latter would come according to his summons.”[274] He had himself left London on the morrow of his crowning {May 28} to go on pilgrimage to S. Albans;[275] he afterwards visited Canterbury and S. Edmunds,[276] and thence went to Northampton, to keep Whitsuntide (June 6) and wait for William.[277] He waited in vain; William only sent back the English envoys, reiterated his demand for the two counties and his threat of winning them by force, and added a further demand for an answer within forty days. John meanwhile had lost patience with him, had given the two counties in charge to a new sheriff, and started for the south on his way back to Normandy. The Scot king’s messengers followed him to the sea;[278] whether they overtook him is not clear; at any rate nothing came of their mission, and on Sunday, June 20, John sailed from Shoreham for Dieppe,[279] “taking with him a very great host from England.”[280] Within three days John and Philip met in conference at Gaillon. They came to no agreement, and John “made up his mind to resist the French king like a man, and to fight manfully for the peace of his country.” It is clear that his preparations were well in train before the meeting took place. Philip indeed made the first hostile movement by laying siege to the castle of Gaillon; not only, however, was he driven away by the troops who had come over with John,[281] but horse and foot came flocking to the muster at Rouen, though it was fixed for June 24, only four days after John’s landing. On that day he made a truce with Philip to last till August 16,[282] thus gaining nearly two months in which to mature his plans and increase his forces. He spent the greater part of this time in a progress through eastern Normandy, and, as the sequel showed, in negotiations with the counts of Flanders and Boulogne. On August 10 he was again at Rouen.[283] On the 13th Baldwin of Flanders came to him there “and became his man.”[284] On the 16th, when the truce expired, representatives of the two kings met in conference between Gouleton and Boutavant; on the 18th Philip and John met in person. Philip was asked “why he so hated the king of England, who had never done him any harm?” He answered that John had occupied Normandy and other lands without his leave, whereas he ought first to have applied to his overlord for confirmation of his rights as heir, and done homage to him. Now, Philip demanded of John the surrender of the whole Vexin to the Crown of France, and that of Poitou, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine to himself as overlord, that he might transfer them to Arthur.[285]