of the clergy in the whole world richer than he, even though he was not invested with the episcopal dignity, from fear of the barons, fled away secretly from the Tower of London, where at that time the king and queen of England were maintaining themselves, and escaped across the sea. But Henry, son of the king of Germany, pursued him as he fled, and he was taken prisoner on his landing at Boulogne, by Ingerand de Fiennes, through the management, as it was supposed, of the queen. Meantime Edward, the king's eldest son, garrisoned that very strongly fortified castle of Windsor, than which there was not at that time a more splendid castle in all the countries of Europe, with a large force of foreigners, whom, as I have said before, he had brought with him from England, and whom he now introduced into the castle. But our king remained in the Tower of London, and seeing himself surrounded and hemmed in by his enemies on all sides, at last agreed to peace with the barons, and promised observance of the provisions of Oxford. But the queen, being irritated by womanly feelings of annoyance, strove with all her might in the opposite direction, and refused to consent. On which account, when she left the Tower, going by the Thames to Windsor, when the foreigners were assembled, she was intercepted at London, and most cruelly abused and cried out against by the citizens, and shamefully driven back;, when