A.D . 1263. EDWAED RAVAGES THE ESTATES OE THE BASONS. 411 assistance, attended by a large body of troops, he pursued the barons, but did not attack them; because he was unable to bring them to battle. Nevertheless, Edward besieged the castles of Humphrey de Bohun the younger, namely, that at the Hay, and Huntingdon Castle, and took them, and he also compelled the castle of Brecon to surrender, all which, with the provinces and rights pertaining to them, he delivered to the aforesaid Roger, to be guarded by them. And at this time Robert de Ferrare, earl of Derby, came to Worcester with a large army, and the citizens occupied the walls and gates of the city, and guarded them gallantly and resisted him manfully ; but at last he unexpectedly effected an entrance by the old castles, and destroyed the town, and put down the Jews who lived in it. But the barons returning from Wales, entered the city of Gloucester, not by force or after a siege, hut made themselves masters of it by some prudent manœuvres. Edward, too, conducting himself with great boldness, suddenly appeared in their rear, and having quickly repaired the bridge over the Severn, which had been previously burnt by the barons before mentioned, he entered the castle in spite of the barons, who were on the spot. And the next day, by the intercession of Walter, bishop of Worcester, Edward, too, practising the cunning of a fox, a truce was made, and the barons retired from the city. But Edward having thus got possession of the city and the castle, put the burgesses in prison, and compelled the town to pay a ransom of a thousand marks to its great misery. After that, he went to his father at Oxford, who had now returned from France, and had sum* moned all those who owed him military service all over England, to march upon the conspirators. And the king, for the time, compelled the whole body of the clergy at Oxford, to evacuate that city. And he went in person, with great devotion, to visit the holy virgin, Frideswida, which, beyond all doubt, no one of the kings of England before him had ever ventured to do in person. In the meantime, Edward, and the rest of the nobles in those parts, did not cease to ravage the possessions of the barons of the opposite party, and to burn their estates, and to destroy their manors. And the Londoners sallying forth from their city with an innumerable multitude of men, ravaged with fire and destruction all the estates and possessions of the king of Germany, and of Philip Basset. And they took the