510 MATTHEW OP WESTMINSTER. A.D . 1295. ing to bring about a peace, behold, in the darkness and silence of night, a piratical body of Frenchmen made an assault on Dover, and burnt a house of religious brethren, and several other houses near the sea-coast, with firebrands : and among other atrocities, they slew a certain monk, named Thomas, a man of innocent and pure conversation from his childhood, by whom the Lord worketh some miracles. Then, when circumstances changed as aid came up, those who had ascended into the town having been beheaded, the rest, being terrified by the people who came forward to fight them, hid themselves in the gardens and in the caves ; and only a few escaped out of a great number, who secretly regained their ships and embarked. And turning their backs and flying, when they arrived in their own country, they falsely boasted that they had got possession of the keys of Dover Castle. Then the cardinals, not having succeeded in the business for which they had come, returned to Gaul, having spent a great quantity of money ; and they extorted a double tax from the members of the religious orders. So when these events had become known in France, those men becoming hardened in heart, whose feet had before been swift to shed blood, collected the people, prepared a fleet, and took counsel how they might make themselves masters of the kingdom of England. But they were disappointed in the result of their operations. They also sent forward a picked galley, manned with three hundred warriors of the bravest of the kingdom of France, in order to reconnoitre the weaker parts of the country, or to find out a suitable place for landing in. And seeking a battle, they found an obstacle. For as they were rashly approaching the shore, they were encountered by the men who were set to guard the sea there, as they were surrounding the galley which they had with too little care run aground at Hythe ; and so they slew the men, whom they found there, like sheep in a fold, and threw the headless bodies into the wet burial place of the sea. And so there they fell who work iniquity ; they were cast out, and were not able to stand. The lord bishop of Bath and Wells, Master William de la Marche, the steward of the lord the king, being treasurer of the exchequer, was accused to the good man of the house, not of having squandered his goods, but on various other complaints which were brought against him, and so he was removed from hie stewardship, and another clerk, a great Mend