The main facts which can be gathered from other sources as to Robert Fitz-Walter’s relations with the king are these. In 1203 he and Saher de Quincy were jointly charged by John with the defence of the castle of Vaudreuil. They surrendered the place to Philip Augustus under circumstances so exceptionally disgraceful that Philip himself felt constrained to make an example of them as cowards and traitors of too deep a dye to be left unpunished, and flung them into prison at Compiègne, whence they were only released on payment of a heavy ransom (R. Wend. iii. 172; R. Coggeshall, pp. 143, 144). “Ex qua re,” adds Ralf of Coggeshall, “facti sunt in derisum et in opprobrium omni populo utriusque regni, canticum eorum tota die, ac generositatis suae maculaverunt gloriam” (cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 97). Alone, the sovereign whom they had betrayed sought to shield their reputation at the risk of his own. Of course he acted from a motive of self-interest. As neither Robert nor Saher held any lands in Normandy, their money was to Philip more useful than their personal adhesion could have been. But for John the friendship of two barons of such importance in England was worth buying back, and he endeavoured to secure it by treating them with an exaggerated generosity which was evidently designed to impress them by its contrast with Philip’s severity; he issued (July 5, 1203) letters patent declaring that they had surrendered Vaudreuil under a warrant from himself, and ordering that neither they nor its garrison should be made to suffer for their act (_Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 31). Fitz-Walter therefore came back in peace to his English possessions. Like Eustace de Vesci, he joined the host which John gathered for a Welsh war in 1212; like Eustace, too, he withdrew from it secretly on learning that John had received a warning of treason in its ranks (_Ann. Waverl._ a. 1212); and like Eustace, again, he did not come when summoned to make his “purgation” with the other barons, but, as has been already seen, fled the country instead (W. Coventry, ii. 207; R. Coggeshall, p. 165; R. Wendover, iii. 240). The Barnwell annalist (W. Coventry, _l.c._) dates the demolition of Castle Baynard, and of Robert’s other castles, after his flight; the Annals of Dunstable place the destruction of Castle Baynard a year earlier, viz. in 1211.