Meanwhile John had at last learned the truth as to his adversary’s movements, and was acting on the information. Gathering a numerous host from the garrisons of the western castles, which he now saw to be out of danger, and from his old allies the Welsh,[1271] he marched up on September 2 from Cirencester to Burford, spent the three following days at Oxford, then struck across the Thames to Wallingford, and on the 6th appeared at Reading. From the 8th to the 13th he fixed his quarters at Sonning.[1272] His advance looked as if intended for the relief of Windsor; he did in fact approach so near that castle that its besiegers “thought they were going to have a battle.” His Welshmen “came by night to shoot into the host, and gave them a great fright. They were a long time armed to await the battle, but they did not get it, for the king retired, I know not by what counsel,” says the Flemish chronicler.[1273] John had in truth never intended to attack them; his real “counsel” is given us by the English writers--his aim was the eastern counties, where he purposed to intercept the Scot king on his homeward journey, and to punish the local landholders and owners of castles for their submission to the invader.[1274] The relief of Windsor he probably hoped to effect by other means, if there is any truth in the assertion of some English chroniclers that the count of Nevers was secretly in his pay.[1275] It may have been for the purpose of communicating with Nevers, as well as for that of frightening Nevers’s companions and reconnoitring the district, that the king lingered in Berkshire. On September 15 he suddenly struck northward from Walton-on-Thames to Aylesbury and Bedford; next day he went on to Cambridge.[1276] The immediate consequence was the relief of Windsor; its besiegers were no sooner assured of his departure from their neighbourhood than they struck their tents, set fire to their military engines, and hurried in pursuit of him. They hoped to overtake him at Cambridge; but, warned by his scouts, he escaped in time, on the night of September 17. A dexterous movement southward to Clare and Hedingham threw his pursuers off the track, and another rapid march brought him to Stamford before they reached Cambridge.[1277] They avenged their disappointment by harrying Cambridgeshire--this was the second, if not the third, harrying which that unhappy county had suffered within four months--carried their spoils back to London, and then proceeded to join Louis at the siege of Dover.[1278]