These envoys were supported by the legate in person; “and,” says William the Breton, “although the high-souled King Philip, having in his army two thousand knights and more, besides a multitude of other troops, could easily have seized the whole land and the person of the king of England, yet with his wonted benignity he granted a truce.”[908] In England Philip was reported to have yielded either to the authority of the Pope, or to the attraction of sixty thousand marks offered to him by John.[909] We may doubt whether either of these motives, or all of them united, would have proved effectual, if the complete overthrow and capture of his rival had really been as easy as the Breton court-historian imagined. The truce was dated from September 18, and was to last for five years from the next Easter, 1215. The conditions were that each party should retain its prisoners; that the oath sworn to Philip by the towns of Flanders and Hainaut should be recognized as valid; that Philip, his men, and his adherents should hold throughout the time of the truce whatever they held on the day of its commencement; and that any disputes which might arise should be settled at certain appointed places by the sworn arbitrators of the truce, who were eight in number, each of the kings being represented by two laymen, an abbot and a secular priest. The _maltôte_ or tax levied by each king on the adherents of his rival was to be given up if John, its originator, consented to renounce it; if not, Philip claimed the right to continue it likewise. Frederic of Sicily was to be included in the truce as an ally of Philip, and Otto as a friend of John, if they chose to be so included; if otherwise, then Philip was to be at liberty to assist Frederic and John to assist Otto, within the boundaries of the empire, without violating the peace between themselves. [Sidenote: 1214] Philip’s proclamation of the truce was issued on September 18 from Chinon.[910] John seems to have been then still at Parthenay. The terms secured to him the very utmost that he could possibly hope to attain, now that he was deprived of the co-operation of his allies in the north. He had in fact, as an English writer says, “completed what he had to do over sea,”[911] as well as his share of the work could be completed when that work as a whole was ruined by the disaster of Bouvines. On September 21 he was again at Niort, on the 30th at Saintes, and at some date between October 2 and 13 he sailed from La Rochelle to England.[912]