In the reading that evening, at supper, the text occurred, “If they persecute you in one city, flee to another.” This Becket took as direction for his course, and sent to ask the King for a safe-conduct to return to Canterbury. The King said he should have an answer to-morrow, which Becket and his clerks considered as a sign that his life was not safe. That night, therefore, he, with three of his clergy, mounted at the postern of the monastery, and rode off, in such torrents of rain, that four times he was obliged to cut off a portion of his long cloak to relieve himself of the weight. He made for Kent, travelling by night and hiding by day, for twenty days, till he reached the coast, and at Estrey was hidden for several days in a little secret chamber opening into the parish church, whence, at mass, he gave the blessing to the congregation, though they knew it not. At last a small open boat was procured, and, embarking on the 2d of November, 1164, he safely landed near Gravelines. The county of Boulogne belonged to Mary de Blois, Stephen’s daughter. She had taken the veil at Romsey, when a girl; but on the death of her brothers, Eustace and William, became the heiress of her mother’s county of Boulogne, and had been stolen away and married, for the sake of her inheritance, by Matthew of Flanders. The Archbishop had opposed this marriage, and the count was therefore his enemy, so that he was obliged to pass through his territory in the disguise of a Cistercian monk, calling himself Brother Christian.