182 ROGER OK WE.VDOVER. [A.D . 1199. faith keep the oath which he had made. On the following dav, after he had received the homage and fealty of his sub jects, he went to St. Alban's, the proto-martyr of England, to pray; and so, making but a very short stay in England, he with the advice of the nobles duly settled everything that required his attention. Jlow king John crossed over into Normandy and reconciled many of the ruyblcs to himself. On the day of St. John the ISaptist's nativity the king crossed sea to Normandy, and on his arrival at Rout η a number of soldiers, both horse and foot, flocked together to him, and these he gladly retained in his service. Afterwards he had an interview with the king of the French, when a truce was agreed on till the day after the assumption of the blessed Mary, in order that they might in the meantime arrange terms of peace. In the meantime the count of Flanders and many other nobles of the French kingdom came to king John at Rouen, and inaile a treaty of alliance with him, as they had done with king Richard, against the king of the French : and after mutually giving security, each returned to his own territories. llo'c the kings met at a conference, hut went away at cananee with one another. In this same year, on the day after the assumption of the blessed Mary, the French king conferred the knight's belt on Arthur count of Brittany; and the said Arthur at once did homage, to the French king for Anjou, l'oictou. Tours. Maine, Brittany, and Normandy ; and the king promised Arthur his assistance in gaining possession of all these places. On the day after the two kimjs held a conference between the castle of Butavant and (ìaillon, at which thev. apart from the nobles of both kingdoms, conversed face to tace for an hour, no one except themselves being within hearing. At this interview the French king required for his own use the whole of the Vexin, that is, the country contained between the forest of Lyons and the Seine on one side, and the rivers Andelys and Etite on the other side; and said that Geoffrey I'lantagenet count of Anjou, John's grandfather, had given it to Louis le Gros for the assistance afforded him by