Here we see the danger of catching at a phrase. For if the _Gesta_ says that Baldwin landed "forti militum catervâ" (p. 53), it also asserts that the Empress came "cum robustâ militum manu" (p. 55)—a phrase which Mr. Howlett ignores—while it speaks of her son, in later years, arriving "cum florida militum catervâ," when, according to Mr. Howlett, "his following was small" (p. xvii.), and when, indeed, the _Gesta_ itself (p. 129) explains that this "florida militum catervâ" was in truth "militum globum exiguum." But this is not all. Mr. Howlett speaks, we have seen, of "twenty or thirty retainers," and asserts that "Malmesbury and Robert of Torigny agree that he [Earl Robert] had but a handful of men—twenty, or even twelve as the former has it" (p. xxiv.). It is difficult to see how he came to do so, for William of Malmesbury distinctly states that he brought with him, not twelve, but a hundred and forty knights,[833] and, in his recapitulation of the earl's conduct, repeats the same number. Now, if the _Gesta_ admits that the little band of knights who accompanied, in later years, the young Henry to England, was swollen by rumour to many thousands,[834] surely it is easy to understand how the hundred and forty knights, who accompanied the earl to England, were swollen by rumour (when it reached the Continuator of Florence of Worcester) to a "grandis exercitus,"—without resorting to Mr. Howlett's far-fetched explanation that the Continuator confused the two landings and imagined that the Empress had arrived with Baldwin, who "landed at Wareham ... about August 1." But if he was so ill informed, what is the value of his evidence? And indeed, his statement that she landed "at Portsmouth" (not, be it observed, at Wareham, nor with Baldwin) places him out of court, for it is accepted by no one. Mr. Howlett offers the desperate explanation, which he terms "no strained conjecture," that "Earl Robert went on by sea to Portsmouth," a guess for which there is no basis or, indeed, probability, and which, even if admitted, would be no explanation; for the Continuator takes the Empress and her brother to Portsmouth first and to Arundel afterwards. The real point to strike one in the matter is that the Empress should have landed in Sussex when her friends were awaiting her in the west—for Mr. Howlett fails to realize that she trusted to them and not to an "army" of her own.[835] The most probable explanation, doubtless, is that she hoped to evade Stephen, while he was carefully guarding the roads leading from the south-western coast to Gloucester and Bristol. Robert of Torigny distinctly implies that Stephen had effectually closed the other ports ("Appulerunt itaque apud Harundel, quia tunc alium portum non habebant"). In any case Mr. Howlett's endeavour to harmonize the two conflicting dates—the end of July and the end of September—by suggesting as a compromise the end of August, cannot be pronounced a success.[836]