On the news of these transactions being conveyed to Longchamp, it is reported that he fell upon the floor insensible. It was evident that he had no longer any power to resist the pretensions of John: resistance, to have been of any avail, should have come sooner. The troops of his opponents having surrounded the Tower, the chancellor came out from the gates, and offered to surrender. John, who thought it worth while to buy his adhesion or submission to the new authority, proposed to leave him in possession of the bishopric of Ely, and to give him the custody of three castles belonging to the crown. To the honour of Longchamp, he refused to accept gifts from such a source, or to resign of his own free will any of the powers entrusted to him by his sovereign. "I submit," he said, "only to the superior force which is brought against me." And with these words he gave the keys of the Tower into the hands of John. The barons, however, compelled him to take an oath that he would surrender the keys of the other royal fortresses, and his two brothers were detained as hostages for the performance of these conditions. The ex-chancellor himself was permitted to go at large; and it appears that he determined, rather than resign possession of the castles, to leave his brothers in danger, and to escape to Normandy. Having reached Canterbury, he stayed there for a few days, and then quitted the town in the disguise of a hawking woman, having a bale of linen under his arm and a yard-measure in his hand. In this strange costume, the ex-chancellor, who had been accustomed to travel with a retinue of 1,000 men-at-arms, took his way on foot to the sea-shore. Having to wait a while for a vessel in which to embark, he sat down upon a stone with his veil, or hood, drawn over his face. Some fishermen's wives who were passing by stopped and asked him the price of his cloth, but as he did not understand a word of English, he made no answer, much to the surprise of his questioners. Presently some other women came up to him, who also took an interest in his merchandise, and desired to know how he sold it. The prelate, who was keenly alive to the ludicrousness of his situation, burst out into a loud laugh, which stimulated the curiosity of the women, and they suddenly lifted his veil. Seeing under it, as Roger of Hoveden hath it, "the dark and newly-shaven face of a man," they ran away in alarm, and soon brought back with them a number of men and women, who amused themselves by pulling the clothes of this strange person, and rolling him in the shingle. At length, after the ex-chancellor had tried in vain to make them understand who he was, they shut him up in a cellar, and he was compelled to make himself known to the authorities as the only way of regaining his liberty. He then gave up the keys of the royal castles, and was permitted to proceed to the Continent.