430 ' ANNALS OF KOGEB DE HOVEDEN. A.D. 1198. we have heard say, had to drink of the river, and several knights, about twenty in number, were drowned. Three also, with a single lance, we unhorsed, Matthew de Montmorency, Alan de Eusci, and Fulk de Gilerval, and have them as our prisoners. There were also valiantly captured as many as one hundred knights of his, the names of the principal of whom wo send to you, and will send those of the rest, when we shall have seen them, as Marchadès has taken as many as thirty whom we have not seen. Men at arms, also, both horse and foot, were taken, of which the number is not known; also, two hundred chargers were captured, of which one hundred and forty were covered with iron armour. Thus have we defeated the king of France at Gisors ; but it is not we who have done the same, but rather God, and our right, by our means ; and in so doing, we have put our life in peril, and our kingdom, contrary to the advice of all our people. These things we signify unto you, that you may share in our joy as to the same. Witness ourselves, at Anjou." On the thirtieth day of September, Philip, king of France, entered Normandy, with a large army, while the king of England had not with him sixty men, as he had scattered his army over different places. However, he hung upon the rear of the Franks, with a few of his troops, until there had met him, in obedience to his command, about two hundred knights and Marchadès with his Eoutiers. Accordingly, the Franks, although they were many more in number, on seeing the king of England and his men, after having burned about eighteen towns,retreated with hasty steps; and while the king of England pursued them in the rear, Marchadès, with his Itoutiers, met them in front, and there were taken of the French, about thirty knights and men-at-arms, and one hundred'horses, in addition to those slain. This took place near Vernon ; for they did not return by the road by which they had come, that is, across the fords of Anjou, but, in their trepidation took to flight in the direction of Vernon ; and it is still spoken of, as a matter of disgrace to the French people, that, leaving his men, their king made his escape on an old dark brown horse, which they say he had had for ten years, and took nothing with him out of Normandy, except, perhaps, three or four knights and a single man-at-arms. After this, the king of England, collecting an army, entered France by the ford of Anjou, and took, as above-stated, Burns