The position of the opposing forces became a very strange one. The Empress and her followers, from the castle, besieged the bishop's palace, and were in turn themselves besieged by the Queen and her host without.[411] It was the aim of the latter to cut off the Empress from her base of operations in the west. With this object they burnt Andover,[412] and harassed so successfully the enemy's convoys, that famine was imminent in the city.[413] The Empress, moreover, was clearly outnumbered by the forces of the Queen and legate. It is agreed on all hands that the actual crisis was connected with an affair at Wherwell, but John of Hexham and the author of the _Gesta_ are not entirely in accord as to the details. According to the latter, who can hardly be mistaken in a statement so precise, the besieged, now in dire straits, despatched a small force along the old Icknield Way, to fortify Wherwell and its nunnery, commanding the passage of the Test, in order to secure their line of communication.[414] John of Hexham, on the contrary, describing, it would seem, the same incident, represents it as merely the despatch of an escort, under John the Marshal and Robert fitz Edith, to meet an expected convoy.[415] In any case, it is clear that William of Ypres, probably the Queen's best soldier, burst upon the convoy close to Wherwell, and slew or captured all but those who sought refuge within the nunnery walls.[416] Nor are the two accounts gravely inconsistent. On the other hand, the Continuator of Florence appears at first sight to imply that the Marshal and his followers took refuge at Wherwell in the course of the general flight,[417] and this version is in harmony with the _Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal_.[418] But putting aside William of Malmesbury, whose testimony is ambiguous on the point, I consider the balance to be clearly in favour of the _Gesta_ and John of Hexham, whose detailed accounts must be wholly rejected if we embrace the other version, whereas the Continuator's words can be harmonized, and indeed better understood, if we take "ad monasterium Warewellense fugientem" as referring to John taking refuge in the nunnery (as described in the other versions) when surprised with his convoy. Moreover, the evidence (_vide infra_) as to the Empress leaving Winchester by the west instead of the north gate, appears to me to clinch the matter. As to the Marshal poem, on such a point its evidence is of little weight. Composed at a later period, and based on family tradition, its incidents, as M. Meyer has shown, are thrown together in wrong order, and its obvious errors not a few. I may add that the Marshal's position is unduly exalted in the poem, and that Brian fitz Count (though it is true that he accompanied the Empress in her flight) would never have taken his orders from John the Marshal.[419] Its narrative cannot be explained away, but it is the one that we are most justified in selecting for rejection.