m MATOTEW OF WSSTIOKSTSE. A.D. 1294. merchandize of different kinds, of great value, to whom they gave battle, and the fight lasted two days ; daring which, the two fleets inflicted many deadly blows on one another. On the one side, men fell siain by arrows from arbaliste ; on the other side, they were crushed by missiles of great weight, and so perished. And as despair is a dangerous thing, and the issues of battle are various, the swords slew at one time men on one side, and presently men on the other. At length, Mara favoured the English, the Spaniards were slain, and some of them fled, and the English carried fifteen of their vessels with their contents into a British port. This year also, wool was exported from the English territories into Germany. The other injuries which the invincible fleet and army of Yarmouth inflicted on the French, who can enumerate Ì they traversed the borders of Normandy, sparing no condition, sex, or age, lighting up all the country with their conflagrations, and giving their hands to plunder and danger. At that time, there was no king, nor any law imposed upon sailors, but whatever any one could carry off or plunder, that he called his own. And so this year passed, sufficiently productive both in corn and fruit, but very rainy, so that a great part of the crops of the earth eventually failed by becoming rotten. And owing to the torrents, the Thames overflowed its accustomed limits, and covered and soaked the plains of Bermondsey, and the liberties of Tothill. It also reached the cottages of the dealers in the market of the cemetery at Westminster, and compelled them to drive in stakes above then? dwellings, to protect them. And as the torrents of rain prevailed to a great extent, the valleys and pastures which were near the rivers were covered all over the kingdom for some time. The same year, the duke of Brabant, a man of great reputation, held a round table in his dominions, at which an infinite number of knights from England, and France, and other nations were present And the duke himself, at the very first onset, was wounded by a spear, by a certain French knight, and died the same day. Bon de Clare, brother of the earl of Gloucester, rector, or rather invader, of many churches, was cut off by a auddea death, because he did but little good openly. John, archbishop of Dublin, who was a partisan of the king in every