On a misunderstanding, as I deem it, of the passage (and especially of the word _feretrum_), writers have successively, for three centuries, represented the Continuator as stating that the Empress, "to elude the vigilance of her pursuers," was "laid out as a corpse!" Lingard, indeed, while following suit, gravely doubts if the fact be true, as it is recorded by the Continuator alone; but Professor Pearson improves upon the story, and holds that the versatile "Lady" was in turn "a trooper" and a corpse.[430] On the 1st of November the king was released, and a few days later the Earl of Gloucester, for whom he had been exchanged, reached Bristol.[431] Shortly after, it would seem, there were assembled together at Bristol, the Earl, the Empress, and their loyal adherents, Miles, now Earl of Hereford, Brian fitz Count, and Robert fitz Martin.[432] [388] "Porro fugiens domina per Oxenefordiam venit ad Glavorniam, ubi cum Milone ex-constabulario consilio inito statim cum eodem ad Oxenefordensem revertitur urbem, ibi præstolatura seu recuperatura suum dispersum militarem numerum" (_Cont. Flor. Wig._, 132). [389] The other witnesses were Robert, Bishop of London, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, William the chancellor, R[ichard] de Belmeis, archdeacon, G[ilbert?], archdeacon, Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, William Fitz Alan and Walter his brother, Alan de Dunstanville (_Harl. MS._, 2188, fol. 123). The two bishops and the King of Scots also witnessed the charter to Miles. [390] _Fœdera_, N.E., i. 14. [391] "Et quia ejusdem Milonis præcipue fruebatur consilio et fovebatur auxilio, utpote quæ eatenus nec unius diei victum nec mensæ ipsius apparatum aliunde quam ex ipsius munificentiâ sive providentiâ acceperat sicut ex ipsius Milonis ore audivimus, ut eum suo arctius vinciret ministerio, comitatum ei Herefordensem tunc ibi posita pro magnæ remunerationis contulit præmio" (_Cont. Flor. Wig._, 133). Comp. _Gesta_, 81: "Milo Glaornensis, quem ibi cum gratiâ et favore omnium comitem præfecit Herefordiæ." [392] See Appendix L: "Charter of the Empress to William de Beauchamp." [393] "Ad hos motus, si possit, componendos comes Gloecestrensis non adeo denso comitatu Wintoniam contendit; sed, re infecta, ad Oxeneford rediit, ubi soror stativâ mansione jamdudum se continuerat" (p. 751). The "jamdudum" should be noticed, as a hint towards the chronology. [394] "Ipsa itaque, et ex his quæ continue audiebat et a fratre tunc cognovit nihil legatum molle ad suas partes cogitare intelligens, Wintoniam cum quanto potuit apparatu venit" (_ibid._).