590 ROC.ER OF WENDOVER. [A.D. 1234. striking a blow, to tlic churches and convents, leaving the marshal with only fifteen knights. These however defended themselves bravely, unequal as the struggle was, against a hundred and forty ; the whole weight of the battle however fell on the marshal, who then first discovered the treacherous design against his life, but, although attacked on all sides by his enemies, he still defended himself and slew six of them. A knight of gigantic size, to whom Richard de Burgh had given his armour, indignant at seeing this, made a rush at the marshal in order to kill him at once, and endeavoured forcibly to snatch his helmet from bis head ; the marshal, when lie saw this man, thought that it was Richard de Burgh, and exclaimed, " Fly, vilest of traitors, lest I kill you ;" to which he replied, " I will not fly, but will coinè nearer you ;" be then lifted up his hands to seize the marshal's helmet, but the latter, by one blow of his sword, cut off both of his hands although covered with armour. Another of them, seeing his companion wounded, rushed with all the speed of his horse at the marshal, and exerting all his force struck him on his head, but owing to his helmet the blow took no effect ; the earl however returned the blow and cot his enemy in two as far as the middle, after which not one of them would come near him for a long while. The leaders of his eaemies, in a state of consternation, tliDn urged on a host of people who had come there with lances, pitchforks, axes, and halberds, to surround the marshal, kill his horse, and bring him to the ground ; and they at once surrounded and overwhelmed him, piercing his horse with many wounds ; they could not even then however dismount him, they therefore cut oirthe horse's feet with their axes; the marshal then fell with his horse, overcome with fatigue, having been engaged fighting from the first hour of tho day till the eleventh, and his enemies, rushing on him, lifted up his armour and mortally wounded him in the back. The nobles themselves on learning that he was mortally wounded, and lying as it were lifeless on the ground, conveyed him with scarcely any signs of life, to his own castle, which .Maurice the justiciary had taken possession of but shortly before, where he was placed in close confinement and attended by only one young man of bis party. lie there remained in the hands of his enemies. This battle was fought on Saturday the first day of April. tlf the death mid burial if the earl marshal. * A few days afterwards the marshal began to recover strength * Paris here gives an account of the pope's extortion of money throughnut Christendom, ami which he practised principally iu Kngland. He also n \es a letter from his holiness, dated at Spoleto, the -lib of September :\\ this year. Λ similar letter to this is hereafter given in the text of Wendovcr. He however states that the progress of the crusade was much impelled by the avarice nf the Romans, lie then gives the account of the marshal's death and burial, and relates how the exiled nobles carried on